PICTURES: Festival adjudicator keen to spread the word about Caithness dialect in local schools
A Caithness Music Festival adjudicator says she would be keen to visit schools around the county to help raise awareness of dialect among the younger generation.
Jenny Szyfelbain judged the dialect entries as the 2022 festival got under way in Wick on Tuesday and said: “What was lacking in quantity was made up for in quality – I had some very talented youngsters and a super-talented adult."
The festival is back for the first time since before the pandemic and is running for four days, until Friday.
Mrs Szyfelbain, from Wick, has visited schools in the past and would like to get dialect “back on the agenda”.
She has spoken about it with Marney Bruce, one of the friends of the festival involved in running the event. They each have a long-standing involvement in Wick Players.
“We were having a wee discussion," Mrs Szyfelbain said. “I think we are needing to gird our loins next year and ask the schools if they would like a dialect talk, a workshop or whatever.
“I used to go and recite things to the kids and chat about old words and take a James Miller dictionary [A Caithness Wordbook] and look up words, which was good fun.
“Then I would set them a subject and make them write a bit of poetry, and it was always fabulous – they homed in on the old-fashioned words that they didn't use.
“Marney and myself are actually quite a double act because that's how we speak.”
Mrs Szyfelbain was particularly impressed with a rendition by one contestant of the dialect poem Broth on ’e Sunday, written by Castlegreen (Donald Grant).
“My highest mark on Tuesday was 95 for my adult – she was the one and only in her class," Mrs Szyfelbain said. "She recited Broth on ’e Sunday the way it should have been recited.
“By the time she had finished reciting I was dying for a plate of my mother's home-made broth.
“She got 95 and she deserved it. She drew you right in.
“I said, 'I can tell you like home-made broth and I can tell you also speak Caithness at home.'”
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