A toast tae Rabbie Burns!
It’s Burns Night, and we are commemorating the life of Robert Burns, the Voquent way. We love our cultural icons and plan to celebrate with our Robert Burns’ poetry recitation!
Robert Burns, for those unfamiliar, is a famous Scottish poet that lived from 1759 to 1796, born on the 25th of January. So every year, Scottish people all over the world have supper in remembrance of the late Scot.
The first-ever supper for Burns Night was held on 21st July 1801. His friendship group originally arranged the supper five years after his untimely death at the age of 37. In 1801, the Burns Club was founded in Greenock that dedicated itself to his work and began celebrating his birth rather than remembering his death.
The first official Burns supper was then held on the 29th January 1802, what they thought was his birthday, but later found out that he was born on the 25th (thanks to some Ayrshire Parish records). Since 1803, the celebration has gone on every year and only grown in popularity.
What about his work?
That is what our Robert Burns’ narration celebration will be all about! We took the time to reach out to some of our Scottish voice artists to get their own personal renditions of some of Burns’ favourite works.
The first sample we have lined up for you is a version of Burns’ famous song called Auld Lyne Syne. Carrie Afrin did their own lovely rendition you can hear below:
Following up from this lovely song, we have our second rendition of Robert Burns’ poem Bonnie Jean, read by the talented John Cavanagh:
Sticking to his famous poems, we got the excellent Fiona McNeill to give us her version of the poem Tae A Haggis:
Last but by no means least, the brilliant Max MacAllan provided his read of To A Mouse for Us as part of our Robert Burns’ narration celebration:
To those not native to Scotland, these poems were spoken in Scots rather than English!
What is Scots?
To start, Scots is not the same as the Scottish accent of English. While almost every person that speaks Scots does so with a Scottish accent, they are not the same.
Scots has many elements that set it apart from a typical variant of English. While it may not be a language unto itself, it certainly has diverse iterations among Scottish regions.
Modern Scots is considered closer to English than anything else, but archaic Scots (that Burns uses) is almost unintelligible to the modern English speaker.
Compared to Scots Gaelic, over 1.5 million people in Scotland reported speaking Scots to some level of understanding, which accounts for just over 1 in 5 of the total Scottish population. Aye, a ken, it’s a bit o’ a flummox!
Nevertheless, with the evening drawing in, we should circle back to what the night is all about, and the Voquent team want to wish you a Happy Burns Nicht!
It isnae’ long till yer sonsie face scrans a Haggis!
Fun fact: Speaking of Haggis, we want to finish up by letting you know the minds behind Simon Howie HQ sent haggis to space for the first time, right in time for Burns’ night this year!
A’ve a gid yin!
Listen to Scottish Voices
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