Life in Newburgh on Ythan

By Talpa

An A to Z of the Doric: Y revisited, again!

Doric, the dialect spoken in the North-East of Scotland is rich in words and phrases associated with the land and the sea. in this series I try to illustrate some of them in an A-Z using examples of their use taken mainly from Buchan Claik, The Saut an the Glaur o't written in 1989 by Peter Buchan and David Toulmin. Today, a word associated with the hairst (harvest). 

YAVINS: The beard or bristles on barley which comes off in the threshing. When they get inside the shirt, they cause great irritation and itching on the skin.

"I hid tae change my sark and semmit efter a day at the mull, threshin barley. I was jist crawlin wi yavins!" (I had to change my shirt and vest after a day threshing barley at the threshing mill. I was just crawling with barley hairs.)

Fans of 'Star Wars' will know that Yavin is also the name of a large red gas-giant with an extensive satellite system of moons, in the fictional Star Wars universe.

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