It could be the last chance to preserve one of the most distinctive dialects in the north of Scotland.

Two octogenarian brothers are to be recorded speaking in the old dialect of the fisherfolk of Cromarty, on the north-east tip of the Black Isle, which academic authorities say is one of the most-threatened local dialects left in Scotland.

Bobby Hogg, 87, and his brother Gordon, 80, who are believed to be its last remaining fluent speakers, will be recorded by Am Baile, the Highland Council-funded project which is creating a digital archive of the history and culture of the Scottish Highlands and Islands.

Bobby, who still lives in Cromarty where he and Gordon grew up in a fishing family, said: "Our father was a fisherman and all his folk had been fishermen stretching way back. It was the same on our mother's side, too.

"When we were young we talked quite differently in the fishertown to the rest of Cromarty. We had this sort of patois, which I think had both Doric and Gaelic in it.

"It wasn't written down. It was an oral culture.

"We would, for example, say thee and thine. The older ones were very biblical in their speech and would always be saying things like O Blessed Jesus' or O Holy one of Israel'. It wasn't blasphemy. It was just the way they spoke.

"When we went out in the morning we were always told to Put the Lord Afore you'. And you would never hear the fisherfolk swear. But there is hardly anyone else left who can speak the patois. There is my brother Gordon, of course, and there are the odd one or two who have a little bit of it. But that's all. It's quite sad."

Gordon is in a nursing home in Rosemarkie, 10 miles away, but the brothers still see each other.

Dr Robert McColl Millar, of Aberdeen University's English department, has just published a book, called Northern and Insular Scots, on the changing landscape of dialects in the north. As part of his research, he studied the dialects of the Black Isle.

Yesterday he dismissed one theory that the likes of the Cromarty patois was a legacy from English soldiers.

He said: "I don't think that is right. You have things in Cromarty such as them dropping that wh' from the word what and just saying at' but I don't think that had anything to do with English soldiers. Fishing communities all over the world have their own dialects, primarily because they kept themselves to themselves, not least because there was often social prejudice against them.

"In addition, they were often also physically removed from the rest of the community.

"There was a famous study of this 20 or 30 years ago, which looked at the Gaelic of east Sutherland. It showed that it was only in the fishing communities of the likes of Brora and Dornoch that Gaelic was still spoken, and that had been the case for about 100 years. They saw it as their separate thing."

He said that the Black Isle dialects had long been in particular danger. "It is because there never had been that many people who had spoken the local dialect. It was really just Cromarty and Avoch, and perhaps Fortrose."

Developments such as the Kessock Bridge opening, people commuting to Inverness and the arrival of thousands of workers at the Nigg oil rig fabrication yard just across the Cromarty Firth had all contributed to the continued decline of dialects, he added.

Jamie Gaukroger, content co-ordinator of Am Baile, said that arrangements were being made to record the two Hogg brothers. He added: "If we have caught an old dialect before it dies, that will be a real coup for Highland 2007 (The Scottish Executive's celebration of Highland culture)."



Some words from the Cromarty fisher dialect written phonetically:
scoo a basket
a scanty a small fishing line
drig an anchor
biggar man or beggar man a flounder
plashak a plaice
iring or earing herring
ain cutchach our own clan or family