Brae pupil’s ‘Maa’s Eggs’ story nominated for Scottish dialect award

A Brae High School pupil has been nominated for a new award celebrating the best of Scottish dialect.

Hannah-Lisa Laurenson, 16, will come up against four other competitors for the ‘Young Scots Speaker o the Year’ prize at the inaugural Scots Language Awards.

The awards were started “with the aim of heightening the profile and promoting the Scots language to the public and media”.

Ms Laurenson earned her nomination after submitting a short story written in Shetland dialect, entitled <i>Da Maa’s Eggs</i>, which she said had been inspired by her family.

“As a bairn my nana telt me a story aboot a man wha geed doon da dramatic cliffs at da Ham o Roe in da nort o Shetland tae get maas eggs wi his bairn on his back.

“I elaborated on dis memory tae allow da story tae develop tae be aboot a grandfaider telling da story tae his grandbairns.

“Da use o speech allowed me tae tell da story but also express da feelings felt by da grandfaider and grandbairns.”

The same story helped Ms Laurenson to scoop the senior dialect award at last year’s Shetland Young Writer awards, with judges telling her then that they were “impressed with the ease of dialect expressions in this piece”.

There are 10 categories at this year’s awards, from Scots writer of the year to Scots performer of the year, and nominees include award-winning author Chris McQueer.

Ms Laurenson and her dad, Kevin, will attend the awards ceremony next Friday, which is held in the Mitchell Theatre in Glasgow.

Voting for the award is open until Sunday and those who want to see Ms Laurenson become young Scots speaker of the year can vote for her by clicking here.