The Alexandrine
geographer Ptolemy gives the dwellers between Dee and Tay the name of
Venicones. These were part of the race of Picts, who occupied Eastern
Scotland from the Pentland Firth to the Forth. Through the district now
called Kincardineshire ran the dividing line between the Northern and
the Southern Picts—the Grampians. Gaels also from the west found their
way into this region.
Traces of the Pictish and the Gaelic occupation are discernible in place
names. “There is no district,” says Dr Don (.Archaeological Notes on
Early Scotland),- “in which Scottish land names may be better studied
than in the ancient and still linked provinces of Angus and Mearns . . .
they hold almost every type of Celtic and Saxon place name found in the
country.” Pit or pet and fother are Pictish, as Pitnamoon, Pitforthie,
Pitskelly, Pitgarvie, Pitbeadly, Fordoun, Fettercairn. Of Gaelic origin
are names of rivers, as Esk, Bervie, A an, Cowie, Luther ; of mountains,
as Clochnaben, Kerloch, Cairnmonearn, Knock, Carmont, Bruxie; as well as
Kincardine, Mearns, and the names of many of the parishes.
Towards the end of the fifth century the English invasion began. Over
the North Sea strangers came sailing from Frisia and the adjoining
districts to settle along the coast and originate the fishing villages.
From these settlers, who in time pushed inland and intermarried with
Picts and Gaels, the bulk of the people have sprung. This blending has
produced the robust type of character that distinguishes the inhabitants
to-day. Place names indicating English settlements are those ending in
ton, ham or hame, kirk.
It is doubtful if any Norsemen made their homes here. But we find ness,
from a Norse word for headland, in Girdleness, Greg Ness.
The Celtic tongue formerly spoken in Kincardineshire retreated long ago
before a variety of Northern English. Gaelic speaking is now extinct,
though at the census of 1911, 78 persons were recorded as able to speak
Gaelic and English. -
The vernacular of the county belongs to the Northern Division of the
Scots dialects (extending along the east from the Tay to Caithness), but
it has a few Midland characteristics. In pronunciation, for example,
while in the regions towards the Dee words like moon, school, good are
sounded in the northern way as meen, skweel, gweed, in the south they
have the ui vowel sound, something akin to the sound in French mur, fieu.
The change of wh to / (characteristic of the old Pictish region) is in
Kincardineshire still heard, but mostly in fa, fat, fan = who, what,
when, and such like. The vowel sound in the pronunciation of one, bone,
stone is as in the Aberdeenshire een, been, steen. Stonehaven is locally
known as Steenhive. Unheard north of the Dee is the pronunciation of
knock, knee, as tnock, tnee. This links the dialect with Forfarshire,
and reminds one of J. M. Barrie’s Tnowhead for Knowhead. It may be also
noted that the forms this and that are plural as well as singular.
This steens, that beens are these stones, those bones. Dialect
differences, however, are to a certain extent disappearing under the
influence of schools, newspapers, and easy communications.
As regards population Kincardineshire with 41,007 inhabitants stands
twenty-fourth in the list of Scottish counties. Since 1801, when the
first census was taken, there has been an increase over the whole county
of 14,659, or 55 per cent. From that date each decennial census has
shown an increase with the exception of those of 1861 and 1881, when the
decreases were very small. The relatively great increase in the 1901
returns (14.8 per cent.) is explained by the fact that 11,428 were
included in the Kincardineshire - returns as the population of Torry,
which really forms part of Aberdeen city. With this excluded, the
population of the rest of the county is found to have decreased- by
1957, or 6.2 per cent.
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