Gordon Hay MBE - Dorics Nae Deid - Aboyne-Dinnet Church

We are delighted to have Gordon M. Hay MBE speak at this years Aboyne and Deeside festival.

He is a Scottish author, translator and former solicitor who has translated a range of works into the Doric dialect of the Scots language.
Gordon was born in the early 1950s and raised in Inverkeithny in Banffshire.

He is best known for writing the first complete translation of the Bible into Scots. He was a solicitor when he started working on a Doric translation of the New Testament in 2006, finishing and publishing it in 2012. He then began working on a translation of the Old Testament, retiring as a solicitor during this time and publishing it in 2023.

While parts of the Bible had previously been translated into Scots, Gordons translation is the first to cover it completely. He was invited by Jackie Dunbar, the MSP for Aberdeen Donside, to appear at the Scottish Parliament's Time for Reflection to read parts of the translation.

In 2021, he published a compilation of nursery rhymes titled Doric Nursery Rhymes for Loons & Quines which subsequently won the 2022 Bairns' Beuk o the Year from the Scots Language Awards. Other works he has translated include Peter and the Wolf, parts of The Pickwick Papers and George Frederic Handel's Messiah.

He was appointed a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire as part of the 2025 New Year Honours.

At the festival event, Gordon will explain to us why he believes that Doric is a living language.