Jings, crivvens! Is Oor Wullie turning into Our William?

Story in full OOR WULLIE, Scotland's most famous cartoon character, is abandoning his native Scots and turning "posh", according to new research.

For more than 70 years, Scotland's favourite cartoon character has helped keep his native dialect alive.

But a German researcher, who has spent two years poring over the tousled hero's language, says he is slowly ditching his usual patter for something more English.

As part of her PhD, Anne Hoyer of Heidelberg University scrutinised the language used in six stories from each Oor Wullie book for the past 70 years.

She ran key words from the comic strips through a computer programme to check how frequently they were used.

She said: "Jings is one of the most common Scots words to be used, and the preposition 'tae' is also used a lot as it can mean three words - 'to', 'too' and 'toe'.

"Over the years the language has become more Anglicised, and so the density of Scots has lessened.

"The specific Scots features have changed. The use of words like 'bonnie' and 'awfy' has also declined, as they are perceived to be outdated or archaic now."

Ms Hoyer first came into contact with Oor Wullie when she lived in Stranraer for a year as a 16-year-old. She said: "Quite a few Germans like him and a professor in the department is showing the comics around and taking them round universities."

The watering-down of Oor Wullie's language might have something to do with his growing following outside Scotland. His antics in Auchenshoogle with pals Fat Boab, Wee Eck and Soapy Souter, often getting on the wrong side of local bobby PC Murdoch, have reached new audiences in England and abroad.

Derek Britton, director of the Institute for Historical Dialectology in Edinburgh, said it would be a shame if Oor Wullie's language had been diluted.

He said: "The word store must be diminishing in certain areas, and this research would reflect that.

"It is important not to read too much into the personal preferences of the writer of Oor Wullie, but I suspect that fewer and fewer people are using expressions such as 'help ma Boab'."

Heinz Giegerich, professor of English linguistics at Edinburgh University, said there was no doubt Oor Wullie's native language was being watered down.

He said: "Nowadays, if you want to hear real Scots, you go to rural working-class areas. In the past you would have heard it in the urban middle-class, the urban working-class, where you still get it to some extent - and the rural middle-class. But I would doubt whether these speech communities are now so unfamiliar with Scots that they cannot read Oor Wullie."

However, Oor Wullie script- writer David Donaldson strongly denied that his hero was losing his distinctive Scottish voice.

Mr Donaldson, who has been involved in writing scripts for the character since 1962, claimed that, if anything, Oor Wullie was sounding more Scottish now than ever.

He said: "I've been trying to get more Scots put in.

"Jings, crivvens and help ma Boab will continue to be used for as long as I draw breath."