Nivver haein bin tae Shetland, A’d hae thocht the dialect’d be affie braid, but the folk ye see bletherin in the videos ye see arena.
Tak the lovely Christine here, A cud listen tae her aw day, but her dialect is kinna ‘licht’ comparin wi the wey fowk spoke in Fife or Pairthshire whan A wis a bairn.
An anither wee vid, jist a lad bletherin awa in Shetland ‘dialect’ whiles warkin. Interestin tho that somebody (nae me) haes done a wee transcript in whit A wid cry ‘stannert’ orthographie. An weel…Shetland written thon wey luiks, as it aye soons tae ma lugs onieweys, jist like normal Scots bar twa-three wirds.
As A’v said afore, Scots is “aw ae oo” frae Shetland tae Ulster. In fack, whan Scots wis at its peak, a perr o dialect researchers haed nae doot Shetland wis sib tae Scots/Scotch. Baith these buiks can be fun on the wab.
- Jakobson, J. (1897) The dialect and place names of Shetland; two popular lectures (1897) “The common dialect at the present day resembles the Lowland Scotch”.
- Edmondson, T. (1866) An etymological glossary of the Shetland & Orkney dialect “Some of the words that will be found in the following pages are no doubt in use in other parts of Scotland and are generally accepted as Scotch words”.