Shetland dialect

Shetland dialect (also variously known as Shetlandic; broad or auld Shetland or Shaetlan; and referred to as Modern Shetlandic Scots (MSS) by some linguists) is a dialect of Insular Scots spoken in Shetland, an archipelago to the north of mainland Scotland. It is derived from the Scots dialects brought to Shetland from the end of the fifteenth century by Lowland Scots, mainly from Fife and Lothian, with a degree of Norse influence from the Norn language, which is an extinct North Germanic language spoken on the islands until the late 18th century.

Consequently Shetland dialect contains many words of Norn origin. Many of them, if they are not place-names, refer to e.g. seasons, weather, plants, animals, places, food, materials, tools, colours, parts of boats.

Like Doric in North East Scotland, Shetland dialect retains a high degree of autonomy due to geography and isolation from southern dialects. It has a large amount of unique vocabulary but as there are no standard criteria for distinguishing languages from dialects, whether or not Shetland dialect is a separate language from Scots is much debated.

Phonology

"Shetland dialect speakers generally have a rather slow delivery, pitched low and with a somewhat level intonation".

Consonants

By and large, consonants are pronounced much as in other Modern Scots varieties. Exceptions are:
The dental fricatives and may be realised as alveolar plosives and respectively, for example and rather than , or debuccalized and , (thing) and ''mither'' (mother) as in Central Scots. The ''qu'' in ''quick'', ''queen'' and ''queer'' may be realised rather than , initial ''ch'' may be realised
and the initial cluster ''wr'' may be realised or .

Vowels

The underlying vowel phonemes of Shetland dialect based on McColl Millar (2007) and Johnston P. (1997). The actual allophones may differ from place to place.

# Vowel 11 occurs stem final.
# Vowel 3 is often retracted or diphthongised or may sometimes be realised .
# Vowel 7 may be realised before and before and .
# Vowel 8 is generally merged with vowel 4, often realised or before . The realisation in the cluster ''ane'' may be as in Mid Northern Scots.
# Vowel 15 may be realised or diphthongised to before .
#Vowel 16 may be realised or .
# Vowel 17 often merges with vowel 12 before and .

Vowel length is by and large determined by the Scottish Vowel Length Rule, although there are a few exceptions.

Orthography

To some extent a bewildering variety of spellings have been used to represent the varied pronunciation of the Shetland dialect varieties. Latterly the use of the apologetic apostrophe to represent 'missing' English letters has been avoided. On the whole the literary conventions of Modern Scots are applied, if not consistently, the main differences being:

*The and realisation of what is usually and in other Scots dialects are often written ''d'' and ''t'' rather than ''th''; "thing" and "there" written "" and "".
*The realisation of the ''qu'' in ''quick'', ''queen'' and ''queer'' is often written ''wh''; "queer" is written "".
*The realisation of initial ''ch'', usually in other Scots dialects, is often written ''sh''; "chair" is written "".
*The letters ''j'' and ''k'' are used rather than ''y'' and ''c'', influenced by Norse spelling. The letter ''j'' is often used to render the semivowel of the letter ''y'', especially for the palatalised consonants in words such as ''Yule'' in English— rendered in Scots— which becomes written in Shetland dialect (for the additional change of the Scots ''ui'' to ''ø'' in this word, see below).
*Literary Scots and (vowel 12 and sometimes vowel 17) are often represented by in written Shetland dialect.
*Literary Scots and (vowel 7) are often represented by , , or influenced by Norse spelling.

Grammar

The grammatical structure of Shetland dialect generally follows that of Modern Scots, with traces of Norse (Norn) and those features shared with Standard English.

Articles

The definite article ''the'' is pronounced often written ''da'' in dialect writing. As is usual in Scots, Shetland dialect puts an article where Standard English would not:

''gyaan ta da kirk/da scole in da Simmer''-- 'go to church/school in summer'
''da denner is ready'' 'dinner is ready'
''hae da caald'' 'have a cold'

Nouns

Nouns in Shetland dialect have grammatical gender beside natural gender. Some nouns which are clearly considered neuter in English are masculine or feminine, such as ''spade'' (m), ''sun'' (m), ''mön'' (f), ''kirk'' (f). This can also apply to dummy constructions, e.g. ''what time is he?'' In a study comparing pre-oil Shetland dialect usage from oral history recordings and contemporary speech from interviews, the gender system in Shetland dialect was found to be a stable feature of modern dialect usage, and is not tied to use alongside "traditional lexical items".

The plural of nouns is usually formed by adding -s, as in Standard English. There are a few irregular plurals, such as ''kye'', 'cows' or ''een'', 'eyes'.

Pronouns

Shetland dialect also distinguishes between personal pronouns used by parents when speaking to children, old persons speaking to younger ones, or between familiar friends or equals and those used in formal situations and when speaking to superiors. (See T–V distinction)

The familiar forms are ''thoo'' (thou), pronounced , often written ''du'' in dialect writing; ''thee'', pronounced , often written ''dee'' in dialect writing; ''thy'', pronounced , often written ''dy'' in dialect writing; and ''thine'', pronounced , often written ''dine'' in dialect writing; contrasting with the formal forms ''you'', ''you'', ''your'' and ''yours'', respectively.

The familiar ''du'' takes the singular form of the verb: ''Du is, du hes'' ('you are, you have').

As is usual in Scots, the relative pronoun is ''that'', also meaning who and which, pronounced or , often written ''dat'' or '''at'' in dialect writing, as in
''da dog at bet me...'' – 'the dog that bit me...'

Verbs

As is usual in Scots, the past tense of weak verbs is formed by either adding -''ed'', -''it'', or -''t'', as in ''spoot'', ''spootit'' (move quickly).

The auxiliary verb ''ta be'' 'to be', is used where Standard English would use 'to have':
''I'm written'' for 'I have written'.

''Ta hae'' 'to have', is used as an auxiliary with the modal verbs ''coud'' ('could'), ''hed'' ('had'), ''micht'' ('might'), ''most'' ('must'), ''sood'' ('should'), and ''wid'' ('would') and then reduced to , often written ''a'' in dialect writing: ''Du sood a telt me'', 'you should have told me'.

As is usual in Scots, auxiliary and monosyllabic verbs can be made negative by adding -''na'':Grant, William; Dixon, James Main (1921) Manual of Modern Scots. Cambridge, University Press. p. 115 ''widna'', 'would not'. Otherwise, the Scots negative has ''no'' where standard English has 'not'.

References

Bibliography

* Haldane Burgess, J.J. 1913. ''Rasmie's Büddie: Poems in the Shetlandic'' ("Fancy, laek da mirrie-dancers, Lichts da sombre sky o Life.") Lerwick: T. & J. Manson.
* Knooihuizen, Remco. 2009. "Shetland Scots as a new dialect: phonetic and phonological considerations" in '' English Language and Linguistics'' Vol. 13, Issue 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

External links

I Hear Dee - Shaetlan on the global map (English version)Shetland ForWirds - Promoting Shetland Dialect
* ttp://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/text-only/scotland/lerwick/ Example of Shetland speech on the British Library websitebr>Example of Shetland speech on Youtube

{{Authority control

Scots dialects
Shetland culture