Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1964, Page 29

Dialect Research in Orkney and Shetland after Jakobsen 37
work and the later work of the Survey is possible, but the
equivalent of the expression »to be in the sulks« is one.
The comparison is significant and revealing. The Survey’s
files show, for the great bulk of its informants in Shetland,
some form like »idda dorts« or »taen da dorts«, as the
»usual local word«. (The exceptions are Fair Isle and Whab
say. Fair Isle gave »Shii’s in a Trums« or »Shii’s trumsin«
and Whalsay »She’s doon apun it«). For the »less common
word« Mid Yell gave »She’s teen a stoit« and added as
even less common »Trumaket«, »Tullyet«, and »Dounset«;
Ulsta gave »Taken the frimps«; Sandness »She has a snudd
upon her«; Skellister »1 da Twirms«; Tingwall, »Shú’s
slebbin«. Jakobsen, in his »Dialect and Place Names of
Shetland«,') gives a variety of words for all this including
the »less common words« just mentioned. We are thus
indebted to him for a very considerable list, and even their
distribution can be roughly sketched from the localities
given in the Dictionary. But what we do not know from
him is the expression »idda dorts« etc., its varieties and
distributions. Of course, this was not his business, but
obviously the citations of his contemporaries, or near=
contemporaries, like Ellis, Wright (but Wright borrows
from Ellis) or the early work of the Scottish National
Dictionary, are too meagre for our purpose. The Lingui=
stic Survey’s two lexical questionnaires, by operating with
a very limited number of words (no more than 200 for each)
probably achieves a sufficient density of coverage to make
this lexical aspect of linguistic geography significant and
workable.* 2)
1) P. 38.
2) cf. K. G. Spencer »The Lapwing in Britain«. In 1953 Spencer asked,
by correspondence, for the local name for lapwing throughout Britain.
He used a single informant for Shetland who wrote that the various
dialect forms cited by Edmonston and Saxby »are definitely not in use
today«. The Linguistic Survey also in 1953 had 34 informants in Shet-
land and out of these 5 returned the dialect forms (as either »common«
or »less common« local words) denied to Spencer — e.g. »Teewheep«,
»Tieve’s Nicket«, etc.