Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1964, Blaðsíða 118

126
Shetland speech today
Evidence for colloquial speech in Shetland is extremely
scanty till the early 19th century when an account of a
storm about 1817 is recorded verbatim from the lips of a
Fedeland fisherman by Hibbert in his decription of Shet*
land; later, in 1836, a letter written in Shetland purporting
to be from a man in Unst to a friend in Liverpool was
printed in the Gentleman's Magazine. By and large the
language in vocabulary and syntax is Scots. There is of
course a considerable number of Norn words like biudi
(byða), capistane, (kpppusteinn), ela (íli), ferdamett (ferðar*
matr), fram humlaband (homluband), kaib (keipr), meashie
(meiss), nebert (niðurburður), ouse (ausa), pakki, smuk
(smokkr), spaarl (sperðil), tuag (<J>ufr) — all of course
relating to the ordinary life and occupations of the SheT
landers.
A feature of both passages is the ejaculatory parenthesis,
euphemistically averting bad luck and the evil eye, impre*
catively calling mischief down on someone else or making
an asseveration in the form of a conditional curse, as “gude
luck sit in his face,” “sae micht I get health as I think,”
“ill sicht be seen upo dat face,” “na gude ken o me as I
ken no.” Though in this particular example there is a good
deal of jocular exaggeration, this kind of speech was famb
liar in the earlier part of this present century as is illu=
strated in J. Inkster’s Mansie’s Ród, generally considered
to be a classic of Shetland prose.
Much of this can be explained in terms of folkdore rather
than philology, and in the need of folk*speech to be dra«
matic and emphatic. The apotropaeic expressions are in the
same category as the very large number of sea taboo words
recorded by Jakohsen in which the ordinary land term must
not be used at sea but has its equivalent sea term used to
mislead the evil spirits that might wreak mischief on the
boat, its crew or its catch, as bennihoose (church), dronger
(cow), farr (boat), flukner (hen), foodin (cat).genger (horse),
gloam (moon), heima (wife), krammer (cat), snegger (horse),