3,500 ("used at home") (2011)[1] 11,000 ("can speak")
Language family
Indo-European
Germanic
West Germanic
North Sea Germanic
Anglo-Frisian
Anglic
Scots
Insular Scots
Shetland dialect
Early forms
Northumbrian Old English
Early Middle English
Early Scots
Middle Scots
Scots with significant Norn substrata
Writing system
Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-2
sco
ISO 639-3
sco
Glottolog
shet1241 Shetland Scots
Linguasphere
52-ABA-aad[2]
IETF
sco-u-sd-gbzet
Shetland in Scotland
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.
Scots language
History
Early Scots
Middle Scots
Modern Scots
Dialects
Insular Scots
Northern Scots
Central Scots
Southern Scots
Ulster Scots
Doric Scots
v
t
e
Shetland dialect (also variously known as Shetlandic;[3]broad or auldShetland or Shaetlan;[4] 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,[5] with a degree of Norse influence[6][7][8] from the Norn language, which is an extinct North Germanic language spoken on the islands until the late 18th century.[9]
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.[10]
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.[11]
^United Kingdom census (2011). "Table KS206SC – Scots: Can speak Scots". National Records of Scotland. Retrieved 8 August 2021.
^The Linguasphere Register(PDF). November 2012. p. 414.
^The use of Shetlandic for the language occurs in, for example, James John Haldane Burgess (1892) Rasmie's Büddie: poems in the Shetlandic, Alexander Gardner; James Inkster (1922) Mansie's Röd: Sketches in the Shetlandic; T. & J. Manson; Jack Renwick (1963) Rainbow Bridge. (A collection of poems in English & Shetlandic.), Shetland Times; Jack Renwick, Liam O'Neill, Hayddir Johnson (2007) The harp of twilight: an anthology of poems in English and Shetlandic, Unst Writers Group.
^"Modern Shetlandic Scots language and alphabet". www.omniglot.com. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
^Catford J.C. (1957) Vowel-Systems of Scots Dialects, Transactions of the Philological Society. p.115
^http://www.scotslanguage.com/Scots_Dialects_uid117/Insular_uid118/Shetland_uid675 The Main Dialects of Scots: Shetland
^http://www.scotslanguage.com/Scots_Dialects_uid117/Insular_uid118/Orkney_uid1243 The Main Dialects of Scots: Orkney.
^http://www.scotslanguage.com/Scots_Dialects_uid117/Insular_uid118/Insular_uid3422 The Main Dialects of Scots: Insular.
^Price, Glanville (1984) The Languages of Britain. London: Edward Arnold. p.203 ISBN 978-0-7131-6452-7
^Barnes, Michael (1984) Orkney and Shetland Norn. Language in the British Isles. Ed. Peter Trudgill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p.29 states that a paper by Gunnel Melchers "lists the following areas of vocabulary as being particularly rich in Norn words: types of wind and weather; flowers and plants; animals; seasons and holidays; food; tools; materials and colours; movement; whims, ludicrous behaviour, unbalanced states of mind, qualities." But, as published, the paper he cites (The Norn Element in Shetland Dialect Today – A Case of Never-Accepted Language Death, in Ejerhed, E. and I. Henrysson (eds.) Tvåspråkighet. Föredrag från tredje Nordiska Tvåspråkighetssymposiet 4-5 juni 1980. Acta Universitatis Umensis. Umeå Studies in the Humanities 36. 254-261) does not include such a list.
^""Modern Shetlandic Scots"". Archived from the original on 7 February 2012. Retrieved 14 July 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link). Shetlopedia. Retrieved 14 July 2012.
Shetlanddialect (also variously known as Shetlandic; broad or auld Shetland or Shaetlan; and referred to as Modern Shetlandic Scots (MSS) by some linguists)...
Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands, is an archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands, and Norway. It is the northernmost region...
The Shetland is a small, wool-producing breed of sheep originating in the Shetland Isles, Scotland, but is now also kept in many other parts of the world...
into: Shetlanddialect Orcadian dialect Both dialects share much Norn vocabulary, Shetlanddialect more so, than does any other Scots dialect, perhaps...
former municipality in Møre og Romsdal county Eid, the Shetlanddialect name for Aith, Shetland Search for "eid" , "ei-d", "e-id", or "e-i-d" on Wikipedia...
April 1947) is a Scottish poet and writer from Shetland, who writes in both English and Shetlanddialect. Her poetry has been translated into many languages...
Orkney and Shetland, as well as the whole of England. Murray and Ellis differed slightly on the border between English and Scots dialects. Scots was studied...
language in Shetland than in Orkney. It was said in 1703 that the people of Shetland generally spoke a Lowland Scots dialect brought to Shetland from the...
West Central South West Central Southern Scots Insular Scots Orcadian Shetlanddialect Ulster Scots Yola† Fingallian† Ancestral classification Proto-Norse...
(born 1952), Australian chess player Robert Alan Jamieson (born 1958), Shetlanddialect poet and novelist Robert Stuart Jamieson (1922–2006), musician, author...
Finns as shapeshifters, Finns (synonymous with finfolk) being the Shetlanddialect name for dwellers of the sea who could remove their seal-skin and transform...
Shetland literature is literature written in Shetland, Scotland, or by writers from Shetland. The literature is often written in Shetlanddialect or its...
Shetland was drawn from Thomas Edmondston's glossary and those parts of George Stewart's Shetland Fireside Tales that are written in Shetlanddialect...
English (a sign language based on English, not BSL) Scots Insular Scots Shetlanddialect Orcadian Northern Scots Doric Central Scots Glaswegian Southern Scots...
Frisian West Frisian Scots language Doric Northern Scots Orcadian dialectShetlanddialect Standard German Yiddish Dutch Brabantian Hollandic Zeelandic West...
sea added to boy or lad. In An Etymological Glossary of the Shetland and Orkney Dialect Thomas Edmondston lists the creature as a niogle crediting a...
Foula (/ˈfuːlə/), located in the Shetland archipelago of Scotland, is one of the United Kingdom's most remote permanently inhabited islands. Owned since...
has also been used in the Orcadian Scots dialect in place of the singular informal thou. In Shetlanddialect, the other form of Insular Scots, du and...
the success of a pilot project. 8 March – The creators of Wirdle, a Shetlanddialect version of the Wordle game, announce the game's withdrawal following...
Angelou (1928–2014), US poet James Stout Angus (1830–1923), Shetland poet mainly in Shetlanddialect Marion Angus (1865–1946), Scottish poet in Scots J. K....
act on the Shetland Islands on her own to an empty room. In 2022, Robertson received funding to write an almanac in the Shetlanddialect. At the 2022...
Lowland Scots word for the slope or brow of a hill. The word 'Brae' in Shetlanddialect has a different meaning; it may come from the Old Norse word breiðr...
Aith, (Shetlanddialect: Eid, Old Norse: Eið, meaning Isthmus, cf Eday), is a village on the Northern coast of the West Shetland Mainland, Scotland at...
Mallie, Kentucky, United States, an unincorporated community Mallie, a Shetlanddialect name for the northern fulmar Mallie's Sports Grill & Bar, a restaurant...
Global Information