deardron Posted July 28, 2007 Report Share Posted July 28, 2007 Let's start a thread about Jakob Jakobsen's dictionary, his relation to Shetland or anything else that falls thereunder. I don't know where Jakobsen's archives are stored nowadays or who owns them, a Faroese or Shetlandic body, may be Dagfinn knows better, anyway, his daughter wrote that he collected lots of Orkney material as well as Shetlandic but his death prevented him from elaborating it into some sort of a dictionary (his Shetland Norn dictionary was completed already after his death, although 99,9% of work was naturally done by himself). Does anyone know anything about it? Did Hugh Marwick who published 'Orkney Norn' use Jakobsen's vaults or his own? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
islandhopper Posted July 28, 2007 Report Share Posted July 28, 2007 Most of the surviving stuff of Jakobsen is in the Tórshavn library, including many of his private letters. Marwick has some quotes ref. Jakobsen, but Jakobsen had not done that much of research on the Orkney dialect than on Shetlan. Most - if not all - of Jakobsen's work on the Orcadian dialect refers to just one subject, the Gyles' verse (not sure about the spelling) the only piece which referes directly to an Orkney vs Faeroese (Icelandic) version. As far as I got it, Jakobsen had a clear understanding that both the Orcadian and the Shetland dialect had different developments due to the stronger influence of the Scots on the Orcadian variant - and thus he consequently sticked to Shetlan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deardron Posted July 29, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 29, 2007 the Gyles' verse (not sure about the spelling) the only piece which referes directly to an Orkney vs Faeroese (Icelandic) version.What kind of a verse is that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Posted July 29, 2007 Report Share Posted July 29, 2007 Most of the surviving stuff of Jakobsen is in the Tórshavn library, including many of his private letters. Though the Shetland Archives has photocopies (of varying quality) of all of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dagfinn Posted August 1, 2007 Report Share Posted August 1, 2007 Being in Denmark, means I´m cut off from all information about Jakob Jakobsen that is not already on the internet. (As I don´t live in Copenhagen)But I´m going to Faroe in September. I´ll visit the national library in Tórshavn, and I´ll see what they have about Jakobsen there. (***Mod Edit - Deleted your double post ***) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
islandhopper Posted August 2, 2007 Report Share Posted August 2, 2007 the Gyles' verse (not sure about the spelling) the only piece which referes directly to an Orkney vs Faeroese (Icelandic) version.What kind of a verse is that?Sorry, deadron, have not seen it.Well, according to my note's which I've made when visiting Kirkwall Library a couple of years ago, it is a collection of old Orkney rhymes and phrases refering to Heimskringla : Magnus Blinde og Harald Gilles saga (?). Original manuscript seems to be lost now but a transcription survived either in Copenhagen or at Lund university.One English speaking website about Jakonsen refers to it, too, but I didn't find the link again. I'll post it, when I'll come across. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dagfinn Posted October 7, 2007 Report Share Posted October 7, 2007 Most - if not all - of Jakobsen's work on the Orcadian dialect refers to just one subject, the Gyles' verse (not sure about the spelling) the only piece which referes directly to an Orkney vs Faeroese (Icelandic) version. I guess you mean grýla, grøli or grølek in norn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dagfinn Posted October 7, 2007 Report Share Posted October 7, 2007 This is worth doing, ja ja ... but properly. So look at the entry on Jakob Jakobsen in Shetlopedia - you'll see that at the moment it focuses entirely on his brief Shetland forays. Add a biography, please, the Faroese/Danish side. Then we'll be able to link the scan to that webpage when the time comes, and the dictionary will have a context worthy of it. And you'll have contributed to Shetlandic culture and so will have earned your scanning service ... aa da best! Well I´ve done some reaserch both in books and on the net. I guess this compressed version is what I can come up with right now. I gained a lot of personal information, but I´m not putting such information about a person who has been dead for less than a 100 years on the net. I guess you have to get the family´s permission to do that. I don´t know about Anna, but I know Jakobsens other sister, Sigrid, has decendants in Faroe. There are at least two books, one faroese and one english, that give personal information about Jakobsen, but I guess they were given permission to print that. Maybe we can put something more personal off the record on this thread. Maybe someone will post it on Shetlopedia? There´s nothing about Orkney or works in Icelandic. Also the Faroese bit could be bigger, but I guess we can add that later.I have updated the wikipedia version, so maybe someone else will do that job for us N.B. The Shetland bit is copied from Shetlopedia and unchanged. Here is the draft: --------------------------------------- Dr. phil. Jakob (properly Jákup) Jakobsen, (* 22. Februar 1864 in Tórshavn, Faroe; †15. August 1918 in Copenhagen), was a faroese linguist as well as a scholar of literature. He was the first Faroese person to earn a doctoral degree. The subject of his doctoral thesis was the Norse language in Shetland. Life Jakob Jakobsen´s parents were Hans Nicolai Jacobsen from Torshavn, and Johanne Marie Hansdatter from Sandoy. Jakob was the youngest of three children, having two older sisters. The father H. N. Jacobsen, earned his living as a bookbinder as well as running a bookshop in Tórshavn. He was one of the initiators of a public meeting in Tórshavn i 1888, aiming at public support for “the protection and preservation of the Faroese language and traditionsâ€, as the notice announcing the meeting said. This is considered as the official start of the Faroese national movement.The original bookshop was in the old town, but H. N. Jacobsen moved the shop in 1918, to a central location further uptown, where it still stands today, retaining its traditional faroese grass roof. Founded in 1865, “H. N. Jacobsens bókahandilâ€, is one of the oldest shops, still in business in the Faroe Islands today. Jakob Jakobsen went to the “realskolen†school in Torshavn, where he showed a natural talent for learning languages. At the age of thirteen he went to school in Denmark and finshed college in Herlufsholm in 1883. In 1891 he graduated with Danish as his main subject and French and Latin as subsidiary subjects. In 1897 he got a doctor degree with his work “det norrøne sprog pÃ¥ Shetland†(the Norn language in Shetland).Later in life, Jakobsen´s sister Anna, played a great role in her brother´s life in Copenhagen; and after his death, she also translated his Shetland works into English, in accordance with Jakobsen´s own plans. Jakobsen and Faroese J. Jakobsen’s work within the field of Faroese folklore and oral poetry played an important role in the rise of modern Faroese written literature. This is the case most of all with his collection of Faroese legends and folktales: Færøske Folkesagn og Æventyr. He looked upon folk tales as a kind of fictional literature, while the legends to him were a kind of source about early Faroese history.He also collected oral poetry, worked with Faroese place-names and created many neologisms. He was the first to point out some Celtic place-names in the Faroes, and is also responsible for the grammar section and texts-samples in Færøsk Anthologi from 1891 (edited by V. U. Hammershaimb)In 1898 J. Jakobsen created a new Faroese orthography based on the new science: Phonetics. The principle of the 1898 orthography is that there must be a one to one correspondence between phoneme and letter, and that the written language should be easy to learn by children. Due to political controversy, the proposal was abandoned. Jakobsen and Shetland. Dr. Jakob Jakobsen is a key figure in Shetland's culture. As John J. Graham writes in his preface to the 2nd edition, his "Dictionary of the Norn Language in Shetland is the unrivalled source-book of information on the origins and usage of the Shetland tongue. Based on Jakobsen's fieldwork in Shetland during 1893-95 it first appeared in Danish in four volumes between 1908 and 1921, and was subsequently published in English in two volumes, 1928 and 1932. The Dictionary has established itself internationally as a major work of scholarship in Scandinavian philology." In 1985 The Shetland Folk Society, of which Graham was President at the time, succeeded in finding funds to reprint the two volume English edition in facsimile. When Jakobsen left Faroe for Leith, his only knowledge of the language of Shetland was drawn from Thomas Edmondston's glossary and those parts of George Stewart's Shetland Fireside Tales that are written in dialect. In Edinburgh he met Gilbert Goudie, and there he read "a valuable manuscript supplement" to Edmondston's work written by Thomas Barclay. During his fieldwork in the isles, he interviewed a large number of Shetlandic speakers and scholars, including Haldane Burgess, James Stout Angus, John Irvine, Robert Jamieson (1827-1899), James Inkster, John Nicolson, and Laurence Williamson. Jakobsen's correspondence with Goudie was edited by E. S. Reid Tait and published in 1953. In 1981, Roy Grønneberg published a study entitled Jakobsen and Shetland. WORKS IN ENGLISH: The Dialect and Place Names of Shetland. Two Popular Lectures, Lerwick: T. & J. Manson, 1897, 1926; reprinted as The Place Names of Shetland, 1936 London/Copenhagen; reprinted 1993, Shetland Library An etymological dictionary of the Norn language in Shetland, London, 1928-1932; reprinted Lerwick: The Shetland Folk Society, 1985 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dagfinn Posted October 20, 2007 Report Share Posted October 20, 2007 Well, not overwhelmingly much response to this topic, so I just registered to Shetlopedia and posted this myself. Don´t know if anyone reads this either, so..... http://shetlopedia.com/Jakob_Jakobsen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghostrider Posted October 20, 2007 Report Share Posted October 20, 2007 Well, not overwhelmingly much response to this topic, so I just registered to Shetlopedia and posted this myself. Don´t know if anyone reads this either, so..... http://shetlopedia.com/Jakob_Jakobsen Oh, it all gets read, don't worry about that. It's a good piece, it fills out the page for Jakobsen very well, which was needing it. Thanks. I would have moved it myself, but was hoping Ex-isle might come along and do it, he's the main contributor and expert on literary matters so far, and would have known best about context, relevance and such to what was already there, but unfortunately he seems to have gone in to posting exile of late. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trønder Posted December 1, 2007 Report Share Posted December 1, 2007 Well, according to my note's which I've made when visiting Kirkwall Library a couple of years ago, it is a collection of old Orkney rhymes and phrases refering to Heimskringla : Magnus Blinde og Harald Gilles saga (?).That makes sense, since sections of this Heimskringla saga can also be found in Orkneyinga saga. I suppose the name could refer to both the person who wrote down the collection, Gyles/Giles being a British surname, or perhaps even to Harald Gille. It would be very interesting to be able to read it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dagfinn Posted December 3, 2007 Report Share Posted December 3, 2007 That makes sense, since sections of this Heimskringla saga can also be found in Orkneyinga saga. I suppose the name could refer to both the person who wrote down the collection, Gyles/Giles being a British surname, or perhaps even to Harald Gille. It would be very interesting to be able to read it.I think islandhopper refers to this: A Grýla-verse which has parallels in Faroese, Orkney-Norn, Old and Modern Icelandic, but not in continental Scandinavia (even though it seems likely that a similar tradition existed there). A Grýla-verse is first referred to in Sturlunga saga (thirteenth century). http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:MKs0rU2s3qcJ:68217.buildyourownpublisher.com/documents/00401.doc+jakobsen+verse+orkney&hl=fo&ct=clnk&cd=4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deardron Posted December 3, 2007 Author Report Share Posted December 3, 2007 Thank you Trønder! The paper you are referring to was done by Yelena Sesselja Helgadóttir whom I happen to know (she's originally Russian). She attended a conference dedicated to Jakobsen which was held in Shetland in May of the last year me thinks. I'll try to get in touch with her and find out more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dagfinn Posted December 3, 2007 Report Share Posted December 3, 2007 Thank you Trønder!Did you really mean Trønder, or was it my link about the "Grýla-verse" you´re referring to? I´m confused! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deardron Posted December 3, 2007 Author Report Share Posted December 3, 2007 Oh yeah, sorry, I should have thanked Dagfinn for that link Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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