Shetlandic words, help needed

[MuckleJoannie]

The correct name of the village is Olnafirth, as the school is still called. It was the influence of the Adies that changed the name to Voe.

[Njugle]

The entire policy of posting signs in what is, in Shetland, a dead language, shows a morbid fascination with the past and demonstrates a fundamental lack of culture confidence in the present.

 

A valid point, but there are perhaps two benefits that immediately come to mind. Firstly, it is quirky and provides a heritage and historical interest for tourists and local alike.

 

Secondly, the signage, and of course mapping, that endure in Shetland do very often still bear only a resemblance to how many of the names are commonly pronounced, despite the Ordnance Survey's best efforts to eradicate the vernacular. Perhaps rather than the Norse names the signage should have the phonetic names most commonly used.

[DePooperit]

The entire policy of posting signs in what is, in Shetland, a dead language, shows a morbid fascination with the past and demonstrates a fundamental lack of culture confidence in the present.

 

A valid point, but there are perhaps two benefits that immediately come to mind. Firstly, it is quirky and provides a heritage and historical interest for tourists and local alike.

 

Secondly, the signage, and of course mapping, that endure in Shetland do very often still bear only a resemblance to how many of the names are commonly pronounced, despite the Ordnance Survey's best efforts to eradicate the vernacular. Perhaps rather than the Norse names the signage should have the phonetic names most commonly used.

 

My point here was in the paragraph before the one quoted - that no other place I can think of offhand has signs in a former language. I don't know about Cornwall and the Isle of Man, but in those cases there is an active revival effort. Gaelic and Welsh are living languages, and Gaelic signs in Caithness are actively resented by the population, as far as I can gather, although this may have been hyped up by the mainstream Scottish media. What does it say about Shetland to be the only place (I can think of, although I'm not far-travelled) to have signs in a form of language no longer spoken there? The 'heritage' and 'tourist' aspects seem to me to sum it up - to give an impression of culture, mainly for the benefit of tourism, while not interfering with anything important to everyday life.

 

As regards the idea of 'phonetic names' this would simply raise all the old chestnuts of 'dat's no whit we spaek laek.' Because Shetland has, I would say definitively, rejected any attempt to give a common written form to its traditional speech, to put up signs in a 'vernacular' would simply be to invite ridicule.

 

Actually, I'm not convinced that most of the existing Shetland place names are so bad. What's wrong with, for example, Tingwall, Lerwick (how would you spell that phonetically - Lerrick? Lerweek? Lerook?) Gott, Weisdale? Some - such as Aithsetter - preserve older pronunciations, which is common in place names, and there are a few, such as Walls, which are misconstructions. Of the more recent ones, some, such as Cauldhame, seem to me to be fine, given the lack of a common spelling. The only ones which annoy me are the Anglified ones, like 'Meadows' for 'Muidoo'. But I daresay nobody in Shetland complains about this.

[DePooperit]

I want a sign erected which says Voe - Ancient Norse word meaning voe........... I am a Shetlander through and through but do get rather amused by Pingvollir, Vadaollin etc etc. Voe is Voe and should be mentioned and recognized as such!

 

But surely what you want is a sign which says Våg, or if you want it in older norse then perhaps you should try Vágr. Then you can be happy that you have a sign which says what you want.

Voe is just a modern abortion which has been accepted by OS map makers.

No wonder our friendly Snow Owl was lost for words.

 

Can you explain why 'voe' is an 'abortion'?

[Kavi Ugl]

Well, I've finally managed to become less stunned after yesterday....

 

Surely the signs which include the original norse name are a valuable way of preserving and promoting the name and it's meaning whilst also making the tourist feel that Shetland is somewhere different and worth coming to?.

 

To phonetically spell the names would be a disaster because that's what the OS has done with many of them. I saw a name on the OS maps just recently which read as Crooi but which is surely Krö. And as Depooperit says everybody would be shargin saying "yon's no how I/we say it".

 

Gjo is another example of OS's ignorance and arrogance being spelt as Geo which doesn't even fall in line with english pronounciation because you have Geo as in George or geography.

 

What's interesting about the name voe is that people(well a guy I used to work wi) from Cunningsburgh pronounce Voxter as Vágster.

 

We should be doing all we can to make Shetland somewhere different and appealing to tourists and that means using, amongst other things, wir norse history and heritage.

 

Phew.....!.

[DePooperit]

Well, I've finally managed to become less stunned after yesterday....

 

Surely the signs which include the original norse name are a valuable way of preserving and promoting the name and it's meaning whilst also making the tourist feel that Shetland is somewhere different and worth coming to?.

 

To phonetically spell the names would be a disaster because that's what the OS has done with many of them. I saw a name on the OS maps just recently which read as Crooi but which is surely Krö. And as Depooperit says everybody would be shargin saying "yon's no how I/we say it".

 

Gjo is another example of OS's ignorance and arrogance being spelt as Geo which doesn't even fall in line with english pronounciation because you have Geo as in George or geography.

 

What's interesting about the name voe is that people(well a guy I used to work wi) from Cunningsburgh pronounce Voxter as Vágster.

 

We should be doing all we can to make Shetland somewhere different and appealing to tourists and that means using, amongst other things, wir norse history and heritage.

 

Phew.....!.

 

'Geo' is a particularly interesting example - the fact that it's difficult to know how to spell it shows that Shetland has no concept of a speech of its own, but can only refer to either English or Norse as a model. Although even there, I would have thought the spelling 'Gyo' would have been fairly unambiguous.

 

Because there is no written form for the speech without a name, everything is seem in terms of its relationship to something else. This is what I meant when I said that falling back on Old Norse - something which, I repeat, I am not aware that anywhere else does - shows a lack of confidence in any present culture, or perhaps the lack of any present culture at all. In the Shetland context, Old Norse is a linguistic fossil.

 

The message communicated by such signs, both to locals and tourists, is pretty clear. This is a place where the current place names are corruptions - or abortions - of something in the past - a view which reflects the Shetland view of its speech as a whole.

[Dagfinn]

'Walls' is an interesting case; was the original name really ‘Vágar’ (bays)? Is it pronounced ‘Waas’ or ‘Walls’?

 

I’ve seen a Danish book explain the meaning of ‘Kirkwall’ (Orkney) as something to do with “the walls of the ancient cathedral thereâ€, and people in Faroe think the name ‘Scalloway’ has something to do with ‘road’ or ‘path’ or something like that.

[Ghostrider]

^^ Generally pronounced W-aws or Waa-s.

 

From ‘Vágar’ (bays) has never really rung true with me, it seemed a leap of faith too far.

 

I'd wonder if it isn't simply just a corruption of "West"/"Vest". The area is still generally referred to as "Wast" or "da Wast Laund" by most (older at least) Shetlanders.

[Girzie]

I am glad you realized this was a joke!

[Kavi Ugl]

John Stewart(P287) has Walls listed as Vágar and supports it with Vogafiordwgh 1490, i voghum 1509 but he doesn't give any specific meaning.

 

Jakob Jakobsen quotes the same old names but also suggests Vogafiordwgh is Vága-fjórðungr and that it originally comprised basically the whole west side.

 

So, I suppose if Vágar is the plural of Vágr then it could mean the area of many voes because the west side is full of them.

 

Is Kirkwall not Kirkjuvágar = bay of the cathedral?.

[Njugle]

I recall being told by a local fae Waas a few years ago that it was a corruption of a name that he pronounced differently again, I don't recall how exactly, but it started with more of a "Hv" sound, and he claimed it was a derivative of a norse word meaning 'voes' because of the seven voes that connect to the same bay area.

[Kavi Ugl]

Njugle, thats place-name gold dust!!.

 

Du'll haeta try and speak wi him/her again and fin oot da right wye(assuming he/she is still alive?).

 

I saw from an "Unkens" leaflet that the Burra History Group are collecting the place-names from Burra with the aim of producing a map.

[deardron]

Spellings like "wall" or "walls" for older "vág®"/"vágar" is an example of a fairly widespread phenomenon called "folk etymology"*. The sound 'g' in the above words was apt to disappear: "vág" -> "vaa". After Norn began to mix with Scots, "vaa" started being perceived as belonging to the same category of words as Scots "aa < all, faa < fall, waa < wall". It was only a matter of time when the old "-vágr" would start being spelled as "wall" and its plural "vágar" as "walls". Albeit impossible in physics, the bay turned into the wall in the language!

 

 

 

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* In historical linguistics, Folk etymology is a change in the pronunciation, meaning, or spelling of a word under the influence of popular beliefs about its origins. (Wikipedia)

[GypsyScy]

The Shetland word Makadö, meaning pretence, is it only used in the negative sense of the word pretence as in someone being two faced or is it an all round word for pretence in any form?

 

Am I making sense???

[Ghostrider]

^^ Not familiar with that exact word or usage I don't think. Nearest I can think off is "mak-a-döins" or "mak-dö", which I've always presumed was a straight corruption of the English "make do", as the meaning is virtually the same. ie. do the best you can with what you've got. To use it to describe a pretence could well be related though, as that also is a case of trying to make more of something than it actually is.

 

I can't think of a specific term offhand for someone keeping up a pretence or being two faced, and the commonly used descriptions for someone doing so would be Mod deleted if written in English.