pronouns, numerals, and common adverbs; likewise adjectives and verbs in general use, as well as abstract nouns.
As a rule the substantives, denoting visible things, inanimate objects and living beings, have lasted longer (especially the words that denote species, while the words that denoted the genera embracing those species, have been lost), names of implements, household utensils; and this, of course, naturally applies to such things as stand in close connection with the daily life and activities of the people. Such words still form a very considerable part of the wordstock preserved in Mod. Shetlandic. As a special and very rich class, may be adduced: a) the many jocular and derisive names, used about a person or an object that presents an appearance differing from the normal; b) pet names.
That many old words and phrases relating to the state of the weather, the wind and the sea, have been preserved, may be regarded as almost a matter of course, in the case of a population so much a fisher-population as that of Shetland.
Of the other classes of words that have been preserved, may be mentioned such as express anger or a peevish state of mind; verbs that denote the various, especially comical, ways of moving or conducting oneself; adjectives that denote differently shaded or differently grouped colours of domestic animals, especially of sheep and cows, while the old names of the chief colours are lost.
In conclusion, it should be mentioned here that the superstition of the fishermen, now almost vanished, according to which a great many things could not be spoken of at sea by their ordinary names, but only by circumlocutions, has saved from destruction very many old words and roots that would otherwise have been entirely lost.
The Shetland dialect, in its present form, cannot without further consideration be described as Lowland Scottish, although it falls under the L.Sc. dialect-system. The main portion of it is Lowland Scottish, embracing most of the words in daily use as well as inflectional forms; but the older stratum in the language, the Norn, still makes its influence strongly felt, not only in the vocabulary, notably in the case of special words, but also in the construction of the verbs. The Literary English is, however, now making a rapid advance, chiefly as a result of the compulsory education introduced within the last half-century. This education, in which the use of English is impressed upon the children, and the use of such words and phrases as are peculiar to the Shetland dialect is not permitted in the schools, will involve, in the near future, the Anglicising of practically the whole speech.
