<div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">===============================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L - 17 March 2010 - Volume 01<br style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">
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===============================================<br></font></div><font size="2"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI"><span class="gD" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">jmtait</span> <span class="go"><<a href="mailto:jmtait@wirhoose.co.uk">jmtait@wirhoose.co.uk</a>></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI">LL-L "Language varieties" 2010.03.16 (07) [AF-EN]<br></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
</font>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">
Mark Dreyer wrote:<br><br>
John, your letter on the living tongue of the Shetland Isles was the
saddest thing I have read in a long time. Forgive me that I clothe my
distress in black mockery. What is this undead thing you speak that you
will not name? Is it a cadaver that lean & hungry linguists in
stained robes must call back with Dark Art to give tongue fromÂ
half-forgotten grimoires or forbidden books? Or else is it a babe
new-born, nurtured in a creed outworn, babbling its wants uncaring of
scholars' dainty sensibilities, only so long as it is heard!</font>
<font size="2"><br></font>
</blockquote>
<font size="2"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Hi Mark,</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
I haven't replied to your post bit by bit because I think what I would
say will come out in my replies to other posts, and I would just be
repeating myself - which I do only too often. I trust you understand
that the comments re: Shetland Dialect are not my own but reflect
criticisms I have received - sarcasm being another of my failings!</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"></font>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">
....</font><div class="im"><font size="2"><br>
Â<br>
By the way, what is a Sheltie?<br></font>
</div></blockquote>
<font size="2"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
The word 'Sheltie' usually refers to a Shetland Pony, and perhaps a
Shetland Sheepdog.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
John M. Tait.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">----------</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI"><span class="gD" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">jmtait</span> <span class="go"><<a href="mailto:jmtait@wirhoose.co.uk">jmtait@wirhoose.co.uk</a>></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI">LL-L "Language varieties" 2010.03.15 (06) [EN]</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"></font>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">
Ron wrote:<br><br>
From: R. F. Hahn <<mailto:</font>
<font size="2"><a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>><a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>><br>
Subject: Language varieties<br><br>
John,</font>
<font size="2"><br><br>
The posting in which I addressed you as "Jim" is archived here: <</font>
<font size="2"><a href="http://tinyurl.com/yarlwh7" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/yarlwh7</a>><a href="http://tinyurl.com/yarlwh7" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/yarlwh7</a><br><br>
Thank you very much indeed for responding so promptly and thoroughly to
my inquiry about the status of Sh ... uh ... dialect.</font>
<font size="2"><br><br>
My head is still reeling. I'm not yet sure which is to blame for me
having a very hard time wrapping my head around the goings-on: my aging
mind or the apparent bizarreness of the story. It seems even more
bizarre than people under French-speaking hegemony having been
conditioned to call patois every indigenous non-French language varietyÂ
under French-speaking hegemony, but at least there you get away with
specifying them as things like patois normand or patois alsacien when
you are in a different location. (And it is similar with idioma in
Spanish-dominated areas.)</font>
<font size="2"><br><br>
So it seems to me that Shetland's popular concensus is that what people
like you and I used to call "Shetlandic" does not officially exist, and
that it is verboten to specify "dialect" even in terms of location so as
to deprive it of any modicum of legitimacy. I assume that as a result
"dialect" will cease to exist (apprently this being the intent). As they
say, "that's one for the record." (Might this be how the Norn language
became extinct?) Will Shelanders in, say, a hundred years ask (in
English of course), "Why, oh, why did our ancestral language disappear?"
and the answer will be "People decided it didn't exist."</font>
<font size="2"><br><br>
Yeah, what to do ... I appreciate the position this puts you in. I as a
true outsider, however, have Narrenfreiheit (German for "fool's
liberty") on my side. While I do not wish to offend anyone, I wonder if I
should bow my head to this ... uh ... whatdoyoucallit. The only problem
is that I do not want to embarrass you, John, since you are the author
of our "dialect" bits. If you don't mind, I will consult you about this
off the List.</font>
<font size="2"><br><br>
In the meantime, for practical and sentimental reasons, I took the
liberty of downloading the zipped version of your former site Wirhoose
(<</font>
<font size="2"><a href="http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/wirhoose/but/" target="_blank">http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/wirhoose/but/</a>><a href="http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/wirhoose/but/" target="_blank">http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/wirhoose/but/</a>).<br>
</font>
</blockquote>
<font size="2"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Ron - what I'm most annoyed about is that my post came over full of
control codes! No wonder you couldn't get your head round it. I think
this must be something to do with pasting in from Word? Is there
anything I can do about this? I'm going to try posting plain text and
see how that works.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
It would in fact be quite acceptable to refer to Whadycallit
(Shadyacallit?) as (The) Shetland Dialect, or Whalsa Dialect, or
whatever. In fact, in an article I wrote some time ago, I commented:</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
"...to avoid the derisive reaction that status words like “language”
and “Shetlandic” elicit from the Shetland media, I will use the
interactive phrase (The) (Sh(a)etlan(d(ic))) (D/dialect). Readers may
omit or include bracketed words and letters as they choose." (Actually,
since Michael Everson has now replied to my posting as well, I will post
this entire article unless it turns out to be too long.)</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
I don't know if anyone picked up on the sarcasm. However, as you will
appreciate, it's not easy to say or write "The Shetland Dialect" every
time you refer to something, so it tends to be reduced to 'dialect.' So
referring to it as Shetland Dialect on Lowlands-L would be OK, although
use of it to translate expository text in the introduction to
Lowlands-L would not, this being outside of the acceptable pericope of
dialect</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
The intention, BTW, certainly isn't that the entity in question will die
out - at least, not on the part of ShetlandForWirds, who are actively
trying to promote 'dialect' and whose e-mailings I was quoting. In fact,
they said recently that someone - not the Intangible Cultural Heritage
people I don't think - perhaps the Scots Language Centre? - was
intending to cite them as an example of good practice. On the other
hand, it is equally the case that, under this approach, the entity in
question will cease to exist. So no, it's not the intention, but it is
the consequence - although of course the aforesaid ShetlandForWirds pay
no attention when I point this out.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
The principle effect of the 'dialect' emphasis is, of course, that
(because a dialect must be a dialect of something) ShetlandForWirds, in
regarding it as a dialect of Scots, have adopted the prevailing Scottish
approach, the principle proponents of which are opposed to any of the
means (orthography, etc) which have been responsible for any documented
language revival that I know of - whether from 'cold storage' like
Cornish or Hebrew, or in enhancing an existing language, such as Catalan
or Welsh.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
I think I have already commented on this list that I once received a
rather angry letter from a friend in Shetland requesting that I cease
and desist (not the words actually used) from criticising the well-known
Scottish writer James Robertson on my website and elsewhere. The
comment I had criticised was as follows:</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
'One argument against a standardisation of Scots spelling is that one of
the language's very strengths lies in its flexibility and its
less-than-respectable status: writers turn to it because it offers a
refuge for linguistic individualism, anarchism, nomadism and hedonism...
William McIlvanney has spoken of Scots as being like English in its
underwear, stripped of all pretensions, and in some respects this is
very apt.'</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
It would appear that I had been identified by Matthew Fitt, one of
Robertson’s friends who had visited Shetland, as ‘the man who disagrees
with James,’ and in the event of Robertson visiting Shetland I had
become a diplomatic liability. This was another of the (many) reasons I
removed my website from easy public scrutiny.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Actually, as has been pointed out elsewhere by Tom Morton, author of the
'jarringly jargonistic' comment, dialect cannot die out, because
whatever Shetlanders speak at any given time is de facto 'Shetland
Dialect', even if it is indistinguishable from standard English.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Coincidentally, as I speak a controversy has erupted on the Shetland
forum Shetlink about this very question></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="http://www.shetlink.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9569" target="_blank">http://www.shetlink.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9569</a><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
It appears that an American linguist living in Ireland, as bemused by
this state of affairs as you are, Ron, has set up a poll to gauge what
people think the Shetland tongue is/should be called. (Edit: before
posting this I discovered that the linguist in question in Michael
Everson, who is a member of Lowlands-L) Particularly interesting is this
comment:</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
"Were any book on offer having "Translated into Shetlandic" on the
cover, while it might not stop me from buying it, it would certainly
strongly discourage me from doing so, on no other grounds than if the
translator was happy for their work to be put on sale with a description
of that particular wording on the cover, I would have serious doubts of
their knowledge and understanding of the language, and the contents
wouldn't be of any particularly worthwhile quality."</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Another indication of why I took down my website, and of why I am
seriously considering withdrawing my "Guid Unkens efter Mark - Mark's
Gospel in Shetlandic" from general sale. This might seem childishly
self-pitying, but after a decade of comments like this I'm afraid I have
run out of steam.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Another noteworthy fact is that the term 'Shetlandic' is widely regarded
as 'political' whereas 'dialect' and comments such as the one by Tom
Morton (previous posting) apparently are not. It is another reflection
of the 'cringe factor' in Shetland that the word 'Shetlandic' can have
such a negative connotation, whereas any amount of people can comment
that the tongue is unwriteable, untranslateable, or whatever, without
anyone batting an eyelid.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Incidentally, it should be understood that these apparently negative
comments come from some of the few people in Shetland who are actually
interested in the subject.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
The entire question is quite involved, and I'm actually toying with the
idea, now that I've abandoned the original Wirhoose website, of putting
up some papers, including the aforesaid article, to document the demise
of the entity (or perhaps it should be non-entity) in question.
(Another idea I'm toying with, now that the real Shetland tongue is
obviously irretrievably moribund, is developing it into a conlang spelt
with Welsh conventions (which I find suit its phonological requirements
particularly well) and calling it Shelsh.)</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
John Magnus Tait.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">----------</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI"><span class="gD" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">jmtait</span> <span class="go"><<a href="mailto:jmtait@wirhoose.co.uk">jmtait@wirhoose.co.uk</a>></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI">LL-L "Language varieties" 2010.03.16 (04) [EN]</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI"><br>
</span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">This article by me - included here because I have referred to it in
other posts - was originally published in Shetland Life, July 2007, in
an issue focussing on Shetland identity.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
John M. Tait.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Shetland Identity and (The) (Sh(a)etlan(d(ic))) (D/dialect).</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
About ten years ago, I was asked to take part in a consultation process
for the University of the Highlands and Islands on linguistic and
cultural identity. This was an unfortunate accident. Rather than
contacting the Arts Trust as he probably should have done, the convener
of the working group asked John Goodlad if he knew anyone who could
represent Shetland language issues in the UHI alongside Gaelic. Because I
had just written two articles for the New Shetlander in my native
tongue (a short-lived experiment, as the third was cancelled when the
Grahams gave up the editorship) John suggested that I join the UHI
working group.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Here I am already running into difficulties. I have been forced to use
the phrase "language issues" in connection with Shetland. However,
almost anyone will tell you that Shetland does not have language issues
because it does not have a language but a dialect. Rather like saying
that you don't have dog issues because the animal that bit you wasn't a
dog, it was a Pekingese. So to avoid the derisive reaction that status
words like "language" and "Shetlandic" elicit from the Shetland media, I
will use the interactive phrase (The) (Sh(a)etlan(d(ic))) (D/dialect).
Readers may omit or include bracketed words and letters as they choose.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Though initially reluctant, I attended the UHI working group, which
consisted mostly of Gaels, and helped to write a policy for the UHI on
linguistic and cultural identity. Much of the emphasis of the policy was
on local ownership of local culture and what I inadvisedly called
"language". In the event, however, the effort was delegated to Orkney
college who drafted in academics from Edinburgh. The policy was made
short shrift of, and my former work with a Scots spelling committee made
the object of derision in conversation in the bar. It had also become
clear that, from a Shetland point of view, the UHI was a poisoned
chalice.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Discouraged by this, I even more reluctantly agreed to speak at the
dialect conference, Dialect '04. Here I was surprised when the first
speaker, Brian Smith, used some of my writing from the UHI as a "perfect
example" - not of writing in (The) (Sh(a)etlan(d(ic))) (D/dialect), but
of what Willie Thompson had described as a "horrible abortion". The
phrase which elicited this comment was "ta lay up ... a university".
Brian commented "You maybe lay up a sock, or a collection of riddles,
but you never, ever lay up a university."</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
The implications of this are clear. "Dialect" is seen as an inflexible
medium where expressions like "lay up" are fossilised in certain
once-familiar phrases, mostly connected with activities of the past. If
you try to adapt any of these words or expressions to modern life, you
are creating an "abortion." Ironic, considering that Dialect '04 was
subtitled "the development of the Shetland dialect."</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
If Brian and Willie had spent less time with their beards stuck in books
and more listening to "Coonty men", they might have heard the bucket of
a digger referred to humorously as the "neb" and the mouth of a pipe as
the "truinie" - exactly the sort of development that led to Latin
testa, an earthenware pot, becoming the modern French tête, head. Even
without leaving the library, they might have noticed that all our
abstract English words - which Willie considers "dialect" to be
incapable of expressing - refer originally to simple things. The Latin
comprehend, for example, means basically to grasp - or "yock a had o",
as your friendly neighbourhood abortionist might say.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Abstract concepts are expressed either by metaphorically extending
meaning in this way, or by borrowing from another language - such as
Latin - that has already done so. The only reason (The)
(Sh(a)etlan(d(ic))) (D/dialect) cannot do either is because, being
consigned to the Cinderella category of "dialect", it is not allowed to.
If it extends it is an "abortion", and if it borrows it is no longer
"dialect."</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
This is exactly the attitude of the Aald Yarl in my fable of Sheltie
Prattle 1. It is not easy to see any conclusion to it other than
extinction - which is perhaps why Brian maintains, contrary to the
evidence of his and everyone else's elementary senses, that (The)
(Sh(a)etlan(d(ic))) (D/dialect) isn't dying out. I suspect that the real
situation is better described by Andrew Watt's comment at the same
conference: that dialect in Shetland is now something that "a few people
in school still speak and are generally made fun of for doing so." His
own more positive view Andrew attributed to growing up in Africa.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
The main point of the paper I gave at Dialect '04 was that the native
tongue used to be called "Shaetlan", with the phrase "The Shetland
Dialect" being necessary only when speaking or writing English 2. Now,
however, it is increasingly referred to just as "dialect" - rather as
you might talk about "the wife" rather than using her name. I argued
that this reflects a change in attitude in Shetland society, from seeing
the native tongue as a particular entity connected with Shetland
identity, to seeing it simply as non-standard speech. I also argued
that, in popular (as opposed to academic) usage, the unqualified word
"dialect" implies a form of speech which has no identity or definition;
can't be consolidated, taught or promoted; is fundamentally
characterised by illiteracy; and is so vague a concept that it can't
even be said to die out.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
The conference in fact agreed - or at least, somebody suggested and
nobody disagreed - to use the word "Shaetlan" (though they would have
spelt it Shetlan.) However, when I return to Shetland, I notice that my
friends who are engaged in promoting (The) (Sh(a)etlan(d(ic)))
(D/dialect) still, and perhaps increasingly, refer to it simply as
"dialect".</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Andrew Watt's fresh viewpoint and immunity from Scottish prejudices
enabled him to see another obvious point - that "standardisation of
spelling and grammar for the whole Shetland dialect would have to take
place before it could be properly taught." Faroese professor Jóhan
Hendrik Poulsen had already explained how a common orthography, rather
than killing off dialect variation as Scottish literary dogma teaches,
actually enables the various Faroese dialects to flourish. He also
explained that this depended on using a cross-dialect spelling rather
than allowing one local dialect, such as the one around Tórshavn, to be
seen as a default standard. Following the conference, I submitted some
thoughts on Shetland spelling to the new dialect group. Fortunately
perhaps, this has escaped the opprobrium earned by my Scots spelling
involvement by being ignored entirely.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
So what does all this have to do with Shetland identity? Isn't it just
an embarrassing, self-pitying diatribe (or pleepsit roed*, as I would
call it if I wasn't afraid that somebody would use it as a bad example)
by a misguided sad old expatriate purist prescriptionist fart?</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Certainly Shetland popular opinion would seem to suggest so. Typical
comments from people who knew I was interested in (The)
(Sh(a)etlan(d(ic))) (D/dialect) have been: "Hit's deein oot, an hit's
laekly a guid thing"; "If you teach it dat'll kill it aff" and "Weel,
I'm no sayin I'm wantin it ta dee oot, bit..." Many people find only the
dialect of their own immediate area acceptable, and object far more if
their children pick up pronunciations from other parts of Shetland than
if they speak only standard English. Some still object to the use of
dialect on Radio Shetland, but nobody seems to object to SIBC which, I
am told, has a non-dialect policy. Overall, the message is clear.
Whether we are better off without it or not, it's not something we want
to make an unseemly fuss about. In the UHI, I argued for local ownership
of Shetland culture, and if this is what Shetlanders want I have no
right to object.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Perhaps it is precisely the idea of Shetland identity which has become
unacceptable. In the UHI, one staff member described the cultural and
linguistic identity effort as "Balkanisation". This is echoed in the
"Save us from dialect fascists" comment elicited by the Arts Trust
literature report. And in the most recent New Shetlander, Jim Mainland
writes a story where Shetland ForWirds, starting off as a "moaderit
bunch", is infiltrated by extremists who create a Shetland-speaking
police state where "knappin" is forbidden. The existing monolithic
linguistic culture is so ingrained, and its prejudices so immune from
critical examination, that any attempt to promote a smaller one can be
represented as being at one remove from Mussolini.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
At any rate, the embarrassment - sometimes barely disguised anger -
which surrounds the idea of promoting (The) (Sh(a)etlan(d(ic)))
(D/dialect) is often palpable. Perhaps increasing use of the unqualified
category word "dialect" is an attempt to avoid this reaction by
acknowledging its inferiority. As the wicked sisters in Sheltie
Prattle[j1] say, we call her Di-a-Lack because she has a lack. What will
we call it when even "dialect" doesn't seem subservient enough?
"Slang", perhaps, would be regarded as cooler by young people. But I
don't think we'll have to worry about that.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Perhaps if Shaetlan had been given a kirsen strood* and called by name
at some point in the relatively recent past, then what now manifests
itself as embarrassment would have become enthusiasm. But we will never
know. As it is, without the focus of either a written or cultural
identity, it is difficult to see why Shetlanders in general should want
to be associated with anything as vague and nameless as "dialect" any
more than we should take an interest in stamp collecting or crochet.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
As for this sad old fart, he's moving with the times. I've taken up
flight simulation.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
*1</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
pleepsit roed - self-pitying nonsense</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
*2</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
kirsen strood - decent suit of clothes</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
[j1] - the fable Sheltie Prattle is on my former, now downloadable
website.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
John M. Tait.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"></font>
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