Page:An Etymological Dictionary of the Norn Language in Shetland Part I.pdf/40

XXXII sometimes bantering, sometimes derisive, mere dialect-words. The greater number of these are verbs referring to the behaviour and manner of people, their walk and movements, in many shades of meaning, especially with a dash of the comic, silly or awkward manner, peculiar or clumsy way of acting or moving; besides words, especially adjectives, that denote various states of mind, singularity, peevishness, etc.

Words of this class are to be found in all sub-languages, but in Shetland Norn they are specially numerous. While large portions of the vocabulary of this speech have been lost, words of the class just mentioned have maintained themselves in use in an unaltered form on account of their deeply-rooted homely character. In many instances, it would have been difficult to find equivalent words in Lowland Scottish to take their places.

This vocabulary of lighter or lower words is one of the fields in which Ross supplements Aasen in the most copious way, and affords excellent assistance in fixing both the close connection of Shetland Norn with Norwegian in general, and its special kinship with the Norwegian of the south-west.

In view of the fact that the Old Norse element surviving in the Shetland dialect is so rich and varied, it cannot surprise one to find, mingled with the Norn or Old Norwegian element which is the kernel of the language, a large number of words that are only known as Færoese, Icelandic, Danish or Swedish. In most cases such words have probably been at one time common to all the Northern languages.

In some cases, however, those old Shetland words, that are not to be found in Norwegian, seem to have been borrowed later from other Northern languages, especially from Danish.

It is not only in a merely statistical sense, that is, by reckoning the number of the words, that Shetland Norn shows a closer connection with the language of the of Norway or of the  of Norway than with the other Norwegian dialect-groups.

A comparison based exclusively on an estimate of the number of the words would be of a somewhat casual character. Many of the words now recorded only in the Norwegian of the south or south-west might indeed, at an earlier period, have been in use in the more northerly parts of the country, in which parts perhaps there are to be found, here and there, words that have simply not been brought to light, or noted in the dictionaries. In this connection, however, it may be pointed out that the Norwegian dialects have been thoroughly and in equal measure investigated in almost all parts of the country. If Aasen’s dictionary does not contain enough of the vocabulary of the south-west of Norway, this defect has been remedied in Ross’s dictionary, where the vocabulary of the south-west of Norway is copiously dealt with, though not more so than the dialects of the other parts of the country. From this it is evident that in both dictionaries considerable attention has been paid to the northern parts of the country.