Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/124

100 from the Cheviots to Locher Moss. He proceeds to give an exhaustive analysis of his native Border group, bringing in much that is of great value and originality in connection not only with the other groups, but with the historic relationships of these dialects to literary Scots. His concern is, however, mainly with the grammar and pronunciation.

With the exception of Dr. Murray's monograph, there exists no systematic treatment of the subject and nothing of the dialects as a whole. This compares badly with continental efforts in such a field. As far back as 1819 there was published an exhaustive Dialektologie for Switzerland, with a comparative presentation of the parable of the Prodigal Son in all the Swiss dialects. About the same time Jamieson produced the first part of his dictionary, in which something of this sort was attempted for Scotland, but in no scientific or systematic fashion. So indifferent was either he or his public that nearly twenty years elapsed before he finished his task, and even then Henry Cockburn complains that he had made no use of the recent researches of Thomson and other antiquaries. It would be easy to find illustrations of how the study of dialects emphasises the defects of Jamieson. Take one from the most distinctive of all the dialects, the Shetland. As recently as 1897 Dr. Jakobsen of Copenhagen published two most interesting and suggestive lectures on this subject, in which he frequently supplements both Jamieson and Edmonston. Thus Jamieson at one point notes tuva-keuthie as unexplained, giving as authority an "Ancient MS. Explication of Norish Words in Orcadian." Jakobsen comes to the rescue: "Kudda" is usually applied to a small rounding point, originally to a "bag," and akin to kod, a pillow (well known in Scots and obsolete English). Some of the Kuddas go by the name of Tevakudda, the first part being O.N. theofa, to waulk or shrink cloth. They are places at the seashore, where people used formerly to fasten "wadmel," the old Shetland cloth, in order that it should shrink and consequently grow thicker and closer by the action of the ebb and flow of the tide. The word is now lost in its original sense in Shetland, but is preserved in the expressions, "to tove (toss) a body (person) aboot" and "dere's a tove (commotion) in the sea." The verb to taave or ty-ave still lives in Aberdeenshire in