SHE Shetland

Bibliography

SHETLAND PLACE NAMES PROJECT

The Shetland Place Names Project has got off to a very encouraging start.

Since August 2001, I have been working with local history groups, day care residents and individuals from throughout the isles to locate lists of names, maps and documents held locally, recruit volunteer recorders and identify potential informants. As many old names do not appear on maps or survive in documents, there is an urgency to record these before they die out all together. We are therefore concentrating on collecting theses names first before moving on to check documentary sources and undertake linguistic analyses. We have attracted a great deal of interest and local groups and individuals are already enthusiastically noting down local names on copy maps and recording sheets.

The type of information we are gathering includes:

• place name, spelt as its sounds other names known by

• location, including grid ref. or pinpointed on map
  
• what feature is e.g. rig, burn, ruined house, craig seat
  

• information about the name or suggested interpretations e.g. named after an individual

Various recording techniques are being employed including the use of tape/minidisc recorders, maps and recording sheets, walking the ground, photographing sites and extracting information from documentary sources.
We have a good list of potential informants covering most areas, but are continuing to receive suggestions and information about maps or lists of names in private hands.
For further information contact:
Eileen Brooke-Freeman, Shetland Place Names Project Officer
Shetland Amenity Trust, Garthspool, Lerwick, Shetland, ZE 1 ONY
Tel: 01595 694688 Fax: 01595 693956

Bibliography (to see full bibliography, click here)

Stewart, J., 1987, Shetland Place-Names.
Waugh, D., 2005, ‘From Hermaness to Dunrossness: some Shetland ness-names’, in Viking and Norse in the North Atlantic. Select Papers from the Proceedings of the Fourteenth Viking Congress, Tórshavn, 19–30 July 2001, eds. A. Mortensen and S. V. Arge, Annales Societatis Scientiarum Færoensis, Supplementum 44 (Tórshavn: Faroese Academy of Sciences), 250-56.
Waugh, D., 2006, ‘The –by/-bie names of Shetland’, in Names through the Looking Glass: Festschrift in Honour of Gillian Fellows-Jensen, edd. P. Gammeltoft & B. Jørgenson (C. A. Reitzels Forlag A/S, Copenhagen), 298-321.
Waugh, Doreen, 2007, ‘From the 'banks-gaet' to the 'hill-grind': Norn and Scots in the place-names of Shetland’, in Cavill and Broderick (eds), 165-83. [Cavill, P., and G. Broderick (eds), 2007, Language Contact in the Place-Names of Britain and Ireland, EPNS Extra Series 3 (Nottingham: English  Place-Name Society)]