"Erm" right back to you....and good mornin! And thank you. So, we have four titles of which three are out of print. In a restaurant herebouts they don't put stuff on the menu which is not available, because it would be precisely what the customer would want. So that leaves us with the Orkney Dic. And one over here might well wonder what span of time it would cover. For in many of the old documents I have tried to decipher, orthographic peculiarities muddy the already unclear waters. I am trying to finish what my old uncles and aunts gave up on years ago. There seems to be some strange variation therein which is consistent with spelling phonetically, with a large degree of variation. That is evident in names, for example, which seemed to be spelled differently oftentimes. Consider the common expat trying to read and comprehend "pays in Scatt butter two pispunds." three cowsworth of udal land" "of scatt malt six meills four and half settings". "4d land1/2-6merk makes the pennyland" . And this is after a wonderful person came to my rescue with pages of interpretation for which I am very grateful. I have been lucky to have that generous interpretation forwarded. That makes the remaining mystery words more frustrating. Thanks for providing the book titles. I guess they aren't going to grease up the printing machine and bang out a few copies of books "out of print" so some offshore affectionado can try to decode old lore documents. And I have asked them if the Orkney Dic goes back to the 1500's, for example, where the language is difficult to read at all. I can't discern whether some of the words denote simple colloquialism, or rather some blend of languages perhaps rooted in Norway. Who knows. You know, Sigurd, it is true that to try to pry open this interpretive door has been difficult and not just for me thank goodness, confessing fully that I am no historian, scholar or researcher. My relatives got stuck in the same mud while over there in the early sixties. This has been going on since Moby Dick was a minnow. The "foxfire" series we spoke of which is from the Appalachian Mountains and the Smokies, is an example of how a culture and it's linguistic oddities are put down in a form that an average, non-scholarly person can read, comprehend and most importantly enjoy. Trying to unlock this stuff has been like trying to talk a roving Aborigine out of his boomerang. For whatever reason, it seems that it "taint" easy, and the keys to it all are locked up tighter than a boar's butt in fly time. I have purchased some books from there that the schools were finished with. The saga was great, and of course available here. Other stuff spoke to the absence of trees in Orkney and therefore paper....that is to say they were sparse at best, and cheap to mail out for sure. Over here we would call them pamphlets. So we will see what seems to be the last available interpretive book has to offer. I'd like to testfire that Orkney dic by sending out ten of the befuddling strings of letters that I can't decode, and see if the book lists any of them. I 'd bet a moose antler to a bullfrog that I'd still be in the dark. Thanks for the info. By the way, some of your recent photos posted were most enjoyable and truly appreciated. I mostly enjoy the eclectic assembly of lost Orcadians from around the world that console each other on this site, while feasting on the great information you provide. Maybe locking up some of the language keeps the mystery of Orkney alive. I am finally and irreversibly convinced that you actually do live in Orkney, and are not living in a penthouse on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Gosh, and a Borwick to boot! Yours AYE.....Stephen Davie On Wednesday, April 21, 2004, at 04:16 AM, Sigurd Towrie wrote: > On Tue, 20 Apr 2004 19:57:40 -0700, stephen davie wrote: > >> This e-mail of yours goes into my Orkney file. Wish there was more >> of the same. What a great book topic/opportunity for some >> enthusiastic Orcadian. > > Erm. The opportunity has been taken..a number of times. > > The Orkney Norn - Hugh Marwick (out of print) > The Orkney Wordbook - Gregor Lamb (out of print) > Hid Kam intae Words - Gregor Lamb (out of print) > The Orkney Dictionary - Gregor Lamb and Margaret Flaws (still > available at http://www.orcadian.co.uk/orkneybooks) > > -- > Sigurd > > > > > > ==== ORCADIA Mailing List ==== > To unsubscribe from the Orcadia mailing list, send an e-mail with the > word > 'unsubscribe' in the message body to orcadia-l-request@rootsweb.com >

>>>Consider the common expat trying to read and comprehend "pays in Scatt butter two pispunds." three cowsworth of udal land" "of scatt malt six meills four and half settings". "4d land1/2-6merk makes the pennyland" Hello! From my own studies I would like to say: It's nearly useless to work with a "simple" dictionary. Look at the different types of land within these few sequences: udal land referes to "denomination of land" vs. King's land, Earl's land with no specific link to a kind of value at all; pennyland referes to "measurements/value" of land in term of taxation only; merk here is an expression of money; but more generally spoken it was a value/measure of land for all other transactions of land exept taxation ... Most of the measures can not be transfered to a modern "vocabualary" of financial terms; you have to look at the historical and econimical context, pic up the sense and then you can start to describe what was ment actually ... it's easier and probably more correct. The more than all "values" for the terms are changing over the time. A great help to me were the definitions as given by Thompson in his "History of Orkney". Within the appendices he gives short definitions (and some some rough ideas up to what amount the "values" changed from mediaeval times until the 19. century) but you have to read the full text (around pp. 120/121 esp.) to find out the details between "butter scat and lispunds" and "malt scat and meils" ... :-( @Sigurd: Is there a section about historic Orkney measures/values of land on your site; sorry, had no look actually :-)) @Stephen: If you don't have the definitions and Thompson's text, let me know and I will scan and send them ... :-) cu Wolfgang

Thanks Wolfgang. If you could get me the Author/publisher/date of the Thompson book, I might be able to source it over here. Your notes seem to indicate that you have travelled down this same road, with success which eludes me thus far. I intend to get over there, and had hoped to be there by now, but we have a family challenge which has prevented it. Suffice to say that when that time comes, I will be spending some time in the records room in Kirkwall, if it is still there. Thanks Once Again.....Stephen On Wednesday, April 21, 2004, at 03:40 PM, Wolfgang Schlick wrote: >>>> Consider the common expat trying to read and comprehend "pays in >>>> Scatt > butter two pispunds." three cowsworth of udal land" "of scatt malt six > meills four and half settings". "4d land1/2-6merk makes the pennyland" > > Hello! > > From my own studies I would like to say: It's nearly useless to work > with a > "simple" dictionary. Look at the different types of land within these > few > sequences: udal land referes to "denomination of land" vs. King's land, > Earl's land with no specific link to a kind of value at all; pennyland > referes to "measurements/value" of land in term of taxation only; merk > here > is an expression of money; but more generally spoken it was a > value/measure > of land for all other transactions of land exept taxation ... Most of > the > measures can not be transfered to a modern "vocabualary" of financial > terms; > you have to look at the historical and econimical context, pic up the > sense > and then you can start to describe what was ment actually ... it's > easier > and probably more correct. > > The more than all "values" for the terms are changing over the time. A > great > help to me were the definitions as given by Thompson in his "History of > Orkney". Within the appendices he gives short definitions (and some > some > rough ideas up to what amount the "values" changed from mediaeval times > until the 19. century) but you have to read the full text (around pp. > 120/121 esp.) to find out the details between "butter scat and > lispunds" and > "malt scat and meils" ... :-( > > @Sigurd: Is there a section about historic Orkney measures/values of > land on > your site; sorry, had no look actually :-)) > @Stephen: If you don't have the definitions and Thompson's text, let > me know > and I will scan and send them ... :-) > > cu > Wolfgang > > > ==== ORCADIA Mailing List ==== > To unsubscribe from the Orcadia mailing list, send an e-mail with the > word > 'unsubscribe' in the message body to orcadia-l-request@rootsweb.com >