Features / Fascinatin plaes-names
Whin I wis aboot fifteen I göd on a scöl cruise ta Bergen, Oslo, Copenhagen an Hamburg. Hit wis a winderfil experience an I wis parteeclarly taen wi Bergen, writes Christine de Luca.
Comin fae Waas, wi hits shaltered voe, we hed links wi Norski fishermen fae dat area; an, wi mi faider able ta spaek Norwegian, a braa twartree o dem wir wint ta come alang aboot da nicht. (I mind eence een o dem browt a chunk o a whaal – I can still see hit, luikin laek raa but sturkened liver, sittin apö da table as mam tried ta wirk oot foo best ta cook hit. I digress.)
Whin I wan ta Bergen yun time I seemed ta hae a peerie epiphany fur, no onnly did I fin mesel smilin at lasses at kinda hed wir laekly, but I fan da street names fascinatin. Nae doot mony Shetlanders is felt da sam.
Dis een, Nygårdsgaten, stack i mi memory fur at laest half a century. Sae, whin I göd back ta Bergen, mony a year later, I sowt him oot an took a photo. Da raeson dis strack me wis da similarity ta Neigarth, da croft across da burn fae Orgill in Vidlin whaar mi faider wis boarn. (Da meanin is da ‘new enclosures’: Stewart J, p107.) An while we widda said ‘Da gaet ta Neigart’, here it wis compoundit tae Nygårdsgaten.
An I fan some idder street signs dat mindit me o Waas, whaar I was browt up.
‘Da Finnigart gaet’. Finnigart(h) in Mid Waas is a lovely spot, an reputedly linkit ta da Finns – wi dir magic pooers (Stewart, J p108).
‘Spurries’ in Waas aye seemed a odd name. But dan here wis ‘Da Spurries gaet’! Except hit wis spelt Sparres, maist laekly derived fae ‘sperra’ a spar o driftwid (Stewart, J p83). Dat maks sense, fur ‘Sparrowayre’ in Waas – a göd plaes ta lay up driftwid – is clos by.
Dat maks me tink o da name ‘Waas’. While I man commend whaivver managed ta gyet some fine rodd-signs up wi da derivation o da plaes-names shaan, Waas is no een o dem, an shurly hit man be een o da mosst misleadin corruptions. Hit hes naethin ta dö wi steyn daeks. Ivery time I come inta Waas an see da rodd-sign ‘Walls’, mi blöd pressure rises! Whit wye is hit dat we hae ta pit up wi aa da Gaelic signage in Edinburgh whaar I bide an yet, whin I come haem, dis plaes-name Waas –derived fae Vágar, meanin bays (Jakobsen, J p112) – is nivver bön replaced? Maps is digitised noo – nae engravin needit – an I tink da Royal Mail sud jöst be telt ta update dir database, an da Coonsil ta mak a new rodd-sign.
But I sud add dat hit’s bön a delicht ta drive some Norski freends aroond da Wast Side, pooin in at dir request ta tak photos o rodd-signs, even if dey ir kinda anglicised: Hestinsetter, Burrafirth, Gruting, Selivoe …
Notes:
Stewart, J Shetland Place Names, Shetland Library and Museum, Lerwick, 1987
Jakobsen, J The Place-Names of Shetland, Davd Nutt, London, 1936
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