Calendar project to promote Orkney's disappearing dialect
Story dated: Thursday, August 24, 2006

Do you know what ‘gansey’, ‘puggie’, ‘breeksed’ and ‘swadge’ mean?

Pupils in Orkney will be able to find out, thanks to the new Orkney Dialect Calendar which will be distributed to all primary classes this week.

In partnership with The Orcadian, the calendar will promote dialect in schools and was developed by Sheila Garson, the OIC's cultural co-ordinator for heritage.

It aims to create an interest and understanding of the Orcadian dialect and promote a sense of identity.

It features an Orkney Dialect Word of the Week for each week of the school year, guidance on pronunciation using the International Phonetic Alphabet and examples of how the word can be used. 

There’s also space to record words with similar meanings from other dialects.  A selection of dialect poems, songs and activities are included in the accompanying teacher’s notes which will help bring the dialect words to life.

The three year project aims to eventually have classes submitting Orkney dialect words and phrases for inclusion in future calendars. This will give children ownership of the project and help ensure that the individuality of islands and parishes are represented. 

When the three year project ends, a full word list will be distributed to all local schools.

By the way, the words at the top mean ‘sweater’, ‘stomach’. ‘stiff from exertion’ and ‘rest after a meal to let food settle’.