Orkney Library launch for Gregor Lamb's Orcadiana
Story dated: November 20, 2004

A new book delving into Orkney history, folklore, dialect and placenames was launched in Kirkwall today.

Orcadiana - Pen Portraits of the Past by Gregor Lamb will be unveiled to an invited assembly at a ceremony in the Orkney Library at 11am this morning.

Five sections within the title cover dialect, folklore history, pre-history, place names and family names.

Stewart Davidson, of Bellavista Publications, Kirkwall, said: "Orcadiana is a collection of short articles - 40 in all.

"Mr Lamb offers many new insights into traditionally held views. He questions some of Dr Hugh Marwick's theories and suggests that these, and others, are worthy of further research.

"I'm sure that anyone interested in Orkney will find something of value in this publication."

Among the information included, Gregor Lamb explains that the initial "j" or soft "g" in Orcadian dialect is pronounced "ch".

"The sentence 'the German general was wearing a jersey like Jim's' becomes 'the Cherman chineral wis waeran a chersey like Chim's'.

"The pronunciation of 'bears as bearsh' is a legacy of our Norse past. The consonants 'r' and 's' are pronounced so close together in the mouth that when they come together they interfere with each other."

Interestingly, in history there were occasions when the pronunciation of a word was a matter of life or death, since such a test was used to determine whether a person belonged to one tribe or another.

"To test whether or not someone is an Orcadian ask him or her to pronounce 'Birsay'.

"Non Orcadians have to practise really hard to get a flattish tongue three quarters of an inch behind the front teeth to say it correctly!"