Texts
The idea of the Texts part of this website is to give examples of the Sjætlan orthography, with audio in video format to show how it is pronounced.
As explained in the introduction, Shetlandic is here treated as a sort of ready-made conlang, or constructed language, which is real apart from the orthography. This emulates real life, where spoken languages are always natural and written languages are always a construction based on the spoken language.
As I had written various things in Shetlandic using an English-type orthography in the past, the easiest way to give examples of the Sjætlan orthography was to transliterate these texts into that orthography. Some of these - such as Vór, Lækneses and Da Sáer - have been published previously in some form, either in Shetland publications or as part of Guid Unkens efter Mark, my translation of Mark's Gospel. Some - such as Parallelobam - were written some time ago but not published, and some - such as A Gød Thing Nu - are new.
Most of the texts have accompanying videos, either on Facebook or Youtube, or both. These are to provide audio for the texts, and to illustrate the correspondences between spelling and pronunciation. These are further illustrated in the following guide:
Shetlandic Vowels - A Short Guide
The texts fall into various categories, some texts belonging in more than one.
Translations
From Swedish. This is a translation of Våren by the Swedish poet Bo Bergman.
From Danish and English translation. A translation of Zinklar's Vise, a Norwegian poem by Edvard Storm, performed in Faroe as Sinklars Vísa as one of the traditional ring dances.
From Greek. The Parable of the Sower from Mark's Gospel.
Ballads
Shetland has little or no tradition of song or poetry, probably because any Norse tradition was lost with the Norn language, and nothing corresponding to the Scots border ballads developed. Da Liver Drink and Sinkar's Výsek are in the respective styles of Scots and Norse ballads.
Da liver Drink is a traditional tale of the press gang, re-told in the style of a Scots border ballad.
Sinklar's Výsek is a translation, from Danish with English translation, of a Norwegian poem written by Edvard Storm in 1781, which is performed as one of the Faroese ring dances. (Danish was the written language of Norway at the time.)
Various
These are old writings of my own transliterated into the Sjætlan orthography, with a few more recent ones included.