Shaetlan isn’t “local English“

Shetland is a bilingual community; every Shaetlan speaker grows up also speaking Shetland English. The term ‘Shetland English’ is a standard term used both inside and outside academia to refer to the local accent of (Standard) English. There are a vast number of Standard Englishes around the world, such as Australian English, Canadian English, Ghanaian English, and so on. Within these big regions there are regional varieties of English. Within the UK there are the macro areas of, for example, Scottish English, Welsh English and Irish English. Within Scottish English we have for example, Orcadian English, Shetland English and Caithness English. These Englishes differ mainly in accent (way of pronunciation), not lexicon or grammar. It is therefore important not to confuse Shetland English (linguistically an accent of the world-wide language we refer to as English) with Shaetlan (linguistically a different language in its own right). As soon as a Shaetlan speaker encounters anyone with a non-Shaetlan voice, they automatically code-switch to Shetland English. Linguistically this is evident in the prosody (the intonation or “melody” of the language) as well as in the vocabulary and grammar. For example, the average Shaetlan speaker will automatically code-switch the Shaetlan utterance

We’ll see dee in a peerie start / Yun eens yunder / I’m haed denner / He’s a stervation / I dunna ken / A’m gyaan haem

to English (with a Shetland accent)

I’ll see you in a bit / Dose wans dere / I’ve had lunch / It’s freezin cold / I don’t know / I’m goin hom when encountering a non-Shaetlan voice. It is a very common mistake for visitors to assume that they are hearing Shaetlan, when in fact the Shetlander is politely knappin (speaking Shetland English) with them. For an excellent study on Shaetlan/English code-switching, see Karam (2017).

Reference:

Karam, Kerry. 2017. Knappin: Standard versus dialect speech modification in Shetland. Aberdeen: University of Aberdeen PhD dissertation.