A supplement to the dictionary of Scandinavian words in the languages of Britain and Ireland

Diarmaid Ó Muirithe

In a preface to his ground-breaking and highly praised Dictionary of Scandinavian words in the languages of Britain and Ireland, the author wrote that what he recorded was but a sampling from the Norse word-hoard. A visit to northern Scotland has now prompted him to publish words from the Islands and the counties in the far north colonized by the Norse for many centuries – words generally neglected by lexicographers. A conversation on the Isle of Skye was the prompt he needed. A shop assistant, native to Shetland, offered him what might have been a Tibetan cow, but in fact was a fashionable and serviceable item of tweed clothing and spelled 'yack', a word that came from the Danish jakke, a jacket. There are many other words in this volume that he found far from the highlands and islands of Scotland. It is a further fascinating collection of words that have survived the centuries all over Britain and Ireland; wonderful, expressive words that he records as a mark of respect for Scandinavia and what its peoples did to enrich the languages we speak.

Diarmaid Ó Muirithe was professor emeritus of literature at University College Dublin. He was the author of the ever-popular 'Words We Use' column in the Irish Times.