Etymograph

English

Shetland

Shetland comes from Scots Shetland, and goes back to Old Norse Hjaltland.

  1. Old Norsec. 800–1350Hjaltland
  2. Scotsc. 1450–presentShetland
  3. Englishearliest quotation 1991same form

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Lineage

  1. Old Norsec. 800–1350Hjaltland
  2. Scotsc. 1450–presentShetland
  3. Englishearliest quotation 1991same form

Earliest quotation: 1991, Stephen Fry, London: Heinemann: “[…] I'll tell you what else is a fact.…”

The story

Andrew Jennings suggests the name derives from the tribal name Calēdonēs (as in Caledonia), considering the geographer Ptolemy already called the sea north of Scotland ὠκεανός Δουηκαλεδονίος (ōkeanós Douēkaledoníos); if this is correct, the borrowing into Germanic would need to have occurred at such an early date that it took part in the Germanic sound-shift, changing *kalid- to *halit-, after which it underwent folk etymological reshaping to Old Norse hjalt (‘hilt’).folk etymology The source marks this as unproven or a folk etymology. Quoted, not asserted.

Every English word from Old Norse Hjaltland

Today it means

name A historical county of Scotland.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Old Norse Hjaltland / Shetland

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