bersugget

[prettygoodword]

bersugget - adj./n., (Shetlands) (of a sheep) having irregular patches of different colors, variegated.


The Shetlanders have a lot of specialized terms to describe their sheep. This one caught my fancy.

---L.

Comments

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Thanks--great link. Very Scandi, which makes me wonder whether someone once (post-ninth century) ran a census or imposed a typology or something; it's weird that it's so Scandi in feel against the survival of yan tan tethera far to the south.

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

I had not realized till researching this that the Old Norse descended language of the Shetlands was still spoken as recently as a couple centuries ago, until pushed out by settlers from the Lowlands (!). Nor that the motto of the Shetlands is in Icelandic.

---L.