Klryz
Pronunciation guide: IPA symbols, stress and word endings

Vowels

iːseeɪsite / ɛbedæcat
ɑːfatherɒhot (UK)ɔːlawʊput
uːtooʌcupɜːbirdəabout
eɪdayaɪmyɔɪboyaʊnow
əʊ / oʊgo (UK / US)ɪəneareəhairʊətour

Consonants that look unusual

θthinðthisʃsheʒmeasure
tʃchurchdʒjudgeŋsingjyes

p b t d k g f v s z h m n l r w sound as in ordinary English spelling.

Marks

  • ˈ main stress, before the stressed syllable: /ˈwɔːtə/ water · ˌ lighter (secondary) stress: /ˌʌndəˈstænd/ understand
  • ː a long vowel · (r) an r said only in accents that pronounce it (most American, Scottish, Irish)

Common word endings

  • -s / -es (plurals; he/she form of verbs): /s/ after voiceless sounds (cats), /z/ after voiced (dogs), /ɪz/ after s, z, sh, ch, j sounds (buses, watches). Spelling: -es after s, x, z, ch, sh; consonant + y → -ies (city → cities).
  • -ed (past): /t/ after voiceless sounds (walked), /d/ after voiced (played), /ɪd/ after t or d (wanted). Spelling: love → loved, stop → stopped, carry → carried.
  • -ing: make → making, run → running, see → seeing.
  • Irregular: go, went, gone · be, was, been · see, saw, seen · man → men · child → children · mouse → mice.
  • Older (King James) forms: -eth = -s (he loveth = he loves) · -est with “thou” (thou lovest) · spake = spoke.

English Dictionary · 107,383 entries · Sources & licences

shetland

/ˈʃɛtlənd/ noun, proper noun

Forms shetlands Zetland

  1. noun Lightweight, loosely twisted wool fabric.
  2. proper noun A historical county of Scotland.
  3. noun (uncountable) A particular breed of pony.
  4. noun (countable) A pony of this breed.
  5. noun (uncountable) A particular breed of sheep.
  6. noun (countable) A sheep of this breed.

Synonyms

Shetland pony Shetland Islands Zetland Shetland sheepdog Shetland sheep dog

Etymology

From Shetland sheep.

From Scots Shetland, Middle Scots Ȝetland, from Old Norse Hjaltland, by surface analysis, hjalt (“hilt”) + land (“land”). 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”).

Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “shetland”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details