A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (up to 1700)
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First published 2002 (DOST Vol. XII).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
Quotation dates: 1600-1700
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(Ȝelt,) Yelt, n. [Appar. Norw. dial. hjelte = Bokmål sjetlending a Shetlander (Norsk Riksmålsordbok, Oslo, 1937), f. On Hjalt-, stem of Hjaltland Shetland. Cf. 18th c. Eng. Yalt (once, 1774).] A name given, appar. erroneously, to a. An aboriginal inhabitant of Shetland, and b. A kind of cloth. —a. 'The natives call themselves Yalts, and their language Yaltmoll' J. Campbell Political Survey of Great Britain (London, 1774) 685, quoted in A. Fenton The Various Names of Shetland (Edinburgh, 1973, Introduction). c1650-1700 Descr. Zetland 12.
The ancient inhabitants of this countrey were a people called Yelts: hence the name Yealtaland, & the people yet called by the Norwegians & Danes Yealtins, & their speech Yealta-Mole —b. 16… Macfarlane's Geog. Coll. III 248.
A General Geographical Description of Ȝetland … By the Norvegians it is called Yeltland, because in old time the inhabitants here, made a kind of course cloth, named yelt, which was carried to Norway
