Note 306 — Chapter I · THE STEAM-SHIP “QUEEN”—THE ORKNEYS AND MAES HOWE—THE SHETLANDS AND THE FÆROE ISLANDS.

To quote the Dean’s English, “it is part of a (Radical?) movement to help forward the obliteration of all trace of the derivation and history of words:” as such it may be highly recommended to the “Japs.” The Icelandic or pure Scandinavian form, simple and compound, is ey (gen. and plur. eyjar); each vowel being pronounced distinct, and not confounded, as some foreigners do, with the German ö or the French eu. Ey is the Keltic “hy,” as found in the classical Hy Brazile, the mysterious island west of Galway, and so called during centuries before the real Brazil was discovered. Again the form appears in “Ireland’s Eye,” which Cockneys pronounce Ireland’s H’eye; the pure Irish form is I (O’Brien’s Irish-English Dictionary, sub voce), or aoi, an island or region, which that learned writer derives (?) from the Hebrew “ai,” insula, regio, provincia. “The Norwegian öy, the Danish öe, the Swedish ö, the Anglo-Saxon êg (-land), and the German aue, are found in ey-ot and Leas-ow, Chels-ea and Batters-ea; and whilst the Orkneys corrupt it wofully, we retain it pure in Cherts-ey, Aldern-ey, and Orkn-ey” (Cleasby). Munch (Ant. du Nord) has corrected the error of Webster, who derives “island” from ea or ey, water (!), and land. It is simply ey-land, “terra insularis.”