are a few irregular plurals, such as kye, 'cows' or een, 'eyes'. Pronouns Shetland dialect also distinguishes between personal pronouns used by parents when speaking to children, old persons speaking to younger ones, or between familiar friends or equals and those used in formal situations and when speaking to superiors. (See T–V distinction) The familiar forms are thoo (thou), pronounced , often written du in dialect writing; thee, pronounced , often written dee in dialect writing; thy, pronounced , often written dy in dialect writing; and thine, pronounced , often written dine in dialect writing; contrasting with the formal forms you, you, your and yours, respectively. The familiar du takes the singular form of the verb: Du is, du hes ('you are, you have'). As is usual in Scots, the relative pronoun is that, also meaning who and which, pronounced or , often written dat or 'at in dialect writing, as in da dog at bet me... – 'the dog that bit me...' Verbs As is usual in Scots, the past tense of weak verbs is formed by either adding -ed, -it, or -t, as in spoot, spootit (move quickly). The auxiliary verb ta be 'to be', is used where Standard English would use 'to have': I'm written for 'I have written'. Ta hae 'to have', is used as an auxiliary with the modal verbs coud ('could'), hed ('had'), micht ('might'), most ('must'), sood ('should'), and wid ('would') and then reduced to , often written a in dialect writing: Du sood a telt me, 'you should have told me'. As is usual in Scots, auxiliary and monosyllabic verbs can be made negative by adding -na: widna, 'would not'. Otherwise, the Scots negative has no where standard English has 'not'. References Bibliography Haldane Burgess, J.J. 1913. Rasmie's Büddie: Poems in the Shetlandic ("Fancy, laek da mirrie-dancers, Lichts da sombre sky o Life.") Lerwick: T. & J. Manson. Knooihuizen, Remco. 2009. "Shetland Scots as a new dialect: phonetic and phonological considerations" in English Language and Linguistics Vol. 13, Issue 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. External links I Hear Dee - Shaetlan on the global map (English version) Introduction to modern Scots: Insular Scots Shetland ForWirds - Promoting Shetland Dialect McColl Millar's internet extension to 'Northern and Insular Scots' 2007, with recordings of regional dialect variants of the Shetland Islands Example of Shetland speech on the British Library website Example of Shetland speech