The object which I have in view in publishing this Glossary is to help to preserve what yet remains among us of our old Norn language, and at the same time to give a fair sample of our dialect as it was spoken in the nineteenth century, and on to the present time. I have endeavoured to make my vocabulary something more than a mere list of words. A list of words may be interesting to the philologist, but it can be little practical use to an ordinary person. By marks to denote the different vowel sounds, I have given the common pronunciation, and by quotations of colloquial phrases I have tried to show the idioms of our vernacular speech, so that a stranger may see the peculiarities that make it a distinct dialect.