Flukkra

History in a word. The twists and turns in the journey of a word are fascinating. Flukkra is a Shaetlan specific word meaning those big soft snowflakes that gently flutter down. Technically it's a collective plural.

It is not found in Orkney or in the mainland Scots varieties. The word can also be found in Faroese flykra, Danish flok & Swedish flocka, which all mean '(snow)flake'. In all these languages it is a loan from Middle Dutch/Low German vlocke, and probably entered the vocabularies due to the Hansa trade. The ultimate origin is unknown. The earlier suggestion that it goes back to Latin floccus 'tuft, wisp (of wool)' is no longer widely held. A newer suggestion is that it goes back to Proto-Germanic *flukk/gōn- 'to fly, flutter'. The Old Norse flóki 'tuft (of hair/wool)' is the ancestor of Shaetlan flog 'tangled/felted tuft of hair/wool'. It has a different origin and goes back to Proto-Germanic *flaka-/*flōka(n)- 'flat', but the two words might have reinforced each other.

P.S. The old Shaetlan verb tae barflog means "to beat oneself crosswise over the chest and around the arms/shoulders to keep oneself warm". It's an old expression. In Nynorsk it is still called at berje floke and means the same. In regional Swedish it is att bärja flok and also means the same. It derives from Old Norse berja 'to beat' and the previously mentioned flóki, the ultimate origin of which has to do with beating (such as Gothic flōkan 'beat oneself on the chest; wail', Latin plango 'beat', etc) so that the original meaning of Old Norse flóki would have been something like "that which has been beaten into felt". So that the expression barflog/berje floke/bärja flok would probably ultimately have been quite descriptive: "to beat [oneself] in the rhythmic way one beats wool to get felt" or something like that.