We should like to take this opportunity to thank the Education Department of Orkney Islands Council for the bold and imaginative steps they have taken to foster the island dialect and it is in this spirit that The Orkney Dictionary is born. The authors, Margaret Flaws and Gregor Lamb are delighted to have been associated with this work and we should like to thank personally those who had faith in us to bring this work to fruition. Is should be stressed however that the authors do not take all the credit for this production. Unlike most authors we were fortunate to have the assistance of a back-up team of Orkney dialect enthusiasts who fed in much useful material, who undertook proof reading, who made suggestions of production, design and format and whose work in these fields was greatly valued.