Norn is an extinctNorth Germanic language that was spoken in theNorthern Isles (Orkney andShetland) off the north coast of mainland Scotland and inCaithness in the far north of the Scottish mainland. After Orkney and Shetland werepledged toScotland byNorway in 1468–69, it was gradually replaced byScots. Norn is thought to have becomeextinct around 1850, after the death ofWalter Sutherland, the language's last known speaker, though there are claims the language persisted as late as 1932.[1]
Norse settlement in the islands probably began in the early 9th century.[2] These settlers are believed to have arrived in very substantial numbers, and like those who migrated toIceland and theFaroe Islands, it is probable that most came from thewest coast ofNorway.[3] Shetlandtoponymy bears some resemblance to that of northwest Norway, while Nornvocabulary implies links with more southerly Norwegian regions.[4]
Orkney and Shetland were pledged toJames III in 1468 and 1469 respectively, and it is with these pledges that the replacement of Norn with Scots is most associated. However, the decline of Norse speech in Orkney probably began in 1379 when theEarldom of Orkney, covering all of theNorthern Isles, passed into the hands ofHenry Sinclair, ofClan Sinclair. Scots had superseded Norse as thelanguage of prestige on Orkney by the early 15th century.[5]
In Shetland, the transition began later, but by the end of the 15th century both island groups werebilingual.[6] Despite this, the process by which Scots overtook Norn as the primary spoken language on the islands was not a swift one,[1] and most natives of Orkney and Shetland probably spoke Norn as afirst language until the late 16th and early-to-mid 17th centuries respectively.[7] One of the last documents written in Norn was for a 1597 mortgage issued over a property belonging to Else, sister ofAnna Throndsen, who had married a Shetland man Andrew Mowat of Heogoland inEshaness.[8]
It is not known exactly when Norn became extinct. Sources from the 17th and 18th centuries speak of Norn (sometimes identified as "Norse", "Norwegian" or "Danish") as being in a state of decline and generally indicate that the language remained stronger in Shetland than in Orkney. A source from 1670 states that there are "only three or four parishes" in Orkney where people speak "Noords or rude Danish" and that they do so "chiefly when they are at their own houses".[9] Another from 1701 indicates that there were still a fewmonoglot "Norse" speakers who were capable of speaking "no other thing", and notes that there were more speakers of the language in Shetland than in Orkney.[9] It was said in 1703 that the people of Shetland generally spoke a Lowland Scots dialect brought to Shetland from the end of the fifteenth century by settlers from Fife and Lothian, but that "many among them retain the ancient Danish Language";[10] while in 1750 Orkney-born James Mackenzie wrote that Norn was not yet entirely extinct, being "retained by old people", who still spoke it among each other.[11]
The last reports of Norn speakers are claimed to be from the 19th century, with some claims of a very limited use up until the early 20th century, but it is more likely that the language was dying out in the late 18th century.[12] The isolated islands ofFoula andUnst are variously claimed as the last refuges of the language in Shetland, where there were people "who could repeat sentences in Norn",[13] probably passages from folk songs or poems, as late as 1894.[14]Walter Sutherland from Skaw in Unst, who died about 1850, has been cited as the last native speaker of the Norn language.However, fragments of vocabulary survived the death of the main language and remain to this day, mainly in place-names and terms referring to nature, mood, and fishing. For example, 'vae'/'voe' (an inlet or small bay) are found in some English dictionaries and are legal words in Scrabble.
Norn had also been a spoken language inCaithness but had probably become extinct there by the 15th century, replaced by Scots.[1] Hence, some scholars also speak about "Caithness Norn", but others avoid this. Even less is known about "Caithness Norn" than about Orkney and Shetland Norn. Almost no written Norn has survived, but what little remains includes a version of theLord's Prayer and aballad, "Hildina". Michael P Barnes, professor of Scandinavian Studies atUniversity College London, has published a study,The Norn Language of Orkney and Shetland.[15]
Songs in Norn survived in the oral tradition long enough to be recorded. In the 1940s and 1950s, John Stickle ofUnst and Kitty Anderson ofLerwick were recorded singing versions of the 'Unst Boat Song' in Norn[16] and theballad of Orfeo with a Norn refrain.[17]
Most of the use of Norn/Norse in modern-day Shetland and Orkney is purely ceremonial, and mostly in Old Norse, for example the Shetland motto,Með lögum skal land byggja 'with law shall land be built', which is the same motto used by the Icelandic police force and inspired by the medieval NorwegianFrostathing Law.
Another example of the use of Norse/Norn in theNorthern Isles can be found in the names of ferries:
The Yell SoundFerry sails fromUlsta on theisland toToft on theShetland Mainland. The service is operated by two ferries,Daggri (Norse for 'dawn'), launched in 2003 andDagalien (Norse for 'dusk'), launched in 2004.[18]
Norn words are still used to describe many of the colour and pattern variations in the native sheep of Shetland and Orkney, which survive as theShetland andNorth Ronaldsay breeds. Icelandic uses similar words for many of the same colour variations inIcelandic sheep.[19]
There are some enthusiasts who are engaged in developing and disseminating a modern form calledNynorn ("New Norn"), based upon linguistic analysis of the known records and Norse linguistics in general.[20]
In 2022 at theGlasgow Royal Concert Hall, as part of the Shetland 550 concert celebrating the 550th anniversary of Shetland becoming Scottish, singer Inge Thompson sang a rendition of a song in Norn.[21]
In 2023 the singer Siobhan Wilson released a song featuring the Norn language.[22]
While this classification is based on the differences between the North Germanic languages at the time they split, their present-day characteristics justify another classification, dividing them into Insular Scandinavian and Mainland Scandinavian language groups based on mutual intelligibility. Under this system, Norwegian is grouped together with Danish and Swedish because the last millennium has seen all three undergo important changes, especially in grammar and lexis, which have set them apart from Faroese and Icelandic.
Norn is generally considered to have been fairly similar to Faroese, sharing many phonological and grammatical traits, and might even have been mutually intelligible with it. Thus, it can be considered an Insular Scandinavian language.
Thephonology of Norn can never be determined with much precision because of the lack of source material, but the general aspects can be extrapolated from the few written sources that exist. Norn shared many traits with the dialects of southwestNorway. That includes a voicing of/p,t,k/ to[b,d,ɡ] after vowels and (in the Shetland dialect but only partially in the Orkney dialect) a conversion of/θ/ and/ð/ ("thing" and "that" respectively) to[t] and[d] respectively.
Norn grammar had features very similar to the other Scandinavian languages. There were twonumbers, threegenders and fourcases (nominative,accusative,genitive anddative). The two main conjugations ofverbs inpresent andpast tense were also present. Like all other North Germanic languages (except West and SouthJutlandic), it used asuffix instead of a prepositionedarticle to indicate definiteness as in modern Scandinavian:man(n) ("man");mannen ("the man"). Though it is difficult to be certain of many of the aspects of Norn grammar, documents indicate that it may have featured subjectless clauses, which were common in the West Scandinavian languages.
Vor fader, du som er i himlene / helliget blive dit navn.
Komme dit rige / ske din vilje
som i himlen således også på jorden / giv os i dag vort daglige brød,
Og forlad os vor skyld / som også vi forlader vore skyldnere,
Og led os ikke ind i fristelse / men fri os fra det onde.
For dit er riget og magten og æren i evighed! Amen.
A Shetland "guddick" (riddle) in Norn, whichJakob Jakobsen heard told onUnst, the northernmost island inShetland, in the 1890s. The same riddle is also known from theFaroe Islands, Norway, and Iceland, and a variation also occurs in England.
The answer is a cow: fourteats hang, four legs walk, twohorns and two ears stand skyward, two eyes show the way to the field and one tail comes shaking (dangling) behind.
^abcJones, Charles (1997).The Edinburgh History of the Scots Language. Edinburgh University Press. p. 394.ISBN978-0-7486-0754-9
^Stenroos, Merja-Riitta et al. (2012).Language Contact and Development around the North Sea. John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 218.ISBN978-90-272-4839-8
^Trudgill, Peter (1984).Language in the British Isles. Cambridge University Press. p. 358.ISBN978-0-521-28409-7
^Trudgill, Peter (1984).Language in the British Isles. Cambridge University Press. p. 361.ISBN978-0-521-28409-7
^Trudgill, Peter (1984).Language in the British Isles. Cambridge University Press. p. 352.ISBN978-0-521-28409-7
^Jones, Charles (1997).The Edinburgh History of the Scots Language. Edinburgh University Press. p. 62.ISBN978-0-7486-0754-9
^Trudgill, Peter (1984).Language in the British Isles. Cambridge University Press. p. 354.ISBN978-0-521-28409-7
^T. Manson, 'Shetland in the Sixteenth Century', inRenaissance and Reformation in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1983), p. 208.
^abMillar, Robert McColl (2007).Northern and Insular Scots. Edinburgh University Press. p. 126.ISBN978-0-7486-2317-4
Barnes, Michael P.The study of Norn Northern Lights, Northern Words. Selected Papers from the FRLSU Conference, Kirkwall 2009.
Barnes, Michael P. "Orkney and Shetland Norn". InLanguage in the British Isles, ed. Peter Trudgill, 352–66. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
Jakobsen, Jakob (1928–1932) [1921].An etymological dictionary of the Norn language in Shetland (2 volumes.). Printed by S. L. Møller, Copenhagen. Foreword by Anna Horsböl, née Jakobsen. Originally published in Danish asEtymologisk ordbog over det norröne sprog på Shetland. Reprinted Lerwick: The Shetland Folk Society, 1985. (1st ed.). Shaftesbury Avenue, London: David Nutt (A. G. Berry). Retrieved30 March 2020 – via archive.org. (part 1 only)
Low, George.A Tour through the Islands of Orkney and Schetland. Kirkwall: William Peace, 1879.
Marwick, Hugh.The Orkney Norn. London: Oxford University Press, 1929.
Rendboe, Laurits. "The Lord's Prayer in Orkney and Shetland Norn 1-2".North-Western European Language Evolution 14 (1989): 77-112 and 15 (1990): 49–111.
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