Norn language

Categories: Medieval languages | North Germanic languages | Orkney Islands | Shetland Islands | History of Scotland

Norn is an extinct North Germanic language that was spoken on the Shetland Islands and Orkney Islands, off the coast of Scotland. After the islands were ceded to the Kingdom of Scotland in the 15th century, its use was discouraged by the Scottish government and the Church of Scotland (the national church), and was gradually replaced by Lowland Scots over time.

It is not known exactly when Norn became extinct. The last report of Norn speakers are claimed to be from the early 19th century, but it is more likely that the language died out sometime during the 18th century at the latest. Fragments of the language and loan-words adopted into the local Lowland Scots and Scottish English survived the death of the main language and remain to this day.

Dialects of Norse had also been spoken on mainland Scotland — for example, in Caithness — but here they became extinct many centuries before Norn died on Orkney and Shetland. 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. Relatively little written Norn has survived. What remains includes a version of the Lord's Prayer, ballads and official documents such as diplomas as well as several rune inscriptions.

Classification and related languages

Norn is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages. Together with Faroese, Icelandic and Norwegian it belongs to the West Scandinavian group, separating it from the East Scandinavian group consisting of Swedish and Danish. More recent analyses divide the North Germanic languages into an Insular Scandinavian and Mainland Scandinavian languages, grouping Norwegian with Danish and Swedish based on mutual intelligibility and the fact that Norwegian has been heavily influenced in particular by Danish during the last millennium and has diverged from Faroese and Icelandic. Norn is generally considered to have been fairly similar to Faroese, sharing many phonological and grammatical traits with this language.

Sounds

The phonology of Norn can never be determined with much precision due to the lack of source material, but the general aspects can be extrapolated from the few written sources that do exist. Norn shared many traits with the dialects of south-west Norway. This includes a devoicing of /p, t, k/ to /b, d, g/ before or between vowels and a reduction of /θ/ and /ð/ ("thing" and "that" respectively) to /t/ and /d/. For unknown reasons the i-mutation so common in Germanic languages (the Umlaut in the singular/plural English "foot" - "feet" and German "Fuß" - "Füße") was not present in Norn.

Grammar

The features of Norn grammar were very similar the other Scandinavian languages. There were two numbers, three genders and four cases (nominative, accusative, genitive and dative). The two main conjugations of verbs in present and past tense were also present and like almost all other Scandinavian languages, it used a suffix instead of a prepositioned article to indicate definiteness as in Danish/Norwegian/Swedish man(n) ("man"), mannen ("the man"). Though it is difficult to be certain of much of the aspects of Norn grammar, documents indicate that it may have featured subjectless clauses, which are common in the West Scandinavian languages.

Sample text

The following are Norn versions of the Our Father (a Christian prayer): [1]

• Orkney Norn:

Favor i ir i chimrie, / Helleur ir i nam thite,

gilla cosdum thite cumma, / veya thine mota vara gort

o yurn sinna gort i chimrie, / ga vus da on da dalight brow vora

Firgive vus sinna vora / sin vee Firgive sindara mutha vus,

lyv vus ye i tumtation, / min delivera vus fro olt ilt, Amen.

• Shetland Norn:

Fy vor or er i Chimeri. / Halaght vara nam dit.

La Konungdum din cumma. / La vill din vera guerde

i vrildin sindaeri chimeri. / Gav vus dagh u dagloght brau.

Forgive sindorwara / sin vi forgiva gem ao sinda gainst wus.

Lia wus ikè o vera tempa, / but delivra wus fro adlu idlu.

For do i ir Kongungdum, u puri, u glori, Amen

References

• Barnes, Michael P. The Norn Language of Orkney & Shetland. Lerwick: Shetland Times 1998. ISBN 1-898852-29-4

Further reading

• Barnes, Michael P. "Orkney and Shetland Norn". In Language in the British Isles, ed. Peter Trudgill, 352-66. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
• Jakobsen, Jakob. An Etymological Dictionary of the Norn Language in Shetland. 2 vols. London/Copenhagen: David Nutt/Vilhelm Prior, 1928-32 (reprinted 1985).
• 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.
• Wallace, James. An Account of the Islands of Orkney. London: Jacob Tonson, 1700.

External links

• Ethnologue report on Nornca:Norn

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