Norn

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Norn (or Norroena or Orkney and Shetland Norn) is the name given to the Germanic language spoken in Shetland and Orkney during the Norse era and later. It is derived from the Viking Language of Old Norse (also called Old Icelandic) and is therefore cognate with (especially) Faroese, and Icelandic, Norwegian and the other Scandinavian languages. Our knowledge of Norn derives from a ballad, and oral fragments recorded just as the language was facing extinction, and after its death.

Orkney and Shetland Norn declined as a result of the growing strength of Scots and eventually English. English was used in Church, and became the language of prestige, while Orkney and Shetland Norn was increasingly associated with poverty. It declined rapidly, first in Orkney and subsequently in Shetland. The last areas where it was spoken were outlying parts of the Shetland archipelago such as Foula and Unst, where it could be found into the late 18thC.

The texts which survive include the Hildina Ballad, the only substantial text in the language and one which has some literary qualities, the Lord's Prayer, and a few short verses and fragments.

Norn is to be distinguished from the present day Shetland 'dialect' of English, termed by linguists Modern Shetlandic Scots. The philologist Jakob Jakobsen discovered that much of Norn vocabulary was retained in Shetland and used alongside Scots and English. Even today, names of birds, flowers and other common nouns used in Shetland dialect often have a Norn root, while the overwhelming majority of place-names are Norn derived. The linguistic development in Shetland may be contrasted with that in Faroes and Orkney. In Faroes the Norn-derived language survived (though modified by Danish), so that today the Faroese speak a language very similar to that brought by the Vikings. In Orkney, Norn was lost, and while some vocabulary remained in the Orkney dialect of English, that is far less than is the case in Shetland. The linguistic development in Shetland is unusual - the volume of vocabulary preserved is remarkable.

Michael Barnes, emeritus professor of Scandinavian Studies at University College London, has published a history, The Norn Language of Orkney and Shetland, in which he sets out a clear account of Norn in Orkney and Shetland and disposes of some myths about it.

As recently as 2006 the Foula Community website posted a fragment of Norn not previously recorded. It is within the bounds of possibility that even today somewhere on Shetland someone remembers a child's rhyme or a grandparents' phrase which is a snippet of this largely lost language.