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1. Introduction
2. Overview
2.1. Shetland (mainland) Norn
2.2. Foula/Westside Norn
2.3. Orkney Norn
3. Norn in Scandinavian classification
3.1. East Scandinavian features in Norn
3.2. West Scandinavian features in Shetland Norn
3.3. West Scandinavian features in Foula/Westside Norn
4. Relations to neighbouring languages
4.1. Orkney Norn vs. South Shetland Norn
4.2. Foula/Westside Norn vs. Faroese
4.3. Foula/Westside Norn vs. Suðuroy, Faroes
4.4. North Shetland Norn vs. Faroese
5. Summary
1. Introduction
1.1. The word 'Norn' originates from the Old Norse word
norrønn
'northern, Nordic' and is normally used for the Scandinavian language
that existed in Orkney and Shetland until the 17-19th
centuries. Occasionally the term 'Norn' is applied to the English
[Scots] dialects that are spoken on the archipelagoes nowadays. This
usage is certainly wrong, although some respectable authors, incl. Hugh
Marwick, admitted the term Norn in this incorrect sense (see f.ex.
Marwick's "Orkney Norn", 1929, p. XXVIII, where he calls the Sanday
author Walter Traill Dennison a "writer of modern Orkney Norn"). So be
careful: if you see a text in "Norn" and it has spellings like tae,
guid, wrang, laek
etc, be sure it is Scots.
1.2. Another stereotype tied with the name of Norn is that it is
often understood to be similar both for Orkney and Shetland. This view
is misleading too, because there were clear distinctions between the
Orkney and Shetland versions of Norn, probably about as noticeable as
the differences between Shetland Norn and Faroese when the former was
still in full use. More than that, there were serious differences, at
least of phonetic nature, in Shetland between the Foula and
Westside/Sandness dialect on the one hand (further: Foula/Westside Norn)
and the rest of the islands on the other hand, differences at some point
larger than between (the rest of) Shetland and Orkney. (We know
practically nothing about dialects of Orkney Norn, if they ever
existed). To sum it up, the name Norn is rather collective and applies
to a group of dialects rather than to any kind of a common language.
However, we reserve the right to use the term Norn as referring to one
language when dialectal differences within Norn are to us of no
importance.
2. Overview of Shetland and Orkney Norn
Further we are going to broadly examine main distinctive features
of Norn and its dialects. Bearing in mind our knowledge of grammar is
limited, we will mostly concentrate on phonetic features. For a
more detailed account see respective sections on Orkney and Shetland
Norn.
2.1. Shetland (mainland) Norn
The main features of Shetland Norn are the following (Norn < Old
Norse or Old Norse > Norn unless specified):
2.1.1. monophtongisation: keipr > keb, greiði > gre(d), haugr
> hjog, høg, hleypingr > løbin; one of the very few exception:
ausa > ous
2.1.2. breaking: baugr > bjog, birtingr > bjartin, fela > fjal,
hnefatak > (*njavatak) > njafatag, nevatjog, er ('is') > yaar (Foula),
ek > yach, barn > bjadn- (Foula)
2.1.3. "reverse" umlaut: brydda > brodd, *flyðra > fluder, lær >
(*lár) > lor, *læringr > (*láringr) > lorin, snælda > (*snálda) >
snolda, sæti > sodi
2.1.4. voicing of stops p,t,k > b,d,g: keikr > kεgǝr, djúpr >
džub, brot > brod
2.1.5. occasional devoicing of voiced stops: bindari > bjintǝr
2.1.6. occasional preaspiration of tt, pp, kk: ba'kk, klai'p
(often absent or, in the case of tt, replaced with
palatalisation, see 2.1.8.)
2.1.7. unvoicing of sonorants (r,l,m,n,ļ,ņ,ng) before
p,t,k: swi'rt, ba'lker, (kett)hu'ntlin; in the case of t often
replaced or followed with palatalisation: klo'ņt/kloi'nt, ho'ņtel;
2.1.8. palatalisation ll,rl > ļļ, nn,rn > ņņ, tt > itt, ţţ,
rather irregular:
- falla > faļļj, fäļļ, ullar- > oļļa, millum > melan, meļļan,
occasionally in the initial (prevocalic) position: fleygja > fļog,
lœkr > log,ljog
- hann > häņņ, brenna > breņņǝk, andi > äņdi, but
banna > bann, occasionally in the initial (prevocalic) position:
nykr > njogel, snykr > snjuger
- gott > goţţ, goitt, kattaklór > käţţiklur, käitaklur;
2.1.9. ð > d, g, 0 (zero), þ > t:
- hlíð > li, lýðr > lø, moeða > mø
- boða > bod, gœðing > gødin, spaði > spadi;
- afráða > afro, afrod; greiði > gre, gred
- Like in Faroese, the old cluster ðr is preserved, but unlike
Faroese where it is often pronounced as [gr], in Shetland Norn it
appears as [dr]: flaðra > fladrǝk, lúðr > ludǝr-,
but hrúðr > rudǝr, rur
- Nevertheless, ð does change to
g in Norn in a number of words: kafaburðr > kavaborg, skrið >
skrid, skrig, leiðvísari > legvisǝr, aða > jog, øg
- þari > tari, þilja > tili, þurkasótt > torkǝsot
- Only in South Shetland (Dunrossness) ð occasionally stayed
preserved as [ð] or [þ]: eið > eð, mið > mið, kóð >
køð,køþ, seiðr > seð,seþ
2.1.10. hv, kv > hw, in North islands (Yell) occasionally to
sw: hvalr > hwal, kví > hwi,kwi, hvammr > swam
2.1.11. kj, skj are normally preserved, same as gj, which
rarely changes to dž, while tj, þj tend to become š:
- kjálki > kjo'lk, skjól >sķul
- gjá > gjo, Nor. gjelg, gjølg > džö'lki
- tjǫrn > šonn, tjaldr > šaldǝr, but vitja > vitš
- þjukkr > šjukk,šok(k)a
2.1.12. The grammar of Shetland Norn, as far as it can be
established from the registered texts, shows most of the features of
Old Norse: 3 genders (male, female, neuter), 4 cases (Nominative,
Accusative, Dative, Genitive), 2 numbers (singular, plural), strong and
weak declensions of verbs etc. However, this old system was already in
decay. The case system was becoming more and more corrupted, cases
started getting mixed, which especially concerns the merging of
Nominative and Accusative forms of nouns and pronouns. This process
likely owed to the influence of Scots which does not distinguish between
both cases. As a result, either the Nominative or Accusative form was
chosen. The Accusative is more frequent in the strong masculine
declension, where it represents the bare stem: ON Nom. hestr,
Acc. hest > Norn hest. The Accusative form is often
present in plural, cf. several toponymes: ON Nom. lœknirnir grœnu,
Acc. lœkina grœnu > Norn L(j)øgena grøna. In the weak
declension both forms are possible. Most of the weak feminine nouns
retained the old Nominative ending -a (in whatever sound form) or
dropped it at all. However, few feminine forms feature the accusative
ending: ilsko < ON Acc. ilsku, Nom. ilska;
grœnsku, grinsko <
ON grœnsku, grœnska, compare also Norw. dial. viku, vuku,
vukku 'week' < ON Acc.
viku, Nom. vika 'week'. (See the Sketch of Shetland Norn
grammar for the more detailed picture). The pronoun system was not left
untouched by the merger of Nominative and Accusative either, as the
language of the Hildina ballad shows: Quirto vult doch fiegan vara
< ON. Hvort vilt þú feigan vera, where doch 'you' <
þig, Acc. þú.
2.2. Foula/Westside Norn
The Foula/Westside Norn inherited many of the above-mentioned
features of Shetland Norn, but had the following unique features:
2.2.1. ON á > wo: á > wo, tár > twor, fá > fwo
2.2.2. Instead of the palatal utterance of ll, nn, the change ll, nn > dl, dn
is present in many cases (where Shetland Norn has ņņ/rn
and ļļ/rl): fall > fadl, bolla- > bodli-, kunnr >
kodn,kodden, horn > hoden
2.2.3. Likewise, the long -tt- is never palatalised and does not
palatalise the preceding vowel.
2.2.4. The initial h- is often omitted: hennar > ednar, henni
> ende, hǿsta > osta
2.2.5. hv,kv > kw (hw): hvalr > kwal, kví > kwi,
hverjum > kvara, hvar > quar (Hildina), but hvítr > whit-, hvern
> whaar (Hildina)
2.2.6. Some pronunciation differences: bjadni
< barn(it), cf. Shetland mainland boņņ.
2.3. Orkney Norn
Data on Orkney Norn is much more scarce in comparison with
Jakobsen's material from Shetland, which can be explained by the fact
that Orkney stood in the frontline of "Scottisation" and lost archaic
Scandinavian features quicker than Shetland Norn by the time the remains
of both were recorded.
2.3.1. Monophtongisation is not complete, some of the old
diphtongs are preserved, albeit in a changed sound quality: geiri >
g[ai]ro, gneisti > n[ai]st, gleyma > misgl[ai]med, naut > nout
2.3.2. Unlike in Shetland, the voicing of intervocal stops is more
consistent: stikill > stiggle, raki > rag, burtu > bordo, kúpa or
koppr > kubby
2.3.3. According to H.Marwick, palatalisation affects only ll,
nn is never palatilised: helli- > hellyiefer, rulla > rullyo.
However, in Marwick's "Orkney Norn" we have found a number of forms that
witness about palatalisation of nn and even ng: for eenyie < hver
er inni 'who is within?' (p. XXVI), grunyie < grunnr, vinya < vinna;
fonyaless < *fǫngulauss, munyo < magn, groyn < grenja. Cf. also Ork.
nitter, Cait. nyatter, of obscure origin.
2.3.4. ð stays in several words: niðra > nither, hroði >
ruithe, bregða > braithin;
2.3.5. The grammar is more simplified, Dative has merged with
Nominative/Accusative: while the Lord's Prayer from Foula has Dative in
fro adlu idlu < frá ǫllu illu 'from all (the) bad', the Orkney version
of the prayer says fro alt ilt, where the last two words
correspond to ON Nom/Acc. allt illt. A specific feature of Orkney
Norn is a big number of originally feminine weak words that have
preserved the accusative form: ON bytta, Acc. byttu >
Norn butto, ON kringla, Acc. kringlu > Norn
kringlo.
2.3.6. Lexical distinctions from Shetland Norn: Ork. soind 'to die slowly' - Shet. soind 'to show', Ork. skrift 'lean, hard-grown' - Shet. skrift 'crack, fissure', Ork. lerblade 'cormorant' - Shet. lorin 'cormorant'.
3. Place of Norn in the classification of
Scandinavian languages
3.1. Traditionally Norn is classified as a West Scandinavian
language. Marius Hægstad, Sophus Bugge and Jakob Jakobsen brought
forward historical evidence in support of that: as they asserted,
Shetland and Orkney were populated mostly from several areas in West
Norway, namely Ryfylke and Jæderen (Stavanger, Rogaland; all included
into the West Scandinavian area). They based this view upon numerous lexical
parallels between the dialects of the mentioned Norwegian regions
and Norn. Michael Barnes supports the West Scandinavian status of Norn
by bringing forward a number of phonetic features of the latter,
although he mostly quotes material from Foula, the dialect of which was
rather specific and the closest to Faroese, an undoubted West
Scandinavian language (see below). But as we believe, the overall amount
of Norn data does not look to us so unambiguously West Scandinavian and
a good deal of East Scandinavian features can also be discovered (most
of them we loosely pick up from Elias Wessen's "De nordiska språken"):
3.1.1. almost complete lack of u-umlaut
3.1.2. monophtongisation, incomplete in Orkney, practically total in
Shetland (see 2.1.1 and 2.3.1)
3.1.3. ó > ú
3.1.4. breaking, which is very widespread (probably as much, as nowhere
else in Scandinavia) and occurs even to short a (see 2.1.2)
3.1.5. breaking in the personal pronoun 1 pers. sg. - ya
(Foula) (although it could well have been a later development, cf. Icel.
ég [jeγ])
3.1.6. palatalisation of ll (incl. Orkney) as well as
nn and tt (Shetland only), unknown in Iceland, Faroes and West
Norway and developped primarily in Trøndelag dialects of Mid-North
Norway (see 2.1.8 and 2.3.3)
3.1.7. the assimilation of the Proto Norse (PN) clusters mp, nt, nþ,
nk
is incomplete: bank/bakk < ON bakki < PN *bankan,
kemp/kepp <
ON keppa < PN *kampijan, but slokk < ON
sløkkva,sløkkja < PN *slankwijan; tann/tant < tǫnn < *tanþu, but munn,monn < ON
munnr < PN *munþaz
3.1.8. vague traces of the ending of reflexive verbs -s:
pinnis (see also 3.2.4.)
3.1.9. a good deal of words having cognates in Swedish dialects (which
did not stay unnoticed by Jakobsen, see his "Etymological
Dictionary...", XXXIV)
Of course, many of these features (especially 3.1.1-5) might have
developed independently of the East Scandinavian influence and be a pure
coincidence. Moreover, we are not aware of specifically large migration
from Denmark to the islands, let alone from Sweden. So most of the above
mentioned East Scandinavian features should be rather explained as the
sum of the internal development of Norn dialects and the external
influence that Scots, Low German, Dutch and Danish may have put on it.
On the other hand, point 3.1.9. cannot be explained as easily and
requires a special investigation.
3.2. Among West Scandinavian features common for Shetland Norn
(incl. Foula/Westside) we mention:
3.2.1. preaspiration (sporadically occurs in Swedish dialects; see
2.1.6)
3.2.2. unvoicing of sonorants (r,l,m,n,lj,nj,ng) before
p,t,k (see 2.1.7)
3.3. Foula/Westside Norn shows an additional number of traits
proper to West Scandinavian dialects:
3.3.1. No palatalization of nn, ll, tt;
3.3.2. rl, ll > dl, rn, nn > dn (see 2.2.2.);
3.3.3. hv > kw (see 2.2.5.);
3.3.4. traces of i-uml. in present indicative: sevǝ < sefr
(J.Jakobsen "Etymological dictionary...", CX),
tega < tekr, du geve < þú gefr, stiendi < stendr, keimir < kemr, genger
< gengr (Hildinakvadet)
Material from the other parts of Shetland is too scarce on this subject
3.3.5. the ending of reflexive verbs is -st: sadnast
< sannast
We should also mention here another form where an older reflexive ending
-sk ( > -st) can be reconstructed in the following
example: helsk < helsask. This form is registered in
Nesting (middle Shetland Mainland) which is geographically adjacent to
Westside.
At the same time, the Foula/Westside dialect, like the rest of
Shetland, has some of the features listed in 3.1, such as
monophtongisation and breaking.
4. Relations to neighbouring Scandinavian languages
As shown above, the Norn dialects were not isolated from
linguistic trends going on in the other Scandinavian languages and
dialects. Although this could have been the result of independent
development, influences from outside were quite possible as well.
Whether certain change comes from inside or outside, is a question where
linguistic theory is often helpless and in this respect Norn is probably
no exception. In this connection it is especially interesting to have a
look at the geography of features that were common within Norn dialects
and with their closest outside cognates, namely Faroese.
4.1. Orkney <-> the southernmost part of Shetland (Dunrossness):
4.1.1 sporadic preservation of ð (see 2.1.8. and 2.3.4.)
4.1.2 several lexical parallels: Ork., Du. ru - Shet. rug < hrúga; Ork. (Birsa) tekkal, South. Shet. (Du., Conn.) tahella, tahellek < *þak-hella - Nor. Shet. ufsahella < ufsahella 'one of the flat stones laid to form the eaves of a house (to prevent rain from penetrating)'
4.2. Foula, Shetland <-> Faroese:
4.2.1. traces of "skerping" (a Faroese term designating
consonantal inserts -gv- and -ggj- after several old long
vowels): ON búa >
Norn buga,
Far. búgva, ON sjór > Norn sheug (rest of Shet.
sju-), Far.
sjógvur
4.2.2. ý > oi (Far. [ωi], where [ω] designates a
sound between [o] and [u]): hýsa > hoissan,
Far. hýsa [hωisa], útýðligr > utoitlig, Fær.
ótýðiligur [öu-tωji-lijωr] (a similar change ý > ui has also
occurred in several West Norwegian dialects, f.ex. that of Setesdalen)
4.2.3. ll, nn > dl, dn (see 2.2.2)
4.3. Foula, Shetland <-> Suðuroy, southernmost Faroese dialect:
4.3.1. Foula yagh 'I' - Suð. [je], Far. eg [e]
4.3.2. Foula mier 'me (dat)' - Suð. [mjer], Fær.
mær [mear]
4.3.3. Foula dagloght (Lord Prayer) - Suð. [daglot, daglωt],
Fær. dagligt [daglit]
4.4. North Shetland Norn (Yell, Unst) <-> Faroese (except Northern Isles):
4.4.1. Shetland: the long ā develops into [åa]: åali 'lamb' - Far. [ɔa] < á: bátur [bɔa:tωR] (except the northern Faroese dialects, which have [bātǝR]).
4.5. The above examples are certainly fairly scarce, and an
exacting reader would suggest that these are sporadic and occasional
similarities, so any further discussions on this subject would be a
waste of time. According to another possible explanation, at some stage,
probably in the 14-15th
centuries when the Norn dialects were still not worn out, they
constituted together with Faroese a common L-complex (a chain of
dialects, where the neighbouring links are linguistically closer to each
other than those further away). This would mean that there were regular
contacts between Orkney and Shetland as well as between Shetland and the
Faroes that kept their neighbouring dialects linguistically close to
each other, despite the large geographical distance in between (approx.
100 km. between Orkney and Shetland and ca. 300 km. between Shetland and
the Faroes). But could there really be so tight a linguistic interaction
across the sea that would allow us to explain the similarities in
question? The seriousness of this question is illustrated by Michael
Barnes who discusses case 4.2.3. as an example of a possible influence
from Faroese. Barnes mentions historical evidence about real contacts
between Shetlanders and Faroese fishermen who used to cast ashore in
Foula and Westside. Nevertheless, the author does not fail to point out
the main drawback of this hypothesis: "It is of course highly improbable
that the arrival of the odd Faroeman would be sufficient to cause
Faroese features to spread among the speakers even of a small island
community using a closely related language" (Michael Barnes "The Norn
Language of Orkney and Shetland", 1998, p. 18)
We would like to point out another drawback of this hypothesis:
the rules for nn > dn (4.2.3.) in Faroese and "Foulese" differ,
so it is highly unlikely that West Shetlanders could have borrowed this
feature from the "odd Faroeman", but found it a different distribution.
In Faroese the change nn > dn occurs only after the old long
i-diphtongs (seinni [sa(i)dni], oynni [o(i)dni]) and new ones
developed from older long vowels (one of the few examples is kvínni
[kvω(i)dni], although it can be explained by analogy). The only
exception where the change occurs after an originally short vowel is the
obscure word tinna [tidna] 'tin'. On the other hand, on Foula and
Westside nn regularly becomes
dn after short vowels: kodn < kunn-, edne < enni, fidna < finna,
ednar < hennar etc. We have not found examples of this change after
the old long vowels, although this does not mean such instances did not
existed. (Of course, we should not forget that this process must have
been overshadowed by monophtongisation, see 2.1.1.). A development
similar to Foula/Westside Norn can be found in several West Norwegian
dialects, f.ex. in West Hordaland, where dn occurs only after the
old short vowels (in the rest of Hordaland dialects it is registered
after the old long vowels: á,ó,í etc. plus diphtongs). Although
West Hordaland belongs to the area from where the immigration to
Shetland is believed to have started, the fact that Foula is the
farthest Shetland point from Norway makes us think this is not a result
of direct influence either.
One could suppose that this feature could have already developed
in the language of the first Norse settlers in Shetland back in the 8th
century and for some odd reasons spread out only in the West of the
archipelago. This point has several weaknesses. On the one hand, it is
highly unlikely that dn could have later developed into nnj
in the rest of Shetland. On the other hand, we certainly have no
evidences which might allow us to date the change nn > dn,
however, its later (=independent) development is typologically not
excluded. For instance, in Iceland this process is believed to have
happened in the 15-16th century (Björn K. Þórólfsson, "Um íslenskar
orðmyndir á 14. og 15. öld" (1925), XXXI), when the country had already
been linguistically isolated from West Norway for centuries. At the same
time the distribution of nn >dn in Icelandic is similar to that
of many Hordaland dialects, occurring after all old long vowels (except
when
nn belongs to the suffigated article). It proves to us that this
phenomenon was not a result of direct linguistic contacts but rather an
independent process in which "pre-conditions" were similar both in
Iceland and in West Norway (and in Faroes as well, although we do not
know in which century this change occured there apart from the fact that
the distribution rules are slightly different in Faroese, see above).
These "pre-conditions" can be interpreted as some kind of a seed that
grew up 5-7 centuries later generating the change nn > dn. What
kind of a seed it could be is to us totally incomprehensible. Why nn
changed to
nnj in the rest of Shetland mainland (and, possibly in Orkney as
well), like in the far away dialects of Trondelag (Norway), is an even
bigger mystery.
To sum up, common traits in related languages or dialects can
witness either co-influence or parallel development from the same
source. This kind of problem arises when dealing with similarities like
those mentioned in 4.1-3., and at this stage we can just say that these
features are still awaiting their linguistic interpretation, of course
unless it will be proved that they are purely accidental.
5. Summary
The term Norn refers not to a monolyte language, but rather to a
group of dialects, which, as we estimate, were three: Orkney, Shetland
and Foula/Westside Shetland (we base this division mostly on their
phonetic features). Being of West Scandinavian origin, they in different
degree developed several features that can be considered as East
Scandinavian, although it does not necessarily mean they occured due to
the direct influence from East Scandinavian languages, as it was rather
a move towards the simplification of the language. We should not
disregard here the external influence from several West Germanic and
Scandinavian languages spoken on the shores of the North Sea (mainly
Scots, but also Norwegian, Danish, Low German, Dutch) that could also have had some
impact, but to what extent this influence could have provoked separate
changes is subject to further investigation.
A several number of common phonetic features between Orkney and
South Shetland, Shetland (esp. Foula) and the Faroes (esp. Suðuroy) is
registered. It can be argued whether these similarities are accidental
or bear witness to linguistic contacts and a co-influence.
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