A LANGUAGE ONCE AGAIN
From the days of the Norse Earldom of Orkney until the 1700s, the Norn language could be heard spoken in Orkney. It was related to Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese and the other Scandinavian languages, and traders and travellers sailing from these countries into Kirkwall harbour would be quite easily understood, though the languages became more different to each other over time. In this talk, you will hear what the Norn language was like, with examples of rhymes and verses.
Further north, in Shetland, there were speakers of Norn for much longer than in Orkney. The longest Norn text, the Hildina Ballad, survived in Foula and was written down by the Birsay minister, Rev. George Low, during his Orkney and Shetland tour of 1774. He wrote the verses only, but now musician Barry Nisbet from Yell has reconstructed it for performance, to be sung and danced like a Faroese ring-dance. He gathered together musicians for a first performance in this year’s Shetland Folk Festival, and will perform for us.
Even though the Norn language is now extinct, it has had great influence on Orcadian and Shaetlan as spoken today. Shaetlan is now gaining recognition as a language in its own right, born out of intense contact between Norn, Scots and Low Country Germanic. It is, in the words of a new book about it – “a young language wi aald røts”. One of the authors, Shetland-based linguist Prof. Viveka Vellupillai, tells us about the structures that make it a language in its own right. Dr Ragnhild Ljosland of UHI Orkney shows some avenues of where Shaetlan could be taken next, by comparing with the Nynorsk movement in Norway.
In association with Orkney Heritage Society
“The Language is English in the Scotch Dialect, with more of the Norwegian than any other Accent; these Islands having formerly been a Province of Norway, of which they still retain some of the Customs, and a little of the Language, which they call Noren, much the same with what is presently spoken in Iceland and the Faro Islands. Thirty or Forty years ago this was the language of two parishes in Pomona Island; since which, by the Means of Charity-Schools, it is so much wore out, as to be understood by none but old People; and in thirty years more, it is probable, will not be understood there at all.”
“So late as 1756 or 1757, as a respectable native of this country was travelling from Kirkwall to Birsa, he heard two old men for an hour or more converse together in an unknown language; which, on enquiry, he found was the Norse language. … For many years past it has been almost entirely forgotten, except in one parish in the heart of the Mainland, where the people are said, till of late, to have retained some acquaintance with it … Here it now exists only in a few vulgar and obsolete words, and in the names of men and places.”
