Norn language Totally Explained

Everything about Norn Language totally explained

Norn is an extinct North Germanic language that was spoken on Shetland and Orkney, off the north coast of mainland Scotland, and in Caithness. After the islands were pawned to Scotland by Norway in the 15th century, it was gradually replaced by Scots over time.

History

It isn't known exactly when Norn became extinct. The last reports of Norn speakers are claimed to be from the 19th century, but it's more likely that the language was dying out in the late 18th century (Price 1984: 203). The more isolated islands of Foula and Unst are variously claimed as the last refuges of the language in Shetland, where at least there were people "who could repeat sentences in Norn" (Price 1984: 204), probably passages from folk songs or poems, as late as 1893. 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 plants, animals, weather, mood, and fishing vocabulary.
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. Next to no written Norn has survived. What remains includes a version of the Lord's Prayer and a ballad. Michael Barnes, professor of Scandinavian Studies at University College London, has published a study, The Norn Language of Orkney and Shetland.

Classification

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, and might even have been mutually intelligible with it.
Few written texts remain but it's accepted to have a common root with Faroese or the Vestnorsk dialects of Norway. It is to be distinguished from the present day 'dialect', termed by linguists Shetlandic.

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 voicing of /p, t, k/ to [b,d, g] before or between vowels and a conversion of /θ/ and /ð/ ("thing" and "that" respectively) to [t] and [d] respectively.

Grammar

The features of Norn grammar were very similar to 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 all other North Germanic languages, it used a suffix instead of a prepositioned article to indicate definiteness as in Danish/Norwegian/Swedish today: man(n) ("man"); mannen ("the man"). Though it's difficult to be certain of much of the aspects of Norn grammar, documents indicate that it may have featured subjectless clauses, which were common in the West Scandinavian languages.

Sample text

The following are Norn and old Norse versions of the Lord's Prayer, a Christian prayer: (External Link

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Orkney Norn: ť Favor i ir i chimrie, / Helleur ir i nam thite,

gilla cosdum thite cumma, / veya thine mota vara gort ť o yurn sinna gort i chimrie, / ga vus da on da dalight brow vora

Firgive vus sinna vora / sin vee Firgive sindara mutha vus, ť lyv vus ye i tumtation, / min delivera vus fro olt ilt, Amen.

Shetland Norn: ť Fy vor or er i Chimeri. / Halaght vara nam dit.

   La Konungdum din cumma. / La vill din vera guerde ť i vrildin sindaeri chimeri. / Gav vus dagh u dagloght brau.

   Forgive sindorwara / sin vi forgiva gem ao sinda gainst wus. ť Lia wus ikè o vera tempa, / but delivra wus fro adlu idlu.

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

Nordic countries Old (West) Norse: ť Faþer vár es ert í himenríki, verði nafn þitt hæilagt

   Til kome ríke þitt, værði vili þin ť sva a iarðu sem í himnum.

   Gef oss í dag brauð vort dagligt ť Ok fyr gefþu oss synþer órar,

   sem vér fyr gefom þeim er viþ oss hafa misgert ť Leiðd oss eigi í freistni, heldr leys þv oss frá ollu illu.

A Shetland "guddick" (riddle) in Norn, which Jakob Jakobsen heard told on Unst, the northernmost island in Shetland, in the 1890s.
The same riddle is also known from the Faroe Islands.

Shetland Norn (Jakob Jakobsen) ť Fira honga, fira gonga,

:Fira staad upo "skø" ť Twa veestra vaig a bee

And een comes atta driljandi.

Faroese ť Fýra hanga, fýra ganga,

:Fýra standa uppí ský ť Tvey vísa veg á bø

Og eitt darlar aftast

English translation ť Four hang, four walk,

:Four stand skyward, ť Two show the way to the field

And one comes shaking behind

Icelandic translation ť Fjórir hanga, fjórir ganga,

:Tveir veg vísa, ť Tveir fyrir hundum verja

Einn eftir drallar, ť sá er oftast saurugur

The answer is a cow. Four teats hang, four legs walk, two horns and two ears stand skyward, two eyes show the way to the field and one tail comes shaking (dangling) behind.

Further Information

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