Even as late as 1774 Low, who was a Scot, could say of the Shetlanders: “Most of their tales are relative to the history of Norway; they seem to know little of the rest of Europe but by name; Norwegian transactions they have at their fingers’ ends”.
The social and economic subjection of the peasantry of Shetland is hastening the breaking up of the Norn speech in the Islands, and its blending with Lowland Scottish.
As far back as the time of Earls Robert and Patrick Stewart, the intruded Scottish element in the population had become very marked. The long lists of names to be found in the complaints of the people against Earls Robert and Patrick, lists given in extenso by David Balfour, exhibit a very considerable number of Scottish ones. By the separation from Denmark and Norway, the small Shetland population had become intellectually and linguistically isolated, a circumstance that was bound to weaken very much their power of resistance to the persistent Scottish influence. Bit by bit, the peasantry began to think it genteel to adopt Scottish words and modes of expression, and to feel ashamed of the old homely words, which they gradually came to look upon as lacking authority and justification. Moreover, once the development had taken this line, things went so far that in the eyes of many people the use of the pure old dialect was a mark of defective breeding. In the 17th century the perversion of the Norn had begun; but it was not till about 1700 that it made much progress.
It may perhaps be of interest to see what older writers on Shetland have to say about the language of the Islands.
Brand in his “Description of Orkney, Zetland, etc.” (1701) says that “English is the Common Language among them [sc. the people of Shetland] yet many of the People speak Norse or corrupt Danish, especially such as live in the more Northern Isles, yea so ordinary it is in some places, that it is the first Language their Children speak” (ed. 1703, p. 69). — Martin, in his “Brief Description of the Isles of Orkney and Schetland” (1703) says of the inhabitants of Mainland that “they generally speak the English tongue, and many among them retain the ancient Danish Language, especially in the more Northern Isles” (pp. 383—4); and he writes similarly of the natives of Orkney (p. 369)
When older writers mention “English” as having been spoken in Shetland in the 18th century, the term must be understood to mean Lowland Scottish, the spoken language in Scotland developed from Northern English. A. J. Ellis, in “The existing Phonology of English Dialects”, part V of “Early English Pronunciation”, regards the present Shetland dialect as belonging to the northern branch of Lowland Scottish. But Lowland Scottish cannot have been spoken in Shetland generally, instead of Norn[1], so early as 1700.
- ↑ This term, which is used by the people (along with the term “Norse”), and which is an abbreviation of Norrøna, denotes, in the following pages, the old Shetlandic dialect.
