# An Etymological Dictionary of the Norn Language in Shetland/Introduction/III

III.
The old Norse speech of Shetland shows in its vocabulary a close connection with the mother-tongue, Norwegian, a closer connection than that shown by Icelandic and partly by Færoese with the same language, the common mother-tongue of them all. This circumstance has a natural explanation in the fact that Shetland was situated so much nearer to Norway. Certainly the political connection between the Islands and Norway was severed by the mortgaging of the Islands to Scotland in the 15th century; but a close intercourse between Norway and Shetland was maintained for several centuries after that, especially through the trade connection with Bergen, while the connection with Scotland was very slight, even down to the 19th century.
The Shetland speech of the present day must be reckoned as falling under that northerly branch of Northern English which is called Lowland Scottish. Most of the words generally used in daily speech, as well as most of the inflectional forms, are Lowland Scottish. But the dialect of Shetland is saturated with an old Norse element, the numerous relics of the language formerly spoken in the Islands, the so-called Norn, which had been in use there since the Islands were peopled by the Northmen in the Viking-age, and partly in the period just preceding the Viking-age proper (800—1000), i. e. from the close of the so-called ancient Norse period till well into the 18th century. Then, Norn, after more than three hundred years of steadily increasing influence from Lowland Scottish, had become so strongly impregnated with the latter speech, that, except in possibly some outlying quarters of the Islands, it could no longer really be called Norn.
Of the words of Norn origin, more than ten thousand in number, that I succeeded in collecting in Shetland, not more than half can be said to be in general use at the present time. The other half may be divided, in the main, into the following two classes: 1) those words that have survived only in single districts or in single islands, and 2) those obsolete words that are only known, and occasionally used, by old people. Since my first and longest itinerary in the Islands, 1893—95, the number of obsolete words has steadily and uninterruptedly increased on account of the fact that since that time a great many people of the older generation have passed away, and a great part of their vocabulary has not been picked up by the younger generation.
Of the Norn words that are not in general use throughout ​Shetland, some belong to certain larger portions of the Islands, as, for example, North Shetland, more strictly, the North Isles; the Westside; South Shetland; but many are limited to a single district or to a single island.
Of the great mass of words that have become antiquated, some cannot be said to have perished, as they are still used by old people, though often only in certain islands, districts or neighbourhoods; they are not to be heard in the speech of younger people. Other words are remembered only by elderly people, as having been used, at an earlier time, by their parents and grand-parents. A third and smaller group consists of the words that old people can remember being used only on certain occasions. Finally, there are the words that are known only through old writings, or lists of words.
Very many words that are current, or to some extent so, are used in different senses in different places; see, for example, aber, adj., one of the first words in the Dictionary.
The Shetland Norn is, in a lexical sense, specially allied with the dialects in the south-west of Norway, from Bergen to Mandal in the west, with Telemarken and Smålenene in the south. This becomes obvious on a closer examination of the localities given in connection with the words contained in the Norwegian dictionaries of Aasen and Ross.
Aasen’s stock of words is fairly evenly distributed over the different parts of Norway, in such a way, however, that the parts of the country lying farthest to the south-west are rather weakly represented. Such being the case, it is fortunate that the south-west of Norway is strongly represented in Ross’s large dictionary, which appeared as a supplement to Aasen’s.
Even taking into account the circumstance that some of the words recorded by Aasen, and particularly by Ross, as belonging to the south-west of Norway, are also to be found or were formerly to be found in other parts of Norway, the character of the word-material in the Shetland Norn points so decisively to the south-west of Norway, that one can conclude that the Shetland Islands were peopled to an altogether preponderating extent from these parts: the stretch of country from Bergen down to Lister and Mandal. The centre-point of this Norwegian emigration to Shetland in ancient times was Agdesiden (Jæderen, Dalene). To this part of the country, and the parts lying nearest to it, one can refer by far the largest number of those words in the Shetland Norn vocabulary that are not of a general Norwegian character.
Although Ross’s dictionary is a supplement to Aasen’s, it also contains, in addition to a more exact account of words given by Aasen, a very important independent stock of words, with explicit reference to the localities concerned. This weighty supplement has been of great value in connection with my investigations into Shetland Norn, and that in a double sense.
Very many of the Norn words in the Shetlandic are of an insignificant character and apparently of a lower class, half-comic, ​sometimes bantering, sometimes derisive, mere dialect-words. The greater number of these are verbs referring to the behaviour and manner of people, their walk and movements, in many shades of meaning, especially with a dash of the comic, silly or awkward manner, peculiar or clumsy way of acting or moving; besides words, especially adjectives, that denote various states of mind, singularity, peevishness, etc.
Words of this class are to be found in all sub-languages, but in Shetland Norn they are specially numerous. While large portions of the vocabulary of this speech have been lost, words of the class just mentioned have maintained themselves in use in an unaltered form on account of their deeply-rooted homely character. In many instances, it would have been difficult to find equivalent words in Lowland Scottish to take their places.
This vocabulary of lighter or lower words is one of the fields in which Ross supplements Aasen in the most copious way, and affords excellent assistance in fixing both the close connection of Shetland Norn with Norwegian in general, and its special kinship with the Norwegian of the south-west.
In view of the fact that the Old Norse element surviving in the Shetland dialect is so rich and varied, it cannot surprise one to find, mingled with the Norn or Old Norwegian element which is the kernel of the language, a large number of words that are only known as Færoese, Icelandic, Danish or Swedish. In most cases such words have probably been at one time common to all the Northern languages.
In some cases, however, those old Shetland words, that are not to be found in Norwegian, seem to have been borrowed later from other Northern languages, especially from Danish.
It is not only in a merely statistical sense, that is, by reckoning the number of the words, that Shetland Norn shows a closer connection with the language of the south-west of Norway or of the south of Norway than with the other Norwegian dialect-groups.
A comparison based exclusively on an estimate of the number of the words would be of a somewhat casual character. Many of the words now recorded only in the Norwegian of the south or south-west might indeed, at an earlier period, have been in use in the more northerly parts of the country, in which parts perhaps there are to be found, here and there, words that have simply not been brought to light, or noted in the dictionaries. In this connection, however, it may be pointed out that the Norwegian dialects have been thoroughly and in equal measure investigated in almost all parts of the country. If Aasen’s dictionary does not contain enough of the vocabulary of the south-west of Norway, this defect has been remedied in Ross’s dictionary, where the vocabulary of the south-west of Norway is copiously dealt with, though not more so than the dialects of the other parts of the country. From this it is evident that in both dictionaries considerable attention has been paid to the northern parts of the country.
​A conclusion drawn only from the number of the words would not be sufficient to prove the affinity between Shetland Norn and the speech of the south-west or south of Norway, unless there was an unusually great preponderance of words from the south and south-west of Norway in the Shetland dialect. When I have, nevertheless, so decidedly asserted the close connection of Shetland Norn with the speech of the south-west of Norway, I have done so for more than one reason.
In the first place, the preponderance in the number of the words from south-south-west Norway, in Shetland Norn, is large enough to make it possible to form a definite idea as to the quarter from which the Norse inhabitants of the Islands, in the main, have come. The number of the words belonging quite specially to the south-south-west corner of Norway and to the most southerly portion of the country, Telemarken and Smålenene, to be found in Shetland Norn, is greater than the number of the words from all the other parts of Norway put together. But to this is still to be added an important circumstance, namely the kind of the words, to which one must pay as much attention as to their number. Investigation into the nature of the Norwegian vocabulary in the Shetlandic makes it evident that most of such words as are characteristic of the northern parts of Norway are not strongly-marked dialect words, but are rather words of a general character. Several of them are to be found in other Northern languages also: Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, Færoese. Of the words from the north of Norway to be found in the Shetlandic one may specially adduce such as refer to fishing and occasionally to the weather.
A portion of the vocabulary peculiar to the dialects of the east of Norway also is found in Shetlandic, words of a mixed character.
As regards, on the other hand, the large element of the south-south-west Norwegian in Shetlandic, a very large proportion of the vocabulary consists of strongly-marked dialect words, words that have deeply impressed on them the stamp of domestic use. By far the greater number of the so-called ‘lower’ words, the numerous words denoting foolish or awkward appearance or walk, everything peculiar or ludicrous, whims, fretfulness, ill-nature, etc., which are distinctly domestic words — the great majority of these are words that especially belong to the south-west corner of Norway, particularly to Jæderen, Ryfylke, Lister and Mandal, and to some extent also to the most southerly parts of the country, Telemarken, Sætersdal. Such words are of special significance when the vocabulary of a dialect is examined for the purpose of comparison.
The fact that some words of the class here mentioned are found again in the Norwegian of the east, or of the north, cannot in any way shake the main proportion just pointed out, and the conclusion that one is forced to draw from it.
Next to the Norwegian of the south-west and of the adjacent southerly parts of the country, the Norwegian of the south-east is the dialect group that is most fully represented in Shetland Norn. In ​particular, many words peculiar to the south-east corner of the country, Smålenene, are found again in Shetlandic. This also is of significance in an investigation of the origin of the Shetland Norn. A wave of migration from these south-easterly parts of Norway went in a westerly and north-westerly direction out to the sea, and then from the south-westerly parts of the country a stream of immigrants went farther to the westward, to the Shetland and Orkney Isles.
One fact that plays a part in an investigation regarding the original homes of the Shetland settlers has still to be mentioned, and that is, that along with the Norn kernel in the Shetland dialect there are to be found many words that are peculiar to Danish and Danish dialects and not to Norwegian. Some of these words appear also in Swedish dialects.
A few of these Danish words in Shetlandic can be shown to be later loan-words, and several of them certainly came in during the fifteenth century, especially after Norway had become united with Denmark, and Danish began to force its way into the speech. The Danish vocabulary in Shetlandic is, however, relatively large and of weight, and contains not a few strongly-marked old dialect words, so there certainly must be an original or, at all events, very old Danish element in Shetlandic. Some of the words may have been in use, in ancient times, both in Denmark and in southern Norway. Altogether, the occurrence of the Danish element in Shetlandic strengthens the conviction, reached on other grounds, that the central point for the emigration to Shetland is to be sought in the south-west and south of Norway.
There are also to be found a not insignificant number of words that have parallels only in Swedish dialects. But, as regards the localisation of these Swedish dialect words, investigation gives a very variegated picture, although, in this case also, the central point falls in the south. It may be remarked that a Shetland word such as bends, pl., pack-horse equipment, seems to have a parallel only in Northern Swedish, Helsingland, where “bände, bänne”, according to Rietz, are found used in a similar sense. The word is also found, indeed, in other parts of Sweden, but with other meanings.
In this connection, special notice must be taken of the Shetlandic place-names in relation to the Norwegian. In a linguistic investigation as to the parts of Norway from which the Shetland settlers came, it is necessary to take the place-names into account, in such a manner that, on the one hand, the names from the different parts of Norway shall be examined and compared, in order to find out the peculiarities of each individual part, and that, on the other hand, the Norwegian and Shetlandic names shall be compared, in order to discover with what Norwegian place-names the Shetlandic place-names best agree.
The Norwegian settlers in Shetland would, where they did not adopt the names in use by the earlier Celtic inhabitants, give new place-names in harmony with use and wont in their original homeland, and, in many instances, they would certainly call places in their new homeland by old Norwegian names. It is not possible to ​undertake any exhaustive comparison, as no complete work on Norwegian place-names is available. But there is a very comprehensive production covering part of the field, the large work entitled “Norske Gaardnavne”, begun by O. Rygh, and continued by others after his death. A very large number of place-names enter into “gaard-” or farm-names as parts of a compound, and this affords a good opportunity for investigation with a view to comparison.
A closer observation shows, again in this case, that it is the south-westerly and southerly parts of Norway with which Shetland most fully agrees. It is not the names, formed by indifferent combinations of ordinary words, with which one is here concerned, but more peculiar names; partly such uncompounded names containing well-known roots little used in place-names; partly compounds of a rare or special kind; partly, and especially, such ancient names as are formed from words the meanings of which have been lost, even as long ago as the beginning of the historical period, and are not met with in the literature of that time.
The central point for the comparison, then, is again in the south of Norway. On a comparison of words and a comparison of names there appears merely the difference that, while words belonging to the east, and especially to the south-east of Norway, are found in Shetlandic in a not inconsiderable number, the place-names of the east, and especially of the south-east, of Norway are rather more conspicuous in Shetland. A wave of immigrants went, in prehistoric times, from the parts of the country round about and to the north of Viken (Christiania-fjord), across the land in a westerly and north-westerly direction, and a part of it later passed farther west over the North Sea to the islands (in Vesterleden), while a part went afterwards still farther west to the islands lying to the north of Scotland. The Orkney place-names show, in spite of local differences, an origin similar to that of the place-names of Shetland. One must suppose that some of the names from the south-east of Norway that appear in Shetland and the Orkney Isles also hailed, in older times, from the south-west of Norway, which was the connecting link between the south-easterly parts of the country and the islands in the west. Some of the names from the south-east of Norway may have come in a more direct way, through inhabitants of Viken and the surrounding parts of the country having taken part in viking expeditions to the west, and through some of them having settled in Shetland and the Orkney Isles.
Though Shetland Norn stands nearer to Modern Norwegian than is the case with Færoese and Icelandic, it occupies, nevertheless, an independent position in regard to Norwegian (in the narrower sense). Phonetically, Shetland Norn has gone its own way in several respects, and Scottish-English influence has played its part in altering it from the mother-tongue. And, as far as the vocabulary is concerned, there are a great many Shetland Norn words that in meaning and use differentiate themselves from Norwegian (Færoese, Icelandic), both modern and ancient. Most of the significations ​peculiar to Shetland Norn have, no doubt, been developed in the Islands themselves, some in ancient times, others only more recently, but many certainly go back to the original language.
Stress may be laid upon the numerous compounds, that are characteristic of Shetlandic.
Sometimes there are to be found, preserved in Shetland Norn, meanings of words more primitive than in other Northern languages, occasionally more primitive even than those that have come down to us in the Old Northern literature.
In the next place there are, in the Shetlandic, some words originating from prehistoric Norse [ur-nordisk], words that are lost in Old Norse itself, although the stems have been preserved in other words belonging to this language. Note the peculiar use in Shetlandic of O.N. annarr, second, and annarhvárr, every second one, used in Foula and Yell respectively, in sense of alternating, alternately, of sea and wind or rain, in the words adnasjur, adnakwi, annehwart and *atrahola [*aðrahvára], all ancient.
aber, adj., is used in Shetl. in numerous meanings.
bjog has several different meanings in Shetl., all pointing back to the root-meaning ring, O.N. baugr. The word has been lost in Norwegian and Færoese.
dokka is still occasionally used in Shetl. (U.) in its original sense: girl. In O.N. only handed down in derived senses.
firsmo, vb., still occasionally used in an original sense: to diminish. O.N. fyrirsmá, vb., to despise; -scorn.
raga, sb., woman, now only used in a few combinations, and only disparagingly. It is certainly a very old word. From O.N., only ragr, adj., is known, womanish, cowardly.