Jakob Jakobsen

“ The unscrupulous way in which the Islands were treated during the time that they belonged to Scotland (and after Scotland and England were united the connection of the Islands with that country was particularly close) , has kept alive in the minds of the people an ill-will towards Scotsmen and everything Scottish, an ill-will which, however, during the last fifty years has steadily decreased, and which, as a result of the closer intercourse established in the 19th century, has now almost entirely disappeared. ”

“ The Shetland Isles became a province of Norway in King Harald Fairhair’s time, and belonged to that country till 1469, when King Christian I of Denmark and Norway (which countries had shortly before been united) pledged the Isles, together with the Orkney Islands, to Scotland as security for the dowry he had undertaken to provide on the occasion of the marriage of his daughter Margaret to King James III of Scotland. ”

“ As a rule the substantives, denoting visible things, inanimate objects and living beings, have lasted longer (especially the words that denote species, while the words that denoted the genera embracing those species, have been lost) , names of implements, household utensils; and this, of course, naturally applies to such things as stand in close connection with the daily life and activities of the people. ”

“ The dance is described by Low in his “Tour thro’ Orkney and Shetland”, written in 1774 (first published in Kirkwall in 1879 by Joseph Anderson) : ...“There is one species of dance, which seems peculiar to themselves [i.e. the Shetlanders] , in which they do not proceed from one end of the floor to the other in a figure, nor is it after the manner of a Scottish reel; but a dozen or so form themselves into a circle, and taking each other by the hand, perform a sort of circular dance, one of the party all the while singing a Norn visick. ”

“ 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) . ”