Talk:Norn language

matthew

Here is a version of Matthew 6:9-13 in Modern Faroese from 1961 (after Jacob Dahl and Kristian Osvald Viderø), but maybe the older one is better in the article...

Faðir vár, tú sum ert í himlunum! Heilagt verði navn títt;

komi ríki títt, verði vilji tín

sum í himli so á jørð;

gev okkum í dag okkara dagliga breyð;

og fyrigev okkum skuldir okkara,

so sum vit fyrigeva skuldarum okkara;

og leið okkum ikki í freistingar; men frels okkum frá tí illa.

Source: http://www.bibelselskabet.dk/farbib/web/matt/6b.htm

Arne List 12:02, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

efforts to revive norn?

Are there any reports of efforts to revive Norn? With the succesful revivals of Manx and Cornish in mind, and recent attemps to revive even Cumbrian, I can hardly believe no one yet has tried to revive Norn as well.--Caesarion 13:20, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I am interested in in Old Germanic languages, but I have never heard of Norn before (may be because of the extinction of the langauge without any continuence.

There is this one -> http://www.shetlink.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2316&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 Dylansmrjones (talk) 15:27, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

With the extant Norn being so little, I doubt much could be done to revive it. You'd basically take the little that is known, compare it to Faeroese, and then assume every difference represents a sound change between the two and extend it over all the Faeroe vocabulary. What you'd get would be of dubious heritage indeed. If any in Shetland want to revive/preserve a language they'd better focus on modern Shetlandic Scots. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.11.81.111 (talk) 06:13, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

further texts?

Are there any further texts availabe in Norn on-line?

Laurentius

Ceded

"After the islands were ceded to the Kingdom of Scotland in the 15th century". Ceded by Denmark I presume. Laurel Bush 11:01, 31 May 2005 (UTC).

No, they were Norwegian possessions and pawned to Scotland by the king of Norway. The confusion has arisen because at the time the king of Denmark was also the king of Norway (see Kalmar Union). -- Nidator ^{T / C} 14:54, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Cheers. I believe now however that they were anexed by but never officially ceded to Scotland. Laurel Bush (talk) 11:27, 8 January 2008 (UTC).

Yes, they were not ceded. The king of Norway, Christian I, "pawned" the islands to the king of Scotland as security for dowry payments towards his daughter Margaret's marriage to the very same king of Scotland. The Scottish/British position is that they were annexed some time later, but I understand that this is a touchy issue in the islands. -- Nidator ^{T / C} 14:37, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Last speaker

This story says, of an inhabitant of Skaw, "A former resident, Walter Sutherland, was reputedly the last man to speak Norn, the archaic Scandinavian language.". How much credence should we give this? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:08, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Very little, judging from Barnes' The Norn language of Orkney and Shetland. At best, there might've been some older speakers of Scots with plenty of Norn vocabulary and grammar in the 1840s, but not anything that could be considered proper Norn.

Peter ^Isotalo 21:32, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

As we know from the story of Tuone Udaina, as well as various other examples such as Irish dialects, individual speakers can survive the general extinction of a language for many decades. Exceptionally long-lived individuals with a keen interest in language who pick the language up from their parents even if they did not talk to their children in it, and then preserving the memory of the language (and not just set texts, fixed formulæ and songs) for many decades despite never speaking it anymore through all those years; such cases are very real. So we shouldn't be too quick to rule the possibility out. Also, if I'm not mistaken, we do not actually know when Norn was truly moribund even in the remotest corners of Shetland. It's just a mere assumption that it was moribund everywhere already in the late 18th century; give or take (rather give, in this case) a few decades for this and that nook and cranny, and it becomes plausible. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 05:29, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Devoicing?

Quoth the article:

This includes a devoicing of /p, t, k/ to /b, d, g/ before or between vowels

Does this mean "a voicing of" , or "of /b d g/ to /p t k/"? I expect the former is more likely, but wish to confirm. —Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ) 13:42, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

trying to learn more about norn

i've being studying the germanic peoples, cultures, and languages for several years now, but finding information on norn has been rather frustrating. Gringo300 04:09, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Phonology + originally Scottish lands?

"This includes a voicing of /b, d, g/ to /p, t, k/ before or between vowels..."

Shouldn't this be the other way round? When /p t k/ change to /b d g/ they are 1) softened and 2) voiced. This found in Danish, Scanian, southernmost Norway ('soft coastal strip') and southern Iceland (including Reykjavík).

Secondly, it could better be called softening as these sounds in some languages (e.g. Standard Danish and Icelandic) developed further and lost their voicing but are still soft. In Norwegian and Swedish /b d g/ are often described as semi-voiced. In most, maybe all Germanic languages voicing of /b d g/ is less energetic than in the Romance, Slavic and other languages. Thus, softening is the more important feature.

Shouldn't it rather be "after or between vowels"?--213.236.196.39 (talk) 22:50, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

"After the islands were returned to Scotland by Norway in the 15th century..."

That the islands were in fact originally Scottish is an interesting fact I never heard of though I do know Orkney was inhabited by picts. Scandinavian history usually makes more of a point of the Norse ancestry. (I am a Dane.) Need to see what the main Shetland and Orkney articles say about this. --213.237.69.51 03:54, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Norse or Norn

3rd § : "Norse." Isn't this a mistake instead of "Norn" ? 213.56.242.237 07:31, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

If you read the full paragraph, you'll find that the classification of these mainland variants as 'Norn' is disputed. I assume that dialects of Norse should be interpreted roughly as spoken variants, derived from Old Norse, and like other western such spoken forms (outside Island, where the development was rather more conservative) to some extent developing in parallel with mainland variants, which today are classified as dialects of Norse. (It is often a trouble to decide what is a dialect and what is a separate language.) Therefore, I think the present formulation is quite OK. JoergenB 10:15, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

When did Norn become Norn?

Is there any period in which it can be said to have ceased to be Old Norse, and become Norn? --MacRusgail 23:43, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

That is a good question, and I have been wondering about that myself. I imagine that there was a fuzzy line between being just another Norwegian dialect and a separate language, and it really is a matter of definition. As I understand it the word "norrœnn" (Old Norwegian, etc.) is the origin for both "norn" (norrœnn ... norn) and the Modern Norwegian "norsk" (norrœnn -> nornskr -> norsk). -- Nidator ^{T / C} 18:18, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Caithness Norn/Modern Caithness Dialect

The modern Caithness dialect contains several words which are presumably remnants of Norn - the two which leap most obviously to mind are til (meaning "to", an Old Norse word), and Thorsa (for "Thurso", reflecting the Old Norse name). Has anybody ever examined this link? Is it worth mentioning somewhere in the article? Lianachan (talk) 13:04, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Scots is full of Norse loanwords, even more so than English is. It would be very difficult to prove that these words in Caithness Scots are derived specifically from the barely attested Caithness Norn rather than from general Old Norse. —Angr 13:32, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Very true, yes - however in my experience many aspects (including the two examples I gave) are unique to the Caithness dialect, rather than Scots in general. Is there a significant difference between an Old Norse survivor and a Norn one, given that Norn will have essentially evolved from Old Norse anyway? Is it not, in any event, worthy of menion as a curiousity? Lianachan (talk) 13:56, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, whatever you want to add has to be backed up by a source anyway, so it depends what the source says. If the source calls it a Norse loanword, we can't say it's specifically from Caithness Norn, but if the source says it's from Caithness Norn, we can. —Angr 15:14, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

A lack of what Wiki would accept as a source is why I originally asked if anybody had examined the link. All I have firmly to go on is the evidence of my ears (living in Caithness, having lived all over the Highlands & Islands) and my knowledge of Old Norse, history and language. This is what's stopped me just putting stuff in, as it would no doubt just be removed anyway. Lianachan (talk) 15:36, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

The preposition "til" is used in other Scots dialects as well ("Gang til the kirk") as more or less interchangable with "tae". Is it not more likely that this word is a general Scots word taken from Norse? Secondly, the langauge shift pattern was Norn - Gaelic - Scots, not Norn - Scots in any case. TG

GALLOWAY AREA

In the 1970's I met a lady in Marangu Tanzania called Margorie McKinnon, whose father was a renown Gallic speaker. She taught at a school in the 1930's in south-west Scotland - I think it was the Galloway area. She said she needed a class interpreter because the children spoke a Norse dialect not Gallic. She gave me an example of when she said "Tommy,wipe your nose," the child did not understand and the class interpreter said "Tammie, dik yer neb." In 2006 I was at an airport in Germany and met some Norwegians. I told them the story and they burst out laughing because they said the phrase had the same meaning in modern Norwegian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ntsukunyane Mphanya (talk • contribs) 05:24, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

That's not especially Norse (or Galloway dialect), though. "Dicht yer neb" (with a "-t" in the first word) is pretty general Scots, and Tam/ Tammie is common all over Scotland. - TG

There are two official Norwegian languages, bokmål and nynorsk, as well as many dialects actively spoken. Many of the latter lie surprisingly close to the languages of the British isles, so the similarity is not so remarkable. — Robert Greer (talk) 18:01, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Deleted frivolous link

There was an unrelated link in the first section that lead people to some central African language which has nothing to do with Norn. I deleted it.--Napkin65 (talk) 21:48, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

THIS LINK: *Norn Language Webpage, Hildina Ballad is invalid, deleted it! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.79.53.249 (talk) 20:33, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Sample text

I just fixed the sample texts so that the dashes and such fit with each other. It should be noted that they may seem very different, but that is also because they are separate translations, with different choices in expression having been made. They could had been a lot more similar, if cognate words had been used. FunkMonk (talk) 03:28, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Inconsistency?

The article makes two claims:

1. "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; thus, it can be considered an Insular Scandinavian language."

2. "Norn shared many traits with the dialects of south-west Norway."

I should first point out that neither of these claims seem to be sourced. Where are they from?

Furthermore, this is inconsistent. Is Norn closer to Faroese or South-west Norwegian? If it shares many traits with the dialects of south-west Norway, how can we justify classifying it as Insular Scandinavian when the dialects of south-west Norway are classified as Mainland Scandinavian? Presumably, the features it shared with SW Norwegian are somehow different from the features it shared with Faroese.

The article also claims that Norn shared many grammatical and phonological features with Faroese. What is the basis for this claim? What is the source? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.107.74.246 (talk) 21:42, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Use of ingressive pulmonic speech?

(Note:cross-posted at Talk:Shetland Scots) Please see:

• Pulmonic ingressive speech in the Shetland Isles: Some observations on a potential Nordic relic feature

Mais oui! (talk) 03:38, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Citations

Can we get a lot more citations? It would be easy to put in a lot of of {citation needed} - but not so constructive. --Madglad (talk) 04:28, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Is the language exctinct?

I notice the John O' Groats and Caithness Journal states "But in 2010, UNESCO announced that its former classification of the language as “extinct” was “no longer accurate”." However, I can't easily find a source directly from UNESCO (or elsewhere) that backs this up. Can anyone else find one? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:06, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

The modern revival movement

https://nornlanguage.x10.mx/index.php?shet_txt_rest https://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk/news/bower-author-helping-norn-become-the-norm-133561/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Judeobasquelanguage (talk • contribs) 01:28, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Yes, you added these links to your edits and they do not support your assertions. Stop editing until you have explained yourself and provided sources which actively support your assertions without WP:OR or WP:SYNTH until a consensus is reached. Per WP:BRD, you were Bold, you were Reverted, so Discuss. Mutt Lunker (talk) 09:17, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

I've blocked the pair of you for repeatedly reverting each other. A good first step to resolving your dispute is to answer the question posed in the above thread. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 12:04, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm honestly surprised alot of what i've added isn't common knowledge already Anyone who has studied norn knows there were 3 Main Dialects (its even written on the page) all I really did was add things that were written on the page to the infobox which itself is a reason why you should read the pages you edit. Shetland (Hjetmal) (the most attested) Orkney (Orknøjarmål) Caithness

There is an ongoing revival movement which is also written on the page itself but really I feel like i'm reading out the page

theres even a forum on the revival https://nornlanguage.x10.mx/index.php?forum Multiple discord servers Multiple Books

I don't feel i'm the one who made the mistake here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Judeobasquelanguage (talk • contribs) 21:04, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Per above, your assertions about a revival are not not supported by your sources and, contrary to what you say, there is no cover of a revival movement in the article. Mutt Lunker (talk) 15:37, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

References