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.
It is not known exactly when Norn became extinct. The last reports of Norn speakers are claimed to be from the 19th century, but it is more likely that the language was dying out in the late 18th ce...
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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.
It is not known exactly when Norn became extinct. The last reports of Norn speakers are claimed to be from the 19th century, but it is 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 there were people "who could repeat sentences in Norn," 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,...
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