Norn Language

The Norn Language was a language spoken in Scotland before the 19th century.

The Norn language was primarily confined to Shetland and Orkney, of the coast of Scotland. Although it is impossible to say that it was not spoken in mainland Scotland, there are no recorded cases of such happening, and it can be safe to assume that if it did happen, it would have been on an individual basis.

The Norn language was technically an Indo-European North Germanic language, specifically a West Scandanavian language. It bears more similarity with Faroese than any other language, as they share some phonological and grammatical similarities. The few remaining Norn language texts that do exist today, confirm this idea.

The Norn language began its demise when Scotland took control of the islands in the 15th century, and instilled Scots as its main language. Some researchers claim that the Norn language was dying in the late 18th century. The last recorded native speaker of the Norn language, Walter Sutherland, passed away somewhere near 1850. Since then there have been individuals who have been able to “repeat sentences” in the Norn language, but far from anything that could be called speaking it.