Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1964, Page 155

Nom in Shetland
163
there could have been raore than 2 or 3 per cent of in*
comers in any one generation, and, life being harder in
Shetland, many of these found their way back to Scotland.
But anyone making assumptions about Shetland from fore«
names might have a totally wrong impression. They were
the first to go. The language held for three centuries from
the Scots mortgage. The placemames are now fighting their
losing battle five centuries later. And, even after two world
wars, with the exception of Lerwick, the Norseness of the
islands is being little altered. Where it is, it is not by Scots
and English immigration, but by Shetland emigration, for
the population in a century has declined disastrously from
32000 to 18000.
To see how the language fared one can best quote contem*
poraries. The vehicles of entry of Lowland Scots and English
were (1) Scots ministers and landowners and their servants
(in all parishes), (2) traders from Orkney and Scotland
(in Dunrossness, the south parish, south»facing parts of the
»Westside«, and scattered harbours), (3) settlers in Scallo*
way and, after 1652, soldiers and settlers in Lerwick, and
(4) Shetland seamen in whalers, merchanTships, and the
navy in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the present century
one might add the two world wars. Here are some contem*
porary records.
1. James Key, minister of Dunrossness, 1680.
“The inhabitants of the South Parish are (for the most
part) strangers from Scotland and Orkney, whose language,
habit, manners and dispositions are almost the same with
the Scottish. Their language is the same with the Scottish,
yet all the natives can speak the Gothick or Norwegian
tongue . . . by reason of their commerce with the Hollander
they promptly speak Low Dutch.
“The inhabitants of the North Parish (of Dunrossness)
are, very few excepted, natives of the place . . . All the
inhabitants of this parish can speak the Gothic or Nor=
wegian language, and seldom speak other among them*