Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2004, Side 64

62
Michael Barnes
Unlike Wallace, Low does explain in some detail how he came to
collect this material. An Orkney minister originally from north-east
Scotland, he was visiting the outlying island of Foula (see Map 2) as
part of a tour of Shetland in 1774. During his trip to the island some-
thing must have turned his attention to matters of language and he
seems to have enquired of the natives what various of the things he
saw around him were called in “Norse”. The result was his list of thir-
ty words. He tried to add to the collection, but without success: “These
few words are what I could pick up; many others I proposed, but with-
out effect” (1879:107). How he obtained the Lord’s Prayer is not
revealed, but the circumstances surrounding his recording of the bal-
lad are clearly described. While in Foula Low met an old inhabitant
named William Henry. He discussed different types of Norn poetry
with him and Henry “was so much pleased with my curiosity, and now
and then a dram of gin, that he repeated and sung the whole day”
(1879:lvi, 107). As appears to have been the case with the recorder of
the Orkney Lord’s Prayer, Low knew no Scandinavian. It is a tribute to
the care he took in writing down Henry’s recitation that reasonable
sense can be made of so much of the ballad.
These sources, especially the Foula material, confirm Norn as a
western type of Scandinavian, although elements with an East
Scandinavian appearance occur here and there — presumably from
Danish via Norwegian. Cf. the examples in (12), for instance:
(12) <Helleur> ‘hallowed’
<yagh> ‘I’
probably also <yurn> ‘the earth’
Phonologically Foula Norn can be seen to share several features with
western Norwegian dialects, Icelandic and Faroese, especially the last.
Some examples:
(13) /1:/ > /dl/, cf. <godle> ‘gold’
/n:/ > /dn/, cf. <hedne> ‘her’
/rn/ > /dn/, cf. <Ednin> ‘the eagle’
intercalation of /g(v)/, cf. <Ugan> ‘the cap’