Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2004, Page 66

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Michael Barnes
three of the items, including the only piece of any length, were col-
lected by one non-Scandinavian speaker on one small, isolated
island on one occasion. What is often taken as the embodiment of
Norn is thus in reality a late eighteenth-century Foula variety as
heard and written down by someone who did not understand it (see
also pp. 74-5).
3.5 Relics ofNorn
Fragments of Nom and much Nom vocabulary were collected aflter
the language had ceased to be spoken. The most prolific collectors of
the dying embers of Northern-Isles Scandinavian were the Faroeman,
Jakob Jakobsen, active in the 1890s (cf. Gronneberg 1981; Barnes
1996) and the Orcadian, Hugh Marwick, who worked in the early
decades of the twentieth century (cf. Dickins 1966-9). The data they
amassed provides a corrective to the impression given by Low’s Foula
material. In particular we find that most of the features connecting
Norn with Icelandic, Faroese and dialects of western Norway are
either not present at all or found only in Foula and on the Shetland
Mainland opposite (/n:/ and /rn/ seem to develop generally to [p] and
/1:/ to [X] in Shetland, for example, cf. Jakobsen 1928-32:lix).
Differences are also observable between Orkney and Shetland Nom,
e.g. the following:
(17)a. monophthongisation of Old Norse /ei/, /au/, /oy/ was more
consistent in Shetland (see Jakobsen 1928-32:1, Marwick
1929:xlii-xliv)
b. in Orkney /n:/ and /m/ coalesce in /n:/ and only /1:/ is
palatalised (cf. Marwick 1929:xlvi-xlvii)
A notable feature of much of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-
century material is its lack of grammatical structure. Typical in this
respect is “a colloquy between two old men” from Foula, reported by
Jakobsen (1928-32:xcii, with his transcription and translation; the
inverted comma before <r> and <n> indicates that the consonant is
unvoiced):