Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2004, Page 69

Norn
67
Malise (in power c. 1336-53), he came from a family of landowners
whose chief property lay just south of Edinburgh. Scots thus became
the language of the immediate ruler of Orkney as early as the last
quarter of the fourteenth century. In 1468 and 1469 respectively
Orkney and Shetland were pledged to King James III of Scotland by
King Christian I of Denmark and Norway for the marriage dowry of
his daughter. Although the intention was to redeem the pledge, this
was never done, and 1468/9 therefore mark the effective political inte-
gration of the Northem Isles into the Scottish kingdom. The diocese
of Orkney included Shetland — unlike the earldom after 1195 — and
there were Scottish bishops in Orkney and Scottish clergy in both
groups of islands from the late fourteenth century. After the
Reformation in 1560 virtually all the ministers in both Orkney and
Shetland appear to have been Scottish — of particular importance in
the light of the shift from Latin to the vernacular ushered in by the
change of religion. The immigration of Scottish laymen into Orkney,
as far as can be judged, was a gradual process, but one that gained
considerable momentum in the latter half of the fourteenth century.
Large-scale Scottish immigration into Shetland does not appear to
begin until the sixteenth century.
Probably the best indicator of the relative positions of Norn and
Scots in the Northem Isles is the use made of the two languages in
public documents. As we have seen, very few in Scandinavian have
survived, the latest from Orkney being c. 1425, from Shetland 1586.
The first extant document in Scots from Orkney is dated 1433, and
five years later we find the native lawman of the islands using Scots
on internal Orcadian business (ORS 27). Some in the Orkneys may
have continued to write Scandinavian after this, but if so, all traces of
their activity have vanished. Lrom Shetland we have nothing in Scots
until 1488. During the next century it becomes overwhelmingly the
preferred medium, but Scandinavian is still very occasionally found.
In addition to Scandinavian-language diplomas emanating from
Orkney and Shetland, we find that Norwegians continue to use their
native language (more or less Danicised) in dealings with the
Northern Isles until just into the seventeenth century.