Introduction

The Orkney and Shetland Isles, situated to the north of Scotland (Figure 9.2), are noted to have extremely distinct speech patterns from those found on the mainland, and the social and linguistic background of these areas provides clues as to why. In this section, we document the socio-historical context which led to the formation of the dialects spoken in these isles and look at a range of studies which describe variation and change in the lexical, phonological and morphosyntactic forms found therein. We also discuss the issue of bidialectalism, and specifically how speakers are said to have access to two ‘codes’ in their linguistic repertoire, where Standard Scottish English is used in tandem with localised vernaculars, and how speaker attitudes might impact on the dialects spoken there in the coming years.

Figure 9.2 Map of the United Kingdom with Shetland and Orkney highlighted.

(Google 2021)

From the Past to the Present

The past is key to understanding the present-day varieties spoken in the Orkney and Shetland Isles, and specifically the language contact which arose therein. The Isles were colonised by Scandinavians, likely around the ninth century ce, and with these colonisers came the language of Norn. This language largely eradicated the indigenous languages of the time and was spoken in the Isles for over eight hundred years until it started to be replaced by Scots (e.g. Barnes Reference Barnes1998:2). Debate remains about exactly how and when Scots replaced Norn, but a key point was the annexation of Orkney and Shetland by the Scottish crown at the end of the fifteenth century (e.g. Barnes Reference Barnes1998). A situation of bilingualism is said to have existed in the following period (e.g. Smith Reference Smith, Waugh and Smith1996), but by the beginning of the eighteenth century, Norn was rare as a first language and had largely died out by the end of that century (e.g. Barnes Reference Barnes1998:27).

The imprint of centuries of language contact are clearly heard in the present day, where the dialects used in these areas are generally described as varieties of Scots, with elements from both Older Scots and the Norn substratum still in evidence (e.g. Melchers Reference Melchers, Kortmann and Schneider2004a:285; Tait Reference Tait2001:10, but see Millar Reference Millar2008). At the same time, despite this shared history, the dialects of Orkney and Shetland sound very different, as demonstrated in (1) and (2) (which you can listen to on the Scots Syntax Atlas webpage: https://scotssyntaxatlas.ac.uk/atlas/).

1. (1)

   Rachel and Sophie from Whalsay, Shetland

   Rachel: I love Irn Bru Blue WKD, everybody hates it. I like the-- the Irn Bru and the red one and the blue. I really like them a’ but I love the Irn Bru one. Sophie: I never had the red, I can mind when I-- we were like 14 and everybody drank Purple WKD. Rachel: I dinna like the purple. I can’t even mind what the purple actually tastes like. Sophie: I’m no had it for ages. Rachel: The lime green ain is kind of– Sophie: Yeah, is du ever had the ain that’s like Las-- I canna mind if it’s Las Vegas or Brazil or something. Rachel: Blush is the good- oh Brazil, yeah. Oh the kind of- I ken what ain du’s meaning. Sophie: It’s like green. It was- I don’t know. Rachel: What’s the-- were dey a snowball one? No, that’s Sourz actually. Sophie: Sourz. Rachel: No dey are like a Blue WKD, like, the Las Vegas, was it no? That’s disgusting.

   (Scots Syntax Atlas 2020, Whalsay, Shetland, younger speakers)

1. (2)

   George from Burray, Orkney

   he said “oh about 3 years before that, my brother was taking a yacht from Norway doon to—Uh, I think he was coming to Newcastle, I’m no sure. Coming to Newcastle, I’m no sure. England somewhere anyway. And he was lost overboard away south. Maybe he was lost on the boat south of England-- eh, north of England somewhere.” And she said “they would never found him but, uh, the-- all the experts that understand tide says he would-- his body would go south but it didn’t, it came north. And he-- he was washed ashore in Dingieshowe.”

   (Scots Syntax Atlas 2020, Burray, Orkney, older speaker)

In addition to sounding very different from each other, there is substantial regional variation within these two areas, where, for example, a speaker from Whalsay in the north of Shetland may sound radically different from a speaker from the main town of Lerwick. Despite these differences, in what follows, we pinpoint a number of iconic linguistic forms associated more broadly with these areas, and point to more detailed overviews where relevant. The content is very much weighted towards Shetland for the simple reason that considerably more research has been conducted there.

Linguistics of the Present Day

The meshing of languages over an extended period as detailed above has resulted in a number of non-standard lexical, morphosyntactic and phonological forms, some of which are unique to the Isles, and some used more widely throughout Scotland. For example, in the extract from Shetland (1), there are a number of forms which are (or were) used throughout Scotland: ken for know, mind for remember, the negative forms dinna (don’t) and canna (can’t), Scots l-vocalisation in all. At the same time, there are features which are much more localised: du for you, be for have in perfect contexts, dey for there. We concentrate on these forms more distinctive to Orkney and Shetland in more detail below.

From the Present to the Future

Despite these distinctive linguistic details noted above, on visiting these isles, it might be surprising to hear locals speak to you in a variety more akin to Standard Scottish English. What you might be witnessing is knappin /ˈknapɛn/ in Shetland and or chantin in Orkney, where speakers are noted to switch between a local and a more standardised variety, depending on the context that they find themselves in, including interacting with non-dialect speakers (Karam Reference Karam2017:113).

In Shetland, the widespread use of knappin led Melchers (Reference Melchers, Kortmann and Schneider2004b:37) to observe that it is ‘difficult to find truly monolingual speakers of the traditional dialect today’, even with families who have lived there for generations. Instead, speakers ‘have access to a choice of two discrete, definable forms of speech: “English” vs. “Shetland”’ (p. 37). In other words, speakers in this area are said to be bidialectal. Smith and Durham (Reference Smith and Durham2012) investigated further the issue of bidialectalism in Lerwick, the main town in Shetland, and found that instead of a clear separation in speech norms, the two varieties – Shetland and more Standard Scottish English – operate on a continuum within a bidialectal speaker. This is reflected in the speakers themselves, as noted by a speaker from Lerwick in (10).

1. (10)

   I feel that I dinna speak like Shetland. I, you know, I speak Shetland, Scottish and English, sort of a blend of things. (Smith 2007–Reference Smith2009)

Further, they found that while speakers from the older generation could move up and down this bidialectal continuum, some of the younger speakers appeared to have access to the more standard variety only: their speech patterns were characterised by very little use of local dialect forms, even when talking to a community insider. These findings echo an earlier study by Sundkvist (Reference Sundkvist2007), who found that the use of a Shetland-accented form of Scottish Standard English had become quite widespread in middle-class speech, even between fellow Shetlanders. It has been suggested that language change is happening extremely rapidly in these areas, an ‘abrupt replacement of one language – phonology, morphology and syntax as well as vocabulary – by another’ (Tait Reference Tait2001:11).

Such rapid shifts in dialect use are often inextricably linked to changing speaker attitudes towards their own and others’ speech patterns. On the surface, there appears to be strong support for the use of local speech, at least in Shetland, as signalled by the place of Shetland dialect in schools, dialect groups and magazines written in the local varieties, amongst other initiatives. Millar (Reference Millar2007:134), for example, notes that ‘Shetlanders perceive their local variety as being more central to their self-perception as Shetlanders than many Orcadians do’. A study of schoolchildren’s attitudes towards their local dialect, first conducted in the mid 1980s (Melchers Reference Melchers and Görlach1985) and replicated some twenty-five years later (Durham Reference Durham and Lawson2014, Reference Durham, Hancil and Beal2017), supports this view, where attitudes towards the dialect remain largely positive. Changes in the demography of these isles may better explain the changes in dialect use, where ‘the generally unspoilt nature of the islands, along with the oil industry, encouraged in-migration by people from many different backgrounds’ (Millar Reference Millar2007:134).

What direction the Orkney and Shetland dialects take in the coming years will be fascinating to observe, particularly with the ‘renaissance’ in dialect writing that has developed in social media, as demonstrated in the Facebook post in (11).

1. (11)

   I’m just gotten dis noo, I’m very blyde for you, it’s exciting times . I’m reverted to the work phone as dis top-up will expire shun xx