A question on the Shetland Islands

[Feela]

I have a question for Shetlanders.

 

I was just wondering whether you guys consider yourselves more Norweigan or Scottish. Because I recently came across someone claiming Shetlanders considered themselves as Norweigans but I've never heard this before and I'm pretty sure this person was from Norway themselves.

 

Anyway thanks in advance.

[Girzie]

We certainly don't feel we are Scottish as we have no common history with them - clans, gaelic, tartan, bagpipes etc. We have always had an affinity with the Norwegians and have been taught it from the cradle.

[RickB]

Actually, we are from Shetland not Shetlands.

 

To answer your question though, very few Shetlanders think of themselves as Norwegian. Shetland does have very strong cultural links with Norway. In fact in terms of culture we are closer to Norway than Scotland.

 

I could waffle on for hours on this topic, but im supposed to be working. So il leave it to someone else to explain this in more detail.

[Marooned in Maywick]

We certainly don't feel we are Scottish as we have no common history with them - clans, gaelic, tartan, bagpipes etc. We have always had an affinity with the Norwegians and have been taught it from the cradle.

 

Speak for yourself Girzie - I'm sure there's plenty of Shetlanders who feel Scottish nowadays.

Aren't the clans/tartan/Gaelic more of a Highland/Western Isles thing anyway, whereas a lot of our 'settlers' would/could have come from northeast fishing communitites...?

I could be talking nonsense here - local history ain't my thing, but to broadly claim everybody has been taught from the cradle to feel Norwegian is plainly rubbish.

[Mag]

Welcome to Shetlink Feela!

 

I tried asking your question independently to both generations in our house (teenagers and old fogies). All said they felt neither Scottish nor Norwegian. So I asked them what they did feel then, and they said 'Shetlandic'. Hope that helps. Good luck with your research.

[Ghostrider]

^^ Agree with Mag, I neither feel particularly Scottish or Norwegian, the influence of both nations/cultures are present in variable proportions (the former probably increasing and the latter decreasing), making us a hybrid mix of both.

[Girzie]

Reply to Marooned in Maywick. Those are what were used to be termed "Lerook Scotties".

[Para Handy]

"You can pick your friends but not your relations"

the same thing applies here. I'm a Shetlander because that's where I live full-stop. The fact that I was born here some mite imply that it would reinforce the point, but that should not make any difference. Any one who wants to live and make there home here should be able to say I'm a Shetlander because thats where my Home is And my back ground should be of no importance to any one else. I don't meet some one for the first time and then Just start telling them my family history. Before saying hello or good morning. But if some one asks where are you from I say the Shetland Islands. If some people want to push it a bit more then I tell them that I am 46 years old and for that 46 years of life, we have be listed as being a part of the UK the same applies the other way to. I don't expect some one from Dundee to start telling me that on his father was from Scotland and his mother was from Timbuktu. and as Marooned in Maywick says "I'm sure there's plenty of Shetlanders who feel Scottish nowadays" But they don't feel the need to stand out in the street shouting it at every one who is walking By.

 

What is so wrong with people saying I'm a Shetlander because I live there. And being proud to say so

[sassermaet]

I just call myself a Shetlander, but I'm currently continuing my education in Glasgow. So I guess I'm Scottish.

 

Can't say I'm a fan of the SNP though.

[Para Handy]

^^^ I'm no fan of the SNP either And Alex Salmond as far as I

can see is just a smug git with nothing to be smug about

[Pooks]

I think Parahandy made a good point there. When I am asked where I am from I answer, 'Shetland'. This might be followed up with, 'Where is that?', to which I normally respond, the cold wet rock (island) to the north of Scotland.

 

I think this is of significance because a lot of people when visiting another country would primarily answer with their country first and then move on to the area of the country they live in.

 

I tend to start with Shetland first and then move outwards.

 

I have never answered the question with Scotland or Norway. Again, I have never said, 'The cold wet rock 200 miles west of Norway'. I might use that soon though. It could get a few folk thinking.

[sassermaet]

^^^That's pretty much how I feel too.

 

I like the Scots, but does anyone else find them to be a bit too nationalistic sometimes?

[Feela]

Thank you all for your replies.

 

I can understand your feelings. I'm Scottish and Cornish. I was born near Mallaig in Lochaber and moved to Cornwall in my teens, where my mother was from(she was half Scottish herself though.). And I feel a far stronger affinity to the Western highlands and Cornwall than I do to England, Britain or even Scotland.

 

Shetland looks like a beautiful place and when I come home from where I am now(Australia.), which won't be too long, I hope to visit it.

[Girzie]

I actually said we felt we had an affinity with Norway not that we thought we were Norwegians. And yes, we were taught it at our mother's knee. It all depends on your age!!

[Tom]

...The fact that I was born here some mite imply that it would reinforce the point, but that should not make any difference. Any one who wants to live and make there home here should be able to say I'm a Shetlander because thats where my Home is And my back ground should be of no importance to any one else....

 

Of course there are some folk who'll say that if your gran isna fae Shetlan, du isna Shetlan. I've amusingly heard them referred to as 'little Shetlanders,' but it's probably more an excessively-over-ingrained anti-Scottish defensiveness than anything.

 

And heaven forbid an Englishman wash up...