Should Norn be revived?

[Ghostrider]

Well I was schooled in Shetland and I can't think of a single instance of someone being told not to speak the Shetland dialect.

 

It was rife in the primary school I went to in the 70's, and the worst offenders were the local born and bred teachers. To the point that in the early years of primary I've heard a teacher tell a pupil struggling to find the correct English wording, that "I'm going to ignore you until you ask your question 'properly'".

 

One or two of the teachers who were incomers actually encouraged dialect to a small degree, as they were curious about it. Others simply ignored it, as they had no clue what it was.

 

The first time I personally experienced "encouragement" to speak Shetland in school was at the AHS in '76. Joannie Graham was for some reason wanting to make a recording of a piece from the "Norden Lichts" book, and everybody in the class who could read it was asked to speak a few lines, so that he could choose who he wanted, who in his opinion, had the most "authentic" sound, to read the piece on to the tape.

 

What I do remember is a lot of Shetland speaking bairns taking the piss out of me for my English dialect and my use of Shetland words.

 

Yes, bairns will be bairns. I remember the not so broad Shetland speakers taking the piss of those who were older/broader spoken. I don't know which is worse.

 

Thing is though, while the bairns that do that kind of thing may well just be of a personality that naturally "belittle that which is different to themselves, to, in their own minds, assert their own 'superiority'". Some have to simply be repeating the attitudes they've learned from adults outside school time.

[EM]

Promoting dialect is all fine and well, but it is a completely different issue compared to the "dead in the water" idea of a popular reintroduction of Norn. It has gone and, as it wasn't a good language, it will stay gone.

 

 

Some have to simply be repeating the attitudes they've learned from adults outside school time.

Outside school time? Ha! Some teachers were themselves involved in openly taking the piss of certain sooth mouth accents. Fedder for one it must be admitted.

[crofter-amy]

Well I'm afraid I've seen it with my own eyes in a history class(of all places) at the AHS.

 

Devisive?. How can teaching Shetland bairns about the history and heritage of their own islands be devisive?!. It also strengthens a sense of identity.

 

Just last week it was reported that the bairns from Gaelic speaking schools where the Gaelic language is promoted were achieving no less, if not better, grades than bairns from "normal" schools.

 

A strengthened sense of identity for who exactly? The natives? Those who are second generation? What about those straight off the South boat?

 

We are not speaking about teaching history here, the topic is teaching Norn as a language.

 

And has an actual link been made to the teaching of Gaelic and the schools achevments...or is it possible there are other factors at play there?

[MuckleJoannie]

This is one story about pupils in Gaelic medium schools doing well

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/8280614.stm

 

Pupils learning Gaelic "match and better" their peers in other subjects, Highland Council has said.

[crofter-amy]

An interesting but sparse artical. I didn't see anything in that artical about other factors in the bairns education. Also It could be said that the school is massaging its stats to gain extra funding... Just a thought.

[enkelt skapninger]

An interesting but sparse artical. I didn't see anything in that artical about other factors in the bairns education. Also It could be said that the school is massaging its stats to gain extra funding... Just a thought.

 

There was some reasearch done by the University of Edinburgh that showed that children brought up bilingually tended to do better than those who just learned English. They specifically looked at Gaelic, but I think you could extrapolate to other UK languages.

 

Having said that, there is a world of difference between Gaelic, a language still in regular use, and Norn, a language (beautiful and elegant though it is) that has been extinct for nigh on 200 years and missing most of its lexicon.

 

It will be very difficult indeed to resurrect a language with most of its words lost in the mists of time, and no concept of the modern world.

 

Norn is in a much more perilous state than Kernowek for example. The surviving lexicon is much smaller, the potential Norn-speaking population is much smaller, and the chances of finding funding to resurrect the language is much slimmer.

 

 

My personal opinion is that we should try to keep all languages alive as they are beautiful and fascinating parts of our heritage, and just as important as DNA studies when it comes to investigating where we have come from and how we've evolved. It would be great to see Norn rise from the ashes, but I think it'll never happen, unless it is accepted that modern Norn will realistically be a dialect of modern Faeroese.

 

I think the greatest tribute to the past is to weave it into the present, and Shetlandic does that brilliantly with Norn.

 

I'm originally from Yorkshire. Much of my local dialect is obviously born from Old Norse, and some from the Brythonic Celtic that died out over a thousand years ago.

 

I'm waffling now.

[crofter-amy]

Indeed there is no turning the clock back so might we do better spending a bit more time looking to the future

[Claudias]

^ ^ ^

 

Are people who are now learning Gaelic looking back or looking to the future?

[crofter-amy]

Don't know. Why not ask them how they see their language developing future enlightenment?

 

Sorry to have to point this out again but Norn is a dead language and therefore I'd say any resurection of it will for the most part be a lot of looking back IMHO.

[EM]

... when i see "americanisation" - i automatically think "Either this person is a beginner at English, or he's in Europe and doesn't know the wonder of Z"

 

Europe? Think again. "s" is used in several other former British Empire members outwith Europe, whereas most of mainland Europe understandably uses "z" nowadays.

 

It seems more fitting to me, for Californians to learn Spanish, than the native tongues.

 

in the Anglosphere (which I'm part of and you technically shouldn't be),

 

I'm finding it a bit difficult to work out what you believe the rule should be for the correct language to use. You seem to be proposing it to be whatever was being spoken around 500 to 1200 years ago. Having said that, I wouldn't be very sure about predicting your opinion on other situations using this rule. For example I presume you favour Catalan usage in Catalonia, rather than Castilian, or ...?

 

The truth is that these things are never black and white but invariably extremely messy and nuanced.

 

On what technical basis should we be outwith the Anglosphere? Why Norn and not Pictish? I just don't see how any of this kind of picking over ancient history is any basis for choosing real-world directions today.

[crofter-amy]

On what technical basis should we be outwith the Anglosphere? Why Norn and not Pictish? I just don't see how any of this kind of picking over ancient history is any basis for choosing real-world directions today.

 

In total agreement with you there.

[deardron]

Having said that, there is a world of difference between Gaelic, a language still in regular use, and Norn, a language (beautiful and elegant though it is) that has been extinct for nigh on 200 years and missing most of its lexicon.

 

It will be very difficult indeed to resurrect a language with most of its words lost in the mists of time, and no concept of the modern world.

I went to Greenland this summer and had a pleasure to look into some of their bookshops. In one of them there was a thick Danish manual in radio communication for the captains of fishing ships (full of technical terms of course!) and its translation into Greenlandic, i.e. the Inuit language, lying side by side. I looked through the second book and was a bit surprised to see that many of the technical notions were explained by genuine Greenlandic words, although there still was a bit of Danish/English/Latin words as well. This is a bit of an achievement, isn't it, apart from the fact that such a translation has been possible at all, bearing in mind it's the language of hunters and whalers who are living in very primitive conditions. So the lexicon itself is not an unsolvable issue.

[Smart]

Europe? Think again. "s" is used in several other former British Empire members outwith Europe, whereas most of mainland Europe understandably uses "z" nowadays.

Well in my experience, the Europeans I've come across still fancy the ol' S instead of the magnificent Z.

 

I'm finding it a bit difficult to work out what you believe the rule should be for the correct language to use. You seem to be proposing it to be whatever was being spoken around 500 to 1200 years ago. Having said that, I wouldn't be very sure about predicting your opinion on other situations using this rule. For example I presume you favour Catalan usage in Catalonia, rather than Castilian, or ...?

 

The truth is that these things are never black and white but invariably extremely messy and nuanced.

Upon the beginning of a nation or state, whatever language(s) were the most dominant in the area should remain the official spoken language. [There was no California at the time of the native-american languages' dominance, however from 1500-1900?, Spanish was the majority tongue here in California]

 

As for my brothers and sisters [in humanity] in Catalunya, I'd strongly support the tossing-off of the cuffs and shackles of Castillian colonialism & imperialism. The languages of the Republic of Catalonia should be Catalan & Aranese. with Spanish given regional status.

 

Catalonia for me and many Catalonians includes - Northern Catalonia in France, and the regions of "Spain": Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Isles. In the latter-two, Spanish is more dominant than in Catalonia proper (French-Spanish Catalonia). Also I'm not sure how the situation would be dealt with on the issue of Northern Catalonia - whether French could be given special status or not.

 

Of course, but the forces on the side of Light and Justice will allow a more clearer picture - than the mere black and white provided by Imperialists. Wherever they may lie. (pun intended)

 

On what technical basis should we be outwith the Anglosphere? Why Norn and not Pictish? I just don't see how any of this kind of picking over ancient history is any basis for choosing real-world directions today.

Pictish is dead - as such, while it should be the language of Pictia, it isn't. So we are left with 2 languages brought to Scotia: Gaelic and Norn. These languages are arguably the languages which should have sole official status in the Hebrides, Highlands and the Northern Isles. While the Lowlands are given Scots and English as the official languages. [The reason for this, is the same for Northern Ireland and the whole Ulster-Scots+English combination found there at present.]

 

the "perfect" situation:

England: English as official language, protections of language-rights of non-Anglophones.

Cornwall: Cornish (official), English (official)

Wales: Welsh (official), English (regional, non-compulsory in school)

Scotland: Scottish Gaelic & Lowland Scots (both official), English given protection in Law and/or Constitution.

Autonomous Region of Orkney and Shetland - Norn (official)

Ireland (united): Irish & English (official), Ulster-Scots (official in Ulster)

Mann - Manx & English (both official)

Channel Islands: French & English (official), Norman (regional)

[Hrafn]

many people here say that norn should remain dead, because english is better. Some people talk about reason for the death of norn, whitout mentioning what the reason was. I can inform you that was due to discrimination, undermining the native culture and something similar to slavery of the natives. Norn only got bad because it was neglected and push away. That can kill every language!

 

 

For ever once of you who say norn is a step backward, it is not true either, after an update norn would be just as good as english, maybe even better because it would be more regular. Hebrew was dead 2000 years, and now it is a modern language with 7 million speekers. Faroese barely survived till modern times, but now it is doing perfectly well and you can get educations in faroese.

 

For those who say that english should be spoken, because it is the most superior language, I like to ask "Why not take the next step? find the best language in the world, and dump all others?".

Now is there any one here, who dont think this would be a terrible loss?

And try to imagen if it was japanese, and not english.