INSULAR SCOTS Mod.Eng. form Norn is now given to the old Norse sp e cch of the Ork. and Sh. Islands. Under the sovereignty of Denmark the islands were governed from 1321 to 1468 by Scottish Earls of Angus, Strathearn and St Clair. In 1468 the islands were assigned in pledge to Scotland from Denmark as security for the dowry of Margaret, a Danish princess, who married James III. of Scotland. The dowry was never paid and the islands became a Scottish province, and were treated scurvily enough by their Scottish governors. The old Norn died very slowly. Brand, in his Description of Orkney, Zetland, etc. (1701), says that “English (i.e. Scottish language) is the Common Language among them (i.e. the people of Shetland), yet many of the People speak Norse or corrupt Danish, especially such as live in the more Northern Isles, yea so ordinary it is in some places that it is the first Language their Children speak” (ed. 1703, p. 69). Martin, in his Brief Description of the Isles of Orkney and Shetland (1703), says of the inhabitants of Mainland that “they generally speak the English tongue, and many among them retain the ancient Danish Language, especially in the Northern Isles” (pp. 383-384), and he writcs similarly of the natives of Ork. (p. 369). § 160. In modern times the Norn element in the Sc. dialect of the islands has been verv carefully and scientifically investigated by two scholars — the late Dr Jakobsen, in his Etymo- logical Dictionary of the Norn Language in Shetland, and Dr Marwick, in his recently published The Or kney Norn. Of the present-day Orkney speech Dr Marwick says (The Orkney Norn. Intro. xxvii): “The two tongues (Norn and Scots) were cognate; many words were practically identical inoth, and, before the one lapsed, each language must have been largely stocked with words from the other. The speech of Orkney to-day must be termed Scots, but it is stil richly stocked with words that were part and parcel of the Orkney Norn. . . . On the other hand, before it ultimately died, the Norn tongue must have been increasingly impregnated with words from Scots. Yet the change was something more than a steady inflation of Norn with Scots words until it became more Scots than Nor n. Wlhat probably happened was that tlhe common everyday phraseology of Norn ceased and was replaced by the corresponding Scots terms of speech. In this respect the most important change would be in the pronouns, common verbs and the intermediary words — prepositions and conjunctions.” § 161. Dr Jakobsen, speaking in his Intro. to his great Dictionary of the Shetland Norn, xx, says: “The Shetland dialect in its present form cannot without further consideration be described as Lowland Scottish, although it falls under the L.Sc. dialect-system. The main portion of it is Lowland Scottish, embracing most of the words in daily use as well as inflectional forms; but the older stratum in the language, the Norn, still makes its influence strongly felt. not only in the vocabulary, notably in the case of special words, but also in the construction of the verbs.” Among the classes of words which survived from the old language Jakobsen mentions: (1) Nouns (more than other parts of speech those betokening something visible — with or without life. (2) Jocular and derisive names and pet names. (3) Words expressing anger or ill humour. (4) Adjectives that denote differently shade differently grouped colours of domestic animals. (5) Words relating to the weather, the wind, the sea and fishing. (6) Words relating to the superstitions of fishermen, and especially the taboo words intended to deceive the deities of the deep. § 162. Scottish speech had already assumed its principal dialectal forms before 1600, when the islanders were beginning to acquire it. They heard it as the speech of the nobles and their retainers who were sent to administer the island province. There must have been diverse types of Sc. spoken by these, although no doubt the Lth. of Edb. would be regarded as the most fashionable. The Scotsmen whose settlement in the islands was encouraged by the ruling power consisted of all classes — lairds, tenants, clergymen, peasants, tradespeople. We might expect, therefore, to find divergencies in pronun ciation from any given standard, arising from the mixture of speakers, and in addition to those imposed on Sc. by the Norn speech basis. Words from many Sc. dialects might find their. way into the Ins.Sc. and survive after becoming extinct in their first home. § 162.1. Dr Jakobsen's dictionary contains more than 10,000 words of Norse origin. In our Scottish National Dictionary we shall include not only genuine Sc. words adopted into the