Walter Sutherland (Norn)

Walter Sutherland (died ca. 1850) of Skaw on the island of Unst in Shetland was reported to be the last native speaker of Norn, a Germanic language which had once been spoken throughout Shetland, Orkney and Caithness.[1][2] He lived in the northernmost house in the British Isles, near the present-day Unst Boat Haven.[3]

Sutherland may, however, have been merely the last native speaker of Norn on Unst. Some unnamed Norn-speakers of Foula were reported by Jakob Jakobsen to have survived much later than the middle of the 19th century.[4]

Notes

  1. ↑ North-western European language evolution: NOWELE, vols. 50-51 (Odense University Press, 2007), p. 240
  2. ↑ Area Guide Unst
  3. ↑ June Skinner Sawyers, Maverick guide to Scotland (2000), p. 557
  4. ↑ P. Sture Ureland, George Broderick, eds., Language contact in the British Isles: proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium on Language Contact in Europe, Douglas, Isle of Man, 1988 (M. Niemeyer, 1991), p. 455