Book contents
- Language in Britain and Ireland
- Language in Britain and Ireland
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Map of Britain and Ireland
- Introduction
- Part I English
- 1 The History of English
- 2 Standard and Non-standard English
- 3 Phonetic and Phonological Variation in England
- 4 Grammatical Variation in England
- 5 Discourse-Pragmatic Variation in England
- 6 Scots and Scottish Standard English
- 7 English in Ireland
- 8 English in Wales
- 9 Insular Varieties of English in Britain
- 9 Insular Varieties of English in Britain
- 9 Insular Varieties of English in Britain
- 9 Insular Varieties of English in Britain
- Part II Multilingualism in Britain and Ireland: The Celtic Languages
- Part III Multilingualism in Britain and Ireland: Minority Languages
- Part IV Multilingualism: The Development of Urban Contact Varieties
- Part V Applied Sociolinguistic Issues
- Index
- References
9 - Insular Varieties of English in Britain
9.D The Orkney and Shetland Isles
from Part I - English
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 October 2024
Edited by
Book contents
- Language in Britain and Ireland
- Language in Britain and Ireland
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Map of Britain and Ireland
- Introduction
- Part I English
- 1 The History of English
- 2 Standard and Non-standard English
- 3 Phonetic and Phonological Variation in England
- 4 Grammatical Variation in England
- 5 Discourse-Pragmatic Variation in England
- 6 Scots and Scottish Standard English
- 7 English in Ireland
- 8 English in Wales
- 9 Insular Varieties of English in Britain
- 9 Insular Varieties of English in Britain
- 9 Insular Varieties of English in Britain
- 9 Insular Varieties of English in Britain
- Part II Multilingualism in Britain and Ireland: The Celtic Languages
- Part III Multilingualism in Britain and Ireland: Minority Languages
- Part IV Multilingualism: The Development of Urban Contact Varieties
- Part V Applied Sociolinguistic Issues
- Index
- References
Summary
Centuries of contact between Older Scots and the Scandinavian language of Norn, coupled with geographic isolation, has resulted in the highly distinctive dialects spoken in the Orkney and Shetland Isles today. In this chapter, we document the socio-historical context which led to the formation of these dialects, and look to a range of studies which describe these dialects’ lexical, phonological and morphosyntactic forms. We note forms shared with other varieties of Scots but concentrate mostly on the highly localised features not found in mainland Scotland. In addition to broad comparisons between Orkney and Shetland, we also document the dialect diversity within each location. Finally, we turn to bidialectalism, and specifically how speakers may have access to two ‘codes’ in their linguistic repertoire, where Standard Scottish English is used alongside localised vernaculars, and how this might impact on dialect attrition in the coming years.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Language in Britain and Ireland , pp. 258 - 266Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024
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