From Starafjall to Starling Hill - Scottish Place-Name Society

Contents
Foreword……………………………………………............ VI
1. Introduction …………………………………………….. 7
2. Historical background …………………………………. 10
2.1 The Norse settlement ……………………………… 10
2.2 The Norse period (ca. 850 – 1350) ………………… 14
2.3 The early contact period (ca. 1350–1468)………….. 15
2.3.1 Political overview ………………………………….. 16
2.3.2 Written documentation of contact and conflict…….. 16
2.3.3 The languages ……………………………………… 19
2.4 The Scottish take-over ………………………........... 21
2.4.1 The languages from 1468 to the death of Norn…….. 23
2.4.2 The language shift – summary …………………….. 30
3. Former research…………………………………........... 33
3.1 Place-names in the Viking colonies ……………….. 33
3.1.1 Nicolaisen’s distribution maps …………………….. 34
3.2 Orkney (and Shetland) ……………………………... 35
3.2.1 The Norn language …………………………............ 35
3.2.2 Place-names ………………………………………... 39
3.3 Contact onomastics ………………………………… 44
3.3.1 Early contact onomastics ………………………….. 44
3.3.2 Sociolinguistics and contact onomastics…………… 45
3.3.3 Integration of borrowed names ……………............. 46
3.4 Hybrid names? ……………………………………... 48
3.5 Borrowed names - part of the recipient language….. 50
4. The languages …………………………………………... 52
4.1 A brief history of the Scots language ……………… 53
4.2 Structural characteristics of Orkney Scots…………. 55
4.2.1 Phonology …………………………………….......... 55
4.2.2 Morphology ………………………………………... 60
4.2.3 Lexicon …………………………………………….. 61
4.3 The Norse language in Orkney …………………….. 62
4.4 Structural characteristics …………………………... 64
4.4.1 Phonology ………………………………………….. 64
4.4.2 Morphology ………………………………………... 72
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