From Starafjall to Starling Hill An investigation of the formation and development of Old Norse place-names in Orkney Berit Sandnes © Berit Sandnes Permission is granted to print pages from this website for personal use. However, commercial publication, copying, hiring, lending and reproduction are strictly prohibited and constitute a breach of copy- right. If you have any questions please contact Dr Sandnes at berit.sandnes @ sofi.se. ISBN: 978-0-9565172-0-3 E-book publisher: Scottish Place-Name Society www.spns.org.uk 2010 Frontpage photo: View from Rousay towards Evie. Photo P. Gam- meltoft. 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 -3 - 4.4.3 Lexical features ……………………………………. 73 4.5. Conclusion ……………………………………........ 73 5. Place name elements …………………………………… 75 5.1 Names and the lexicon …………………………….. 75 5.2 Celtic loans in ON names ………………………….. 75 5.3 Old Scandinavian and Old Norse ………………….. 76 5.4 Old Norse and Scots ……………………………….. 77 5.5 Common place-name elements …………………… 79 5.6 From onomasticon to lexicon? …………………….. 91 6. The name material ……………………………………... 93 6.1 Habitation names …………………………………... 93 6.2 Non-habitation names …………………………....... 159 7. Name formation ............................................................... 265 7.1 Formation language ................................................... 265 7.1.1 Norse formations ....................................................... 267 7.1.2 Scots formations ........................................................ 269 7.1.3 Uncertain formation language ……………………... 272 7.2 Analogy in place name-formation …………………. 274 7.2.1 Name transfer …………………………………........ 275 7.2.2 Transfer of name elements? ……………………….. 280 7.2.3 Contents analogy …………………………………... 281 7.2.4 Fashion names ……………………………………... 282 7.2.5 Preferred generics …………………………………. 282 7.3. Stereotypy in colonial place-names? …………........ 285 7.3.1. Personal names as specifics ……………………….. 285 7.3.2. Nicolaisen’s study from Sanday and N. Ronaldsay... 287 7.3.3 Evidence of the West Mainland material …………. 287 8. Structural features observed in the place-name mat.… 291 8.1. Phonology ………………………………………….. 291 8.1.1. Vowels ……………………………………………... 292 8.1.2. Consonants ………………………………………… 298 8.1.3 Conclusions ………………………………………... 310 8.2. Morphology ………………………………………... 314 8.2.1 Word-final vowels -o, -y and -a……………………. 316 8.2.2 Word-final consonants …………………………...... 321 8.2.3 Weakening and loss of case morphology in specifics 325 8.2.4 Recent changes of morphological form …………… 327 -4 - 8.3. Morphosyntax ……………………………………… 328 8.3.1 Postpositional specifics…………………………….. 329 8.3.2 of-periphrasis ………………………………………. 333 8.3.3 Preposition names ………………………………….. 336 8.3.4 Verbal constructions ……………………………….. 338 8.4. Lexicon and semantics …………………………….. 339 8.4.1 Semantic field and etymological origin ……………. 339 9. Integration of loan-names …………………………....... 344 9.1.1 Phonetic adaptation ……………………………....... 345 9.1.2 Analysability and adaptation ……………………… 345 9.2. Semantic adaptations - correct analysis …………….347 9.2.1 Substitution of grammatical morphemes ………....... 347 9.2.2 Substitutions of generics or specifics …………….... 349 9.2.3 Substitution by synonymous elements in the same language …………………………………………... 356 9.2.4 Immediate understanding of ON name elements?..... 354 9.2.5 Degree of bilingual competence …………………… 355 9.3. Adaptations without correct analysis - reanalysis….. 356 9.3.1 Morphological adaptation ………………………….. 357 9.3.2. Lexical and onomastic adaptation …………………. 359 9.3.3. Epexegesis …………………………………………. 368 9.3.4. Name-internal adaptation – rhyming names ……… 370 9.3.5. Why are names adapted? …………………………... 371 9.3.6. Conclusion …………………………………………. 374 List of IPA phonetical symbols ……………………….……. 375 Bibliography and abbreviations …………………………… 376 Appendix 1. Onomastic and lexical adaptations ……........... 385 Appendix 2. Personal name specifics ……………………… 386 Appendix 3. Index of generics ……………………………... 387 Index of place-names ………………………………………. 394 -5 - Foreword The present work is a somewhat revised version of my doctoral the- sis from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, pub- lished in Norwegian in 2003. The Norwegian version is clearly not very easily accessible for potential British readers, whether scholars or people with a local interest in Orkney names, and I am very pleased to be able to present an English translation. This is also a way of thanking my very helpful informants and other contacts in Orkney: Mary Bichan and Sheila Spence who first helped me with my Harray thesis (a translation of that work may follow), Robert Bakie, who let me use his Rendall material, Alistair Marwick, who helped me with Evie names, the Millers of Niggly, Neil Leask and everyone else who spent time helping me. I would like to thank Peder for our many fruitful discussions and last but not least – many thanks to Gillian Fellows-Jensen for invaluable proof- reading of the manuscript. All mistakes are my responsibility. 1. Introduction Chapter 1. Introduction This book contains an investigation of the formation and develop- ment of Orkney place-names in the Old Norse and Scots periods in Orkney. It is based on the study of place-names in four Orkney par- ishes for my master and doctoral theses (Sandnes 1996 and 2003). The development of Orkney place-names in this period depends fundamentally on the interaction of the two contact languages. Our first task, then, is to give an outline of the actual contact situation – the socio-political and sociolinguistic setting. This is done in chapter 2. Secondly, we need a description of the two contact languages. This is not as straightforward as it might seem, as the actual lan- guages in contact were hardly standard variants. A short presentation of the contact languages and major developments of the two is given in chapter 4. Ch. 3 is an overview of former research. The actual place-name material is presented in chapter 6, along with suggested interpretations and other information. The remaining chapters explore features of the formation and development of Orkney place-names from a more principal point of view. First of all, it is important to decide which names are Old Norse formations and which are Scots. This is problematic for a number of reasons, most importantly because nearly all the written sources for place-names are in the Scots language. The two lan- guages are quite closely related and the dividing lines become even more blurred during the prolonged bilingual period, when a number of Old Norse appellatives and proper nouns are borrowed into Scots. These borrowed linguistic elements are all adapted to Scots in dif- ferent ways. The first part of chapter 7 is an attempt to establish criteria for distinguishing between Old Norse and Scots formations. It goes on to treat various kinds of patterns and analogy in name formation and finally, the assumption that colonial names are par- ticularly stereotypical is tested on the Orkney material. Finally, I am interested in the development of place-names, and in the language contact aspect in particular. A place-name is coined 7 From Starafjall to Starling Hill at a certain point in time, but it is not static, it may be adapted and adjusted as long as it is in use. For instance, Orkney names coined in the Viking Age are now an integrated part of a Scots nomenclature, and they may have changed radically from their original form. Tra- ditional name research tends to overlook the development phase and treat names of Old Norse origin in isolation. After the introduction of contact linguistics, Old Norse names cannot be studied independ- ently of the Scots linguistic context in which they have been trans- mitted. This means that contact phenomena are emphasised throughout the book, but treated in more detail in chapters 8 and 9. Important questions include: How do general linguistic changes affect place names? Do they undergo any changes specific to place- names? In this way, processes taking place in place-names are