Shetland dialect

Shetland dialect (autonym: Shaetlan /ˈʃe̞tlən/, also variously known as Shetland or Shetlandic) is a mixed language spoken in Shetland, an archipelago to the north of mainland Scotland. The exact number of speakers is not known, since it has to date never been included in any census. It emerged through the long-drawn and stable bilingualism of Norn (the language of the previous settlers) and Lowlands Scots (mainly the varieties from Fife and Lothian) brought to Shetland from the early 15th century and onwards. Norn is an extinct North Germanic language, descended from Western Norse, which was spoken in Shetland until the late 19th century, though as of 2025, living memory reports the last known speaker to have died as late as 1925. This long-drawn contact situation resulted in a very distinct linguistic blend of Norn and Lowland Scots, with a noticeable contact influence of Low Germanic languages (Middle Dutch and Middle Low German). It has been recognised as a highly distinct variety for centuries. The language retains many words of Norn origin. Many of them, if they are not place-names, refer to e.g. seasons, weather, topographical features, sea scapes (especially types of waves and states of the sea), fishing, parts of boats and boat building, agriculture and crofting, crops and livestock, wool handling and knitting, peat cutting, stone building, music instrument building, and so on.

The language is a prototypical contact language in that it emerged due to a specific contact situation, as opposed to a high contact language, which has undergone a high degree of contact, but which has not emerged due to some specific contact situation. In addition, the language is a prototypical G-L (Grammar-Lexicon) mixed language, where the bulk of the grammar comes from the language of the original settlers and the bulk of the vocabulary comes from the new settlers.

The language aligns with both the Continental Scandinavian varieties and the Anglian varieties in having limited morphological fusion, with a few grammatical affixes and some non-linear ablaut (vowel gradation), mainly in the temporal paradigms, with both strong and weak verbs. It has a rich word formation in compounding, similar to German and the Scandinavian languages. The pronominal system has two politeness distinctions (familiar/polite) and two numbers (singular/plural), and has three demonstrative distances (proximate/distal/remote). The nominal system has grammatical gender (masculine/feminine/neuter), expressed pronominally.

The language has traditionally been classified as, variously, a dialect of Scots or a dialect of English. However, the grammar of the language is remarkably aligned with that of Continental Scandinavian, while the lexicon is quite heterogenous. The vocabulary is thus a blend of Anglian and Norn, with a noticeable component of Dutch/Low German loanwords. On 15th October 2025, the language was formally recognised as a language by ISO 639 Maintenance Agency SIL Global and given the ISO 639-3 code scz. As of 2025, the language has not been accepted as an official language in Shetland, and has never been used as an official medium of instruction in education, other than as a curiosity in occasional creative sessions. It has been used in fictional writing since at least the 19th century, especially in poetry, children's books, and comic strips or satire. Dictionaries of the language have been compiled and published since the mid-19th century.