Walter Sutherland (Norn) in the context of "Speaker types"

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⭐ Core Definition: Walter Sutherland (Norn)

Walter Sutherland (died c. 1850) was a Scottish man, who was reportedly the last native speaker of Norn, a North Germanic language which had once been spoken throughout Shetland, Orkney and Caithness. Sutherland was from Skaw, on the island of Unst, and quoted as being a fisherman who lived in the northernmost house in the British Isles, near the present-day Unst Boat Haven.

Sutherland may, however, have been merely the last native speaker of Norn on Unst. Some unnamed Norn speakers of the island of Foula were reported by Jakob Jakobsen to have survived much later than the middle of the 19th century, though he noted doubt that these people were able to speak "genuine Norn". Another surveyor, Laurits Rendboe, argued in 1987 that the last living speakers of Norn were indeed these men from Foula. Despite this, Sutherland remains the last recorded Norn speaker.

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Walter Sutherland (Norn) in the context of Norn language

Norn is an extinct North Germanic language that was spoken in the Northern Isles (Orkney and Shetland) off the north coast of mainland Scotland and in Caithness in the far north of the Scottish mainland. After Orkney and Shetland were pledged to Scotland by Norway in 1468–69, it was gradually replaced by Scots. Norn is thought to have become extinct around 1850, after the death of Walter Sutherland, the language's last known speaker, though there are claims the language persisted as late as 1932.

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