Shetland sea language: a living tradition?

Abstract

This thesis examines the use of ritual language by Shetland fishers. Specifically, it studies the use of set euphemisms to circumvent the usual names for certain ‘unlucky’ items at sea. Owing to the marine environment in which these terms are employed, Shetlanders often refer to them as ‘sea names’, ‘sea words’, or ‘sea language’. Many of the older coinages derive from Norn, a Scandinavian language spoken in the isles until the eighteenth century. However, interest in Norn has so dominated research into this subject that the literature has become unbalanced and backward-looking. On account of its traditional linguistic content, the underlying ritual practice is itself sometimes mistakenly identified as a unique Norse cultural legacy. As a result, it is often assumed that the custom exists today only as a moribund relic or rehearsed performance piece. This thesis challenges these assumptions by presenting new ethnographic data to show that while the custom has attenuated, it has not disappeared. Indeed, fieldwork evidence suggests that it continues to adapt and develop in the present day. To explain this, the thesis employs theory from the fields of anthropology and cognitive psychology to interpret the custom, not as a cultural inheritance, but as a reflexive response to the various types of risk generated by marine fishing. The thesis also includes the first comprehensive glossary of the Shetland sea language, which is supplied as an appendix.