For almost 1,000 years, the language of the Orcadian people was a variant of Old Norse known as "Norrœna" or "Norn".
Norn is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages. Together with Faroese, Icelandic and Norwegian it belongs to the West Scandinavian group, separating it from the East Scandinavian group consisting of Swedish and Danish. Norn is generally considered to have been fairly similar to Faroese, sharing many phonological and grammatical traits with this language. Shetlandic is a form of Scots superimposed upon a Nordic substratum. Grammar was the first casualty, an essentially English form surviving with some remnant Norn forms. The older Norn was replaced by Lowland Scots which in turn is being replaced by Scottish English.
Caithness Lowland Scots has Norn influences. The Cait element of Caithness is Pictish or Goidelic in origin but the origin of Caithness is Norse or Norn, and may be read as meaning Horn (or Nose) of Cait. The Gaelic name, Gallaibh, means land of the Norse (or of the foreigner). The Cait element of Caithness is represented as Cat in Cataibh, the Gaelic name for Sutherland, and as Cait in Na h-Innse Cait, the Old Irish for Shetland. On the Latheron (south) side of Caithness, they extended their settlements as far as Berriedale. Most of the names of places, and not a few of the surnames in the lowland parts of the county, are Norse in origin. A dialect of the Norn language was spoken, although almost nothing is known about it. For a long time sovereignty over Caithness was disputed between Scotland and the Norwegian Earldom of Orkney.
The northern group of Orkney islands is the most extensive and consists of a large number of moderately sized islands, linked to the Mainland by ferries. Most of the islands described as "holms" are very small. The southern group of islands surrounds Scapa Flow. Hoy is the highest of the Orkney Isles, while South Ronaldsay and Burray are linked to the Mainland by the Churchill Barriers. The largest island in Orkney is known as The Mainland. Other islands can be classified as north or south of The Mainland. The islands north of The Mainland are known collectively as The North Isles, those to the south as The South Isles.
All the islands of the Orkney group are built up entirely of Old Red Sandstone. As in the neighbouring mainland county of Caithness. The upper division of the Old Red Sandstone is found only on Hoy, where it forms the Old Man of Hoy and neighbouring cliffs on the northwest coast. The Lower Old Red Sandstone is represented by well-bedded flagstones over most of the islands; in the south of The Mainland these are faulted against an overlying series of massive red sandstones, but a gradual passage from the flagstones to the sandstones may be followed from Westray southeastwards into Eday. The islands have been inhabited for over 5,000 years, but nothing is known of the language spoken until the late Iron Age, around 700-800 A.D.
The phonology of Norn can never be determined with much precision due to the lack of source material, but the general aspects can be extrapolated from the few written sources that do exist. Norn shared many traits with the dialects of south-west Norway. This includes a devoicing of /b, d, g/ to /p, t, k/ before or between vowels and a reduction of /θ/ and /ð/ ("thing" and "that" respectively) to /t/ and /d/. The features of Norn grammar were very similar to the other Scandinavian languages. There were two numbers, three genders and four cases (nominative, accusative, genitive and dative). The two main conjugations of verbs in present and past tense were also present and like almost all other Scandinavian languages.
The Annals of the Four Masters' language used was Irish, with some entries in Latin. Previous to the seventh century, earlier entries were based on recollection and oral history, however, the evolution of the Irish language has not only cognates of dialogue. Southern Ireland accepts Roman order of Christianity in 636 after Augustine meets with the Welsh bishops. Gaelic Placenames and a number of the Irish annals have not adopted the celtic period of the later dark ages, nor from the Northumbrian period of Celtic Cumbria with much illumination, although some placenames from then have migrated since.
By the 12th century, Pictish and Cumbric had disappeared, but Norse, Gaelic, and English were still being spoken. The number of kingdoms had lessened, but the Kingdom of Scotland still did not have the borders of modern Scotland. Norway held the Northern Isles and most of the Western Isles, and the border with England. The pattern of most medieval names was a single given name and a single personal byname. A personal byname is a byname that pertains to and describes that specific individual for whom it is used. Medieval Scots used only one given name.