Propagation of anti-plane waves through a discrete square lattice and through a continuous fibrous medium is studied. In the long-wave limit, for periodically heterogeneous structures the solution can be periodic or anti-periodic across the unit cell. It is shown that combining periodicity and anti-periodicity conditions in different directions of the translational symmetry allows one to detect different types of modes that do not arise in the purely periodic case. Such modes may be interpreted as counterparts of non-classical waves appearing in phenomenological theories. Dispersion diagrams of the discrete square lattice are evaluated in a closed analytical from. Dispersion properties of the fibrous medium are determined using Floquet–Bloch theory and Fourier series approximations. Influence of a viscous damping is taken into account.