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Old Norse

Old Norse, Old Nordic,[2] or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements and chronologically coincides with the Viking Age, the Christianization of Scandinavia and the consolidation of Scandinavian kingdoms from about the 7th to the 15th centuries.[3]

Old Norse
Old Nordic
dǫnsk tunga ("Danish tongue")
norrǿnt mál ("Norwegian language")
norrǿna
Native toScandinavia, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Greenland and other Norse settlements
RegionNordic countries, Great Britain, Ireland, Isle of Man, Normandy, Newfoundland, the Volga and places in-between
EthnicityNorsemen and their descendants
EraEvolved from Proto-Norse in the 7th century, developed into the various North Germanic languages by the 15th century
Early form
Proto-Norse (attested)
Runic, later Latin (Old Norse alphabet)
Language codes
ISO 639-2non
ISO 639-3non
Glottologoldn1244
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

The Proto-Norse language developed into Old Norse by the 8th century, and Old Norse began to develop into the modern North Germanic languages in the mid-to-late 14th century, ending the language phase known as Old Norse. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse is found well into the 15th century.[4][better source needed]

Old Norse was divided into three dialects: Old West Norse or Old West Nordic (often referred to as Old Norse[5]), Old East Norse or Old East Nordic, and Old Gutnish. Old West Norse and Old East Norse formed a dialect continuum, with no clear geographical boundary between them. For example, Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway, although Old Norwegian is classified as Old West Norse, and Old West Norse traits were found in western Sweden. Most speakers spoke Old East Norse in what is present-day Denmark and Sweden. Old Gutnish is sometimes included in the Old East Norse dialect due to geographical associations. It developed its own unique features and shared in changes to both other branches.[6]

The 12th-century Icelandic Gray Goose Laws state that Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders, and Danes spoke the same language, dǫnsk tunga ("Danish tongue"; speakers of Old East Norse would have said dansk tunga). Another term was norrœnt mál ("northern speech"). Today Old Norse has developed into the modern North Germanic languages Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, and other North Germanic varieties of which Norwegian, Danish and Swedish retain considerable mutual intelligibility while Icelandic remains the closest to Old Norse.

Geographical distribution

 
The approximate extent of Old Norse and related languages in the early 10th century:
  Other Germanic languages with which Old Norse still retained some mutual intelligibility

Old Icelandic was very close to Old Norwegian, and together they formed Old West Norse, which was also spoken in Norse settlements in Greenland, the Faroes, Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, northwest England, and in Normandy.[7] Old East Norse was spoken in Denmark, Sweden, Kievan Rus',[8] eastern England, and Danish settlements in Normandy. The Old Gutnish dialect was spoken in Gotland and in various settlements in the East.

In the 11th century, Old Norse was the most widely spoken European language, ranging from Vinland in the West to the Volga River in the East. In Kievan Rus', it survived the longest in Veliky Novgorod, probably lasting into the 13th century there.[8] The age of the Swedish-speaking population of Finland is strongly contested, but Swedish settlement had spread the language into the region by the time of the Second Swedish Crusade in the 13th century at the latest.[citation needed]

Modern descendants

The modern descendants of the Old West Norse dialect are the West Scandinavian languages of Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, and the extinct Norn language of Orkney and Shetland; the descendants of the Old East Norse dialect are the East Scandinavian languages of Danish and Swedish. Norwegian is descended from Old West Norse, but over the centuries it has been heavily influenced by East Norse, particularly during the Denmark–Norway union.

Among these, the grammar of Icelandic and Faroese have changed the least from Old Norse in the last thousand years. In contrast, the pronunciations of both Icelandic and Faroese have changed considerably from Old Norse. With Danish rule of the Faroe Islands, Faroese has also been influenced by Danish.

Both Middle English and Early Scots were strongly influenced by Norse – especially dialects from northern England, within the area of the Danelaw, and Lowland Scots, both of which contained many Old Norse loanwords. Consequently, Modern English (including Scottish English), inherited a significant proportion of its vocabulary directly from Norse.

The development of Norman French was also influenced by Norse. Through Norman, to a smaller extent, so was modern French.

Written modern Icelandic derives from the Old Norse phonemic writing system. Contemporary Icelandic-speakers can read Old Norse, which varies slightly in spelling as well as semantics and word order. However, pronunciation, particularly of the vowel phonemes, has changed at least as much in Icelandic as in the other North Germanic languages.

Faroese retains many similarities but is influenced by Danish, Norwegian, and Gaelic (Scottish and/or Irish).[9] Although Swedish, Danish and Norwegian have diverged the most, they still retain considerable mutual intelligibility.[10] Speakers of modern Swedish, Norwegian and Danish can mostly understand each other without studying their neighboring languages, particularly if speaking slowly. The languages are also sufficiently similar in writing that they can mostly be understood across borders. This could be because these languages have been mutually affected by each other, as well as having a similar development influenced by Middle Low German.[11]

Other influenced languages

Various languages unrelated to Old Norse and others not closely related have been heavily influenced by Norse, particularly the Norman language; to a lesser extent, Finnish and Estonian. Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Lithuanian and Latvian also have a few Norse loanwords. The words Rus and Russia, according to one theory, may be named after the Rus' people, a Norse tribe, probably from present-day east-central Sweden. The current Finnish and Estonian words for Sweden are Ruotsi and Rootsi, respectively.

A number of loanwords have been introduced into Irish, many associated with fishing and sailing.[12][13][14][15] A similar influence is found in Scottish Gaelic, with over one hundred loanwords estimated to be in the language, many of which are related to fishing and sailing.[16][17][18]

Phonology

Vowels

The vowel phonemes mostly come in pairs of long and short. The standardized orthography marks the long vowels with an acute accent. In medieval manuscripts, it is often unmarked but sometimes marked with an accent or through gemination.

Old Norse had nasalized versions of all ten vowel places.[cv 1][obsolete source] These occurred as allophones of the vowels before nasal consonants and in places where a nasal had followed it in an older form of the word, before it was absorbed into a neighboring sound. If the nasal was absorbed by a stressed vowel, it would also lengthen the vowel. These nasalizations also occurred in the other Germanic languages, but were not retained long. They were noted in the First Grammatical Treatise, and otherwise might have remained unknown. The First Grammarian marked these with a dot above the letter.[cv 1] This notation did not catch on, and would soon be obsolete. Nasal and oral vowels probably merged around the 11th century in most of Old East Norse.[19] However, the distinction still holds in Dalecarlian dialects.[20] The dots in the following vowel table separate the oral from nasal phonemes.

Generic vowel system c. 9th–12th centuries
Front vowels Back vowels
Unrounded Rounded Unrounded Rounded
Close iĩ ĩː y ỹː uũ ũː
Mid e ẽː øø̃ øːø̃ː oõ õː
Open, open-mid ɛɛ̃ ɛːɛ̃ː œœ̃ aã ãː ɔɔ̃ ɔːɔ̃ː

Note: The open or open-mid vowels may be transcribed differently:

  • /æ/ = /ɛ/
  • /ɒ/ = /ɔ/
  • /ɑ/ = /a/

Sometime around the 13th century, /ɔ/ (spelled ⟨ǫ⟩) merged with /ø/ or /o/ in most dialects except Old Danish, and Icelandic where /ɔ/ (ǫ) merged with /ø/. This can be determined by their distinction within the 12th-century First Grammatical Treatise but not within the early 13th-century Prose Edda. The nasal vowels, also noted in the First Grammatical Treatise, are assumed to have been lost in most dialects by this time (but notably they are retained in Elfdalian and other dialects of Ovansiljan). See Old Icelandic for the mergers of /øː/ (spelled ⟨œ⟩) with /ɛː/ (spelled ⟨æ⟩) and /ɛ/ (spelled ⟨ę⟩) with /e/ (spelled ⟨e⟩).

Generic vowel system c. 13th–14th centuries
Front vowels Back vowels
Unrounded Rounded Unrounded Rounded
High i y u
Mid e ø øː o
Low/Low-mid ɛ ɛː a  

Old Norse had three diphthong phonemes: /ɛi/, /ɔu/, /øy ~ ɛy/ (spelled ⟨ei⟩, ⟨au⟩, ⟨ey⟩ respectively). In East Norse these would monophthongize and merge with /eː/ and /øː/, whereas in West Norse and its descendants the diphthongs remained.

History of Old Norse and Old Icelandic vowels
Proto-Germanic Northwest Germanic Primitive Old West Norse Old Icelandic
(1st Grammarian)
Later Old Icelandic Example (Old Norse)
a a a ⟨a⟩ a a land "land" < *landą
a a (+i-mut) ɛ ⟨ę⟩ e ⟨e⟩ e menn "men" < *manniz
a a (+u/w-mut) ɔ ⟨ǫ⟩ ɔ ø ⟨ö⟩ lǫnd "lands" < *landu < *landō;
sǫngr "song" < sǫngr < *sangwaz
a a (+i-mut +w-mut) œ ⟨ø₂⟩ ø ø ⟨ö⟩ gøra "to make" < *garwijaną
æː ⟨ē⟩ ⟨á⟩ láta "to let" < *lētaną
æː ⟨ē⟩ (+i-mut) ɛː ⟨æ⟩ ɛː ɛː mæla "to speak" < *mālijan < *mēlijaną
æː ⟨ē⟩ (+u-mut) ɔː ⟨ǫ́⟩ ɔː ⟨á⟩ mǫ́l "meals" < '*mālu < *mēlō
e e e ⟨e⟩ e e sex "six" < *seks;
bresta "to burst" < *brestaną
e e (+u/w-mut) ø ⟨ø₁⟩ ø ø ⟨ö⟩ tøgr "ten" < *teguz
e e (broken) ea ⟨ea⟩ ja ⟨ja⟩ ja gjalda "to repay" < *geldaną
e e (broken +u/w-mut) eo/io ⟨eo⟩/⟨io⟩ jo > ⟨jǫ⟩ ⟨jö⟩ skjǫldr "shield" < *skelduz
⟨ē₂⟩ ⟨é⟩ lét "let (past tense)" < *lē₂t
i i i ⟨i⟩ i i mikill "great" < *mikilaz
i i (+w-mut) y ⟨y⟩ y y(ː) slyngva "to sling" < *slingwaną
⟨í⟩ líta "to look" < *lītaną
⟨ó⟩ fór "went" < *fōr;
mót "meeting" < *mōtą
(+i-mut) øː ⟨œ⟩ øː ɛː ⟨æ⟩ mœðr "mothers" < *mōdriz
u u u ⟨u⟩ u u una "to be content" < *unaną
u u (+i-mut) y ⟨y⟩ y y kyn "race" < *kunją
u u (+a-mut) o ⟨o⟩ o o fogl/fugl "bird" < *fuglaz;
morginn "morning" < *murganaz
⟨ú⟩ drúpa "to droop" < *drūpaną
(+i-mut) ⟨ý⟩ mýss "mice" < *mūsiz
ai ai ai > ɛi ⟨ei⟩ ɛi ɛi bein, Gut. bain "bone" < *bainą
ai ai (+w-mut) øy ⟨ey⟩, ⟨øy⟩ øy ⟨ey⟩[21] ɛy kveykva "to kindle" < *kwaikwaną
au au au > ɔu ⟨au⟩ ɔu ⟨au⟩ au lauss "loose" < *lausaz
au au (+i-mut) øy ⟨ey⟩, ⟨øy⟩ øy ⟨ey⟩ ɛy leysa "to loosen" < *lausijaną
eu eu eu ⟨eu⟩ juː ⟨jú⟩ juː djúpr "deep" < *deupaz
eu eu (+dental) eo ⟨eo⟩ joː ⟨jó⟩ juː bjóða/bjúða "to offer" < *beudaną
V komȧ < *kwemaną "to come, arrive";
OWN vėtr/vėttr < vintr < *wintruz "winter"
Ṽː Ṽː Ṽː Ṽː hȧ́r "shark" < *hanhaz;
ȯ́rar "our" (pl.) < *unseraz;
ø̇́rȧ "younger" (acc. neut. wk.[cv 1]) < *junhizą [22]

Consonants

Old Norse has six plosive phonemes, /p/ being rare word-initially and /d/ and /b/ pronounced as voiced fricative allophones between vowels except in compound words (e.g. veðrabati), already in the Proto-Germanic language (e.g. *b *[β] > [v] between vowels). The /ɡ/ phoneme was pronounced as [ɡ] after an /n/ or another /ɡ/ and as [k] before /s/ and /t/. Some accounts have it a voiced velar fricative [ɣ] in all cases, and others have that realisation only in the middle of words and between vowels (with it otherwise being realised [ɡ]).[23][24][clarification needed] The Old East Norse /ʀ/ was an apical consonant, with its precise position is unknown; it is reconstructed as a palatal sibilant.[25][26] It descended from Proto-Germanic /z/ and eventually developed into /r/, as had already occurred in Old West Norse.

  Labial Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar Labiovelar Glottal
Plosive p b t d k ɡ
Nasal m n (ŋ)
Fricative f (v) θ (ð) s ʀ[a] (ɣ) h
Trill r
Approximant j w
Lateral approximant l
  1. ^ Reconstructed as [ɹ̝] when part of the stem of a word with a voiceless allophone [ɹ̝̊] word-finally when not part of the stem.

The consonant digraphs ⟨hl⟩, ⟨hr⟩, and ⟨hn⟩ occurred word-initially. It is unclear whether they were sequences of two consonants (with the first element realised as /h/ or perhaps /x/) or as single voiceless sonorants /l̥/, /r̥/ and /n̥/ respectively. In Old Norwegian, Old Danish and later Old Swedish, the groups ⟨hl⟩, ⟨hr⟩, and ⟨hn⟩ were reduced to plain ⟨l⟩, ⟨r⟩, ⟨n⟩, which suggests that they had most likely already been pronounced as voiceless sonorants by Old Norse times.

The pronunciation of ⟨hv⟩ is unclear, but it may have been /xʷ/ (the Proto-Germanic pronunciation), /hʷ/ or the similar phoneme /ʍ/. Unlike the three other digraphs, it was retained much longer in all dialects. Without ever developing into a voiceless sonorant in Icelandic, it instead underwent fortition to a plosive /kv/, which suggests that instead of being a voiceless sonorant, it retained a stronger frication.

Accent

Primary stress in Old Norse falls on the word stem, so that hyrjar would be pronounced /ˈhyr.jar/. In compound words, secondary stress falls on the second stem (e.g. lærisveinn, /ˈlɛːɾ.iˌswɛinː/).[27]

Orthography

Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark, runic Old Norse was originally written with the Younger Futhark, which had only 16 letters. Because of the limited number of runes, several runes were used for different sounds, and long and short vowels were not distinguished in writing. Medieval runes came into use some time later.

As for the Latin alphabet, there was no standardized orthography in use in the Middle Ages. A modified version of the letter wynn called vend was used briefly for the sounds /u/, /v/, and /w/. Long vowels were sometimes marked with acutes but also sometimes left unmarked or geminated. The standardized Old Norse spelling was created in the 19th century and is, for the most part, phonemic. The most notable deviation is that the nonphonemic difference between the voiced and the voiceless dental fricative is marked. The oldest texts and runic inscriptions use þ exclusively. Long vowels are denoted with acutes. Most other letters are written with the same glyph as the IPA phoneme, except as shown in the table below.

Phonological processes

Ablaut

Ablaut patterns are groups of vowels which are swapped, or ablauted, in the nucleus of a word. Strong verbs ablaut the lemma's nucleus to derive the past forms of the verb. This parallels English conjugation, where, e.g., the nucleus of sing becomes sang in the past tense and sung in the past participle. Some verbs are derived by ablaut, as the present-in-past verbs do by consequence of being derived from the past tense forms of strong verbs.

Umlaut

Umlaut or mutation is an assimilatory process acting on vowels preceding a vowel or semivowel of a different vowel backness. In the case of i-umlaut and ʀ-umlaut, this entails a fronting of back vowels, with retention of lip rounding. In the case of u-umlaut, this entails labialization of unrounded vowels. Umlaut is phonemic and in many situations grammatically significant as a side effect of losing the Proto-Germanic morphological suffixes whose vowels created the umlaut allophones.

Some /y/, /yː/, /ø/, /øː/, /ɛ/, /ɛː/, /øy/,[21] and all /ɛi/ were obtained by i-umlaut from /u/, /uː/, /o/, /oː/, /a/, /aː/, /au/, and /ai/ respectively. Others were formed via ʀ-umlaut from /u/, /uː/, /a/, /aː/, and /au/.[7]

Some /y/, /yː/, /ø/, /øː/, and all /ɔ/, /ɔː/ were obtained by u-umlaut from /i/, /iː/, /e/, /eː/, and /a/, /aː/ respectively. See Old Icelandic for information on /ɔː/.

/œ/ was obtained through a simultaneous u- and i-umlaut of /a/. It appears in words like gøra (gjǫra, geyra), from Proto-Germanic *garwijaną, and commonly in verbs with a velar consonant before the suffix like søkkva < *sankwijaną.[cv 2]

OEN often preserves the original value of the vowel directly preceding runic ʀ while OWN receives ʀ-umlaut. Compare runic OEN glaʀ, haʀi, hrauʀ with OWN gler, heri (later héri), hrøyrr/hreyrr ("glass", "hare", "pile of rocks").

U-umlaut

U-umlaut is more common in Old West Norse in both phonemic and allophonic positions, while it only occurs sparsely in post-runic Old East Norse and even in runic Old East Norse.

Comparison demonstrating U-Umlaut in Swedish[28][29]
Meaning West Old Norse Old Swedish[1] Modern Swedish Icelandic
Transcription IPA Transcription IPA
Guardian / Caretaker vǫrðr varþer vård [voːɖ] vörður [ˈvœrðʏr]
Eagle ǫrn ørn örn [œːɳ] örn [œrtn]
Earth jǫ io jord [2] [juːɖ] jö [jœrð]
Milk mjǫlk miolk mjölk [2] [mjœlk] mjólk [mjoul̥k]
^ Old Swedish orthography uses ⟨þ⟩ to represent both /ð/ and /θ/. The change from Norse ⟨ð⟩ to Old Swedish ⟨þ⟩ represents only a change in orthography rather than a change in sound. Similarly ⟨i⟩ is used in place of ⟨j⟩. And thus changes from Norse ⟨j⟩ to Old Swedish ⟨i⟩ to Swedish ⟨j⟩ should be viewed as a change in orthography.
^ Represents the u-umlaut found in Swedish.

This is still a major difference between Swedish and Faroese and Icelandic today. Plurals of neuters do not have u-umlaut at all in Swedish, but in Faroese and Icelandic they do, for example the Faroese and Icelandic plurals of the word land, lond and lönd respectively, in contrast to the Swedish plural land and numerous other examples. That also applies to almost all feminine nouns, for example the largest feminine noun group, the o-stem nouns (except the Swedish noun jord mentioned above), and even i-stem nouns and root nouns, such as Old West Norse mǫrk (mörk in Icelandic) in comparison with Modern and Old Swedish mark.[29]

Breaking

Vowel breaking, or fracture, caused a front vowel to be split into a semivowel-vowel sequence before a back vowel in the following syllable.[7] While West Norse only broke /e/, East Norse also broke /i/. The change was blocked by a /w/, /l/, or /ʀ/ preceding the potentially-broken vowel.[7][30]

Some /ja/ or /jɔ/ and /jaː/ or /jɔː/ result from breaking of /e/ and /eː/ respectively.[cv 3]

Assimilation or elision of inflectional ʀ

When a noun, pronoun, adjective, or verb has a long vowel or diphthong in the accented syllable and its stem ends in a single l, n, or s, the r (or the elder r- or z-variant ʀ) in an ending is assimilated.[cv 4] When the accented vowel is short, the ending is dropped.

The nominative of the strong masculine declension and some i-stem feminine nouns uses one such -r (ʀ). Óðin-r (Óðin-ʀ) becomes Óðinn instead of *Óðinr (*Óðinʀ).

The verb blása ('to blow'), has third person present tense blæss ('[he] blows') rather than *blæsr (*blæsʀ).[31] Similarly, the verb skína ('to shine') had present tense third person skínn (rather than *skínr, *skínʀ); while kala ('to cool down') had present tense third person kell (rather than *kelr, *kelʀ).

The rule is not absolute, with certain counter-examples such as vinr ('friend'), which has the synonym vin, yet retains the unabsorbed version, and jǫtunn ('giant'), where assimilation takes place even though the root vowel, ǫ, is short.

The clusters */Clʀ, Csʀ, Cnʀ, Crʀ/ cannot yield */Clː, Csː, Cnː, Crː/ respectively, instead /Cl, Cs, Cn, Cr/.[32] The effect of this shortening can result in the lack of distinction between some forms of the noun. In the case of vetr ('winter'), the nominative and accusative singular and plural forms are identical. The nominative singular and nominative and accusative plural would otherwise have been OWN *vetrr, OEN *wintrʀ. These forms are impossible because the cluster */Crʀ/ cannot be realized as /Crː/, nor as */Crʀ/, nor as */Cʀː/. The same shortening as in vetr also occurs in lax = laks ('salmon') (as opposed to *lakss, *laksʀ), botn ('bottom') (as opposed to *botnn, *botnʀ), and jarl (as opposed to *jarll, *jarlʀ).

Furthermore, wherever the cluster */rʀ/ is expected to exist, such as in the male names Ragnarr, Steinarr (supposedly *Ragnarʀ, *Steinarʀ), the result is apparently always /rː/ rather than */rʀ/ or */ʀː/. This is observable in the Runic corpus.

Phonotactics

Blocking of ii, uu

In Old Norse, i/j adjacent to i, e, their u-umlauts, and æ was not possible, nor u/v adjacent to u, o, their i-umlauts, and ǫ.[7] At the beginning of words, this manifested as a dropping of the initial /j/ (which was general, independent of the following vowel) or /v/. Compare ON orð, úlfr, ár with English word, wolf, year. In inflections, this manifested as the dropping of the inflectional vowels. Thus, klæði + dat -i remains klæði, and sjáum in Icelandic progressed to sjǫ́um > sjǫ́m > sjám.[33] The *jj and *ww of Proto-Germanic became ggj and ggv respectively in Old Norse, a change known as Holtzmann's law.[7]

Epenthesis

An epenthetic vowel became popular by 1200 in Old Danish, 1250 in Old Swedish and Norwegian, and 1300 in Old Icelandic.[34] An unstressed vowel was used which varied by dialect. Old Norwegian exhibited all three: /u/ was used in West Norwegian south of Bergen, as in aftur, aftor (older aptr); North of Bergen, /i/ appeared in aftir, after; and East Norwegian used /a/, after, aftær.[21]

Grammar

Old Norse was a moderately inflected language with high levels of nominal and verbal inflection. Most of the fused morphemes are retained in modern Icelandic, especially in regard to noun case declensions, whereas modern Norwegian in comparison has moved towards more analytical word structures.

Gender

Old Norse had three grammatical genders – masculine, feminine and neuter. Adjectives or pronouns referring to a noun must mirror the gender of that noun, so that one says, "heill maðr!" but, "heilt barn!". As in other languages, the grammatical gender of an impersonal noun is generally unrelated to an expected natural gender of that noun. While indeed karl, "man" is masculine, kona, "woman", is feminine, and hús, "house", is neuter, so also are hrafn and kráka, for "raven" and "crow", masculine and feminine respectively, even in reference to a female raven or a male crow.

All neuter words have identical nominative and accusative forms,[35] and all feminine words have identical nominative and accusative plurals.[36]

The gender of some words' plurals does not agree with that of their singulars, such as lim and mund.[cv 5] Some words, such as hungr, have multiple genders, evidenced by their determiners being declined in different genders within a given sentence.[37][38]

Morphology

Nouns, adjectives and pronouns were declined in four grammatical cases – nominative, accusative, genitive and dative – in singular and plural numbers. Adjectives and pronouns were additionally declined in three grammatical genders. Some pronouns (first and second person) could have dual number in addition to singular and plural. The genitive was used partitively and in compounds and kennings (e.g., Urðarbrunnr, the well of Urðr; Lokasenna, the gibing of Loki).

There were several classes of nouns within each gender. The following is an example of the "strong" inflectional paradigms:

The strong masculine noun armr (English arm)
Case Singular Plural
Nominative armr armar
Accusative arm arma
Genitive arms
Dative armi ǫrmum/armum
The feminine noun hǫll (OWN), hall (OEN) (English hall)
Number Case Old West Norse Old East Norse
Singular Nominative-Accusative hǫll hall
Genitive hallar
Dative hǫllu hallu
Plural Nominative-Accusative hallir hallar
Genitive halla
Dative hǫllum hallum
The neuter noun troll (English troll)
Case Singular Plural
Nominative-Accusative troll
Genitive trolls trolla
Dative trolli trollum

The numerous "weak" noun paradigms had a much higher degree of syncretism between the different cases; i.e. they had fewer forms than the "strong" nouns.

A definite article was realised as a suffix that retained an independent declension; e.g., troll (a troll) – trollit (the troll), hǫll (a hall) – hǫllin (the hall), armr (an arm) – armrinn (the arm). This definite article, however, was a separate word and did not become attached to the noun before later stages of the Old Norse period.

Texts

The earliest inscriptions in Old Norse are runic, from the 8th century. Runes continued to be commonly used until the 15th century and have been recorded to be in use in some form as late as the 19th century in some parts of Sweden. With the conversion to Christianity in the 11th century came the Latin alphabet. The oldest preserved texts in Old Norse in the Latin alphabet date from the middle of the 12th century. Subsequently, Old Norse became the vehicle of a large and varied body of vernacular literature. Most of the surviving literature was written in Iceland. Best known are the Norse sagas, the Icelanders' sagas and the mythological literature, but there also survives a large body of religious literature, translations into Old Norse of courtly romances, classical mythology, and the Old Testament, as well as instructional material, grammatical treatises and a large body of letters and official documents.[39]

Dialects

Most of the innovations that appeared in Old Norse spread evenly through the Old Norse area. As a result, the dialects were very similar and considered to be the same language, a language that they sometimes called the Danish tongue (Dǫnsk tunga), sometimes Norse language (Norrœnt mál), as evidenced in the following two quotes from Heimskringla by Snorri Sturluson:

However, some changes were geographically limited and so created a dialectal difference between Old West Norse and Old East Norse.

As Proto-Norse evolved into Old Norse, in the 8th century, the effects of the umlauts seem to have been very much the same over the whole Old Norse area. But in later dialects of the language a split occurred mainly between west and east as the use of umlauts began to vary. The typical umlauts (for example fylla from fullijan) were better preserved in the West due to later generalizations in the east where many instances of umlaut were removed (many archaic Eastern texts as well as eastern runic inscriptions however portray the same extent of umlauts as in later Western Old Norse).

All the while, the changes resulting in breaking (for example hiarta from *hertō) were more influential in the East probably once again due to generalizations within the inflectional system. This difference was one of the greatest reasons behind the dialectalization that took place in the 9th and 10th centuries, shaping an Old West Norse dialect in Norway and the Atlantic settlements and an Old East Norse dialect in Denmark and Sweden.

Old West Norse and Old Gutnish did not take part in the monophthongization which changed æi (ei) into ē, øy (ey) and au into ø̄, nor did certain peripheral dialects of Swedish, as seen in modern Ostrobothnian dialects.[40] Another difference was that Old West Norse lost certain combinations of consonants. The combinations -mp-, -nt-, and -nk- were assimilated into -pp-, -tt- and -kk- in Old West Norse, but this phenomenon was limited in Old East Norse.

Here is a comparison between the two dialects as well as Old Gutnish. It is a transcription from one of the Funbo Runestones in Sweden (U 990) from the eleventh century (translation: 'Veðr and Thane and Gunnar raised this stone after Haursi, their father. God help his spirit'):

Veðr ok Þegn ok Gunnarr reistu stein þenna at Haursa, fǫður sinn. Guð hjalpi ǫnd hans. (OWN)
Weðr ok Þegn ok Gunnarr ræistu stæin þenna at Haursa, faður sinn. Guð hialpi and hans (OEN)
Weðr ok Þegn ok Gunnarr raistu stain þenna at Haursa, faður sinn. Guð hialpi and hans (OG)

The OEN original text above is transliterated according to traditional scholarly methods, wherein u-umlaut is not regarded in runic Old East Norse. Modern studies[citation needed] have shown that the positions where it applies are the same as for runic Old West Norse. An alternative and probably more accurate transliteration would therefore render the text in OEN as such:

Weðr ok Þegn ok Gunnarr ræistu stæin þenna at Haursa, fǫður sinn. Guð hialpi ǫnd hans (OEN)

Some past participles and other words underwent i-umlaut in Old West Norse but not in Old East Norse dialects. Examples of that are Icelandic slegið/sleginn and tekið/tekinn, which in Swedish are slagit/slagen and tagit/tagen. This can also be seen in the Icelandic and Norwegian words sterkur and sterk ("strong"), which in Swedish is stark as in Old Swedish.[41] These differences can also be seen in comparison between Norwegian and Swedish.

Old West Norse

Old West Norse is by far the best attested variety of Old Norse.[42] The term Old Norse is often used to refer to Old West Norse specifically, in which case the subject of this article receives another name, such as Old Scandinavian.[5] Another designation is Old West Nordic.

The combinations -mp-, -nt-, and -nk- mostly merged to -pp-, -tt- and -kk- in Old West Norse around the 7th century, marking the first distinction between the Eastern and Western dialects.[43] The following table illustrates this:

English Old West Norse Old East Norse Proto-Norse
mushroom s(v)ǫppr swampʀ *swampuz
steep brattr brantʀ *brantaz
widow ekkja ænkija *ain(a)kjōn
to shrink kreppa krimpa *krimpan
to sprint spretta sprinta *sprintan
to sink søkkva sænkwa *sankwijan

An early difference between Old West Norse and the other dialects was that Old West Norse had the forms , "dwelling", , "cow" (accusative) and trú, "faith", whereas Old East Norse , and tró. Old West Norse was also characterized by the preservation of u-umlaut, which meant that, for example, Proto-Norse *tanþu, "tooth", became tǫnn and not tann as in post-runic Old East Norse; OWN gǫ́s and runic OEN gǫ́s, while post-runic OEN gás "goose".

The earliest body of text appears in runic inscriptions and in poems composed c. 900 by Þjóðólfr of Hvinir (although the poems are not preserved in contemporary sources, but only in much later manuscripts). The earliest manuscripts are from the period 1150–1200 and concern legal, religious and historical matters. During the 12th and 13th centuries, Trøndelag and Western Norway were the most important areas of the Norwegian kingdom and they shaped Old West Norse as an archaic language with a rich set of declensions. In the body of text that has survived into the modern day from until c. 1300, Old West Norse had little dialect variation, and Old Icelandic does not diverge much more than the Old Norwegian dialects do from each other.

Old Norwegian differentiated early from Old Icelandic by the loss of the consonant h in initial position before l, n and r; thus whereas Old Icelandic manuscripts might use the form hnefi, "fist", Old Norwegian manuscripts might use nefi.

From the late 13th century, Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian started to diverge more. After c. 1350, the Black Death and following social upheavals seem to have accelerated language changes in Norway. From the late 14th century, the language used in Norway is generally referred to as Middle Norwegian.

Old West Norse underwent a lengthening of initial vowels at some point, especially in Norwegian, so that OWN eta became éta, ONW akr > ákr, OIC ek > ék.[44]

Old Icelandic

In Iceland, initial /w/ before /ɾ/ was lost:[cv 6] compare Icelandic rangur with Danish vrang, OEN wrangʀ. The change is shared with Old Gutnish.[34]

A specifically Icelandic sound, the long, u-umlauted A, spelled ⟨Ǫ́ ⟩ and pronounced /ɔː/, developed around the early 11th century.[cv 1] It was short-lived, being marked in the Grammatical Treatises and remaining until the end of the 12th century.[cv 1] It then merged back into /aː/; as a result, long A is not affected by u-umlaut in Modern Icelandic.

/w/ merged with /v/ during the 12th century,[7] which caused /v/ to become an independent phoneme from /f/ and the written distinction of ⟨v⟩ for /v/ from medial and final ⟨f⟩ to become merely etymological.

Around the 13th century, Œ/Ǿ (/øː/, which had probably already lowered to /œː/) merged to Æ (/ɛː/).[cv 7] Thus, pre-13th-century grœnn (with ⟨œ⟩) 'green' became spelled as in modern Icelandic grænn (with ⟨æ⟩). The 12th-century Gray Goose Laws manuscripts distinguish the vowels, and so the Codex Regius copy does as well.[cv 7] However, the 13th-century Codex Regius copy of the Poetic Edda probably relied on newer and/or poorer quality sources. Demonstrating either difficulty with or total lack of natural distinction, the manuscripts show separation of the two phonemes in some places, but they frequently confuse the letters chosen to distinguish them in others.[cv 7][45]

Towards the end of the 13th century, Ę (/ɛ/) merged to E (/e/).[cv 8]

Old Norwegian

Around the 11th century,[citation needed] Old Norwegian ⟨hl⟩, ⟨hn⟩, and ⟨hr⟩ became ⟨l⟩, ⟨n⟩ and ⟨r⟩. It is debatable whether the ⟨hC⟩ sequences represented a consonant cluster (/hC/) or devoicing (/C̥/).

Orthographic evidence suggests that in a confined dialect of Old Norwegian, /ɔ/ may have been unrounded before /u/ and that u-umlaut was reversed unless the u had been eliminated: ǫll, ǫllum > ǫll, allum.[46]

Greenlandic Norse

This dialect of Old West Norse was spoken by Icelandic colonies in Greenland. When the colonies died out around the 15th century, the dialect went with it. The phoneme /θ/ and some instances of /ð/ merged to /t/ and so Old Icelandic Þórðr became Tortr.

Text example

The following text is from Alexanders saga, an Alexander romance. The manuscript, AM 519 a 4to, is dated c. 1280. The facsimile demonstrates the sigla used by scribes to write Old Norse. Many of them were borrowed from Latin. Without familiarity with these abbreviations, the facsimile will be unreadable to many. In addition, reading the manuscript itself requires familiarity with the letterforms of the native script. The abbreviations are expanded in a version with normalized spelling like that of the standard normalization system. Compared to the spelling of the same text in Modern Icelandic, pronunciation has changed greatly, but spelling has changed little since Icelandic orthography was intentionally modelled after Old Norse in the 19th century.

Digital facsimile of the manuscript text[47] The same text with normalized spelling[47] The same text with Modern Icelandic spelling

[...] ſem oꝩın͛ h̅ſ brıgzloðo h̅o̅ epꞇ͛ þͥ ſe̅ ſıðaʀ mon ſagꞇ verða. Þeſſı ſveın̅ aͬ.* ꝩar ıſcola ſeꞇꞇr ſem ſıðꝩenıa e͛ ꞇıl rıkra man̅a vꞇan-lanꝺz aꞇ laꞇa g͛a vıð boꝛn̅ ſíıƞ́ Meıſꞇarı ꝩar h̅o̅ ꝼengın̅ ſa e͛ arıſꞇoꞇıleſ heꞇ. h̅ ꝩar harðla goðꝛ clercr ⁊ en̅ meſꞇı ſpekıngr aꞇ ꝩıꞇı. ⁊ er h̅ ꝩͬ.xíí. veꞇᷓ gamall aꞇ allꝺrı nalıga alroſcın̅ aꞇ ꝩıꞇı. en ſꞇoꝛhvgaðꝛ u̅ ꝼᷓm alla ſına ıaꝼnallꝺꝛa.

[...] sem óvinir hans brigzluðu honum eftir því, sem síðarr man sagt verða. þessi sveinn Alexander var í skóla settr, sem siðvenja er til ríkra manna útanlands at láta gera við bǫrn sín. meistari var honum fenginn sá, er Aristoteles hét. hann var harðla góðr klerkr ok inn mesti spekingr at viti. ok er hann var tólv vetra gamall at aldri, náliga alroskinn at viti, en stórhugaðr umfram alla sína jafnaldra, [...]

[...] sem óvinir hans brigsluðu honum eftir því, sem síðar mun sagt verða. Þessi sveinn Alexander var í skóla settur, sem siðvenja er til ríkra manna utanlands að láta gera við börn sín. Meistari var honum fenginn sá, er Aristóteles hét. Hann var harla góður klerkur og hinn mesti spekingur að viti og er hann var tólf vetra gamall að aldri, nálega alroskinn að viti, en stórhugaður umfram alla sína jafnaldra, [...]

* a printed in uncial. Uncials not encoded separately in Unicode as of this section's writing.

Old East Norse

 
The Rök runestone in Östergötland, Sweden, is the longest surviving source of early Old East Norse. It is inscribed on both sides.

Old East Norse or Old East Nordic between 800 and 1100 is called Runic Swedish in Sweden and Runic Danish in Denmark, but for geographical rather than linguistic reasons. Any differences between the two were minute at best during the more ancient stages of this dialect group. Changes had a tendency to occur earlier in the Danish region. Even today many Old Danish changes have still not taken place in modern Swedish. Swedish is therefore the more conservative of the two in both the ancient and the modern languages, sometimes by a profound margin. The language is called "runic" because the body of text appears in runes.

Runic Old East Norse is characteristically conservative in form, especially Swedish (which is still true for modern Swedish compared to Danish). In essence it matches or surpasses the conservatism of post-runic Old West Norse, which in turn is generally more conservative than post-runic Old East Norse. While typically "Eastern" in structure, many later post-runic changes and trademarks of OEN had yet to happen.

The phoneme ʀ, which evolved during the Proto-Norse period from z, was still clearly separated from r in most positions, even when being geminated, while in OWN it had already merged with r.

The Proto-Germanic phoneme /w/ was preserved in initial sounds in Old East Norse (w-), unlike in West Norse where it developed into /v/. It survived in rural Swedish dialects in the provinces of Westro- and North Bothnia, Skåne, Blekinge, Småland, Halland, Västergötland and south of Bohuslän into the 18th, 19th and 20th century. It is still preserved in the Dalecarlian dialects in the province of Dalarna, Sweden, and in Jutlandic dialects in Denmark. The /w/-phoneme did also occur after consonants (kw-, tw-, sw- etc.) in Old East Norse and did so into modern times in said Swedish dialects and in a number of others. Generally, the initial w-sound developed into [v] in dialects earlier than after consonants where it survived much longer.

In summation, the /w/-sound survived in the East Nordic tongues almost a millennium longer than in the West Norse counterparts, and does still subsist at the present.

Monophthongization of æi > ē and øy, au > ø̄ started in mid-10th-century Denmark.[21] Compare runic OEN: fæigʀ, gæiʀʀ, haugʀ, møydōmʀ, diūʀ; with Post-runic OEN: fēgher, gēr, hø̄gher, mø̄dōmber, diūr; OWN: feigr, geirr, haugr, meydómr, dýr; from PN *faigijaz, *gaizaz, *haugaz, *mawi- + dōmaz 'maidendom; virginity', *diuza '(wild) animal'.

Feminine o-stems often preserve the plural ending -aʀ, while in OWN they more often merge with the feminine i-stems: (runic OEN) *sōlaʀ, *hafnaʀ, *hamnaʀ, *wāgaʀ versus OWN sólir, hafnir and vágir (modern Swedish solar, hamnar, vågar ("suns, havens, scales"); Danish has mainly lost the distinction between the two stems, with both endings now being rendered as -er or -e alternatively for the o-stems).

Vice versa, masculine i-stems with the root ending in either g or k tended to shift the plural ending to that of the ja-stems while OEN kept the original: drængiaʀ, *ælgiaʀ and *bænkiaʀ versus OWN drengir, elgir ("elks") and bekkir (modern Danish drenge, elge, bænke, modern Swedish drängar, älgar, bänkar).

The plural ending of ja-stems were mostly preserved while those of OWN often acquired that of the i-stems: *bæðiaʀ, *bækkiaʀ, *wæfiaʀ versus OWN beðir ("beds"), bekkir, vefir (modern Swedish bäddar, bäckar, vävar).

Old Danish

Until the early 12th century, Old East Norse was very much a uniform dialect. It was in Denmark that the first innovations appeared that would differentiate Old Danish from Old Swedish (Bandle 2005, Old East Nordic, pp. 1856, 1859) as these innovations spread north unevenly (unlike the earlier changes that spread more evenly over the East Norse area), creating a series of isoglosses going from Zealand to Svealand.

In Old Danish, /hɾ/ merged with /ɾ/ during the 9th century.[48] From the 11th to 14th centuries, the unstressed vowels -a, -o and -e (standard normalization -a, -u and -i) started to merge into -ə, represented with the letter ⟨e⟩. This vowel came to be epenthetic, particularly before endings.[34] At the same time, the voiceless stop consonants p, t and k became voiced plosives and even fricative consonants. Resulting from these innovations, Danish has kage (cake), tunger (tongues) and gæster (guests) whereas (Standard) Swedish has retained older forms, kaka, tungor and gäster (OEN kaka, tungur, gæstir).

Moreover, the Danish pitch accent shared with Norwegian and Swedish changed into stød around this time.[citation needed]

Old Swedish

At the end of the 10th and early 11th century initial h- before l, n and r was still preserved in the middle and northern parts of Sweden, and is sporadically still preserved in some northern dialects as g-, e.g. gly (lukewarm), from hlýʀ. The Dalecarlian dialects developed independently from Old Swedish[49] and as such can be considered separate languages from Swedish.

Text example

This is an extract from Västgötalagen, the Westrogothic law. It is the oldest text written as a manuscript found in Sweden and from the 13th century. It is contemporaneous with most of the Icelandic literature. The text marks the beginning of Old Swedish as a distinct dialect.

Old Gutnish

Due to Gotland's early isolation from the mainland, many features of Old Norse did not spread from or to the island, and Old Gutnish developed as an entirely separate branch from Old East and West Norse. For example, the diphthong ai in aigu, þair and waita was not subject to anticipatory assimilation to ei as in e.g. Old Icelandic eigu, þeir and veita. Gutnish also shows dropping of /w/ in initial /wɾ/, which it shares with the Old West Norse dialects (except Old East Norwegian[50]), but which is otherwise abnormal. Breaking was also particularly active in Old Gutnish, leading to e.g. biera versus mainland bera.[34]

Text example

The Gutasaga is the longest text surviving from Old Gutnish. It was written in the 13th century and dealt with the early history of the Gotlanders. This part relates to the agreement that the Gotlanders had with the Swedish king sometime before the 9th century:

Relationship to other languages

Relationship to English

Old English and Old Norse were related languages. It is therefore not surprising that many words in Old Norse look familiar to English speakers; e.g., armr (arm), fótr (foot), land (land), fullr (full), hanga (to hang), standa (to stand). This is because both English and Old Norse stem from a Proto-Germanic mother language. In addition, numerous common, everyday Old Norse words were adopted into the Old English language during the Viking Age. A few examples of Old Norse loanwords in modern English are (English/Viking Age Old East Norse), in some cases even displacing their Old English cognates:[citation needed]

  • Nounsanger (angr), bag (baggi), bait (bæit, bæita, bæiti), band (band), bark (bǫrkʀ, stem bark-), birth (byrðr), dirt (drit), dregs (dræggiaʀ), egg (ægg, related to OE. cognate æg which became Middle English eye/eai), fellow (félagi), gap (gap), husband (húsbóndi), cake (kaka), keel (kiǫlʀ, stem also kial-, kil-), kid (kið), knife (knífʀ), law (lǫg, stem lag-), leg (læggʀ), link (hlænkʀ), loan (lán, related to OE. cognate læn, cf. lend), race (rǫs, stem rás-), root (rót, related to OE. cognate wyrt, cf. wort), sale (sala), scrap (skrap), seat (sæti), sister (systir, related to OE. cognate sweostor), skill (skial/skil), skin (skinn), skirt (skyrta vs. the native English shirt of the same root), sky (ský), slaughter (slátr), snare (snara), steak (stæik), thrift (þrift), tidings (tíðindi), trust (traust), window (vindauga), wing (væ(i)ngʀ)
  • Verbsare (er, displacing OE sind), blend (blanda), call (kalla), cast (kasta), clip (klippa), crawl (krafla), cut (possibly from ON kuta), die (døyia), gasp (gæispa), get (geta), give (gifa/gefa, related to OE. cognate giefan), glitter (glitra), hit (hitta), lift (lyfta), raise (ræisa), ransack (rannsaka), rid (ryðia), run (rinna, stem rinn-/rann-/runn-, related to OE. cognate rinnan), scare (skirra), scrape (skrapa), seem (søma), sprint (sprinta), take (taka), thrive (þrífa(s)), thrust (þrysta), want (vanta)
  • Adjectivesflat (flatr), happy (happ), ill (illr), likely (líklígʀ), loose (lauss), low (lágʀ), meek (miúkʀ), odd (odda), rotten (rotinn/rutinn), scant (skamt), sly (sløgʀ), weak (væikʀ), wrong (vrangʀ)
  • Adverbsthwart/athwart (þvert)
  • Prepositionstill (til), fro (frá)
  • Conjunction – though/tho (þó)
  • Interjectionhail (hæill), wassail (ves hæill)
  • Personal pronounthey (þæiʀ), their (þæiʀa), them (þæim) (for which the Anglo-Saxons said híe,[51][52] hiera, him)
  • Prenominal adjectivessame (sam)

In a simple sentence like "They are both weak," the extent of the Old Norse loanwords becomes quite clear (Old East Norse with archaic pronunciation: Þæiʀ eʀu báðiʀ wæikiʀ while Old English híe syndon bégen (þá) wáce). The words "they" and "weak" are both borrowed from Old Norse, and the word "both" might also be a borrowing, though this is disputed (cf. German beide).[who?] While the number of loanwords adopted from the Norse was not as numerous as that of Norman French or Latin, their depth and everyday nature make them a substantial and very important part of everyday English speech as they are part of the very core of the modern English vocabulary.[citation needed]

Tracing the origins of words like "bull" and "Thursday" is more difficult.[citation needed] "Bull" may derive from either Old English bula or Old Norse buli,[citation needed] while "Thursday" may be a borrowing or simply derive from the Old English Þunresdæg, which could have been influenced by the Old Norse cognate.[citation needed] The word "are" is from Old English earun/aron, which stems back to Proto-Germanic as well as the Old Norse cognates.[citation needed]

Relationship to modern Scandinavian languages

Development of Old Norse vowels to the modern Scandinavian languages
Old Norse Modern
Icelandic
Modern
Faroese
Modern
Swedish[53]
Modern
Danish[53]
Examples[n 1]
a ⟨a⟩ a(ː)[n 2] a/ɛaː;[n 2]
ɛ ⟨a⟩ (+ng,nk)
a/ɑː[n 2] ⟨a⟩;
ɔ/oː ⟨å⟩ (+ld,rd,ng)
⟨a⟩;
ɔ/ɔː ⟨å⟩ (+rd)
ON land "land": Ic/Fa/Sw/Da/No land;
ON dagr "day": Ic/Fa dagur, Sw/Da/No dag;
ON harðr "hard": Ic/Fa harður, Sw/Da hård, No hard;
ON langr "long": Ic/Fa langur, Sw lång, Da/No lang
ja ⟨ja⟩ ja(ː) ja/jɛaː (j)ɛ(ː) ⟨(j)ä⟩ jɛ: ⟨jæ⟩;
jæ: ⟨je⟩ (+r)
ON hjalpa "to help": Ic/Fa hjálpa, Sw hjälpa, Da hjælpe, No hjelpe, NN hjelpa;
ON hjarta "heart": Ic/Fa hjarta, Sw hjärta, Da/NB hjerte, NN hjarta/hjarte
⟨á⟩ au(ː) ɔ/ɔaː ɔ/oː ⟨å⟩ ɔ/ɒ: ⟨å⟩ ON láta "to let": Ic/Fa láta, Sw låta, Da lade, No la
ɛː ⟨æ⟩ ai(ː) a/ɛaː ɛ(ː) ⟨ä⟩ ON mæla "to speak": Ic/Fa/NN mæla, Sw mäla, No mæle;
ON sæll "happy": Ic sæll, Fa sælur, Sw säll, Da/No sæl
e ⟨e⟩ ɛ(ː) ɛ/eː ON menn "men": Ic/Fa menn, Sw män, Da mænd, No menn;
ON bera "to bear": Ic/Fa bera, Sw bära, Da/NB bære, NN bera/bere;
ON vegr "way": Ic/Fa vegur, Sw väg, Da vej, No veg/vei
⟨é⟩ jɛ(ː) a/ɛaː ⟨æ⟩ ON kné "knee": Ic hné, Fa/Da knæ, Sw knä, No kne
i ⟨i⟩ ɪ(ː) ɪ/iː ɪ/iː ⟨i⟩ e ⟨i⟩/
⟨e⟩
ON kinn "cheek": Ic/Fa/No kinn, Sw/Da kind
⟨í⟩ i(ː) ʊɪ(ː)
ʊt͡ʃː ⟨íggj⟩[n 3]
⟨i⟩ ON tíð "time": Ic/Fa tíð, Sw/Da/No tid
ɔ ⟨ǫ⟩ ø > œ(ː) ⟨ö⟩ œ/øː ⟨ø⟩
ɔ/oː ⟨o⟩ [n 4]
⟨a⟩;
⟨o⟩;[n 5]
⟨ø⟩ (+r);[n 5]
⟨å⟩ (+ld,rd,ng)
ON hǫnd "hand": Ic hönd, Fa hond, Sw/NN hand, Da/NB hånd;
ON nǫs "nose": Ic nös, Fa nøs, Sw/NN nos, Da næse, NB nese, NN nase;
ON ǫrn "eagle": Ic/Sw örn, Fa/Da/No ørn;
ON sǫngr "song": Ic söngur, Fa songur, Sw sång, Da/NB sang, NN song
⟨jǫ⟩ > jœ(ː) ⟨jö⟩ jœ/jøː ⟨jø⟩ (j)œ/(j)øː ⟨(j)ö⟩ ON skjǫldr "shield": Ic skjöldur, Fa skjøldur, Sw sköld, Da/No skjold;
ON bjǫrn "bear": Ic/Sw björn, Fa/Da/NN bjørn
ɔː ⟨ǫ́⟩ > au(ː) ⟨á⟩ ɔ/ɔaː ⟨á⟩, œ/ɔuː ⟨ó⟩ ɔ/oː ⟨å⟩ ⟨å⟩ ON (*tǫ́) "toe": Ic/Fa , Sw/Da/No
o ⟨o⟩ ɔ(ː) ɔ/oː ɔ/oː ⟨o⟩ ON morginn/morgunn "morning": Ic morgunn, Fa morgun, Sw/NN morgon, Da/NB morgen
⟨ó⟩ ou(ː) œ/ɔuː
ɛkv ⟨ógv⟩[n 3]
ʊ/uː ⟨o⟩ ⟨o⟩ ON bók "book": Ic/Fa bók, Sw/No bok, Da bog
u ⟨u⟩ ʏ(ː) ʊ/uː ɵ/ʉː ⟨u⟩ ON fullr "full": Ic/Fa fullur, Sw/Da/No full
⟨ú⟩ u(ː) ʏ/ʉuː
ɪkv ⟨úgv⟩[n 3]
⟨u⟩ ON hús "house": Ic/Fa hús, Sw/Da/No hus
joː ⟨jó⟩ jou(ː) jœ/jɔuː
(j)ɛkv ⟨(j)ógv⟩[n 3]
jɵ/jʉː ⟨ju⟩ ⟨y⟩ ON bjóða "to offer, command": Ic/Fa bjóða, Sw bjuda, Da/No byde, NN byda
juː ⟨jú⟩ ju(ː) jʏ/jʉuː
(j)ɪkv ⟨(j)úgv⟩[n 3]
ON djúpr "deep": Ic/Fa djúpur, Sw/No djup, Da dyb, NB dyp
ø ⟨ø⟩ ø > œ(ː) ⟨ö⟩ œ/øː ⟨ø⟩ œ/øː ⟨ö⟩ ON gøra "to prepare": Sw göra
øː ⟨œ⟩ ɛː > ai(ː) ⟨æ⟩ ⟨ø⟩ ON grœnn "green": Ic grænn, Fa grønur, Sw grön, Da/NN grøn, No grønn
y ⟨y⟩ ɪ(ː) ɪ/iː ⟨ö⟩;
⟨y⟩[n 6]
ON dyrr "door": Ic/Fa dyr, Sw dörr, Da/No dør
ON fylla "to fill": Ic/Fa/NN/Sw fylla, Da fylde, No fylle
⟨ý⟩ i(ː) ʊɪ(ː)
ʊt͡ʃː ⟨ýggj⟩[n 3]
ʏ/yː ⟨y⟩ ⟨y⟩ ON dýrr "dear": Ic dýr, Fa dýrur, Sw/Da/No dyr
ɛi ⟨ei⟩ ei(ː) aɪ(ː)
at͡ʃː ⟨eiggj⟩[n 3]
e(ː) ⟨e⟩ ⟨e⟩ ON steinn "stone": Ic steinn, Fa steinur, Sw/Da/NB sten, No stein
œy[21] ⟨ey⟩ ei(ː) ɔɪ(ː) ⟨oy⟩
ɔt͡ʃː ⟨oyggj⟩[n 3]
œ/øː ⟨ö⟩ ⟨ø⟩ ON ey "island": Ic ey, Fa oyggj, Sw ö, Da ø, No øy
ɔu ⟨au⟩ øy(ː) ɛ/ɛɪː ⟨ey⟩
ɛt͡ʃː ⟨eyggj⟩[n 3]
ON draumr "dream": Ic draumur, Fa dreymur, Sw dröm, Da/NB drøm, NN draum
  1. ^ Bokmål Norwegian – Norwegianization of written Danish; Nynorsk Norwegian – Standardised written Norwegian based on Norwegian dialects; No = same in both forms of Norwegian.
  2. ^ a b c Vowel length in the modern Scandinavian languages does not stem from Old Norse vowel length. In all of the modern languages, Old Norse vowel length was lost, and vowel length became allophonically determined by syllable structure, with long vowels occurring when followed by zero or one consonants (and some clusters, e.g. in Icelandic, most clusters of obstruent to obstruent + [r], [j] or [v], such as [pr], [tj], [kv] etc.); short vowels occurred when followed by most consonant clusters, including double consonants. Often, pairs of short and long vowels became differentiated in quality before the loss of vowel length and thus did not end up merging; e.g. Old Norse /a aː i iː/ became Icelandic /a au ɪ i/, all of which can occur allophonically short or long. In the mainland Scandinavian languages, double consonants were reduced to single consonants, making the new vowel length phonemic.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i When not followed by a consonant.
  4. ^ When followed by a nasal consonant.
  5. ^ a b ⟨o⟩ or (before /r/) ⟨ø⟩ in some isolated words, but the tendency was to restore ⟨a⟩.
  6. ^ When un-umlauted */u/ is still present elsewhere in the paradigm.
Pronunciation of vowels in various Scandinavian languages
Spelling Old Norse Modern
Icelandic
Modern
Faroese
Modern
Swedish
Modern
Norwegian
⟨a⟩ a a(ː) a/ɛaː a/ɑː ɑ(ː)
⟨á⟩ au(ː) ɔ/ɔaː
⟨ä⟩ ɛ/ɛː
⟨å⟩ ɔ/oː
⟨æ⟩ ɛː ai(ː) a/ɛaː æ(ː), ɛ/eː
⟨e⟩ e ɛ(ː) ɛ/eː e/eː ɛ/eː, ə, æ(ː)
⟨é⟩ jɛ(ː)
⟨i⟩ i ɪ(ː) ɪ/iː
⟨í⟩ i(ː) ʊɪ(ː)
⟨o⟩ o ɔ(ː) ɔ/oː ʊ/uː, ɔ/oː , ɔ/oː
⟨ó⟩ ou(ː) œ/ɔuː
⟨ǫ⟩ ɔ
⟨ǫ́⟩ ɔː
⟨ö⟩ ø > œ(ː) œ/øː
⟨ø⟩ ø œ/øː œ/øː
⟨œ⟩ øː
⟨u⟩ u ʏ(ː) ʊ/uː ɵ/ʉː ʉ(ː)
⟨ú⟩ u(ː) ʏ/ʉuː
⟨y⟩ y ɪ(ː) ɪ/iː ʏ/yː
⟨ý⟩ i(ː) ʊɪ(ː)
⟨ei⟩ ɛi ei(ː) aɪ(ː) æɪ
⟨ey⟩ œy[21] ei(ː) ɛ/ɛɪː
⟨oy⟩ ɔɪ(ː)
⟨øy⟩ œʏ
⟨au⟩ ɔu øy(ː) æʉ

See also

Dialectal information

Citations

General citations

  1. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian (24 May 2022). "Northwest Germanic". Glottolog. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. from the original on 13 November 2022. Retrieved 13 November 2022.
  2. ^ Josephson, Folke; Söhrman, Ingmar (29 August 2008). Interdependence of Diachronic and Synchronic Analyses. ISBN 9789027290359.
  3. ^ König, Ekkehard; van der Auwera, Johan, eds. (2002). The Germanic Languages. Routledge. p. 38. ISBN 978-0415280792.
  4. ^ Torp & Vikør 1993.
  5. ^ a b König, Ekkehard; van der Auwera, Johan, eds. (2002). The Germanic Languages. Routledge. p. 38. ISBN 978-0415280792.
  6. ^ "Old Norse language". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 5 August 2020.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Adams 1899, "Scandinavian Languages", pp. 336–338
  8. ^ a b "Nordiska språk", Nationalencyklopedin (in Swedish), § Historia, §§ Omkring 800–1100, 1994
  9. ^ van der Auwera & König 1994, "Faroese" (Barnes & Weyhe), p. 217.
  10. ^ Moberg et al. 2007.
  11. ^ See, e.g., Harbert 2007, pp. 7–10
  12. ^ Farren, Robert (2014), Old Norse loanwords in modern Irish (thesis), Lund University
  13. ^ Borkent, Aukje (2014), Norse loanwords in Old and Middle Irish (thesis), Utrecht University, hdl:1874/296646
  14. ^ "Some Irish words with Norse Origins", irisharchaeology.ie, 21 November 2013
  15. ^ Greene, D. (1973), Almqvist, Bo; Greene, David (eds.), "The influence of Scandinavian on Irish", Proceedings of the Seventh Viking Congress, Dundalgan Press, Dundalk, pp. 75–82
  16. ^ Stewart, Thomas W. (Jr.) (2004), "Lexical imposition: Old Norse vocabulary in Scottish Gaelic", Diachronica, 21 (2): 393–420, doi:10.1075/dia.21.2.06ste
  17. ^ Medievalists.net (13 April 2014). "Old Norse Influence in Modern English: The Effect of the Viking Invasion". Medievalists.net. Retrieved 5 August 2020.
  18. ^ Henderson, George (1910), The Norse influence on Celtic Scotland, Glasgow : J. Maclehose and Sons, pp. 108–204
  19. ^ Bandle 2005, Ch. XVII §202 "The typological development of the Nordic languages I: Phonology" (H. Sandøy) : Old East Nordic, pp. 1856, 1859.
  20. ^ Bandle 2005, Ch. XVII §202 "The typological development of the Nordic languages I: Phonology" (H. Sandøy) : Old West Nordic, p. 1859.
  21. ^ a b c d e f Bandle 2005, Ch.XIII §122 "Phonological developments from Old Nordic to Early Modern Nordic I: West Scandinavian." (M. Schulte). pp. 1081–1096; Monophthongization: p.1082; /øy/: p. 1082; Reduced vowels: p. 1085
  22. ^ Haugen 1950, pp. 4–64.
  23. ^ Robinson, Orrin W. (1993), Old English and Its Closest Relatives, p. 83
  24. ^ Sweet 1895, p. 5
  25. ^ Bandle 2005, Ch. XVII §202 "The typological development of the Nordic languages I: Phonology" (H. Sandøy) : Common Nordic, p.1855.
  26. ^ Schalin, Johan (2018). "Preliterary Scandinavian Sound Change Viewed From the East". Nordica Helsingiensia. 54: 146–147.
  27. ^ Vigfússon & Powell 1879, Ch. 1
  28. ^ Benediktsson, H. (1963), "Some Aspects of Nordic Umlaut and Breaking", Language, 39 (3): 409–431, doi:10.2307/411124, JSTOR 411124
  29. ^ a b Iversen 1961, pp. 24-
  30. ^ Bandle 2005, Ch. XVII §202 "The typological development of the Nordic languages I: Phonology" (H. Sandøy) : Proto-Nordic, p.1853.
  31. ^ Old Norse for Beginners, Lesson 5.
  32. ^ Noreen, Adolf. . pp. 200–202, 207 (§ 277, § 283). Archived from the original on 2 June 2017. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
  33. ^ Noreen, A. G., Abriss Der Altnordischen (Altisländischen) Grammatik (in German), p. 12
  34. ^ a b c d Bandle 2005
  35. ^ Old Norse for Beginners, Neuter nouns.
  36. ^ Old Norse for Beginners, Feminine nouns.
  37. ^ The Menota handbook, Ch. 8 §3.2.1 "Gender".
  38. ^ Zoëga 1910, H: hungr.
  39. ^ O'Donoghue 2004, p. 22–102.
  40. ^ , aveneca.com, 2009, archived from the original on 7 July 2011
  41. ^ Hellquist, Elof, ed. (1922), "stark", Svensk etymologisk ordbok [Swedish etymological dictionary] (in Swedish), p. 862
  42. ^ König, Ekkehard; van der Auwera, Johan, eds. (2002). The Germanic Languages. Routledge. p. 38. ISBN 978-0415280792. "Old Norse is by far the best attested variety of Old Scandinavian."
  43. ^ Bandle 2005, Ch. XVII §202 "The typological development of the Nordic languages I: Phonology" (H. Sandøy) : Old East Nordic, pp. 1856, 1859.
  44. ^ Sturtevant, Albert Morey (1953), "Further Old Norse Secondary Formations", Language, 29 (4): 457–462, doi:10.2307/409955, JSTOR 409955
  45. ^ See Codex Regius
  46. ^ Hock, Hans Henrich (1986), Principles of Historical Linguistics, p. 149
  47. ^ a b van Weenen, Andrea de Leeuw (ed.), "(Manuscript AM 519 a 4to) "Alexanders saga"", Medieval Nordic Text Archive www.menota.org, fol. 1v, lines 10–14
  48. ^ Wills, Tarrin (2006), , The Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Durham University, archived from the original on 4 September 2018, retrieved 4 September 2018
  49. ^ Kroonen, Guus, "On the origins of the Elfdalian nasal vowels from the perspective of diachronic dialectology and Germanic etymology" (PDF), inss.ku.dk (Presentation), retrieved 27 January 2016, (Slide 26) §7.2 quote: "In many aspects, Elfdalian, takes up a middle position between East and West Nordic. However, it shares some innovations with West Nordic, but none with East Nordic. This invalidates the claim that Elfdalian split off from Old Swedish."
  50. ^ Noreen, Adolf. . p. 211 (§ 288, note 1). Archived from the original on 2 June 2017. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
  51. ^ O'Donoghue 2004, pp. 190–201.
  52. ^ Lass 1993, pp. 187–188.
  53. ^ a b Helfenstein, James (1870). A Comparative Grammar of the Teutonic Languages: Being at the Same Time a Historical Grammar of the English Language. London: MacMillan and Co.

Cleasby-Vigfússon citations

  1. ^ a b c d e Cleasby & Vigfússon 1874, p.1, "A"
  2. ^ Cleasby & Vigfússon 1874, pp. 761–762 (Introduction to Letter Ö (Ø))
  3. ^ Cleasby & Vigfússon 1874, pp. xxix–xxx "Formation of Words" : Vowel Changes
  4. ^ Cleasby & Vigfússon 1874, p. xvi "Strong Nouns" – Masculine – Remarks on the 1st Strong Masculine Declension, 3.a
  5. ^ Cleasby & Vigfússon 1874, p. 389 col.1, "LIM"; p. 437, col.1 "MUND"
  6. ^ Cleasby & Vigfússon 1874, p. 481 "R"
  7. ^ a b c Cleasby & Vigfússon 1874, p. 757 "Æ"
  8. ^ Cleasby & Vigfússon 1874, pp. 113–114 "E"

Sources

General sources

  • Harbert, Wayne (2007), "The Germanic Languages", Cambridge Language Surveys, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  • Haugan, Jens (1998), "Right Dislocated 'Subjects' in Old Norse", Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax, no. 62, pp. 37–60
  • Haugen, Einar (1950), "First Grammatical Treatise. The Earliest Germanic Phonology", Language, 26 (4): 4–64, doi:10.2307/522272, JSTOR 522272
  • Haugen, Odd Einar, ed. (2008) [2004], The Menota handbook: Guidelines for the electronic encoding of Medieval Nordic primary sources (Version 2.0 ed.), Bergen: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, ISBN 978-82-8088-400-8 , "The Menota handbook 2.0"
  • Lass, Roger (1993), Old English: A Historical Linguistic Companion, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  • Adams, Charles Kendall, ed. (1899) [1876], Johnson's Universal Cyclopedia: A New Edition, vol. 7 (Raleigh-Tananarivo), D. Appleton, A. J. Johnson
  • van der Auwera, J.; König, E., eds. (1994), The Germanic Languages
  • Moberg, J.; Gooskens, C.; Nerbonne, J.; Vaillette, N. (2007), "4. Conditional Entropy Measures Intelligibility among Related Languages", Proceedings of the 17th Meeting of Computational Linguistics in the Netherlands, vol. 7 (LOT Occasional series), pp. 51–66, hdl:1874/296747
  • Bandle, Oskar; Braunmüller, Kurt; Jahr, Ernst Hakon; Karker, Allan; Naumann, Hans-Peter; Teleman, Ulf; Elmevik, Lennart; Widmark, Gun, eds. (2002), The Nordic Languages, An International Handbook on the History of the North Germanic Languages, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin
    • Volume 2, 2005
  • O'Donoghue, Heather (2004), Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Short Introduction, Blackwell Introductions to Literature, Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
  • Torp, Arne; Vikør, Lars S (2014) [1993], Hovuddrag i norsk språkhistorie [The main features of Norwegian language history] (in Norwegian) (4th ed.), Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, ISBN 978-8205464025

Dictionaries

  • Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
    • e-text via the Germanic Lexicon Project (germanic-lexicon-project.org)
    • e-text adapted from the Germanic Lexicon Project version to work better with mobile devices and with an improved search (old-norse.net)
  • Zoëga, G. T. (1896), Íslenzk-Ensk orðabók, S. Kristjánsson
    • Íslenzk-Ensk orðabók, Reykjavík, Kostnaarmaur: Sigurdur Kristjánsson, 1922
  • Zoëga, G. T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic
    • scanned document via "Germanic Lexicon Project" (lexicon.ff.cuni.cz)
    • e-text via norroen.info
  • ONP: Dictionary of Old Norse Prose (in Danish and English), University of Copenhagen
  • de Vries, Jan (1977) [1961], Altnordisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch
  • Egilsson, Sveinbjorn, ed. (1854), Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis (in Danish and Latin), Hafniæ, typis J. D. Qvist & comp
  • Egilsson, Sveinbjorn; Jónsson, Finnur, eds. (1931) [1913–1916], Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis (2nd ed.)
    • First and Second editions via www.septentrionalia.net

Grammars

  • Bayldon, George (1870), An Elementary Grammar of the Old Norse or Icelandic Language, London: Williams and Norgate
  • Vigfússon, Gudbrand; Powell, F. York (1879), An Icelandic Prose Reader: with Notes, Grammar, and Glossary, Oxford Clarendon Press
  • Noreen, Adolf (1923), Altnordische grammatik I. Altisländische und altnorwegische grammatik (laut- und flexionslehre) (4th ed.), Halle (Saale): Max Niemeyer (Old West Norse)
  • Noreen, Adolf (1904), Altnordische grammatik II. Altschwedische grammatik mit einschluss des altgutnischen, Halle: Max Niemeyer (Old Swedish and Old Gutnish)
  • Brøndum-Nielsen, Johannes (1928–1974), Gammeldansk Grammatik i sproghistorisk Fremstilling (8 volumes), København: J. H. Schultz (Old Danish)
  • Iversen, Ragnvald (1972). Norrøn grammatikk (7th ed.). Oslo: Aschehoug. (Old West Norse)
  • Faarlund, Jan Terje (2004), The Syntax of Old Norse, New York: Oxford University Press (Old Norse in the narrow sense, i.e. Old West Norse)
  • Haugen, Odd Einar (2006), Grunnbok i norrønt språk (3rd, revised printing of the 4th ed.), Gyldendal Akademisk (Old West Norse)
  • Haugen, Odd Einar (2015), Norröne Grammatik im Überblick (2nd ed.), Universität Bergen (Old West Norse)

Old Norse texts

  • Aronsson, Lars, ed. (1997), "Gutasagan", Project Runeberg (in Old Norse)
    • Tunstall, Peter (ed.), Gutarnas Krönika eller Gutasagan [The History of the Gotlanders] (in Old Norse and English) , facing translation

Language learning resources

  • Byock, Jesse (2013), Viking Language: Learn Old Norse, Runes, and Icelandic Sagas, Jules William Press, ISBN 978-1-4802-1644-0
  • Gordon, Eric V.; Taylor, A. R. (1981), An Introduction to Old Norse, Oxford: Clarendon Press, ISBN 978-0-19-811184-9
  • Sweet, Henry (1895), An Icelandic Primer, with Grammar, Notes, and Glossary (2nd ed.), Univerzita Karlova
    • alt source via Germanic Lexicon Project (lexicon.ff.cuni.cz)
    • e-ext via Project Gutenberg
  • Þorgeirsson, Haukur; Guðlaugsson, Óskar, Old Norse for Beginners

External links

  • Heimskringla.no, an online collection of Old Norse source material
  • Old Norse Online by Todd B. Krause and Jonathan Slocum, free online lessons at the Linguistics Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin
  • Video: Old Norse text read with a reconstructed pronunciation and a Modern Icelandic pronunciation, for comparison. With subtitles
  • Old Norse sound sample
  • Old Norse loans in Old and Middle English, and their legacy in the dialects of England and modern standard English
  • Old Norse basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database

norse, other, uses, norse, disambiguation, confused, with, north, nordic, scandinavian, stage, development, north, germanic, dialects, before, their, final, divergence, into, separate, nordic, languages, spoken, inhabitants, scandinavia, their, overseas, settl. For other uses see Norse disambiguation Not to be confused with Old North Old Norse Old Nordic 2 or Old Scandinavian is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements and chronologically coincides with the Viking Age the Christianization of Scandinavia and the consolidation of Scandinavian kingdoms from about the 7th to the 15th centuries 3 Old NorseOld Nordicdǫnsk tunga Danish tongue norrǿnt mal Norwegian language norrǿnaNative toScandinavia Iceland Faroe Islands Greenland and other Norse settlementsRegionNordic countries Great Britain Ireland Isle of Man Normandy Newfoundland the Volga and places in betweenEthnicityNorsemen and their descendantsEraEvolved from Proto Norse in the 7th century developed into the various North Germanic languages by the 15th centuryLanguage familyIndo European GermanicNorthwest Germanic 1 North GermanicOld NorseEarly formProto Norse attested Writing systemRunic later Latin Old Norse alphabet Language codesISO 639 2 span class plainlinks non span ISO 639 3 a href https iso639 3 sil org code non class extiw title iso639 3 non non a Glottologoldn1244This article contains IPA phonetic symbols Without proper rendering support you may see question marks boxes or other symbols instead of Unicode characters For an introductory guide on IPA symbols see Help IPA The Proto Norse language developed into Old Norse by the 8th century and Old Norse began to develop into the modern North Germanic languages in the mid to late 14th century ending the language phase known as Old Norse These dates however are not absolute since written Old Norse is found well into the 15th century 4 better source needed Old Norse was divided into three dialects Old West Norse or Old West Nordic often referred to as Old Norse 5 Old East Norse or Old East Nordic and Old Gutnish Old West Norse and Old East Norse formed a dialect continuum with no clear geographical boundary between them For example Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway although Old Norwegian is classified as Old West Norse and Old West Norse traits were found in western Sweden Most speakers spoke Old East Norse in what is present day Denmark and Sweden Old Gutnish is sometimes included in the Old East Norse dialect due to geographical associations It developed its own unique features and shared in changes to both other branches 6 The 12th century Icelandic Gray Goose Laws state that Swedes Norwegians Icelanders and Danes spoke the same language dǫnsk tunga Danish tongue speakers of Old East Norse would have said dansk tunga Another term was norrœnt mal northern speech Today Old Norse has developed into the modern North Germanic languages Icelandic Faroese Norwegian Danish Swedish and other North Germanic varieties of which Norwegian Danish and Swedish retain considerable mutual intelligibility while Icelandic remains the closest to Old Norse Contents 1 Geographical distribution 2 Modern descendants 2 1 Other influenced languages 3 Phonology 3 1 Vowels 3 2 Consonants 3 3 Accent 4 Orthography 5 Phonological processes 5 1 Ablaut 5 2 Umlaut 5 2 1 U umlaut 5 3 Breaking 5 4 Assimilation or elision of inflectional ʀ 6 Phonotactics 6 1 Blocking of ii uu 6 2 Epenthesis 7 Grammar 7 1 Gender 7 2 Morphology 8 Texts 9 Dialects 9 1 Old West Norse 9 1 1 Old Icelandic 9 1 2 Old Norwegian 9 1 3 Greenlandic Norse 9 1 4 Text example 9 2 Old East Norse 9 2 1 Old Danish 9 2 2 Old Swedish 9 2 3 Text example 9 3 Old Gutnish 9 3 1 Text example 10 Relationship to other languages 10 1 Relationship to English 10 2 Relationship to modern Scandinavian languages 11 See also 11 1 Dialectal information 12 Citations 12 1 General citations 12 2 Cleasby Vigfusson citations 13 Sources 13 1 General sources 13 2 Dictionaries 13 3 Grammars 13 4 Old Norse texts 13 5 Language learning resources 14 External linksGeographical distribution Edit The approximate extent of Old Norse and related languages in the early 10th century Old West Norse dialect Old East Norse dialect Old Gutnish dialect Old English Crimean Gothic Other Germanic languages with which Old Norse still retained some mutual intelligibility Old Icelandic was very close to Old Norwegian and together they formed Old West Norse which was also spoken in Norse settlements in Greenland the Faroes Ireland Scotland the Isle of Man northwest England and in Normandy 7 Old East Norse was spoken in Denmark Sweden Kievan Rus 8 eastern England and Danish settlements in Normandy The Old Gutnish dialect was spoken in Gotland and in various settlements in the East In the 11th century Old Norse was the most widely spoken European language ranging from Vinland in the West to the Volga River in the East In Kievan Rus it survived the longest in Veliky Novgorod probably lasting into the 13th century there 8 The age of the Swedish speaking population of Finland is strongly contested but Swedish settlement had spread the language into the region by the time of the Second Swedish Crusade in the 13th century at the latest citation needed Modern descendants EditMain article North Germanic languages The modern descendants of the Old West Norse dialect are the West Scandinavian languages of Icelandic Faroese Norwegian and the extinct Norn language of Orkney and Shetland the descendants of the Old East Norse dialect are the East Scandinavian languages of Danish and Swedish Norwegian is descended from Old West Norse but over the centuries it has been heavily influenced by East Norse particularly during the Denmark Norway union Among these the grammar of Icelandic and Faroese have changed the least from Old Norse in the last thousand years In contrast the pronunciations of both Icelandic and Faroese have changed considerably from Old Norse With Danish rule of the Faroe Islands Faroese has also been influenced by Danish Both Middle English and Early Scots were strongly influenced by Norse especially dialects from northern England within the area of the Danelaw and Lowland Scots both of which contained many Old Norse loanwords Consequently Modern English including Scottish English inherited a significant proportion of its vocabulary directly from Norse The development of Norman French was also influenced by Norse Through Norman to a smaller extent so was modern French Written modern Icelandic derives from the Old Norse phonemic writing system Contemporary Icelandic speakers can read Old Norse which varies slightly in spelling as well as semantics and word order However pronunciation particularly of the vowel phonemes has changed at least as much in Icelandic as in the other North Germanic languages Faroese retains many similarities but is influenced by Danish Norwegian and Gaelic Scottish and or Irish 9 Although Swedish Danish and Norwegian have diverged the most they still retain considerable mutual intelligibility 10 Speakers of modern Swedish Norwegian and Danish can mostly understand each other without studying their neighboring languages particularly if speaking slowly The languages are also sufficiently similar in writing that they can mostly be understood across borders This could be because these languages have been mutually affected by each other as well as having a similar development influenced by Middle Low German 11 Other influenced languages Edit Various languages unrelated to Old Norse and others not closely related have been heavily influenced by Norse particularly the Norman language to a lesser extent Finnish and Estonian Russian Ukrainian Belarusian Lithuanian and Latvian also have a few Norse loanwords The words Rus and Russia according to one theory may be named after the Rus people a Norse tribe probably from present day east central Sweden The current Finnish and Estonian words for Sweden are Ruotsi and Rootsi respectively A number of loanwords have been introduced into Irish many associated with fishing and sailing 12 13 14 15 A similar influence is found in Scottish Gaelic with over one hundred loanwords estimated to be in the language many of which are related to fishing and sailing 16 17 18 Phonology EditVowels Edit The vowel phonemes mostly come in pairs of long and short The standardized orthography marks the long vowels with an acute accent In medieval manuscripts it is often unmarked but sometimes marked with an accent or through gemination Old Norse had nasalized versions of all ten vowel places cv 1 obsolete source These occurred as allophones of the vowels before nasal consonants and in places where a nasal had followed it in an older form of the word before it was absorbed into a neighboring sound If the nasal was absorbed by a stressed vowel it would also lengthen the vowel These nasalizations also occurred in the other Germanic languages but were not retained long They were noted in the First Grammatical Treatise and otherwise might have remained unknown The First Grammarian marked these with a dot above the letter cv 1 This notation did not catch on and would soon be obsolete Nasal and oral vowels probably merged around the 11th century in most of Old East Norse 19 However the distinction still holds in Dalecarlian dialects 20 The dots in the following vowel table separate the oral from nasal phonemes Generic vowel system c 9th 12th centuries Front vowels Back vowelsUnrounded Rounded Unrounded RoundedClose i ĩ iː ĩː y ỹ yː ỹː u ũ uː ũːMid e ẽ eː ẽː o o oː o ː o o oː oːOpen open mid ɛ ɛ ɛː ɛ ː œ œ a a aː aː ɔ ɔ ɔː ɔ ːNote The open or open mid vowels may be transcribed differently ae ɛ ɒ ɔ ɑ a Sometime around the 13th century ɔ spelled ǫ merged with o or o in most dialects except Old Danish and Icelandic where ɔ ǫ merged with o This can be determined by their distinction within the 12th century First Grammatical Treatise but not within the early 13th century Prose Edda The nasal vowels also noted in the First Grammatical Treatise are assumed to have been lost in most dialects by this time but notably they are retained in Elfdalian and other dialects of Ovansiljan See Old Icelandic for the mergers of oː spelled œ with ɛː spelled ae and ɛ spelled e with e spelled e Generic vowel system c 13th 14th centuries Front vowels Back vowelsUnrounded Rounded Unrounded RoundedHigh i iː y yː u uːMid e eː o oː o oːLow Low mid ɛ ɛː a aː Old Norse had three diphthong phonemes ɛi ɔu oy ɛy spelled ei au ey respectively In East Norse these would monophthongize and merge with eː and oː whereas in West Norse and its descendants the diphthongs remained History of Old Norse and Old Icelandic vowels Proto Germanic Northwest Germanic Primitive Old West Norse Old Icelandic 1st Grammarian Later Old Icelandic Example Old Norse a a a a a a land land lt landaa a i mut ɛ e e e e menn men lt manniza a u w mut ɔ ǫ ɔ o o lǫnd lands lt landu lt landō sǫngr song lt sǫngr lt sangwaza a i mut w mut œ o o o o gora to make lt garwijanaaeː e aː aː a aː aː lata to let lt letanaaeː e aː i mut ɛː ae ɛː ɛː maela to speak lt malijan lt melijanaaeː e aː u mut ɔː ǫ ɔː aː a mǫ l meals lt malu lt melōe e e e e e sex six lt seks bresta to burst lt brestanae e u w mut o o o o o togr ten lt teguze e broken ea ea ja ja ja gjalda to repay lt geldanae e broken u w mut eo io eo io jo gt jɔ jǫ jo jo skjǫldr shield lt skelduzeː e eː eː e eː eː let let past tense lt le ti i i i i i mikill great lt mikilazi i w mut y y y y ː slyngva to sling lt slingwanaiː iː iː i iː iː lita to look lt litanaoː oː oː o oː oː for went lt fōr mot meeting lt mōtaoː oː i mut oː œ oː ɛː ae mœdr mothers lt mōdrizu u u u u u una to be content lt unanau u i mut y y y y kyn race lt kunjau u a mut o o o o fogl fugl bird lt fuglaz morginn morning lt murganazuː uː uː u uː uː drupa to droop lt drupanauː uː i mut yː y yː yː myss mice lt musizai ai ai gt ɛi ei ɛi ɛi bein Gut bain bone lt bainaai ai w mut oy ey oy oy ey 21 ɛy kveykva to kindle lt kwaikwanaau au au gt ɔu au ɔu au au lauss loose lt lausazau au i mut oy ey oy oy ey ɛy leysa to loosen lt lausijanaeu eu eu eu juː ju juː djupr deep lt deupazeu eu dental eo eo joː jo juː bjoda bjuda to offer lt beudanaṼ Ṽ Ṽ Ṽ V komȧ lt kwemana to come arrive OWN vetr vettr lt vintr lt wintruz winter Ṽː Ṽː Ṽː Ṽː Vː hȧ r shark lt hanhaz ȯ rar our pl lt unseraz o rȧ younger acc neut wk cv 1 lt junhiza 22 Consonants Edit Old Norse has six plosive phonemes p being rare word initially and d and b pronounced as voiced fricative allophones between vowels except in compound words e g vedrabati already in the Proto Germanic language e g b b gt v between vowels The ɡ phoneme was pronounced as ɡ after an n or another ɡ and as k before s and t Some accounts have it a voiced velar fricative ɣ in all cases and others have that realisation only in the middle of words and between vowels with it otherwise being realised ɡ 23 24 clarification needed The Old East Norse ʀ was an apical consonant with its precise position is unknown it is reconstructed as a palatal sibilant 25 26 It descended from Proto Germanic z and eventually developed into r as had already occurred in Old West Norse Labial Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar Labiovelar GlottalPlosive p b t d k ɡNasal m n ŋ Fricative f v 8 d s ʀ a ɣ hTrill rApproximant j wLateral approximant l Reconstructed as ɹ when part of the stem of a word with a voiceless allophone ɹ word finally when not part of the stem The consonant digraphs hl hr and hn occurred word initially It is unclear whether they were sequences of two consonants with the first element realised as h or perhaps x or as single voiceless sonorants l r and n respectively In Old Norwegian Old Danish and later Old Swedish the groups hl hr and hn were reduced to plain l r n which suggests that they had most likely already been pronounced as voiceless sonorants by Old Norse times The pronunciation of hv is unclear but it may have been xʷ the Proto Germanic pronunciation hʷ or the similar phoneme ʍ Unlike the three other digraphs it was retained much longer in all dialects Without ever developing into a voiceless sonorant in Icelandic it instead underwent fortition to a plosive kv which suggests that instead of being a voiceless sonorant it retained a stronger frication Accent Edit See also Danish stod Norwegian tonal stress and Swedish tonal stress This section needs expansion with Dating etc You can help by adding to it April 2010 Primary stress in Old Norse falls on the word stem so that hyrjar would be pronounced ˈhyr jar In compound words secondary stress falls on the second stem e g laerisveinn ˈlɛːɾ iˌswɛinː 27 Orthography EditMain article Old Norse orthography Unlike Proto Norse which was written with the Elder Futhark runic Old Norse was originally written with the Younger Futhark which had only 16 letters Because of the limited number of runes several runes were used for different sounds and long and short vowels were not distinguished in writing Medieval runes came into use some time later As for the Latin alphabet there was no standardized orthography in use in the Middle Ages A modified version of the letter wynn called vend was used briefly for the sounds u v and w Long vowels were sometimes marked with acutes but also sometimes left unmarked or geminated The standardized Old Norse spelling was created in the 19th century and is for the most part phonemic The most notable deviation is that the nonphonemic difference between the voiced and the voiceless dental fricative is marked The oldest texts and runic inscriptions use th exclusively Long vowels are denoted with acutes Most other letters are written with the same glyph as the IPA phoneme except as shown in the table below Phonological processes EditAblaut Edit Ablaut patterns are groups of vowels which are swapped or ablauted in the nucleus of a word Strong verbs ablaut the lemma s nucleus to derive the past forms of the verb This parallels English conjugation where e g the nucleus of sing becomes sang in the past tense and sung in the past participle Some verbs are derived by ablaut as the present in past verbs do by consequence of being derived from the past tense forms of strong verbs Umlaut Edit See also Germanic umlaut and Old Norse morphophonology Umlaut or mutation is an assimilatory process acting on vowels preceding a vowel or semivowel of a different vowel backness In the case of i umlaut and ʀ umlaut this entails a fronting of back vowels with retention of lip rounding In the case of u umlaut this entails labialization of unrounded vowels Umlaut is phonemic and in many situations grammatically significant as a side effect of losing the Proto Germanic morphological suffixes whose vowels created the umlaut allophones Some y yː o oː ɛ ɛː oy 21 and all ɛi were obtained by i umlaut from u uː o oː a aː au and ai respectively Others were formed via ʀ umlaut from u uː a aː and au 7 Some y yː o oː and all ɔ ɔː were obtained by u umlaut from i iː e eː and a aː respectively See Old Icelandic for information on ɔː œ was obtained through a simultaneous u and i umlaut of a It appears in words like gora gjǫra geyra from Proto Germanic garwijana and commonly in verbs with a velar consonant before the suffix like sokkva lt sankwijana cv 2 OEN often preserves the original value of the vowel directly preceding runic ʀ while OWN receives ʀ umlaut Compare runic OEN glaʀ haʀi hrauʀ with OWN gler heri later heri hroyrr hreyrr glass hare pile of rocks U umlaut Edit U umlaut is more common in Old West Norse in both phonemic and allophonic positions while it only occurs sparsely in post runic Old East Norse and even in runic Old East Norse Comparison demonstrating U Umlaut in Swedish 28 29 Meaning West Old Norse Old Swedish 1 Modern Swedish IcelandicTranscription IPA Transcription IPAGuardian Caretaker vǫrdr varther vard voːɖ vordur ˈvœrdʏr Eagle ǫrn orn orn œːɳ orn œrtn Earth jǫrd iorth jord 2 juːɖ jord jœrd Milk mjǫlk miolk mjolk 2 mjœlk mjolk mjoul k Old Swedish orthography uses th to represent both d and 8 The change from Norse d to Old Swedish th represents only a change in orthography rather than a change in sound Similarly i is used in place of j And thus changes from Norse j to Old Swedish i to Swedish j should be viewed as a change in orthography Represents the u umlaut found in Swedish This is still a major difference between Swedish and Faroese and Icelandic today Plurals of neuters do not have u umlaut at all in Swedish but in Faroese and Icelandic they do for example the Faroese and Icelandic plurals of the word land lond and lond respectively in contrast to the Swedish plural land and numerous other examples That also applies to almost all feminine nouns for example the largest feminine noun group the o stem nouns except the Swedish noun jord mentioned above and even i stem nouns and root nouns such as Old West Norse mǫrk mork in Icelandic in comparison with Modern and Old Swedish mark 29 Breaking Edit See also Vowel breaking Vowel breaking or fracture caused a front vowel to be split into a semivowel vowel sequence before a back vowel in the following syllable 7 While West Norse only broke e East Norse also broke i The change was blocked by a w l or ʀ preceding the potentially broken vowel 7 30 Some ja or jɔ and jaː or jɔː result from breaking of e and eː respectively cv 3 Assimilation or elision of inflectional ʀ Edit When a noun pronoun adjective or verb has a long vowel or diphthong in the accented syllable and its stem ends in a single l n or s the r or the elder r or z variant ʀ in an ending is assimilated cv 4 When the accented vowel is short the ending is dropped The nominative of the strong masculine declension and some i stem feminine nouns uses one such r ʀ odin r odin ʀ becomes odinn instead of odinr odinʀ The verb blasa to blow has third person present tense blaess he blows rather than blaesr blaesʀ 31 Similarly the verb skina to shine had present tense third person skinn rather than skinr skinʀ while kala to cool down had present tense third person kell rather than kelr kelʀ The rule is not absolute with certain counter examples such as vinr friend which has the synonym vin yet retains the unabsorbed version and jǫtunn giant where assimilation takes place even though the root vowel ǫ is short The clusters Clʀ Csʀ Cnʀ Crʀ cannot yield Clː Csː Cnː Crː respectively instead Cl Cs Cn Cr 32 The effect of this shortening can result in the lack of distinction between some forms of the noun In the case of vetr winter the nominative and accusative singular and plural forms are identical The nominative singular and nominative and accusative plural would otherwise have been OWN vetrr OEN wintrʀ These forms are impossible because the cluster Crʀ cannot be realized as Crː nor as Crʀ nor as Cʀː The same shortening as in vetr also occurs in lax laks salmon as opposed to lakss laksʀ botn bottom as opposed to botnn botnʀ and jarl as opposed to jarll jarlʀ Furthermore wherever the cluster rʀ is expected to exist such as in the male names Ragnarr Steinarr supposedly Ragnarʀ Steinarʀ the result is apparently always rː rather than rʀ or ʀː This is observable in the Runic corpus Phonotactics EditBlocking of ii uu Edit In Old Norse i j adjacent to i e their u umlauts and ae was not possible nor u v adjacent to u o their i umlauts and ǫ 7 At the beginning of words this manifested as a dropping of the initial j which was general independent of the following vowel or v Compare ON ord ulfr ar with English word wolf year In inflections this manifested as the dropping of the inflectional vowels Thus klaedi dat i remains klaedi and sjaum in Icelandic progressed to sjǫ um gt sjǫ m gt sjam 33 The jj and ww of Proto Germanic became ggj and ggv respectively in Old Norse a change known as Holtzmann s law 7 Epenthesis Edit An epenthetic vowel became popular by 1200 in Old Danish 1250 in Old Swedish and Norwegian and 1300 in Old Icelandic 34 An unstressed vowel was used which varied by dialect Old Norwegian exhibited all three u was used in West Norwegian south of Bergen as in aftur aftor older aptr North of Bergen i appeared in aftir after and East Norwegian used a after aftaer 21 Grammar EditOld Norse was a moderately inflected language with high levels of nominal and verbal inflection Most of the fused morphemes are retained in modern Icelandic especially in regard to noun case declensions whereas modern Norwegian in comparison has moved towards more analytical word structures Gender Edit Further information Grammatical gender Old Norse had three grammatical genders masculine feminine and neuter Adjectives or pronouns referring to a noun must mirror the gender of that noun so that one says heill madr but heilt barn As in other languages the grammatical gender of an impersonal noun is generally unrelated to an expected natural gender of that noun While indeed karl man is masculine kona woman is feminine and hus house is neuter so also are hrafn and kraka for raven and crow masculine and feminine respectively even in reference to a female raven or a male crow All neuter words have identical nominative and accusative forms 35 and all feminine words have identical nominative and accusative plurals 36 The gender of some words plurals does not agree with that of their singulars such as lim and mund cv 5 Some words such as hungr have multiple genders evidenced by their determiners being declined in different genders within a given sentence 37 38 Morphology Edit Main article Old Norse morphology Nouns adjectives and pronouns were declined in four grammatical cases nominative accusative genitive and dative in singular and plural numbers Adjectives and pronouns were additionally declined in three grammatical genders Some pronouns first and second person could have dual number in addition to singular and plural The genitive was used partitively and in compounds and kennings e g Urdarbrunnr the well of Urdr Lokasenna the gibing of Loki There were several classes of nouns within each gender The following is an example of the strong inflectional paradigms The strong masculine noun armr English arm Case Singular PluralNominative armr armarAccusative arm armaGenitive armsDative armi ǫrmum armumThe feminine noun hǫll OWN hall OEN English hall Number Case Old West Norse Old East NorseSingular Nominative Accusative hǫll hallGenitive hallarDative hǫllu halluPlural Nominative Accusative hallir hallarGenitive hallaDative hǫllum hallumThe neuter noun troll English troll Case Singular PluralNominative Accusative trollGenitive trolls trollaDative trolli trollumThe numerous weak noun paradigms had a much higher degree of syncretism between the different cases i e they had fewer forms than the strong nouns A definite article was realised as a suffix that retained an independent declension e g troll a troll trollit the troll hǫll a hall hǫllin the hall armr an arm armrinn the arm This definite article however was a separate word and did not become attached to the noun before later stages of the Old Norse period Texts Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Old Norse manuscripts The earliest inscriptions in Old Norse are runic from the 8th century Runes continued to be commonly used until the 15th century and have been recorded to be in use in some form as late as the 19th century in some parts of Sweden With the conversion to Christianity in the 11th century came the Latin alphabet The oldest preserved texts in Old Norse in the Latin alphabet date from the middle of the 12th century Subsequently Old Norse became the vehicle of a large and varied body of vernacular literature Most of the surviving literature was written in Iceland Best known are the Norse sagas the Icelanders sagas and the mythological literature but there also survives a large body of religious literature translations into Old Norse of courtly romances classical mythology and the Old Testament as well as instructional material grammatical treatises and a large body of letters and official documents 39 Dialects EditMost of the innovations that appeared in Old Norse spread evenly through the Old Norse area As a result the dialects were very similar and considered to be the same language a language that they sometimes called the Danish tongue Dǫnsk tunga sometimes Norse language Norrœnt mal as evidenced in the following two quotes from Heimskringla by Snorri Sturluson Modir Dyggva var Drott dottir Danps konungs sonar Rigs er fyrstr var konungr kalladr a danska tungu Dyggvi s mother was Drott the daughter of king Danp Rig s son who was the first to be called king in the Danish tongue Heimskringla Ynglinga saga 20 Daudi Dyggva stirt var honum norrœnt mal ok kylfdi mᴊǫk til ordanna ok hǫfdu margir menn that mᴊǫk at spotti the Norse language was hard for him and he often fumbled for words which amused people greatly Heimskringla Saga Sigurdar Jorsalafara Eysteins ok olafs 35 34 Fra vedjan Haralds ok MagnusHowever some changes were geographically limited and so created a dialectal difference between Old West Norse and Old East Norse As Proto Norse evolved into Old Norse in the 8th century the effects of the umlauts seem to have been very much the same over the whole Old Norse area But in later dialects of the language a split occurred mainly between west and east as the use of umlauts began to vary The typical umlauts for example fylla from fullijan were better preserved in the West due to later generalizations in the east where many instances of umlaut were removed many archaic Eastern texts as well as eastern runic inscriptions however portray the same extent of umlauts as in later Western Old Norse All the while the changes resulting in breaking for example hiarta from hertō were more influential in the East probably once again due to generalizations within the inflectional system This difference was one of the greatest reasons behind the dialectalization that took place in the 9th and 10th centuries shaping an Old West Norse dialect in Norway and the Atlantic settlements and an Old East Norse dialect in Denmark and Sweden Old West Norse and Old Gutnish did not take part in the monophthongization which changed aei ei into e oy ey and au into o nor did certain peripheral dialects of Swedish as seen in modern Ostrobothnian dialects 40 Another difference was that Old West Norse lost certain combinations of consonants The combinations mp nt and nk were assimilated into pp tt and kk in Old West Norse but this phenomenon was limited in Old East Norse Here is a comparison between the two dialects as well as Old Gutnish It is a transcription from one of the Funbo Runestones in Sweden U 990 from the eleventh century translation Vedr and Thane and Gunnar raised this stone after Haursi their father God help his spirit Vedr ok THegn ok Gunnarr reistu stein thenna at Haursa fǫdur sinn Gud hjalpi ǫnd hans OWN Wedr ok THegn ok Gunnarr raeistu staein thenna at Haursa fadur sinn Gud hialpi and hans OEN Wedr ok THegn ok Gunnarr raistu stain thenna at Haursa fadur sinn Gud hialpi and hans OG The OEN original text above is transliterated according to traditional scholarly methods wherein u umlaut is not regarded in runic Old East Norse Modern studies citation needed have shown that the positions where it applies are the same as for runic Old West Norse An alternative and probably more accurate transliteration would therefore render the text in OEN as such Wedr ok THegn ok Gunnarr raeistu staein thenna at Haursa fǫdur sinn Gud hialpi ǫnd hans OEN Some past participles and other words underwent i umlaut in Old West Norse but not in Old East Norse dialects Examples of that are Icelandic slegid sleginn and tekid tekinn which in Swedish are slagit slagen and tagit tagen This can also be seen in the Icelandic and Norwegian words sterkur and sterk strong which in Swedish is stark as in Old Swedish 41 These differences can also be seen in comparison between Norwegian and Swedish Old West Norse Edit Old West Norse is by far the best attested variety of Old Norse 42 The term Old Norse is often used to refer to Old West Norse specifically in which case the subject of this article receives another name such as Old Scandinavian 5 Another designation is Old West Nordic The combinations mp nt and nk mostly merged to pp tt and kk in Old West Norse around the 7th century marking the first distinction between the Eastern and Western dialects 43 The following table illustrates this English Old West Norse Old East Norse Proto Norsemushroom s v ǫppr swampʀ swampuzsteep brattr brantʀ brantazwidow ekkja aenkija ain a kjōnto shrink kreppa krimpa krimpanto sprint spretta sprinta sprintanto sink sokkva saenkwa sankwijanAn early difference between Old West Norse and the other dialects was that Old West Norse had the forms bu dwelling ku cow accusative and tru faith whereas Old East Norse bo ko and tro Old West Norse was also characterized by the preservation of u umlaut which meant that for example Proto Norse tanthu tooth became tǫnn and not tann as in post runic Old East Norse OWN gǫ s and runic OEN gǫ s while post runic OEN gas goose The earliest body of text appears in runic inscriptions and in poems composed c 900 by THjodolfr of Hvinir although the poems are not preserved in contemporary sources but only in much later manuscripts The earliest manuscripts are from the period 1150 1200 and concern legal religious and historical matters During the 12th and 13th centuries Trondelag and Western Norway were the most important areas of the Norwegian kingdom and they shaped Old West Norse as an archaic language with a rich set of declensions In the body of text that has survived into the modern day from until c 1300 Old West Norse had little dialect variation and Old Icelandic does not diverge much more than the Old Norwegian dialects do from each other Old Norwegian differentiated early from Old Icelandic by the loss of the consonant h in initial position before l n and r thus whereas Old Icelandic manuscripts might use the form hnefi fist Old Norwegian manuscripts might use nefi From the late 13th century Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian started to diverge more After c 1350 the Black Death and following social upheavals seem to have accelerated language changes in Norway From the late 14th century the language used in Norway is generally referred to as Middle Norwegian Old West Norse underwent a lengthening of initial vowels at some point especially in Norwegian so that OWN eta became eta ONW akr gt akr OIC ek gt ek 44 Old Icelandic Edit In Iceland initial w before ɾ was lost cv 6 compare Icelandic rangur with Danish vrang OEN wrangʀ The change is shared with Old Gutnish 34 A specifically Icelandic sound the long u umlauted A spelled Ǫ and pronounced ɔː developed around the early 11th century cv 1 It was short lived being marked in the Grammatical Treatises and remaining until the end of the 12th century cv 1 It then merged back into aː as a result long A is not affected by u umlaut in Modern Icelandic w merged with v during the 12th century 7 which caused v to become an independent phoneme from f and the written distinction of v for v from medial and final f to become merely etymological Around the 13th century Œ Ǿ oː which had probably already lowered to œː merged to AE ɛː cv 7 Thus pre 13th century grœnn with œ green became spelled as in modern Icelandic graenn with ae The 12th century Gray Goose Laws manuscripts distinguish the vowels and so the Codex Regius copy does as well cv 7 However the 13th century Codex Regius copy of the Poetic Edda probably relied on newer and or poorer quality sources Demonstrating either difficulty with or total lack of natural distinction the manuscripts show separation of the two phonemes in some places but they frequently confuse the letters chosen to distinguish them in others cv 7 45 Towards the end of the 13th century e ɛ merged to E e cv 8 Old Norwegian Edit Further information Old Norwegian Around the 11th century citation needed Old Norwegian hl hn and hr became l n and r It is debatable whether the hC sequences represented a consonant cluster hC or devoicing C Orthographic evidence suggests that in a confined dialect of Old Norwegian ɔ may have been unrounded before u and that u umlaut was reversed unless the u had been eliminated ǫll ǫllum gt ǫll allum 46 Greenlandic Norse Edit Further information Greenlandic Norse This dialect of Old West Norse was spoken by Icelandic colonies in Greenland When the colonies died out around the 15th century the dialect went with it The phoneme 8 and some instances of d merged to t and so Old Icelandic THordr became Tortr Text example Edit Further information Old Norse orthography The following text is from Alexanders saga an Alexander romance The manuscript AM 519 a 4to is dated c 1280 The facsimile demonstrates the sigla used by scribes to write Old Norse Many of them were borrowed from Latin Without familiarity with these abbreviations the facsimile will be unreadable to many In addition reading the manuscript itself requires familiarity with the letterforms of the native script The abbreviations are expanded in a version with normalized spelling like that of the standard normalization system Compared to the spelling of the same text in Modern Icelandic pronunciation has changed greatly but spelling has changed little since Icelandic orthography was intentionally modelled after Old Norse in the 19th century Digital facsimile of the manuscript text 47 The same text with normalized spelling 47 The same text with Modern Icelandic spelling ſem oꝩin h ſ brigzlodo h o epꞇ th ſe ſidaʀ mon ſagꞇ verda THeſſi ſvein a ꝩar iſcola ſeꞇꞇr ſem ſidꝩenia e ꞇil rikra man a vꞇan lanꝺz aꞇ laꞇa g a vid boꝛn ſiiƞ Meiſꞇari ꝩar h o ꝼengin ſa e ariſꞇoꞇileſ heꞇ h ꝩar hardla godꝛ clercr en meſꞇi ſpekingr aꞇ ꝩiꞇi er h ꝩ xii veꞇ gamall aꞇ allꝺri naliga alroſcin aꞇ ꝩiꞇi en ſꞇoꝛhvgadꝛ u ꝼ m alla ſina iaꝼnallꝺꝛa sem ovinir hans brigzludu honum eftir thvi sem sidarr man sagt verda thessi sveinn Alexander var i skola settr sem sidvenja er til rikra manna utanlands at lata gera vid bǫrn sin meistari var honum fenginn sa er Aristoteles het hann var hardla godr klerkr ok inn mesti spekingr at viti ok er hann var tolv vetra gamall at aldri naliga alroskinn at viti en storhugadr umfram alla sina jafnaldra sem ovinir hans brigsludu honum eftir thvi sem sidar mun sagt verda THessi sveinn Alexander var i skola settur sem sidvenja er til rikra manna utanlands ad lata gera vid born sin Meistari var honum fenginn sa er Aristoteles het Hann var harla godur klerkur og hinn mesti spekingur ad viti og er hann var tolf vetra gamall ad aldri nalega alroskinn ad viti en storhugadur umfram alla sina jafnaldra a printed in uncial Uncials not encoded separately in Unicode as of this section s writing Old East Norse Edit The Rok runestone in Ostergotland Sweden is the longest surviving source of early Old East Norse It is inscribed on both sides Old East Norse or Old East Nordic between 800 and 1100 is called Runic Swedish in Sweden and Runic Danish in Denmark but for geographical rather than linguistic reasons Any differences between the two were minute at best during the more ancient stages of this dialect group Changes had a tendency to occur earlier in the Danish region Even today many Old Danish changes have still not taken place in modern Swedish Swedish is therefore the more conservative of the two in both the ancient and the modern languages sometimes by a profound margin The language is called runic because the body of text appears in runes Runic Old East Norse is characteristically conservative in form especially Swedish which is still true for modern Swedish compared to Danish In essence it matches or surpasses the conservatism of post runic Old West Norse which in turn is generally more conservative than post runic Old East Norse While typically Eastern in structure many later post runic changes and trademarks of OEN had yet to happen The phoneme ʀ which evolved during the Proto Norse period from z was still clearly separated from r in most positions even when being geminated while in OWN it had already merged with r The Proto Germanic phoneme w was preserved in initial sounds in Old East Norse w unlike in West Norse where it developed into v It survived in rural Swedish dialects in the provinces of Westro and North Bothnia Skane Blekinge Smaland Halland Vastergotland and south of Bohuslan into the 18th 19th and 20th century It is still preserved in the Dalecarlian dialects in the province of Dalarna Sweden and in Jutlandic dialects in Denmark The w phoneme did also occur after consonants kw tw sw etc in Old East Norse and did so into modern times in said Swedish dialects and in a number of others Generally the initial w sound developed into v in dialects earlier than after consonants where it survived much longer In summation the w sound survived in the East Nordic tongues almost a millennium longer than in the West Norse counterparts and does still subsist at the present Monophthongization of aei gt e and oy au gt o started in mid 10th century Denmark 21 Compare runic OEN faeigʀ gaeiʀʀ haugʀ moydōmʀ diuʀ with Post runic OEN fegher ger ho gher mo dōmber diur OWN feigr geirr haugr meydomr dyr from PN faigijaz gaizaz haugaz mawi dōmaz maidendom virginity diuza wild animal Feminine o stems often preserve the plural ending aʀ while in OWN they more often merge with the feminine i stems runic OEN sōlaʀ hafnaʀ hamnaʀ wagaʀ versus OWN solir hafnir and vagir modern Swedish solar hamnar vagar suns havens scales Danish has mainly lost the distinction between the two stems with both endings now being rendered as er or e alternatively for the o stems Vice versa masculine i stems with the root ending in either g or k tended to shift the plural ending to that of the ja stems while OEN kept the original draengiaʀ aelgiaʀ and baenkiaʀ versus OWN drengir elgir elks and bekkir modern Danish drenge elge baenke modern Swedish drangar algar bankar The plural ending of ja stems were mostly preserved while those of OWN often acquired that of the i stems baediaʀ baekkiaʀ waefiaʀ versus OWN bedir beds bekkir vefir modern Swedish baddar backar vavar Old Danish Edit Further information History of Danish Until the early 12th century Old East Norse was very much a uniform dialect It was in Denmark that the first innovations appeared that would differentiate Old Danish from Old Swedish Bandle 2005 Old East Nordic pp 1856 1859 as these innovations spread north unevenly unlike the earlier changes that spread more evenly over the East Norse area creating a series of isoglosses going from Zealand to Svealand In Old Danish hɾ merged with ɾ during the 9th century 48 From the 11th to 14th centuries the unstressed vowels a o and e standard normalization a u and i started to merge into e represented with the letter e This vowel came to be epenthetic particularly before ʀ endings 34 At the same time the voiceless stop consonants p t and k became voiced plosives and even fricative consonants Resulting from these innovations Danish has kage cake tunger tongues and gaester guests whereas Standard Swedish has retained older forms kaka tungor and gaster OEN kaka tungur gaestir Moreover the Danish pitch accent shared with Norwegian and Swedish changed into stod around this time citation needed Old Swedish Edit Further information Old Swedish At the end of the 10th and early 11th century initial h before l n and r was still preserved in the middle and northern parts of Sweden and is sporadically still preserved in some northern dialects as g e g gly lukewarm from hlyʀ The Dalecarlian dialects developed independently from Old Swedish 49 and as such can be considered separate languages from Swedish Text example Edit This is an extract from Vastgotalagen the Westrogothic law It is the oldest text written as a manuscript found in Sweden and from the 13th century It is contemporaneous with most of the Icelandic literature The text marks the beginning of Old Swedish as a distinct dialect Draepaer mathar svaenskan man eller smalenskaen innan konongsrikis man eigh vaestgoskan bote firi atta ortogher ok threttan markaer ok aenga aetar bot Draepar mathaer danskan man allae noraen man bote niv markum Draepaer mathaer vtlaenskan man eigh ma frid flyia or landi sinu oc j aeth hans Draepaer mathaer vtlaenskaen prest bote sva mykit firi sum haerlaenskan man Praestaer skal i bondalaghum vaerae Varthaer suthaerman draepin aellaer aenskaer mathaer ta skal bota firi marchum fiurum them sakinae sokir ok tvar marchar konongi If someone slays a Swede or a Smalander a man from the kingdom but not a West Geat he will pay eight ortugar and thirteen marks but no weregild If someone slays a Dane or a Norwegian he will pay nine marks If someone slays a foreigner he shall not be banished and have to flee to his clan If someone slays a foreign priest he will pay as much as for a fellow countryman A priest counts as a freeman If a Southerner is slain or an Englishman he shall pay four marks to the plaintiff and two marks to the king VastgotalagenOld Gutnish Edit Main article Old Gutnish Due to Gotland s early isolation from the mainland many features of Old Norse did not spread from or to the island and Old Gutnish developed as an entirely separate branch from Old East and West Norse For example the diphthong ai in aigu thair and waita was not subject to anticipatory assimilation to ei as in e g Old Icelandic eigu their and veita Gutnish also shows dropping of w in initial wɾ which it shares with the Old West Norse dialects except Old East Norwegian 50 but which is otherwise abnormal Breaking was also particularly active in Old Gutnish leading to e g biera versus mainland bera 34 Text example Edit The Gutasaga is the longest text surviving from Old Gutnish It was written in the 13th century and dealt with the early history of the Gotlanders This part relates to the agreement that the Gotlanders had with the Swedish king sometime before the 9th century So gingu gutar sielfs wiliandi vndir suia kunung thy at thair mattin frir Oc frelsir sykia suiariki j huerium stath vtan tull oc allar utgiftir So aigu oc suiar sykia gutland firir vtan cornband ellar annur forbuth hegnan oc hielp sculdi kunungur gutum at waita En thair withr thorftin oc kallathin sendimen al oc kunungr oc ierl samulaith a gutnal thing senda Oc latta thar taka scatt sinn thair sendibuthar aighu frith lysa gutum alla stethi til sykia yfir haf sum upsala kunungi til hoyrir Oc so thair sum than wegin aigu hinget sykia So by their own will the Gotlanders became the subjects of the Swedish king so that they could travel freely and without risk to any location in the Swedish kingdom without toll and other fees Likewise the Swedes had the right to go to Gotland without corn restrictions or other prohibitions The king was to provide protection and help when they needed it and asked for it The king and the jarl shall send emissaries to the Gutnish thing to receive the taxes These emissaries shall declare free passage for the Gotlanders to all locations in the sea of the king at Uppsala and likewise for everyone who wanted to travel to Gotland Gutasaga Intradet i SverigeRelationship to other languages EditRelationship to English Edit See also History of English Scandinavian influence and List of English words of Old Norse origin Old English and Old Norse were related languages It is therefore not surprising that many words in Old Norse look familiar to English speakers e g armr arm fotr foot land land fullr full hanga to hang standa to stand This is because both English and Old Norse stem from a Proto Germanic mother language In addition numerous common everyday Old Norse words were adopted into the Old English language during the Viking Age A few examples of Old Norse loanwords in modern English are English Viking Age Old East Norse in some cases even displacing their Old English cognates citation needed Nouns anger angr bag baggi bait baeit baeita baeiti band band bark bǫrkʀ stem bark birth byrdr dirt drit dregs draeggiaʀ egg aegg related to OE cognate aeg which became Middle English eye eai fellow felagi gap gap husband husbondi cake kaka keel kiǫlʀ stem also kial kil kid kid knife knifʀ law lǫg stem lag leg laeggʀ link hlaenkʀ loan lan related to OE cognate laen cf lend race rǫs stem ras root rot related to OE cognate wyrt cf wort sale sala scrap skrap seat saeti sister systir related to OE cognate sweostor skill skial skil skin skinn skirt skyrta vs the native English shirt of the same root sky sky slaughter slatr snare snara steak staeik thrift thrift tidings tidindi trust traust window vindauga wing vae i ngʀ Verbs are er displacing OE sind blend blanda call kalla cast kasta clip klippa crawl krafla cut possibly from ON kuta die doyia gasp gaeispa get geta give gifa gefa related to OE cognate giefan glitter glitra hit hitta lift lyfta raise raeisa ransack rannsaka rid rydia run rinna stem rinn rann runn related to OE cognate rinnan scare skirra scrape skrapa seem soma sprint sprinta take taka thrive thrifa s thrust thrysta want vanta Adjectives flat flatr happy happ ill illr likely likligʀ loose lauss low lagʀ meek miukʀ odd odda rotten rotinn rutinn scant skamt sly slogʀ weak vaeikʀ wrong vrangʀ Adverbs thwart athwart thvert Prepositions till til fro fra Conjunction though tho tho Interjection hail haeill wassail ves haeill Personal pronoun they thaeiʀ their thaeiʀa them thaeim for which the Anglo Saxons said hie 51 52 hiera him Prenominal adjectives same sam In a simple sentence like They are both weak the extent of the Old Norse loanwords becomes quite clear Old East Norse with archaic pronunciation THaeiʀ eʀu badiʀ waeikiʀ while Old English hie syndon begen tha wace The words they and weak are both borrowed from Old Norse and the word both might also be a borrowing though this is disputed cf German beide who While the number of loanwords adopted from the Norse was not as numerous as that of Norman French or Latin their depth and everyday nature make them a substantial and very important part of everyday English speech as they are part of the very core of the modern English vocabulary citation needed Tracing the origins of words like bull and Thursday is more difficult citation needed Bull may derive from either Old English bula or Old Norse buli citation needed while Thursday may be a borrowing or simply derive from the Old English THunresdaeg which could have been influenced by the Old Norse cognate citation needed The word are is from Old English earun aron which stems back to Proto Germanic as well as the Old Norse cognates citation needed Relationship to modern Scandinavian languages Edit Development of Old Norse vowels to the modern Scandinavian languages Old Norse ModernIcelandic ModernFaroese ModernSwedish 53 ModernDanish 53 Examples n 1 a a a ː n 2 a ɛaː n 2 ɛ a ng nk a ɑː n 2 a ɔ oː a ld rd ng a ɔ ɔː a rd ON land land Ic Fa Sw Da No land ON dagr day Ic Fa dagur Sw Da No dag ON hardr hard Ic Fa hardur Sw Da hard No hard ON langr long Ic Fa langur Sw lang Da No langja ja ja ː ja jɛaː j ɛ ː j a jɛ jae jae je r ON hjalpa to help Ic Fa hjalpa Sw hjalpa Da hjaelpe No hjelpe NN hjelpa ON hjarta heart Ic Fa hjarta Sw hjarta Da NB hjerte NN hjarta hjarteaː a au ː ɔ ɔaː ɔ oː a ɔ ɒ a ON lata to let Ic Fa lata Sw lata Da lade No laɛː ae ai ː a ɛaː ɛ ː a ON maela to speak Ic Fa NN maela Sw mala No maele ON saell happy Ic saell Fa saelur Sw sall Da No saele e ɛ ː ɛ eː ON menn men Ic Fa menn Sw man Da maend No menn ON bera to bear Ic Fa bera Sw bara Da NB baere NN bera bere ON vegr way Ic Fa vegur Sw vag Da vej No veg veieː e jɛ ː a ɛaː ae ON kne knee Ic hne Fa Da knae Sw kna No knei i ɪ ː ɪ iː ɪ iː i e i eː e ON kinn cheek Ic Fa No kinn Sw Da kindiː i i ː ʊɪ ː ʊt ʃː iggj n 3 i ON tid time Ic Fa tid Sw Da No tidɔ ǫ o gt œ ː o œ oː o ɔ oː o n 4 a o n 5 o r n 5 a ld rd ng ON hǫnd hand Ic hond Fa hond Sw NN hand Da NB hand ON nǫs nose Ic nos Fa nos Sw NN nos Da naese NB nese NN nase ON ǫrn eagle Ic Sw orn Fa Da No orn ON sǫngr song Ic songur Fa songur Sw sang Da NB sang NN songjɔ jǫ jo gt jœ ː jo jœ joː jo j œ j oː j o ON skjǫldr shield Ic skjoldur Fa skjoldur Sw skold Da No skjold ON bjǫrn bear Ic Sw bjorn Fa Da NN bjornɔː ǫ aː gt au ː a ɔ ɔaː a œ ɔuː o ɔ oː a a ON ta tǫ toe Ic Fa ta Sw Da No tao o ɔ ː ɔ oː ɔ oː o ON morginn morgunn morning Ic morgunn Fa morgun Sw NN morgon Da NB morgenoː o ou ː œ ɔuː ɛkv ogv n 3 ʊ uː o o ON bok book Ic Fa bok Sw No bok Da bogu u ʏ ː ʊ uː ɵ ʉː u ON fullr full Ic Fa fullur Sw Da No fulluː u u ː ʏ ʉuː ɪkv ugv n 3 u ON hus house Ic Fa hus Sw Da No husjoː jo jou ː jœ jɔuː j ɛkv j ogv n 3 jɵ jʉː ju y ON bjoda to offer command Ic Fa bjoda Sw bjuda Da No byde NN bydajuː ju ju ː jʏ jʉuː j ɪkv j ugv n 3 ON djupr deep Ic Fa djupur Sw No djup Da dyb NB dypo o o gt œ ː o œ oː o œ oː o ON gora to prepare Sw goraoː œ ɛː gt ai ː ae o ON grœnn green Ic graenn Fa gronur Sw gron Da NN gron No gronny y ɪ ː ɪ iː o y n 6 ON dyrr door Ic Fa dyr Sw dorr Da No dorON fylla to fill Ic Fa NN Sw fylla Da fylde No fylleyː y i ː ʊɪ ː ʊt ʃː yggj n 3 ʏ yː y y ON dyrr dear Ic dyr Fa dyrur Sw Da No dyrɛi ei ei ː aɪ ː at ʃː eiggj n 3 e ː e e ON steinn stone Ic steinn Fa steinur Sw Da NB sten No steinœy 21 ey ei ː ɔɪ ː oy ɔt ʃː oyggj n 3 œ oː o o ON ey island Ic ey Fa oyggj Sw o Da o No oyɔu au oy ː ɛ ɛɪː ey ɛt ʃː eyggj n 3 ON draumr dream Ic draumur Fa dreymur Sw drom Da NB drom NN draum Bokmal Norwegian Norwegianization of written Danish Nynorsk Norwegian Standardised written Norwegian based on Norwegian dialects No same in both forms of Norwegian a b c Vowel length in the modern Scandinavian languages does not stem from Old Norse vowel length In all of the modern languages Old Norse vowel length was lost and vowel length became allophonically determined by syllable structure with long vowels occurring when followed by zero or one consonants and some clusters e g in Icelandic most clusters of obstruent to obstruent r j or v such as pr tj kv etc short vowels occurred when followed by most consonant clusters including double consonants Often pairs of short and long vowels became differentiated in quality before the loss of vowel length and thus did not end up merging e g Old Norse a aː i iː became Icelandic a au ɪ i all of which can occur allophonically short or long In the mainland Scandinavian languages double consonants were reduced to single consonants making the new vowel length phonemic a b c d e f g h i When not followed by a consonant When followed by a nasal consonant a b o or before r o in some isolated words but the tendency was to restore a When un umlauted u is still present elsewhere in the paradigm Pronunciation of vowels in various Scandinavian languages Spelling Old Norse ModernIcelandic ModernFaroese ModernSwedish ModernNorwegian a a a ː a ɛaː a ɑː ɑ ː a aː au ː ɔ ɔaː a ɛ ɛː a ɔ oː ae ɛː ai ː a ɛaː ae ː ɛ eː e e ɛ ː ɛ eː e eː ɛ eː e ae ː e eː jɛ ː i i ɪ ː ɪ iː i iː i ː ʊɪ ː o o ɔ ː ɔ oː ʊ uː ɔ oː uː ɔ oː o oː ou ː œ ɔuː ǫ ɔ ǫ ɔː o o gt œ ː œ oː o o œ oː œ oː œ oː u u ʏ ː ʊ uː ɵ ʉː ʉ ː u uː u ː ʏ ʉuː y y ɪ ː ɪ iː ʏ yː y yː i ː ʊɪ ː ei ɛi ei ː aɪ ː aeɪ ey œy 21 ei ː ɛ ɛɪː oy ɔɪ ː oy œʏ au ɔu oy ː aeʉSee also EditGermanic a mutation An Introduction to Old Norse A common textbook on the language List of English words of Old Norse origin List of Old Norse exonyms Names that speakers of Old Norse assigned to foreign places and peoples Old Norse morphology The grammar of the language Old Norse orthography The spelling of the language Old Norse poetry Proto Norse language The Scandinavian dialect of Proto Germanic that developed into Old NorseDialectal information Edit Greenlandic Norse History of Danish History of Icelandic Old Gutnish Old Norwegian Old SwedishCitations EditGeneral citations Edit Hammarstrom Harald Forkel Robert Haspelmath Martin Bank Sebastian 24 May 2022 Northwest Germanic Glottolog Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Archived from the original on 13 November 2022 Retrieved 13 November 2022 Josephson Folke Sohrman Ingmar 29 August 2008 Interdependence of Diachronic and Synchronic Analyses ISBN 9789027290359 Konig Ekkehard van der Auwera Johan eds 2002 The Germanic Languages Routledge p 38 ISBN 978 0415280792 Torp amp Vikor 1993 a b Konig Ekkehard van der Auwera Johan eds 2002 The Germanic Languages Routledge p 38 ISBN 978 0415280792 Old Norse language Encyclopedia Britannica Retrieved 5 August 2020 a b c d e f g Adams 1899 Scandinavian Languages pp 336 338 a b Nordiska sprak Nationalencyklopedin in Swedish Historia Omkring 800 1100 1994 van der Auwera amp Konig 1994 Faroese Barnes amp Weyhe p 217 Moberg et al 2007 See e g Harbert 2007 pp 7 10 Farren Robert 2014 Old Norse loanwords in modern Irish thesis Lund University Borkent Aukje 2014 Norse loanwords in Old and Middle Irish thesis Utrecht University hdl 1874 296646 Some Irish words with Norse Origins irisharchaeology ie 21 November 2013 Greene D 1973 Almqvist Bo Greene David eds The influence of Scandinavian on Irish Proceedings of the Seventh Viking Congress Dundalgan Press Dundalk pp 75 82 Stewart Thomas W Jr 2004 Lexical imposition Old Norse vocabulary in Scottish Gaelic Diachronica 21 2 393 420 doi 10 1075 dia 21 2 06ste Medievalists net 13 April 2014 Old Norse Influence in Modern English The Effect of the Viking Invasion Medievalists net Retrieved 5 August 2020 Henderson George 1910 The Norse influence on Celtic Scotland Glasgow J Maclehose and Sons pp 108 204 Bandle 2005 Ch XVII 202 The typological development of the Nordic languages I Phonology H Sandoy Old East Nordic pp 1856 1859 Bandle 2005 Ch XVII 202 The typological development of the Nordic languages I Phonology H Sandoy Old West Nordic p 1859 a b c d e f Bandle 2005 Ch XIII 122 Phonological developments from Old Nordic to Early Modern Nordic I West Scandinavian M Schulte pp 1081 1096 Monophthongization p 1082 oy p 1082 Reduced vowels p 1085 Haugen 1950 pp 4 64 Robinson Orrin W 1993 Old English and Its Closest Relatives p 83 Sweet 1895 p 5 Bandle 2005 Ch XVII 202 The typological development of the Nordic languages I Phonology H Sandoy Common Nordic p 1855 Schalin Johan 2018 Preliterary Scandinavian Sound Change Viewed From the East Nordica Helsingiensia 54 146 147 Vigfusson amp Powell 1879 Ch 1 Benediktsson H 1963 Some Aspects of Nordic Umlaut and Breaking Language 39 3 409 431 doi 10 2307 411124 JSTOR 411124 a b Iversen 1961 pp 24 harvnb error no target CITEREFIversen1961 help Bandle 2005 Ch XVII 202 The typological development of the Nordic languages I Phonology H Sandoy Proto Nordic p 1853 Old Norse for Beginners Lesson 5 Noreen Adolf Altnordische Grammatik I Altislandische und altnorwegische Grammatik pp 200 202 207 277 283 Archived from the original on 2 June 2017 Retrieved 17 September 2018 Noreen A G Abriss Der Altnordischen Altislandischen Grammatik in German p 12 a b c d Bandle 2005 Old Norse for Beginners Neuter nouns Old Norse for Beginners Feminine nouns The Menota handbook Ch 8 3 2 1 Gender Zoega 1910 H hungr O Donoghue 2004 p 22 102 The Old Norse dialect areas aveneca com 2009 archived from the original on 7 July 2011 Hellquist Elof ed 1922 stark Svensk etymologisk ordbok Swedish etymological dictionary in Swedish p 862 Konig Ekkehard van der Auwera Johan eds 2002 The Germanic Languages Routledge p 38 ISBN 978 0415280792 Old Norse is by far the best attested variety of Old Scandinavian Bandle 2005 Ch XVII 202 The typological development of the Nordic languages I Phonology H Sandoy Old East Nordic pp 1856 1859 Sturtevant Albert Morey 1953 Further Old Norse Secondary Formations Language 29 4 457 462 doi 10 2307 409955 JSTOR 409955 See Codex Regius Hock Hans Henrich 1986 Principles of Historical Linguistics p 149 a b van Weenen Andrea de Leeuw ed Manuscript AM 519 a 4to Alexanders saga Medieval Nordic Text Archive www menota org fol 1v lines 10 14 Wills Tarrin 2006 The Anonymous Verse in the Third Grammatical Treatise The Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Durham University archived from the original on 4 September 2018 retrieved 4 September 2018 Kroonen Guus On the origins of the Elfdalian nasal vowels from the perspective of diachronic dialectology and Germanic etymology PDF inss ku dk Presentation retrieved 27 January 2016 Slide 26 7 2 quote In many aspects Elfdalian takes up a middle position between East and West Nordic However it shares some innovations with West Nordic but none with East Nordic This invalidates the claim that Elfdalian split off from Old Swedish Noreen Adolf Altnordische Grammatik I Altislandische und altnorwegische Grammatik p 211 288 note 1 Archived from the original on 2 June 2017 Retrieved 17 September 2018 O Donoghue 2004 pp 190 201 Lass 1993 pp 187 188 a b Helfenstein James 1870 A Comparative Grammar of the Teutonic Languages Being at the Same Time a Historical Grammar of the English Language London MacMillan and Co Cleasby Vigfusson citations Edit a b c d e Cleasby amp Vigfusson 1874 p 1 A Cleasby amp Vigfusson 1874 pp 761 762 Introduction to Letter O O Cleasby amp Vigfusson 1874 pp xxix xxx Formation of Words Vowel Changes Cleasby amp Vigfusson 1874 p xvi Strong Nouns Masculine Remarks on the 1st Strong Masculine Declension 3 a Cleasby amp Vigfusson 1874 p 389 col 1 LIM p 437 col 1 MUND Cleasby amp Vigfusson 1874 p 481 R a b c Cleasby amp Vigfusson 1874 p 757 AE Cleasby amp Vigfusson 1874 pp 113 114 E Sources EditGeneral sources Edit Harbert Wayne 2007 The Germanic Languages Cambridge Language Surveys Cambridge Cambridge University Press Haugan Jens 1998 Right Dislocated Subjects in Old Norse Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax no 62 pp 37 60 Haugen Einar 1950 First Grammatical Treatise The Earliest Germanic Phonology Language 26 4 4 64 doi 10 2307 522272 JSTOR 522272 Haugen Odd Einar ed 2008 2004 The Menota handbook Guidelines for the electronic encoding of Medieval Nordic primary sources Version 2 0 ed Bergen Medieval Nordic Text Archive ISBN 978 82 8088 400 8 The Menota handbook 2 0 Lass Roger 1993 Old English A Historical Linguistic Companion Cambridge Cambridge University Press Adams Charles Kendall ed 1899 1876 Johnson s Universal Cyclopedia A New Edition vol 7 Raleigh Tananarivo D Appleton A J Johnson van der Auwera J Konig E eds 1994 The Germanic Languages Moberg J Gooskens C Nerbonne J Vaillette N 2007 4 Conditional Entropy Measures Intelligibility among Related Languages Proceedings of the 17th Meeting of Computational Linguistics in the Netherlands vol 7 LOT Occasional series pp 51 66 hdl 1874 296747 Bandle Oskar Braunmuller Kurt Jahr Ernst Hakon Karker Allan Naumann Hans Peter Teleman Ulf Elmevik Lennart Widmark Gun eds 2002 The Nordic Languages An International Handbook on the History of the North Germanic Languages Walter de Gruyter Berlin Volume 2 2005 O Donoghue Heather 2004 Old Norse Icelandic Literature A Short Introduction Blackwell Introductions to Literature Blackwell Publishing Ltd Torp Arne Vikor Lars S 2014 1993 Hovuddrag i norsk sprakhistorie The main features of Norwegian language history in Norwegian 4th ed Gyldendal Norsk Forlag ISBN 978 8205464025 Dictionaries Edit Cleasby Richard Vigfusson Gudbrandur 1874 An Icelandic English Dictionary Oxford Clarendon Press e text via the Germanic Lexicon Project germanic lexicon project org e text adapted from the Germanic Lexicon Project version to work better with mobile devices and with an improved search old norse net Zoega G T 1896 Islenzk Ensk ordabok S Kristjansson Islenzk Ensk ordabok Reykjavik Kostnaarmaur Sigurdur Kristjansson 1922 Zoega G T 1910 A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic scanned document via Germanic Lexicon Project lexicon ff cuni cz e text via norroen info ONP Dictionary of Old Norse Prose in Danish and English University of Copenhagen de Vries Jan 1977 1961 Altnordisches Etymologisches Worterbuch Egilsson Sveinbjorn ed 1854 Lexicon poeticum antiquae linguae septentrionalis in Danish and Latin Hafniae typis J D Qvist amp comp Egilsson Sveinbjorn Jonsson Finnur eds 1931 1913 1916 Lexicon poeticum antiquae linguae septentrionalis 2nd ed First and Second editions via www septentrionalia net Grammars Edit Bayldon George 1870 An Elementary Grammar of the Old Norse or Icelandic Language London Williams and Norgate Vigfusson Gudbrand Powell F York 1879 An Icelandic Prose Reader with Notes Grammar and Glossary Oxford Clarendon Press Noreen Adolf 1923 Altnordische grammatik I Altislandische und altnorwegische grammatik laut und flexionslehre 4th ed Halle Saale Max Niemeyer Old West Norse Noreen Adolf 1904 Altnordische grammatik II Altschwedische grammatik mit einschluss des altgutnischen Halle Max Niemeyer Old Swedish and Old Gutnish Brondum Nielsen Johannes 1928 1974 Gammeldansk Grammatik i sproghistorisk Fremstilling 8 volumes Kobenhavn J H Schultz Old Danish Iversen Ragnvald 1972 Norron grammatikk 7th ed Oslo Aschehoug Old West Norse Faarlund Jan Terje 2004 The Syntax of Old Norse New York Oxford University Press Old Norse in the narrow sense i e Old West Norse Haugen Odd Einar 2006 Grunnbok i norront sprak 3rd revised printing of the 4th ed Gyldendal Akademisk Old West Norse Haugen Odd Einar 2015 Norrone Grammatik im Uberblick 2nd ed Universitat Bergen Old West Norse Old Norse texts Edit Aronsson Lars ed 1997 Gutasagan Project Runeberg in Old Norse Tunstall Peter ed Gutarnas Kronika eller Gutasagan The History of the Gotlanders in Old Norse and English facing translation Language learning resources Edit Byock Jesse 2013 Viking Language Learn Old Norse Runes and Icelandic Sagas Jules William Press ISBN 978 1 4802 1644 0 Gordon Eric V Taylor A R 1981 An Introduction to Old Norse Oxford Clarendon Press ISBN 978 0 19 811184 9 Sweet Henry 1895 An Icelandic Primer with Grammar Notes and Glossary 2nd ed Univerzita Karlova alt source via Germanic Lexicon Project lexicon ff cuni cz e ext via Project Gutenberg THorgeirsson Haukur Gudlaugsson oskar Old Norse for BeginnersExternal links Edit Old Norse test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator Old Norse repository of Wikisource the free library For a list of words relating to Old Norse see the Old Norse language category of words in Wiktionary the free dictionary Heimskringla no an online collection of Old Norse source material Old Norse Online by Todd B Krause and Jonathan Slocum free online lessons at the Linguistics Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin Video Old Norse text read with a reconstructed pronunciation and a Modern Icelandic pronunciation for comparison With subtitles Old Norse sound sample Old Norse loans in Old and Middle English and their legacy in the dialects of England and modern standard English Old Norse basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Old Norse amp oldid 1132988883, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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