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Proto-Norse language

Proto-Norse (also called Ancient Nordic, Ancient Scandinavian, Ancient Norse, Primitive Norse, Proto-Nordic, Proto-Scandinavian and Proto-North Germanic) was an Indo-European language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved as a northern dialect of Proto-Germanic in the first centuries CE. It is the earliest stage of a characteristically North Germanic language, and the language attested in the oldest Scandinavian Elder Futhark inscriptions, spoken from around the 2nd to the 8th centuries CE (corresponding to the late Roman Iron Age and the Germanic Iron Age). It evolved into the dialects of Old Norse at the beginning of the Viking Age around 800 CE, which later themselves evolved into the modern North Germanic languages (Faroese, Icelandic, the Continental Scandinavian languages, and their dialects).

Proto-Norse
Ancient Nordic
RegionScandinavia
Era2nd to 8th centuries
Elder Futhark
Language codes
ISO 639-3
1be
 qdl "Runic" (perhaps Old Norse is intended)
Glottologolde1239  Older Runic (perhaps)
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.

Phonology edit

Proto-Norse phonology probably did not differ substantially from that of Proto-Germanic. Although the phonetic realisation of several phonemes had probably changed over time, the overall system of phonemes and their distribution remained largely unchanged.

Consonants edit

Proto-Norse consonants
  Bilabial Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar Labial–velar
Nasal m n (ŋ) (ŋʷ)
Stop p  b t  d k  ɡ   ɡʷ
Fricative ɸ  (β) θ  (ð) s z h  (ɣ)
Trill r
Approximant j w
Lateral l
  1. /n/ assimilated to a following velar consonant. It was [ŋ] before a plain velar, and probably [ŋʷ] before a labial-velar consonant.
  2. Unlike its Proto-Germanic ancestor /x/, the phoneme /h/ probably no longer had a velar place of articulation. It eventually disappeared except word-initially.
  3. [β], [ð] and [ɣ] were allophones of /b/, /d/ and /ɡ/, and occurred in most word-medial positions. Plosives appeared when the consonants were lengthened (geminated), and also after a nasal consonant. Word-finally, [b], [d] and [ɡ] were devoiced and merged with /p/, /t/, /k/.
  4. The exact realisation of the phoneme /z/, traditionally written as ʀ in transcriptions of runic Norse (not to be confused with the phonetic symbol /ʀ/ used in other languages), is unclear. While it was a simple alveolar sibilant in Proto-Germanic (as in Gothic), it eventually underwent rhotacization and merged with /r/ towards the end of the runic period. It may have been pronounced as [ʒ] or [ʐ], tending towards a trill in the later period. The sound was still written with its own letter in runic Old East Norse around the end of the first millennium.

Vowels edit

The system of vowels differed somewhat more from that of Proto-Germanic than the consonants. Earlier /ɛː/ had been lowered to /ɑː/, and unstressed /ɑi/ and /ɑu/ had developed into /eː/ and /ɔː/. Shortening of word-final vowels had eliminated the Proto-Germanic overlong vowels.

Oral vowels
Front Back
short long short long
Close i u
Mid e o ɔː
Open ɑ ɑː
Nasal vowels
Front Back
short long short long
Close ĩ? ĩː ũ? ũː
Mid ɔ̃ ɔ̃ː
Open ɑ̃? ɑ̃ː
  1. /o/ had developed from /u/ through a-mutation. It also occurred word-finally as a result of the shortening of Proto-Germanic /ɔː/.
  2. The long nasal vowels /ɑ̃ː/, /ĩː/ and /ũː/ occurred only before /h/. Their presence was noted in the 12th-century First Grammatical Treatise, and they survive in modern Elfdalian.
  3. All other nasal vowels occurred only word-finally, although it is unclear whether they had retained their nasality in Proto-Norse or had already merged with the oral vowels. The vowels /o/ and /ɔ̃/ were contrastive, however, as the former eventually developed into /u/ (triggering u-mutation) while the latter was lowered to /ɑ/.
  4. The back vowels probably had central or front allophones when /i/ or /j/ followed, as a result of i-mutation:
    • /ɑ/ > [æ], /ɑː/ > [æː]
    • /u/ > [ʉ], /uː/ > [ʉː] (later /y/, /yː/)
    • /ɔː/ > [ɞː] (later [œː] or [øː])
    • /o/ did not originally occur before /i/ or /j/, but it was later introduced by analogy (as can be seen on the Gallehus horns). Its allophone was probably [ɵ], later [ø].
  5. Towards the end of the Proto-Norse period, stressed /e/ underwent breaking, becoming a rising diphthong /jɑ/.
  6. Also towards the end of the Proto-Norse period, u-mutation began to take effect, which created rounded allophones of unrounded vowels.

Diphthongs edit

At least the following diphthongs were present: /æi/, /ɑu/, /eu/, /iu/.

  1. /ɑu/ was later rounded to /ɒu/ due to u-mutation.
  2. /eu/ eventually underwent breaking to become the triphthong /jɒu/ (as in Proto-Balto-Slavic). This was preserved in Old Gutnish, but simplified to a long rising /joː/ or /juː/ in other areas.
  3. As /iu/ occurred exclusively in environments with i-mutation, its realisation was probably fronted [iʉ]. This then developed further into [iy], which then became /yː/.

Accent edit

Old Norse had a stress accent which fell on the first syllable, like its ancestor, Proto-Germanic. Several scholars have proposed that Proto-Norse also had a separate pitch accent, which was inherited from Proto-Indo-European and has evolved into the tonal accents of modern Swedish and Norwegian, which in turn have evolved into the stød of modern Danish.[1][2] Another recently advanced theory is that each Proto-Norse long syllable and every other short syllable received stress, marked by pitch, eventually leading to the development of the Swedish and Norwegian tonal accent distinction.[3] Finally, quite a number of linguists have assumed that even the first phonetic rudiments of the distinction did not appear until the Old Norse period.[4][5][6][7]

Attestations edit

Runic inscriptions edit

 
Composite photograph of the Einang stone inscription (ca. 400)

The surviving examples of Proto-Norse are all runic inscriptions in the Elder Futhark. There are about 260 surviving Elder Futhark inscriptions in Proto-Norse, the earliest dating to the 2nd century.

Examples edit

  • Øvre Stabu spearhead, Oppland, Norway. Second century raunijaz, ON raun "tester", cf. Norwegian røyne "try, test". Swedish rön "finding" and utröna "find out". The word formation with a suffix ija is evidence of Sievers' law.
  • Golden Horn of Gallehus 2, South Jutland, Denmark 400 CE, ek hlewagastiz holtijaz horna tawido, "I, Hlewagastis of Holt, made the horn." Note again the ija suffix
  • Tune stone, Østfold, Norway, 400 CE. ek wiwaz after woduride witadahalaiban worahto. [me]z woduride staina þrijoz dohtriz dalidun arbija sijostez arbijano, I, Wiwaz, after Woduridaz bread-warden wrought. For me Woduridaz, the stone, three daughters prepared, the most noble of heirs.
  • The Einang stone, near Fagernes, Norway, is dated to the 4th century. It contains the message [ek go]dagastiz runo faihido ([I, Go]dguest drew the secret), in O–N ek goðgestr rún fáða. The first four letters of the inscription have not survived and are conjectured, and the personal name could well have been Gudagasti or something similar.
  • Kragehul spear, Denmark, c. 500 CE. ek erilaz asugisalas muha haite, gagaga ginuga, he...lija... hagala wijubi... possibly, "I, Eril of Asgisl, was named Muha, ga-ga-ga mighty-ga (ga being most likely an abbreviation of indeterminable reference), (incomplete) hail I consecrate."
  • The Björketorp Runestone, Blekinge, Sweden, is one of three menhirs, but is the only one of them where, in the 6th century, someone wrote a curse: haidʀ runo runu falh'k hedra ginnarunaʀ argiu hermalausʀ ... weladauþe saz þat brytʀ uþarba spa (Here, I have hidden the secret of powerful runes, strong runes. The one who breaks this memorial will be eternally tormented by anger. Treacherous death will hit him. I foresee perdition.)
  • The Rö runestone, in Bohuslän, Sweden, was raised in the early 5th century and is the longest early inscription: Ek Hrazaz/Hraþaz satido [s]tain[a] ... Swabaharjaz s[a]irawidaz. ... Stainawarijaz fahido. "I, Hrazaz/Hraþaz raised the stone ... Swabaharjaz with wide wounds. ... Stainawarijaz (Stoneguardian's) carved."

Loanwords edit

Numerous early Germanic words have survived with relatively little change as borrowings in Finnic languages. Some of these may be of Proto-Germanic origin or older still, but others reflect developments specific to Norse. Some examples (with the reconstructed Proto-Norse form):

  • Estonian/Finnish kuningas < *kuningaz "king" (Old Norse kunungr, konungr)
  • Finnish ruhtinas "prince" < *druhtinaz "lord" (Old Norse dróttinn)
  • Finnish sairas "sick" < *sairaz "sore" (Old Norse sárr)
  • Estonian juust, Finnish juusto "cheese" < *justaz (Old Norse ostr)
  • Estonian/Finnish lammas "sheep" < *lambaz "lamb" (Old Norse lamb)
  • Finnish hurskas "pious" < *hurskaz "prudent, wise, quick-minded" (Old Norse horskr)
  • Finnish runo "poem, rune" < *rūno "secret, mystery, rune" (Old Norse rún)
  • Finnish vaate "garment" < *wādiz (Old Norse váð)
  • Finnish viisas "wise" < *wīsaz (Old Norse víss)

A very extensive Proto-Norse loanword layer also exists in the Sámi languages.[8][9]

Other edit

Some Proto-Norse names are found in Latin works, like tribal names like Suiones (*Sweoniz, "Swedes"). Others can be conjectured from manuscripts such as Beowulf.

Evolution edit

Proto-Germanic to Proto-Norse edit

The differences between attested Proto-Norse and unattested Proto-Germanic are rather small. Separating Proto-Norse from Northwest Germanic can be said to be a matter of convention, as sufficient evidence from the remaining parts of the Germanic-speaking area (Northern Germany and the Netherlands) is lacking in a degree to provide sufficient comparison. Inscriptions found in Scandinavia are considered to be in Proto-Norse. Several scholars argue about this subject matter. Wolfgang von Krause sees the language of the runic inscriptions of the Proto-Norse period as an immediate precursor to Old Norse, but Elmer Antonsen views them as Northwest Germanic.[10]

One early difference shared by the West Germanic dialects is the monophthongization of unstressed diphthongs. Unstressed *ai became ē, as in haitē (Kragehul I) from Proto-Germanic *haitai, and unstressed *au likewise became ō. Characteristic is also the Proto-Norse lowering of Proto-Germanic stressed *ē to ā, which is demonstrated by the pair Gothic mēna and Old Norse máni (English moon). Proto-Norse thus differs from the early West Germanic dialects, as West Germanic ē was lowered to ā regardless of stress; in Old Norse, earlier unstressed ē surfaces as i. For example, the weak third-person singular past tense ending -dē appears in Old High German as -ta, with a low vowel, but in Old Norse as i, with a high vowel.

The time that *z, a voiced apical alveolar fricative, represented in runic writing by the algiz rune, changed to ʀ, an apical post-alveolar approximant, is debated. If the general Proto-Norse principle of devoicing of consonants in final position is taken into account, *z, if retained, would have been devoiced to [s] and would be spelled as such in runes. There is, however, no trace of that in the Elder Futhark runic inscriptions, so it can be safely assumed that the quality of this consonant must have changed before the devoicing, or the phoneme would not have been marked with a rune different from the sowilō rune used for s. The quality of the consonant can be conjectured, and the general opinion is that it was something between [z] and [r], the Old Norse reflex of the sound. In Old Swedish, the phonemic distinction between r and ʀ was retained into the 11th century, as shown by the numerous runestones from Sweden from then.

Proto-Norse to Old Norse edit

From 500 to 800, two great changes occurred within Proto-Norse. Umlauts appeared, which means that a vowel was influenced by the succeeding vowel or semivowel: Old Norse gestr (guest) came from PN gastiz (guest). Another sound change is known as vowel breaking in which the vowel changed into a diphthong: hjarta from *hertō or fjǫrðr from *ferþuz.

Umlauts resulted in the appearance of the new vowels y (like fylla from *fullijaną) and œ (like dœma from *dōmijaną). The umlauts are divided into three categories: a-umlaut, i-umlaut and u-umlaut; the last was still productive in Old Norse. The first, however, appeared very early, and its effect can be seen already around 500, on the Golden Horns of Gallehus.[11] The variation caused by the umlauts was itself no great disruption in the language. It merely introduced new allophones of back vowels if certain vowels were in following syllables. However, the changes brought forth by syncope made the umlaut-vowels a distinctive non-transparent feature of the morphology and phonology, phonemicising what were previously allophones.

Syncope shortened the long vowels of unstressed syllables; many shortened vowels were lost. Also, most short unstressed vowels were lost. As in PN, the stress accent lay on the first syllable words as PN *katilōz became ON katlar (cauldrons), PN horną was changed into Old Norse horn (horn) and PN gastiz resulted in ON gestr (guest). Some words underwent even more drastic changes, like *habukaz which changed into ON haukr (hawk).

References edit

  1. ^ Kristensen, Marius (1 January 1902). "Kock A. Die alt- und neuschwedische Akzentuierung· unter Berücksichtigung der andern nordischen Sprachen". Indogermanische Forschungen. 13 (1): 54–56. doi:10.1515/if-1902-0130. ISSN 1613-0405. S2CID 170224007. from the original on 17 August 2021. Retrieved 3 September 2020.
  2. ^ Hamp, Eric P. (1959). "Final Syllables in Germanic and the Scandinavian Accent System". Studia Linguistica. 13 (1–2): 29–48. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9582.1959.tb00392.x. ISSN 0039-3193.
  3. ^ Riad, Tomas (1998). "The Origin of Scandinavian Tone Accents". Diachronica. 15 (1): 63–98. doi:10.1075/dia.15.1.04ria. ISSN 0176-4225.
  4. ^ Kristoffersen, Gjert (2004). . Cascais, Portugal. Archived from the original on 17 July 2011. Retrieved 2 December 2007..
  5. ^ Elstad, Kåre, 1980: Some Remarks on Scandinavian Tonogenesis. I: Nordlyd: Tromsø University Working Papers on Language and Linguistics 3. 61–77.
  6. ^ Öhman, Sven (1967). Word and sentence intonation : a quantitative model. Speech Transmission Laboratory, Dept. of Speech Communication, Royal Institute of Technology. OCLC 825888933.
  7. ^ Bye, Patrick (2004). (PDF). hum.uit.no. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 April 2008. Retrieved 2 December 2007..
  8. ^ Theil, Rolf (2012). "Urnordiske lån i samisk". In Askedal, John Ole; Schmidt, Tom; Theil, Rolf (eds.). Germansk filologi og norske ord. Festskrift til Harald Bjorvand på 70-årsdagen den 30. juli 2012 (in Norwegian). Oslo: Novus forlag. from the original on 18 August 2021. Retrieved 9 June 2017.
  9. ^ Aikio, Ante (2012). Grünthal, Riho; Kallio, Petri (eds.). "An Essay on Saami Ethnolinguistic Prehistory" (PDF). Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne. Helsinki: Finno-Ugrian Society (266, A Linguistic Map of Prehistoric Northern Europe): 76. (PDF) from the original on 31 October 2020. Retrieved 9 June 2017.
  10. ^ Düwel, Klaus; Nowak, Sean (1998). Runeninschriften als Quellen interdisziplinärer Forschung : Abhandlungen des Vierten Internationalen Symposiums über Runen und Runeninschriften in Göttingen; Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on Runes and Runic Inscriptions in Göttingen, 4–9 August 1995. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-015455-2. OCLC 40365383.
  11. ^ Spurkland, Terje (2005). Norwegian Runes and Runic Inscriptions. Boydell Press. ISBN 978-1-84383-186-0. from the original on 9 August 2023. Retrieved 13 December 2015.

Further reading edit

  • Michael Schulte: Urnordisch. Eine Einführung (2018). Praesens Verlag, Wien. ISBN 978-3706909518.

External links edit

proto, norse, language, other, uses, norse, confused, with, norse, north, proto, norse, also, called, ancient, nordic, ancient, scandinavian, ancient, norse, primitive, norse, proto, nordic, proto, scandinavian, proto, north, germanic, indo, european, language. For other uses see Norse Not to be confused with Old Norse or Old North Proto Norse also called Ancient Nordic Ancient Scandinavian Ancient Norse Primitive Norse Proto Nordic Proto Scandinavian and Proto North Germanic was an Indo European language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved as a northern dialect of Proto Germanic in the first centuries CE It is the earliest stage of a characteristically North Germanic language and the language attested in the oldest Scandinavian Elder Futhark inscriptions spoken from around the 2nd to the 8th centuries CE corresponding to the late Roman Iron Age and the Germanic Iron Age It evolved into the dialects of Old Norse at the beginning of the Viking Age around 800 CE which later themselves evolved into the modern North Germanic languages Faroese Icelandic the Continental Scandinavian languages and their dialects Proto NorseAncient NordicRegionScandinaviaEra2nd to 8th centuriesLanguage familyIndo European GermanicProto NorseWriting systemElder FutharkLanguage codesISO 639 3 Linguist List1be qdl Runic perhaps Old Norse is intended Glottologolde1239 Older Runic perhaps 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 Contents 1 Phonology 1 1 Consonants 1 2 Vowels 1 3 Diphthongs 1 4 Accent 2 Attestations 2 1 Runic inscriptions 2 1 1 Examples 2 2 Loanwords 2 3 Other 3 Evolution 3 1 Proto Germanic to Proto Norse 3 2 Proto Norse to Old Norse 4 References 5 Further reading 6 External linksPhonology editProto Norse phonology probably did not differ substantially from that of Proto Germanic Although the phonetic realisation of several phonemes had probably changed over time the overall system of phonemes and their distribution remained largely unchanged Consonants edit Proto Norse consonants Bilabial Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar Labial velarNasal m n ŋ ŋʷ Stop p b t d k ɡ kʷ ɡʷFricative ɸ b 8 d s z h ɣ hʷTrill rApproximant j wLateral l n assimilated to a following velar consonant It was ŋ before a plain velar and probably ŋʷ before a labial velar consonant Unlike its Proto Germanic ancestor x the phoneme h probably no longer had a velar place of articulation It eventually disappeared except word initially b d and ɣ were allophones of b d and ɡ and occurred in most word medial positions Plosives appeared when the consonants were lengthened geminated and also after a nasal consonant Word finally b d and ɡ were devoiced and merged with p t k The exact realisation of the phoneme z traditionally written as ʀ in transcriptions of runic Norse not to be confused with the phonetic symbol ʀ used in other languages is unclear While it was a simple alveolar sibilant in Proto Germanic as in Gothic it eventually underwent rhotacization and merged with r towards the end of the runic period It may have been pronounced as ʒ or ʐ tending towards a trill in the later period The sound was still written with its own letter in runic Old East Norse around the end of the first millennium Vowels edit The system of vowels differed somewhat more from that of Proto Germanic than the consonants Earlier ɛː had been lowered to ɑː and unstressed ɑi and ɑu had developed into eː and ɔː Shortening of word final vowels had eliminated the Proto Germanic overlong vowels Oral vowels Front Backshort long short longClose i iː u uːMid e eː o ɔːOpen ɑ ɑː Nasal vowels Front Backshort long short longClose ĩ ĩː ũ ũːMid ɔ ɔ ːOpen ɑ ɑ ː o had developed from u through a mutation It also occurred word finally as a result of the shortening of Proto Germanic ɔː The long nasal vowels ɑ ː ĩː and ũː occurred only before h Their presence was noted in the 12th century First Grammatical Treatise and they survive in modern Elfdalian All other nasal vowels occurred only word finally although it is unclear whether they had retained their nasality in Proto Norse or had already merged with the oral vowels The vowels o and ɔ were contrastive however as the former eventually developed into u triggering u mutation while the latter was lowered to ɑ The back vowels probably had central or front allophones when i or j followed as a result of i mutation ɑ gt ae ɑː gt aeː u gt ʉ uː gt ʉː later y yː ɔː gt ɞː later œː or oː o did not originally occur before i or j but it was later introduced by analogy as can be seen on the Gallehus horns Its allophone was probably ɵ later o Towards the end of the Proto Norse period stressed e underwent breaking becoming a rising diphthong jɑ Also towards the end of the Proto Norse period u mutation began to take effect which created rounded allophones of unrounded vowels Diphthongs edit At least the following diphthongs were present aei ɑu eu iu ɑu was later rounded to ɒu due to u mutation eu eventually underwent breaking to become the triphthong jɒu as in Proto Balto Slavic This was preserved in Old Gutnish but simplified to a long rising joː or juː in other areas As iu occurred exclusively in environments with i mutation its realisation was probably fronted iʉ This then developed further into iy which then became yː Accent edit Old Norse had a stress accent which fell on the first syllable like its ancestor Proto Germanic Several scholars have proposed that Proto Norse also had a separate pitch accent which was inherited from Proto Indo European and has evolved into the tonal accents of modern Swedish and Norwegian which in turn have evolved into the stod of modern Danish 1 2 Another recently advanced theory is that each Proto Norse long syllable and every other short syllable received stress marked by pitch eventually leading to the development of the Swedish and Norwegian tonal accent distinction 3 Finally quite a number of linguists have assumed that even the first phonetic rudiments of the distinction did not appear until the Old Norse period 4 5 6 7 Attestations editRunic inscriptions edit nbsp Composite photograph of the Einang stone inscription ca 400 The surviving examples of Proto Norse are all runic inscriptions in the Elder Futhark There are about 260 surviving Elder Futhark inscriptions in Proto Norse the earliest dating to the 2nd century Examples edit Ovre Stabu spearhead Oppland Norway Second century raunijaz ON raun tester cf Norwegian royne try test Swedish ron finding and utrona find out The word formation with a suffix ija is evidence of Sievers law Golden Horn of Gallehus 2 South Jutland Denmark 400 CE ek hlewagastiz holtijaz horna tawido I Hlewagastis of Holt made the horn Note again the ija suffix Tune stone Ostfold Norway 400 CE ek wiwaz after woduride witadahalaiban worahto me z woduride staina thrijoz dohtriz dalidun arbija sijostez arbijano I Wiwaz after Woduridaz bread warden wrought For me Woduridaz the stone three daughters prepared the most noble of heirs The Einang stone near Fagernes Norway is dated to the 4th century It contains the message ek go dagastiz runo faihido I Go dguest drew the secret in O N ek godgestr run fada The first four letters of the inscription have not survived and are conjectured and the personal name could well have been Gudagasti or something similar Kragehul spear Denmark c 500 CE ek erilaz asugisalas muha haite gagaga ginuga he lija hagala wijubi possibly I Eril of Asgisl was named Muha ga ga ga mighty ga ga being most likely an abbreviation of indeterminable reference incomplete hail I consecrate The Bjorketorp Runestone Blekinge Sweden is one of three menhirs but is the only one of them where in the 6th century someone wrote a curse haidʀ runo runu falh k hedra ginnarunaʀ argiu hermalausʀ weladauthe saz that brytʀ utharba spa Here I have hidden the secret of powerful runes strong runes The one who breaks this memorial will be eternally tormented by anger Treacherous death will hit him I foresee perdition The Ro runestone in Bohuslan Sweden was raised in the early 5th century and is the longest early inscription Ek Hrazaz Hrathaz satido s tain a Swabaharjaz s a irawidaz Stainawarijaz fahido I Hrazaz Hrathaz raised the stone Swabaharjaz with wide wounds Stainawarijaz Stoneguardian s carved Loanwords edit Numerous early Germanic words have survived with relatively little change as borrowings in Finnic languages Some of these may be of Proto Germanic origin or older still but others reflect developments specific to Norse Some examples with the reconstructed Proto Norse form Estonian Finnish kuningas lt kuningaz king Old Norse kunungr konungr Finnish ruhtinas prince lt druhtinaz lord Old Norse drottinn Finnish sairas sick lt sairaz sore Old Norse sarr Estonian juust Finnish juusto cheese lt justaz Old Norse ostr Estonian Finnish lammas sheep lt lambaz lamb Old Norse lamb Finnish hurskas pious lt hurskaz prudent wise quick minded Old Norse horskr Finnish runo poem rune lt runo secret mystery rune Old Norse run Finnish vaate garment lt wadiz Old Norse vad Finnish viisas wise lt wisaz Old Norse viss A very extensive Proto Norse loanword layer also exists in the Sami languages 8 9 Other edit Some Proto Norse names are found in Latin works like tribal names like Suiones Sweoniz Swedes Others can be conjectured from manuscripts such as Beowulf Evolution editProto Germanic to Proto Norse edit The differences between attested Proto Norse and unattested Proto Germanic are rather small Separating Proto Norse from Northwest Germanic can be said to be a matter of convention as sufficient evidence from the remaining parts of the Germanic speaking area Northern Germany and the Netherlands is lacking in a degree to provide sufficient comparison Inscriptions found in Scandinavia are considered to be in Proto Norse Several scholars argue about this subject matter Wolfgang von Krause sees the language of the runic inscriptions of the Proto Norse period as an immediate precursor to Old Norse but Elmer Antonsen views them as Northwest Germanic 10 One early difference shared by the West Germanic dialects is the monophthongization of unstressed diphthongs Unstressed ai became e as in haite Kragehul I from Proto Germanic haitai and unstressed au likewise became ō Characteristic is also the Proto Norse lowering of Proto Germanic stressed e to a which is demonstrated by the pair Gothic mena and Old Norse mani English moon Proto Norse thus differs from the early West Germanic dialects as West Germanic e was lowered to a regardless of stress in Old Norse earlier unstressed e surfaces as i For example the weak third person singular past tense ending de appears in Old High German as ta with a low vowel but in Old Norse as di with a high vowel The time that z a voiced apical alveolar fricative represented in runic writing by the algiz rune changed to ʀ an apical post alveolar approximant is debated If the general Proto Norse principle of devoicing of consonants in final position is taken into account z if retained would have been devoiced to s and would be spelled as such in runes There is however no trace of that in the Elder Futhark runic inscriptions so it can be safely assumed that the quality of this consonant must have changed before the devoicing or the phoneme would not have been marked with a rune different from the sowilō rune used for s The quality of the consonant can be conjectured and the general opinion is that it was something between z and r the Old Norse reflex of the sound In Old Swedish the phonemic distinction between r and ʀ was retained into the 11th century as shown by the numerous runestones from Sweden from then Proto Norse to Old Norse edit From 500 to 800 two great changes occurred within Proto Norse Umlauts appeared which means that a vowel was influenced by the succeeding vowel or semivowel Old Norse gestr guest came from PN gastiz guest Another sound change is known as vowel breaking in which the vowel changed into a diphthong hjarta from hertō or fjǫrdr from ferthuz Umlauts resulted in the appearance of the new vowels y like fylla from fullijana and œ like dœma from dōmijana The umlauts are divided into three categories a umlaut i umlaut and u umlaut the last was still productive in Old Norse The first however appeared very early and its effect can be seen already around 500 on the Golden Horns of Gallehus 11 The variation caused by the umlauts was itself no great disruption in the language It merely introduced new allophones of back vowels if certain vowels were in following syllables However the changes brought forth by syncope made the umlaut vowels a distinctive non transparent feature of the morphology and phonology phonemicising what were previously allophones Syncope shortened the long vowels of unstressed syllables many shortened vowels were lost Also most short unstressed vowels were lost As in PN the stress accent lay on the first syllable words as PN katilōz became ON katlar cauldrons PN horna was changed into Old Norse horn horn and PN gastiz resulted in ON gestr guest Some words underwent even more drastic changes like habukaz which changed into ON haukr hawk References edit Kristensen Marius 1 January 1902 Kock A Die alt und neuschwedische Akzentuierung unter Berucksichtigung der andern nordischen Sprachen Indogermanische Forschungen 13 1 54 56 doi 10 1515 if 1902 0130 ISSN 1613 0405 S2CID 170224007 Archived from the original on 17 August 2021 Retrieved 3 September 2020 Hamp Eric P 1959 Final Syllables in Germanic and the Scandinavian Accent System Studia Linguistica 13 1 2 29 48 doi 10 1111 j 1467 9582 1959 tb00392 x ISSN 0039 3193 Riad Tomas 1998 The Origin of Scandinavian Tone Accents Diachronica 15 1 63 98 doi 10 1075 dia 15 1 04ria ISSN 0176 4225 Kristoffersen Gjert 2004 The development of tonal dialects in the Scandinavian languages Analysis based on presentation at ESF workshop Typology of Tone and Intonation Cascais Portugal Archived from the original on 17 July 2011 Retrieved 2 December 2007 Elstad Kare 1980 Some Remarks on Scandinavian Tonogenesis I Nordlyd Tromso University Working Papers on Language and Linguistics 3 61 77 Ohman Sven 1967 Word and sentence intonation a quantitative model Speech Transmission Laboratory Dept of Speech Communication Royal Institute of Technology OCLC 825888933 Bye Patrick 2004 Evolutionary typology and Scandinavian pitch accent PDF hum uit no Kluwer Academic Publishers Archived from the original PDF on 10 April 2008 Retrieved 2 December 2007 Theil Rolf 2012 Urnordiske lan i samisk In Askedal John Ole Schmidt Tom Theil Rolf eds Germansk filologi og norske ord Festskrift til Harald Bjorvand pa 70 arsdagen den 30 juli 2012 in Norwegian Oslo Novus forlag Archived from the original on 18 August 2021 Retrieved 9 June 2017 Aikio Ante 2012 Grunthal Riho Kallio Petri eds An Essay on Saami Ethnolinguistic Prehistory PDF Memoires de la Societe Finno Ougrienne Helsinki Finno Ugrian Society 266 A Linguistic Map of Prehistoric Northern Europe 76 Archived PDF from the original on 31 October 2020 Retrieved 9 June 2017 Duwel Klaus Nowak Sean 1998 Runeninschriften als Quellen interdisziplinarer Forschung Abhandlungen des Vierten Internationalen Symposiums uber Runen und Runeninschriften in Gottingen Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on Runes and Runic Inscriptions in Gottingen 4 9 August 1995 Berlin Walter de Gruyter ISBN 3 11 015455 2 OCLC 40365383 Spurkland Terje 2005 Norwegian Runes and Runic Inscriptions Boydell Press ISBN 978 1 84383 186 0 Archived from the original on 9 August 2023 Retrieved 13 December 2015 Further reading editMichael Schulte Urnordisch Eine Einfuhrung 2018 Praesens Verlag Wien ISBN 978 3706909518 External links editGeneral information Proto Norse paradigms and links Archived 16 January 2022 at the Wayback Machine archived copy Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Proto Norse language amp oldid 1173580596, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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