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Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300. The changing processes that distinguish Old Norse from its older form, Proto-Norse, were mostly concluded around the 8th century, and another transitional period that led up to the modern descendants of Old Norse (i.e., the modern North Germanic languages) started in the mid- to late 14th century, thereby ending the language phase known as Old Norse. These dates, however, are not absolute. For instance, one can still find written Old Norse well into the 15th century.[1] Most speakers of Old Norse dialects spoke the Old East Norse dialect in what are present-day Denmark and Sweden. In texts which date from the Medieval Icelandic time, writers wrote with Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian dialects. These dialects derive from the Old West Norse dialect. No clear geographical boundary exists between the two dialects. Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway and Old West Norse traits were found in western Sweden. Old Gutnish is sometimes included in the Old East Norse dialect because it is the third, least known dialect. It shares traits with both Old West Norse and Old East Norse but had also developed on its own. The Icelandic Gray Goose Laws state that Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders and Danes spoke the same language, dǫnsk tunga. Speakers of the eastern dialect, spoken in Sweden and Denmark, would have said dansk tunga ("Danish tongue") or norrønt mál ("Nordic language") to name their language. Gradually, Old Norse splintered into the modern North Germanic languages: Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian (nynorsk), Norwegian (bokmål), Danish and Swedish. Of the modern languages, Icelandic is the closest to Old Norse. Written modern Icelandic derives from the Old Norse phonemic writing system. Contemporary Icelandic-speakers can read Old Norse, which differs slightly in spelling as well as semantics and word order. However, pronunciation, particularly of the vowel phonemes, has changed at least as much as in the other North Germanic languages. Faroese retains many similarities but is influenced by Danish, Norwegian, and Gaelic[citation needed] (Scottish and/or Irish). Although Swedish, Danish and the Norwegian languages have diverged the most, they still retain mutual intelligibility, although it is strongly asymmetric.[2] 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.[3] Another language which derives from Old Norse is Elfdalian, spoken in the Älvdalen municipality of Sweden, by about 1,000–5,000 speakers (various sources). This North Germanic language is not comprehensible to speakers of the other Scandinavian languages, and hence is often considered a language in its own right rather than a dialect of Swedish.
[edit] Geographical distribution Old Icelandic was essentially identical to Old Norwegian, and together they formed the Old West Norse dialect of Old Norse and were also spoken in settlements in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Norwegian settlements in Normandy.[4] The Old East Norse dialect was spoken in Denmark and Sweden and settlements in Russia,[5] 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 in the East. In Russia, it survived the longest in Novgorod, probably lasting into the 13th century there.[5] [edit] Modern descendantsThe modern descendants of the Old West Norse dialect are the West Scandinavian languages of Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian and the extinct Norn language of the Orkney and the Shetland Islands; 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, Icelandic and the closely related Faroese have changed the least from Old Norse in the last thousand years, although with Danish rule of the Faroe Islands, Faroese has also been influenced by Danish. Old Norse also had an influence on English dialects and Lowland Scots, which contains many Old Norse loanwords. It also influenced the development of the Norman language. Various other languages, which are not closely related, have been heavily influenced by Norse, particularly the Norman dialects, Scottish Gaelic and Waterford Irish Gaelic.[citation needed] Russian, Finnish and Estonian also have a number of Norse loanwords; the words Rus and Russia, according to one theory, may be named after the Rus, the name of a Norse tribe (see Etymology of Rus and derivatives). The current Finnish and Estonian words for Sweden are Ruotsi and Rootsi, respectively. [edit] Phonology[edit] VowelsThe 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. All phonemes have, more or less, the expected phonetic realization. Old Norse had nasalized versions of all nine vowel places.[6] These occurred as allophones of the vowels before Ns and in places where an N had followed before being absorbed. If the N 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 Grammatical Treatises, and otherwise might have remained unknown. The First Grammarian marked these with a dot above the letter.[6] This notation did not catch on, and would soon be obsolete. The dots in the following vowel table separate the oral from nasal phonemes.
Sometime around the 13th century, Ǫ merged to Ø in all dialects except Old Danish. This can be determined by their distinction within the 12th-century Grammatical Treatises but not within the early 13th century Younger Edda. As well, the nasals, also noted in the Grammatical Treatises, are assumed to have been lost by this time. See Old Icelandic for the Œ ⇒ Æ and Ę ⇒ E mergers.
[edit] ConsonantsOld Norse has six stop phonemes. Of these /p/ is rare word-initially and /d/ and /b/ do not occur between vowels, except in compound words (e.g. veðrabati), because of the fricative allophones of the Proto-Germanic language (e.g. *b *[β] > [v] between vowels). The /ɡ/ phoneme is realized as a voiced velar fricative [ɣ] inside words, except before an n or another g.
The velar fricative [x] is an allophone of /k/ and /ɣ/ before /s/ and /t/.[citation needed] [edit] OrthographyMain articles: Old Norse alphabet and Old Norse orthography 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 non-phonemic difference between the voiced and the unvoiced dental fricatives is marked — the oldest texts as well as 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. 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.
[edit] Phonological rules and transformations[edit] UmlautSome /y/, /yː/, /ø/, /øː/, /e/[citation needed], and all /æ/, /æː/ were obtained by i-mutation from /u/, /uː/, /o/, /oː/, /ɑ/, and /ɑː/ respectively. Some /y/, /yː/, /ø/, /øː/, and all /ɒ/, /ɒː/ were obtained by u-mutation from /i/, /iː/, /e/, /eː/, and /ɑ/, /ɑː/ respectively. See Old Icelandic for information on /ɒː/. [edit] BreakingMain article: Vowel breaking Vowel breaking caused a front vowel to be split into a semivowel-vowel sequence before a back vowel in the following syllable.[4] While West Norse only broke e, East Norse also broke i.[4] Some /jɑ/ or /jɒ/ and /jɑː/ or /jɒː/ result from breaking of /e/ and /eː/ respectively.[7] [edit] Assimilation/Elision of inflectional RWhen a noun, pronoun, or adjective has a long or diphthongal vowel and ends in a single L, N, or S, an inflectional R is assimilated.[8] When the vowel is short, the ending is dropped. The strong masculine declensions mark the nominative with one such inflectional R. Óðin+r becomes Óðinn instead of Óðinr, but karl+r remains karl. The rule is not hard and fast, with counter-examples such as vinr, which has the synonym vin, yet retains the unabsorbed version, and jǫtunn, where absorption takes place even though the root vowel, Ǫ, is short. This may also apply to a final R, such as in the word vetr, though assimilation won't be evident, seeing as how the sounds are already the same. The effect of the dropping usually results in the lack of distinction between some forms of the noun. In the case of vetr the dropping renders the nominative and accusative singular and plural identical. This is because the 3rd strong masculine declension, to which it belongs, marks the nominative singular and nominative and accusative plural with inflectional Rs. When a verb has a long or diphthongal root vowel and ends in a single N or S, inflectional Rs are assimilated. Blása, to blow, has blæss for "you blow" instead of blæsr.[9] [edit] Blocking of ii, uuI/j before i, e, and their u-umlauts was not possible, nor u/v before u, o, and their i-umlauts.[4] The jj and vv of Proto-Germanic became ggj and ggw respectively in Old Norse.[4] [edit] GrammarOld 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. Old Norse had three grammatical genders – masculine, feminine or neuter. Nouns, adjectives and pronouns were declined in four grammatical cases – nominative, accusative, genitive and dative, in singular and plural. Some pronouns (first and second person) could have dual number in addition to singular and plural. The genitive is used partitively, and quite often 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:
In addition to these examples there were the numerous "weak" noun paradigms, which had a much higher degree of syncretism between the different cases in its paradigms, i.e. they didn't have as many different forms as the "strong" nouns. A definite article was realised as a suffix, that retained an independendent 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, did not evolve before later stages of the Old Norse period. [edit] GenderFurther information: Grammatical gender Old Norse is a gendered language. Adjectives or pronouns referring to a noun must mirror the gender of that noun, so that one says, "heill maðr!" but, "heilt barn!" Like 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 male crow or female raven. All neuter words have identical nominative and accusative forms,[10] and all feminine words have identical nominative and accusative plurals.[11] The gender of some words' plurals does not agree with that of their singulars, such as lim and mund.[12] [edit] HierarchyOld Norse inherited the Proto-Germanic feature of having neuter as the default gender.[13] In other words, when the gender of a noun is unknown, adjectives and pronouns referencing it use the neuter gender forms, rather than the masculine or feminine. Thus, if speaking or writing to a general audience, one would say velkomit, "well is it come," rather than velkominn or velkomin, "well is [he or she] come," as one does not know whether the person hearing it is going to be male or female. One generally sees adjectives in their neuter form when used pronominally for this reason. For words more commonly used in this way (rather than to describe a noun) one sees their neuter forms more often than their masculine or feminine. Normally the masculine form would be the most beneficial form of an adjective to learn first, given that the majority of nouns are masculine.[14] In these cases, however, the most practical form to learn first would be the neuter. [edit] NounOld Norse and other Germanic languages had two types of regular declension. They are called the strong and weak declensions by analogy with the strong and weak conjugations. One main feature of weak nouns is that they do not distinguish the non-nominative singular cases from each other. This effectively forms a nominative-oblique case dynamic confined to the weak singulars. Historically, the Proto-Germanic weak nouns were characterized by a nasal suffix applied as a case marker. These were mostly absorbed by their preceding vowels by the time Old Norse developed, with the exceptions being those suffices in the weak feminine and neuter declensions' genitive plurals. [edit] Weak nounsAs the nominative of neuter words is also the accusative, and as weak nouns have the same dative and genitive as accusative in the singulars, all of the singular forms are the same for the weak neuters. One subset of the declension contains 6 nouns for parts of the body. Another contains words for objects, forming no genitive plural.
The plurals of the weak masculine declension are the same as those of the 1st strong masculine. The declension contains the endings -ingi, -yrki, and -verki, as well as some weak versions of strong masculine nouns, names, and endings.
The weak feminines with the -a ending vary greatly in the genitive plural, but most fall into a few groups: Nouns with -na as ending; nouns with no genitive plural; nouns that form the genitive plural by attaching the definite article's genitive plural to the nominative singular; nouns whose genitive singular is used collectively.
The Indeclinable Feminines are an additional class of weak noun. They are conceptual in meaning, and because of this have no plurals and do not differentiate case. They may, in charts, be included with the feminines in -a, in which case said chart becomes:
[edit] VerbFurther information: Germanic verb Verbs were conjugated in person and number, in present and past tense, in indicative, imperative and subjunctive mood. The active participle is used to form a gerund or a verbal noun[15]:2 with weak masculine singulars and 3rd strong masculine plurals, or weak neuter declension. As a plain participle, it is a weak adjective.[16] The participle appears in two genders within the same verse in Hávamál: "gínanda úlfi / galandi kráku."[17] The general sense of the noun is of the English suffix -er or of being able to perform the action.[15]:3 The plural as a prefix, ęndr-, is equivalent to the English and Latin prefix re-. [edit] Strong verbs
[edit] Weak verbsWeak verbs distinguish the tenses of the indicative and subjunctive primarily by adding a suffix involving a dental consonant (t, d, or ð). Preceded by the dental, the subjunctive endings take the form of their present-tense endings, the indicative singulars of the subjunctive singulars, and the indicative plurals of the plurals with all the endings' vowels changed to U. The dental is preceded by an A in some verbs, causing the past-tenses to become trisyllabic. Aside from the suffices, two conjugations have some subset distinguished by i-umlaut. Except in these, the past-tense singulars of the indicative are indistinct from those of the subjunctive in the weak conjugations.
All forms i-umlauted except indicative preterites and past participles.
Subjunctive preterites i-umlauted.
[edit] Present-preterite verbs
[edit] SufficesThe reflexive pronoun's accusative, sik, is contracted and suffixed to the verb as -k, -sk, or -zk in order to form the reflexive suffix.[4][18] In the early 13th century, the suffices became -z and -s, and later -zt and -zst.[4]
[edit] Pronouns and adjectivesPronouns and adjectives are generally separate in declension. However, in semantic and syntactic usage the boundary is less clearly cut.[19] Adjectives may be used as in English, to modify a noun (e.g., gótt vatn, good water), or may stand alone as a de facto pronoun (e.g., gótt, a good thing). The only difference in their declensions is the masculine accusative singular ending, which is -n in pronouns and -an in adjectives. Genitive and dative plurals are indistinct in gender for all pronominal and adjectival declensions. The nominative and accusative neuter singular ends in -t when the word's root vowel is short, and -tt when long.[20] [edit] PronounsThe interrogatives include hvat "what", hví "why", and hvess "what sort", derived from þat, hvar "where" and hveim "whom", derived from þar, hvárt "whether, which of many," and hvęrt, "which of two, each." There are two relative particles, er or es and sem, which can also be used as relative pronouns or adverbs. Both are completely indeclinable. The former carries the relative (non-interrogative) senses of the words which, who, when, where, and that. The latter corresponds to as, as if, alike, same as, or about the same time as, and may take on any function of er as well. Some pronouns, such as hvárr,[21] hvęrt,[21] nekkvęrt,[22] and sá,[23] have adjectival function. This usage generally requires a different translation than their pronominal one. [edit] Personal and possessiveÞat's singulars follow the pronominal declension irregularly, and with different lemmata for each gender. Its plurals follow the declension of the cardinal numbers irregularly, and are especially similar to tvau's forms. Variants of hánum include honum and hǫnum. For the 1st and 2nd person, actions with one's self as an object simply use mik, þik, etc.. For the 3rd person, a separate reflexive pronoun is used, which follows the declension of the 1st and 2nd personal pronouns' singulars.
* Tvau "two" or bœði "both" may be used as substitute for a true 3rd personal dual. The possessive pronouns are derived from the genitives of the personal pronouns. They are mitt, þitt, sitt, okkart, ykkart, várt, and yðart. The í of those derived from the singulars is shortened before nn or tt.
[edit] AdjectivesThe comparative and superlative forms are formed by inserting -r- and -st- or -ar- and -ast- between the uninflected form of the adjective and a strong or weak ending.[20] In the strong adjectives, the definite and superlative are strong when indefinite, weak when definite. The comparatives are weak when both definite and indefinite, and are declined like the active participle. Some strong adjectives i-umlaut their root vowel in their comparatives and superlatives, so that stórt hús (a large house) becomes stœrst (a house most large). The past participles of weak verbs decline as strong adjectives. [edit] HitAs the definite article, hit appears before a definite adjective and suffixed to a noun.[24] As the past participle of strong verbs, it appears as a verbal suffix. As a suffix, it turns nouns and strong verbs into adjectives with pronominal declension (like itsself). The h is always dropped, and the root i is replaced by any vowel at the end of the noun or verb.[20] An instance of umnum in the event of a dative plural is contracted to unum.[20] In other uses, it can appear before an adverb, after a pronoun, between two nouns, or between an adjective and a pronoun (including another adjective).[24] The first form of the definite article was et/enn/en.[4] It was originally a distinct word, placed after the noun.[4] Later, it appeared as it/inn/in, and in its free form also as hit/hinn/hin.[24] In the late 14th century (particularly in Old Norwegian), an indeclinable form was popular, inu or hinu, but nowhen else.[24] A related word, hitt, should not be confused with hit, as they are distinct in meaning, stress, and in that the h can never be dropped from hitt.[25]
[edit] Strong declensionJarpt demonstrates the general case for declension. Gótt displays dental assimilation, while nekkvęrt demonstrates pronominal declension.
[edit] Weak declensionThe singulars of the weak adjectival declension are modelled after those of the weak noun declensions, and likewise have a nominative-oblique case dynamic. The plurals are not distinguished in gender, nor in case except the dative.
[edit] IndeclinableThe indeclinable adjectives end in -i or -a. They are not comparable. They originated from regular weak adjectives, the different endings marking gender. [edit] NumbersEitt (one) follows the pronominal declension, and hundrað is weak and neuter-only. Tvau, bœði, þrjú, and fjǫgur have only plural, and their declension follows. All other cardinal numbers are indeclinable. The distributives and multiplicatives are all strong adjectives. The ordinals are weak, except for fyrst and annat, which are strong.
[edit] TextsThe 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, unique in medieval Europe. 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.[26] [edit] Relationship to EnglishOld English and Old Norse were closely related languages, and 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), etc. This is because both English and Old Norse stem from a Proto-Germanic mother language. In addition, a large number of common, everyday Old Norse words mainly of East Norse origin 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 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 still disputed by some. While the number of loanwords adopted from the Scandinavians wasn't as numerous as that of Norman French or Latin, their depth and every day nature make them a substantial and very important part of every day English speech as they are part of the very core of the modern English vocabulary. Words like "bull" and "Thursday" are more difficult when it comes to their origins. "Bull" may be from either Old English "bula" or Old Norse "buli" while "Thursday" may be a borrowing, or it could simply be from the Old English "Þunresdæg" which could have been influenced by the Old Norse cognate. The word "are" is from Old English "earun"/"aron" as well as the Old Norse cognates. [edit] DialectsAs 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 *fullian) 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. A second 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.
However, these differences were an exception. 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: Móðir Dyggva var Drótt, dóttir Danps konungs, sonar Rígs er fyrstr var konungr kallaðr á danska tungu.[28] Dyggve's mother was Drott, the daughter of king Danp, Ríg's son, who was the first to be called king in the Danish tongue. …stirt var honum norrœnt mál, ok kylfdi mᴊǫk til orðanna, ok hǫfðu margir menn þat mᴊǫk at spotti.[29] …the Norse language was hard for him, and he often fumbled for words, which amused people greatly. Here is a comparison between the two dialects as well as Old Gutnish. It is a transcription from one of the Funbo Runestones (U990) meaning : Veðr and Thane and Gunnar raised this stone after Haursi, their father. God help his spirit:
The OEN original text above is transliterated according to traditional scholar methods meaning u-umlaut is not regarded in runic Old East Norse even though more recent studies 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:
[edit] Old West NorseMost of the innovations that appeared in Old Norse spread evenly through the Old Norse area, but some were geographically limited and created a dialectal difference between Old West Norse and Old East Norse. One difference was that 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. An early difference was that Old West Norse had the forms bú (dwelling), kú (accusative for cow) and trú (faith) whereas Old East Norse had bō, kō and trō. Old West Norse was also characterized by the preservation of u-umlaut, which meant that for example Proto-Norse *tanþu (tooth) was pronounced tǫnn and not tann as in post-runic Old East Norse; OWN gǫ́s and runic OEN gǭs, while post-runic OEN gās. The combinations -mp-, -nt-, and -nk- mostly merged to -pp-, -tt- and -kk- in Old West Norse: (runic OEN) *krimpa, (Proto-Norse *krimpan) *sprinta, (PN *sprintan) *sænkva (PN *sankwian) while OWN kreppa, spretta and søkkva (modern Swedish krympa, sprinta (dialect), sänka, modern Danish krympe, sprinte, sænke; to shrink, to sprint, to sink (transitive; compare intransitive "*sionkva" while OWN "søkkva" for both variations)). The earliest body of text appears in runic inscriptions and in poems composed ca 900 by Tjodolf of Hvin. The earliest manuscripts are from the period 1150-1200 and concern both legal, religious and historical matters. During the 12th and 13th centuries, Trøndelag and Vestlandet 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 come down to us from until ca 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. [edit] Old IcelandicFurther information: History of Icelandic A specifically Icelandic sound, the long, u-umlauted A, spelled Ǫ́ and pronounced /ɒː/, developed circa the early 11th century.[6] It was short-lived, being marked in the Grammatical Treatises and remaining until the end of the 12th century.[6] /w/ merged to /v/ during the 12th century.[4] This caused /v/ to become an independent phoneme from /f/, and the distinction of <v> from <f> for medio-final /v/ to become merely etymological. Around the 13th century, Œ/Ǿ (/øː/) merged to Æ (/æː/).[30] Thus, pre-13th century grœnn (green) became modern Icelandic grænn. The 12th century Grágás manuscripts distinguish the vowels, and so the Codex Regius copy does as well.[30] However, the 13th century Codex Regius copy of the Elder 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 frequent confusion of the letters chosen to distinguish them in others.[30][31] Towards the end of the 13th century, Ę (/æ/) merged to E (/e/).[32] [edit] Old NorwegianMain article: 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 a devoicing, /C̥/. [edit] Greenlandic NorseMain article: 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. /θ/, and some /ð/ merged to /t/, so that Old Icelandic Þórðr becomes Tortr. [edit] Text exampleFurther 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 these were borrowed from Latin. Without familiarity with these abbreviations, the facsimile will be unreadable to many. In addition, reading the manuscript itsself requires familiarity with the letterforms of the native script. The abbreviations are expanded in a version with normalized spelling like the standard normalization system's. Comparing this to the spelling of the same text in Modern Icelandic shows that, while pronunciation has changed greatly, spelling has changed little.
* a printed in uncial. Uncials not encoded separately in Unicode as of this section's writing. [edit] Old East Norse Old East Norse, between 800 and 1100, is in Sweden called Runic Swedish and in Denmark Runic Danish, but the use of Swedish and Danish is not for linguistic reasons as the differences between them are minute at best during the more ancient stages of this dialect group (though changes had a tendency to occur earlier in the Danish region and until this day many Old Danish changes have still not taken place in modern Swedish rendering Swedish as the more archaic out of the two concerning both the ancient as well as modern languages, sometimes by a profound margin but in all differences are still minute). They are called runic because the body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark, which only had 16 letters. Because of the limited number of runes, the rune for the vowel u was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i was used for e. Runic Old East Norse is characteristic of being archaic in form, especially Swedish (which is still true for modern Swedish compared to Danish). In essence it corresponds to or surpasses the archaic structure of post runic Old West Norse which in its turn is generally more archaic than post runic Old East Norse. While typically "Eastern" in structure many later post runic changes and trademarks of EON had yet to happen. 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 phoneme ʀ (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) and the monophthongization of æi and øy/au into ē and ø̄ respectively had yet to take place: (runic OEN) fæigʀ (PN *faigiaz; bound to die; dead), gæiʀʀ (PN *gaizaz; spear), haugʀ (PN *haugaz; mound, pile), møydōmʀR (PN *mawi- + dōmaz; virginity), diūʀ (PN *diuza; (wild) animal) while OWN feigr, geirr, haugr, meydómr, dýr (post runic OEN fēgher, gēr, hø̄gher, mø̄dōmber, diūr). 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, *vāgaʀ while 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 OWN kept the original: drængiaʀ, *ælgiaʀ and *bænkiaʀ while OWN drengir, elgir and bekkir (modern Swedish drängar (new meaning), älgar, bänkar; lads (farmhands), elks, benches). OEN often preserves the original value of the vowel directly preceding runic ʀ while OWN receives ʀ-umlaut (resulting in the same change as with i-umlaut): (runic OEN) *glaʀ, *haʀi and hrauʀ while OWN gler, heri (later héri) and hrøyrr/hreyrr (modern Swedish glar (older form), hare, rör; glass, hare, pile of rocks). U-umlaut is still preserved in both phonemic and allophonic positions like in post runic Old West Norse (while sparsely preserved in post runic OEN): fǫður (accusative), vǫrðr and ǫrn (post runic Swedish faþur, varþer, örn (u-umlaut preserved); father, guardian/care taking, eagle). The plural ending of ja-stems were mostly preserved while those of OWN often acquired that of the i-stems: *bæðiaʀ, *bækkiaʀ, *væfiaʀ while OWN beðir, bekkir, vefir (modern Swedish bäddar, bäckar, vävar; beds, rivers, webs). 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 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. The word final vowels -a, -o and -e (Old Norse -a, -u and -i) started to merge into -ə, represented with the letter e. At the same time, the voiceless stop consonants p, t and k became voiced stops and even fricatives. These innovations resulted in that 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, in Danish a tonal word accent distinction shared with Norwegian and Swedish changed into stød around this time. In modern Swedish and Norwegian there are two tone contours (acute accent and grave accent in Swedish terminology, Tone1 and Tone2 in Norwegian), in words having tone1 in Norwegian and acute accent in Swedish is found stød in Danish. Stød is a glottal gesture considered a kind of creaky voice, and it seems to have been documented by Swedish sources as early as the 14th century.[34] The origin of Scandinavian word tones is unclear, they may have developed from a non-distinctive tonal feature thought to have existed in Proto-Norse which then became distinctive when the endings of words were reduced in continental Old Norse. There are tonal phenomena in neither Icelandic nor Faroese.[35] [edit] Text exampleThis is an extract from the Westrogothic law (Västgötalagen). 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.
Translation:
[edit] Old GutnishThe 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 of the agreement that the Gotlanders had with the Swedish king sometime before the 9th century:
Translation:
Note here that the diphthong ai in aigu, þair and waita is not regressively umlauted to ei as in e.g. Old Icelandic eigu, þeir and veita. [edit] See also
[edit] Literature
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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