Old Norse

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Revision as of 04:26, 22 November 2014

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 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.^[]

Old Norse was divided into three dialects: Old East Norse, Old West Norse, and Old Gutnish. Old West and 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, the more obscure dialectal branch, 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.

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 commonly used term with reference to West Norse, was norrœnt mál ("Nordic speech"). Today Old Norse has developed into the modern North Germanic languages (Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, Danish and Swedish), which retain considerable mutual intelligibility.

In some instances the term Old Norse refers specifically to Old West Norse.^[]

See also

• Old Norse orthography — The spelling of the language.
• Old Norse morphology — The grammar of the language.
• Proto-Norse language — The Scandinavian dialect of Proto-Germanic that developed into Old Norse.
• An Introduction to Old Norse — A common textbook on the language.
• List of English words of Old Norse origin
• Old Norse poetry
• Germanic a-mutation

Dialectal information

• Old Swedish
• History of Danish
• Greenlandic Norse
• Old Gutnish
• History of Icelandic
• Old Norwegian

Literature

Introductions

• Torp, Arne, Lars S. Vikør (1993), Hovuddrag i norsk språkhistorie (3.utgåve), Gyldendal Norsk Forlag AS 2003

Dictionaries

• An Icelandic–English Dictionary (1874), Richard Cleasby and Gudbrand Vigfusson. @ Internet Archive, Germanic Lexicon Project (HTML, PNG, TIFF)
• G. T. Zoëga, A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic (1910) [1], Univerzita Karlova - UK
• "Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog – A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose." Copenhagen 1989–. (Scientific dictionary yet to be completed. Edited volumes 1–3, word-list, Indices and all the dictionary's unedited slips/citations (en-ǫ) available on-line.
• Jan de Vries, Altnordisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (1977)
• Finnur Jónsson, Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis (1931): a dictionary of Old Norse poetry [2], [3]

Grammars

• Bayldon, George. An Elementary Grammar of the Old Norse or Icelandic Language London: Williams and Norgate, 1870.
• Faarlund, Jan Terje. The Syntax of Old Norse New York: Oxford University Press, (2004).

Notes

References

• Wikipedia Article on Old Norse
• Cleasby, Richard. Vigfússon, Guðbrandur. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press, (1874). @: Germanic Lexicon Project (images, text). Google Books (images)

• Gutasagan, Lars Aronsson, ed. Project Runeberg (1997), Facing Text Translation by Peter Tunstall
• Harbert, Wayne. The Germanic Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2007)
• Haugan, Jens. Right Dislocated 'Subjects' in Old Norse (Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax Number 62. 1998)
• Iversen, Ragnvald. Norrøn Grammatikk, Aschehoug & Co., Oslo 1961.
• Lass, Roger. Old English: A Historical Linguistic Companion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (1993)

External links

• Heimskringla.no, an online collection of Old Norse source material
• Indo-European Language Resources The resources in question are mostly Germanic, including two dictionaries of Old Icelandic, two grammars of Old Icelandic (one in English, one in German) and a grammar of Old Swedish.
• An English Dictionary of Runic Inscriptions of the Younger Futhark, at the university of Nottingham
• Old Norse for Beginners
• Viking Language - Learn Old Norse, Runes, and Icelandic Sagas
• Old Norse sound sample
• Old Norse Online, by Todd B. Krause and Jonathan Slocum from the Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.
• Old Norse conjugator at Verbix.com
• 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