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| Geographical distribution | |
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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
Crimean Gothic
Old English
Other Germanic languages with which Old Norse still retained some mutual intelligibility
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.[3] The Old East Norse dialect was spoken in Denmark, Sweden, settlements in Russia,[4] 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.[4] The age of the Swedish language's presence in Finland is strongly contested (see Swedish-speaking Finns), but by the time of the Second Swedish Crusade in the 13th century, Swedish settlement spread the language into the region.
[edit] Tags:Scotland,Ireland,England,Isle Of Man,Normandy,Vinland,Volga,Germanic,Old Gutnish,Danish,Icelandic,Norwegian,Swedish,Sweden,Denmark,Mutual Intelligibility,Germanic Languages,Old Norwegian,Gotland,Novgorod,Swedish-speaking Finns,Second Swedish Crusade,English,I,U,E,O,A,R,L, | |
| Modern descendants | |
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The 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' people, a Norse tribe; see Rus (name). The current Finnish and Estonian words for Sweden are Ruotsi and Rootsi, respectively.
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 (Scottish and/or Irish).[5] Although Swedish, Danish and the Norwegian languages have diverged the most, they still retain asymmetric mutual intelligibility.[6] 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.[7]
[edit] Tags:North Germanic Languages,North Germanic,Writing System,Faroese,Norn,North Germanic Language,Scandinavia,Norway,West Scandinavian Languages,Norn Language,Orkney,Shetland Islands,East Scandinavian Languages,Denmark–norway,Lowland Scots,Loanwords,Norman Language,Waterford,Russian,Finnish,Estonian,Rus' People,Rus (name),Phonemic,Gaelic,Scottish,Irish,Middle Low German, | |
| Phonology | |
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This section contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.
[edit] Tags:Ipa,Unicode,Rendering Support,Question Marks, Boxes, Or Other Symbols, | |
| Vowels | |
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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. All phonemes have, more or less, the expected phonetic realization.
Old Norse had nasalized versions of all nine vowel places.[V 1] 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.[V 1] This notation did not catch on, and would soon be obsolete. Nasal and oral vowels probably merged around the 11th c. in most of Old East Norse.[8]:3 However, the distinction still holds in Dalarna.[8]:4 The dots in the following vowel table separate the oral from nasal phonemes.
Generic Vowel System ca. 9th-12th Centuries
Front vowels
Back vowels
Unrounded
Rounded
Unrounded
Rounded
High
i • ĩ
iː • ĩː
y • ỹ
yː • ỹː
u • ũ
uː • ũː
Mid
e • ẽ
eː • ẽː
ø • ø̃
øː • ø̃ː
o • õ
oː • õː
Low/Low-Mid
ɛ • ɛ̃
ɛː • ɛ̃ː
œ • œ̃
a • ã
aː • ãː
ɔ • ɔ̃
ɔː • ɔ̃ː
Note: The low/low-mid vowels may be indicated differently:
/æ/ = /ɛ/
/ɒ/ = /ɔ/
/ɑ/ = /a/
Sometime around the 13th century, Ǫ (/ɔ/) merged with Ø or O in all dialects except Old Danish. In Icelandic, all 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 Younger Edda. The nasals, also noted in the First Grammatical Treatise, are assumed to have been lost by this time. See Old Icelandic for the Œ ⇒ Æ and Ę ⇒ E mergers.
Generic Vowel System ca. 13th-14th Centuries
Front vowels
Back vowels
Unrounded
Rounded
Unrounded
Rounded
High
i
iː
y
yː
u
uː
Mid
e
eː
ø
øː
o
oː
Low/Low-Mid
ɛ
ɛː
a
aː
History of Old Norse and Old Icelandic vowels
Proto-Germanic
Northwest Germanic
Primitive Old Norse
Old Icelandic
(1st Grammarian)
Later Old Icelandic
Example (Old Norse)
a
a
a <a>
a
a
land "land" < *landaN
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 < *landoː; söngr "song" < sǫngr < *sangwaz
a
a (+i-mut +w-mut)
œ <ø₂>
ø
ø <ö>
gøra "to make" < *garwijanaN
æː
aː
aː <á>
aː
aː
láta "to let" < *læːtanaN
æː
aː (+i-mut)
ɛː <æ>
ɛː
ɛː
mæla "to speak" < *maːlijan < *mæːlijanaN
æː
aː (+u-mut)
ɔː <ǫ́>
ɔː
aː <á>
mǫ́l "meals" < *maːlu < *mæːloː
e
e
e <e>
e
e
sex "six" < *seks; bresta "to burst" < *brestanaN
e
e (+u/w-mut)
ø <ø₁>
ø
ø <ö>
tøgr "ten" < *teguz
e
e (broken)
ea <ea>
ja <ja>
ja
gjalda "to repay" < *geldanaN
e
e (broken +u/w-mut)
eo/io <eo/io>
jo > jɔ <jǫ>
jø <jö>
skjǫldr "shield" < *skelduz
eː
eː
eː <é>
eː
eː
lét "let (past tense)" < *leːt
i
i
i <i>
i
i
mikill "great" < *mikilaz
i
i (+w-mut)
y <y>
y
y(ː)
slyngva "to sling" < *slingwanaN; kykr "alive" < *kwikwaz
iː
iː
iː <í>
iː
iː
líta "to look" < *liːtanaN
oː
oː
oː <ó>
oː
oː
fór "went" < *foːr; mót "meeting" < moːtaN
oː
oː (+i-mut)
øː <œ>
øː
ɛː <æ>
mœðr "mothers" < *moːdriz
u
u
u <u>
u
u
una "to be content" < *unanaN
u
u (+i-mut)
y <y>
y
y
kyn "race" < *kunjoː
u
u (+a-mut)
o <o>
o
o
fogl "bird" < *fuglaz; morginn "morning" < *murganaz
uː
uː
uː <ú>
uː
uː
drúpa "to droop" < *druːpanaN
uː
uː (+i-mut)
yː <ý>
yː
yː
mýss "mice" < muːsiz
ai
ai
ai, ɛi <ei>
ɛi
ɛi
bein, Gut. bain "bone" < *bainaN
ai
ai (+w-mut)
øy <ey, øy>
øy <ey>[9]
ɛy
kveykva "to kindle" < *kwaikwanaN
au
au
au <au>
au
au
lauss "loose" < *lausaz
au
au (+i-mut)
øy <ey, øy>
øy <ey>
ɛy
leysa "to loosen" < *lausijanaN
eu
eu
eu <eu>
jú <jú>
jú
djúpr "deep" < *deupaz
eu
eu (+dental)
eo <eo>
jó <jó>
jó
bjóða "to offer" < *beudanaN
Ṽ
Ṽ
Ṽ
Ṽ
lost
komȧ < *kwemanaN ; OWN vėtr/vėttr < vintr < *wintruz
Ṽː
Ṽː
Ṽː
Ṽː
lost
hȧ́r "shark" < *hanhaz; þė́l "file" < *finhloː; ȯ́rar "our" (pl.) < *unzaraz; ø̇́rȧ "younger" (acc. neut. wk.[V 1]) < *junhizan [10]
[edit] Tags:Medieval,Edda,First Grammatical Treatise,Proto-germanic, | |
| Consonants | |
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Old Norse has six plosive 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 [ɡ] after an n or another g and as [k] before /s/ and /t/. It is realized as a voiced velar fricative [ɣ], by some accounts inside words, and by others between vowels (and otherwise as [ɡ]).[11][12][clarification needed] The Old East Norse /ʀ/ was an apical consonant whose position isn't precisely known, being reconstructed as as a palatal sibilant[8]:2. It descended from Proto-Germaniz /z/ and eventually developed into /r/, as it already had done in Old West Norse.
Labial
Dental
Alveolar
Postalveolar
Palatal
Velar
Labiovelar
Glottal
Plosive
p b
t d
k ɡ
Nasal
m
n
(ŋ)
Fricative
f (v)
θ (ð)
s
(ɣ)
h
Trill
r
Approximant
ʀ
j
w
Lateral approximant
l
[edit] Tags: | |
| Orthography | |
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Main 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 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. 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 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.
[edit] Tags:Runic,Latin,Proto-norse, | |
| Accent | |
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See also: Danish stød, Norwegian tonal stress, and Swedish tonal stress
This section requires expansion with:
Dating, etc..
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/).[13]:1
Modern Swedish and Norwegian have two tone contours (acute accent and grave accent in Swedish terminology, tone 1 and tone 2 in Norwegian). Words with tone 1 in Norwegian and acute accent in Swedish have stød in Danish. Because of these phenomena, it is posited that Old Norse, particularly East Old Norse, had developed tonal word accent.
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 16th century.[14] 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. No sign of the tonal system is found in Icelandic or Faroese.[15]
[edit] Tags: | |
| Ablaut | |
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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.
[edit] Tags: | |
| Umlaut | |
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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 suffices whose vowels created the umlaut allophones.
Some /y/, /yː/, /ø/, /øː/, /ɛ/, /ɛː/, /øy/,[9] and /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/.[3]
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.[V 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").
[edit] Tags: | |
| U-umlaut | |
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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. Compare West Old Norse fǫður (accusative of faðir, father), vǫrðr (guardian/caretaker), ǫrn (eagle), jǫrð (in Modern Icelandic: jörð, earth), mjǫlk (in Modern Icelandic: mjólk) with Old Swedish faþur, varþer, örn, jorþ and Modern Swedish örn, jord, mjölk with the latter two demonstrating the u-umlaut found in Swedish.[16][17]
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 in contrast to the Swedish plural land and other numerous 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 rootnomina, such as Old West Norse mǫrk (mörk in Icelandic) in comparison with Modern and Old Swedish mark.[17]
[edit] Tags:Old Swedish, | |
| Breaking | |
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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.[3] While West Norse only broke e, East Norse also broke i. The change was blocked by a v, l, or r preceding the potentially-broken vowel.[3][8]:1
Some /ja/ or /jɔ/ and /jaː/ or /jɔː/ result from breaking of /e/ and /eː/ respectively.[V 3]
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| Assimilation or elision of inflectional r | |
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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.[V 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), but karl-r (karl-Ʀ) remains karl.
Blása, to blow, has blæss for "you blow" instead of *blæsr (*blæsƦ).[18]
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 assimilation takes place even though the root vowel, Ǫ, is short.
Words with a final r in the word stem, such as vetr, do not add another -r, as 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; the nominative singular and nominative and accusative plural would otherwise have been *vetrr (*vintrƦ), while the accusative singular would still have been vetr. This is because the 3rd strong masculine declension, to which it belongs, marks the nominative singular and nominative and accusative plural, but not the accusative singular, with inflectional Rs.
[edit] Tags: | |
| Blocking of ii, uu | |
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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.[3] At the beginning of words, this manifested as a dropping of the initial i/j or u/v. Compare ON orð, úlfr with English word, wolf. In inflections, this manifested as the dropping of the inflectional vowels. Thus, klæði + ᴅᴀᴛ -i remains klæði, and sjáum in Icelandic progressed to sjǫ́um > sjǫ́m > sjám.[19] The jj and vv of Proto-Germanic became ggj and ggw respectively in Old Norse, a change known as Holtzmann's law.[3]
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| Epenthesis | |
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An epenthetic vowel became popular by 1200 in Old Danish, 1250 in Old Swedish and Norwegian, and 1300 in Old Icelandic.[15] 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.[9]
[edit] Tags: | |
| Syntax | |
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This section requires expansion.
Old Norse had a freer word order than English. Old Norse used different listing structures than the English, "a, b and c," and, "a, b or c." In those two cases, Old Norse would have, "a and b and c," or, "a and b or c."
[edit] Tags: | |
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