Talk:Old Norse

To-Do List

1. Phonology
   1. Multiple reconstructions: Benediktsson, Sweet, minimal and maximal inventories
   2. Umlaut: Information on conditioning from Germanic umlaut#I-mutation in Old Norse, The Conundrum of ON Umlaut.
   3. Syllable weight rules (see The Conundrum)
   4. +Contraction: Bisyllables (jǫtni); Strongs in ra; Vgr->ga (vindga, 1st Weak); Nicknames (Sigga); I consider this a phonological process, but it could go in morphology, too.
   5. +Inactive or historical transformations
   6. +Describe ǫ -> u in West Norse (just Icel.?) inflections, especially weak patterns.
   7. +Describe nnr -> ðr: Mentioned í following place(s): [1]
   8. +Dental assimilation (góðt -> gótt; hint -> hitt)
   9. Tones: Briefly mention a few arguments for and against Old Norse tones.
2. Phonotactics
   1. +Sonority hierarchy: See if one can be found. Certain bits in Málfræði. look suspiciously like one, with the division of the consonants into groups, accompanied by comments like, "…at aldri má tvá samhljóðendr ins sama hlutar setja í einni samstǫfun fyr raddarstafinn."
3. Gender
   1. +Note on the great gender shift in the English gender system, leading to its collapse.
4. Dialects
   1. Text example (multiple): change to "text examples" after adding Old Norwegian and Old Danish texts.

I'm starting a to-do list. The main reason is that there are a lot of things I would like to make sure people know are needed, but which I probably don't have time to write myself. I shall start it above, please feel free to edit it. LokiClock (talk) 09:03, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm curious about the sources for the phonology. The phonemes listed under the Vowels, Consonants, and Orthography sections differ significantly from the pronunciation guide in Gordon's Introduction to Old Norse and the Cleasby-Vigfusson book referenced in the article. They are also quite numerous and specific (unlike the general guidelines provided in most primers and introductions), and I would very much like to know the justifications for them. I didn't add this to the list in case a reference was already provided that I missed. MichaelGArtin (talk) 16:25, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Phonology's a tricky issue. Right now the article supports just one hypothesized phonology, whereas in the literature you can encounter multiple which are often very different. As for the earlier vowel chart, in "The Nordic Languages" Article 101, two very different phonologies are given, neither of which are the only possibilities. The one at this article is Benediktsson's, but with distinction of e and ę, and of nasal from oral vowels. The former's existence except in very early Norse may be challenged, as it is in the aforementioned article on the basis of Benediktsson's analysis, but the fact of the distinction's coverage in many important sources (Sweet, Cleasby-Vigfússon, etc.) makes its inclusion important for referential considerations. The phonology section and dialectical sections in this way oversimplify the academic reality, which is that there are of course multiple viewpoints, and certain information presented in the article takes one of these ideas for granted. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 02:38, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Also, on the disparity with Cleasby-Vigfússon, much as an English dictionary today will encompass Early Modern English to present, the book is a coverage of essentially the entire Icelandic up until its point of writing. It has a heavy slant on the older language, and is a very useful resource for information on Old Icelandic, but the pronunciation and spelling is based on the then-modern language, and you must be careful in reading it to notice when Vigfússon switches from discussing the language in general to the language of antiquity or the then-modern language. Note that its official title is not "Old Icelandic Dictionary" but "An Icelandic-English Dictionary." ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 07:02, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

One thing that is missing is the basic facts about word order. Did ON have the kind of verb-second order with verb-final order in subordinate clauses that existed in Proto-Germanic and still exists in e.g. German and Dutch, or had the word order already changed, as it did in the later part of the Old English period?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a02:810a:b00:a70:f55f:69d5:488d:8f82 (talk) 10:49, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Extreme West-centrism

This article really needs to distinguish Old Norse (Icelandic/Norwegian) and Old Norse (historical stage of the North Germanic dialect continuum). A lot of the examples and statements are specifically about western dialects but this is not explained at all. I suggest that an article "Old West Norse" should be created, with much of the content on this one moved there. Mårtensås (talk) 21:25, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Map

The map showing viking age distribution of (among other languages) norse branches seems a bit wierd. Surely the coasts should be connected in the inland, at least in southern Norrland by this time? (like for example this page 34) As well, it shows the Norrland coast as simply east norse, despite the actual dialects there exhibiting at least as many western as eastern features, especially in the more archaic place names (and that is of course a "conservative estimate" or how you would say, as western features in Sweden have been out of fashion since the early middle ages). Gösta Holm wrote a shorter text about the southern vs. western influences on Norrland in 1978, concluding that:

The southern half of Norrland has kú, búð, brú as opposed to kó, bóð, bró, at least/especially in (the more archaic) place names and lexicalised compunds.

The entierety of Jämtland-Härjedal has ljóstr, ljóð etc. (as opposed to ljústr, ljúð). To some extent at least, the farther east you go the less words have it (on page 31 in Medelpads folkmål by Vestlund, southeastern Jämtland jó-forms are compared to Medelpad jú-forms) although on the other side of the county border no words in active use the last 100 years have it.

a-breaking isn't as common.

more or less i-umlaut in first person of strong verbs.

However

a-umlaut hasn't affected Norrland much, except for the purely western Härjedal dialects (this has for short-stem words been investigated thoroughly by Torsten Bucht in Äldre u ock o i kort stavelse i mellersta Norrland )

--94.234.39.47 (talk) 05:00, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Names

@Mårtensås Hello, you changed norrǿnt mál from meaning "northern language" to "Norwegian language". There is an inconsistency with this term on the article, with the lead stating that it means something more in line with the former and the body of the article stating it means "Norse language". Do you have any source to support your change to "Norwegian language"? TylerBurden (talk) 14:12, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

No, but this is how it's used in the medieval sources. The law of the West Geats clearly uses noræn to refer to Norwegians, in contrast to svænsker ‘Swedish’ and væstgösker ‘West-Geatish’. Mårtensås (talk) 14:42, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

According to Brittanica, it means northern. There is also this, which says the same thing. Not finding anything on it meaning Norwegian so far. To my understanding "Norse" "Northern" and "Norwegian" have been used somewhat interchangeably which might have lead to the confusion. But unless there is a better source, Brittanica seems to be the best one we have. TylerBurden (talk) 14:58, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Denmark

"Among these, the grammar of Icelandic and Faroese have changed the least from Old Norse in the last thousand years. In contrast, the pronunciations of both Icelandic and Faroese have changed considerably from Old Norse. With Danish rule of the Faroe Islands, Faroese has also been influenced by Danish." -- This sentence gives the impression that Danish rule is a difference between Faroese and Icelandic. But until relatively recently, Denmark also ruled Iceland. So the sentence does not explain why Danish has influenced Faroese more than it has influenced Icelandic (assuming that is the case). Is it the longer period of rule, or did the Faroes have lesser autonomy from Copenhagen for much of the period, or is there some other explanation? As it is, the sentence is misleading because it implies a difference between the Faroes and Iceland that until the postwar period did not exist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.76.95.210 (talk) 10:42, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Sweet's Icelandic primer

Anyone know of a source for the English translations of the exercises? FangoFuficius (talk) 15:18, 31 May 2023 (UTC)