>So where do we go to get started? What sources and resources do we turn to?

I still aim to start on the 1st of December.
No sources beyond those that I give will be _required_.

As to what other sources are _available_ I quote a letter by Arlie Stephens
which was posted to another list. I hope she doesn't mind.


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E.V. Gordon's "An Introduction to Old Norse"...
The *only* good thing about it, IMO, is that it's
available. It's basically a set of texts to translate, with a
few
notes, and a grammar that's difficult to understand, unless
perhaps
you are an expert on linguistics. For a modern english speaker,
unfamiliar with inflected languages (who learns latin
nowadays?),
and perhaps a little weak on formal grammar, it's atrocious.
Even *with* my experience with other languages, including latin,
it was very hard to learn from, starting as a complete beginner
to Old Norse, and with no other germanic languages except
english.
On the other hand, it would probably be quite useful as a
textbook,
with the instructor providing the explanations, beginning
exercises,
simpler examples, and answers it so sorely lacks.

Michael Barnes' "A New Introduction to Old Norse: Part I
Grammar"
is *much* better for teaching the basics of the language.
Unfortunately,
it doesn't have enough in the way of confidence
building/learning
reinforcing exercises, so tends to turn the early learning
process
into a tedious round of memorization, without the variety of
being
able to use what one has learnt. (He suggests starting to read
ON texts as soon as possible, which is good ... but he
doesn't even
discuss verbs until p. 131 of 258, which would make actually
understanding texts rather difficult, if one were trying to
follow his text book in the order things are given.)

There appear to be *no* Norse-English or English-Norse
dictionaries
in print. This leaves Gordon's glossary as the only available
dictionary
... and it's strictly Norse to English. (I've recently heard
that
la Farge's _Glossary to the Poetic Edda_ ISBN 3533045412 may
still
be available, so there may in fact be an alternative. I've no
idea
if it's any good, but at this point I'm collecting anything I
can get
my hands on.)

...

There are some good web pages.

http://teaching.arts.usyd.edu.au/english/2000/icel has some
good tutorials.
The first one, in particular, is very confidence-building; it
gives easy
texts that don't require much knowledge to understand. (If
the first thing
I'd ever tried to translate was Gordon's 1st selection, I'm
not sure
whether I'd have simply given up entirely.)

I also like
http://www.midhnottsol.org/public/oldice/index.html (The Midhnott
Sol Kindred's "Easy Readings in Old Icelandic".)

These are what I remember (books I purchased and pages I
bookmarked) of
those I've heard mentioned. (I think they unfortunately
include all
the books on old norse presently in print in english.) I got
many of them
from early postings to this old norse list; it would probably
be worthwhile
checking the archives.

Resources for English speakers trying to learn Icelandic
aren't much better.
Check out the bad reviews on www.amazon.com. I have Arnold
Taylor's
Icelandic-English English-Icelandic Dictionary. I didn't
purchase the
one instructional book I found, part of the "Let's Go Europe"
series
(if I remember right), after reading the collection of bad
reviews
on amazon. (I'm still very unclear on how much Icelandic has
changed
over time, and whether Icelandic learning resources are
really any use
for Old Norse.)

--
Arlie

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Hope that helps.

Regards,
Haukur