Hi Simon,

     I'm a newbie in this Norse course (and to the Norse language as well), but I have been studying Norwegian for a long while now.  To say "good, better best":

godt (or god), bedre, best

   Very similar to what I'm seeing in Danish and Swedish.

      Jackie

 simonfittonbrown@... wrote:

Icelandic vs. Swedish

Hi!

Please can someone help me with a bit of complicated linguistic conceptualisation? This is about 2 adjectives with opposite meanings which have double forms, in this case bad (in Swedish) and good (in Icelandic).

1. In Swedish:

d�lig, v�rre, v�rst (the usual bad/worse/worst)

d�lig, s�mre, s�mst (the comparative forms refer to less of a good quality)

2. In Icelandic:

g��ur, betri, bestur (the usual good/better/best)

g��ur, sk�rri, sk�stur

So, it would seem to me that Swedish HAN �R S�MRE is the exact opposite of Icelandic HANN ER SK�RRI.

This strikes me as deeply interesting. I know of nothing similar outside the Scandinavian languages. Any comments? What happens in Danish/Norwegian/Faroese?

Is there a specific Icelandic equivalent of d�lig, s�mre, s�mst? And is there a specific Swedish equivalent of g��ur, sk�rri, sk�stur?

Cheers,

Simon

Sumir hafa kv��i...
...a�rir spakm�li.

- Keth

Homepage: http://www.hi.is/~haukurth/norse/

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