>From: "konrad_oddsson" <konrad_oddsson@...>

>In pronounciation or printed convention?

Pronounciation. I was under the impression that we were discussing
the "classical" Old Norse (Old Icelandic) language, as spoken (for example)
in Iceland, say, in the 12th century. This is obviously not the case, and
you seem to be talking about the pronounciation of '�' (o,) at a much
earlier stage of the language (a stage which has left
us no written remains apart from meagre runic inscriptions).

According to Barnes (the recommended source in the present course),
the ON �a� is best pronounced as a short version of the 'a' in
"father". The '�', however, according to him (and many other sources), would
have been similar to the 'o' in "hot".

I never said, in my letter, that the '�' (o,) was derived from 'o'.
I am perfectly aware that it is derived from 'a'. However, according
to my reference books, and what I have been hitherto taught, the sound of
'�' (o,) was much closer to modern 'o' than modern 'a' in the
"classical" period. If you believe otherwise, you are of course
welcome to do so, but I don't think it is quite fair to state this
as established fact in the presence of beginners, who have no way of
knowing the "whole truth". Thus my letter - I was simply pointing out
that your theory is only that - a theory - and it is strictly in
opposition to established practice, as taught in all textbooks I
have seen, and as taught by all academics I have ever listened to.
The '�' may well have been pronounced as 'a' at some proto-stage of
the language we refer to as Old Norse, but I seriously doubt it could
have been pronounced thus by Icelanders of the 11th - 13th century.
They didn't speak runic inscriptions. Rhyming practice in 10th century
poetry suggests that '�' may still have retained some vestigial echoes
of the original 'a' sound, but the practice of rhyming a-� had more or less
totally disappeared by the 12th century, unless I'm very, very wrong about
this. Some scholars actually think that the pronounciation
of '�' mutated all the way to the modern version of the sound in the early
13th century, which means that Snorri may have pronounced '�' much like I
do, today (somewhat similar to the vowel in French "peur").

Therefore, I am not about to go through my copy of Snorri's Edda,
changing all the hooked O's to hooked A's : "Gylfi konungr r�� �ar
la,ndum er n� heitir Sv��j��"!!

As for the long 'a' in �ss - I was under the impression that this
vowel was originally a long '�' (long hooked o), which is assumed
by most to have been alive and well in Iceland in the 10th and 11th
centuries, although it later merged with '�'. I have always thought that
this would explain the reason why the �SS rune was also (in
certain times and places) an �SS rune (confusedly and confusingly).
But I am probably wrong about this as well, although it would indicate a
kinship between the pronounciation of '�' and 'o' at a stage when "�ss" was
still "�,ss".

>Lastly, given that many modern scholars use the glyph hooked
>A as against the older printed tradition employing hooked O, how do
>you feel about resurrecting the old AO glyph instead?

Personally, I would be more interested to know who these "many modern
scolars" are. Are they scholars of Old Norse? Scholars of proto-Norse?
At what stage of the language are they employing this hooked-a (which
I confess I have never seen in any context)? Excuse my ignorance, but
I am not much of a linguist, being more interested in the meaning of
words and the cadence of poetry, than the sounds of letters. Personally
(like you, I gather) I never use the so-called "reconstructed"
pronounciation of OI - it is impossible to employ fluently. I prefer Modern
Icelandic pronounciation - at least we don't need to make educated guesses
about this, and the old poetry sounds much better when uttered by people who
are speaking the language they were born into (rather than people twisting
their tongues into extremely unfamiliar shapes, trying desparately not to
make any mistakes, while making them anyway).

Best regards,
Pelle

_________________________________________________________________
Hold kontakten med dine venner med MSN Messenger http://messenger.msn.dk