"And how come the distribution of actually pronounced <-ur> in
Icelandic is almost identical to where <-r> in On is recorded?"

One reason I posted my post was that I pointed out that there are
many modern Scandinavian dialects, not only the Icelandic ones, that
have preserved the 'r' ending in perfect shape (at least for the
adjectives and to some extent strong masculine names such as:

Önder (ON Eyvindr),
Sjuler (ON Sigurðr),
Ulåfer (ON Ólafr)
etc.)

If only Icelandic and Faroese had made silent 'r' into a
pronunced 'ur':

Eyvindur (ON Eyvindr),
Sigurður (ON Sigurðr),
Ólafur (ON Ólafr)
etc.,

then it could have been just an odd, local mutation. But even today
in modern Swedish we may very well say 'en långer dag' (ON langr
dagr), 'en blåer båt' (blár bátr), even though it is a bit dialectal
and illegal in formal written Swedish. Thus, the silent r theory must
be bogus, of course.

/Sjurður


--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "Daniel Ryan Prohaska"
<daniel@...> wrote:
>
> Thanks Siurdar,
>
> Of course the <-r> was NOT silent. Why would they write it in Old
Norse
> then? And how come the distribution of actually pronounced <-ur> in
> Icelandic is almost identical to where <-r> in On is recorded?
>
> The silent <-r>-theory is bogus.
>
> Dan
>
>
>
>
> -------------------------------
> Hôker, in
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/norse_course/message/1670
> you write:
>
> "P.S. The 'r' ending was eventually dropped
> in the continental Scandinavian languages;
> but it was dropped in the spelling as well
> as in the pronunciation."
>
> I agree with you that the spelling dropped this, evidently. But
many
> many dialects still have the 'r' ending for, at least, adjectives.
> Like in Icelandic and Faroese, a "svarabakti" is inserted, though.
>
> Some examples:
> Dalecarlian: 'ien glyr syö' (ON 'hlýr sjór'),
> Gutnish: 'ann langgar dag' (ON 'langr dagr'),
> Smallandic: 'en tunger stoin' (ON 'thungr steinn')
>
> Even Bornholmish have the '-er' ending: 'enj långer manj' ('langr
> madhr').
>
> My dialect (Western Jamtlandic) had this ending in some names until
> 18th century, like in Önder (ON 'Eyvindr'), 'Sjuler'
(ON 'Sigurdhr')
> etc.
> Today, ON 'hlýr sjór' would become 'n gly n sjö', instead.
Sometimes
> we add an extra n in the masculine case where there was an 'r':
> 'Artun n dag de henne' - 'This is a nice day' (Pl imp), but
> 'Hu e e artu e stolkja' - 'She is a nice girl'
>
> One strange think about the 'silent r theory' is that how the
modern
> Scandinavian languages can have the 'r' ending (as 'ur', 'ar', 'er'
> etc), when it was silent back in ON times. That really puzzles me.
>
>
> /Siurdar
>
>
> --- Å norse_course@yahoogroups.com, Haukur Thorgeirsson
> <haukurth@...> skrivde:
>
> > O, silent R, thou comest back to haunt me!
> >
> > This seems to be some particular SCA-misunderstanding. :)
> > In reality the 'r' ending in Old Norse is not silent at all
> > and the name Snæbjörn does not have an r-ending. If your
> > 'herald' isn't okay with that tell him to talk to me ;)
> >
> > You can search the archives for more on this; here's one example:
> >
> > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/norse_course/message/1670
> >
> > - - -
> >
> > I'm glad if someone has made use of my name-list.
> >
> > Kveðja,
> > Haukur
> >
> >
> > Hinn 06. júní 2003 lét Mark Grass þetta frá sér fara:
> > > The silent "r" was added after checking the name
> > > through several SCAdian heralds and discovering it was
> > > another way to spell it. I would like to send my
> > > thanks and the thanks of half of the newbies in the
> > > Shire of Coppertree along to you though. Most of us
> > > have names that we found on your list! It has proven
> > > most helpful in naming new Vikings for our Shire. And
> > > I actually have a copy of your list copied as a word
> > > file so that I can access it when needed. Thank you
> > > very much for that list once more.
> > > Snaebjornr
>
>
>
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