Here I kill some myths:

(1) Old Norse - as it appears in this course - was not the language
of the Vikings (nor their ancestors),
(2) 99.9% of the runestones were not carved using the Elder Futhark,
(3) 99.9% of the runestones were raised in a christian context (they
were mainly 11-12th Norse - well, Swedish - versions of ordinary,
christian gravestones)

With "99.9%" I really mean a number - probably well-known to the
expert - which is close to 100%.
It should perhaps be added that "99.9%" of the runestone were raised
in the last decades of the Viking age, and a few decades after
(adopting 1066AD as the end of the Viking age).

In (1) it should be noted that Old Norse was the language of the late
medieval Icelandic saga authors who wrote about e.g. events that had
happened - or beliefs people used to have - some ten or so
generations earlier during the Viking age.


/Sjuler


--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, Haukur Thorgeirsson
<haukurth@...> wrote:

> Hinn 07. janúar 2004 lét Jamie þetta frá sér fara:
> > It isn't? What language would the people who wrote inscriptions

in

> > the Elder Futhark have been speaking?
>
> Early Germanic languages. Proto-Norse.
>
> Kveðja,
> Haukur