Saell Peter
That  has certainly cleared it up for me and - that link with the different ways of writing the sounds - a trifle like Professor Higgins style - I have opened the link and saved it to my  MYWEB  - I did not know of it
Thankyou
Kveðja
Patricia
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: llama_nom
To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 2:15 PM
Subject: [norse_course] Adventures in vowels: 'æ' and 'oe'


Sæl Patricia,

http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ X-SAMPA

In the 12th century, there are believed to have been two phonemically
distinct sounds, which in the normalised "Old Norse" spelling used by
Norse Course are written 'oe' and 'æ'. The first of these, as you
know, is written as a ligature by Gordon and Zoega and other printed
books, but as two separate letters in the Norse course lessons to make
them easier to tell apart (the two letters can look almost identical
in italics on a computer screen). Various other spellings were used
in the manuscripts besides these.

'oe' (the result of i-mutation of 'ó') was probably pronounced
something like the 'ö' in German 'schön'. In the X-SAMPA phonetic
alphebet [2:].

'æ' (which resulted from i-mutation of 'á') was probably pronounced
something like the long mid-open front vowel in English 'fair'. In
teh X-SAMPA phonetic alphabet [E:].

Some time in the middle ages (during the later part of the 13th c.
according to Gordon) the distinction was lost in pronunciation between
the two sounds. 'oe' was lowered lost its lip rounding and came to be
pronounced exactly like 'æ'. A lot of printed and online texts use
'æ' regardless of whether it is original, or would previously have
been 'oe'. In fact, the authors of many of these works would have
made no distinction between them in spelling or pronunciation. Of
course, texts in modern Icelandic spelling use only 'æ'.

Later still, the long vowel 'æ' became a diphthong. In Modern
Icelandic it's pronounced a bit like the English word 'eye', although
the exact pronunciation varies depending on context.

This is more Blanc Uoden's area of expertise, the modern
pronunciation, but I'll have a go at explaining it as best I can.

The second element of the diphthong is long and tense [i:], as in
English 'we' (1) when less than two consonants follow; (2) when
followed by p, t, k, s + j, v, r. The second element is short and
tense [i], like 'i' in French 'lit', before 'ng', 'nk'. Otherwise the
second element is short and lax [I], like 'i' in Emglish 'pit'.

sæl [sai:l]
sæll [saItl_0]
sæng [saink]

These could also be represented in Modern Icelandic spelling as
'saíl', 'saidl', 'saíng'. According to Gordon's guide to medieval
pronunciation, the author of Njáls saga may have pronounced these
something like: [sE:5], [sE:l:], [sE:Ng].

The colon in phonetic transcriptions means that the preceding sound is
long. [E:] is the vowel in English 'fair'. Added complication, the
'l' in 'sæl' according to Gordon and other books I've read, would
probably have had a "back" sound [5], like the English 'l' in 'hill',
whereas the Old Norse double 'll' would have had the "front" sound of
English 'like', as well as taking slightly longer to say than a single
[l].

Llama Nom

--- In norse_course@ yahoogroups. com, "Patricia" <originalpatricia@ ...>
wrote:
>
> Saellir Peter ok Alan
> I find it useful but I have just realised why - if I am stuck on a
word beginning with æ I try o almost automatically because I wonder
often if it could be that the two pairs of ligatured letters could be
mistaken one for the other.
> Say if a scribe mistook o and wrote æ instead this might happen
more often than we think
> Með bestum Kveðjum
> Patricia
>
>