--- In
norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "Albert Mutton" <am006f8426@...>
wrote:
>
> While there is a lull in actual translations, and at the risk of
appearing a bit ignorant, may I ask a couple of questions?
>
> 1/ from what book or work [ISBN number] was the translations being
taken, can I buy it?
Hi Albert,
The text we've been translating is called Brennu-Njáls saga [
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nj%C3%A1l's_saga ], or 'Njáls saga', or
in Icelandic also more colloquially 'Njála'. It's available online in
at least two different versions. We're working from this version [
http://www.snerpa.is/net/isl/njala.htm ], which uses Modern Icalandic
spelling. The standard scholarly edition, based on a slightly
different text to the one we're using, is published as Vol. XII of the
Íslenzk fornrit series [
http://www.hib.is/bokdetail.asp?ID=62 ], ISBN
9979-893-12-5. I can't find it on Amazon, but you should be able to
order it from Bóksala stúdenta [
http://boksala.is/DesktopDefault.aspx/tabid-46/ ]. There is a modern
English translation by Robert Cook [
http://www.amazon.com/Njals-Saga-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140447695 ], and
one from 1960 by Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Pálsson [
http://www.amazon.com/Njals-Saga-Classics-Magnus-Magnusson/dp/0140441034
].
> 2/ How do I get the Norse characters on my standard qwerty keyboard?
Here is a page which explains how to get Icelandic characters on a
variety of operating systems [
http://www.mentalcode.com/nl/islenska/kbd.page?return=%2Fnl%2Fislenska%2Findex.page%23kbd
].
Old Norse texts are often printed with Modern Icelandic spelling.
There are also several systems of "normalised" spelling for Old Norse,
which all use mostly the same characters as Modern Icelandic. There
aren't very big differences between them either. In the Norse Course
lessons, 'oe' is used for convenience instead of the oe-ligature ''.
You can get 'ø' by enabling the Danish or Faroese keyboard option. In
the 13th century, in Iceland, the sound represented in normalised
spelling by '' merged with that represented by 'æ'. Modern Icelandic
has 'æ' for both; and most online texts use 'æ' for both too. Instead
of the hooked o [
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogonek ], 'ǫ' (I'm not
sure if this will display right), we use 'ö' which is part of the
Modern Icelandic character set. In 13th century Icelandic, the sound
represented by hooked o merged with that of 'ø'; both are represented
by 'ö' in the modern language, and in many online texts.
Don't worry if that sounds complicated: all you need to know to get
started is that you can type all the special characters you need for
Old Norse using the Icelandic keyboard layout (plus Danish or Faroese
for 'ø'). Alternatively, you can use 'ö' for 'ø' as in Modern Icelandic.
Good luck,
Llama Nom