I finished writing an article which will be put on the homepage in the
Articles section. However, for those who never use the homepage, I
present it here also:
(it's not written to directly address the students of this course,
which may seem awkward to you; that's because I usually write articles
or essays in this way so they'll "survive" being taken out of context
if I show them to someone else)
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Old Norse Pronunciation (alternative)
'Old Norse' is a term very broad in both time and space. In Viking
times, it is clear enough that people from all over Scandinavia, and
from the peripheries of the Viking world, i.e. Norwegian settlements
in the North Atlantic, Danish settlements in Britain, and Swedish
settlements in the Baltic and south to the Ukraine, were mutually
intelligible to each other in their speech.
But this is a huge area; combined with the general lack of central
power (and thence the lack of standardized speech), dialectal
variation of this common speech must logically have been enormous. In
counterweight, the Nordic people of that time did seem to travel
widely, with their renowned sailing skills, which would serve to
standardize speech. Post-thirteenth-century, when Old Norse probably
ceased to be a practical term in Scandinavia, dialectal variation must
have increased with the rapid decline of Nordic navigation skills and
end of the mobility of the Viking era.
But as I said, 'Old Norse' is a broad term not only in space, but also
in time. Not including Old Icelandic into the equation, Old Norse
would seem to have a lifetime of roughly half a millennium. If we
multiply that with the aforeknowledged variation in space, we should
conclude that any thought of "standard" Old Norse is hopeless.
But this is generally, if not universally, accepted by academics. The
'reconstructed pronunciation' used today is of mere practical value,
based on a mediation of the "most standard" sounds, and to some degree
on the work of contemporary phoneticians, "native speakers" (though of
course just of their own dialect, in that time and place). The perhaps
over-idealized vowel length distinction, with entirely no distinction
in quality between graphically equivalent long and short vowels, is
the hallmark of the reconstructed pronunciation.
Whatever speech standard we devise for Old Norse, the most important
criteria is that it differentiate all the different graphs used in the
'standardized spelling' (orthography was another part of the language
that varied enormously from time and place, especially in accent
marking).
In any case, I believe anyone knowledgeable of Old Norse and good
phonetics should feel free to theorize his/her own pronunciation
standard according to his/her best academic capacity. That is what I
should like to entertain you with, i.e. an alternate pronunciation
standard falling closer to my own convictions in Nordic philology. I
should comment that since my partner in the "Old Norse for Beginners"
course, Haukur Þorgeirsson, expresses positive consent with this
pronunciation scheme, I present it specifically in connection to our
course, as a suggested alternative to our students.
The following table presents the 'standardized spelling' graphs to be
presented, along with SAMPA transcriptions of the standard
pronunciation, then transcriptions of my alternative pronunciation,
and finally rough English (or other) approximations, for clarity:
Character Standard Alternate Approx.
á [A:] [O:] aw (law)
a [A] [A] Brit -ar (star)
é [e:] [e:] e (pet), long
e [e] [e] e (pet)
í [i:] [i:] ee (fee)
i [i] [I] i (pit)
ó [o:] [o:] Germ oh (wohnen)
O [o] [o] Sp o (hijo)
Ú [u:] [u:] ue (Sue)
U [u] [U] oo (foot)
Ý [y:] [y:] Fr u (rue)
Y [y] [Y] Ice u (kuti)
ö (o-tail) [O] [O] aw (law), short
[2:] [2:] Fr eu (feu), long
ø [2] [2] Fr eu (feu)
æ [E:] [E:] ai (fair)
ei [Ei] [Ei] ay (day)
ey [9y] [9y] Fr euil (feuille)
au [Au] [Au] ow (brow)
Consonants = as in 'standard pronunciation'.
The differences in the system are that
a) the high vowels (í, i, ú, u, ý, y) are differentiated both by
quantity and quality, the shorter ones being slightly laxer (less
close) then the long ones. This is the general trend in Germanic vowel
systems, and I dare say the general trend in the world's languages
overall.
b) meanwhile, the mid vowels are differentiated only in quantity; they
cannot be differentiated further without conflicting with other
vowels.
c) 'a' and 'á' are differentiated also in quality, 'á' being a more
rounded back sound. This is a known-to-have-happened sound shift in
Old Norse; cf. the Scandinavian reflex 'å', pronounced as [O] (length
usually depending on environment). In Faroese and Icelandic the sound
further diphthongized, becoming [Au] (perhaps initially [AO]) in
Icelandic and [OA] in Faroese. It is really just a matter of timing,
whether one pronounces 'á' in this way, since the [O:] pronunciation
is perfectly natural of later ON. I choose it because it also has the
advantage of being easier/more natural to many Germanic speakers,
especially English and Scandinavians.
Overall, the differences between this scheme and the standard one are
by no means radical. I mean only with this effort to suggest a less
artificial method of pronouncing ON. The artificial feel to the
reconstructed pronunciation makes it rather difficult to pronounce,
whether for native Icelanders, Faroese or others.
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(The artificial feel of reconstructed has especially been rendering it
*impossible* for me and Haukur to properly pronounce it, without
ending up saying it the Icelandic way or simply starting to laugh or
something. I hope this will make my job easier.)