On Thu, Jan 25, 2001 at 06:03:43PM +0000, Eysteinn Bjornsson wrote:
> I would certainly think so! These three words
> are still alive and well in Modern Icelandic,
> and clearly distinguishable. I can see no reason
> why they wouldn't have been so in 13th century
> Iceland.
>
> Do you have any problems distinguishing between the
> four L-words in the following English sentence?
>
> Let the Light be Lit Late!
>
> Similarly there should be no trouble with:
>
> "Þeir vega þær með þér".
>
> And I think you've missed a certain important
> point. Old Norse isn't really a long-dead language!
> It is basically the same as Modern Icelandic. The
> difference is mostly in spelling.
From what I understand, there was also a significant difference
in pronunciation. Though that shouldn't affect whether 'ei' and 'é'
were distinguishable. (Even if the two sounds seem to be rather
difficult for an english speaker to distinguish.)
--
Arlie
(Arlie Stephens arlie@...)