Eysteinn wrote:

>Yes, it seems certain that the pronounciation has changed
>in many ways. But I am rather uncomfortable with the scholars'
>reconstruction of "correct" Old Norse pronounciation. I don't
>think Haukur and Óskar agree with me on this, but I'm all for
>students simply using Modern Icelandic pronounciation. This is
>the usual practice among academics (at least the academics I
>know), and I'm sure that Haukur and Óskar would never seriously
>converse in "reconstructed" Old Norse, unless they were trying
>to show off ;-)
>
>The difficulty (for the Icelander) of pronouncing Old Norse in
>the "reconstructed" way, is that it is very difficult to do for
>more than a few seconds without laughing!

Well, some reconstructions sound more ridiculous than others, but the
problems I have with the attempts at using any reconstructed pronounciation
are that we simply cannot be certain of its accuracy, and that this means
any scholar can use a slightly different set of rules to pronounce the
language according to their theories of reconstruction.

-Selv

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