Heil öll,

Well, something has graciously ignited a spurt of posting on this
list - good discussions, folks :)

And now some replies:

***

Arlie reit:

> I'm curious how many are actually sending solutions, and why they

are not.

Nobody has sent us any solutions since sometime Christmas. No
solutions to lesson 4 have reached us.

This isn't really a big problem. I realize that, our solutions being
available on the homepage, most students won't bother sending their
own attempts to us. The disadvantage of that arrangement, however, is
that a) while this list is inactive too (which may be changing), we
can't know if anyone beyond a 5-person "inner circle" is using our
work; and b) we can't know what kind of mistakes the normal students
are making.

***

Tim reit:

>Hvárt er hann hér? / Er hann hér? = Is he here?"

>Does 'Hvárt' have a meaning of it's own, or is it only a marker?

It does have a meaning of its own:

ON has two interrogative pronouns corresponding to English "who"
and "which"; their stems are "hver" (plural) and "hvár" (dual). In
neuter singular nominative, "hvár" is "hvárt". So "hvárt" can
mean "which". From that form there also derives an adverbial meaning,
that of English "whether". Perhaps this makes clearer the logic
behind "hvárt" as a yes/no question marker.

***

Ok Tim reit (Eysteini):

>>Let the Light be Lit Late!

>>Similarly there should be no trouble with:

>>"Þeir vega þær með þér".

>The English vowels in your example are much more different from each

other than the Norse ones are, but I take your point.

On the (absolute) phonetic level, I disagree. From your (relative)
perspective, the English distinctions might seem greater. From my
(relative) perspective, they seem no more than equal or perhaps even
lesser. Consider the phonetic facts:

Vowels in "þeir - þær - þér":

(standard RP-ON): [Ei] - [E:] - [e:]
(Icelandic): [Ei] - [Ai] - [jE:]

Of the RP vowels, 'æ' and 'é' are very similar (which may be a factor
in their increased difference in Icelandic).

Vowels in "let - light - lit - late":

(RP English): [e] - [AI] - [I] - [eI]

Of those, [AI] sticks out, but the others are very close to each
other; [e] is slightly more open than [I] (by one "level"), and [eI]
is merely a diphthong of the two (but therefore longer). A speaker of
a language without length distinction, without any "ei"-like
diphthong and with only one "e"-vowel (e.g. Modern Greek) might
confuse all those sounds, except for the [AI] sound.

***

Eysteinn reit:

>While looking for an analogy for Old Norse/Modern Icelandic I was

actually tempted to say "Shakespeare English/Modern English. I didn't
dare, because I feared that our teachers would say: "Við Haukr munum
vega Eystein. Eysteinn er feigr. Vega munum við hann." These guys are
lethal! (... and will spot the NON-FATAL error in this sentence, to be
sure, as you will, as well ...)

:) "ViT Haukr gefum þér eigi grið, Eysteinn!" segja menninir.
Eysteinn flýr, ok siglir í bátinum ór váginum. "Óskarr ok Haukr eru
vargar." segir hann, reiðr mjök. :þ

The only comment I might have to such an analogy is: "It should be
Old ICELANDIC/Modern Icelandic, not Old Norse/MI. But I don't know
how different Shakespearish was from modern speech."

***

Tim reit (Hauki):

> I hear your frustration, but again, I don't understand. I'm using

your course every day - I took printouts to the stupid trade show I
had to work over the weekend so that I could use the time
constructively by trying to memorize those declension tables; I have
a copy here at work which I turn to now and then during the day. The
trouble is that I'm playing catch-up since I started late, and I'm
only on Lesson 3.

That's very encouraging to hear :) That's more "impact" than I had
really hoped for.

> Are you looking for feedback on the most current lessons, that is,

Lesson 5? If that's so, then I'll try to catch up faster so that I
can contribute more.

>
> Do you need another proofreader? If so, I'll volunteer.

Don't worry. But actually, if you're not "too smart" (:þ), you might
be useful. You see, our current proofreaders have it too easy
understanding everything, so somebody "really thick" (!) would be
quite useful :)

***

Haukur reit:

> þær = [þE:r] or [þ{:r]
>
> (Óskar; what's SAMPA for IPA-theta?)

[T] :)

<for the others> [{] is IPA-æ, i.e. the 'a' in 'bad'.

***

I feel a need to increase awareness of a certain "fact"; I devised a
little "play" to get my point through.

Enter a two-person study of ON, with a Danish student (DS) and his
teacher (T):

T: "Angry in ON is 'reiðr'."

DS: "Oh. Is that related to the Danish word 'vred', of the same
meaning?"

T: "Yes."

DS: "Then how come the modern Danish word has a 'v'? Did it get
tacked on in later Danish?"

T: "No, the 'v' is original. It was dropped in Old Norse."

DS: "And then added again in later Danish?"

T: "No."

DS: "But I thought this Old Norse language was the ancestor language
of my own language. Is it not so?"

T: "It is; the Nordic people spoke a common tongue up until the 13th
century. We call it 'Old Norse'."

DS: "So what about the 'v'?"

T: "In Old Icelandic, the word was 'reiðr', without a 'v'."

DS: "What's Iceland got to do with it? Weren't most of the Old Norse
speakers Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian? Surely my language doesn't
originate from Iceland?"

T: "You have a point; but the only ON speakers that bothered to write
in any quantity (and perhaps quality) were the Icelanders."

DS: "But I wanted to learn about the language of MY ancestors, not of
the Icelanders."

T: "Well, I guess your ancestors always said 'vreiðr'. In fact, they
stopped using the -r very early; they'd just have said 'vreið' in the
masculine."

DS: "Oh. Any more surprises?"

T: "Kind of. The Swedes, and probably the Danes too, would have
said "jak", not "ek"."

DS: "And...?"

T: "There's plenty more; I can't be bothered to count."

DS: "!!!"

T: "The thing is, the Nordic people may have spoken a "common
language", one which we dub 'Old Norse'; but there were of course
significant dialectal differences. The "standard" of the language is
a modern phenomenon; it's artificial. As to pronunciation, for
instance, the "reconstructed" one that I've taught you is totally
artificial. We cannot make any plausible simulation of the phonology
of any specific ON speech area of a given time and place. We merely
mediate, in order to differentiate all the different phonemes
identified by the orthography."

DS: "So, I won't learn the "actual" language of my ancestors, just
some phonetic guesswork of 13th century Icelandic, complete with
localisms and idioms of that time and place?"

T: "Pretty much. That's the practical truth. If you're more
interested in other forms of the language, you'll probably have to
finish learning it first, then read linguistic literature about Old
Danish and perhaps do some research on ON dialects."

DS: "Right."

***

Óskar