Heill Óskar!

þú skrifaðir:

"A":

>> "Við Haukr munum vega Eystein. Eysteinn er feigr. Vega munum við hann."


>> Here is what it says:
>>
>> Haukur and I will put roads through Eysteinn. Eysteinn is a loser.
>> Fight we shall with him.
>
>Keth?!? Perhaps you're kidding there, but you didn't make it very
>clear; if this is your real translation, take a look at the lesson
>vocabularies again :)

I was (partly) joking. The point was that the sentence (above labelled "A")
had several errors in it.

*First of all, ON uses Vit, "Við" is modern Icelandic.

*Secondly, as an accusative verb, "vega" can be read in the meaning
of "building a road" (a road is a "way" of sorts). That was the joke.
For the meaning "to kill someone", the dictionary reference
had "vega at e-m". (e-m = the dative marker for persons)
But I now see that "vega e-n" (e-n = the accusative marker for persons)
is the normal form for "to kill someone". For example: "Hví vágu
Gydingar hann?" (why did the Jews kill him?)

>> Here is how I think it should be in modern Icelandic:
>>
>> Við Haukur munum vega Eystein. Eysteinn er feigur. Vega munum að
>honum.
>
>Not really. First off, the whole vocabulary and style of it is very
>archaic, and simplistic at the same time; we'd say (for the same
>meaning):

I tried to stay as closely as possible to sentence "A".

>"Við Haukur ætlum að drepa hann Eystein. Eysteinn verður drepinn. Við
>ætlum að drepa hann."

Actually, I find that much better!
Now the meaning is also immediately plain to me.
(no leafing after obscure references)
Wouldn't the above also be excellent ON?

>(still very simplistic style)
>
>> And here is how I think it should be in Old Norse:
>>
>> Vit Haukr munum vega Eystein. Eysteinn er feigr. Vega munum at
>honum.
>
>We prefer "hánum", though that's really just a question of how old
>forms we're using.

I thought dative of hann was honum?
(pronoun for 3rd person singular masculine)

>But "Vega munum at honum/hánum." is a rather fishy
>sentence; "Vit munum vega hann." is normal. "Vega at" is also not the
>same thing as just "vega"; "vega at" is a phrasal verb that
>means "attempt to kill, attack", not simply "kill".

Heggstad has "vega at e-m" = gå laus på, drepe ein.
That was the model I used.
But I now see that most examples have the meaning as stated by you:
Þjalfi vá at Mökkurkalfa, ok féll hann við lítinn orðstír
(Tjalve gekk laus på Mokkurkalve, og han fall med lita ære)
(Tjalvi attacked Mokkurkalfi, and he fell with little honour)

>> (The original message was evidently some kind of mixture of modern
>Icel. and Old
>> Norse. I have also put in an error or two, just to make it
>interesting :)
>
>Keth, remember what I told you about less statement-like sentences?

No, it doesn't ring a bell right now.

>You may have been joking, but in either case, your uncertainty or
>your joke is not clear. Even our modernistic Old Norse will usually
>be better and more correct than your sentences (at your current skill
>level), no offence meant :)

I tought the dative was important for a while, but I see
it isn't now. You have to remember that I depend much much
more on the use of a dictionary than you do. Maybe I have to
use it twenty or thirty times, and you only once or twice, and
then you still do a better job!

Actually, I thought that prepositions could often be dropped in ON.
Example: Hann vá at honum <--> Hann vá honum (=he attacked him)
Q: But I now suppose that such optional propositions are not the rule(?)

>> A difficulty with my example is that we now know that at Cæsar's
>time
>> the Romans raher DID pronounce the æ (=ae) as a diphtong. At least,
>> that is what Wheelock is saying, (3rd edition, page xxxii)
>> who has the 'ae' in 'carae' and 'sapae' as the "ai" in "aisle".
>> But it is my impression that by the 12th century the diptong
>> had disappeared, and become replaced by the monophtong "æ".
>> This is, however, something I do not know, only something I assume.
>> But it must have changed some time, since the Latin taught in
>> 19th century schools used the "æ" as monophtong.
>
>The Classical Latin (i.e. Cæsar's language) pronunciation of "æ" was
>[Ai]; the Late Latin (alias Vulgar Latin) diphthong become a long
>monopthong [E:]. This would have happened sometime by the 3rd century
>AD, AFAIK.
>
>The exact same development happened in Greek, where Classical
>Greek's "ai", pronounced [Ai], became [E:] in Koine Greek (alias New
>Testament Greek, roughly contemporary with Vulgar Latin).
>
>And then we have the reverse development from Old Icelandic to MI: OI
>[E:] (into which 'oe' [9:] had merged) diphthongized ("split") into
>[Ai], which is the modern value.

Does the 9 stand for the sign you see on music notes ?

>This relationship simply depicts a very common pattern of development
>in human languages, not only in this specific diphthong, but in
>diphthongs and monophthongs in general.
>
>> At least to me, such tables are extremely helpful, since I do not
>> remember the exact meaning of Sampa or Pot(?) -- I just don't use it
>> often enough for that. (But I will look at it Óskar, if I only had
>> some book that lists the symbols)
>
>Pot? There's IPA and SAMPA (essentially the same thing). I'll still
>tell you that you should learn to use them, because tables like those
>are often inaccurate without you having a chance to know it. I admit
>though, that inaccurate authors are just as prone to use inaccurate
>IPA... but if you can read it, at least you can spot the authors
>faults by comparing the transcriptions to the approximations, which
>practically leaves you immune to the inaccuracies.

Sounds good! But why is æ an E? strange association. IPA okay!

Kind regards
Keth