On Wed, Apr 18, 2001 at 11:58:01AM -0000, gfross2001@... wrote:

>
> I´m a bit confused. Lesson 2 (page 23) of The Valfells and Cathey
> _Old Icelandic: An Introductory Course_ book states in the vocabulary
> that "þeira" is the genitive plural form of the pronoun (I
> assume "personal pronoun") and can be translated as "their". The
> chapter says nothing about the form "þeirra".

If I remember correctly, this is one of many cases where a word had
different spellings at different times/places, and both still get used
in modern normalized old norse.

In general, "Old Norse" refers to a collection of slightly different
forms of what started as the same language. As time passed, it changed
slightly; it also changed in different ways in different areas.
So you get, for example "West Norse", which isn't identical to "Old
Icelandic" ... but close enough to tend to be covered by a single name
and a single text book. But not identical ... so you see different word
forms and different spellings. Likewise for earlier and later forms
of the language spoken in the same location.

The range of spelling (and abbreviation) in actual manuscripts is even more
extreme. Mostly modern publications "normalize" the spelling to something
a little more standard. (This is not the same as simply spelling everything
as if it were modern Icelandic, by the way.)


--
Arlie

(Arlie Stephens arlie@...)