--- In norse_course@..., gfross@... wrote:

> see OI and ModI as one language, and I do agree with you that they
> should be taught together and that by doing so, students would be
> saved a great deal of time and effort, especially if their primary
> goal was to read.

Exactly. The key word here is "read". As for pronunciation,
when it comes to OI, I personally think that "learning" how
to speak OI "as it was spoken" is a complete waste of time.
Not even the academics bother these days, and simply use
ModI pronunciation (one more reason to get familiar with
ModI, I guess).

Another reason to learn the two versions of Icelandic side
by side is that most of the really good OI editions of the
sagas are published in Iceland (e.g. the Íslenzk Fornrit
editions). But these not only valuable for the OI text, but
also for the massive scholarly introductions and commentaries,
which, of course, are all in ModI.

Regards
Eysteinn