Eysteinn wrote:

>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).

There is also the alternative to pronounce Old Norse the way
it is taught in Norwegian schools. See for example Odd Einar
Haugen's "Norrøn Grunnbok", which I think is the best Old Norse
textbook currently available. But it presupposes some knowledge
of modern Norwegian (reading ability) - but once you have that
- which I believe to be a much easier language to learn than Modern
Icelandic, especially for those already familar with English, because
the morphology is almost as easy as it is in English - then you
are all set to use Odd Einar Haugen's book. The pronounciation
of Old Norse that you find described in Odd Einar Haugen's book is a
lot easier than the pronounciation of Modern Icelandic - certainly if you
are already familiar with the pronounciation of one or more
of the other Scandinavian languages - or of German.

>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.

I also have one or two volumes of the Islenzk Fornrit series;
the main difficulty of which is the Modern Icelandic introduction
and commentary, which I must admit is very hard to read for me.
The Old Norse text itself is however much more transparent to
me. The reason is - I think - that Modern Icelandic has introduced
a lot of abstract words, that were not there in Old Norse, or were
at least used very sparingly. And this happens to be the main obstacle
towards reading - in Gordon's sense - modern Icelandic.

Another category of words, that take time to learn for foreigners
learning Modern icelandic, are all the technical words. Mind you,
I really admire the Icelanders's insistence on using Icelandic
words, instead of simply importing "the word with the thing".
The Germans have done something of the same, and it has been done
in Norway too, although to a far lesser extent than in Iceland.

Here is an example from this morning's television news broadcast
where there was an advertisment for roller skates for kids.
The ad went something like this: "Nå er det den rette årstiden til
å kjøpe deg 'blades'" (Now is the right time of the year to buy
yourself 'blades'). Note that the advertizers simply use the
English word "blades", which they even pronounce the English way.
This is an unfortunate development, because it will cause the young
generation to grow up using English words for a lot of normal
objects. But I suppose the advertisement people have found out
that things sell better, if they are given English names;
and I guess it has something to do with the propagation of the idea
that it is the English-speaking countries that are "central", whereas
we others ar "peripheral".

Here is another example: English "radio", Norwegian "radio" - simple.
English "computer", Norwegian "computer" - also simple.
Yes, it is true that there exists another word for radio broadcasts
which is "kringkasting" - for example NRK = Norsk rikskringkasting.
In the same way, the Germans use "rundfunk" (or "funk").
But what are the Icelandic words for radio and computer ?

Any way, I hope you see why Norwegian (or Danish) is often quite
easy to learn for foreigners, because you get a large number of words
"for free". Other examples: kommunikasjon, telegraf, sentrum,
meteorolog, historie, matematikk, bibliotek, diskusjon, debatt,
argument, grammatikk, morfologi, resultat, konklusjon, etc, etc..

Best regards
Keth