Iel Konrad.

I'll try to give answers or comments to your explicitly given
questions or wonderings.


"...shows a shift from nom. NN in the word "madhär" by retention of
the nominative ending."
-- Well, probably not in usual spoken language, but definitely in
this archaic runic use. The '-är' ending survived until late 16th
century in Dalecarlian. I read these runes on a late 16th centry
piece: ULÅFÄ : AFÄ : KART // ULÅFÄ : AFÄ : KART, i.e. 'Olav has
made // Olav has made'. Here we see a lack of an R. An inscription
from mid 16th century with the R still around is:
HALARFER AFER KART ULAFER IHER DETA (Halvar has made (this). Olav
owns this.)
Today the R is only around in the end of some adjectives, like 'nýr'
(new) and 'smár' (little), but since most southern Swedish dialects
have preservered this ending in the end of masculine adjectives
(like 'en långer man', 'en dummer pojke', 'en kloker hund', 'Haven en
goder afton!' etc), it's not too interesting.

"the R in "fir..."
-- It seems like the Dalecarlians used the genitive here, i.e. FJÁR.
A more modern Dalecarlian form would be FÉR, and with the usual É>Í
evolution, we would get FÍR. Of course, in early modern written
Swedish, this would be spelled FIR.

"...the Å in "nådh", where one would not expect a nasal sound,

> but rather some form of AU or Ö. ..."

-- I don't know what you mean by nasal sound here - in Dalska all
vowels "close enough" to a nasal consonant are pronunced a nasal.
The evolution AU>Å should be written AU>Ö using Old Norse rules (Ö
sounding like 'au' in English 'cause'). With early modern Swedish
spelling rules the word would be written 'nådh', and nothing else.

"..."Birke" is also notable for its lack of breaking, which is almost
universal in Scandinavian."
-- Modern Dalska (the most interesting branch of Dalecarlian in this
context) has 'byörk'. I can't explain why it is 'birke' and not one
with a breaking. One thing is clear though: the runic names where
archaic compared to the usual spoken language. The 'birke' rune and
the tree 'byörk' where two separated things, and hence they had
different names.

" "Kan" seem difficult to explain from phonological standpoint."
--- KAUN>KAN is probably due to syncopation, which is common in
Dalecarlian. This theory needs that the AU was not really a diphtong,
because that would give 'kån'.

"I am left with the impression that Dalska is a very unusual tongue
indeed. "
-- I agree with you. In many aspects it's the most archaic Germanic
tongue we have today. Morphologically Icelandic is (a bit) more
archaic, but is definitely more modern in other aspects. As a bonus,
dalska has a lot of amusing novations that are more or less unique.

"Is the I in "tir" pronounced long or short? How about the I
in "fir"? "
-- They must have pronunced it long. I don't think it contradicts the
fact that Dalska has made almost all long vowels into diphtongs.
Maybe the spelling by Bureus was etymological to some extent.

"Lastly, what are the genders of these words in Dalska?"
-- No idea. One should compare with the Old Norse and Modern Dalska
to find this out. E.g. 'sol' should definitely be of feminine gender.

I recommend you to contact someone who knows more about the
Dalecarlian runes. I strongly recommend you to buy some material on
the Dalska dialect. Besides Modern Icelandic and Faroese it is the
most evident link to Old Norse that exists.

Best regards,
Annlioåtär


--- In norse_course@..., "konrad_oddsson" <konrad_oddsson@...>
wrote:

> Haill Annlioåtär!
>
> Thank you for the list.
>
> > The names appear in Dalska - according to Bureus in 1599 - as

(the

> > Old Icelandic equivalent to the left):
> >
> > fé - fir
> > úrr - ur
> > þurs -dors
> > áss -()
> > reið - re
> > kaun - kan
> > hagl - hagal
> > nauðr - nådh
> > íss - is
> > ár - ar
> > sól - sol
> > týr - tir
> > bjarkan - birke
> > maðr - madhär
> > lögr - lagh
> > ýr - ()
> >
> > where () indicates that there's no Dalska form of the Old
> Icelandic equivalent. Note that Bureus wrote the rune names in
> another order (in Latin order, of course). There should be no doubt
> that many of these these names existed in Dalska for a long time
> after 1599; remember that the use of runes ended in early 20th
> century in Dalarna.
>
>
> It is interesting that Dalska also shows a shift from nom. NN in

the

> word "madhär" by retention of the nominative ending. Dalska

certainly

> has some unusual features as well. Consider, for instance, the R in
> "fir" or the Å in "nådh", where one would not expect a nasal sound,
> but rather some form of AU or Ö. "Birke" is also notable for its
> lack of breaking, which is almost universal in Scandinavian. "Kan"
> seem difficult to explain from phonological standpoint. I am left
> with the impression that Dalska is a very unusual tongue indeed. Is
> the I in "tir" pronounced long or short? How about the I in "fir"?
> Lastly, what are the genders of these words in Dalska?
>
> Regards,
> Konrad.