HailaR Daníel!

> Sound like a great project. I would be happy to do what I can. I

have had some academic experience with historical linguistics,
Germanic philology and

> Indo-European philology.
>
> Dan

Þakka þér fyrir það! Your background will undoubtedly prove itself
to be very useful. Strangely enough, my own background is musical
rather than linguistic. Nevertheless, I have spent quite a lot of
time on Norse-related linguistic projects, including transcribing
the older runic inscriptions, learning Gotlandic, Old Swedish, and
Gothic. Recently, I have been translating biblical texts back and
forth between Gothic and Icelandic, while participating in Gothic
lexical reconstruction efforts on the side. I have also spent quite
a bit of time on Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali, and classical Greek. As
far as formal linguistic is concerned, I have no formal training of
any kind. What I have been able to learn is culled from academics.
As far as "primitive" or "proto" Norse is concerned, I am working
from the following assumtions:

1. PrN is a unique language, closely related to, but NOT the same as
the 4th century Gothic of Wulfila. This Gothic was the language of
emmigrants who were centuries removed from the Baltic before their
language was recorded in a book. Although highly conservative and of
inestimable comparative value, this Gothic must have undergone some
changes while adopting new speakers and a new environment.

2. As Old Norse is the best documented and most conservative dialect
of old Scandinavian, in the event that parallel forms arise in the
course of PrN research one should select those which are supported
by Old Norse unless there is solid evidence to the contrary. As luck
would have it, early Norwegians were the most regular inscribers in
the old futhark in spite of their numbers and geographical position.
Denmark and Sweden are, however, also replete with inscriptions from
the older periods. Although the early language is often believed to
have been identical throughout Scandinavia, we should still be very
cautious in drawing conclusions from scanty evidence.

Here is what Haugen has to say: "The first direct testimonials to
any kind of Gmc language are found in Scandinavia. These are the
inscriptions in the runic alphabet beginning about A.D. 200, most of
which have been found within the confines of present-day Denmark and
Norway. Down to about A.D. 550 there are some 125 inscriptions, most
of them consisting of one or two words and often very difficult to
interpret. That they have been interpreted at all is due in no small
measure to the availability of other, indirect sources for the
language of this period. Comparison with other IE and Gmc languages,
particularly the contemporary but deviant Gothic, as well as later
Scandinavian, has made it possible to reconstruct the language of
early Scandinavia and relate it to the forms found on the earliest
runic monuments. The study of loanwords borrowed from and into
neighboring languages (e.g. Finnish and Lappish) has brilliantly
confirmed the hypotheses of reconstruction (Kylstra 1961; Sköld
1961)."

Dan, I will try get the ball rolling by posting some inscriptions,
solid scholarship about them, paradigms, opinions of scholars, and
any other relevant information that I come across. Jump in with any
research, insights, comments, paradigms or information you would
like to contribute. I sincerely hope that others will also take an
interest in the subject as well. As we are studying Norse together,
I will try to post parallel texts in the daughter language whenever
possible. Again, thanks for your interest Dan. I am eagerly looking
forward to seeing some parallel "primitive" Norse!

Regards,
Konrad.