After the split from common Germanic Anglo-Saxon dialects increased the mount of sounds in their written system (especially after adopting the Latin alphabet) whereas the Norse dialects drastically reduced theirs.
At the same time both languages began major upheavals in grammar and phonology.
 
Sadly the outcome of all this is that in many cases it is extremely difficult to see the connection between Old Norse phonology and Old English phonology.
Old Norse is very similar, but not on a one to one sound level.
 
Give it time though and you will see patterns, and sound groupings that you can relate between the two.
 
It's just that personally I would not recommend spending too much time trying to find correspondences at this stage.
 
Cheers
Stuntie.

 -----Original Message-----
From: Heather Danaher [mailto:heatherdanaher@...]
Sent: 24 December 2002 02:26
To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [norse_course] Digest Number 473

--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, simonfittonbrown@... wrote:
> Gledileg Jól öllum fyrirfram!
>
> If any kind soul out there feels like giving me a linguistic
Christmas present, I've been trying to work out which Old English
(but also Modern English would be very useful) vowels correspond
with which Old Norse and Icelandic vowels.

I've been working on this too, as it relates to a translation project I'm working on (OE poem).

I am such a beginner in ON, but  I'd love to help if I can since I'm a little bit more familiar with OE.  I've also been wrestling around with this issue for awhile now (OE to ON)

>The common ancestor of OE and ON is called NWG (North West Germanic).
From what I have been able to glean thus far from the scholars who
work in this field, OE and ON were the same tongue (or damn near so)
LESS than 2000 years ago!>

Can you direct me in the direction of any source material on this please?

Thank you.

Heather Danaher


 


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