Saell Haukur!

--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, Haukur Thorgeirsson
<haukurth@...> wrote:

> Thank you for an entertaining story, Konrad.

You are welcome. I have lost my internet connection and have thus
been off line for almost two days. While the problem is being
investigated (and hopefully repaired), I am reduced to responding
from foreign computors as time permits.

> > 5) Gothic often shows U were Norse or Old English show A and visa

versa. Here is an example: "sunjis" means "true" in Gothic, whereas
Old Norse shows the form "sannr". There are many such examples.

> I would guess that in this case Gothic and Old Norse preserve

different ablaut grades of the root. Gothic seems to have the zero-
grade (a syllabic n that developed into /un/ in Proto-Germanic)
whereas Old Norse seems to have the o-base-grade (an /o/ that
developed into /a/ in Proto-Germanic). Compare this with the better
known tönn vs. tunþu example. Why Gothic seems to prefer the zero-
grade I have no idea.

Yes. This would seem to be the case.

> To those of you to whom this sounded like so much mumbo-jumbo -

don't worry. You don't have to know about the origins of the Germanic
ablaut to learn Old Norse or the other Germanic languages.

Yes. Just keep pressing forward. Try not to focus to much on origins
and history. Focus on basic communication and understanding. If you
wish to study the linguistic origins and history of a language, then
this is best regarded as a separate study. "Make it fun or forget it"
would be a good motto for this kind of study. Most of us have heard
stories about university-educated "linguists" who were not able to
speak any language except their native one. They knew all of the
technical things one would ever want to know about human language,
but could neither hold a conversation nor read a book in any of the
languages they had "mastered". Origins and history are most useful
and interesting when learned in conjuction with an actual language.
Best wishes to all of you learning Norroena or any other language.

Regards,
Konrad.

> Kveðja,
> Haukur