--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, Haukur Thorgeirsson
<haukurth@...> wrote:
> >> "And how come the distribution of actually pronounced <-ur> in
> >> Icelandic is almost identical to where <-r> in On is recorded?"
> >
> > One reason I posted my post was that I pointed out that there are
> > many modern Scandinavian dialects, not only the Icelandic ones,
that
> > have preserved the 'r' ending in perfect shape (at least for the
> > adjectives and to some extent strong masculine names such as:
>
> When I wrote the above I was not aware of the various wacky Swedish
> dialects out there. Thanks to the efforts of a certain Swede this is
> no longer so :)
>

Well, not only Swedish. Bornholm is a part of Denmark, I think. And
in parts of western Norway there are certainly constructions
like 'fulle/fudle heste' - Late ON 'fuller hester. Here the 'r' iIS
silent, but the svarabakti is preserved (like as if you Icelanders
began to say 'futlu hestu' ON 'fullr hestr'). I am not an expert of
Danish dialects, nor western Norwegian ones.



>
> > then it could have been just an odd, local mutation. But even
today
> > in modern Swedish we may very well say 'en långer dag' (ON langr
> > dagr), 'en blåer båt' (blár bátr), even though it is a bit
dialectal
> > and illegal in formal written Swedish.
>
> I wonder if this is in some part due to German influence.
>

Definitely not borrowed from German. The indefinite article 'en' is
probably German (we don't use it as much as the Germans, though). I
think the '-er' ending is quite common in sppken standard Swedish
sentences when the subject 'han' (ON pron 'hann') is present: 'han är
glader', 'han är dummer', 'han är fuler', 'han är trister', 'han 'r
långer', 'han är tunger'. If the subject clearly is a male, '-er' is
often used as well: 'Varghannen är gråer', 'Leif är svarter', 'Karln
är dryger' etc. I don't think I have to go too far back in the
history of written Swedish to find '-er' ending as a valid adjective
ending. I am sure I can even find it in Vilhelm Moberg's
novels 'Utvandrarna' and its sequels (mid 20th century). Remember
that the story takes place in Smalland (Småland) in southeastern
Swedish where this ending is used.

Here is a standard Swedish limerick with the adjective 'långer'
(ON 'langr'):

"En annan jungfru på Söderarm
hölls vintern av tvenne bröder varm
men greps utav ånger
ty vintern blev långer
och hon blev trött i sin högerarm!"
( http://hem.passagen.se/citrox/abso/lim.htm )

Here is a child's song (Alice Tegnér):

INTE FÖR EN MILLION
"Har du sett min lilla tös
med de ljusa lockar?
Blåa ögon, rosig kind,
finer som en docka?
Kom en dag en riker man.
Vet ni vad han ville han?
"Hundratusen daler", sa han,
"jag betalar,
om hon ger mej tösen, hon,
om hon ger mej tösen, hon!"
"Nej du", sa jag,
"inte för en million!""
( http://hem.passagen.se/minata/barnv.htm )

Here we see "finer tös". This is not a strange thing, since feminine
and masculine nouns are treated in the same way in modern Swedish
(even if I can't imagine any Swedish dialectal that has less than
three genders)

THis is a part of a Bellman song with 'riker man':

"Blefve jag en riker man,
Finge mynt i pungen,
Skulle jag til Jul min sann,
Klä mig grann som Kungen,
Köpa mig förr'n någon tror,
Rock och väst och nya skor,
Nya skor
Nya skor
Nya skor
Nya skor,
Och så pung i håret,
Och så ur på låret. "
( http://www.lysator.liu.se/runeberg/fredsang/110.html )

By the way, there are surprisingly many frozen expressions in Swedish
with preserved old endings. From the expressions, one can easily "re-
animate" the four case system in Swedish. Just take, e.g.,

i förstone, åtminstone, på sistone.

I know a few more of those '-one' words. Obviously, the Swedish
frozen ending '-one' is ON '-unni'.

I advice you to take a look at the site
http://hem.passagen.se/peter9/rester.html
for more examples.

/Sjurd



>
> > Thus, the silent r theory must be bogus, of course.
>
> Certainly. I suspect it has come about from people seeing different
> versions of the same name with and without the 'r'-ending and
assuming
> that it doesn't matter. Maybe you see 'Haraldr' half the time
and 'Harald'
> half the time and you only ever hear it pronounced without the 'r'.
> Assuming that the 'r' is "silent" may have seemed like a good guess.
>
> Kveðja,
> Haukur