Are you sure about this; that they were of a different period in time? Old
English was around from the 400/500's till 1100/1200's, and norse from the
700's till 1300/1400's (and even longer some might say :) ). Old English was
recorded from the 600's until the Normans made French and Latin the official
languages in the 1100's. I'm not sure when Old Norse was first recorded, but
if you count the runes (which the Anglo-Saxons also used) the two languages
don't seems to be that far apart in time.

Old Norse had an impact on Old English due to the vikings, this can be found
in vocabulary and the manner of making sentences. Old Norse is usually freer
than Old English in its word order, but when norsemen and Anglo-Saxons spoke
together, word order was often fixed, to make ure they understood one
another. This is visible in modern English; Subject - Verb -
Object/Nominative - Verb - Accusative.


Terje


>From: "Daniel Ryan Prohaska" <daniel@...>
>Reply-To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
>To: <norse_course@yahoogroups.com>
>Subject: AW: [norse_course] comparing ON to OE
>Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 15:44:00 +0200
>
>Because Old English and Old Norse have the same Germanic ancestor there
>are striking similarities, but also vast differences, especially where
>phonological developments have lead to changes where the "same"
>morphology might not be recognised as such. Then there also developments
>in Old Norse that are unique to the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic
>languages.
>
>You do realise that Old Norse and Old English are not from the same time
>period. By the time Old Norse was recorded English had already passed
>the transitional phase into Middle English thereby undergoing vast
>morphological simplification.
>
>To the point: the languages show marked differences, but also
>similarities that will make either easier to learn if acquired
>comparatively.
>
>Dan
>
>-----Urspr�ngliche Nachricht-----
>Von: Jarrod Clark [mailto:shortbus_bully@...]
>Gesendet: Dienstag, 26. August 2003 07:11
>An: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
>Betreff: [norse_course] comparing ON to OE
>
>What, if any, similarities are there between Old Norse and Old English
>grammatically speaking? I ask this because my University is offering an
>OE class this semester and was wondering if taking it would help speed
>up my learning of ON and vice versa.
>
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