Well, given - e.g. - a set of 26 different available characters (as
on English keyboards, I think) there are

P = 26! ~ 400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

different permutations of them. Thus, once fixed a mapping between
the spoken language and the written using 26 characters, there are P
ways of "rearranging" the spelling. (You may recognize this
rearranging as a very simple form of writing in cipher code) Suppose
you fix 24 of the characters. Then you have two left. Suppose they
are 'q' and 'k'. Let's assume that the language is Standard English
(whatever that is). If I write 'He's quick like a dancing quark' you
correct me 'He's kuicq liqe a dancing kuarq'.

My point here is that alphabet and spelling rules are different
things. "Standardized" Old Norse has a given spelling (well, almost -
example: 'kemr' vs 'kømr'), but the alphabet may be ambiguous. This
ambiguity is most obvious for "hooked o" vs 'ö'.


The reason I use 'õ' (or 'å') and 'ö' to denote an u-umlauted 'a' and
i-umlauted 'ó' is quite obvious here. From the very construction
of 'ö' ('o' with an 'e' on top, where the 'e' has evolved into a
double-dot) it is a natural substitute for the dreaded "oe ligature"
(which is graphically far too similar to "ae ligature"). Now, another
character is needed for the u-umlauted 'a'. On my keyboard I easily
have access to the following diacritics of 'o'
(excluding 'ö'~and 'ó'):

ô, ò and õ

I don't like the choice 'ò' since it is graphically to close to
an 'ó'. The reason I choose 'õ' instead of 'ô' is because I know 'õ'
denotes a similar sound in Modern Estonian. (
http://www.angelfire.com/ca5/ethaslanguages/Estonian.estpron.html )
Another choice is 'å', which I personally prefer (originally an 'a'
awith an 'a' on top to denote long 'a', in principle Old Norse 'á').
But I suspect that only Norse keyboards support this character, non-
Norse people must use some special key combination (or cut and
paste). Graphically, 'å' is perfect to denote an u-umlauted 'a'.
Imagine how a character "'a' with an 'u' on top" would evolve
graphically - probably into an 'å' if 'ä' is already taken since 'u'
and 'a' lookes quite similar if produced with a quick hand.

I should point out that one may use 'ö' and 'oe' (like in Zoëga - why
an i-umlauted 'e' here, doesn't make any sence!?) if one prefers to,
but I woulöd rather use 'å' and 'ö' for u-lauted 'a' and i-
umlauted 'ó', respectively. Of course, this should be pointed out
when writing in Old Norse to this list.


Sklär,
Jon "Sjul" Berntsson




--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, Erich Rickheit KSC <rickheit-
ync@...> wrote:

> sjuler wrote:
> > The Old Norse manuscripts' "hooked o" is denoted with 'õ' and
> > the Old Norse manuscripts' "oe ligature" is denoted 'ö'.
>
> The Zöega dictionary uses ö (o with trema) in place of the "hooked
> o", as do most other manuscripts I've seen. It would be incredibly
> painful to have the letter mean different thing in different

contexts.

>
> A quick grep through Zoega doesn't show that an 'o' ever precedes
> an 'e', so one should be able to use 'oe' for the "oe" ligature
> without any ambiguity.
>
> Erich