I don't know if listening to spoken Modern Icelandic will help much
when getting an idea of the pronunciation of Old Norse. Some very
important Old Norse features such as nasalization (like in Modern
French), pitch accent (like in Modern Swedish), short and over-long
stems (like in Finnish) just do not exist in Modern Icelandic. As far
as I know, the only sound which Icelandic has preserved better than
all other Scandinavian dialects is the รพ-sound (like 'th' in
English 'thing').

To get an idea of Old Norse nasalization, pitch accent and short and
over-long syllables, listen to the sound samples of Dalecarlian
(Swedish dialect spoken in Dalecarlian, Mid Sweden) found at:

http://www.unilang2.org/wiki2/wiki.phtml?
title=Dalecarlian_sound_samples

Specifically, listen to:

http://www.unilang2.org/courses/dalecarlian/fan_.wav (nasalization),
http://www.unilang2.org/courses/dalecarlian/syklsykkel_.wav (pitch
accent),
http://www.unilang2.org/courses/dalecarlian/rasa_.wav (short
syllable),
http://www.unilang2.org/courses/dalecarlian/rita_.wav (over-long
syllable).

Of course, taking the best from Icelandic and Dalecarlian, one is
pretty close to generic Old Norse pronunciation.

/Sjuler





--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "Danr" <feline14@...> wrote:
> Easy? Let us know if you find one. I've got icelandic cd's, tapes
and books. I still sound like an okie that should leave it alone.LOL
Actually, I have gotten to the point that I can understand a bit of
spoken icelandic. I don't believe anyone really knows how to
pronounce ON except for an educated guess. Learning Icelandic would
probably be your best option, along with the course work for this
newsgroup. There's a lot of excellent people here who must find
helping others with this difficult subject matter to be a very worthy
pursuit. Good luck.
>
> Danr
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Bryan Evans
> To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2004 7:42 AM
> Subject: [norse_course] Pronounciation of old norse
>
>
> My name is Bryan Evans and I just joined this group. I am looking
for a easy guide to old norse pronounciation. Where can I find one?
and Texts also. Thanks. 3/6/04
>
>
>
>
>
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