From: sjuler
Message: 4240
Date: 2004-03-12
> Norse branch which otherwise differ in the other recorded EastNorse braches, despite its often radically differing phonology - no
> --- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "sjuler" <sjuler@...> wrote:the
> > Konrad, what about those Norse dialects that were not in any way
> written down on paper? What did Norse spoken in Northern Sweden
> sound like, for example? Of course, we don't know. My point here is
> that a statement like "Fortunately, West Norse was the most
> conservative branch, often markedly so." is based only on the
> written records.
>
> True, but written records begin to exist in every Scandinavian land
> with the establishment of the Catholic church. The dawn of writing
> on skin and other book-type materials is roughly contemporary, even
> if not exactly contemporary. The oldest known book in any language
> of Sweden is Vest-Gautalög/West-Gøtalagh. It is thought to be from
> slightly after 1200 - in other words, very old. The character of
> law is perhaps the oldest of any - in fact, it sounds almost likeit
> was written down strait from oral tradition, singing inalliteration
> and other mnemonic devices. The language is also quite beautiful.It
> is not, however, as old in character (morphology and phonology) asdifference
> contemorary Norwegian or Icelandic manuscripts. While the
> is not very great, it is noticable and there appears to be acertain
> consensus on this point among scholars. As we both know, Sweden hadessentially
> several very closely-related languages, while Norway had
> only one. This can be shown concretely simply by comparing lawbooksthat
> from many parts of Norway, Sweden and Denmark. While it is true
> not all Swedish dialects were well-recorded, there is not muchbasis
> to assume that a less-recorded dialect like Nordlandic would differlike
> greatly in antiquity or character from its immeadiate neighbor,
> Upplandic, which is reasonably well-recorded. Still, there are somematerial,
> undeniable archaisms in Runic Swedish which are not found in any of
> West Norse areas after 900. A good example is R, which disappeared
> from West Norse completely around 900. Excepting its runic
> which is meagre, Gutnish went unrecorded until around 1300, atleast
> as far as we can tell (many 'Catholic' books were 'accidently' lostin
> by the new authorities ;) Still, it rivals contemporary Icelandic
> nearly every way with regard to antiquity. I have no doubt that theisolated
> Gutnish of 1100 was at least as archaic as the oldest contemporary
> West Norse, in some ways even more so. However, Gutnish was
> island-speak, much like Faroese and Icelandic were later to become -the
> the island-speak of the east. I suspect that every scholar who has
> looked into these matters would agree that the Gutnish is truely
> most archaic branch of East Norse, at least as far as recordsreach.
> Interestingly enough, it matches and confirms huge areas in theWest
> Norse branch which otherwise differ in the other recorded EastNorse
> braches, despite its often radically differing phonology - no smallsense
> evidence for the archaic character of West Norse. Also, common
> tells us that Western and Northern Norway were, along with NordlandNorway
> in Sweden, perhaps the most isolated areas of Scandinavia until and
> into the Viking Age, when locations like Faroese and Iceland would
> would begin to rival and eventually surpass the most isolated parts
> of Norway in linguistic archaisms. This seems perfectly natural and
> rather geographic. It seems natural to conclude, for instance, that
> the archaic character of the oldest Icelandic and Faroese has a lot
> to do with the original homeland of the earliest settlers. If
> had what was, on the balance, the oldest living Scandinavian tongueIcelanders
> in its isolated western regions, then Faroe-Islanders and
> had exactly the right linguistic-starting point to end up speakinga
> more archaic language. Also, the norse linguistic uniformity of theof
> early settlers of Faroes and Iceland helped prevent the breakdown
> the language. No East Norse-related innovations (or archaisms) wereare
> admitted to these languages until hundreds of years later. There
> scholars who would relate West Norse linguistic archaisms solely tomy
> the earlier dawn of writing in the west, but I would disagree. In
> opinion, the writing had very little impact on linguistic antiquityusual
> at this early stage. People simply spoke the way they did. The
> culprit is the Erkibiskupsstóll at Niðaróss in Þrándheimr. This is,seems
> no doubt, were writing was first employed in Scandinavia. This
> to be the emerging scholarly consensus. By 'writing' here I meanthe
> creation of nordic-language books. Iceland and the Faroes fellunder
> this Erkibiskupsstóll, while each had its own bishop (later two forvery
> Iceland). Icelanders and Faroe-Islander experienced early literacy,
> almost from the dawn of Catholicism due in large measure to the
> strong monastic and clerical influence exterted from thisbishopric,
> turning their own cloisters into centers of haliographic writing.In
> Iceland, however, the sons of the aristocracy broke into thegrowing
> tradition of writing and turned it to their own ends, creating anew
> literate on native nordic themes, and not always churchly ones - ininterest
> no small measure related to native poetic genius and a deep
> in their own origins and history, as well as to the generallyweaker
> hold of church doctrine. Remarkably, the much more church-orientedwriters
> Norwegian aristocracy were receptive in large measure to this kind
> of nordic learning and poetry, at least in part. This was no small
> relief, for it meant opportunities for Icelandic and Faroese
> and poets in Norway, a larger land where the same language was alsohelp
> spoken. Personally, I think that this is all that was needed to
> turn, say, Icelandic monastary X into a nordic culture factory:just
> a few sharp cats with time on their hands, native poetic genius andthe
> the opportunity to sell it abroad. No doubt, it also helped that
> folks most knowledgable about nordic culture, history and beliefsslaughted
> were merely muzzled and punished at the conversion and not
> like sheep, as their cousins in Norway were, for instance. InSweden
> they were slaughted, too - just read Eiríks Saga ;)markedly
>
> > POerhaps Northern SCandinavians still spoke Viking age Norse in
> Medieval times. We don't know, and therefore one should restrict
> oneself to a statement like "Fortunately, West Norse was the most
> conservative branch amongst the known Norse dialects, often
> so."My
>
> Hmmm...I doubt anybody spoke Viking Age norse in medieaval times.
> accessment of general linguistic antiquity is, I believe, standard,very
> if I am not mistaken. I think most scholars would agree that, say,
> the Icelander Ari Fróði could speak to a West Norse viking with
> little difficulty at all, and I agree. The changes were so preciouspronunciation
> few at that point.,.vowel harmony, a sound here and there, some new
> latin/hebrew vocab at church...not much.
>
> > BTW, since Icelandic did preserve vocabulary, grammar etc in an
> almost uncanny way, but did not preserve stuff like pitch accent,
> short and over-long syllable lengths and nasal vowels, it may be
> interesting to listen to a dialect that did. Here are some sound
> samples:
> >
> > http://www.unilang2.org/wiki2/wiki.phtml?
> > title=Dalecarlian_sound_samples
>
> Indeed ;)
>
> > Konrad, any comments on it?
>
> Sounds good ;)
>
> > /Sjuler
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "akoddsson"
> > <konrad_oddsson@...> wrote:
> > > --- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, Berglaug Ásmundardóttir
> > > <berglauga@...> wrote:
> > > > Sjuler wrote: "As far as I know, the only sound which
> Icelandic
> > has
> > > preserved better than all other Scandinavian dialects is the þ-
> > sound
> > > (like 'th' in English 'thing')."
> > >
> > > > Don't forget our lovely unvoiced resonants, which all you
> > > scandinavians seem to have lost in some freak accident! ;)
> > > >
> > > > unvoiced r, l, m, n are fun to say!
> > >
> > > Lovely, I might add ;)
> > >
> > > > and wouldn't ð also be a 'preserved sound'?
> > >
> > > Yes, no doubt.
> > >
> > > > i'm well aware that icelandic isn't anything like old norse
> was,
> > > but really, it's mostly in the vowels and their surroundings
> (that
> > > would be lenght of syllables), the consonant changes are
> minimal.
> > >
> > > I agree. ll, nn, g between vowels(segir), maybe final d/b
> > (land/lamb)
> > > and a few others. Not much of a change at all. However, as you
> > point
> > > out, the vowel-system is changed. I would say quite radically
> so.
> > If
> > > we had a living speaker, however, I think we could learn it
> without
> > > having to learn the whole language over again.
> > >
> > > (hmm.. same as with english,
> > > > really, their vowels are all messy nowadays.. compared to a
> > > thousand years ago, at least)
> > >
> > > English is nowhere near the same tongue it was a thousand years
> > ago.
> > > The price of an empire, I suppose.
> > >
> > > I think what students need to understand about old
> isGautlandic
> > > this: there were many 'old norse' languages and just as many
> ways
> > of
> > > pronouncing them. In Sweden, for instance, we had the
> ofThe
> > > east and west, Swedish proper, Gutnish and others. In my
> opinion,
> > it
> > > was the Old Gutnish that was the 'jewel of the east' -
> > conservative
> > > like the oldest West Norse, but with a radically differing
> > phonology
> > > and even usage. Danish was also markedly different in
> > pronunciation,
> > > and to some extent in usage and vocabulary, from West Norse.
> > wayFaroese
> > > I see it, one of the main advantages of old West Norse is that
> it
> > is
> > > considered to have been very uniform (einsleit). Because
> > andneglected,
> > > Icelandic were once the same language as West Norwegian,
> matching
> > on
> > > vocabulary and usage as well, we can get a fairly good idea of
> how
> > > it was pronounced by comparing the how these tongues are
> pronounced
> > > today and doing the math. Although it had the most complicated
> > vowel-
> > > system (through more mutations) and the least speakers of any
> > nordic
> > > tongue from the 9-10 centuries, West Norse is now by far the
> > easiest
> > > tongue to reconstruct, as there is a firm basis for comparison.
> > This
> > > is ironic, perhaps, given the numerical inferiority ;)
> Fortunately,
> > > West Norse was the most conservative branch, often markedly so.
> > Only
> > > Gutnish equals its antiquity. Shamefully, Gutnish was
> > setin
> > > out to die and never used as a literary tongue. Our only book
> > theis
> > > tongue was written in the early 14th century. Fortunately, it
> > old
> > > enough to give us some idea of the tongue in its golden age. I
> > think
> > > we are very lucky, on the other hand, that Old Icelandic was
> used
> > as
> > > a literary tongue in the west as early as 1100-1130, when the
> > tongue
> > > was only slightly changed from its golden age.
> > >
> > > Vesið ér heil (pronun.: uesið êr hæil (short æ+i - between ei &
> > ai ;)
> > >
> > > Konrad
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > Konrad
> > >
> > >
> > > > Berglaug