--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, Kenneth Christensen
<ragnarkraki@...> wrote:
> Could any of you recomend any Old Dansk dictionaries to me.  I
can't find one anywhere.

I recall that I have seen one. Go to the major universities and ask,
especially the ones which have big Germanic linguistics departments.
I have also seen (held in my hand and examined) and Old Swedish one.
I also recall hearing about a Swedish one online, but have not seen
it myself. I once saved and printed a short Old Gutnish dictionary
that I found online. The East Norse branch had a lot more variation
than the West Norse. In the East we talk about related languages, in
the West about one tongue. The reason is that, in linguistic terms,
Old Norwegian (especially western), Old Icelandic and Old Faroese are
the same language, as Norse in Greenland, Shetlands, etc. would also
have been. The differences were so insignificant that only the most
specialized scholars are even interested in them. They are extremely
minor dialect-variations that hardly mattered when the langauge was
still universal in the West. However, you will see some substantial
difference between the Eastern branches, as well as between any one
of them and the West, even if they were still largely intelligible to
one another - in other words, even if they were still 'common' Norse
and not yet 'fully' separate languages, like Chinese and German ;)
Good luck with your search.

Konrad

> Kenneth
>
>            
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