Sæl Patricia

Truth to tell, I was only half joking, but don´t misunderstand me. I am not saying that I think that an English speaker who doesn´t use the “text book grammar” form of the subjunctive in everyday speech is necessarily a poor speaker or indeed genuinely uneducated (hence the use of quotation marks in my original post). Such knowledge is probably considered rather “esoteric” in modern English usage and people are generally not expected to know/use, nor do I think they are looked down on if they don’t know/use. My question in my previous post was to try and gain a sense of the extent to which these attitudes and expectations apply to modern Icelandic.

And I definitely wasn’t confining my gross generalisation (yes, it was a sweeping statement, based on “gut feel” with no scientific survey to back it up) to just the inhabitants of the UK. As an Australian most of my experience is with Australian English but from TV and overseas travel I have had a reasonable exposure to British English and American English.

I will now conduct a survey in my workplace and report back to you J

Kveðja

Alan

-----Original Message-----
From: Patricia [mailto:originalpatricia@...]
Sent: Sunday, 16 January 2005 1:25 AM
To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [norse_course] Auðun part 8

Saell Alen

you are joking of course, we have some poor speakers in this country but your post is somewhat innacurate.

Over 95%,  that seems a little sweeping to me, there is a lot of speech in this country which is predominantly dialectal, but it is not bad speech and the people are not so badly educated as you appear to think,

I believe you may have been in contact with some native English speakers who have this dialectal way of speaking, and this may not have been well understood .

I seldom get into argument, nor do I feel qualified to sit in judgement on my fellow beings, but just once in a while I feel I cannot let an inaccuracy go unchallenged

Kveðja

Patricia

Anglo Italian in point of fact, but English educated

----- Original Message -----

From: AThompson

To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Saturday, January 15, 2005 5:32 AM

Subject: RE: [norse_course] Auðun part 8

 

Haukur & Sarah

 

Thank you for your feedback. It’s reassuring to get confirmation that my question was not a silly one and that I hadn’t overlooked something obvious – apart from the fact that there was more grammatical “freedom” in the old days. With respect to Haukur’s point about use of the subjunctive in Modern Icelandic among the “more educated” compared with the “less educated” particularly in the spoken language, I would be interested in hearing an estimate of how many modern Icelanders would fall into each category when it comes to the use of the subjunctive. In English, I would guess that over 95% of all native English speakers would fall into the “less educated” category J

 

Cheers

Alan

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Sarah Bowen [mailto:sarahbowen@...]
Sent: Friday, 14 January 2005 6:23 AM
To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [norse_course] Auðun part 8

 

Hi Alan,

 

I spoke to my lecturer today briefly and it seems the rules on the use of the subjunctive do not appear terribly hard and fast in ON.  In borderline cases such as this where the meaning only marginally affected by the mood of the verb, it was a matter of "authorial choice".  [I wish that argument would wash with my modern Icelandic lecturer when I write essays!!!]

 

Cheers,

Sarah.

----- Original Message -----

From: AThompson

To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 8:00 AM

Subject: RE: [norse_course] Auðun part 8

 

Góðan daginn

 

Happy new year to everyone and thanks Sarah for the new post – I was beginning to suffer Auðun withdrawal symptoms.

 

The only question that occurs to me on translating this passage is why ‘selr’ (selja) and ‘skal’ (skulu) are indicative and not subjunctive, because the selling of the bear and its valuing by the king are not strictly factual statements but a desired way ahead.

 

Kveðja

Alan

 

Translation -  Auðun 8

 

Ok er hann lítr á þetta, sýnisk honum nakkvat eptir,

And when he looks on (considers) this, (it) seems to him somewhat later

 

sem ármaðrinn mælti fyrir honum,

(just) as the steward said to him,

 

ok sættask þeir á þetta, at hann selr Áka hálft dýrit,

and they agreed on this, that he sells Áki half the animal,

 

ok skal konungr síðan meta alt saman.

and (the) king shall afterwards, value everything together.

 

Skulu þeir fara báðir nú á fund konungs, ok svá gøra þeir;

They shall now both go to a meeting with (the) king), and they do so;

 

fara nú báðir á fund konungs ok stóðu fyrir borðinu.

both now go to a meeting with (the) king) and stood before the table.

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Sarah Bowen [mailto:sarahbowen@...]
Sent: Tuesday, 11 January 2005 9:23 AM
To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [norse_course] Auðun part 8

 

Auðun goes along with Aki´s plan

 

Ok er hann lítr á þetta, sýnisk honum nakkvat eptir, sem ármaðrinn mælti fyrir honum, ok sættask þeir á þetta, at hann selr Áka hálft dýrit ok skal konungr síðan meta alt saman.  Skulu þeir fara báðir nú á fund konungs, og svá gøra þeir; fara nú báðir á fund konungs ok stóðu fyrir borðinu.

 

If you want to post something up towards the end of the week, I will get back to you over the weekend - honest!!

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