In west norse, which encompasses Old Norse as spoken in the west
norse areas (western norway from north to south, iceland and the
faroe islands, etc..), runic inscriptions use nasal-a exclusively
for nasal-a (whether u- or i-mutated or not) until roughly the year
1000. At this time, the west-norse áss-rune was turned around and
used also for o - thus, the name Thórfrídr (pardon my lack of th and
edh here), which actually occurs in west-norse inscription from 1000
or slightly earlier, is spelled thurfrithr (i.e. the u-rune is used
for long o here instead of the áss-rune), whereas only slightly
later the áss-rune would likely have been used instead of the u-rune
(and also the medial 3rd consonant f dropped to form Thórrídr). 1000
is the cut-off point in west norse inscription for exclusive use of
the áss-rune to represent nasalized a and its 2 mutations (i and u).
Here is how west-norse speakers from the year 1000 (and as far back
as 900) declined this word (showing these 2 mutations):

Sg.
Nom. óss (the ó here has a tail and is not o, but u-mutated long a)
Acc. ós (same as the previous with regard to the vowel)
Dat. æsi (i-mutated long a, also written é with a tail)
Gen. ásar (zero i- or u-mutation)

Pl.
Nom. æsir
Acc. ósu
Dat. ósum
Gen. ása

The same vowel-explanations apply to the pl. as to the sg. (see
above in brackets after the sg. forms).

Around the year 1200 or so, the u-mutated version of long-a, both
the nasalized and non-nasalized versions, disappeared in Old Ice.,
but somewhat earlier in Old Norw. Following the First Grammatical
Treatise, mentioned by Haukur below, this word should be written
with a small supersript dot in all of its cases to represent the
vowel's nasality. Now, in actual west-norse inscription from 900 to
1000, the áss-rune is used universally for the long nasalized a-
vowel, but only sporadically for the short nasalized a-vowel - thus,
the word 'land' (sg. ME land) could theoretically be written with
either a-rune (as indeed it was). The problem here is that short-
vowels can also occur nasalized, as implied in the First Grammatical
Treatise, _but_ they do not occur without the nasal consonant being
preserved (compare 'land' above, where -n- is preserved), leaving no
compelling reason to select to áss-rune over the ár-rune in writing.
Furthermore, the nasal consonant is also preserved in some words
that contain long nasalized a (for example, án/ón u-mutated, which
means 'without' and hán/hón u-mutated, which means 'she'). Probably,
ultra-correct Old Norse, from the pre-christian period until about
1200 (at least in Iceland), would use the áss-rune only for _long_
nasalized a and its 2 mutations (see the paradigm above), whether or
not the nasal consonant is actually preserved (usually not, but see
hán/hón án/ón etc.), but not for the short version (as the nasal
consonant is always preserved in such cases). Now, the topic of
actually writing short-nasals is a tricking one, and even the First
Grammatical Treatise avoids it (I think for good reason), just as
runic writers appear also to have been undecided about it ;) My own
conclusion is that short nasals should not be indicated in writing,
as the nasal consonant (n or m) is always preserved (something we
modern researchers have figured out about Old Norse ;), whereas the
long nasals should always be indicated (in exact writing, at least),
even in those rarer cases where the nasal consonant is preserved
(for uniformity, in short) - thus also 'hánn' and 'hón' (he and she)
(in standard Old Norse, which is what we are mostly learning and is
the Old Icelandic dialect of around 1220-1250 aka Snorri Sturluson,
written 'hann' and 'hon', also 'hón').


--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, Haukur Þorgeirsson
<haukurth@...> wrote:

> > I have never really understood the difference between the

pronounciation of the runes "ár" and "áss". Could you please tell me
what the real difference is.

> The theory goes that "ár" represented non-nasal 'a'
> whereas "áss" represented nasal 'a'. The sources,
> however, don't show this as clearly as one might
> have wished.

> The most thorough treatment I've read of this
> is "A-rúnir í frumnorrænum rúnaáletrunum",
> a 1998 B.A. treatise by one Embla Ýr Bárudóttir
> (as an aside, "Bárudóttir" is a matronym,
> a relatively rare thing).

> > There don´t seem to be any difference between these two
> > sounds in the normalized language we are using.

> Old Norse had long nasal vowel phonemes which are not
> marked in the normalized orthography. The best source
> on this is the First Grammatical Treatise.
>
> Kveðja,
> Haukur