Heill

 

I am curious to know how those of you who read or speak a form of Old Norse go about learning it.  What are the guidlines that you follow?  Do you use Modern Icelandic pronunciation, some sort of Old Icelandic pronunciation, Old Norwegian, etc...?  What about the nasals, prosody, rounded vowels, etc...?

 

I am eager to learn more about East Norse as it was spoken by the jómsvíkings, or at least, the common tongue in Denmark at that time - if that's possible to know.  Something else I'm curious is about is dialects - is it known what sort of dialect variation existed in the Viking Days?  Was it similar to the current linguistic situation today (excluding Insular Skandinavian & Finnish) in Skandinavia, or was it even more homogenous?  Were there sociolects? --  Did both royalty and peasants speak with the same vocabulary, syntax, pronunciation, etc or could you tell a persons' social status by their dialect?

 

Well, I hope I get an answer.  I know that these questions may simply be hypothetical at best.  Takk fyrir.

 

Kveðjur,

 

L