Does anyone have any good sources for learning Swedish?

--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "llama_nom" <600cell@...> wrote:
>
>
> Hi Anastasia,
>
> Without a doubt the most useful modern language for learning Old
Norse
> is Icelandic. Icelandic has changed very little since the Middle
Ages
> compared to related Germanic languages. In fact, it can be thought
of
> as, in many ways, essentially the same language as the dialect of
Old
> Norse spoken in medieval Iceland (i.e. Old Icelandic, which was very
> similar to Old Norwegian in the early medieval period). Icelandic
> preserves the complex morphology of Old Norse with just a few minor
> changes, whereas Norwegian, Danish and Swedish have greatly
simplified
> the inflectional structure. Modern Icelandic orthography differs
> slightly from the normalised spelling used in Old Norse text books,
> but not hugely, and once you know a few basic rules it's easy to
> convert between them. With a knowledge of Modern Icelandic, you will
> already be able to read a lot of Old Norse. Perhaps the main
> difference between Modern Icelandic and Old Icelandic is that a lot
of
> new words have been coined since the Middle Ages to deal with modern
> concepts, although the basic vocabulary has stayed pretty much the
> same. Another difference is that the pronunciation of the vowels has
> changed quite a bit since the Middle Ages, although most of the old
> distinctions between vowels have survived. But this isn't such a big
> hurdle, since the spelling system is still closely based on that
used
> by Old Norse writers, and the modern pronunciation is generally used
> by academics for reading Old Norse.
>
> If you don't have the oportunity to take a course in Icelandic, any
of
> the mainland North Germanic languages would be a help: Norwegian (in
> either of its two national standard varieties), Danish and Swedish.
> They all have a basic shared vocabulary inherited from Old Norse,
> albeit with a lot of later loanwords from German. They also retain
> many grammatical features of Old Norse, although the morphology has
> been much reduced. Faroese stands somewhere between Icelandic and
its
> mainland relatives; it still has a complex morphology like
Icelandic,
> but has undergone more changes that have taken it a bit further from
> Old Norse.
>
> If none of the above are available, your best bet might be German.
> While German is a West Germanic languages, like English, it still
has
> a lot of archaic grammatical complexity in common with Old Norse
> (which have been lost in English). Its morphology is more complex
than
> the national languages of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, but simpler
than
> Icelandic.
>
> Good luck, and good fun, and whatever you choose!
>
> Lama Nom
>
>
>
> --- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, stasia salvucci
> <amadahy_frost@> wrote:
> >
> > Hi everyone,
> > I know I haven't written in the group but I've been
> > reading the emails for some time, and was wondering if
> > someone could tell me which modern language would be
> > most useful in starting to learn Old Norse? I plan to
> > take a few language classes this summer and wanted to
> > start learning Norse at a snail-slow pace, thank you!
> >
> > -Anastasia
>