guess i'll folow your advice. i'll try the Old Norse for beginners
lessons and then i'll let you know something.

--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "llama_nom" <600cell@...> wrote:
>
> --- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, Justin Farwell <chelagil3@> wrote:
> >
> >
> > OE 'theoden' 'prince' ON 'thjothinn' 'prince'
>
> It's 'þjóðann' in Old Norse [
> http://lexicon.ff.cuni.cz/png/oi_cleasbyvigfusson/b0739.png ].
>
> > the grammar of OE is a bit simpler, but the vocabulary is very
> similar to Old Norse.
>
> True, although, personally I find that it can sometimes actually be
> easier to remember a paradigm where most of the forms are clearly
> differentiated:
>
> Old Norse:
>
> Nominative: sonr . synir
> Accusative: son . sonu
> Genitive..: sonar . sona
> Dative:...: syni . sonum
>
> Old English:
>
> Nominative: sunu . suna
> Accusative: sunu . suna
> Genitive..: suna . suna
> Dative....: suna . sunum
>
> And, of course, if your main interest is learning Old Norse, you'll
> get there quicker by starting to learn Old Norse straight away! With
> Old Norse, you have the advantage that there is more variety of prose
> texts, whereas some of the most interesting Old English literature is
> poetry. With Old Norse, you have the advantage that a large number of
> texts are available online with standardised spelling (either the
> normalised Old Norse spelling stystem used by Old Norse textbooks, or
> in Modern Icelandic spelling), whereas Old English texts are usually
> presented in the chaotic spelling of the manuscripts. Still, that's
> not much of a difficulty in the long run.
>
> > There's alot more learning material out there for OE than ON, and
> alot of the OE textbooks are easier to use than the ON; ON textbooks
> are rather old-fashioned and usually written by old German
> philologists before World War 2.
>
> Besides the modern online courses and "A New Introduction to Old
> Norse" (1999) that I mentioned, there's a fairly recent Spanish
> textbook that you might be interested in: María Pilar Fernández
> Álvarez (1999) "Antiguo islandés. Historia y lengua".
>
> Sorry, Justin--I'm just in a Devil's Advocate mood today ;-) But I
> wouldn't want to dissuade anyone from learning Old English too.
> They're both great languages!
>
> P.S.
>
> > > > Nu eow is gerymed; gað ricene to us, guman to guþe;
> > > god ana wat hwa þære wælstowe wealdan note.
> > > > (Now the way is clear for you; O warriors, hasten to the battle;
> > > God alone knows how things will turn out)
>
> I think that last word should be 'mote', shouldn't it?
>