In brief, Old Norse is a member of the Germanic family of languages. It shares a common origin with English, Friesian, Dutch, German and the extinct Gothic. The last common ancestor of all these languages is called Proto-Germanic. Proto-Germanic was never written down, and is only known from a few words and names recorded in Latin, and the names of some goddesses recorded in inscriptions from the border of the Roman Empire , but mainly from the work of modern scholars who try to reconstruct probable word forms. Proto-Germanic evolved from another hypothesised language called Proto-Indo-European (often abbreviated to PIE), the ancestor of most European languages, as well as Iranian and many of the languages of India .

Old Norse belongs to a branch of the Germanic family known as North Germanic. Sometimes the term Old Norse refers to the medieval language of Norway (Old Norwegian) and Iceland (Old Icelandic), collectively Old West Norse/Nordic, sometimes people use it for all medieval North Germanic dialects, including Old Danish and Old Swedish, collectively Old East Norse/Nordic. The Germanic language of Scandinavia from which Old Norse (in the broadest sense) evolved is called variously Proto-Norse/ Nordic, Ancient Nordic, or Old Runic. This is the language of the early Scandinavian runic inscriptions in the Elder Futhark (pre Viking Age, before the 8th century). But some scholars equate the very earliest inscriptions with a stage of the language known as Northwest Germanic, while others consider some of the inscriptions distinctly West Germanic. There is some debate.

There's a lot of information on the internet about the history of the Germanic languages. If you're curious, try searching for these names.

--- In norse_course@ yahoogroups. com, "Schuyler Himberg" <schuylerhimberg@ ...> wrote:

>
> what are the origins of the norse language?
> was the language completed made up. or are parts of it adopted by some
> other language. possibly Germanic.
> -Himberg
>