At 2:03:49 AM on Wednesday, June 19, 2013,
elliot.holland@... wrote:
> Hi. I'm Elliot. And I've recently started independently
> studying Old Norse from Oklahoma, USA. So I'm new to Old
> Norse, and right now, I'm trying to figure out the complex
> grammar of Old Norse. I'm having some difficulty, but with
> the help of the online course material at utexas.edu, and
> A New Introduction to Old Norse, I am slowly progressing.
> I'm also new to Yahoo Groups, and am not quite sure how
> the webpage works.
> I'm asking for help regarding how I can use this group
> as a resource, or if I am welcome to use this group at
> all.
You’re certainly welcome in the group. As you’ve seen, it’s
not very lively these days, and most of the most
knowledgeable folks are no longer around, but I’m happy to
try to answer questions.
We’re actually in sight of the end of Laxdæla saga.
Assuming that we start on something else when we finish, you
might consider trying to join in: it’s a bit daunting at
first and probably feels a bit like learning to swim in the
deep end of the pool, but it’s really very effective, and it
has the great virtue of providing constant feedback.
> As I understand now, It's mostly being used to post
> translations of Old Norse texts, but I see some places,
> such as the polls, that lead me to believe that course
> material is somewhere to be found. If someone could please
> point me in the direction of it, that would be great.
The Files section, accessible from the links near the top of
the lefthand side of the web page, contains a set of six
short but rather good lessons aimed at native speakers of
English. They’re definitely worth a look: I’m not the best
judge, since I have a fairly strong linguistics background,
but I’d say that they’re noticeably more accessible than
either the Texas course or Barnes, and despite their
brevity, they cover a lot of ground.
It also contains a PDF of Zoëga’s dictionary and errata
thereto. There is a nicely webbed online version of Zoëga
at <
http://norse.ulver.com/dct/zoega/index.html>. You can
find an online version of the larger dictionary by Cleasby and
Vigfusson, from which Zoëga produced his dictionay, at
<
http://lexicon.ff.cuni.cz/texts/oi_cleasbyvigfusson_about.html>.
It’s a bit more comprehensive and has more citations, though
the arrangement of the various senses of a word is sometimes
a bit less convenient than Zoëga’s.
If you read German or one of the Continental Scandinavian
languages, other resources are available.
Brian