Grace,

Right now, I'm slowly, but surely working my way through Eyrbyggja Saga, 29 part 3, and am, of course, running in to many of these words. I'll post my attempted translation, complete or incomplete, whenever the next text is posted. In my translation, I've included grammar notes for myself, including some words whose grammars I cannot figure out.

My main problem now is that I cannot read the grammatical information in either Zoëga's or Cleasly/Vigfusson, that are contained with each entry. For example, how can I understand case endings or verb tenses from what stands in the entry? Normally, I would search for this information in an "How to Use this Dictionary" or "abbreviations" section, but I cannot find one in either dictionary. For example, some adjectives have e-m written near the word. I'm not sure what information this should give.

Elliot

--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "Fred & Grace Hatton" <hatton@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Eliot,
> I think it would be great if you posted mysterious words that you can't find
> in the dictionary because of the endings due to declensions, etc. I have
> not managed to memorize the declensions - as is probably obvious. It would
> help me, I think, to try to figure out what the nominative case or the verb
> itself would be if you posted your fishy ones.
>
> I have a good background in German - having lived there 9 years and having
> attended the (now) Darmstadt University (then TH Darmstadt) as a German Lit.
> major - so that helped a lot. I started with the online yahoogroup course
> and a new paperback copy (available from Amazon) of the Zoega dictionary -
> which has a couple of strips of duct tape to hold it together - plus I have
> Gordon's Introduction to Old Norse which I used a lot at first, but rarely
> look at now.
>
> At first it took almost an hour to look up nearly every word. Now it's more
> like 15- 20 minutes - - although clearly I could put more time into it. I
> go thru and underline the words I am not sure of, try to find them first in
> Zoega, but turn to the online Cleasby Zigfusson if I can't find them.
>
> Grace
>
> Fred & Grace Hatton
> Hawley, Pa.
>