# Norse and present languages of Scandinavia



## bearded

Hello everyone
I understand that the old Norse language represents the ancestor of the modern germanic Scandinavian languages. If this is true, can e.g. a Norwegian (partly) understand a Norse text? Between Norse and the modern languages is there a bigger difference/distance than, say, between Latin and Italian?
And since Icelandic is considered as the most conservative among the Scandinavian languages, does an Icelander understand Norse, and to what extent? 
Are there Norse texts long enough as to make such experiments possible?
Thank you in advance for answering my many questions.


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## ahvalj

Before native speakers start to answer, I would like to note that the Icelandic pronunciation has changed dramatically for the last seven centuries, so understanding the genuine spoken Norse would have required some (probably considerable) time for adaptation. That's actually true for many other languages with a traditional orthography: I doubt one would have ever recognized French in the actual spoken language of the period when the basics of the French orthography were codified (around the 12th century).


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## Nino83

Ciao bearded man  



bearded man said:


> Between Norse and the modern languages is there a bigger difference/distance than, say, between Latin and Italian?



The difference between Old Norse and Norwegian, Swedish and Danish is similar to that between Latin and Italian (or, even bigger). 
Danish reduced final desinential vowels (a, u, i) to schwa, so the system of cases was obsolete (just during XII century). 
During 1350-1500 (Middle Danish, Middle Swedish) the system of cases and verbal conjugation for person and number became obsolete. 



bearded man said:


> And since Icelandic is considered as the most conservative among the Scandinavian languages, does an Icelander understand Norse, and to what extent?



Icelanders can easily read books written in Old Norse (but, as ahvalj said, they couldn't understand spoken Old Norse, due to changes in pronunciation). 
Icelandic is one of the most conservative languages in Western Europe (Icelandic mantained the final vowels _a, i, u_, so it didn't lost cases and verbal conjugation for person and number). 

Old Norwegian was part of West Old Norse (with Icelandic) but Norway was under Denmark from 1380 to 1814, so the Old Norwegian was replaced by Danish language. 



bearded man said:


> Are there Norse texts long enough as to make such experiments possible?



Yes. All traditional Icelandic sagas are written in Old Norse. There is also a treatise on grammar.


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## bearded

Ciao Nino83
Many thanks for your exhaustive and very interesting reply. One more curiosity: is there a way to know (a reconstruction of) how the pronunciation of old Norse really was?  I imagine that, when Icelanders read Norse texts, they pronounce the words according to modern Icelandic rules, just as Italians do when they read classical Latin 'the Italian way'. Anyhow, for Latin, a somewhat reliable re-construction of the old pronunciation has been proposed, and even accepted and adopted in some countries. Is this also the case with Norse?


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## ahvalj

bearded man said:


> Ciao Nino83
> Many thanks for your exhaustive and very interesting reply. One more curiosity: is there a way to know (a reconstruction) of how the pronunciation of old Norse really was?  I imagine that, when Icelanders read Norse texts, they pronounce the words according to modern Icelandic rules, just as Italians do when they read classical Latin 'the Italian way'. Anyhow, for Latin, a somewhat reliable re-construction of the old pronunciation has been proposed, and even accepted and adopted in some countries. Is this also the case with Norse?


You can find it in virtually any manual. The pronunciation was more or less reflected in the orthography, with peculiarities of _f_ and _þ_, which were used for both voiced and voiceless spirants, _g,_ which stood for both _g_ and _γ, _as well as _i _and_ u, _which were used for both vowels and semivowels. The Scandinavian languages had a long tradition of runic inscriptions, so the evolution of the phonetic system can be traced as deep as 1000 years before the written sagas. During that millennium, the phonetic (and morphological) changes were dramatic (vowel reductions, consonant assimilations, umlauts, vowel breakings etc.), not less than in the centuries between the sagas and the modern languages: cp. the reconstructed early runic *_Anulaiƀaz_ vs. the Old Norse _Óláfr/Óleifr_ vs. the modern Swedish _Olav_.


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## bearded

Thank you ahvalj.


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## Nino83

bearded man said:


> is there a way to know (a reconstruction) of how the pronunciation of old Norse really was?



Yes. Fortunately, there is the First Grammatical Treatise (_Fyrsta Málfræðiritgerðin_), a book wrote in XII century, which explains exhaustively the old pronunciation (using the technique of minimal pairs to establish the inventory of distinctive sounds or phonemes in the Icelandic language. It is also notable for revealing the existence of a whole series of nasal vowel phonemes, whose presence in the Icelandic language of the time would otherwise be unknown.) 

Icelanders can understand well written Old Norse because Icelandic vocabulary has very few loans. For example, it is estimated that from 25 to 35% of Danish/Norwegian and Swedish vocabulary (somebody says 35-40%) comes from Middle Low German (because of it, for example, Danish and Ducth have a good percentage of common words, especially in legal and commercial lexicon).


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## bearded

Again many thanks, Nino83, very interesting.


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## berndf

ahvalj said:


> The Scandinavian languages had a long tradition of runic inscriptions, so the evolution of the phonetic system can be traced as deep as 1000 years before the written sagas. During that millennium, the phonetic (and morphological) changes were dramatic (vowel reductions, consonant assimilations, umlauts, vowel breakings etc.), not less than in the centuries between the sagas and the modern languages: cp. the reconstructed early runic *_Anulaiƀaz_ vs. the Old Norse _Óláfr/Óleifr_ vs. the modern Swedish _Olav_.


It should be added that the earliest Runic inscriptions should not be regarded as proto-Old-Norse but as common Germanic.


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## ahvalj

For those interested in serious reading, some books on the prehistory and history of North Germanic languages:

Antonsen EH · 1975 · A concise grammar of the older Runic inscriptions — https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7IkEzr9hyJUU04em1nd3lrZFU/edit?usp=sharing 

~ · 2002 · The Nordic languages. Volume 1 — https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7IkEzr9hyJUC10T2kwZkluZlE/edit?usp=sharing

~ · 2005 · The Nordic languages. Volume 2 — https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7IkEzr9hyJUU04em1nd3lrZFU/edit?usp=sharing

~ · 1994 · The Germanic languages — https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7IkEzr9hyJellJYmJ6RzFyYlU/edit?usp=sharing

Orel VE · 2003 · A handbook of Germanic etymology — https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7IkEzr9hyJcE9IMDBISXpsSUU/edit?usp=sharing

Barnes M · 2008 · A new introduction to Old Norse. Part I. Grammar — https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7IkEzr9hyJUHVCeHZJZUE5U3M/edit?usp=sharing

Стеблин-Каменский МИ · 2002 · Древнеисландский язык — https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7IkEzr9hyJWlp4QUNaSk1mNDg/edit?usp=sharing

~ · 1962 · Сравнительная грамматика германских языков. Том I — https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7IkEzr9hyJVUxEa0xTOWdpXzg/edit?usp=sharing

~ · 1962 · Сравнительная грамматика германских языков. Том II — https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7IkEzr9hyJaHpiVjFwRVllckU/edit?usp=sharing

~ · 1963 · Сравнительная грамматика германских языков. Том III — https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7IkEzr9hyJRlg5dWl6NUE2N1U/edit?usp=sharing

~ · 1966 · Сравнительная грамматика германских языков. Том IV — https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7IkEzr9hyJUVB3eFdqZzBqZE0/edit?usp=sharing

Макаев ЭА · 1965 · Язык древнейших рунических надписей — https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7IkEzr9hyJeXN6eWcyUWpnMTQ/edit?usp=sharing


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## bearded

A fantastic list of sources, thank you Ahvalj.


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## jakowo

A wonderful list (as usual from ahvalj)! Thanks a lot.

Vlad. Orel was a real genius, unfortunately he already died (with 55 years, or so). 
He had worked in Israel and Canada.


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## Sepia

It is actually quite simple. Apart from Icelandic, native speakers of Scandinavian languages have about the same chance of understanding a text in Old Norse as an Anglophone has of understanding OE. I mean real OE like in the Beowulf saga. However, I think Icelanders woud understand that in writing too.
(Claiming that English is also a Scandinavian language is not very far from the truth).


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## Gavril

Sepia said:


> It is actually quite simple. Apart from Icelandic, native speakers of Scandinavian languages have about the same chance of understanding a text in Old Norse as an Anglophone has of understanding OE. I mean real OE like in the Beowulf saga. However, I think Icelanders woud understand that in writing too.



Interesting idea, but I think Icelandic speakers might run into some difficulties with OE. For example, the widespread _ge-_ prefix (as in OE _gesungen_ "sung") is mostly absent in Icelandic (or other North Germanic). Also, there are basic vocab differences (such as OE _fyr_ "fire" vs. North Germanic _eld_), and probably a number of false friends (e.g., OE _snotor_ "wise" versus Icelandic _snotur_ "nice, pretty").

The Scandinavian-ness of modern English (that you mentioned below) is one of the factors that distinguishes it from OE.


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## ahvalj

Gavril said:


> The Scandinavian-ness of modern English (that you mentioned below) is one of the factors that distinguishes it from OE.


What does this mean? The faster rate of phonetic and grammatical evolution? Judging from the continental Germanic languages (aside the literary High German), English would have lost its flexion anyway, just somewhat slower. On the other hand, of all the modern Germanic languages, Swedish has the largest set of unstressed vowels used in grammar (-ar, -er, -or, -it), so this "scandinavianness" is rather "danishness" or "afrikaansness".


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## berndf

ahvalj said:


> What does this mean? The faster rate of phonetic and grammatical evolution?


Mainly vocabulary but also some grammatical constructs. During the Middle English period, words of ON origin continued to replace words of W-Germanic origin. When we speak of OE we usually mean the literary Wessex dialect which had minimal ON influence while the language of Chaucer was the result of a merger of southern and northern dialects. And especially Yorkshire dialect had extremely strong ON influence.


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## ahvalj

berndf said:


> Mainly vocabulary but also some grammatical constructs. During the Middle English period, words of ON origin continued to replace words of W-Germanic origin. When we speak of OE we usually mean the literary Wessex dialect which had minimal ON influence while the language of Chaucer was the result of a merger of southern and northern dialects. And especially Yorkshire dialect had extremely strong ON influence.


Yet these several dozens of words (_skirt_ vs. _shirt_) can hardly justify "claiming that English is also a Scandinavian language". Especially comparing with the ocean of Latin and Romance words and calques.

E. g. in your post there are no Norse borrowings, 47 inherited words and 22 Greek, Latin or French borrowings.


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## Gavril

ahvalj said:


> What does this mean? The faster rate of phonetic and grammatical evolution?



Partly that, but I was also thinking of the North Germanic vocabulary in English (_skill, take, wrong, she, they_ etc.) and the possibly North Germanic inflectional patterns (3rd singular _-s_, the lack of _ge-_ in past participles).

When Sepia said that English was not far from being a Scandinavian language, I guessed (maybe wrongly) that s/he was referring to the overall North Germanic influence on English, rather than a specifically mainland (Scandinavian) influence.


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## ahvalj

Gavril said:


> Partly that, but I was also thinking of the North Germanic vocabulary in English (_skill, take, wrong, she, they_ etc.) and the possibly North Germanic inflectional patterns (3rd singular _-s_, the lack of _ge-_ in past participles)


As to _ge_-, I think it is unrelated. The Old Norse lost all unstressed prefixes because of its strong vowel reduction, whereas in English the evolution centuries later was _ge_->_ye_->_i_->zero.

And what is so similar in the case with -_s_? Scandinavian tends to generalize the rhotacized -_r_, which as far as I imagine never existed in English in the verbal endings. The change -_st_/-_th_ to zero/-_s_ is much newer.


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## berndf

ahvalj said:


> Yet these several dozens of words (_skirt_ vs. _shirt_) can hardly justify "claiming that English is also a Scandinavian language".


Probably a few more than that but I completely agree with you. The claim that English should be reclassified as North-Germanic is completely baseless. Danish e.g. has certainly more W-Germanic loans than English has North-Germanic loans, yet you wouldn't reclassify Danish as West-Germanic.


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## berndf

ahvalj said:


> The change -_st_/-_th_ to zero/-_s_ is much newer.


There is no change from -_st _to zero. It can hardly be regarded as a morphological change if an entire verb form ceases to be used for cultural reasons. Dialects that still use the 2nd singular also use the ending _-st_.


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## Gavril

ahvalj said:


> And what is so similar in the case with -_s_? Scandinavian tends to generalize the rhotacized -_r_, which as far as I imagine never existed in English in the verbal endings. The change -_st_/-_th_ to zero/-_s_ is much newer.



3rd singular -_s_ comes from northern Old English dialects in which -_s_ alternated with -_th_/-_þ_. There is some speculation that this -_s_ arose in northern OE because of Old Norse influence (as Norse 3rd singular -r reflects earlier *-z < *-s), but I don't think everyone accepts this view (which is why I wrote "possibly North Germanic inflectional patterns" above).


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## ahvalj

I agree with -_st_>zero because of the disappearance of the entire Sg.2.

The Sg.3 -_s_ from the Northern dialects still doesn't seem to follow the Scandinavian pattern, since the present distribution of this ending in the literary language looks exactly opposite to what I would call _generalization_. On the other hand, Brunner (_Die Englische Sprache. Ihre geschichtliche Entwicklung. 1951_) writes that Northern dialects tend to generalize -_s_ to the entire Present: the problem, however, is that in both English and Scandinavian this generalization occurred centuries after the Viking invasion.


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## berndf

That was precisely the reason why I disagreed.


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## Dib

This is what I believe is meant by influence of Old Norse in the development of Old English -s in 3s. However, right now, I don't have access to the resources to validate each step. So, it would be nice if someone could comment on that:

1. Northumbrian had a 2s -s (only in weak verbs?), instead of West saxon -st. It might have been the reflex of original PIE *-esi, I guess. Cf. Cynewulf's Christ 107-8 (I guess it is not Northumbrian, but still): "þū tīda gehwane / of sylfum þē symle inlīhtes", which one source translates: "You by yourself enlighten every hour", though I think it means something more like "You by yourself eternally enlighten everybody", though I can't quite fit the "tīda" in there.

2. Old Norse had the same ending in 2s and 3s, namely -r.

3. It is possible that through substratal effect of ON, Northumbrian also extended its own 2s ending to 3s.


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## Sepia

Gavril said:


> Interesting idea, but I think Icelandic speakers might run into some difficulties with OE. For example, the widespread _ge-_ prefix (as in OE _gesungen_ "sung") is mostly absent in Icelandic (or other North Germanic). Also, there are basic vocab differences (such as OE _fyr_ "fire" vs. North Germanic _eld_), and probably a number of false friends (e.g., OE _snotor_ "wise" versus Icelandic _snotur_ "nice, pretty").
> 
> The Scandinavian-ness of modern English (that you mentioned below) is one of the factors that distinguishes it from OE.



I admit that modern English is not as close to modern Scandinavian languages as OE was to Old Norse. 

However, the words you mention are not such a far cry from words in modern Danish as you might expect: The word "fire" is "ild" in modern Danish, but to make fire like in a stove is "fyre" in modern Danish and "wise" is simply "vis". And prefixes: You always have to deal with different pre- and suffixes when you try to read a language you have not really learned and for some reason it usually does not stop us ...


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## berndf

Sepia said:


> However, the words you mention are not such a far cry from words in modern Danish as you might expect: The word "fire" is "ild" in modern Danish, but to make fire like in a stove is "fyre" in modern Danish and "wise" is simply "vis". And prefixes: You always have to deal with different pre- and suffixes when you try to read a language you have not really learned and for some reason it usually does not stop us ...


That is because modern Danish is full of Low German loans. E.g. it has more to do with the "Germanness" of modern Danish than with the "Norseness" of modern English.

NB.: Please note the quotes above. This is all, of course, a very loose way of talk. Genetically, English is West and Danish is North Germanic. There is nothing to argue about.


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