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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Finnish Norse

The map of where old Norse, specifically "old east Norse" was spoken does not include Åland islands and western Finland. Why? It has been widely accepted that Finland partially had a population which was the same as the rest of Scandinavia, this is supported by genetics, archaelogical evidences and linguists have proven that old Norse or a closely related Germanic language must have been spoken in Finland alongside the Balto-Finnish languages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.31.11.80 (talk) 11:32, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

If it's widely accepted, then can you not find a reputable source stating this? If you can, feel free to cite this source and update the article yourself. LokiClock (talk) 04:52, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
I found reference to the retention of ai, as in Old Gutnish, in Finnish Swedish, but I couldn't determine for sure whether it was proper to infer from that that the dialects there were Old Swedish dialects established before the diphthong merged to ei. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 15:24, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
"finnish old norse" -"Finnish, Old Norse" returns no Google results. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 12:08, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
Gah! The information was in Swedish-speaking Finns the entire time, inexplicably instead of Finland Swedish. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 12:55, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

As for the map outlining the geographic distribution, it is somewhat surprising and dubious, that while we know the Norse sailed far to the east, south and west and established colonies far and wide, we are led to believe they somehow could not manage to get across the gulf of Botnia? What about the archeological findings from the viking age in Finland, by which mechanism is the occurrence of these to be explained? Or by using modern studies of DNA, the high-frequency of "Norse" Haplogroup I-M253 (previously I1a), which is 40% in the west half of Finland and 28% in the whole of Finland. Strangely, the western part of Finland seems to have as high frequency as Sweden (35.6%) and Denmark (39,3%). Migration during the middle ages insufficiently explains the high-frequency of this Haplogroup. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.204.177.254 (talk) 13:12, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Genes can spread and cultures can contact without language spreading. You have to know how to update the map, and not support any one scholarly opinion on the subject. Since, as the geographic distribution section says, it is under dispute when Swedish spread to Finland, and hence whether the Swedish spoken was Old Norse. Why would migration during one time period be insufficient, when for the haplotype to spread some migration has to occur, and how is that relevant to the spread of the languages spoken in the area? ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 10:01, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

/w/ or /ʋ/?

The phonology section shows /w/, but at the same time the Old Icelandic section states that /w/ merged with /v/ in the 12th century. That change is rather unlikely without /ʋ/ as an intermediate stage, and that same stage must have occurred at some point in the histories of all the other North Germanic languages as well, because they all have a labiodental. So why is the Old Norse sound reconstructed as bilabial /w/? CodeCat (talk) 02:41, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

It's speculative to assume that [ʋ] must have occurred as an intermediate stage. Latin seems to have undergone /w/ -> [β] -> [v] instead, for example. In any case, /w/ is a broad transcription, which could have been narrowly realized as [ʋ], [β], [w] etc., possibly varying at different times and places. Benwing (talk) 06:37, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
That's true, but [β] may have been the actual realisation of /v/ (like it was in Proto-Germanic), so it would have led to a merger then too. We know, at least, that the p in aptr probably denoted a bilabial, so it's not impossible. CodeCat (talk) 12:13, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
Sure, you could say it was [ʋ] early on. The thing you'd need to determine this is a word with a v in umlaut position that formed in the word before a vowel that would be u-umlauted if /w/'s [w]-like quality was productive when it formed - that is, the vowel cannot have been formed during usual w-umlaut (older u-umlaut), or Holtzmann's law, or the phonological and morphophonological interactions between /w/ and back vowels, during which time /w/ was clearly [w]. So in particular, a younger u-umlaut of an a that did not descend from a Proto-Germanic a. In other words, breaking in Old West Norse. Other than that, there is a period of confusion of [u] and [v] in manuscripts. Another option is if it's shown that people never seemed to write ‹v, ꝩ› for /f/ before the 13th century or so. However, I will note hǫggva->hugga in Swedish. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 06:07, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I think that any useful textbook ought to be listed in bibliography/references section but not linked directly as this is a form of advertisement - wikipedia in not a free advertising service imho. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.22.6.9 (talk) 18:25, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Reevaluate the section "Relationship to modern Scandinavian languages"

It is necessary to have native speakers verify and correct this table.
The the column containing Danish examples are either outdated or simply false.
I would suggest native speakers of the other languages re-evaluate their examples as well.

Does anyone know of a good method for citing tables from external websites?
The table located on this page moderated by Det Danske Sprog- og Litteraturselskab contains updated and verified transcriptions, so it is ideal as a source.
Could one simply link to the page?

Jylkat (talk) 17:35, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

The Concept "Old Norse"

What primary source does the heading concept of this article come from and when did it first come into use? Thorguds (talk) 07:38, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Huh? Do you mean when did it come to be called Old Norse? •Jim62sch•dissera! 16:25, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. When and by whom was the concept "Old Norse" first used? This information is relevant for the article.Thorguds (talk) 11:18, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

According to the article Germanic philology, Germanic/Old Norse studies started around the 16th century, and as per tradition, most of the scholars then wrote in Latin (and according to Latin Wikipedia, the Latin translation is la:Lingua Nordica antiqua). 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:12, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Does this mean that the term “Old Norse” was first used after 1600? Thorguds (talk) 11:15, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

(Btw, 1600- is the 17th century.) That's my guess. It wasn't considered "old" when it first was in use. But I'm not a scholar. See also discussion on my talk page. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:17, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

[outdent] True, the concept Old Norse was likely re-actualized in Denmark and Sweden during the 17th and 18th centuries. However, since the medieval Icelanders were aware of their language as the Danish tongue which was spoken also in Denmark, Norway and Sweden (as stated in Grágás), we know that the concept is much older. When did the concept appear? It likely appeared as soon as people in Norway, Denmark and Sweden discovered that their language was noticeably different from that of the Saxons in the south.--Berig (talk) 12:52, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure why the date of the concept's arrival on the linguistic scene is important. What is of far greater importance is why the differentiation exists between Old Norse and Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic. Not sure what the Saxons have to do with this either, as Old Norse was North German and Saxon West German. Perhaps I'm missing something. •Jim62sch•dissera! 17:17, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
The reason is that we cannot talk of any separate North Germanic language unless we assume a linguistic separation from West Germanic and the Saxons were their closest West Germanic neighbours. Still in the 16th century, Scandinavians thought that North Germanic was a single language. Any separation between Old Norse and the modern Norse languages is to be found in the the great differences between modern Icelandic and the continental Scandinavian languages and also in the enmity between Denmark and Sweden from the 16th to the 17th centuries and later nationalism.--Berig (talk) 17:33, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes, nationalism played a part, but only a part. It's similar to Italy where Latin developed into a dozen or so languages as there was no unifying power. When the unifying power was removed from Scandanavia (Iceland is a separate issue) the language naturally diversified into Nynorsk, Bokmal, Danish, Swedish, Faroese and a few others.
Linguistically, the delineation of languages into families, group, and individual tongues is relatively recent, with the work of de Saussure and Grimm avancing linguistics to the level of a science. •Jim62sch•dissera! 17:44, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't think you can reduce the concepts of language delineations to recent science. People have always had folk theoretical models of "tongues". When the Icelanders wrote that they talked the "Danish tongue", it reflected a folk theoretical notion of a common way of speaking with continental Scandinavians, and they could even describe it theoretically in the First Grammatical Treatise and they could define its geographical spread in Grágás. As for the delineation into language families, they are supposed to reflect a historical evolution of various dialects into the modern languages, so I think it's relevant here. I don't think you can say that the continental Scandinavian languages have diversified into different languages naturally, because they could just as well be considered dialects of a single language, in the same way as Swiss German dialects and low German dialects are dialects of the same language. The reason why they are treated as different languages, or not, is political.--Berig (talk) 18:04, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
I more or less agreee. Delineations are supposed to represent history, but as you correctly noted, the delineation is often political. In Spain, for example, Catalan and Galician are recognised as full blown languages (which they are), but Aragonese is considered a dialect (which it isn't); and in France, Occitan and Walloon and others are considered dialects of French, which they aren't. Same thing happens in the aforementioned Italy. My personal standard for whether we're talking language or dialect is whether there is mutual intelligibility in the spoken tongues (for example the language of Yorkshire and that of London's educated class), but I've not gotten much of anywhere because many other linguists seem to not want to offend anybody in power. Sigh. •Jim62sch•dissera! 18:43, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
The delineations get truly ironic in the case of Catalan and Occitan. The first one is classified as an Ibero-romance language and the other one as a Gallo-romance, but they are very similar.--Berig (talk) 19:07, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Wakuran, I added a comment in the your talk page. Thorguds (talk) 17:23, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

A lot of the problem comes from looking at languages from a [n overly] modernist macroscopic perspective. The idea that languages separate and diversify in big blocks is largely historical nonsense, except with reference to geographic isolates, and ideas like "Catalan", "Occitan", or "Danish", are elite centrist constructs that cloud the reality of dialect continua. Likewise, the idea that medieval Jutish was "Danish" is political make-believe (as would be the idea that it was German or Saxon), and in reality it was a series of dialects that blended into northern Saxon. Likewise, in Scandinavia, separate "Bokmal, Danish, Swedish" languages did not "naturally" develop, they are all constructs imposed on communities by "national"Ly focused power groups in the modern era. It is historical arbitrariness that [continental] Scandiavian is three/four languages, but German is one, when in fact differences between dialects even inside German regions (like Swabia) is far greater than differences throughout [mainland] Scandinavia (which would be more comparable to English or Castilian than German). BTW, "Lingua Nordica" is a neologism as far as I know. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 09:31, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps from a certain aspect it is elitist, but then most sciences are elitist; that's just the way it goes. Additionally, for linguists, one needs to classify things in a certain way -- it's like biology: no matter how closely related two animals may be (e.g, the Guyana Blackback Coral Snake and the Andean Blackback Coral Snake they are classified as different species. As for there being "one" Gertman, that would be patently untrue in my opinion, but there needs to be a differentiation between what is a language and what is a dialect, as I noted above. •Jim62sch•dissera! 16:29, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

The term "Old Norse" appears to be rather recent - meaning it is (due to the rise of academical "Germanistik") a brain child of the 19th century. The oldest source I've found browsing for about 10min through google-books was the 1806-publication of "Health by exercise", and it used Old Norse to describe something northern and indistinctivly unrecent, yet not a language at all.--78.53.111.52 (talk) 21:35, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Vowel chart is confusing.

I'm assuming the separated vowels in the Unrounded and Rounded vowels are long and short vowels? Or am I missing something? The chart is incredibly unclear to anyone who doesn't know anything about linguistics. That includes me by the way. 64.229.154.123 (talk) 21:38, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Native name

We are having problems over time with the autochtonous name for Old Norse and I sometimes have to step in to make corrections. We do know that contemporary Icelanders called their language the "Danish tongue" and "Norroent Mál", but we don't know exactly how they separated the two names or if they were exactly synonymous. It is quite obvious from the name "Danish tongue" that it covered both East and West Norse. It is also quite likely that "Norroent mál" referred to the western dialect, but we don't know. -Berig (talk) 09:17, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

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PRONOUNCIATION OF G

The article suggests:

"The /ɡ/ phoneme is realized as [ɡ] after an n or another g and as [k] before /s/ and /t/. It is realized as a voiced velar fricative [ɣ], by some accounts inside words, and by others between vowels (and otherwise as [ɡ])."

The sources are given as Henry Sweet, An Icelandic Primer (1895) and Orrin W. Robinson, Old English and Its Closest Relatives (1992).

To this two questions:

1: Is Henry Sweet, a source 120 years old, truly a reliable source in a modern scientific lemma.

2: Does a scientific consensus actually exist that g is realized as ɣ in the manner here proposed?


What evidence exists that this was truly done in Old Norse, and in what scientific literature has this evidence been extensively treated.

THANK YOU for any information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.62.117.204 (talk) 07:03, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

To add to this - when did [g] fall out of use, supposedly? It is not present in Mod. Icelandic, which makes me wonder when it fell out of use/if it was there in Old West Norse? ~~Ash P.~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.205.1.222 (talk) 08:57, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

as a consequence of this cleanup edit https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Old_Norse&type=revision&diff=858045778&oldid=857545540
ref name="MeNoTa14">Andrea de Leeuw van Weenen, University of Leiden, University of Greifswald, ed. 2009. AM 519 a 4to: Alexanders saga, fol. 1v, l. 10–14. Menota ms. 14, v. 1.0. Bergen: Medieval Nordic Text Archive. Facsimile; Normalization[dead link]
Could not recover
  • A books source, or year for references using "O'Donoghue" was not found
  • In " Early England and the Great Gender Shift: Old English and Old Norse Straddling the Horns of the Default Dilemma" - in Old_Norse#Hierarchy - page needed - could not find a replacement for dead link

Some other links were dead, but could be replaced or re-found.

5.198.10.236 (talk) 18:39, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

[edit] Was able to find source for AM 519 a 4to at http://clarino.uib.no/menota/document-element?&cpos=558653 - normalised text needs to be selected manually, but is same source 5.198.10.236 (talk) 19:10, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Relationship to modern Scandinavian languages

The section "Relationship to modern Scandinavian languages" is good and relevant, but it's a bit problematic that the examples are given in modern orthography rather than IPA. Some Scandinavian languages are written close to how they are pronounced (Norwegiam the most). Others are pronounced very differently than they are written (Faroese in particular, but also Icelandic and Danish). Actual relationship would be better shown by including IPA.
(On a side note, please note that neither Icelandic nor Faroese are "Scandinavian" languages according to some linguists. Saying North Germanic would be less ambivalent). Jeppiz (talk) 13:59, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. I find the presentation to be fairly difficult to parse, we could maybe make these examples a standalone table. – Thjarkur (talk) 01:08, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Little J

What manner of letter is that little J in the phrase "...stirt var honum norrœnt mál, ok kylfdi mᴊǫk til orðanna, ok hǫfðu margir menn þat mᴊǫk at spotti."?--Manfariel (talk) 22:14, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Modern Icelandic example

The following text is not strictly modern Icelandic - it is however most likely the version modern Icelanders would read in modern times. The spelling has minor errors relative to actual modern Icelandic.

[...] sem óvinir hans brigsluðu honum eftir því, sem síðar mun sagt verða. Þessi sveinn Alexander var í skóla settur, sem siðvenja er til ríkra manna utanlands að láta gera við börn sín. Meistari var honum fenginn sá, er Aristóteles hét. Hann var harðla góður klerkur og hinn mesti spekingur að viti og er hann var tólv vetra gamall að aldri, nálega alroskinn að viti, en stórhugaður umfram alla sína jafnaldra, [...]

With modern Icelandic spelling, it looks like this:

[...] sem óvinir hans brigsluðu honum eftir því, sem síðar mun sagt verða. Þessi sveinn Alexander var í skóla settur, sem siðvenja er til ríkra manna utanlands að láta gera við börn sín. Meistari var honum fenginn sá, er Aristóteles hét. Hann var harla góður klerkur og hinn mesti spekingur að viti og er hann var tólf vetra gamall að aldri, nálega alroskinn að viti, en stórhugaður umfram alla sína jafnaldra, [...]

The difference is minor, but it is there. Tólv is completely archaic (in the sense that it's not even in dictionaries), it is always tólf. Harðla is only recently archaic (and can be found in dictionaries), but in modern Icelandic it is spelled harla as the "ð" sound has been lost. The text isn't sourced in the article so I couldn't find from which version it's supposed to be, but the 1945 version is likely, considering the spelling. Dalitidlamadur (talk) 07:17, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Were the short nasal vowels phonemic?

Were these vowels phonemic/distinctive? The long ones were, but I have my doubts about the short ones. As far as I can tell, every case of a lost nasal consonant resulted in a long vowel in Old Norse, never a short one. Short nasal vowels occurred as allophones before nasal consonants, but in this case the consonant is still there. So what examples are there of Old Norse words with phonemic short nasal vowels? Also, what about the long nasal e and o, neither of which have a straightfoward Proto-Germanic source? If they existed, they must have been very rare. Rua (mew) 17:46, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

"Unique in medieval Europe?"

The following sentence found under the "Texts" is incorrect: "Subsequently, Old Norse became the vehicle of a large and varied body of vernacular literature, unique in medieval Europe." Old Norse was not a unique "vehicle" as described here because there were other languages with a "large and varied" vernacular literature in Europe in the Middle Ages. Examples of languages that can also claim such a body of work include Old/Middle Irish, Middle Welsh, and Old English. The sentence should be removed or deleted, and perhaps replaced with a more accurate description of how Old Norse literature was distinctive. ComradeKublai (talk) 05:05, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

As no one seems to have had any objections and it's been a while, I went ahead and deleted the phrase "unique in medieval Europe" from the article. If anyone wants to reinstate this phrase they would need to prove that there existed no other no other extensive vernacular tradition existed in Europe in the Middle Ages. ComradeKublai (talk) 20:14, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Meaning of * (asterisk) and < (less than)

Several times in the article, an asterisk (*) is used in front of words, with no explanation, e.g. "land "land" < *landą". We need an explanation for this. Remember that our audience are lay persons, not professionals, so we cannot use professional notations without explaining them clearly, at least when they are first used in the article. I am personally just a lay person on the subject, and I need an explanation.

Also, from the same example, it's not explained what "<" means. This needs to be explained clearly too. Again, I can't do it, as I don't know what it means.

Does anyone know what these two notations mean?

--Jhertel (talk) 23:13, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

In historical linguistics, an asterisk is used to point out that the form is reconstructed. The asterisk is of little importance to the lay person since the reconstructed forms are usually straightforward, uncontroversial and generally accepted. The "<" is a left-pointing arrow showing that direction of change so that the word to the left is the form that has evolved from the form to the right.--Berig (talk) 15:11, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Stress patterns

What exactly are the stress patterns for Old Norse, besides first-syllable primary stress? Compound words, regional variation, tonal and non-tonal, poetic evidence, inflections, bisyllabic stems, bisyllabic stems with inflections.... Any sources would be helpful. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 03:58, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

This suggests old norse was somewhat tonal (as one would assume based on its descendants) https://notendur.hi.is/haukurth/Tonality_in_earlier_Icelandic.pdf . Some place names suggest old norse had stress on the heaviest root syllable in compunds, at least in mellannorrland: ON sółǽtt has become [sɔɽ'e̞tː] or similar (short <o> has very many different reflexes) suggesting that sół- was worn down to soł- by the following, presumaby stressed superheavy syllable already before the vowel dance. This system is somewhat applicable in modern Jamtish where (old) -VCV- words like old norse svǫłu, gæra (with short æ, of course I distinguish e é æ ǽ ortographically ;)), sela, etc. are unstressed when in a compund where a heavier syllable follows, ex. swedish spelling Haravattnet [haɾa'va̠tne̞], Håkan Roos writes a bit about it here https://www.ltz.se/artikel/ortnamn-ortnamn-ur-den-innersta-jamtskan ASkyr (talk) 09:19, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Old Norse pronunciation

For the past few months, I've been adding Old Norse pronunciations to various articles (using Template:IPA-non), taking care not to give Old Norse pronunciations for terms originating after the 13th century. I've been using the First Grammatical Treatise as a guide, with additional notes concerning FGT vowels from Hreinn Benediktsson (1959) The Vowel System of Icelandic: A Survey of Its History.
The problem is, I recently got in this minor edit skirmish on 4 September and 5 September with an anonymous editor. (I really wish editors this determined and apparently knowledgeable would create an account, log in and discuss things in talk pages. But anyway...) The user reverted my edit, saying "it was never pronounced that way". I reverted their revert, saying "This is a First Grammatical Treatise pronunciation. Phonology did drift in the centuries to follow, but that involves significantly more guesswork by specific location and time period. Please discuss in the talk page." Then they reverted my revert again, saying "If it were a FGT pronunciation, you shouldn't call it classical, since the FGT is pre-classical. But in FGT Old Norse, ǫ́ and á were distinguished, and it wasn't Hávamál but Hávamǫ́l or maybe Hǫ́vamǫ́l. If the classical spelling is to be used, it must go with a classical pronunciation."
And...they do have a point. In my unfinished user page project, User:Gilgamesh~enwiki/Evolution of Icelandic vowels, I've been trying to use sources to chart the shift of Icelandic vowels since the FGT. And soon after the FGT, there was a major reorientation of vowels, at least in Iceland at the time a lot of important historical texts were compiled.

  • Non-nasal long ⟨á⟩ and ⟨ǫ́⟩ merged, becoming ⟨á⟩.
  • Nasal long ⟨ǫ̇́⟩ and ⟨ȯ́⟩ merged, becoming ⟨ǫ̇́⟩.
  • All nasal vowels lost their phonemic nasalization.
  • Short ⟨ę⟩ and short stressed ⟨e⟩ merged, becoming ⟨e⟩.
  • Most vowels shifted, non-phonemically at first, to compensate for vowel mergers, changing the long and short vowel systems from one of four different vowel heights, to one of only three.
  • Short stressed [i] and short unstressed [e] merged, both becoming ⟨i⟩.
  • Short stressed [u] and short unstressed [o] merged, both becoming ⟨u⟩.

If all the Old Norse spellings reflected FGT vowel phonemes it would be simpler, but they don't—a lot of words (including Hávamál) are spelt to reflect the aforementioned vowel mergers. And because the later ("Classical") spellings reflect a smaller inventory of vowels, that would make any FGT-based pronunciation transcription inaccurate with respect to these merged vowels.
So Old Norse#Phonology describes a system anachronistic most of the standard normalization spellings used in articles. "Okay, so let's just use some later vowels." The problem is, the First Grammatical Treatise was unusually exact in its description of vowels, reflecting Old Norse from that time period in Iceland, but later Old Norse pronunciations are necessarily reconstructed by region and time period, involving a lot more guesswork (read: original research). Now, if the references (Hreinn (1959) and such) are correct, then a lot of these vowel shifts can be inferred with a fairly high degree of confidence. The problem is agreeing on a system to add to this article, and to deploy in other articles. And from what I understand (perhaps naively), by the mid-12th century:

  • When ⟨á⟩ [ɑː], ⟨ǫ́⟩ [ɔː] and ⟨ó⟩ variously [oː] merged, they became ⟨á⟩ *[ɒː] or ⟨ó⟩ *[oː]. ⟨ó⟩ may have actually been *[o̞ː], but this is relatively unimportant.
  • ⟨ę́⟩ [ɛː] lowered to ⟨æ⟩ *[æː].
  • ⟨é⟩ [eː] may or may not have lowered to *[e̞ː]. This is relatively unimportant.
  • ⟨ǿ⟩ [øː] lowered to ⟨œ⟩, possibly as far as *[œː], but also possibly just to *[ø̞ː].
  • When ⟨ę⟩ [ɛ] and stressed ⟨e⟩ [e] merged, they became ⟨e⟩ *[e̞].
  • [i] lowered and unstressed [e] raised, merging as ⟨i⟩ *[ɪ].
  • Stressed ⟨o⟩ [o] lowered to *[o̞].
  • [u] lowered and unstressed [o] raised, merging as ⟨u⟩ *[ʊ].
  • ⟨a⟩ [ɑ] and ⟨ǫ⟩ [ɔ] each fronted, possibly as far forward as *[a] and *[œ] respectively, but I suspect central *[ä] and *[ɞ] (or *[ɵ̞]) instead because they did not palatalize ⟨g⟩ and ⟨k⟩ like ⟨ø⟩ later would. In modern Icelandic the descendants of all these vowels are also central rather than front. This may be a matter of further discussion and consensus.
  • ⟨ø⟩ [ø] lowered to *[ø̞], though apparently without completely merging with ⟨ǫ⟩ quite yet. This seems more likely if ⟨ǫ⟩ hadn't shifted further forward than central at this time.
  • ⟨y⟩ [y] lowered to *[ʏ].
  • ⟨v⟩ [w] might have already been merging with voiced ⟨f⟩ to become *[v] or *[β], and the anonymous editor of the Hávamál article seems to prefer one of the latter two pronunciations. I'm inclined to keep it [w] as a conservative pronunciation, as the article Íslensk málsaga (in Icelandic, and as far as I'm able to glean through Google Translate) says it took centuries for all of Iceland to finish completing this merger.
  • The references seem a little less specific about the development of the FGT diphthongs ⟨ei⟩ [ɛi], ⟨ey⟩ [œy] and ⟨au⟩ [ɔu]. If they shifted at this time, they didn't trigger any mergers yet. I'm guessing *[e̞i, ø̞y, ɵ̞u], with the pronunciation of the first component of each diphthong more or less matching the pronunciations of their short vowel counterparts ⟨e, ø, ǫ⟩.

And then, in the late 12th century:

  • ⟨ǫ⟩ and ⟨ø⟩ finally merged, resulting in what would become modern Icelandic ⟨ö⟩. But this merger wasn't unconditional, as ⟨ø⟩ palatalized ⟨g⟩ and ⟨k⟩, but ⟨ǫ⟩ did not, and this apparently resulted in the palatalization of these consonants becoming phonemic before front vowels and ⟨j⟩. So whereas *⟨gǫ⟩ became *⟨gö⟩, *⟨gø⟩ became *⟨gjö⟩. I'm guessing that ⟨ö⟩ was pronounced *[ɵ̞] at this point, similar to modern Icelandic. The references I can find do not mention the evolution of ⟨ø⟩ as the grammatical i-umlaut of ⟨o⟩, which instead became modern Icelandic ⟨e⟩; I don't know when it changed.
  • Just as the first vowel component of the diphthong ⟨au⟩ had been equivalent to ⟨ǫ⟩, it would remain equivalent to ⟨ö⟩ from this time until modern Icelandic.
  • If ⟨œ⟩ hadn't completely lowered to *[œː] yet, it likely had by this point.

And then, in the 13th century:

  • Short vowels apparently started lengthening to their long vowel counterparts before ⟨ng⟩ and ⟨nk⟩. Many of these vowels would become diphthongs by modern Icelandic, but I don't know if they were diphthongs already; I'm guessing not, as the major diphthonging of most of the long vowels didn't really get under way until the 14th and 15th centuries. I'm guessing in particular that the vowel in *⟨öng⟩ and *⟨önk⟩ may have been *[ɵ̞ː], a vowel apparently not otherwise found in the language's phonology at this time.
  • ⟨æ⟩ and ⟨œ⟩ merged, becoming ⟨æ⟩ *[æː].
  • I'm not sure about diphthongs at this point, but I'm guessing that if ⟨œ⟩ had merged into ⟨æ⟩, then the rounding contrast of the first vowel component of ⟨ey⟩ may have also disappeared at this point or possibly earlier, becoming *[e̞y]. I'm further guessing that, if this is indeed the case, then the second vowel component of the diphthong ⟨au⟩ would have had more freedom to start fronting without risking merging with ⟨ey⟩. So what had once been *[ɵ̞u] could have already become *[ɵ̞y] at this point, which would later at some point become modern Icelandic *[ɞi].

The 14th century onward is no longer Old Norse. Like I said, increasingly a lot of guesswork involved in the pronunciation. You can't just merge vowels without adjusting their pronunciations, but it's not always clear what the safest assumption is for those pronunciations. I'm wondering if there are any better, clearer references available on this topic, or if this is about as clear as anyone could reasonably get. And suffice it to say that the common language evolved differently in different places—I mainly reference Iceland because that's where and when both the First Grammatical Treatise and the major Norse mythology texts were compiled. - Gilgamesh (talk) 23:35, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

All right, I know that was extremely longwinded of me, so let me summarize more briefly. If we are to use one "Classical" Norse IPA transcription for the vast majority of Norse spellings that were written after the ⟨á–ǫ́⟩, ⟨ǫ̇́–ȯ́⟩ and ⟨ę–e⟩ mergers and denasalization, I suggest we use this simplified system:

  • ⟨a, e, i, o, ǫ/ö, ø, u, y⟩ [a, e, ɪ, o, ɵ, ø, ʊ, ʏ]
  • ⟨á, æ, é, í, ó, œ, ú, ý⟩ [ɒː, æː, eː, iː, oː, œː, uː, yː]
  • ⟨au, ei, ey⟩ [ɵu, ei, øy]
  • ⟨j, v⟩ [j, w]

Per Hreinn (1959), the distinction between close-mid vowels and open-mid vowels had collapsed, which is why I suggest distinguishing ⟨ǫ–ø⟩ as [ɵ–ø] instead of the oft-assumed [œ–ø]. And when they merge to ⟨ö⟩, I suggest using only [ɵ], since this was not a front vowel by default, and needed a prothetic ⟨j⟩ for changes like ⟨gø⟩ to ⟨gjö⟩. With the disappearing of distinct ⟨ø⟩, it may already be safe to start indicating ⟨ey⟩ as [ey] instead of [øy], and ⟨au⟩ as [ɵy] instead of [ɵu]. And I suggest indicating ⟨œ⟩ as [œː] not for being a mid vowel, but for being an open vowel that was the rounded equivalent of ⟨æ⟩ [æː] and was beginning to merge with it. If you disagree and think we should treat it as a mid vowel, [øː] may be more appropriate, but more importantly there was no mid vs. open distinction for this vowel, so [œː] seems to have the fewest question marks. - Gilgamesh (talk) 13:37, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Let me take a moment to more properly chart those vowels.

First Grammatical Treatise (early 12th c.):

Short monophthongs
Front Back
Unrnd. Rnd.
Close ⟨i⟩ [i] ⟨y⟩ [y] ⟨u⟩ [u]
Close-mid ⟨e, i⟩ [e] ⟨ø⟩ [ø] ⟨o, u⟩ [o]
Open-mid ⟨ę⟩ [ɛ] ⟨ǫ⟩ [ɔ]
Open ⟨a⟩ [ɑ]
Long oral monophthongs
Front Back
Unrnd. Rnd.
Close ⟨í⟩ [iː] ⟨ý⟩ [yː] ⟨ú⟩ [uː]
Close-mid ⟨é⟩ [eː] ⟨œ⟩ [øː] ⟨ó⟩ [oː]
Open-mid ⟨æ⟩ [ɛː] ⟨ǫ́⟩ [ɔː]
Open ⟨á⟩ [ɑː]
Long nasal monophthongs
Front Back
Unrnd. Rnd.
Close ⟨i̇́⟩ [ĩː] ⟨ẏ́⟩ [ỹː] ⟨u̇́⟩ [ũː]
Close-mid ⟨ė́⟩ [ẽː] ⟨œ̇⟩ [ø̃ː] ⟨ȯ́⟩ [õː]
Open-mid ⟨æ̇⟩ [ɛ̃ː] ⟨ǫ̇́⟩ [ɔ̃ː]
Open ⟨ȧ́⟩ [ɑ̃ː]
Diphthongs
Front Back
Unrnd. Rnd.
⟨ei⟩ [ɛi] ⟨ey⟩ [œy] ⟨au⟩ [ɔu]

Mid 12th c.:

Short monophthongs
Front Central Back
Unrnd. Rnd.
Close ⟨i⟩ [ɪ] ⟨y⟩ [ʏ] ⟨u⟩ [ʊ]
Mid ⟨e⟩ [e] ⟨ø⟩ [ø] ⟨ǫ⟩ [ɵ] ⟨o⟩ [o]
Open ⟨a⟩ [a]
Long monophthongs
Front Back
Unrnd. Rnd.
Close ⟨í⟩ [iː] ⟨ý⟩ [yː] ⟨ú⟩ [uː]
Mid ⟨é⟩ [eː] ⟨œ⟩ [œː] ⟨ó⟩ [oː]
Open ⟨æ⟩ [æː] ⟨á⟩ [ɒː]
Diphthongs
Front Non-front
Unrnd. Rnd.
⟨ei⟩ [ei] ⟨ey⟩ [øy] ⟨au⟩ [ɵu]

Late 12th c.:

Short monophthongs
Front Central Back
Unrnd. Rnd.
Close ⟨i⟩ [ɪ] ⟨y⟩ [ʏ] ⟨u⟩ [ʊ]
Mid ⟨e⟩ [e] ⟨ö⟩ [ɵ] ⟨o⟩ [o]
Open ⟨a⟩ [a]

13th c.:

Long monophthongs
Front Back
Unrnd. Rnd.
Close ⟨í⟩ [iː] ⟨ý⟩ [yː] ⟨ú⟩ [uː]
Mid ⟨é⟩ [eː] ⟨ó⟩ [oː]
Open ⟨æ⟩ [æː] ⟨á⟩ [ɒː]
Diphthongs
Front Non-front
Unrnd. Rnd.
⟨ei⟩ [ei] ⟨ey⟩ [ey] ⟨au⟩ [ɵy]

- Gilgamesh (talk) 01:39, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Old West Norse and Old Norse

I move a problematic text here:

(often referred to as Old Norse[1])

I understand what the contributor means. Old Icelandic/Old West Norse has the status of a standard form of Old Norse, and sometimes "Old Norse" refers specifically to that dialect. This is influenced by the fact that modern Norwegian and modern Danish, in contrast to Icelandic and Swedish, use "Norrønt" in this sense. However, Old East Norse is also often referred to as Old Norse, and usually in articles relating to the history of English and Russian where Old East Norse influence is referred to simply as Old Norse. This has to be rephrased to work.--Berig (talk) 15:08, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

@Mårtensås and Berig: There is currently a hatnote at the top of the article telling readers what Old Norse "can also refer" before they even know what it refers to. I think this should be explained in the lead and not before. Srnec (talk) 15:29, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ König, Ekkehard; van der Auwera, Johan, eds. (2002). The Germanic Languages. Routledge. p. 38. ISBN 978-0415280792.

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Extreme West-centrism

This article really needs to distinguish Old Norse (Icelandic/Norwegian) and Old Norse (historical stage of the North Germanic dialect continuum). A lot of the examples and statements are specifically about western dialects but this is not explained at all. I suggest that an article "Old West Norse" should be created, with much of the content on this one moved there. Mårtensås (talk) 21:25, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Map

The map showing viking age distribution of (among other languages) norse branches seems a bit wierd. Surely the coasts should be connected in the inland, at least in southern Norrland by this time? (like for example this page 34) As well, it shows the Norrland coast as simply east norse, despite the actual dialects there exhibiting at least as many western as eastern features, especially in the more archaic place names (and that is of course a "conservative estimate" or how you would say, as western features in Sweden have been out of fashion since the early middle ages). Gösta Holm wrote a shorter text about the southern vs. western influences on Norrland in 1978, concluding that:

The southern half of Norrland has kú, búð, brú as opposed to kó, bóð, bró, at least/especially in (the more archaic) place names and lexicalised compunds.

The entierety of Jämtland-Härjedal has ljóstr, ljóð etc. (as opposed to ljústr, ljúð). To some extent at least, the farther east you go the less words have it (on page 31 in Medelpads folkmål by Vestlund, southeastern Jämtland jó-forms are compared to Medelpad jú-forms) although on the other side of the county border no words in active use the last 100 years have it.

a-breaking isn't as common.

more or less i-umlaut in first person of strong verbs.

However

a-umlaut hasn't affected Norrland much, except for the purely western Härjedal dialects (this has for short-stem words been investigated thoroughly by Torsten Bucht in Äldre u ock o i kort stavelse i mellersta Norrland )

--94.234.39.47 (talk) 05:00, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Names

@Mårtensås Hello, you changed norrǿnt mál from meaning "northern language" to "Norwegian language". There is an inconsistency with this term on the article, with the lead stating that it means something more in line with the former and the body of the article stating it means "Norse language". Do you have any source to support your change to "Norwegian language"? TylerBurden (talk) 14:12, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

No, but this is how it's used in the medieval sources. The law of the West Geats clearly uses noræn to refer to Norwegians, in contrast to svænsker ‘Swedish’ and væstgösker ‘West-Geatish’. Mårtensås (talk) 14:42, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
According to Brittanica, it means northern. There is also this, which says the same thing. Not finding anything on it meaning Norwegian so far. To my understanding "Norse" "Northern" and "Norwegian" have been used somewhat interchangeably which might have lead to the confusion. But unless there is a better source, Brittanica seems to be the best one we have. TylerBurden (talk) 14:58, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
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