Old Norse

	Email		Print
	Bookmark		Link

Old Norse

Old Norse is a North Germanic language

North Germanic languages

The North Germanic languages or Scandinavian languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages, a sub-family of the Indo-European languages, along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages....
that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a historical and geographical subregion in northern Europe that includes the Scandinavian Peninsula. It consists of the kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark; some authorities also include Finland and some might even include Iceland....
and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age

Viking Age

Viking Age is the term for the period in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, spanning the eighth to eleventh centuries....
, until about 1300.

The changing processes that distinguish Old Norse from its older form, Proto-Norse, were mostly concluded around the 8th century and another transitional period that led up to the modern descendants of Old Norse, i.e. the modern North Germanic languages, started in mid- to late 14th century, thereby ending the language phase known as Old Norse.

Discussion

Ask a question about 'Old Norse'

Start a new discussion about 'Old Norse'

Answer questions from other users

Full Discussion Forum

Encyclopedia

Old Norse is a North Germanic language

North Germanic languages

Scandinavia

Viking Age

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries....
and Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic countries on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden has land borders with Norway to the west and Finland to the northeast, and it is connected to Denmark by the ?resund Bridge in the south....
. In texts which date from Medieval Icelandic time, writers wrote with Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian

Old Norwegian

Old Norwegian is a term used for the old Norse language as spoken and written in Norway in the Middle Ages. The term old Norse language refers to the language spoken in the wider old Norse area, in addition to Norway also Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Greenland and other islands in the North Sea....
dialects. These dialects derive from the Old West Norse dialect.

No clear geographical boundary exists between the two dialects. Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway and Old West Norse traits were found in western Sweden.

Old Gutnish
Old Gutnish

Old Gutnish was the dialect of Old Norse language that was spoken on the island of Gotland. It shows sufficient differences from the Old East Norse dialects Old Swedish and Old Danish that it is considered to be a separate branch....
is sometimes included in Old East Norse because it is the least known, third dialect. It shares traits with both Old West Norse and Old East Norse and also has developed on its own.

The Iceland

Iceland

Iceland, officially the Republic of Iceland , is an island country located in the North Atlantic Ocean between mainland Europe and Greenland....
ic Gray Goose Laws
Gray Goose Laws

The Gray Goose Laws were a collection of laws from the Icelandic Commonwealth period consisting of Icelandic civil laws and the laws governing the Christian church in Iceland....
states that Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders and Danes spoke the same language, dnsk tunga. Speakers of the eastern dialect, spoken in Sweden and Denmark, would have said dansk tunga (Danish tongue) or norrønt mál (Nordic language) to name their language.

Gradually, Old Norse splintered into the modern North Germanic languages

North Germanic languages

Icelandic language

Icelandic is a North Germanic languages, the language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese language and Norwegian dialects such as Telemark dialect and Sognam?l....
, Faroese

Faroese language

Faroese , often also spelled Faeroese , is a West Nordic or West Scandinavian language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 12,000 Faroese people in Denmark....
, Norwegian (nynorsk)

Nynorsk

Nynorsk is one of the two official Norwegian language standard languages, the other being Bokm?l. Just above 10% of the Norwegian population use Nynorsk as their primary written language....
, Norwegian (bokmål)

Bokmål

Bokm?l , also known as Riksm?l or Dano-Norwegian, is the more commonly used of the two Norwegian language written standard languages, the other being Nynorsk....
, Danish

Danish language

Danish is one of the North Germanic languages , a sub-group of the Germanic languages branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 6 million people, mainly in Denmark; the language is also used by the 50,000 Danes in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany where it holds the status of minority language....
and Swedish

Swedish language

Swedish is a North Germanic languages language, spoken by around 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the ?land islands....
.

Of the modern languages, Icelandic is the closest to Old Norse. Written modern Icelandic derives from Old Norse the modern Icelandic phoneme

Phoneme

In human language, a phoneme is the smallest posited linguistically distinctive unit of sound. Phonemes carry no semantic content themselves. In theoretical terms, phonemes are not the physical segment s themselves, but cognitive abstractions or categorizations of them....
system. Contemporary Icelandic-speakers can understand written Old Norse, which differs slightly in spelling as well as semantics and word order. However, pronunciation, particularly of the vowel phonemes, has changed at least as much as in the other North Germanic languages.

Faroese retains many similarities but is influenced by Danish, Norwegian, and Gaelic (Scottish and/or Irish). Although Swedish, Danish and the Norwegian languages have diverged the most, they still retain mutual intelligibility

Mutual intelligibility

In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between languages in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand each other without intentional study or extraordinary effort....
, although it is strongly asymmetric. This could be because these languages have been mutually affected by each other, as well as having a similar development influenced by Middle Low German

Middle Low German

Middle Low German is a language that is the descendant of Old Saxon and is the ancestor of modern Low German. It served as the international lingua franca of the Hanseatic League....
.

Another language similar to Old Norse is Elfdalian, spoken in Älvdalen

Älvdalen

?lvdalen is a urban areas of Sweden in Dalarna, Sweden and the seat of ?lvdalen Municipality, Dalarna County.The town is widely known for being the place of manufacturing, in 1839, the 4-meter granite vase , installed in the Summer Garden in Saint Petersburg ....
municipality in Sweden by about 1000-5000 speakers (various sources).

Geographical distribution

Old Icelandic was essentially identical to Old Norwegian

Old Norwegian

Ireland

Ireland is the List of islands by area in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islet....
and Scotland

Scotland

conventional_long_name = ScotlandAlba|common_name= Scotland|image_flag = Flag of Scotland.svg|flag_width = 130px...
. The Old East Norse dialect was spoken in Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries....
and Sweden

Sweden

Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
, England

England

Normandy

Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is situated along the coast of France south of the English Channel between Brittany and Picardy and comprises territory in northern France and the Channel Islands....
. The Old Gutnish

Old Gutnish

Old Gutnish was the dialect of Old Norse language that was spoken on the island of Gotland. It shows sufficient differences from the Old East Norse dialects Old Swedish and Old Danish that it is considered to be a separate branch....
dialect was spoken in Gotland

Gotland

is a Counties of Sweden, Provinces of Sweden and Municipalities of Sweden of Sweden and the largest island in the Baltic Sea. At 3,140 square kilometers in area, it makes up less than one percent of Sweden's total land area....
and in various settlements in the East. In the 11th century, Old Norse was the most widely spoken European language ranging from Vinland

Vinland

Vinland was the name given to an area of North America by the Norsemen Leif Eriksson, about the year A.D. 1001.In 1960 archaeology evidence of the only known Norse colonization of the Americas in North America was found at L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of the island of Newfoundland , in what is now the Canada province of Newfoundl...
in the West to the Volga

Volga River

The Volga is the largest river in Europe in terms of length, Discharge , and Drainage basin. It flows through the western part of Russia, and is widely viewed as the national river of Russia....
in the East. In Russia it survived the longest in Novgorod, probably lasting into the 13th century there.

Modern descendants

Its modern descendants are the West Scandinavian languages of Icelandic

Icelandic language

Icelandic is a North Germanic languages, the language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese language and Norwegian dialects such as Telemark dialect and Sognam?l....
, Faroese

Faroese language

Faroese , often also spelled Faeroese , is a West Nordic or West Scandinavian language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 12,000 Faroese people in Denmark....
, Norwegian

Norwegian language

Norwegian is a North Germanic languages language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language. It is also spoken as a second language among Norwegian-Americans in the United States of America, especially in the central northern states....
and the extinct Norn language

Norn language

Norn is an extinct North Germanic language that was spoken on Shetland and Orkney, off the north coast of mainland Scotland, and in Caithness. After the islands were pledge to Scotland by Norway in the 15th century, it was gradually replaced by Scots language....
of the Orkney and the Shetland Islands

Shetland Islands

Shetland is an archipelago in Scotland, off the northeast coast. The islands lie to the northeast of Orkney, from the Faroe Islands and form part of the division between the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the North Sea to the east....
as well as the East Scandinavian languages of Danish

Danish language

Swedish language

Swedish is a North Germanic languages language, spoken by around 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the ?land islands....
. Norwegian has descended from West Norse (West Scandinavian), but over the centuries it has been heavily influenced by East Norse (East Scandinavian), particularly during the Denmark-Norway union.

Among these, Icelandic and the closely related Faroese have changed the least from Old Norse in the last thousand years, although with Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries....
rule of the Faroe Islands

Faroe Islands

The Faroe Islands or Faeroe Islands or simply Faroe or Faeroes are an island group situated between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately half way between Scotland and Iceland....
Faroese has also been influenced by Danish. Old Norse also had an influence on English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
dialects and particularly Lowland Scots

Scots language

Scots or Lowland Scots refers to the Germanic Variety derived from Middle English spoken in parts of Lowland Scotland, Northern Ireland and the border areas of the Republic of Ireland....
which contains many Old Norse loanword

Loanword

A loanword is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept whereby it is the Meaning or idiom that is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself....
s. It also influenced the development of the Norman language

Norman language

Norman is a Romance languages and one of the Langues d'o?l. The northern Norman can be classified in the septentrional O?l languages with Picard language and Walloon language....
.

Various other languages, which are not closely related, have been heavily influenced by Norse, particularly the Norman dialects, Scottish Gaelic

Scottish Gaelic language

Scottish Gaelic is a member of the Goidelic languages branch of Celtic languages. This branch also includes the Irish language and Manx language languages....
and Waterford

Waterford

Waterford is the primary city of the South East region. Founded in 914 in Ireland AD, by the Vikings, it is Ireland's oldest city. It is the fifth largest city in the country of Republic of Ireland....
Irish Gaelic. Russian

Russian language

Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe....
, Finnish

Finnish language

Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by Finnish people outside of Finland. It is one of the official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden....
and Estonian

Estonian language

Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various ?migr? communities....
also have a number of Norse loanwords; the words "Rus" and "Russia", according to one theory, may be derivatives from "Rus

Rus' (people)

Rus? are the historic population of the medieval Rus' Khaganate and Kievan Rus' whose name survives in the cognates Russians, Rusyns, and Ruthenians, and who are viewed by the modern Belarusians, Russians, and Ukrainians as the predecessors of their own peoples....
", the name of a Norse tribe (see Etymology of Rus and derivatives). Also, the current Finnish and Estonian words for Sweden are Ruotsi and Rootsi respectively.

Phonology

Vowels

The vowel phonemes mostly come in pairs of long and short. The standardized orthography marks the long vowels with an acute accent. In medieval manuscripts, it is variously marked with an accent, unmarked or less frequently geminated. All phonemes have, more or less, the expected phonetic realization.

Vowels of Old Norse
	Front vowels		Back vowels
	Unrounded	Rounded	Unrounded	Rounded
Close
Mid
Open

Some , , , , , and all were obtained by i-mutation

I-mutation

I-mutation is an important type of sound change, more precisely a category of regressive metaphony, in which a back vowel is fronted , and/or a front vowel is Raising , if the following syllable contains /i/, /i/ or /j/ ....
from , , , , , and respectively.

Some , , , , and all , were obtained by u-mutation from , , , , and , respectively.

The long open back rounded vowel /??/ does not appear in Old Norse texts of the classical period. It seems to have existed in an earlier stage of the language, and to have merged with /a?/ before the classical period.

Consonants

Old Norse has six stop phonemes. Of these is rare word-initially and and do not occur between vowels, because of the fricative allophone

Allophone

In phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds that belong to the same phoneme. A phoneme is an abstract unit of speech sound that can distinguish words: That is, changing a phoneme in a word can produce another word....
s of the Proto-Germanic language

Proto-Germanic language

Proto-Germanic, or Common Germanic, as it is sometimes known, is the hypothetical common ancestor of all the Germanic languages such as modern English language, Dutch language, German language, Danish language, Norwegian language, Icelandic language, Faroese language, and Swedish language....
(e.g. *b *[ß] > v between vowels). The phoneme is realized as a voiced velar fricative inside words and wordfinally, except when it is geminated

Gemination

In phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant.Consonant length is distinctive in some languages, for instance Arabic language, Estonian language, Finnish language, Russian language, Hebrew language, Hungarian language, Italian language, Japanese language, L...
.

Stop


Nasal
Fricative
Trill
Approximant
Lateral approximant

The velar fricative is an allophone of and before and .

Orthography

The standardized Old Norse spelling was created in the 19th century, and is for the most part phonemic. The most notable deviation is that the non-phonemic difference between the voiced and the unvoiced dental fricatives is marked - the oldest texts as well as runic inscriptions use 'þ' exclusively. Long vowels are denoted with acutes. Most other letters are written with the same glyph as the IPA phoneme, except as shown in the table below.

There was no standardized orthography in use in the Middle Ages. A modified version of the letter Wynn

Wynn

Wynn was a letter of the Old English alphabet. It was used to represent the sound .While the earliest Old English language texts represent this phoneme with the Digraph , scribes soon borrowed the rune wynn for this purpose....
called Vend

Vend (letter)

Vend is a letter of Old Norse. It was used to represent the sound , , and .It was related to and probably derived from the Old English language letter Wynn , except that the bowl was open on the top, not being connected to the stem, which made it somewhat resemble a letter Y....
was used briefly for the sounds , , and . Long vowels were sometimes marked with acutes, but also sometimes left unmarked or geminated.

Consonants
9th-10th c.	11th-13th c.	12th-14th c.	Standardized West Norse
?	?, ?	p	p
?	?	b	b
?	?	f	f
?	?	f, ff, u, ffu	f
?	?	t	t
?	?	d	d
?	?	þ, th	þ
?	?	þ, th	ð
?	?	s	s
?	?	s, z	z
?	?	k, c	k
?	?	g	g
?	?	g, gh	g
?	?	h	h
?	?	m	m
?	?	n	n
?	?	r	r
?	?	r	r
?	?	l	l
?	?	i	j
?	?	u, w, ?	v

Vowels
9th-10th c.	11th-13th c.	12th-14th c.	Printed West Norse
?	?	i, ii, í	í
?	?	i	i
?	? , ?	i, e, æ	i
?	?	e, ee, é, æ, ææ	é
?, ??	?	e, æ	e
?, ?	?	æ, ææ, e	æ
?, ?	?	e, e	e
?, ?	?	a, aa	á
?, ?	?	a	a
?, ?	?	a, æ	a
?	?, ?	y, yy	ý
?	?, ?	y	y
?	?	ø, øø, ?, o	œ
? , ??	?	ø, o	ø
?	?	u, uu, ú	ú
?	?	u	u
?	?, ?	u, o	u
?	?	o, oo, ó	ó
?	?	o	o
?, ??	?	a, aa, á, ó	á, o´
?, ??	?	W o, o / E a, ø	o
? ?	? ?	iu, iú	jú
? ?	? ?	W io, ió / E iu	jó
? ?	? ?	W io, io / E io, iø	jo
? ?	? ?	ia	ja
??	?? / ?	W ei / E e, ee	e
??	?? / ?	W au / E ø, øø	au
??	?? / ?	W ey / E ø, øø	ey

Grammar

Old Norse was a highly inflected

Inflection

In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as grammatical tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, grammatical aspect, grammatical person, grammatical number, grammatical gender, grammatical case....
language. Most of the grammatical complexity is retained in modern Icelandic, whereas modern Norwegian has a very simplified grammatical system.

Old Norse noun

Noun

In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open class lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition....
s could have three grammatical gender

Grammatical gender

In linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
s – masculine, feminine or neuter. Nouns, adjective

Adjective

In grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntax role is to grammatical modifier a noun or pronoun, giving more information about the noun or pronoun's definition....
s and pronoun

Pronoun

In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun with or without a Determiner , such as Wiktionary:you and Wiktionary:they in English language....
s were declined

Declension

In linguistics, declension is the occurrence of inflection in nouns, pronouns and adjectives, indicating such features as grammatical number , grammatical case , and grammatical gender....
in four grammatical cases – nominative

Nominative case

The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments....
, accusative

Accusative case

The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions....
, genitive

Genitive case

In grammar, the genitive case or possessive case is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun. It often marks a noun as being the possessor of another noun but it can also indicate various relationships other than possession; certain verbs may take argument in the genitive case; and it may have adverbial uses ....
and dative

Dative case

The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. For example, in "John gave a book to Mary"....
, in singular and plural

Plural

Plural is a grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the referent in the real world. In the English language, singular and plural are the only grammatical numbers....
. Some pronouns (first and second person) could have dual number

Dual (grammatical number)

Dual is a grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and plural. When a noun or pronoun appears in dual form, it is interpreted as referring to precisely two of the entities identified by the noun or pronoun....
in addition to singular and plural.

There were several classes of nouns within each gender, the following is an example of some typical inflectional paradigms:

The masculine noun armr (English arm)
Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	armr	armar
Accusative	arm	arma
Genitive	arms	arma
Dative	armi

The feminine noun hll (OWN), hall (OEN) (English hall)
Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative		hallir/hallar (OEN)
Accusative		hallir/hallar (OEN)
Genitive	hallar	halla
Dative

The neuter noun troll (English troll):
Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	troll	troll
Accusative	troll	troll
Genitive	trolls	trolla
Dative	trolli	trollum

The definite article was expressed as a suffix, e.g. troll (a troll) – trollit (the troll), hll ( a hall) – hllin (the hall), armr (an arm) – armrinn (the arm).

Verb

Verbs were conjugated

Grammatical conjugation

In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb, noun or adjective from its principal parts by inflection . Conjugation may be affected by grammatical person, grammatical number, grammatical gender, grammatical tense, Grammatical aspect, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, or other grammatical category....
in person and number, in present and past tense, in indicative, imperative and subjunctive

Subjunctive mood

In grammar, the subjunctive mood is a verb grammatical mood that exists in many languages. It is typically used in dependent clauses to express wishes, commands, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or statements that are contrary to fact at present....
mood

Grammatical mood

Grammatical mood is one of a set of distinctive verb forms that are used to signal Linguistic modality.It is distinct from grammatical tense or grammatical aspect, although these concepts are conflated to some degree in many languages, including English and most other modern Indo-European languages, insofar as the same word patterns are used...
.

VERBS
A. WEAK VERBS Germanic weak verb In Germanic languages, including English language, weak verbs are by far the largest group of verbs, which are therefore often regarded as the norm, though historically they are not the oldest or most original group.... , i.e. Verbs in which the preterite is formed by adding a termination.
				1st Conjugation characteristic vowel a		2nd Conjugation characteristic vowel i		3rd Conjugation characteristic vowel i		4th Conjugation characteristic vowel i
INDIC.	Pres.	Sing.	1.	boð-a	kall-a	dœm-i	fylg-i	gleð	spyr	vak-i	dug-i
			2.	boð-ar	kall-ar	dœm-ir	fylg-ir	gleð-r	spyr-r	vak-ir	dug-ir
			3.	boð-ar	kall-ar	dœm-ir	fylg-ir	gleð-r	spyr-r	vak-ir	dug-ir
		Plur.	1.	boð-um	koll-um	dœm-um	fylg-jum	gleð-jum	spyr-jum	vok-um	dug-um
			2.	boð-ið (-it)	kall-ið	dœm-ið	fylg-ið	gleð-ið	spyr-ið	vak-ið	dug-ið
			3.	boð-a	kall-a	dœm-a	fylg-ja	gleð-ja	spyr-ja	vak-a	dug-a
	Pret.	Sing.	1.	boð-aða	kall-aða	dœm-da	fylg-da	glad-da	spur-ða	vak-ta	dug-ða
			2.	boð-aðir	kall-aðir	dœm-dir	fylg-dir	glad-dir	spur-ðir	vak-tir	dug-ðir
			3.	boð-aði	kall-aði	dœm-di	fylg-di	glad-di	spur-ði	vak-ti	dug-ði
		Plur.	1.	boð-uðum	koll-uðum	dœm-dum	fylg-dum	glod-dum	spur-ðum	vok-tum	dug-ðum
			2.	boð-uðuð	koll-uðuð	dœm-duð	fylg-duð	glod-duð	spur-ðuð	vok-tuð	dug-ðuð
			3.	boð-uðu	koll-uðu	dœm-du	fylg-du	glod-du	spur-ðu	vok-tu	dug-ðu
IMPERAT.				boð-a	kall-a	dœm	fylg	gleð	spyr	vak (vak-i)	dug (dug-i)
SUBJ.	Pres.	Sing.	1.	boð-a	kall-a	dœm-a	fylg-ja	gleð-ja	spyr-ja	vak-a	dug-a
			2.	boð-ir	kall-ir	dœm-ir	fylg-ir	gleð-ir	spyr-ir	vak-ir	dug-ir
			3.	boð-i	kall-i	dœm-i	fylg-i	gleð-i	spyr-i	vak-i	dug-i
		Plur.	1.	boð-im	kall-im	dœm-im	fylg-im	gleð-im	spyr-im	vak-im	dug-im
			2.	boð-ið	kall-ið	dœm-ið	fylg-ið	gleð-ið	spyr-ið	vak-ið	dug-ið
			3.	boð-i	kall-i	dœm-i	fylg-i	gleð-i	spyr-i	vak-i	dug-i
	Pret.	Sing.	1.	boð-aða	kall-aða	dœm-da	fylg-da	gled-da	spyr-ða	vek-ta	dyg-ða
			2.	boð-aðir	kall-aðir	dœm-dir	fylg-dir	gled-dir	spyr-ðir	vek-tir	dyg-ðir
			3.	boð-aði	kall-aði	dœm-di	fylg-di	gled-di	spyr-ði	vek-ti	dyg-ði
		Plur.	1.	boð-aðim	kall-aðim	dœm-dim	fylg-dim	gled-dim	spyr-ðim	vek-tim	dyg-ðim
			2.	boð-aðið	kall-aðið	dœm-dið	fylg-dið	gled-dið	spyr-ðið	vek-tið	dyg-ðið
			3.	boð-aði	kall-aði	dœm-di	fylg-di	gled-di	spyr-ði	vek-ti	dyg-ði
INFIN.				boð-a	kall-a	dœm-a	fylg-ja	gleð-ja	spyr-ja	vak-a	dug-a
PART.	Act.			boð-andi	kall-andi	dœm-andi	fylg-jandi	gleð-jandi	spyr-jandi	vak-andi	dug-andi
PART.	Pass.	Masc.		boð-aðr	kall-aðr	dœm-dr		glad-dr	spur-ðr
		Fem.		boð-uð	koll-uð	dœm-d		glod-d	spur-ð
		Neut.		boð-at	kall-at	dœm-t	fylg-t	glat-t	spur-t	vak-at	dug-at

B. STRONG VERBS Germanic strong verb In the Germanic languages, a strong verb is one which marks its past tense by means of Indo-European ablaut. In English, these are verbs like sing, sang, sung.... , i.e. Verbs in which the Preterite and Participle Passive are formed by changing the Root Vowel.
				1st Class	2nd Class	3rd Class	4th Class	5th and 6th Class		7th Class
Ablaut patterns				i (e) : a : u	í : ei : i	jó : au : u.	a : ó : a	e : a : á : e / o		á (a): é (e) : á (a) au : jó : au
INDIC.	Pres.	Sing.	1.	brenn	rís	býð	fer	gef	ber	græt	hleyp
			2.	brenn-r	rís-s	býð-r	fer-r	gef-r	ber-r	græt-r	hleyp-r
			3.	brenn-r	rís-s	býð-r	fer-r	gef-r	ber-r	græt-r	hleyp-r
		Plur.	1.	brenn-um	rís-um	bjóð-um	for-um	gef-um	ber-um	grát-um	hlaup-um
			2.	brenn-ið	rís-ið	bjóð-ið	far-ið	gef-ið	ber-ið	grát-ið	hlaup-ið
			3.	brenn-a	rís-a	bjóð-a	far-a	gef-a	ber-a	grát-a	hlaup-a
	Pret.	Sing.	1.	brann	reis	bauð	fór	gaf	bar	grét	hljóp
			2.	brann-t	reis-t	baut-t	fór-t	gaf-t	bar-t	grét-st	hljóp-t
			3.	brann	reis	bauð	fór	gaf	bar	grét	hljóp
		Plur.	1.	brunn-um	ris-um	buð-um	fór-um	gáf-um	bár-um	grét-um	hljóp-um
			2.	brunn-uð	ris-uð	buð-uð	fór-uð	gáf-uð	bár-uð	grét-uð	hljóp-uð
			3.	brunn-u	ris-u	buð-u	fór-u	gáf-u	bár-u	grét-u	hljóp-u
IMPERAT.				brenn	rís	bjóð	far	gef	ber	grát	hlaup
SUBJ.	Pres.	Sing.	1	brenn-a	rís-a	bjóð-a	far-a	gef-a	ber-a	grát-a	hlaup-a
			2.	brenn-ir	rís-ir	bjóð-ir	far-ir	gef-ir	ber-ir	grát-ir	hlaup-ir
			3.	brenn-i	rís-i	bjóð-i	far-i	gef-i	ber-i	grát-i	hlaup-i
		Plur.	1.	brenn-im	rís-im	bjóð-im	far-im	gef-im	ber-im	grát-im	hlaup-im
			2.	brenn-ið	rís-ið	bjóð-ið	far-ið	gef-ið	ber-ið	grát-ið	hlaup-ið
			3.	brenn-i	rís-i	bjóð-i	far-i	gef-i	ber-i	grát-i	hlaup-i
	Pret.	Sing.	1.	brynn-a	ris-a	byð-a	fœr-a	gæf-a	bær-a	grét-a	hlyp-a
			2.	brynn-ir	ris-ir	byð-ir	fœr-ir	gæf-ir	bær-ir	grét-ir	hlyp-ir
			3.	brynn-i	ris-i	byð-i	fœr-i	gæf-i	bær-i	grét-i	hlyp-i
		Plur.	1.	brynn-im	ris-im	byð-im	fœr-im	gæf-im	bær-im	grét-im	hlyp-im
			2.	brynn-ið	ris-ið	byð-ið	fœr-ið	gæf-ið	bær-ið	grét-ið	hlyp-ið
			3.	brynn-i	ris-i	byð-i	fœr-i	gæf-i	bær-i	grét-i	hlyp-i
INFIN.				brenn-a	rís-a	bjóð-a	far-a	gef-a	ber-a	grát-a	hlaup-a
PART.	Act.			brenn-andi	rís-andi	bjóð-andi	far-andi	gef-andi	ber-andi	grát-andi	hlaup-andi
PART.	Pass.	Masc.		brunn-inn	ris-inn	boð-inn	far-inn	gef-inn	bor-inn	grát-inn	hlaup-inn
		Fem.		brunn-in	ris-in	boð-in	far-in	gef-in	bor-in	grát-in	hlaup-in
		Neut.		brunn-it	ris-it	boð-it	far-it	gef-it	bor-it	grát-it	hlaup-it

THE VERB SUBSTANTIVE Indo-European copula A feature common to all Indo-European languages is the presence of a verb corresponding to the English language verb to be.General features...
INDIC.	Pres.	Sing.	1.	em	Pret.	var (vas)	IMPERAT.		SUBJ.	Pres.	sjá,	sé	Pret.	vær-a	INFIN.	ver-a	PAST PART.	ver-it
			2.	er-t		var-t		ver (ver-tu)				sé-r		vær-ir
			3.	er (es)		var (vas)						sé		vær-i
		Plur.	1.	er-um		vár-um						sé-m		vær-im
			2.	er-uð		vár-uð		verið				sé-ð		vær-ið
			3	er-u		vár-u						sé		vær-i

TEN VERBS WITH PRESENT IN PRETERITE FORM Preterite-present verb The so-called preterite-present verbs are a small group of anomalous verbs in the Germanic languages in which the present tense shows the form of the strong preterite.... .
INDIC.	Pres.	Sing.	1.	á	kná	má	skal	kann	mun (mon)	man	þarf	ann	veit
			2.	á-tt	kná-tt	má-tt	skal-t	kann-t	mun-t	man-t	þarf-t	ann-t	veiz-t
			3.	á	kná	má	skal	kann	mun	man	þarf	ann	veit
		Plur.	1.	eig-um	kneg-um	meg-um	skul-um	kunn-um	mun-um	mun-um	þurf-um	unn-um	vit-um
			2.	eig-uð	kneg-uð	meg-uð	skul-uð	kunn-uð	mun-uð	mun-ið	þurf-ið	unn-ið	vit-uð
			3.	eig-u	kneg-u	meg-u	skul-u	kunn-u	mun-u	mun-a	þurf-a	unn-a	vit-u
	Pret.	Sing.	1.	á-tta	kná-tta	má-tta		kunn-a	mun-da	mun-da	þurf-a	unn-a	vis-sa
				as regular weak verbs
IMPERAT.				eig				kunn		mun		unn	vit
SUBJ.	Pres.	Sing.	1.	eig-a	kneg-a	meg-a	skyl-a	kunn-a	myn-a	mun-a	þurf-a	unn-a	vit-a
				as regular weak verbs
	Pret.	Sing.	1.	ætt-a	knætt-a	mætt-a	skyl-da	kynn-a	myn-da	myn-da	þyrf-ta	ynn-a	vis-sa
				as regular weak verbs
INFIN.	Pres.			eig-a		meg-a	skyl-u	kunn-a	mun-u	mun-a	þurf-a	unn-a	vit-a
INFIN.	Pret.				knúttu		skyl-du		mun-du
PART.	Act.			eig-andi		meg-andi		kunn-andi		mun-andi	þurf-andi	unn-andi	vit-andi
PART.	Pass.	Neut.		ú-tt		má-tt		kunn-at		mun-at	þurf-t	unn-(a)t	vit-at

*EIGHT VERBS WITH THE PRETERITE IN -ra.*
INDIC.	Pres.	Sing.	3.	rœ-r	grœ-r	sæ-r	gný-r	sný-r	frý-r	kýs-s	slæ-r	veld-r
	Pres.	Plur.	3.	ró-a	gró-a	sá	gnú-a	snú-a	frjós-a	kjós-a	slá	vald-a
	Pret.	Sing.	3.	rø-ri	grø-ri	sø-ri	gnø-ri	snø-ri	frø-ri	kø-ri	slø-ri	ol-li
	Pret.	Sing.	3.	(or re-ri	gre-ri	se-ri	gne-ri	sne-ri	fre-ri	ke-ri	sle-ri)
IMPERAT.				ró	gró	sá	gnú	snú	frjó-s	kjós	slá	vald
SUBJ.	Pret.	Sing.	3.	rø-ri	grø-ri	sø-ri	gnø-ri	snø-ri	frø-ri	kø-ri	slø-ri	yll-i
INFIN.				ró-a	gró-a	sá	gnú-a	snú-a	frjós-a	kjós-a	slá	vald-a
PART.	Pass.			ró-inn	gró-inn	sá-inn	gnú-inn	snú-inn	fros-inn	kos-inn	sleg-inn	vald-it
									frør-inn	kør-inn

D. VERBS WITH THE REFLEXIVE Reflexive verb In grammar, a reflexive verb is a verb whose semantic Theta role are the same. For example, the English language verb to perjure is reflexive, since one can only perjure oneself.... OR RECIPROCAL Reciprocal (grammar) A reciprocal is a Linguistics structure that marks a particular kind of relationship between two noun phrases. In a reciprocal construction, each of the thematic role occupies both the role of agent and patient with respect to each other.... SUFFIX -sk, -z, -st (-mk).
				Present.		Preterite.		Present.		Preterite.
				Indic.	Subj.	Indic.	Subj.	Indic.	Subj.	Indic.	Subj.
		Sing.	1.	kalla-st	kalli-st	kallaði-st	kallaði-st	læzt	láti-st	lézt	léti-st
			2.	kalla-st	kalli-st	kallaði-st	kallaði-st	læzt	láti-st	lézt	léti-st
			3.	kalla-st	kalli-st	kallaði-st	kallaði-st	læzt	láti-st	lézt	léti-st
		Plur.	1.	kollu-mk	kalli-mk	kolluðu-mk	kallaði-mk	látu-mk	láti-mk	létu-mk	léti-mk
			2.	kalli-zt	kalli-zt	kolluðu-zt	kallaði-zt	láti-zt	láti-zt	létu-zt	léti-zt
			3.	kalla-st	kalli-st	kolluðu-st	kallaði-st	láta-st	láti-st	létu-st	léti-st
PART.	Pass.	Neut.		kalla-zt, láti-zt, (glað-zt, gefi-zt, bori-zt,) etc.

E. VERBS WITH THE NEGATIVE SUFFIX.
			Pres.	Pret.	Pres.	Pret.	Pres.	Pret.	Pres.	Pret.
INDIC.	Sing.	1.	em-k-at	var-k-at(vas-k-at)	skal-k-at	skyldi-g-a	mon-k-a	mundi-g-a	hyk-k-at	átti-g-a
		2.	ert-at-tu	vart-at-tu	skalt-at-tu	skyldir-a	mont-at-tu	mundir-a	hyggr-at	áttir-a
		3.	er-at (es-at)	var-at (vas-at)	skal-at	skyldi-t	mon-at	mundi-t	hyggr-at	átti-t
	Plur.	3.	eru-t	váru-t	skulu-t	skyldu-t	monu-t	mundi-t	hyggja-t	áttu-t
IMPERAT.			ver-at-tu (be not thou!), lát-at-tu (let not thou!), grát-at-tu (weep not thou!), etc.

Texts

The earliest inscriptions in Old Norse are runic

Runic alphabet

The runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using Letter known as runes to write various Germanic languages prior to the adoption of the Latin alphabet and for specialized purposes thereafter....
, from the 8th century. Runes continued to be commonly used until the 15th century and have been recorded to be in use in some form as late as the 19th century in some parts of Sweden. With the conversion to Christianity in the 11th century came the Latin alphabet

Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
. The oldest preserved texts in Old Norse in the Latin alphabet date from the middle of the 12th century. Subsequently, Old Norse became the vehicle of a large and varied body of vernacular

Vernacular

Vernacular refers to the native language of a country or a locality. In general linguistics, it is used to describe local languages as opposed to Lingua franca, official standards or global languages....
literature, unique in medieval Europe. Most of the surviving literature was written in Iceland. Best known are the Norse saga

Norse saga

The sagas , are stories about ancient Scandinavia and Germanic tribes history, about early Viking voyages, about migration to Iceland, and of feuds between Icelandic families....
s, the Icelanders' sagas

Icelanders' sagas

The Sagas of Icelanders —many of which are also known as family sagas—are prose history mostly describing events that took place in Iceland in the 10th and early 11th centuries....
and the mythological literature, but there also survives a large body of religious literature, translations into Old Norse of courtly romances, classical mythology, the Old Testament, as well as instructional material, grammatical treatises and a large body of letters and official documents.

Relationship to English

Old English and Old Norse were closely related languages, and it is therefore not surprising that many words in Old Norse look familiar to English speakers, e.g. armr (arm), fótr (foot), land (land), fullr (full), hanga (to hang), standa (to stand), etc. This is because both English and Old Norse date back to Proto-Germanic. In addition, a large number of common, everyday Old Norse words mainly of East Norse origin were adopted into the Old English language during the Viking age. A few examples of Old Norse loanword

Loanword

A loanword is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept whereby it is the Meaning or idiom that is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself....
s in modern English are (English/Viking age Old East Norse):

Nouns – anger (angr), bag (baggi), bait (bæit, bæita, bæiti), band (band), bark (brkR, stem bark-), birth (byrðr), dirt (drit), dregs (dræggiaR), egg (ægg, related to OE. cognate "æg" which became Middle English "eye"/"eai"), fellow (félagi), gap (gap), husband (húsbóndi), cake (kaka), keel (kilR, stem also kial-, kil-), kid (kið), knife (knífR), law (lg, stem lag-), leg (læggR), link (hlænkR), loan (lán), race (rs, stem rás-), root (rót), sale (sala), scrap (skrap), seat (sæti), sister (systir, related to OE. cognate "sweostor"), skill (skial/skil), skin (skinn), skirt (skyrta vs. the native English shirt of the same root), sky (ský), slaughter (slátr), snare (snara), steak (stæik), thrift (þrift), tidings (tíðindi), trust (traust), window (vindauga), wing (væ(i)ngR)
Verbs – are (er, displacing OE cognate "sind") blend (blanda), call (kalla), cast (kasta), clip (klippa), crawl (krafla), cut (possibly from ON kuta), die (døyia), gasp (gæispa), get (geta), give (gifa/gefa, related to OE. cognate "giefan"), glitter (glitra), hit (hitta), lift (lyfta), raise (ræisa), ransack (rannsaka), rid (ryðia), run (rinna, stem rinn-/rann-/runn-, related to OE. cognate "rinnan"), scare (skirra), scrape (skrapa), seem (søma), sprint (sprinta), take (taka), thrive (þrífa(s)), thrust (þrysta), want (vanta)
Adjectives – flat (flatr), happy (happ), ill (illr), likely (líklígR), loose (lauss), low (lágR), meek (miúkR), odd (odda), rotten (rotinn/rutinn), scant (skamt), sly (sløgR), weak (væikR), wrong (vrangR)
Adverbs – thwart/athwart (þvert)
Prepositions – till (til), fro (frá)
Conjunction – though/tho (þó)
Interjection – hail (hæill), wassail (ves hæill)
Personal pronoun – they (þæiR), their (þæiRa), them (þæim) (for which the Anglo-Saxons said híe, hiera, him)
Prenominal adjectives – same (sami)

In a simple sentence like "They are both weak" the extent of the Old Norse loanwords becomes quite clear (Old East Norse with archaic pronunciation: "ÞæiR eRu báðiR wæikiR" while Old English "híe syndon bégen (þá) wáce"). The words "they" and "weak" are both borrowed from Old Norse, and the word "both" might also be a borrowing, though this is still disputed by some. While the number of loanwords adopted from the Scandinavians wasn't as numerous as that of Norman French or Latin, their depth and every day nature make them a substantial and very important part of every day English speech as they are part of the very core of the modern English vocabulary.

Words like "bull" and "Thursday" are more difficult when it comes to their origins. "Bull" may be from either Old English "bula" or Old Norse "buli" while "Thursday" may be a borrowing, or it could simply be from the Old English "Þunresdæg" which could have been influenced by the Old Norse cognate. The word "are" is from Old English "earun"/"aron" as well as the Old Norse cognates.

Dialects

As Proto-Norse evolved into Old Norse, in the 8th century, the effects of the umlauts

Germanic umlaut

In linguistics, umlaut is a process whereby a vowel is pronounced more like a vowel or semivowel in a following syllable.The term umlaut was originally coined and is principally used in connection with the study of the Germanic languages....
seem to have been very much the same over the whole Old Norse area. But in later dialects of the language a split occurred mainly between west and east as the use of umlauts began to vary. The typical umlauts (for example fylla from *fullian) were better preserved in the West due to later generalizations in the east where many instances of umlaut were removed (many archaic Eastern texts as well as eastern runic inscriptions however portray the same extent of umlauts as in later Western Old Norse). All the while the changes resulting in breaking

Breaking (linguistics)

In historical linguistics, vowel breaking is the change of a monophthong into a diphthong or triphthong....
(for example hiarta from *herto) were more influential in the East probably once again due to generalizations within the inflectional system. This difference was one of the greatest reasons behind the dialectalization that took place in the 9th and 10th centuries shaping an Old West Norse dialect in Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a constitutional monarchy in Northern Europe that occupies the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula....
and the Atlantic settlements and an Old East Norse dialect in Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries....
and Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic countries on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden has land borders with Norway to the west and Finland to the northeast, and it is connected to Denmark by the ?resund Bridge in the south....
.

A second difference was that Old West Norse lost certain combinations of consonants. The combinations -mp-, -nt-, and -nk- were assimilated into -pp-, -tt- and -kk- in Old West Norse, but this phenomenon was limited in Old East Norse.

English	Old West Norse	Old East Norse
mushroom steep widow	brattr ekkja	svamper branter ænkia

However, these differences were an exception. The dialects were very similar and considered to be the same language, a language that they sometimes called the Danish tongue (dnsk tunga), sometimes Norse language (norrœnt mál), as evidenced in the following two quotes from Heimskringla

Heimskringla

Heimskringla is the best known of the Old Norse kings' sagas. It was written in Old Norse in Iceland by the poet and historian Snorri Sturluson ca....
by Snorri Sturluson

Snorri Sturluson

Snorri Sturluson was an Icelandic historian, poet and politician. He was two-time elected lawspeaker at the Icelandic parliament, the Althing....
:

Móðir Dyggva var Drótt, dóttir Danps konungs, sonar Rígs er fyrstr var konungr kallaðr á danska tungu. Dyggve

Dyggve

Dyggvi or Dyggve was a Norse mythology Sweden king of the House of Ynglings. He died in bed and never reached Valhalla. Instead he went to Hel , Loki's daughter, who acquired a husband of royal blood....
's mother was Drott

Drott

*Druhtinaz is a Common Germanic?term meaning "lord", properly designating a military leader?or warlord. After Germanic Christianity, the term began to be used for God both in English and in the Scandinavian languages....
, the daughter of king Danp, Ríg

Rig

Rig may refer to:* Rig , a musical group of the early 1970s*Rig, Afghanistan* Rig, the configuration of sails and other rigging on a sailing vessel...
's son, who was the first to be called king in the Danish tongue.

…stirt var honum norrœnt mál, ok kylfdi mJk til orðanna, ok hfðu margir menn þat mJk at spotti. …the Norse language was hard for him, and he often fumbled for words, which amused people greatly.

Here is a comparison between the two dialects as well as Old Gutnish. It is a transcription from one of the Funbo Runestones

Funbo Runestones

The Funbo runestones constitute a group of four remaining runestones, from Funbo in the Swedish province of Uppland, and which were raised by members of the same family, in the eleventh century....
(U990) meaning : Veðr and Thane and Gunnar raised this stone after Haursi, their father. God help his spirit:

Veðr ok Þegn ok Gunnarr reistu stein þenna at Haursa, fður sinn. Guð hjalpi nd hans. (OWN)

Veðr ok Þegn ok Gunnarr ræistu stæin þenna at Haursa, faður sinn. Guð hialpi and hans (OEN)

Veðr ok Þegn ok Gunnarr raistu stain þenna at Haursa, faður sinn. Guð hialpi and hans (OG)

The OEN original text above is transliterated according to traditional scholar methods meaning u-umlaut is not regarded in runic Old East Norse even though more recent studies have shown that the positions where it applies are the same as for runic Old West Norse. An alternative and probably more accurate transliteration would therefore render the text in OEN as such:

Veðr ok Þegn ok Gunnarr ræistu stæin þenna at Haursa, fður sinn. Guð hialpi nd hans (OEN)

Old West Norse

Most of the innovations that appeared in Old Norse spread evenly through the Old Norse area, but some were geographically limited and created a dialectal difference between Old West Norse and Old East Norse. One difference was that Old West Norse and Old Gutnish did not take part in the monophthongization which changed æi (ei) into e, øy (ey) and au into . An early difference was that Old West Norse had the forms bú (dwelling), kú (accusative for cow) and trú (faith) whereas Old East Norse had bo, ko and tro. Old West Norse was also characterized by the preservation of u-umlaut, which meant that for example Proto-Norse

Proto-Norse language

Proto-Norse was an Indo-European languages language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved from Proto-Germanic language over the first centuries AD....
*tanþu (tooth) was pronounced tnn and not tann as in post runic Old East Norse (compare runic OEN (Swedish) gs (goose), OWN gs while post runic OEN gas). Moreoever, there were nasal assimilations as in bekkr (bench) from Proto-Norse *bankiR (OEN bænker).

The earliest body of text appears in runic inscriptions and in poems composed ca 900 by Tjodolf of Hvin. The earliest manuscripts are from the period 1150-1200 and concern both legal, religious and historical matters. During the 12th and 13th centuries, Trøndelag

Trøndelag

Tr?ndelag is the name of a geographical region in the central part of Norway, consisting of the two counties Nord-Tr?ndelag and S?r-Tr?ndelag. The name, Tr?ndelag, consists of the tribal name Tr?nder and the word lag , meaning the "area of the law of the Tr?nders" ....
and Vestlandet

Vestlandet

Western Norway is the Regions of Norway along the Atlantic coast of southern Norway. It consists of the Counties of Norway Rogaland, Hordaland, Sogn og Fjordane, and M?re og Romsdal, altogether 1.2 million people....
were the most important areas of the Norwegian kingdom and they shaped Old West Norse as an archaic language with a rich set of declensions. In the body of text that has come down to us from until ca 1300, Old West Norse had little dialect variation, and Old Icelandic does not diverge much more than the Old Norwegian

Old Norwegian

Black Death

The Black Death, was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history, widely thought to have been caused by a bacterium named Yersinia pestis , but recently attributed by some factors to other diseases....
and following social upheavals seem to have accelerated language changes in Norway. From the late 14th century, the language used in Norway is generally referred to as Middle Norwegian.

Text example

The following text is from Egils saga

Egils saga

Egils saga is an Epic poetry Icelandic saga possibly by Snorri Sturluson , who may have written the account between the years 1220 and 1240 AD....
. The manuscript is the oldest known for that saga, the so called ?-fragment from the 13th century. The text clearly shows how little Icelandic has changed structurally. The last version is legitimate Modern Icelandic, although nothing has been altered but the spelling. The text also demonstrates, however, that a modern reader might have difficulties with the unaltered manuscript text, to say nothing of the lettering.

The manuscript text, letter for letter	The same text in normalized, Old Norse spelling	The same text in Modern Icelandic Icelandic language Icelandic is a North Germanic languages, the language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese language and Norwegian dialects such as Telemark dialect and Sognam?l....
	Þorgeirr blundr, systursonr Egils, var þar á þinginu ok hafði gengit hart at liðveizlu við Þorstein. Hann bað Egil ok þá Þorstein koma sér til staðfestu út þangat á Mýrar; hann bjó áðr fyrir sunnan Hvítá, fyrir neðan Blundsvatn. Egill tók vel á því ok fýsti Þorstein, at þeir léti hann þangat fara. Egill setti Þorgeir blund niðr at Ánabrekku, en Steinarr fœrði bústað sinn út yfir Langá ok settisk niðr at Leirulæk. En Egill reið heim suðr á Nes eptir þingit með flokk sinn, ok skildusk þeir feðgar með kærleik.	Þorgeir blundur, systursonur Egils, var þar á þinginu og hafði gengið hart að liðveislu við Þorstein. Hann bað Egil og þá Þorstein að koma sér til staðfestu út þangað á Mýrar; hann bjó áður fyrir sunnan Hvítá, fyrir neðan Blundsvatn. Egill tók vel á því og fýsti Þorstein, að þeir létu hann þangað fara. Egill setti Þorgeir blund niður að Ánabrekku, en Steinar færði bústað sinn út yfir Langá og settist niður að Leirulæk. En Egill reið heim suður á Nes eftir þingið með flokk sinn, og skildust þeir feðgar með kærleik.

Old East Norse

Old East Norse, between 800 and 1100, is in Sweden called Runic Swedish and in Denmark Runic Danish, but the use of Swedish and Danish is not for linguistic reasons as the differences between them are minute at best during the more ancient stages of this dialect group (though changes had a tendency to occur earlier in the Danish region and until this day many Old Danish changes have still not taken place in modern Swedish rendering Swedish as the more archaic out of the two concerning both the ancient as well as modern languages, sometimes by a profound margin but in all differences are still minute). They are called runic because the body of text appears in the runic alphabet

Runic alphabet

Proto-Norse language

Proto-Norse was an Indo-European languages language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved from Proto-Germanic language over the first centuries AD....
, which was written with the Elder Futhark

Elder Futhark

The Elder Futhark is the oldest form of the runic alphabet, used by Germanic tribes for Northwest Germanic and Migration period Germanic dialects of the 2nd to 8th centuries for inscriptions on artifacts and runestones....
, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark

Younger Futhark

The Younger Futhark, also called Scandinavian runes, is a runic alphabet, a reduced form of the Elder Futhark, consisting of only 16 characters, in use from ca....
, which only had 16 letters. Because of the limited number of runes, the rune for the vowel u was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i was used for e.

Runic Old East Norse is characteristic of being archaic in form, especially Swedish (which is still true for modern Swedish compared to Danish). In essence it corresponds to or surpasses the archaic structure of post runic Old West Norse which in its turn is generally more archaic than post runic Old East Norse. While typically "Eastern" in structure many later post runic changes and trademarks of EON had yet to happen. At the end of the 10th and early 11th century initial -h before -l, -n and -r was still preserved in the middle and northern parts of Sweden, and is sporadically still preserved in some northern dialects as g-, e.g. gly (lukewarm), from hlýR. The phoneme -R (evolved during the Proto-Norse period from -z) was still clearly separated from -r in most positions, even when being geminated (while in OWN it had already merged with -r) and the monophthongization of æi and øy/au into and respectively had yet to take place: (runic OEN) fæigR (PN *faigiaz; bound to die; dead), gæiRR (PN *gaizaz; spear), haugR (PN *haugaz; mound, pile), møydomR (PN *mawi- + domaz; virginity), diuR (PN *diuza; (wild) animal) while OWN feigr, geirr, haugr, meydómr, dýr (post runic OEN fegher, ger, hø¯gher, mø¯domber, diur). The combinations -mp-, -nt-, and -nk- were often preserved while merging into -pp-, -tt- and -kk- in Old West Norse: (runic OEN) *krimpa, (Proto-Norse

Proto-Norse language

Proto-Norse was an Indo-European languages language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved from Proto-Germanic language over the first centuries AD....
*krimpan) *sprinta, (PN *sprintan) *sænkva (PN *sankwian) while OWN kreppa, spretta and søkkva (modern Swedish krympa, sprinta (dialect), sänka, modern Danish krympe, sprinte, sænke; to shrink, to sprint, to sink (transitive; compare intransitive "*sionkva" while OWN "søkkva" for both variations)). Feminine o-stems often preserve the plural ending -aR while in OWN they more often merge with the feminine i-stems: (runic OEN) *solaR, *hafnaR/*hamnaR, *vagaR while OWN sólir, hafnir and vágir (modern Swedish solar, hamnar, vågar; suns, havens, scales; Danish has mainly lost the distinction between the two stems with both endings now being rendered as -er or -e alternatively for the o-stems). OEN often preserves the original value of the vowel directly preceding runic R while OWN receives R-umlaut (resulting in the same change as with i-umlaut): (runic OEN) *glaR, *haRi and hrauR while OWN gler, heri (later héri) and hrøyrr/hreyrr (modern Swedish glar (older form), hare, rör; glass, hare, pile of rocks). u-umlaut is still preserved in both phonemic and allophonic positions like in post runic Old West Norse (while sparsely preserved in post runic OEN): fður (accusative), vrðr and rn (post runic Swedish faþur, varþer, örn (u-umlaut preserved); father, guardian/care taking, eagle). The plural ending of ja-stems were mostly preserved while those of OWN often acquired that of the i-stems: *bæðiaR, *bækkiaR, *væfiaR while OWN beðir, bekkir, vefir (modern Swedish bäddar, bäckar, vävar; beds, rivers, webs). Vice versa masculine i-stems with the root ending in either g or k tended to shift the plural ending to that of the ja-stems while OWN kept the original: drængiaR, *ælgiaR and *bænkiaR while OWN drengir, elgir and bekkir (modern Swedish drängar (new meaning), älgar, bänkar; lads (farmhands), elks, benches).

Until the early 12th century, Old East Norse was very much a uniform dialect. It was in Denmark that the first innovations appeared that would differentiate Old Danish from Old Swedish as these innovations spread north unevenly (unlike the earlier changes that spread more evenly over the East Norse area) creating a series of isogloss
Isogloss

An isogloss is the geographical boundary or delineation of a certain linguistics feature, e.g. the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or use of some syntactic feature....
es going from Zealand
Zealand

Zealand is the largest island of Denmark and the List of islands by area. Zealand is connected to Funen by the Great Belt Bridge and to Sweden by the Oresund Bridge....
to Svealand
Svealand

Svealand or Sweden Proper is the historical core Lands of Sweden of Sweden. It is located in south central Sweden, bounded to the north by Norrland and to the south by G?taland....
.

The word final vowels -a, -o and -e (Old Norse -a, -u and -i) started to merge into -?, represented with the letter e. At the same time, the voiceless stop consonant
Stop consonant

A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. The terms plosive and stop are usually used interchangeably, but they are not perfect synonyms....
s p, t and k became voiced stops and even fricatives. These innovations resulted in that Danish has kage (cake), tunger (tongues) and gæster (guests) whereas (Standard) Swedish has retained older forms, kaka, tungor and gäster (OEN kaka, tungur, gæstir).

Moreover, in Danish a tonal word accent distinction shared with Norwegian and Swedish changed into stød

Stød

St?d is a suprasegmental unit of Danish language phonology, which in its most common form is a kind of creaky voice , but may also be realized as a glottal stop, above all in emphatic pronunciation....
around this time. In modern Swedish and Norwegian there are two tone contours (acute accent
Acute accent

The acute accent is a diacritic mark used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin alphabet, Cyrillic alphabet and Greek alphabet writing systems....
and grave accent
Grave accent

The grave accent is a diacritical mark used in written Catalan language, French language, Greek language until 1982 , Italian language, Norwegian language, Occitan language, Portuguese language, Scottish Gaelic language, Vietnamese language, Welsh language, Dutch language, and other languages....
in Swedish terminology, Tone1 and Tone2 in Norwegian), in words having tone1 in Norwegian and acute accent in Swedish is found stød in Danish. Stød is a glottal gesture considered a kind of creaky voice
Creaky voice

In linguistics, creaky voice , is a special kind of phonation in which the arytenoid cartilages in the larynx are drawn together; as a result, the vocal folds are compressed rather tightly, becoming relatively slack and compact....
, and it seems to have been documented by Swedish sources as early as the 14th century. The origin of Scandinavian word tones is unclear, they may have developed from a non-distinctive tonal feature thought to have existed in Proto-Norse which then became distinctive when the endings of words were reduced in continental Old Norse. There are tonal phenomena in neither Icelandic nor Faroese.

Text example
This is an extract from the Westrogothic law (Västgötalagen). It is the oldest text written as a manuscript found in Sweden and from the 13th century. It is contemporaneous with most of the Icelandic literature. The text marks the beginning of Old Swedish.

Dræpær maþar svænskan man eller smalenskæn, innan konongsrikis man, eigh væstgøskan, bøte firi atta ørtogher ok þrettan markær ok ænga ætar bot. […] Dræpar maþær danskan man allæ noræn man, bøte niv markum. Dræpær maþær vtlænskan man, eigh ma frid flyia or landi sinu oc j æth hans. Dræpær maþær vtlænskæn prest, bøte sva mykit firi sum hærlænskan man. Præstær skal i bondalaghum væræ. Varþær suþærman dræpin ællær ænskær maþær, ta skal bøta firi marchum fiurum þem sakinæ søkir, ok tvar marchar konongi.

Translation:

If someone slays a Swede

Suiones

The Swedes were an ancient North Germanic tribe in Scandinavia. As the dominions of their kings grew, their land slowly evolved into the modern Sweden....
or a Småland

Småland

is a historical Provinces of Sweden in southern Sweden.Sm?land borders Blekinge, Scania or Sk?ne, Halland, V?sterg?tland, ?sterg?tland and the island ?land in the Baltic Sea....
er, a man from the kingdom, but not a West Geat

Geat

Geats , sometimes associated with the Goths, were a North Germanic tribes inhabiting what is now G?taland in modern Sweden. The name of the Geats also lives on in the Provinces of Sweden of V?sterg?tland and ?sterg?tland, the Western and Eastern lands of the Geats, and in many other toponyms....
, he will pay eight örtugar and thirteen marks, but no wergild. [...] If someone slays a Dane or a Norwegian, he will pay nine marks. If someone slays a foreigner, he shall not be banished and have to flee to his clan. If someone slays a foreign priest, he will pay as much as for a fellow countryman. A priest counts as a freeman. If a Southerner is slain or an Englishman

Englishman

Englishman may refer to*English people*grey partridge* Jenny-Bea Englishman, real name of the Canadien singer Esthero...
, he shall pay four marks to the plaintiff and two marks to the king.

Old Gutnish
The Gutasaga
Gutasaga

The Gutasaga is a saga treating the history of Gotland before its Christianization. It was recorded in the 13th century and survives in only a single manuscript, the Codex Holm....
is the longest text surviving from Old Gutnish
Old Gutnish

Old Gutnish was the dialect of Old Norse language that was spoken on the island of Gotland. It shows sufficient differences from the Old East Norse dialects Old Swedish and Old Danish that it is considered to be a separate branch....
. It was written in the 13th century and dealt with the early history of the Gotlanders. This part relates of the agreement that the Gotlanders had with the Swedish king sometime before the 9th century:

So gingu gutar sielfs wiliandi vndir suia kunung þy at þair mattin frir Oc frelsir sykia suiariki j huerium staþ. vtan tull oc allar utgiftir. So aigu oc suiar sykia gutland firir vtan cornband ellar annur forbuþ. hegnan oc hielp sculdi kunungur gutum at waita. En þair wiþr þorftin. oc kallaþin. sendimen al oc kunungr oc ierl samulaiþ a gutnal þing senda. Oc latta þar taka scatt sinn. þair sendibuþar aighu friþ lysa gutum alla steþi til sykia yfir haf sum upsala kunungi til hoyrir. Oc so þair sum þan wegin aigu hinget sykia.

Translation:

So, by their own volition, the Gotlander

Gotlander

The Gotlanders are the population of the island of Gotland. In Swedish, they are also called Gutar an ethnonym identical to Goths , and both names were originally Proto-Germanic *Gutaniz....
s became the subjects of the Swedish king, so that they could travel freely and without risk to any location in the Swedish kingdom without toll and other fees. Likewise, the Swedes

Suiones

The Swedes were an ancient North Germanic tribe in Scandinavia. As the dominions of their kings grew, their land slowly evolved into the modern Sweden....
had the right to go to Gotland without corn restrictions or other prohibitions. The king was to provide protection and aid, when they needed it and asked for it. The king and the jarl

Jarl

Jarl or JARL may refer to*Japan Amateur Radio League*The Scandinavian Viking Age form of earl, jarl People with the given name Jarl:...
shall send emissaries to the Gutnish thing

Thing (assembly)

File:Germanische-ratsversammlung 1-1250x715.jpgA thing or ting was the governing assembly in Germanic tribes societies, made up of the free people of the community and presided by lawspeakers....
to receive the taxes. These emissaries shall declare free passage for the Gotlanders to all locations in the sea of the king at Uppsala

Gamla Uppsala

Gamla Uppsala is a parish and a village outside Uppsala in Sweden. It had 16,231 inhabitants in 1991.As early as the 3rd century AD and the 4th century AD and onwards, it was an important religious, economic and political centre....
(that is the Baltic Sea

Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is a brackish inland sea located in Northern Europe, from 53?N to 66?N latitude and from 20?E to 26?E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Denmark islands....
was under Swedish control) and likewise for everyone who wanted to travel to Gotland.

Note here that the diphthong ai in aigu, þair and waita is not regressively umlauted to ei as in e.g. Old Icelandic eigu, þeir and veita.

See also

History of the Icelandic language
History of the Icelandic language

The history of the Icelandic language began in the 9th century with the settlement of Iceland when settlers, who mostly came from Norway, brought a dialect of Old Norse to the island....
Proto-Norse
Greenlandic Norse language
Old Norse orthography
Old Norse orthography

The orthography of the Old Norse language since the introduction of the Latin alphabet in Iceland was varied historically. In modern times, scholars established a standardized spelling for the language....
Old Norse poetry
Old Norse poetry

Old Norse poetry encompasses a range of verse forms written in Old Norse, during the period from the 8th century to as late as the far end of the 13th century....
An Introduction to Old Norse
An Introduction to Old Norse

An Introduction to Old Norse is an English language textbook written by E.V. Gordon and first published in 1927 in Oxford at the Clarendon Press....

Literature
Introductions

Gordon, Eric V. and A.R. Taylor. An Introduction to Old Norse
An Introduction to Old Norse

An Introduction to Old Norse is an English language textbook written by E.V. Gordon and first published in 1927 in Oxford at the Clarendon Press....
. Second. ed. Oxford
Oxford

Oxford is a City status in the United Kingdom, and the county town of Oxfordshire, in South East England. It has a population of 151,000. The rivers River Cherwell and River Thames run through Oxford and meet south of the city centre....
: Clarendon Press, 1981.
O'Donoghue, Heather. Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Short Introduction (Blackwell Introductions to Literature) Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2004.
Henry Sweet, An Icelandic Primer, with Grammar, Notes, and Glossary (1895)

Torp, Arne, Lars S. Vikør (1993), Hovuddrag i norsk språkhistorie (3.utgåve), Gyldendal Norsk Forlag AS 2003
Dictionaries

Richard Cleasby and Gudbrand Vigfusson, An Icelandic-English Dictionary (1874)
G. T. Zoëga, A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic (1910)
Jan de Vries, Altnordisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (1977)

External links

The resources in question are mostly Germanic, including two dictionaries of Old Icelandic (in English), two grammars of Old Icelandic (one in English, one in German) and a grammar of Old Swedish (in German).
, by Todd B. Krause and Jonathan Slocum from the Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.