Old Norse language

**Old Norse** (also called **Old Nordic**, and **Old Scandinavian**), is a Germanic language that was spoken in Scandinavia, during the Viking Age, until about 1300. It was also spoken in Iceland, the Faeroe Islands, Orkney Islands and other places that Scandinavians started settlements (similar to colonies).

Modern Icelandic is the modern language that is the closest to Old Norse when written. Another language that is close to Old Norse, is Elfdalian. Other languages that come from Old Norse are Swedish, Danish, Faroese, and Norwegian.

## Old East Norse

**Old East Norse** was a dialect of Old Norse which evolved into the languages Old Danish and Old Swedish from the 9th century to the 12th century.

### History

Between 800 and 1100, East Norse is in Sweden called _Runic Swedish_ and in Denmark _Runic Danish_. 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. 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. This renders Swedish as the more archaic out of the two languages, concerning both the ancient and modern versions. They are called _runic_ because the body of text appears in runes.
Runic Old East Norse is characteristically archaic in form, especially Swedish (which is still true for modern Swedish compared to Danish). In essence it matches or surpasses the archaicness 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.

### Development from Old Norse

The combinations -mp-, -nt-, and -nk- mostly merged to -pp-, -tt- and -kk- in Old West Norse at around the 7th century, marking the first distinction between the Eastern and Western dialects. The following table illustrates this (note the mutual influence of East and West Norse on each other):
|English|Northish|Faroese|Icelandic|Old East Norse|Proto-Norse|Old West Norse|Swedish|Danish|Dano-Norwegian|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|mushroom|sopp|soppur|sveppur|swǫppʀ|*swampu|svampr|svamp|svamp|_sopp_|
|steep|bratt|brattur|brattur|brattʀ|*brantaz|brantr|brant|brat|bratt|
|widow|enkje|_einkja_, arch. ekkja|ekkja|ekkja|*ain(a)kjōn|ænkja|änka|enke|enke|
|shrinke|kreppe|kreppa|kreppa|kreppa|*krimpan|krimpa|krympa|krympe|krympe|
|sprinte|sprette|spretta|spretta|spretta|*sprintan|sprinta|_spritta_, dial. sprinta|_sprætte_|sprette|
|sinke|søkke|søkka|sökkva|søkkva|*sankwian|sænkva|sjunka|synke|synke|

## Other websites

- Heimskringla.no, an online collection of Old Norse source material
- Old Norse Online by Todd B. Krause and Jonathan Slocum, free online lessons at the Linguistics Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin
- Video: Old Norse text read with a reconstructed pronunciation and a Modern Icelandic pronunciation, for comparison. With subtitles
- Old Norse sound samples for early Old Norse and 13th century Norwegian Old Norse by Arne Torp
- Old Norse sound sample by Haukur Þorgeirsson (archived from the original)
- Old Norse loans in Old and Middle English, and their legacy in the dialects of England and modern standard English
- Old Norse basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database

## Infobox (language)

- **name**: Old Norse
- **nativename**: Dǫnsk tunga ("Danish tongue")
 Norrœnt mál ("Norse speech")
- **region**: Nordic countries, Great Britain, Ireland, Isle of Man, Normandy, Newfoundland and Labrador, Newfoundland, the Volga River, Volga and places in-between
- **states**: Scandinavia
- **era**: developed into the various North Germanic languages by the 14th century
- **familycolor**: Indo-European
- **fam2**: Germanic languages, Germanic
- **fam3**: North Germanic languages, North Germanic
- **ancestor**: Proto-Indo-European language, Proto-Indo-European
- **ancestor2**: Proto-Germanic language, Proto-Germanic
- **ancestor3**: Proto-Norse language, Proto-Norse
- **script**: Runic, later Latin script, Latin (Old Norse alphabet)
- **iso2**: non
- **iso3**: non
- **glotto**: oldn1244
- **glottorefname**: Old Norse
- **notice**: IPA