Talk:Old Norse/Archive 2

message: Alphabo changed "donsk tunga" to "Danish tongue" with the following reasoning given in the edit summary: "this is not the native name but an Icelandic translation, then why not "dansk tunge"?. "Danish tongue" is used by many historians, and is the most correct in an English article". I reverted, because alphabo was wrong, in the following ways:
*"donsk tunga" is the native name, not an icelandic translation.
*In this place in the infobox, it is the rule to write the name of the language in the original, not an English version. See the infobox in, e.g., the articles on German language or French language.--Barend 16:21, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "donsk tunga" is NOT the native name. Dansk tunga or dansk tunga (in spelling) is equally correct - if not more. The OWN pronunciation was a minority pronunciation and no more authoritative than the OEN (or true Danish Tongue) pronunciation. The never ending attempts to get a Icelandic patent on Nordic culture is mildly speaking offensive, and a little bit racist.Dylansmrjones (talk) 05:51, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Quick comment (added later): This is wrong usage of the word 'racist'. In my opinion, to be racist the matter in question at least has to have something to do with race, don't you think? All the peoples that are in question here are North-germanic! How on earth can there be racism here? Nationalism maybe?--Alexlykke (talk) 00:13, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

text: Good grief, racist? Sure, the u-mutation wasn't universal but the -e ending, suggested by the writer above, is not accurate. Anyway, if dansk tunga is attested then we can certainly add it. Haukur (talk) 08:11, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

text: Actually, it's already there, reducing the whole complaint to non-sense. Haukur (talk) 08:19, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Only because it was added extremely recently. Dansk tunge would be just as inaccurate as "dǫnsk tunga" which never occurs in writing. It's a semi-IPA spelling and not a correct transliteration. And yes... the Icelandic national-extremism qualifies as "racism" in it's wide usage. "dǫnsk tunga" ought to be deleted as no such word ever existed in writing.Dylansmrjones (talk) 15:01, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: What are you talking about? Transliteration? What alphabet would you want to transliterate from? Do you object to normalized Old Norse spelling? Would you prefer dönsk tunga? Or dönsk túnga? Or what? What do you mean it never existed in writing? How has this anything to do with the International Phonetic Alphabet? How has any of it to do with "racism"? What races are involved? Haukur (talk) 21:10, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  donsk tunga / Danish tongue 

message: The article mentions what became of Old Norse, but not at all where it came from. The language distribution also almost exclusively sticks to the later distribution. Shinobu (talk) 15:35, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it evolved out of old Germanic dialects. It's mentioned that it was a Germanic language in the lead, and I don't think there is that more info about it, see Proto-Norse. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * (talk) 01:45, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  History? 

message: This is not the time for national pride, all the old scandinavian languages should be handled together and in the same way. The matter is too confusing to anglophones as it is:p Under Old Norse the parts of Old Norwegian article that tries to delimit the meaning of the term can be skipped, it's misleading anyway. Also, this may give the impetus for fleshing out the coverage of the other old languages as well. If sometime in the future a sizeable amount of information has accumulated in this article it can always be split out again, hopefully alongside it's sister languages. As it is, the Old Norwegian article is shamefully short, hardly qualifying it's unique existence.--AkselGerner (talk) 21:07, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: In my opinion we need more articles, not fewer articles. There's plenty to say about Old Norwegian specifically, Old Icelandic specifically etc. I even wrote a short article on Old Greenlandic. Haukur (talk) 22:20, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Why then isn't there plenty being said? As I said, the articles can be resplit when there is enough material. As it is the subject is confusing, even to some editors, like f.ex. the difference between norse and norrønt. Having all the material in one place is a good way to start. If Old Norwegian is to be kept then it has to be edited so that it is very clear that it is a daughter language of Old Norse, not as it stands, "Old norse as spoken in Norway". The Old Norwegian article shows how the writer(s) have been forced to re-state what is already stated here... there's not enough info in it for it to stand on its own. A further possibility of course would be to split out Old East Norse (in which is handled then Old Swedish and Old Danish) and Old West Norse (Old Icelandic, Old Norwegian), since both of these groupings cover developments later than Old Norse, and are in fact a dialectal split relevant to this day, unlike Old Norse.--AkselGerner (talk) 21:59, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see anything particularly confusing with the current arrangement and in my experience Wikipedia tends to work better and grow more naturally with more articles rather than fewer articles. Haukur (talk) 22:57, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem here is that Old Norwegian can't be described on it's own. There has to be contrasting to Old Icelandic, at the very least, as there is already. Without that the article becomes just an incomplete list of changes, many of which are not unique to Old Norwegian and does not enlighten the reader in any way. There's then going to be at least four articles with a lot of overlapping information, and no place where the needed cross-referencing is done. I would accept moving Old Norwegian to West Norse and adding Old Icelandic and the necessary background comparisons.--AkselGerner (talk) 22:10, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

text: I agree with Haukurth.  A cursory skimming of the seminary "Introduction to Old Norse" by Gordon reveals many intricacies that can be covered in an article.  Vincent Valentine||talk to me! 22:39, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Again, by all means write that.  But start it here so that the spawned articles don't end up having each a different spin. They can be cut and pasted at any time, say, when they are longer than one screenview. --AkselGerner (talk) 21:59, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

text: And BTW are you perhaps confusing old norse and old norwegian? That's exactly the problem I see with the present Old Norwegian article: It can be read as OLDNORSE=OLDNORWEGIAN which is already a painfully common misconception.--AkselGerner (talk) 22:10, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I was actually just skimming through my copy of Gordon's An Introduction to Old Norse, and there's quite a decent amount of information on differences between the dialects.  I'll do my best over the course of a few days to add some information and flesh out the article(s), assuming no one has any problems with it.  Vincent Valentine||talk to me! 23:34, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Great, sorry for doubting you, I don't have that book. BTW See my post on talk:Old_Norwegian to see the problems with describing the changes of a single dialect without the backdrop of it's source and sibling dialects. The big problem is that there is no common name (to my knowledge) for the group Old Icelandic, Old Norwegian, Old Danish and Old Swedish. So they can't be kept together in any single article (except for Old Norse), because there's no reasonably name for that common article. Old East and West Norse would be possible, but still the changes don't make a lot of sense without the backdrop of the other group, and there's no point in having to articles saying the same thing only from opposite perspectives.--AkselGerner (talk) 23:49, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd say "Old Norse" is the common name for the group Old Icelandic, Old Norwegian, Old Danish, and Old Swedish. —Angr If you've written a quality article... 21:17, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but not very useful. Old Norse is most precisely used for the common tongue of the early viking age, highlighting the continuity with proto-norse/proto north-germanic. The old [danish, swedish, norwegian, icelandic] terms consequently are used for the divergence into seperate languages in the late viking age, each being the starting point for the progression through medieval (middle) [danish, swedish, norwegian, icelandic] to modern [danish, swedish, norwegian, icelandic].--AkselGerner (talk) 22:13, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia is a work of reference and not a work of scholarly analysis. Consequently, we name articles according to what is the most common English term/definition and what people are most likely to search for. In a work of scholarly analysis, such as a dissertation, your considerations may be more relevant depending on what is the scholar's thesis.--Berig (talk) 22:26, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I am actually talking about how the words are being used. They are being used in two completely different ways depending on the area of relevance of the text: when the cohesion of the nordic region is to be stressed then the term Old Norse is used, but when the linguistic divergence is to be stressed then the individualized forms are used. At the same time there is some kind of temporal cut-off point, for example Skånske Lov and Jyske Lov from 1202-1218 and 1241 are regarded as among the very first works written in danish (=old danish). In other words, the older runic inscriptions in younger futhark are regarded as written in so called common nordic (=Old Norse) rather than Old Danish.--AkselGerner (talk) 23:00, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

text: That just goes to show that you shouldn't comment on a discussion you haven't read.--AkselGerner (talk) 21:02, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Regarding that answer: don't be impolite! Don't scare away mayhap future editors. He/she just tried to pinpoint something, it's a good thing to read the text before commenting, yes - but you could simply and shortly have repeated the conclusion from before in one sentence, starting with "as said before". Said: Rursus ☻ 08:14, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought of something that might make more people happy than the proposed merge would. Why not cut Old Norse down a bit (it's extremely long, 40kb is long in wikipedia, this is 50% more than that) by making an article "Old Norse Languages" in which Old Icelandic, Old Norwegian, Old Danish, Old Swedish and Old Gnutish can be treated together, separate from the "common norse" but still handled together, so that the developments can be related to each other. That article should then heavily refer to the known documents of these languages, and should draw up the ways that differences and similarities line up, because they do not always follow that East Norse/West Norse split. A large amount of prose can be lifted straight from Old Norse and Old Norwegian can then be merged to the new article. This also allows for the handling of the "middle norwegian" and the other medieval norse languages because the term "Old Norse Languages" can arguably apply also to medieval forms whether they are called "Old" or "Middle" or whatever. Please let me know what you think. I personally feel that this would be a good compromise. I also think my proposed article will be a lot easier to write than the Old Norwegian article has shown itself to be (see that article's talk page for my critique) because the changes can be related to those of the other languages, everything can be put into it's true context.--AkselGerner (talk) 23:19, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Regarding that: it's a good idea (probably), since I wished the same before reading your proposal. I think it's the natural thing to do, but I believe the hierarchy of the splitup should be more like the one in North Germanic languages#Family tree. Correct me if I'm wrong, but maybe the material is not yet enough in WP regarding Old Swedish compared to Old Danish, who are very nearly related dialects within the then dialect-level North-West/South-East split. It might be preferrable to start the splitup between "Old South East Norse" and "Old North West Norse" ... just a suggestion ... if the material on WP already contains enough material justifying a more detailed split, then I'm wrong. Otherwise agreed. Said: Rursus ☻ 08:14, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mergefrom Old Norse 

message: I know I am re-starting an old discussion, but I simply have to.
Strictly speaking, old norse is the term used for the language spoken in Norway and its colonies in the Viking and Medieval Ages. The contemporary languages of Denmark and Sweden are known as old Danish and old Swedish respectively. The reason why Old Norse is not called 'Old Norwegian', as it indeed often is in Norway, is because so much of the written material in said language originates from Iceland not from Norway. Therefore it is important to underline that at the time, the same language was spoken both in Norway and on Iceland.
Therefore, the introduction of the article should be changed, because Old Norse was in fact NOT the language spoken in the entirety of Scandinavia, but, as aforementioned, the language of Norway and Iceland. --Alexlykke (talk) 17:56, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This is really an old discussion that Norwegians bring up every once in a while since they appear to misunderstand the meaning of the English word "Old Norse". The Norwegian word Norrønt corresponds to Old West Norse in English. I really don't understand why it is so important in Norway to declare Old Norwegian to have been a language that was independent from Old Swedish and Old Danish. Moreover, it's completely a-historical since Snorri thought he wrote in Danish.--Berig (talk) 18:01, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Berig is wrong, Alexlykke is right. Encyclopedia Britannica defines Old Norse as the language used in Norway and Iceland, and as the parent language of modern Norwegian, Faroese and Icelandic. The definition of old Norse as the language used in all of Scandinavia is a wikipedia peculiarity, and not in keeping with common English usage. As Berig says, this is brought up from time to time, and unceremoniously shot down, unfortunately. The difference between Old Norse, Old Swedish and Old Danish were small, but it is still common, in English as well as in Norwegian, to refer to them as distinct languages. Berig's sentence that "Snorri thought he wrote in Danish" is absurd. Snorri wrote in his vernacular, a language which he called, alternately, "dansk tunga" (Danish) and "norrønt mál" (Norse). He didn't "think" there was anything particularly Danish about it, but his use of that name indicates that the Nordic languages were, as they indeed still are, mutually intelligible. --Barend (talk) 11:39, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You're both right. Sometimes "Old Norse" is used to refer to the language of Norway and the islands and sometimes it's used in a more general way. The Danish settlers (and raiders) of England are often referred to in English sources as speaking Old Norse. Haukur (talk) 13:19, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, and on English Wikipedia we stick to English usage. In English usage, even the Swedish Vikings in Russia spoke Old Norse.--Berig (talk) 14:14, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I think there is more than one English usage, but this is certainly one. Haukur (talk) 14:24, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It's the only usage I am familiar with from books like Omeljan Pritsak's The origin of Rus'. However, if it's more common to say that the Swedish Varangians spoke "Old Swedish" instead of "Old Norse", then Barend's and Alexlykke's view should prevail. Maybe they could provide me with sources to show me I am wrong.--Berig (talk) 14:55, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: E.V. Gordon's book focuses chiefly on Old Icelandic, but does also include Old Danish and Old Swedish, so for him the term is broader than just Old West Norse. —Angr 17:30, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, and judging from EB's definition (see below), AHD's definition and Merriam-Webster's definition, it appears that Old Norse generally includes Old East Norse in English-language scholarship. I consequently don't think there are any valid arguments for trying to restrict Old Norse to Old West Norse on WP.--Berig (talk) 18:21, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

text: Isn't "Norse" an older term refering to "Nordic". Old Nordic, as compared to the modern nordic languages Modern South East Nordic with three armies (Swedish, Danish and Bokmål) and the three or so Modern North West Nordic languages (Icelandic, Faerian and Nynorsk). I just assumed so: Norse = Norrön/Norrøn = "from Norden" = Nordic. ??? Said: Rursus ☻ 07:57, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Old Norse 

message: Hi Folks - further to last June's discussion about Uist, a discussion has just broken out at Talk:Skye as to the Norse name of the island. The Scottish writers on the subject are a little contradictory. We have Skuy = "misty isle" (Haswell-Smith); Skuyö  meaning "isle of cloud" (W.H. Murray); or maybe Ský-øy. Any directions to something definitive would be appreciated. Ben MacDuiTalk/Walk 20:51, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks to Haukurth for replying - its *Skýey apparently. Ben MacDuiTalk/Walk 07:59, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Skye 

message: In the translation of the excerpt from the Westrogothic law it states that "hærlænskan man" means "foreigner". Though admittedly my knowledge of Old Swedish is extremely limited, I'm inclined to think that a cognate in Contemporary Swedish would be "härländsk man", a (probably) nonexistent expression I would interpret as "fellow countryman". Everywhere else in the text "foreigner" is "vtlænskan man". Al-gabr (talk) 16:32, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm answering my own post here but after doing some research I found a web page in Norwegian stating that the Norwegian equivalent cognate "herlendsk" means "the opposite of foreign". So I'm changing "foreigner" to "fellow countryman". Al-gabr (talk) 17:28, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meaning of "hærlænskan man" 

message: A flurry of excitement in the Shetland islands as Forewick Holm declares independence. The owner and sole resident of the isle has "re-named" it Forvik, apparently meaning "island of the bay of the sheep". This may or may not be the resurrection of an old Norse name. Knowledgeable input much appreciated. Ben MacDuiTalk/Walk 11:36, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know much about the Norn language, but Forvik Holm is definitely recognizable as meaning "island of the bay of the sheep" in some heavily English-influenced Scandinavian dialect. It does not look authentic, however, IMHO.--Berig (talk) 11:49, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Forvik 

message: I can only see lots of ᚴ ᚴ ᚴ's. Is this specific to wikipedia or my computer? Þjóðólfr (talk) 17:45, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: In the columns labeled "9th-10th c." and "11th-13th c." you should be seeing various runes. If you don't, it's probably because you don't have a font installed that includes runes. —Angr 18:18, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Brilliant - hopefully I can sort it out. Þjóðólfr (talk) 18:28, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia should link to such fonts, how do you know you get the right font? -Brian 83.109.82.96 (talk) 11:13, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: All of the runic letters in the article will be standard Unicode characters. So as long as the typeface properly supports the full Runic Unicode block, you should have no problem. Consult this page for candidates. LokiClock (talk) 03:55, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Orthography

message: What were the indefinite article for the three grammatical genders in Old Norse? --Oddeivind (talk) 15:55, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: According to my grammar (Iversen, 1972): Old Norse at first didn't use the indefinite article. However, during the 13th century, it came to be used in Old Norwegian, but not in Old Icelandic. That indefinite article was the numeral 1 (as in modern Norwegian) which was einn (m), ein (f), eit (n).--Barend (talk) 14:27, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: But isn`t it the indefinite article that decides the grammatical gender? By the way, I have heard that there are some dialects in Norway that actually use different articles for different genders when it comes to the numeral 2 (and 3??). I think this is the Vinje dialect or some other dialect south of Hardangervidda. --Oddeivind (talk) 11:12, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Like many IE languages, Old English didn't really use the definite article and the indefinite article developed, as in Nordic languages, from "one".  I don't think the indef art decides the gender: in German it matches the gender, but doesn't decide it.  •Jim62sch•dissera! 16:15, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

text: Gender is inherited historically for each word, though may switch over time. It has nothing to do with articles. 70.113.64.110 (talk) 09:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Oddeivind, your terminology is somewhat confused. The indefinite and definite articles express the grammatical gender of the noun. If you want to put an article in front of a masculine noun, it must be the masculine article, etc. Numerals and articles are two different things. What you mean, when it comes to numbers and dialects, is that in some dialects the numeral 2 is conjugated in gender. This is correct, and it was also the case for Old Norse, up to the number 4 (e.g. fjórir sønir - fjórar døttr - fjögur börn. But that doesn't make the numeral 2 an article.--Barend (talk) 08:53, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: They do have something in common, though- they're both adjectives/pronouns. A section of the morphology I'm overdue in writing. LokiClock (talk) 22:47, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Indefinite article? 

message: The transcription offered at [] is incomplete and thus misleading, as all the non-alphabetical abbreviation-marks are left out. Without them even people of the time would have had a really hard time to read the text correctly. It also lacks the complete manuscript reference (AM 162 A θ fol, 4v) and/or the source of the transcription. --79.142.224.163 (talk) 19:50, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Funny you say, because I've been pondering redoing it the past couple days. I couldn't track the source from the name given (θ-fragment), though, so it's good to know it actually exists. I'll probably not use that manuscript, though, because I'll want to find a digital facsimile and normalization produced by experts (MeNoTa) with a section for which all the abbreviations are encoded in Unicode and for which I can find a Modern Icelandic version. LokiClock (talk) 04:11, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, done! LokiClock (talk) 17:22, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misleading transcription 

message: The Old Norwegian article states this. If anyone could find a source to the effect, let me know, and I'll move the nasal vowel information to the Old Icelandic section. See also the discussion here. LokiClock (talk) 17:59, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nasals vowels only in Old Icelandic? 

message: Does anyone know of an Old Norwegian or Old Icelandic translator I can download for use in a book I'm writting?--206.78.50.75 (talk) 20:25, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: No. I would definitely not rely on machine language translation for anything. If you're writing a book on machine translation, sure, but you should either learn the language or use existing translations of texts. I might be of some minor assistance, though, as I speak the language well enough to find out what something means even if I can't read it. LokiClock (talk) 20:33, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Old Norse translator

message: The Old East Norse summary is very long, and needs organization desperately. Since there's such a wealth of information, it would be good for it to have its own article, especially since Old Norwegian has its own article and Old Icelandic has History of Icelandic. A separate article would allow only certain key information to be kept. I'd like to see the dialects section focus on the splits and mergers that caused the dialects to diverge over the Old Norse period, as well as the differences in spelling conventions. LokiClock (talk) 19:11, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I retract my suggestion. Much of the information finds a place elsewhere in the article, or in Danish and Swedish subsections, or will in a planned section (such as for the strong nouns). LokiClock (talk) 17:53, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Break: Old East Norse 

message: Maybe we could have an Old Norse morphology article, akin to the one on Old English morphology? It might be prudent not to overly burden the main article with morphological tables. Haukur (talk) 15:42, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Good idea. It's going to end up being the bulk of the article by the time the full morphology is in place. That will also, naturally, require some mirroring or referencing of information from the parent article, though. LokiClock (talk) 01:23, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems like an excellent idea.  I fully support it.  Cocytus [»talk«] 01:30, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

text: One issue, though, is that there's a more to the morphological sections than just morphology, and should be more still. Should that information be extracted and rearranged in the main article, or should a more general title for the page be decided upon? Some examples of information that would be grouped with the morphological data would be: Phonological features of inflectional morphemes (the nasal a of the infinitives); Trends towards semantic roles of referents within a conjugation; Trends towards semantic categories within a declension (as with body parts in the weak neuters). LokiClock (talk) 22:27, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You've probably got the right idea. See Wikipedia:Summary style for some hints of a general nature. Haukur (talk) 00:49, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I read it, but I didn't really gather much regarding what degree to which the new articles should be inclusive of that relevant information, which would be peripheral to the morphology as a classification. Should we just include the information anyway, and not fuss over the classifications of the details? LokiClock (talk) 08:45, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

text: Split made. This is my first split, so others should check and make sure I got everything. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 09:09, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Morphology 

message: I assume that the fact that Rúnameistari supplied the letter "eng" for /ŋg/ but no such one for /n/ before /k/ implies that the ns in the remaining of such sequences did not velarize. Of course, this is in no way a reliable inference, which is why I'm writing this here and not in the article, but I haven't read anything that mentions the question. Such a clue is better than nothing.
I'm sure I'm not alone in having wondered this, as other Germanic languages, including Icelandic, German, and English, velarize N before K. If someone has a source for or against this, I would like to know! I could have missed something when reading the first treatise, too, as I don't have the vocabulary to read all of it yet. As for East Norse, I still have nothing. LokiClock (talk) 09:18, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Note on Ǥǥ, West Norse nk 

message: In section Suffices the forms of kallask are incorrect. My book "Vikingarnas språk" by Rune Palm, , instead gives the forms:
  	present   	present   	present    	present    	preterite 	preterite 	preterite  	preterite
  	indicative	indicative	conjunctive	conjunctive	indicative	indicative	conjunctive	conjunctive
  	SG        	PL        	SG         	PL         	SG        	PL        	SG         	PL
1p	kǫllumk   	kǫllumsk  	kǫllumk    	kallimsk   	kǫlluðumk 	kǫlluðumsk	kǫlluðumk  	kallaðimsk
2p	kallask   	kallisk   	kallisk    	kallisk    	kalliðisk 	kǫlluðusk 	kallaðisk  	kallaðisk
3p	kallask   	kallask   	kallisk    	kallisk    	kallaðisk 	kǫlluðusk 	kallaðisk  	kallaðisk
Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 20:05, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Sweet's Old Icelandic grammar agrees with you (with the exception of replacing some Modern Icelandic s′s with Old Norse z′s), but Zoega's Old Icelandic dictionary agrees with the article. These must be variant forms of some sort, but not dialectal variants, since both are Old Icelandic. Does anyone know more about this? — Eru·tuon 01:31, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I got them from Cleasby-Vigfússon. That might be simply a replacement of the modern -st forms with the -sk forms, though that seems like a strange oversight, given the book's great concern with the older language. Regardless, that's two sources over one, one of which is a grammar (or maybe both, I'm just judging by the title). So I would replace the forms in the tables with those and have as footnote that C-V gives the others. LokiClock (talk) 18:09, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: My mistake! I didn't supply those forms. Those are the modern Icelandic forms. The older forms I would have supplied if I had as I thought would also have been incorrect, though at least more correct. This table has said forms. LokiClock (talk) 17:22, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

text: Does anyone have the above forms for láta? C-V has láta for a somewhat different sk paradigm, and for kalla. If one has láta's forms matching kalla's above, or another verb and paradigms for it matching both the above and C-V's, please note the source. If the source is not freely viewable online, please also provide the table contents. I'm drawing up a table now for kalla. LokiClock (talk) 05:29, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The forms in question are given (mostly) on page xxvi of C-V. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 19:40, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reflexive error 

message: Please see Kragerø#Name and Talk:Kragerø.Skookum1 (talk) 15:09, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Old Norse etymology/declension

message: I have just written "It is possible that the name Hebrides was originally derived from the Old Norse Havbredey, meaning "isles on the edge of the sea"." quoting W. H. Murray, whose linguistic research may not meet the highest modern standards. If anyone has any sources that indicate that "Havbredey" is genuinely Norse I'd be grateful. He also implies that the 2nd century Roman writers "Hebudes" is a corruption of this word, rather than vice versa - which would presumably mean that the origin was Proto-Norse. The English language sources I have all just seem to repeat the general idea without providing any hard evidence. Ben MacDui 14:43, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: A cursory search yields no reference to the term. The Old Norse name for the Hebrides was "Suðreyjar" (south islands), and "Suðreyskr" and "Barreyskr" are terms meaning from the Hebrides and from Barra.᛭ LokiClock (talk) 16:47, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: OK - many thanks. Ben MacDui 14:50, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sure thing. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 21:46, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hebridean fantasy 

message: This article's lead is quite long. Could it be condensed into four paragraphs, as recommended by Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lead section)#Length? Suggestions? Hayden120 (talk) 13:41, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Most of the information belonged to other sections, namely Modern descendants. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 21:18, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead 

message: Should  be created, for articles on the language and concepts whose names are words in the language? ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 11:32, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, why not? Every other language seems to have its own category, from :Category:Icelandic language to :Category:Latin language. Hayden120 (talk) 13:41, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Point.  ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 01:50, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Category? 

message: Waes hael (be well) was found in the West Saxon dialect, little influenced by Old Norse, I think it was a common descendant of earlier Germanic languages not a Norse importation.
Snake, however, was a Norse loan, the Old English was naedre (modern cognate - adder).Urselius (talk) 13:10, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think wassail was Old English — the OED records uses of the word as early as 1205 (Layamon) that have the diphthong ai, which is unlikely if the original word did not have a diphthong. Old English wes hāl (or wæs hǣl) has no diphthong, but Old Norse ves heill does. — Eru·tuon 18:12, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  West Saxon 

message: Now that the new orthography tables have been fashioned at Old Norse orthography, should those replace the tables found here? If not, what are the advantages of these tables? I drafted the new tables because I feel these are somewhat unsatisfactory in their classifications of orthographic norms and longer than necessary due to lack of information organization. If good reason is shown for keeping them, the information should be updated to match with the new tables, as I corrected some of it creating them, and proper usage of phonemic brackets vs. phonetic brackets should be maintained. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 05:09, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Replace orthography tables? 

message: The article says, "Sometime around the 13th century, Ǫ merged to Ø in all dialects except Old Danish.", but for instance Old Norse "sǫngr" has turned into modern Nynorsk "song", "bǫrkr" to "bork", "þrǫngr" to "trong" etc. Am I misunderstanding something? --Harald Khan  Ճ 11:15, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: There's no misunderstanding. I don't know what the proper explanation is (and there could be many), but there's clearly a gap in our coverage of the merger(s). ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 10:07, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  What was there was obviously wrong, so I changed it. It can probably be phrased better than what I did, but the mistake had to go. In Norwegian of course, the old <Ǫ>-phoneme for instance became <ø:> in "øl", <o> in "song",  in "hjort",  in "fjord".--Barend (talk) 16:05, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  An explanation of my modifications: The sound could be said to have disappeared when it merged, but what is seen is indiscriminate spelling, as if the writer doesn't know which letter goes with which sound. This is what was meant in the original statement, and that's why changing it to say that it disappeared in the later manuscript is misleading. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 16:28, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: But surely, you are now mixing orthography and phonology, aren't you?--Barend (talk) 17:30, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree that using orthography as evidence for a sound change can be sketchy, but in this case is logical. Take the words there and their. Before they were pronounced the same, no one would have confused them. They might have been spelled poorly, but spelling them poorly would not have caused one to switch ere with eir indiscriminately, or for that matter the entire population to do so from then onwards until the people stopped bothering and just spelled them the same. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 00:04, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: What do you mean? Isn't the spelling in these cases historical, from before the words were pronounced identically? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:24, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm talking about manuscripts from the time of the merger. Simply, between the times of bǫrkr and the times of bork and börkur. An excerpt from Cleasby-Vigfússon, regarding the written distinction of /æː/ from /øː/, which merged in Old Icelandic: The Cod. Reg. [copy] of the Grág. still keeps the distinction, owing probably to its excellent old originals; the Cod. Reg. of the Sæm. Edda uses both signs [ę & ø], but misplaces them, thus, Hm. 92 męla, but f[ǿ]r (pres. form [of] fá), in the same verse. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 20:43, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I mostly got confused about your comparision to there and their. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:53, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger of ǫ 

message: According to the table, Primitive Old Norse aː <á> and ɔː <ǫ́> merged into Later Old Icelandic aː <á>. Elsewhere, I have always seen the product of this merger given as ɔː <á>, which is the way it is still pronounced in the Mainland Scandinavian languages. In Icelandic, Faroese, and some Scandinavian dialects, this sound has subsequently developed into a diphthong. Is the ɔː <ǫ́> > aː <á> > ɔː <á> sequence really correct?--213.236.196.39 (talk) 18:20, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Cleasby-Vigfússon (the source used under Old Icelandic) states that it was developed at this time. I think, given our present knowledge of Proto-Germanic, a concept not referenced by the dictionary, that the appearance of a distinct spelling was likely the final acknowledgement of the sound due to the influence of the First Grammatical Treatise's orthography. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 04:09, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

text: I mean to say that the product of the merger was, in fact, /aː/, but that the sequence is simply /ɔː/ > /aː/, without a re-emergence of /ɔː/. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 07:23, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

text: The Nordic languages vol. 2 p. 1080 does support the idea of /aː/ > /ɔː/, though, saying "A basis change which affected the vowel systems of Old Norw. and the other West Scandinavian languages was back-rounding of /aː/, hence the merger with umlauted /ɔː/..." ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 17:03, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of Old Norse and Old Icelandic vowels 

message: I am a bit perplexed by the choice of a-phonemes here. In the article it says that Old Norse had the phonemes ,  and , but you give the pronunciation *. What a-phonemes did Old Norse have?--Berig (talk) 09:43, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The a-phonemes' articulations are reconstructed variously. /ɑ/ vs. /a/, /ɔ/ vs. /ɒ/, /ɛ(ː)/ vs. /æ(ː)/ are, for Old Norse, notational choices that highlight a phonology's symmetry and harmony. They're meaningless without each reconstruction's alterations to the sound inventory. The article's reconstruction is normalized from others' reconstructions. The IPA is as unspecific as our reconstruction, allowing different phonologies to fit the same symbolic bill. We could say æ and ǫ/ǫ́ were near-open [ɛ, ɔ(ː)], and ǽ & a/á were open [æː, ɑ(ː)], and the IPA will write æ and ǽ with the same symbol because the minimal pair is preserved without marking the height difference. We could also say æ/ǽ was [ɛ(ː)], a/á was [ɐ, aː] and ignore them by the same token. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 23:22, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  A-phonemes of Norse 

message: How much was old Norse spoken in Ireland and how long did it survive, because I have read in some websites and books that the Vikings in the Gaelic speaking world were christianized and assimilated into gaelic society and language (They were definetly were in Scotland outside the northern isles) in Ireland even before the Battle of Clontarf while other websites say that the Norse-founded towns were never assimilated and that old Norse was spoken until the Norman invasion.  Abrawak (talk) 12:57, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  How much was it spoken in ireland? 

message: The phonology section is missing the combination 'hv'. It was certainly phonemic in Proto-Germanic, so if it wasn't considered a phoneme in Old Norse, there should be some explanation about what happened. CodeCat (talk) 13:28, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: It is disputed. I hear this from strictly Norse analysis, so some diachronic info would be fantastic. I think the stance is to Occham's razor it to a sequence of /h/ and /w/, along with /hr, hl, hn/, because they're extra phonology. Not just phonemically, but phonetically, so that hnefi/nefi is dropping initial h, not merging of /n̥/ and /n/ (or not spelling the difference). This calls the Icelandic developments late, and makes /hw/ differentiation (into [kv] and [xv]) take less movement. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 17:50, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  The Proto-Germanic situation was that the difference between [xʷ] and [xw] was nonphonemic, so this may have been carried through to Old Norse. However, evidence from Gothic suggests that the original pronunciation was that of a single labiovelar, as it used distinct letters for hw and kw, while it used a sequence of two letters for hl, hr, hn. This more or less reflects the situation as inherited from Proto-Indo-European: PG [xʷ] comes from PIE [kʷ] and [kw], which merged, and [xl], [xr] and [xn] came from [kl], [kr], [kn] (and in each case also any combinations with the palatal [kʲ] instead, which merged with [k] as Germanic is a centum language). PG [xʷ] became Icelandic [kv], so at some point in between the labiovelar must have differentiated into [xw]. But I don't know whether that stage had been reached by Old Norse times. CodeCat (talk) 18:10, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  From Cleasby-Vigfússon on modern Icelandic dialects: "in a small part of eastern Icel. it is sounded like Greek χ (hvalr as χalr, hvað as χað), and this is probably the oldest and truest representation of the hv sound." If the hv/kv minimal pair is preserved in certain dialects of Icelandic, there must have been that pair in the dialects of the migrators. I can see [xʷ] or maybe [ʍ]. The Nordic Languages pg 1855 talks about the /hC/s under Distribution, saying hv merged with other sounds in most of the other dialects between the 9th and 15th centuries. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 14:51, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Modern Icelandic has (dialectically) both a rounded and an unrounded version of this initial fricative. The change to [kv] began in the 18th century and rapidly gained ground in the 19th and 20th centuries. The change is now almost complete, very few young people had a fricative pronunciation when this was researched in the 1980s and in all likelihood this has declined further since then. More information, including information on distribution and some audio examples here:  Note that Jutlandic has (had?) [ʍ], like English. Haukur (talk) 17:12, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Not only Jutlandic has [w] (or [ʍ] as you write it), it's pretty common among peripheral Swedish dialects such as, e.g., Elfdalian (spoken in Dalarna) and Bondska (i.e., the dialects spoken in Västerbotten and Norrbotten) etc. // JiPe (81.235.129.93 (talk) 15:02, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

text: Might PGmc reconstructions with the sound assume a Norse articulation? ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 22:39, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  Old Norse isn't the only language to use two letters for the sound, all early Germanic languages did except for Gothic. That's why the Gothic evidence is important... why would they choose a separate letter unless there was some important quality in the sound that couldn't be expressed with two separate letters? This speaks strongly in favour of a labialised velar articulation, a single sound instead of two. CodeCat (talk) 01:19, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm sure Gothic has plenty to say about the sound, and it's true it suggests something special about it, but it's not necessarily phonetic. X writes nothing different from /ks/ in English, but /ks/ is special: It has a distinctive distribution and absorbs similar sounds when the words around them are similar enough to /ks/ words - /.əts/->/.əks/ so et cetera follows example but not bet setter. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 19:47, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  This is true, but Gothic writing was created from the ground up to represent Gothic alone, using Latin and Greek as a base. While it did borrow many spelling conventions from both of them, the fact that it designated a letter specifically for hw is very significant, especially if you consider that the vowels represented by ai and au didn't get the same treatment, even though they're even far more common in Gothic than hw. CodeCat (talk) 22:19, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  So it's suggestive, but does it explain any of Gothic's own phonetics or sound changes better? ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 03:31, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't know... but in any case there are many sources that mention that hw was indeed a labiovelar in Germanic. Don Ringe's book 'From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic' does, too. He doesn't say much about the precise phonetics of Old Norse or the other daughter languages, but he does mention that it's likely that [xʷ] had become [hʷ] quite early. I'm not sure how that explains the Icelandic development, though. CodeCat (talk) 11:58, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  If it broke into [xw], early Old Norse had no /x/ otherwise, so either of those ways it will be phonemic. If [hʷ], one could argue that it became [hw], and that all of its descent is from initial-h interactions with /w/. The only reason I see to call /hw/ a sequence is if it was most likely [hw] before ON. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 07:12, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  hv