Old West Norse

Old West Norse
Vest Norrønt / Vestir Norrœnt (West Norse), Vest-Skandinavisk (West Scandinavian)
Region	Norway, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Scotland, Greenland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Newfoundland, Wales, England, Normandy
Era	7th–11th century
Language family	Indo-European Germanic North Germanic West Scandinavian Old West Norse
Early forms	Proto-Indo-European Proto-Germanic Proto-Norse Old Norse Old West Norse
Writing system	Runic, later Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)
Glottolog	None

Old West Norse was a dialect of Old Norse who emerged into the languages of Old Norwegian and Old Icelandic from the 7th century to the 11th century.

Language history

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	Norwegian	Faroese	Icelandic	Old West Norse	Proto-Norse	Old East Norse	Swedish	Danish
mushroom	sopp	soppur	sveppur	s(v)ǫppr	*swampu	svampr	svamp	svamp
steep	bratt	brattur	brattur	brattr	*brantaz	brantr	brant	brat
widow	enke	einkja, arch. ekkja	ekkja	ekkja	*ain(a)kjōn	ænkja	änka	enke
to shrink	kreppe	kreppa	kreppa	kreppa	*krimpan	krimpa	krympa	krympe
to sprint	sprette	spretta	spretta	spretta	*sprintan	sprinta	spritta, dial. sprinta	sprætte
to sink	søkke	søkka	sökkva	søkkva	*sankwian	sænkva	sjunka	synke

An early difference between Old West Norse and the other dialects was that Old West Norse had the forms bú "dwelling", kú "cow" (accusative) and trú "faith" whereas Old East Norse had bó, kó and tró. Old West Norse was also characterized by the preservation of u-umlaut, which meant that for example Proto-Norse *tanþu "tooth" was pronounced tǫnn and not tann as in post-runic Old East Norse; OWN gǫ́s and runic OEN gǫ́s, while post-runic OEN gás "goose".

The earliest body of text appears in runic inscriptions and in poems composed c. 900 by Þjóðólfr of Hvinir (although the poems are not preserved in contemporary sources, but only in much later manuscripts). The earliest manuscripts are from the period 1150–1200 and concern both legal, religious and historical matters. During the 12th and 13th centuries, Trøndelag and Western Norway 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 c. 1300, Old West Norse had little dialect variation, and Old Icelandic does not diverge much more than the Old Norwegian dialects do from each other.

Old West Norse underwent a lengthening of initial vowels at some point, especially in Norwegian, so that OWN eta became éta, ONW akr > ákr, OIC ek > ék.^[1]

Old Norwegian differentiated early from Old Icelandic by the loss of the consonant h in initial position before l, n and r, thus whereas Old Icelandic manuscripts might use the form hnefi "fist", Old Norwegian manuscripts might use nefi.

From the late 13th century, Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian started to diverge more. After c. 1350, the Black Death 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.

Old Icelandic

In Iceland, initial /w/ before /ɾ/ was lost.^[2] Compare Icelandic rangur with Norwegian vrangr, OEN vrangʀ. This change is shared with Old Gutnish.

A specifically Icelandic sound, the long, u-umlauted A, spelled Ǫ́ and pronounced /ɔː/, developed circa the early 11th century. It was short-lived, being marked in the Grammatical Treatises and remaining until the end of the 12th century.

/w/ merged with /v/ during the 12th century. This caused /v/ to become an independent phoneme from /f/, and the written distinction of ⟨v⟩ for /v/ from medial and final ⟨f⟩ to become merely etymological.

Around the 13th century, Œ/Ǿ (/øː/) merged to Æ (/ɛː/).^[3] Thus, pre-13th-century grœnn ‘green’ became modern Icelandic grænn. The 12th-century Grágás manuscripts distinguish the vowels, and so the Codex Regius copy does as well. However, the 13th-century Codex Regius copy of the Poetic Edda probably relied on newer and/or poorer quality sources — demonstrating either difficulty with or total lack of natural distinction, the manuscripts show separation of the two phonemes in some places, but frequently mix up the letters chosen to distinguish them in others.^[4]

Towards the end of the 13th century, Ę (/ɛ/) merged to E (/e/).Introduction to Letter E:^[5]

Old Norwegian

Around the 11th century, Old Norwegian ⟨hl⟩, ⟨hn⟩, and ⟨hr⟩ became ⟨l⟩, ⟨n⟩, and ⟨r⟩. It is debatable whether the ⟨hC⟩ sequences represented a consonant cluster, /hC/, or a devoicing, /C̥/.

Orthographic evidence suggests that, in a confined dialect of Old Norwegian, /ɔ/ may have been unrounded before /u/, so that u-umlaut was reversed where the u had not been eliminated. e.g. ǫll, ǫllum > ǫll, allum.^[6]

Greenlandic Norse

This dialect of Old West Norse was spoken by Icelandic colonies in Greenland. When the colonies died out around the 15th century, the dialect went with it. The phoneme /θ/, and some /ð/ merged to /t/, so that Old Icelandic Þórðr becomes Tortr.

Text example

The following text is from Alexanders saga, an Alexander romance. The manuscript, AM 519 a 4to, is dated c. 1280. The facsimile demonstrates the sigla used by scribes to write Old Norse. Many of these were borrowed from Latin. Without familiarity with these abbreviations, the facsimile will be unreadable to many. In addition, reading the manuscript itself requires familiarity with the letterforms of the native script. The abbreviations are expanded in a version with normalized spelling like the standard normalization system's. Comparing this to the spelling of the same text in Modern Icelandic shows that, while pronunciation has changed greatly, spelling has changed little.

Digital facsimile of the manuscript text[7]	The same text with normalized spelling[7]	The same text in Modern Icelandic
[...] ſem oꝩın͛ h̅ſ brıgzloðo h̅o̅ epꞇ͛ þͥ ſe̅ ſıðaʀ mon ſagꞇ verða. Þeſſı ſveın̅ aͬ.* ꝩar ıſcola ſeꞇꞇr ſem ſıðꝩenıa e͛ ꞇıl rıkra man̅a vꞇan-lanꝺz aꞇ laꞇa g͛a vıð boꝛn̅ ſíıƞ́ Meıſꞇarı ꝩar h̅o̅ ꝼengın̅ ſa e͛ arıſꞇoꞇıleſ heꞇ. h̅ ꝩar harðla goðꝛ clercr ⁊ en̅ meſꞇı ſpekıngr aꞇ ꝩıꞇı. ⁊ er h̅ ꝩͬ .xíí. veꞇᷓ gamall aꞇ allꝺrı nalıga alroſcın̅ aꞇ ꝩıꞇı. en ſꞇoꝛhvgaðꝛ u̅ ꝼᷓm alla ſına ıaꝼnallꝺꝛa.	[...] sem óvinir hans brigzluðu honum eftir því, sem síðarr man sagt verða. þessi sveinn Alexander var í skóla settr, sem siðvenja er til ríkra manna útanlands at láta gera við bǫrn sín. meistari var honum fenginn sá, er Aristoteles hét. hann var harðla góðr klerkr ok inn mesti spekingr at viti. ok er hann var 12 vetra gamall at aldri, náliga alroskinn at viti, en stórhugaðr umfram alla sína jafnaldra, [...]	[...] sem óvinir hans brigsluðu honum eftir því, sem síðar mun sagt verða. Þessi sveinn Alexander var í skóla settur, sem siðvenja er til ríkra manna utanlands að láta gera við börn sín. Meistari var honum fenginn sá, er Aristóteles hét. Hann var harðla góður klerkur og hinn mesti spekingur að viti og er hann var 12 vetra gamall að aldri, nálega alroskinn að viti en stórhugaður umfram alla sína jafnaldra [...]

* a printed in uncial. Uncials not encoded separately in Unicode as of this section's writing.

References

1. Further Old Norse Secondary Formations; Albert Murray Sturtevant; p. 457
2. Introduction to Letter R
3. Introduction to Letter Æ (Œ)
4. Codex Regius – Vǫluspá
5. 1, 2
6. Hock, Hans Henrich. Principles of Historical Linguistics. 1986 p. 149
7. Andrea de Leeuw van Weenen, University of Leiden, University of Greifswald, ed. 2009. AM 519 a 4to: Alexanders saga, fol. 1v, l. 10–14. Menota ms. 14, v. 1.0. Bergen: Medieval Nordic Text Archive. Facsimile; Normalization