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Old Germanic Languages, Their Alphabets and Written Records: Seminar 2
Old Germanic Languages, Their Alphabets and Written Records: Seminar 2
The earliest runic inscriptions date from around 150 AD, and the alphabet was
generally replaced by the Latin alphabet along with Christianization by around
700 AD in central Europe and by around 1100 AD in Scandinavia; however, the
use of runes persisted for specialized purposes in Scandinavia, longest in rural
Sweden until the early twentieth century (used mainly for decoration as runes in
Dalarna and on Runic calendars).
The three best-known runic alphabets are the Elder Futhark (around 150 to 800
AD), the Old English Futhorc (400 to 1100 AD), and the Younger Futhark
(800–1100). The Younger Futhark is further divided into the long-branch runes
(also called Danish, although they were also used in Norway and Sweden),
short-twig or Rök runes (also called Swedish-Norwegian, although they were
also used in Denmark), and the Hälsinge runes (staveless runes). The Younger
Futhark developed further into the Marcomannic runes, the Medieval runes
(1100 AD to 1500 AD), and the Dalecarlian runes (around 1500 to 1800 AD).
The origins of the runic alphabet are uncertain. Many characters of the Elder
Futhark bear a close resemblance to characters from the Latin alphabet. Other
candidates are the 5th to 1st century BC Northern Italic alphabets: Lepontic,
Rhaetic and Venetic, all of which are closely related to each other and descend
from the Old Italic alphabet.
Each rune most probably had a name, chosen to represent the sound of the rune
itself. The names are, however, not directly attested for the Elder Futhark
themselves. Reconstructed names in Proto-Germanic have been produced, based
on the names given for the runes in the later alphabets attested in the rune
poems and the linked names of the letters of the Gothic alphabet. The asterisk
before the rune names means that they are unattested reconstructions. The 24
Elder Futhark runes are.
The Gothic script consisted of 27 letters of which 19 were taken from the Greek
uncial script with some admixture of Latin 'h’, j', 'r', 's', 'f ', 'q' and runic 'u' & 'o’
The names of the Gothic letters are connected with the appropriate rune
names,but the alphabetical order is the same as in the Greek alphabet. Besides,
the Gothic letters have got the same numerical meanings as the Greek letters:
a-1, b-2, g-3… The symbols ‘kappa’ and ‘sampi’ have got only numerical
meanings 90 and 900 accordingly.
The Gothic alphabet shouldn't be confused with the so-called ‘Gothic script’
(готичний шрифт)- a variety of the Latin alphabet (hand)
In the 4th and 5th centuries Gothic (Visigothic and Ostrogothic) must have
spread to some degree, along with the conquering Goths, throughout much of
southern Europe; but there is no evidence for its survival in Italy after the fall of
the Ostrogothic kingdom, and in Spain it is doubtful that the Visigoths retained
their language until the Arab conquest. In the 9th century the German monk
Walafrid Strabo mentions that Gothic was still being used in some churches near
the lower Danube. After that time Gothic seems to have survived only among
the Goths of the Crimean Peninsula, who were last mentioned in the middle of
the 16th century by a Flemish diplomat named Augier Ghislain de Busbecq,
who, while on a mission to Constantinople in 1560–62, collected a number of
words and phrases showing that their language was still essentially a form of
Gothic.
The Gothic consonant system seems to have been largely identical with that
assumed above for Proto-Germanic: p, t, k, kw (this last sound was probably
much like the qu in queen); f, þ, h, hw (this last sound was probably pronounced
much like the wh in white); b, d, g; s, z; m, n; l, r; w, j. The nasal n was
presumably velar before the velar consonants k, q, and g; in these positions it
was usually written (as in Greek) as g or gg. Examples of this spelling include
dragk ‘drank,’ igqis ‘you two,’ and briggan ‘bring,’ although n was occasionally
used as in Latin (e.g., þank ‘thanks,’ inqis ‘you two,’ and bringiþ ‘bring ye’).
The Gothic alphabet contained the five simple vowel symbols, i, e, a, o, and u,
from which four compound symbols, ei, ai, au, and iu, also were made; in
addition, w was used to transliterate Greek υ and οι (both of which were
pronounced as umlauted u /ü/ in 4th-century Greek). The generally accepted
development of the Proto-Germanic vowels in Gothic can be diagrammed as
follows:
Brackets in the Proto-Germanic line indicate that the two linked sounds
coalesced into one; brackets in the Gothic line indicate two variants of the same
sound that are in different phonetic environments. Proto-Germanic *i and *e
apparently first merged as a single vowel and then became Gothic i in most
positions but became ai before h, hw, and r. Similarly, Proto-Germanic *u∼o
became Gothic u in most positions, but au before h, hw, and r.
Gothic shows a number of archaic features that had been almost or entirely lost
by the time the other Germanic languages began to appear in writing; among
these are a passive voice and one type of past tense formed with reduplication, a
dual number in the first and second persons of its verbs and pronouns, and a
special vocative case in one noun class. At the same time, Gothic also shows
changes from Proto-Germanic, among which are the shortening of most long
vowels in final unstressed syllables and the loss of most short vowels (e.g.,
Proto-Germanic *erþō ‘earth’ became Gothic airþa, Proto-Germanic *stainaz
‘stone’ became Gothic stains). Finally, voiced fricatives that occurred or came
to occur at the end of a word are unvoiced (e.g., nominative *hlaiaz, accusative
*hlaian ‘bread, loaf’ changed to hlaifs and hlaif, respectively.
1. Early Germanic - from the era of gradual separation from the western
Indo-European area to the stabilization of the common Germanic language as a
separate system. At this time, it still retains many features inherent in the
Indo-European-based language: the relative autonomy of the syllable, the lack
of structural difference between stressed and unstressed syllables, the presence
in the paradigm of the name of two stressed types (with constant and moving
stress) , and in the system of verbs of two species-temporal bases, which are
conventionally called infect and perfect.
Already in the early Germanic language there were undoubtedly some dialectal
differences, which in the late Germanic period deepened and ultimately caused a
clear division of the Germanic language. In the era that followed the Great
Migration, territorial tribal dialects began to develop from Germanic tribal
dialects, and later the languages of nationalities, the Old Germanic languages,
began to form from them. This process was inextricably linked with the
formation of ancient tribes and tribal alliances of Germanic states and their
gradual strengthening. foreign population of the territories they conquered.
From the languages of the Vandals, Burgundians, Bastards, only a few words
have come down to us - the names and names of places. One Gothic language
is known to us more or less fully thanks to the large coherent texts of the IV
century, which have survived to the present day. Tribal Ingwian dialects of
English, Saxon and Utah in the British Isles formed the Old English language.
Very similar to it were the dialects of the Frisian tribes, from which the
non-Frisian language was formed. The Saxon tribes that remained in the Baltic
lands used the dialects that became the basis for the creation of the ancient Xon
language.
Of the 3 Easton tribes located along the Rhine and the Bezer, the greatest role
was played by the Franks, whose dialects suffered different fates. Part of the
western Lower Frankish dialects in interaction with the dialects of the Frisians
and Saxons became the basis for the creation of the ancient Dutch language.
Other Western Franks mixed with the Romanized population of the former
Gaul. Middle and Upper Frankish dialects mixed with the dialects of the
Erminon tribes of the Alemanni, Svevi, Quads, Germundurs, Marcomanni, and
others — and gave rise to Old High German with them. . divided into two
branches. Western gave rise to the Norwegian language, the southwestern
dialects of which in the 1X-X centuries. They were transferred by immigrants
to Iceland, where in conditions of isolation they developed into a separate Old
Icelandic language, and to the Faroe Islands, where the local Faroese language
was also formed. The eastern branch of the Old Northern language became the
basis for the development of Old Swedish and Old Danish. The development of
individual Germanic languages had much in common, but there were also
differences due to different socio-historical circumstances in which the people
existed. Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, language covered the period V of the
second half of the XI century. 3 sometimes the tribal dialects of the Germans of
Britain became the basis for the formation of territorial- language.
Northumbrian and Mercian from the English dialect, Wessex from the Saxon
dialect and Kent from the Utah dialect. Each of them left their memorabilia.
Few ancient English monuments of runic writing have survived. The most
famous of these is the inscription on a stone cross near the village of Rutwell in
the south-west of Scotland. Here are written in runes a small poem of religious
content. Another runic inscription in Old English is made on a box made of
whalebone found in France near the town of Clermont-Ferrand. This text
contains a few verses about the whale's whiskers. Both inscriptions probably
belong to the Vll century.
The monuments of Latin writing of this period are much richer. The
Anglo-Saxons had many different genres of poetry: table, wedding, funeral
cries, dwarf poems, and others. Some of them were recorded in later times from
oral narration. The most outstanding monument of the Anglo-Saxon epic is the
poem "Beowulf", which reached the list of the tenth century, but was composed
somewhere in the late VII-early VII century. It tells of the exploits of the
legendary hero Beowulf, who frees the neighboring people of the Danes from
the terrible and cruel monster Grendel, and in old age saves his own people
Gauts from the dragon that ravaged the whole country. Several Anglo-Saxon
lyric-enic and enic poems have also survived (The Traveler, The Cry of Deora,
The Sailor, The Ruins).
Prose in the Anglo-Saxons begins to develop in the VIII century. The most
important monuments are the works of King Alfred of Wessex (848-901) -
mainly translations of Latin works that were intended for study at school.
Alfred's translations were notable for their creative character and were far from
the then slavish imitation of the original. For example, in the translation of
"World History" Orosia Alfred inserted his original text, a story about the
travels of Okhtere and Wolfstan. Examples of late Anglo-Saxon clerical prose
were the works of scholarly clerics Elfrick (10th century) and Wolfstan (early
11th century). Wolfstan owns many sermons, which are marked by high pathos.
In terms of structure, Old English was an inflectional language. It had a
complex system of declension of nouns and verbs, a free order of words in a
sentence. The vocabulary was quite homogeneous, borrowings from other
languages were relatively small. Celtic excerpts were limited mainly to
toponymy. of the Latin language, the Anglo-Saxons borrowed words mainly of
a domestic nature, and some of them could get into their dialects on the
continent, others were borrowed on the island from the Celts. Later Latin
borrowings of the song workers, military, so-called "poems of the Kedmon
cycle" (they were attributed in the Old English language account for the time of
Christianization of England (since the VI century.).
Uh-XI century. English and Saxon dialects are heavily influenced by the
Scandinavian dialects spoken by the Vikings, who invaded the British Isles and
settled on their coasts. These Scandinavians were eventually assimilated, but
their language left a noticeable mark in English - about 650 lexical borrowings,
mostly of a domestic nature. Even such Scandinavian words were borrowed
into English, which did not seem to be needed, because there were appropriate
proper designations (modern English law, fellow guy, sky window, take, die).
The influence of Scandinavian dialects and their mixing with Old English could
accelerate a number of structural development processes, in particular the
process of disintegration of Old English inflection.
The Old English language has existed since the 5th century. until 1550. From
most of this period, any significant monuments pnsemnosti in this language did
not reach. The oldest 11 specimens are individual words, names, etc. in Latin
manuscripts, especially in the Frisian Truth (802). Frisians are also credited
with several runic inscriptions (mostly on coins), but doubts are expressed about
their Frisian character. The most believable is the Frisian runic inscription on
the sword from Arum. which reads edlboda a sign of illness (edl corresponds to
d. English adl hooroba).
Certain signs that the ancient friezes had their heroic epic (mentions of the
poet-singer Bernlef), dwarf poems, ballads, etc. In later legal texts we come
across fragments of alliterative and rhyming poems, poetic formulas, paths, and
so on.
Among the linguistic monuments that have survived in later records, there is the
ballad "Thet Freske Riim", written around 1490. rhymed couplet; B tells about
how Charlemagne gave the Frisians a number of privileges; "The Saga of
Magnus", which assumes a shift in time plans: the saga tells of how the friezes
led by the standard-bearer Magnus defeated the Romans and for this
Charlemagne allegedly gave them "seven freedoms" (their content is given
here): rhyming chronicle of about XII vol. "On the ancient freedom of the
Frisians", which also reports (in the process) of the privileges granted to the
Frisians by Charles. Even in these monuments a significant place is occupied
by the legal theme (privileges and freedoms), all other monuments of ancient
Frisian writing are continuous legal texts compiled in the XI century. 1 lower.
The most important of them are: "Seventeen Privileges" (XI century),
"Twenty-Four Statutes" (end of XIII century), "Ancient Laws of Magistrates"
(XI century), "Diplomatic Code of Western Lauvers" (XI century, part of this
text is attributed to 1X century), etc. The so-called letters (Urkunden) are
interesting from the linguistic point of view. These are various documents,
letters, chronicles written in Middle Friesland between 1329 and 1573.
The ancient Axon language, used by the continental Saxons, covered the period
1X-XI1 centuries. As the Saxons became closer and closer to the southern and
central Germans, the Old Saxon language gradually acquired more and more
definite Erminonian features. Because of this, in the literature the 1st hypoderm
is called the Old Lower German language, which can hardly be considered
correct. There are few monuments of writing in the Old Saxon language that
have come down to us, and they are mainly of a religious nature. This is a poem
by Heliand ("Savior"), written in an alliterative verse. It describes the life of
Christ, but in the description of historical events and facts, in landscapes, etc.,
the influence of the German heroic epic is clearly felt. 3 manuscripts of the XII
century. preserved 6 thousand lines, it is believed that the original was created
in the 1X century. At the same time include an excerpt from the poem
"Genesis", which in 300 lines embedded the biblical legend of the creation of
the world. In both monuments, the Upper Nimes influences are already very
noticeable. Certificates, tax lists, blessings, etc. came from smaller monuments.
The Old High German part of the Frankish state, where the central and southern
Germanic tribes - the Franks, Alemanni, Bavarians, Thuringians and others -
was the formation of the German nation. Their tribal dialects gradually became
territorial, and their aggregation developed a new language system - the
language of the German nation. Later, in these territorial dialects, new local
differences appear, not related to the former tribal division.
Old High German language covered the period from VIII to XI centuries. It had
the following main dialects: 1) Middle German, which included: Middle
Frankish (Ripuarian and Moselle), Rhine-Frankish and East Frankish, and 2)
South German - South Frankish, Bavarian, Alemannic. Each of them had their
own writing.
Those Franks who lived in the western part of the Frankish state, as already
mentioned, switched to the language of the local population - vernacular Latin,
and it was this Gallo-Romance language began to be called frencisc Frankish
language. The native language of the Franks-German was called the word diu-
tisc literally vernacular (from diot people). Later, this name was extended to the
language of those Germanic tribes that lived beyond the Rhine (in the so-called
"inner" Germany). 3 mid-twelfth century. this word became the name of the
German people and their own language (modern German Deutsch).
The oldest monuments of the Old High German language were .glosses and
dictionaries-glossaries of the VSh century. Even in the days of paganism there
will be a monument "The Tale of Hildebrant" of the VII century. -excerpt of an
epic poem from the cycle about Dirich Bernsky. Southern and Low German
elements are combined in the language of "Song". This is a highly artistic work
of great value as a sample of the pre-Christian heroic epic of the Germans.
Phonetically, the Old High German language has significantly departed. from
the All-German. The alternation of vowels (ablaut) and the phenomenon of
umlaut are widely represented here. The main differences in the consonant
system are due to the second (Upper German) movement of consonants. In
most Upper German dialects, the breakthroughs b, d, and g have lost their
sonority. In the grammatical structure of the Old High German language still
retains significant remnants of inflection. The unstressed endings and affixes
here are still very diverse and full-sounding. But, starting from the tenth
century, the reduction of unstressed vowels intensifies, and different case and
personal endings begin to coincide. As a result, the old system of declension on
the bases is destroyed, the former division of weak verbs into classes is lost.
The fifth instrumental case is completely supplanted. There is still no clear
word order in the sentence structure, prepositional cases predominate over
prepositional constructions. Along with two-syllable sentences, one-syllable
sentences without a subject are common. The structure of a complex sentence
is not yet established, the number of its models is small. The influence of Latin
is very noticeable in the vocabulary of written monuments.
In the history of the Dutch language period VII-XI centuries. It is sometimes
called Old Dutch, but there are objections to this, because the Dutch language
did not exist at that time. At that time, the Lower Frankish dialects were used
by the Germans in the Netherlands and neighboring Belgium, so it is more
correct to call this period the lower Frankish markings of this language-gloss in
the "Salic truth" -code of laws of the Salic Franks period Carolingians. From
IX-X centuries. translations of some Psalms of the Old Testament have arrived.
Also important are the Lower Frankish glosses in various Latin manuscripts,
ancient toponyms of the Netherlands.
The Lower Franconian dialect interacted with the Frisian and Saxon dialects.
Frisian features in the Old Lower Frankish e, for example, the group of
consonants ft compared to the Frankish cht (n. Bruilott wedding), the loss in
many words of the prefixes ge-, be- (heel next to geheel at all, һoren along with
behoren belong), the combination sj , ij. (sjouwen); as well as many words of
Frisian origin. The Frisian influence is especially noticeable in the northern
provinces of the Netherlands. The influence of Saxon dialects is most
noticeable in the dictionary. XII century is already considered the beginning of
the Middle Dutch language.
In Scandinavia, until the Viking Age itself, a single Old Norse, or Old Northern,
language was widespread. It has preserved a number of other rather clear
features of the German-based language. For example, the ending of the
nominative singular of the separate classes of the declension -s, which in other
Germanic languages either passed into -g or disappeared, is preserved here as
R: Goth. dags, d. scand. dagaR day (<erm. * dagaz): Goth. wulfs, d. scand.
wulfaR в0вк (<герм. * wulfaz); Goth. gasts, d. scand. In the preservation of
the final unstressed vowels, the Old Norse language turns out to be even more
archaic than the Gothic language; cf. Scandinavian horna, Gothic haurn pie.
Debugging of final vowels and consonants, as well as loss of weakly stressed
vowels are becoming more frequent, for example: horna> horn plural, "hornu>
horn; B" landu> 1gnd plural country. "landu> lgpd country, * gastiR> geste
guest," herto> hjarta heart, etc. Before the vowels of the back row ziikae initial
j, w: * jerа> ar peak, * juke> ok yoke, * wulfaR> dfr wolf, * wurda The final n
first nasalizes the previous vowel, and then debugs: "geban> gefa lgeval to give,
* ohsan> oha znah. ox. Especially common assimilation of consonants, for
example: * gulra> goll eoloto, "finpan> finne to find, * stai- paR> steinn stone,
* stolaR> stoll cmilets.
Simultaneously with these sound changes, and partly as a consequence, the
conjugation of verbs is simplified: d . skand. "bipdiR you knit and" bindip ein
knits already sound the same bindr. kalla-sik 36atshsya> kallas (k) to be called,
named, in contrast to other Germanic languages, the denoted article, which
developed in the Old Norse language from the indicative pronoun, does not
stand before the noun, but joins its ending: dagr day> dagr-inn There are new
pronouns hann sin, hon ona, etc.
Even in the Viking Age, all North Germans perceived their tribal dialects as the
same language, which is usually called donsk tunga, ie Danish. individual
Scandinavian languages appeared only in the late Middle Ages.
In Х ст. the division of Scandinavian dialects into eastern and western groups
has already been clearly defined. The western group of Icelandic dialects is
poggan mal malic language. In the eastern group, the old diphthongs are
monophthonized: d. Isl., D. Norv. steinn-d. swed., d. dat. sten stone; d. isl., d.
norv. auga group umlaut conducted not as consistently as in the western: d. isl.
komr - d. swed., d. dat. komer he comes; d. isl. vӕri- d. swed .., d. dat. vare
sin would be. In the eastern group y is diphthongized in iu before the
combination -пgw-, -nkw-, -ggw-: d. Isl. sungwa-d. shiazd. siunga, d. lat.
siunge cnivati. The initial vr- in the east is preserved, in the west it is simplified
to g-: d. Swede. wripa Assimilation of consonant groups in the east occurs less
frequently than in the west: d. swed., d. dates. ӕпkia-д. isl., d. norv. ekkia
widow; d. sheed., d. dat. tantul-d. isl., d. norv. tottul nalto. The ending of the
dative case of the set in the bases in -i- in the west -upum, in the east -umin, for
example: d. Isl., D. Norv. 1otunuit-d. swed., d. dat. fotumin legs. The reverse
liability in the east is also simplified: d. Swed., D. Dates. kallas - d. iisl., d.
nora. kallask be called, named, Old Norse and Old- at this time have a common
name Poggen or D. Sheed. ogha, d. lat. in the eye. In the eastern d. Isl. guide
to return. to roll.
During the Viking Age, the ancient Danish language spread to other lands,
especially to eastern England and Normandy.
The old four-case system of declension of ancient Swedish nouns and adjectives
is gradually being destroyed, and the verb paradigm is being simplified.
In the twelfth century as a result of several crusades against the Finns, the
ancient Swedish language penetrated into Finland, which from 1284 became
dependent on Sweden.
The Old Norse language was formed on the basis of various tribal dialects, of
which there were especially many in Norway. The Old Norse period lasted
from the VII century. to 1525. The unification of the Norwegian tribes in the
1X century. created conditions for the formation of nationality and a single
language. During this time, the Norwegian language was written. During the
Viking Age, the Norwegian language spread beyond the country to Iceland, the
Faroe Islands and other islands.
The first monuments of the Old Norse language are inscriptions in younger
runes. There are about 350, mostly from the XI century. and piziyshih. The
Latin alphabet spread in Norway from the second half of the 11th century, but
the manuscripts reach us only from the second half of the 12th century —
fragments of laws, land books, and religious works. The most important of
them is a monument of the XIII century. "Royal Mirror", which contains a
dialogue between the father and the dream about the affairs and responsibilities
of the merchant, warrior and king. Also valuable is the manuscript "Saga of
Didric of Berne" of the late X11I century.
The end of the XV century. Norwegian is being pushed out of official use in the
country by Danish. The church, the judiciary, and the administration cease to
use it. The main area of its use remains conversation, everyday
communication, and only in rural areas, where the language is represented only
by dialectal varieties. In Norwegian cities, mixed dialects with Norwegian
phonetics and syntax and Danish vocabulary are formed.
The ancient Icelandic language was formed on the basis of the West Norwegian
dialects spoken by the first settlers. Chronologically, the Old Icelandic period is
limited to the IX-XVI centuries. Back in the XII-XIV centuries. The Dutch and
Norwegian languages were practically indistinguishable, calling them the same
name pognt mal. The name islenzkt mal arose only in the XV century.
The value of the ancient Icelandic linguistic heritage for German studies is
enormous. First, she got a lot of sights. However, the Icelandic runic
inscriptions (45 of them) are not of great importance, but the rich and original
literature in the ancient Icelandic language has been preserved - the Eddies, the
poetry of the Skalds, and the prose sagas.
The Latin alphabet probably came here from England in the late XI - early XII
centuries. The first manuscripts in Latin are known from the end of the century:
an excerpt from a book of sermons, two excerpts from records of Icelandic laws,
a description of the lands of the Rekjaholt monastery, a work on the church
calendar, and others.
Literary works of the heyday of Icelandic culture of the XII-XI centuries. have
come down to us in manuscripts dating no earlier than the middle of the
thirteenth century.
Folk eddic songs were collected in the so-called "Elder Eddie" (1st century,
reached in the manuscript of the twelfth century), which has three sections:
mythological songs, gnomic and heroic. Mythological songs "Eddie" have a lot
of great importance because they have no parallels in the work of continental
Germans. They give a very detailed picture of the religious beliefs of the
Scandinavians. Eddie's heroic songs explain the plots of the heroic epic that
developed among the Germans on the continent during the resettlement of
peoples (legends about Cigurda, the death of the Hibelungs, about Ermanarik,
Swangild, etc.).
The poetry of the Skalds (IX-XIII centuries) depicted the events of its time. The
wife-singers of the skald glorified the military exploits of the conig and his
warriors with the help of exquisitely complex verses. In contrast to the epic,
skaldic poetry, along with alliterative verse, necessarily had an inner rhyme and
a clear size. A characteristic feature of the poetics of the skalds were canings,
complex two-part metaphorical descriptions of a simple concept. There was a
competition between skalds in the creation of kenings, where they sometimes
showed extraordinary ingenuity.
The so-called "Younger Edda" (c. 1222-1223) was written by the poet Snorri
Sturluson as a kind of textbook for skalds, here he set out guidelines for
composing poetic works and provided examples to follow. This collection also
has three parts: 1) a review of mythology; 2) a collection and explanations of
the most important kenings; 3) metrics-description of poetic dimensions and
stanzas used in skaldic poetry.
Icelandic prose sagas were based on the oral stories of the first non-immigrants
from Norway to Iceland. Most of these works were recorded in the period
between the last quarter of the XII and the end of the XIII century. Among
them are family sagas that tell the story of prominent families, depict pictures of
life, family relationships and customs of the Scandinavians of the Viking Age.
Some sagas are legendary, fantastic, and based on less plausible facts and
names. Transmitted in the oral tradition, the sagas were gradually saturated
with fairy-tale motifs, folk fiction. An important feature of ancient Icelandic
phonetics is the lack of vowel reduction in unstressed syllables. Among the
Germanic languages, this is one that has no indefinite article. In ancient
Icelandic pronouns, a double has survived. The vocabulary is characterized by
an extremely small number of foreign borrowings.
The Old Faroese language was also formed on the basis of the former
Norwegian dialects brought by settlers to the Faroe Islands in the second half of
the 1st century. Its phonetics and vocabulary are close to the West Norwegian
dialects, and its morphology is close to the Old Icelandic language. The oldest
monuments are several runic inscriptions and letters. The end of the XVI
century. land books reach us, and from the beginning of the XVII century.
protocols of the local parliament-lagting. The most important cultural and
linguistic monuments are folk ballads, composed since the XIV century. and
were recorded in the XVII century.
3.3. Old Norse and its division into eastern and western
subgroups.
Scandinavian languages, also called North Germanic languages,
group of Germanic languages consisting of modern standard Danish,
Swedish, Norwegian (Dano-Norwegian and New Norwegian), Icelandic,
and Faroese. These languages are usually divided into East Scandinavian
(Danish and Swedish) and West Scandinavian (Norwegian, Icelandic,
and Faroese) groups.
Icelandic has very minor dialectal differences phonetically. The language has both
monophthongs and diphthongs, and consonants can be voiced or unvoiced.
The language of the sagas is Old Icelandic, a western dialect of Old Norse. The
Dano-Norwegian, then later Danish rule of Iceland from 1536 to 1918 had little effect on the
evolution of Icelandic (in contrast to the Norwegian language), which remained in daily use
among the general population. Though more archaic than the other living Germanic languages,
Icelandic changed markedly in pronunciation from the 12th to the 16th century, especially in
vowels (in particular, á, æ, au, and y/ý).
Norwegian:Norwegian language, Norwegian Norsk, North Germanic language
of the West Scandinavian branch, existing in two distinct and rival
norms—Bokmål (also called Dano-Norwegian, or Riksmål) and New
Norwegian (Nynorsk).Old Norwegian writing traditions gradually died out in
the 15th century after the union of Norway with Denmark and the removal of
the central government to Copenhagen. Dano-Norwegian stems from the written
Danish introduced during the union of Denmark and Norway (1380–1814).
When in 1814 Norway achieved independence, the linguistic union with Danish
persisted, but educational problems due to the linguistic distance between
Danish and spoken Norwegian and to sociopolitical considerations, as well as
the ideology of “national Romanticism,” stimulated a search for a national
standard language.Ivar Aasen, constructed a language norm primarily from the
dialects of the western and central rural districts. This standard continued the
Old Norwegian tradition and was meant to eventually replace Danish. After
long research and experimentation, he presented this New Norwegian norm
(called Landsmål, but now officially Nynorsk) in a grammar, a dictionary, and
numerous literary texts. New Norwegian was officially recognized as a second
national language