Questions tagged [old-norse]
For question about Old Norse, the language spoken and written in Scandinavia ca. 9th to 13th century.
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Development of Old Norse 2nd and 3rd person sg. (present indicative) forms of "to be"
I was comparing the conjugations of "to be" in Old Norse and Proto-Germanic, and it looks like ON has flipped the 2nd and 3rd person singular forms. Is this what happened, or is there some ...
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The Pronunciation of G in Old English
I couldn't find an answer to my question because Google Search went downhill these years.
Why is g pronounced as y in a lot of Old English words? Is the reason native phonetics changes happen in a lot ...
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Why does Old Norse ‘Óláfr’ have á instead of ei?
The Proto-Germanic (PG) diphthong *ai generally becomes ei in Old Norse (ON), except regularly before an original *h and commonly before r (but only from PG *r, not from rhotacised PG *z).
Examples ...
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How did Old Norse influence Old English to lose genders and cases?
Wikipedia says that "Norse influence is ... considered to have stimulated and accelerated the morphological simplification found in Middle English, such as the loss of grammatical gender and ...
user35806
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Old Norse, 'r' vs 'ʀ'?
On the Snoldelev Stone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snoldelev_stone) is found the following inscription:
kun'uAlts| |stAin ' sunaʀ ' ruHalts ' þulaʀ ' o salHauku(m)
What is the difference between ...
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How did Proto-Germanic "e" break into "ja" in Old Norse?
How did Proto-Germanic "e" break into "ja" in Old Norse?
I can't realize it.
for instance helpaną hjalpa
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Why does Old Norse tíu (from PGmc *tehun) have í?
Why does Old Norse tíu (from PGmc *tehun) have í instead of é? Compare *fehu > fé.
I didn't find the answer here
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Why are Proto-Germanic *fraiwą and Old Norse frjó / fræ cognate?
Why are Proto-Germanic *fraiwą and Old Norse frjó / fræ (oblique stems frjóvi / frævi) cognate?
I don't understand why are PGmc ai and Old Norse jó / æ cognate?
The part of the table "History of ...
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How do you translate academic runic encodings to runes (ᚠᚢᚦᚨᚱᚲ)?
I have not been able to find a single resource online that has (unicode encoded) Runic inscriptions like a full text of ᚠᚢᚦᚨᚱᚲ, or even a dictionary. This site lists some resources, most of which are ...
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Bugarth - Celtic, Old Norse, both or neither?
The placename 'bugarth' or 'bugardie' in Shetland has be confused.
Normally for Shetland placenames I turn to Jakobsen who gives: bu stock of cattle on a farm from [Old Norse] bú; and gart an ...
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How are bindrunes read?
I understand that the runes of the Younger Futhark alphabet had names such as hagall and bjarkan, I also understand that these rune names had meanings, such as hail and birch. I also understand that ...
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Is there any superstrate influence of Old East Norse left in East Slavic languages?
The word "Russia" is derived from the name "Rus", the name of a Viking tribe originating from Sweden who ended up founding kingdoms in what is now Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, most notably the so-...
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How did Norwegian "huske" derive from ON "hugsa"?
In Norse and Norwegian both, hug means "memory". Norse hugsa and Nynorsk hugse is "to remember".
Is there a reason that s was attached? I can't think of any other verbs derived from nouns in this ...
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Does the French word for Friday, "vendredi", come from the Latin "Veneris" or the old Norse "Vanadis"?
When looking up the etymology of the French vendredi online, I can only find the suggestion that it comes from the Latin Veneris (Venus).
However, the English, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish and ...
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Old English forms of address
I am doing some research on Anglo-Saxon England and wondering if there are any particular forms of address in Old English that are a) roughly equivalent to Mr. Mrs. Ms., etc. in terms of formality, b) ...
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How to convert masculine Old Norse dwarf names to feminine markers?
I'm wondering how to convert the Old Norse names from the "Catalog of Dwarfs" in the Völuspá into their feminine version? So that they look phonetically female.
For example:
Fíli > Fíla
Kíli > Kíla
...
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What is the origin of the Icelandic Ð, ð, eth?
Icelandic's other unique letter, the thorn, is obviously Runic (and near the front of the Futhark). Eth was not defined in the "First Grammatical Treatise" of 1140-1180. It seems like both the Runic ...
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Old Norse kné: a- stem or wa- stem?
The neuter noun kné follows a-stem declension.
But it comes from Proto-Germanic *knewą. This seems to be a wa-stem.
Then why does it follow a-stem declension? Did Scandinavians force it to, even ...
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Old Norse name for Balts (Baltic people)?
Is there a word in Old Norse vocabulary for Balts (Baltic people)?
How about regions of nowadays Latvia, particularly for Courland?
user11290
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Suffix -sk[a/i] for adjectives derrived from nations in Nordic and some Slavic languages
I was wondering about the ending -sk(+ optionally an additional vowel) used to create adjectives from names of the nations in Nordic (at least Danish and Swedish) as well as some Slavic languages (at ...
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Old Norse: Noun declension gen. sg. -s or -ar?
I am using A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic and An Introduction to Old Norse (by E. V. Gordon) as my resoources.
In An Introduction, it is said that:
Some nouns declined otherwise as ...
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Markers for feminine and masculine names in Old Norse?
A question in two parts:
One, is there a way, other than original context, to determine whether a name in Old Norse is generally masculine or generally feminine?
Two, how would one go about ...
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Is there any characteristic that is unique to North Germanic languages?
Is there any characteristic that is unique to the North Germanic languages (Swedish, Danish, Norweigan, Faroese, Icelandic) and the dead ones (such as Old West Norse, Old East Norse, Norn, Proto-Norse)...
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Help me find an early Old Norse dictionary (or even a grammar)
For some time I've been looking for a dictionary of Old Norse that reflects an early situation in the language; this kind of resource has been amazingly hard to find, for some reason. Most ...
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How did one pronounce an 'r' in Old English?
I'm wondering how the rhotic consonant was pronounced by the ancient Anglo-Saxons. Was it pronounced as an alveolar like Modern English or more like the trill Scots use in certain words? Were there ...
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Why does the Old Norse word "maðr" include "ð", while its cognate E "man" doesn't?
maðr
From Proto-Germanic *mann-, whence also Old English mann, Old High German man.
mann-
Descendants
Old English: mann, man; manna
English: man
Old Frisian: man, mon
West Frisian: man
...
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How does the Icelandic word "finna" come from Proto-Germanic "finþanan"?
finna
From Old Norse finna, from Proto-Germanic *finþanan.
finþanan
From Proto-Indo-European *pent-, *penth- (“to go, pass; path, bridge”). Cognate with Latin pons (“bridge”), Old Indian pánthā ...
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