For an attractive and spirited introduction to the relation of Old Norse
to English and other languages,
see: It is, however,
slighly inexact, cf. the dates given in the opening:
Old Norse is the language spoken and written
by the inhabitants of Scandinavia around 1000 A.D. and earlier. The
modern Nordic languages of Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic and
Faroese descended from Old Norse. (Not Finnish though, this language is
related to Hungarian and Korean .) Old Norse is no longer spoken by
groups of people, so it is considered a 'dead language'. It does have an
extensive literature, much was written in Old Norse, in Iceland in the
1200's or there about. As Old Norse is a Germanic language (along with
its descended Scandinavian languages mentioned above, and German, Dutch,
Gothic and, yes, English), and aside from many runic inscriptions, it
represents the earliest written flowering of any Germanic language.
Therefore anyone interested in the real roots of their Germanic
language, should take an interest in Old Norse.
The American Heritage Dictionary contains a good and fairly
detailed treatment of Indo-European which is
available on-line.
It has also got useful etymologies for any English word you may fancy,
sometimes with a more detailed "Word
History". Try, for instance, to click words like egg, they, tithe,
window etc. There is any number of etymological dictionaries
available on paper, also some others on-line,
see e.g.:
We can, obviously, find scholarly dictionaries, including etymological
ones, for Old Norse and other old languages (UVic Library, Reference
section, under P7, PD etc.). Yet I recomment that you start with
dictionaries of English etymology, looking up English cognates of the Old
Norse words that interest you. On runes and runic inscription,
see (with
useful links) Wikipedia has an excellent treatment of
Old Norse language:
Old Norse or Danish tongue is the
Germanic language once spoken by the inhabitants of the
Nordic countries (for instance during the
Viking Age). Formally, it can be divided into two similar
dialects:
- West Norse
-
Old Icelandic and
Old Norwegian
- East Norse
-
Old Danish and
Old Swedish
In the
11th century, it was the most widely spoken European
language, ranging from the
Icelandic settlements in
Vinland and
Greenland to the
Swedish settlements in
Russia in the East, and to the
Danish settlements in
England and
Normandy in the south.
Its modern descendants are the West Scandinavian languages of
Icelandic,
Norwegian,
Faroese and the extinct
Norn language of the
Orkney and the
Shetland Islands as well as the East Scandinavian languages
of
Swedish and
Danish. Norwegian was later heavily influenced by East
Scandinavian. (A more accurate division would class
Bokmaal as East Scandinavian,
Nynorsk as West Scandinavian.)
Among these,
Icelandic and the closely related
Faroese have changed the least from Old Norse in the last
thousand years, although with
Danish rule of the
Faroe Islands
Faroese has also been influenced by
Danish. Old Norse also had an influence on
English dialects and particularly
Scots which contains many Old Norse
loanwords. It also influenced the development of the
Norman language.
The earliest inscriptions are
runic, from the
1st century, and runes continued to be used for a thousand
years. The main literary texts are in the
Latin alphabet, the great
sagas
and
eddas of medieval
Iceland.
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