Adolf Gotthard Noreen

“ But when Iceland was colonized at the end of the 9th and the beginning of the 10th century, chiefly from western Norway, a separate (western) Norwegian dialect gradually sprang up, at first of course only differing slightly from the mother-tongue. It was not until the introduction of Christianity (about 1000 A.D.) that the language was so far differentiated as to enable us to distinguish, in runic inscriptions and in the literature which was then arising, four different dialects, which have ever since existed as the four literary languages—Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish. ”

“ A vigorous reform, slowly but firmly carried on almost uniformly during all periods of the Swedish language, is the throwing back of the principal accent to the beginning of the word in cases where previously it stood nearer the end, a tendency that is characteristic of all the Scandinavian languages, but no doubt especially of Swedish. ”

“ The next two centuries form a period of transition as regards the language as well as the alphabet which it employed. Period of transition. We possess some inscriptions belonging to this period in which the old runic alphabet of twenty-four characters is still used, and the language of which closely resembles that of the primitive Scandinavian monuments, as, for example, those on the stones of Stentoften and Björketorp, both from southern Sweden, probably dating from the 10th century, and being the longest inscriptions yet found with the old runic alphabet. ”

“ Thus, for instance, we find in some manuscripts (as the above-mentioned legendary Olafssaga) that the vowels e, o and long a, æ, ø are followed in terminations by e, o; i, u, y, and short a, æ, ø, on the other hand, by i, u,—as in bǿner, prayers, konor, women; but tiðir, times, tungur, tongues. The same fact occurs in certain Old Swedish manuscripts. When Norway had been united later with Sweden under one crown (1319) we meet pure Suecisms in the Norwegian literary language. ”

“ For the study of Danish dialects but little has been done, Molbech's Dialect-Lexicon of 1841 being very deficient. The Schleswig dialect, on the contrary, has been admirably treated of by E. Hagerup (1854) and K. J. Lyngby (1858) . At present two important works are in preparation,—H. F. Feilberg's great dictionary of the dialect of Jutland, and J. C. Espersen's of the dialect of Bornholm. There is no country in which the dialects have been and are studied with greater zeal and more fruitful results than in Sweden [66] during the last hundred and fifty years. ”

“ Towards the end of the Middle Ages the Danish influence shows an immense increase, which marks the gradual decline of Norwegian literature, until at last Norwegian as literary language is completely supplanted by Danish. ”

“ Although, on account of the exceedingly conservative tendency of Icelandic orthography, the language of Modern Icelandic literature still seems to be almost identical with the language of the 17th century, it has in reality undergone a constant and active development, and, phonetically regarded, has changed considerably. ”

“ The inscriptions [46] of the following centuries are of far less philological interest, because after the 13th century there exists another and more fruitful source for Old Swedish, viz., a literature in the proper sense of the word, which was only in a limited degree written in runes. Of the runic literature hardly anything has been preserved to our days, [47] while the literature in the Latin letters is both in quality and extent incomparably inferior to Old Icelandic, though it, at least in quantity, considerably surpasses Old Norwegian. ”

“ There existed no uniform literary language in the Old Danish period, although some of the most important works of the 15th century, such as Michael's Poems and the Rhymed Chronicle (the first book printed in Danish, in 1495) , on account of their excellent diction, contributed materially to the final preponderance of their dialect, that of Sealand, towards the Reformation.
Form of the language.As to the form of the language, it hardly differs at all during the period between 800 and 1200 A.D. from Old Swedish. It is only in the oldest literature that we can trace any marked differences ”

“ In several of these points, and indeed generally speaking, the Western Scandinavian languages have preserved the more primitive forms, as may be seen in the oldest Eastern Scandinavian runic inscriptions, dating from a period before the beginning of the literature, as well as in many modern Eastern Scandinavian dialects. For, having regard to the Scandinavian dialects generally, we must adopt quite a different classification from that indicated by the dialects which are represented in the literature. ”

“ The whole literature preserved is written in the Latin alphabet. The earliest manuscripts are not much later than the oldest Old Icelandic ones, and of the greatest interest. On the whole, however, the earliest Norwegian literature is in quality as well as in quantity incomparably inferior to the Icelandic. ”

“ To these archaistic tendencies of certain authors at the end of the 17th century we owe the great number of Old Swedish and Icelandic borrowed words then introduced into the language,—as fager, fair, härja, to ravage, later, manners, snille, genius, tarna, girl, tima, to happen, &c. ”

“ Old Icelandic was spoken not only in Iceland, but also in Greenland, where Icelandic colonists lived for a lengthened period (983-about 1400) . Our knowledge of its character is almost exclusively Sources. derived from the remarkably voluminous literature, [13] dating from the middle of the 12th century, and written in the Latin alphabet, adapted to the special requirements of this language. Nothing is preserved of older runic literature. [14] Indeed, Old Icelandic possesses only very few runic monuments (about forty) , all of them almost worthless from a philological point of view. ”

“ From 1872 so-called "landsmålsföreningar" (dialect societies) were founded among the students at the universities of Upsala, Lund, and Helsingfors (at Upsala alone 13) , for a systematic and thorough investigation of dialects. We find remarkable progress in scientific method especially with regard to phonetics in the constantly increasing literature; special mention may be made of the detailed descriptions of the dialects of Värmland, Gotland, and Dalarna by Ad. Noreen, and A. F. Freudenthal's monographs on the Finnish and Esthonian Swedish dialects. ”

“ Among themselves, on the contrary, they show considerable differences; the law of Skåne most nearly corresponds with the Swedish laws, those of Sealand keep the middle place, while the law of Jutland exhibits the most distinctive individuality. The Skåne law, e.g., retains the vowels a, i, u in terminations, which otherwise in Danish have become uniformly æ; the same law inserts b and d between certain consonants (like Old Sw.; see p. 371) , has preserved the dative, and in the present tense takes the vowel of the infinitive ”

“ Among the works of late years we must call special attention to the researches into the history of the language by K. F. Söderwall, [57] F. A. Tamm, [58] and A. Kock. [59] But little study, and that only in isolated parts, has been devoted to the grammar of the modern language, if the advanced state of philology is considered. A good though short abstract is given in H. Sweet's essay on "Sounds and Forms of Spoken Swedish" (Trans. Phil. Soc., 1877-79) . ”

“ SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. By this expression we understand the closely allied languages which are and have been spoken by the Germanic population in Scandinavia, and by the inhabitants of the countries that have been wholly or partially peopled from it. Territory.At present the territory of these languages embraces—Sweden, except the most northerly part (Lapland and inland parts of Vesterbotten, where Finnish and Lappish exclusively or chiefly prevail) ; certain islands and districts on the coast of western and southern Finland, as well as Åland ”

“ The most important differences between Icelandic and Norwegian at the epoch of the oldest MSS. (about 1200) have already been noted. The tendency in Norwegian to retain the use of the so-called u-Umlaut has already been mentioned. On the other hand, there appears in Norwegian in the 13th century another kind of vowel-assimilation, almost unknown to Icelandic, the vowel in terminations being in some degree influenced by the vowel of the preceding syllable. ”

“ His principal work, Ordbok öfver Svenska medeltidsspråket (1884 sq.) , now in course of publication, gives the list of words in the later Old Swedish language, and—taken along with the Ordbok till samlingen af Sveriges gamla lagar (1877) , by C. J. Schlyter, the well-known editor of Old Swedish texts, which contains the vocabulary of the oldest literature—it worthily meets the demand for an Old Swedish dictionary. An Old Swedish grammar, answering the requirements of modern philology, is still needed. ”

“ Thus phonetics, which were comparatively neglected by Rydqvist, have been investigated with great success, especially by L. F. Leffler and A. Kock; while the other parts of grammar have been treated of above all by K. F. Söderwall, the chief of contemporary Old Swedish scholars. ”

“ Gammalsvenskby ("Galsvenskbi") in southern Russia (government of Kherson) , [3] a village colonized from Dagö; the Livonian island of Runö, [4] where Swedish is spoken, as it formerly was on the island of Ösel; Norway, except certain regions in the northern part of the country, peopled by Finns and Lapps (diocese of Tromsö) ; Denmark, with the Faroes, Iceland, and Greenland, where, however, Danish is only spoken by a very small part of the population; the northernmost part of Schleswig; and, finally, several Scandinavian colonies in the United States of North America. ”

“ Owing to the political and commercial state of the country the language at this period is deluged with borrowed words of Low German origin, mostly social and industrial terms, such as the great number of verbs in -era (e.g., hantera, to handle) , the substantives in -eri (röveri, robbery) , -inna (förstinna, princess) , -het (fromhet, piety) , be- (betala, to pay) , and a great many others (klen, weak, smaka, to taste, grover, big, pung, purse, tukt, discipline, bruka, to use, tvist, quarrel, stövel, boot, arbeta, to work, frokoster, lunch, &c.) . ”

“ His no longer extant Specimen Primariæ Linguæ Scantzianæ gave but a very short review of Old Swedish inflexions, but is remarkable as the first essay of its kind, and is perhaps the oldest attempt in modern times at a grammatical treatment of any old Germanic language. The study of runes was very popular in the 17th century ”

“ In 1853 he exhibited a specimen of it, and, thanks to such excellent writers as Aasen himself, the poets O. Vinje and K. Janson, and the novelist A. Garborg, as well as a zealous propagandism of the society "Det Norske Samlag" (founded in 1868) , there has since arisen a valuable though not very large literature in the "Landsmål." But it is nowhere spoken. [64] Its grammatical structure and vocabulary are exhibited in Aasen's Norsk grammatik, 1864, and Norsk ordbog, 1873. ”

“ Indeed, energetic efforts to bring about an orthography more in accordance with phonetics were made during the years 1835-47 by the magazine entitled Fjölnir, where we find such authors as Jónas Hallgrimsson and Konr. ”

“ Of more remarkable etymological Form of the langauge. changes in Modern Icelandic we may note the following:—already about the year 1550 the passive termination -zt (-zst) passes into the till then very rare termination -st (as in kallast, to be called) ; y, ý, and ey at the beginning of the 17th century coincided with i, í, and ei; the long vowels á, ǽ and ó have passed into the diphthongs au (at least about 1650) , ai (about 1700) , ou (as mál, language, mœla, to speak, stóll, chair) ; g before i, j is changed into dj (after a consonant) or j (after a vowel) ,—e.g., liggia, to lie, eigi, not ”

“ Svenskt Diplomatarium, 6 vols., 1829-78, new series, 2 vols., 1875-84. ↑ In memory of Wámód these runes stand; and Warenn, his father, wrote them in memory of his son (by destiny) condemned to death. ↑ If the bell fall down on anybody's head, the parish pays a fine of three marks should he die from it. ”