I'm starting a blog

[AroAro]

I'm writing a post on the pronoun "I" which in Norwegian has many dialectal variations. What about other European languages?

In Polish the first singular pronoun is "ja". Some people, with less education or coming from rural areas, can say " jo" though I believe this variant has almost died out.
The prounouns in Polish can also take the past tense marker so it's possible to see forms such as "jam zrobił" instead of "ja zrobiłem" ("I did") but it sounds very archaic and emphatic and it's used in written language only I guess. In spoken language however, there's "jażem zrobił" but it sounds very "negligent" as if the speaker didn't care at all how he/she expresses him/herself.
And finally, in all Slavic languages the pronoun "I" is "ja" except for Bulgarian where it's "az". Actually, they come from the same source - Old Slavic "jaz", Bulgarian just dropped the first letter unlike other Slavic languages. In Macedonian, from what I know, it's still "jas".

[Dragon27]

And finally, in all Slavic languages the pronoun "I" is "ja" except for Bulgarian where it's "az". Actually, they come from the same source - Old Slavic "jaz", Bulgarian just dropped the first letter unlike other Slavic languages. In Macedonian, from what I know, it's still "jas".

It's also "jaz" in Slovene.

[tungemål]

It's all very interesting. I think you all have to write blog posts about these languages.

I have one theory: seems like Proto-Germanic and Old Norse form was "ek", while Old Slavic was "jaz". Then East Norse developed "jak" - maybe this was influenced by Old Slavic?

It has led to the Swedish form being the same as the Polish - "ja"

[Dragon27]

Proto-Germanic stressed short e becomes ja or (before u) jǫ regularly in Old Norse except after w, r, l. Examples are:

PG *ek(a) "I" → (east) ON jak, Swedish jag, Danish and Norwegian Bokmål jeg, and Icelandic ek → ég (but Jutlandic æ, a, Nynorsk eg).
Faroese has both. The standard form is eg, while the dialects of Suðuroy have jeg.
PG *hertōn "heart" → ON hjarta, Swedish hjärta, Faroese hjarta, Norwegian Nynorsk hjarta, Danish hjerte
PG *erþō "earth" → Proto-Norse *erþū → ON jǫrð, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian jord, Faroese jørð
According to some scholars, the diphthongisation of e is an unconditioned sound change, whereas other scholars speak about epenthesis or umlaut.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel_breaking#Old_Norse

[tungemål]

Thanks, Dragon.
The "e" becoming "ja" seems like a palatalization, and correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't exactly this happen in Russian? "e" pronounced as "je" and "Я" pronounced as "ja".

[Dragon27]

Thanks, Dragon.
The "e" becoming "ja" seems like a palatalization, and correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't exactly this happen in Russian? "e" pronounced as "je" and "Я" pronounced as "ja".

It's called vowel breaking in Old Norse and it's pretty regular there, happens in a bunch of environments, after consonants, at the beginning of the words, etc. Usually the term 'vowel breaking' means the changing of the vowel into a diphthong; here the sound combination is not exactly a diphthong, although some call it "rising diphthong" (a combination of "glide", like /j/ or /w/ and a vowel).
Palatalization is the process of changing of consonants before front vowels, like /k/ to /c/ or to /tʃ/ and stuff like that.
What happened in Slavic (back in its Proto-Slavic glory) is this, I believe:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_o ... #Prothesis

Prothesis
During the Common Slavic period, prothetic glides were inserted before words that began with vowels, consistent with the tendency for rising sonority within a syllable. These cases merged with existing word-initial sequences of glide + vowel, and show the same outcome in the later languages. *v was inserted before rounded vowels (*u, *ū), *j before unrounded vowels (*e, ē, *i, *ī). Not all vowels show equal treatment in this respect, however. High vowels generally have prothesis without exception in all Slavic languages, as do *e, *ě and nasal *ę:

*i- > *ji- (> *jь-)
*ī- > *jī- (> *ji-)
*u- > *wu- (> *vъ-)
*ū- > *wū- (> *vy-)
*e- > *je-
*ę- > *ję-
*ē- > *jē- (> *jě- or *ja-)

The exact etymology of the Proto-Slavic "(j)azъ" and its development from a Proto-Indo-European root lacks some details, but it seems to fall in with the last pattern in the quoted part (*ē- > *jē- (> *jě- or *ja-)). The root at the level of Proto-Balto-Slavic (before it's split into the separate Baltic and Slavic branches) was something like "ēź-". You can see in the link that the Baltic languages (modern and older varieties) have forms like "es" and "as" (and "eš"/"aš").
So, not exactly the same process, I would say.

[tungemål]

I've written the blog post about the personal pronoun "I". Actually it became two posts, one in Norwegian and one in English.

Have a look:
ordvandring blog

[jeff_lindqvist]

I had a look - although I gave you the different forms in Swedish, they're just different manifestations of a long a / [ɑː]. "Jag" is of course the written form/the dictionary form (and nobody will ever write it any other way). A final consonant can disappear (→the second form, the "spoken" variety). The final two are regional, but not unusual at all, and not unique to the pronoun. Long a tend to lean towards a long å on the west coast, and towards a diphthong in the south.

[tungemål]

Yes, you're my informant. And I linked to this thread. Anything I misunderstood?
It's about pronunciation, I hope that was clear in the text.

[mick33]

I have long thought about starting a blog on word etymology. What do you think about the idea? Here it is:
https://ordvandring.blogspot.com/

I'm also thinking about writing posts in different languages.

The appeal of this blog will be limited to people who have nerdy language interests, who also are interested in my musings on etymology, and in addition want to read posts in different languages. (maybe)

Limiting the target audience to 2-3 people on this forum

I've just read the post about the different ways to say "I" in Norwegian, and found it quite interesting. I remember reading there were many dialects of Norwegian, but I didn't know how many ways one could say "I". I had only known about 3 of them: "jeg", "eg" and "æ".

I'm definitely looking forward to reading more and can't wait to see how much written Norwegian I can understand without actually learning it