Old Norse

[emk]

One way to write a text in credible Old Norse without being one of the few specialist would be to make a sketch in Modern Icelandic and then change some obvious things to make them look more ancient and maybe let a specialist do the final retouches.

There might actually be three groups of text that you could pull from: (1) modern Icelandic, (2) the text of the sagas and the Eddas, and (3) finally the runic inscriptions cataloged by Rundata (that I linked above).

I took an interest in this back in 2006 because I wanted to make my wife a linguistically authentic rune stone. This was, of course, an entirely worthwhile project because my wife is descended from the Normans and her family name is a modern French variation of a Viking name.

This involved digging through Rundata for lots of inscriptions like:

DR 68 §A (-)usti × auk × hufi × auk × thir × frebiurn × risthu × stin × thonsi × eftiR × ¶ × osur × saksa × filaka × sin × hartha × §B kuthan × trik × saR × tu × ¶ × mana × mest × unithikR × ¶ saR × ati × skib × mith × arno +

DR 68 §A Tosti and Hofi and Freybjôrn, they raised this stone in memory of Ôzurr Saxon / Sword(-wielder), their partner, a very §B good valiant man. He died as the most unvillainous of men; he owned a ship with Árni.

DR 66 §A ¤ kunulfR ¤ auk ¤ augutr ¤ auk ¤ aslakR ¤ auk ¤ rulfR ¤ risthu §B ¤ stin ¤ thansi ¤ eftiR × ful ¤ fela(k)a ¤ sin ¤ ¶ ¤ iaR ¤ uarth (¤) ...y-- × tuthr ¤ §C tho ¤ kunukaR × ¶ barthusk ¤

DR 66 §A Gunnulfr and Eygautr/Audhgautr and Áslakr and Hrólfr raised §B this stone in memory of Fúl, their partner, who died §C when kings fought.

DR 116 $ tuki : ri(s)-- ¶ -tin : thansi : ift ¶ thurstin : sin ¶ -(r)uthur : nuk ¶ igi : sin : fathu-

DR 116 $ Tóki raised this stone in memory of Thorsteinn, his brother, and Ingi, his father.

DR 1 §A × thurlfr| × |risthi × stin × thonsi × ¶ × himthigi × suins × eftiR × ¶ erik × filaga × sin × ias × uarth §B : tauthr × tho × trekiaR ¶ satu × um × haitha×bu ¶ × i=a=n : h=a=n : u=a=s : s=t=u=r=i:m=a=t=r : t=r=e=g=R × ¶ × hartha : kuthr ×

DR 1 §A Thórulfr raised this stone, Sveinn's retainer, in memory of Eiríkr, his partner, who §B died when valiant men besieged Hedeby; and he was a captain, a very good valiant man.

The "DR" stands for a plate number in Danmarks Runeindskrifter (1941–42), an old, hardbound book with pictures of most of the Danish rune stones. These photos can be used to verify how the runes would actually have been written. It turns out, for example, that "Eiríkr" becomes ᛂᚱᛁᚴ, and many other orthographic changes are made from modern Icelandic. There are also small differences in writing and spelling between countries.

If we used Rundata to look up "gods", we get:

Öl SAS1989;43 §A × hir| |risti| |ik thiR birk ¶ bufi meR fultihu ¶ this the|R| |e|R uis in bra| |al¶ti| |ilu fran bufa thor keti h¶ans miR them hamri sam huR §B hafi kam fly fran iluit ¶ feR eki af bufa kuth iRu ¶ untiR hanum auk yfiR han¶um

Öl SAS1989;43 §A Here I carve(d) protection for you, Bófi, with/... ... ... to you is certain. And may the lightning hold all evil away from Bófi. May Thórr protect him with that hammer which came from out §B of the sea. Flee from evilness! You/it get/gets nothing from Bófi. The gods are under him and over him.

Bo NIYR;4 $ asa fu(th)or/fu(u)or

Bo NIYR;4 $ Ása/the gods ...

N A74 M §A -a=ua=rthær : cender : g(u)----- : (g)-(th)ærs : kuethiu : ok sina= =uigan §B ok nu er min fuler uili : at : bithia thin : ef thu uilt : æihi meth §C -b(æ)ini : ue(r)- : ---a : thit ra=th : ok lat (s)(e)hia mer §D thin uilia

N A74 M §A Hávardhr sends Guny/Gunnhildr(?) his friendship and Gods greeting. §B And now it is my full desire to ask you (for your hand in marriage), if you do not want to be with §C Kolbeinn. Think over your intentions ... and have me told §D your desire.

N B13 M §A Mikæl * petr * ioanes * andres * lafranc * tomas * olafr * klemet * nikulas * aller hælger §B men giæte min * not ouk dah lfs mins ouk salo kuth se mik ok s(i)hni §C <kuth> <kifi> <o>s <byrokkafomar>i<a> §D h(i)-lbe mer <klim>et hialbe m(e)=r alle gc hlk(e)r h(i)(a)

N B13 M §A Mikjáll, Pétr, Jóhannes, Andrés, Lafranz, Thomás, Ólafr, Klemet, Nikulás. May all holy §B men protect me by night and day, my life (ie body) and soul. May God see me and bless me. §C May God give us ... §D Help me, Klemet, help me, all of Gods holy (men).

From here, the exercise is to figure out which translations of "gods" actually correspond to a usable word in Old Norse and then work backwards. Note that my examples here are pulled from different countries and time periods. It is also necessary to keep in mind the transition to Christianity, which would obviously have changed religious terminology.

Anyway, I hope that somebody finds some of this amusing. With luck and a bit of elbow grease, it is often possible to find considerable historical texts to use as a starting point.

[aokoye]

I don't have much to add other than to say that I know at least a handful of universities teach old norse. I have a friend who took it, among other languages, as part of her master's of medieval studies degree at ghe University of St. Andrews.

[Iversen]

There might actually be three groups of text that you could pull from: (1) modern Icelandic, (2) the text of the sagas and the Eddas, and (3) finally the runic inscriptions cataloged by Rundata (that I linked above).

I have understood the task as: write something that looks like genuine Old Norse even though that you aren't fluent in that language. As emk's examples show the runic inscriptions in their raw form is quite far from the fluent prose or poetry found in the eddas - lots of abbreviations and weird spellings, and mostly short texts with little variation (but thanks anyway for the reference to Rundata). One reason that the printed editions of the sagas look more inviting is that dedicated specialists have rendered them in a common standard orthography, and they are usually fairly long and often worth reading in their own right. By choosing them as your paragon rather than the runic inscriptions you have a decent chance of getting the rhythm of the language under your skin, which is one important step towards writing in a language (or dialect/variant) which you quite honestly don't master yet.

So if I had to do the job I would leave the runic texts out of the equation and focus on writing something with the edda texts as my main inspiration source ... and with Modern Icelandic as a 'skeleton' language which could hold the content in a related language where I could look for things to replace.

The situation reminds me of Latin, where the old official inscriptions written by Romans are almost illegible because of the abbreviations, but we have a lot of genuine running text to get inspiration from. One main difference is that I have a least one full dictionary and several wordlists into Latin to help me. So far I haven't got any dictionary from Danish or some other language into old Norse - the few wordlists and dictionaries I know of all go in the other direction.

I have in some cases written in languages or dialects I haven't really studied systematically using this method, like Southern Jutish or Occitan. In such cases I first read at least an hour or so in the language/dialect in question, and then I write a mixed version with as much as possible in the intended language or dialect and the holes filled out some other language which I know better, preferably a close relative. Then I read another hour or so in the intended language/dialect and return to my sketch to correct it. It is at this stage that having a dictionary in the right direction is crucial and can save you hours of searching. Sometimes you do find something useful in the stuff you run through after writing the sketch, but mostly you end up with lots of unresolved problems and lots of anacronisms.

In general terms: learning a language or dialect with the help of a related language/dialect as your crutch or skeleton is a technique that can save you a lot of time, but of course there is a risk, namely that you end up writing or speaking an unholy mixture. But I nevertheless think the time savings justify using it, especially in this case where the OP actually doesn't aspire to go all the way and become a ressurrected viking, but just wants to get one step beyond passive competence.