Old Norse language

Old Norse (also called Old Nordic, and Old Scandinavian), is a Germanic language that was spoken in Scandinavia, during the Viking Age, until about 1300. It was also spoken in Iceland, the Faeroe Islands, Orkney Islands and other places that Scandinavians started settlements (similar to colonies).

Old Norse
Dǫnsk tunga ("Danish tongue") Norrœnt mál ("Norse speech")
Native to	Scandinavia
Region	Nordic countries, Great Britain, Ireland, Isle of Man, Normandy, Newfoundland, the Volga and places in-between
Era	developed into the various North Germanic languages by the 14th century
Language family	Indo-European Germanic North Germanic Old Norse
Early forms	Proto-Indo-European Proto-Germanic Proto-Norse
Writing system	Runic, later Latin (Old Norse alphabet)
Language codes
ISO 639-2	non
ISO 639-3	non
Glottolog	oldn1244

Modern Icelandic is the modern language that is the closest to Old Norse when written. Another language that is close to Old Norse, is Elfdalian. Other languages that come from Old Norse are Swedish, Danish, Faroese, and Norwegian.

Old East Norse

The Rök runestone in Östergötland, Sweden, is the longest surviving source of early Old East Norse. It is inscribed on both sides.

Old East Norse was a dialect of Old Norse which evolved into the languages Old Danish and Old Swedish from the 9th century to the 12th century.

History

Between 800 and 1100, East Norse is in Sweden called Runic Swedish and in Denmark Runic Danish. The use of Swedish and Danish is not for linguistic reasons as the differences between them are minute at best during the more ancient stages of this dialect group. Changes had a tendency to occur earlier in the Danish region and until this day many Old Danish changes have still not taken place in modern Swedish rendering Swedish as the more archaic out of the two concerning both the ancient and the modern languages, sometimes by a profound margin but in all differences are still minute. They are called runic because the body of text appears in runes. Runic Old East Norse is characteristically archaic in form, especially Swedish (which is still true for modern Swedish compared to Danish). In essence it matches or surpasses the archaicness of post-runic Old West Norse which in its turn is generally more archaic than post-runic Old East Norse. While typically "Eastern" in structure, many later post-runic changes and trademarks of EON had yet to happen.

Development from Old Norse

The combinations -mp-, -nt-, and -nk- mostly merged to -pp-, -tt- and -kk- in Old West Norse at around the 7th century, marking the first distinction between the Eastern and Western dialects. The following table illustrates this (note the mutual influence of East and West Norse on each other):

English	Northish	Faroese	Icelandic	Old East Norse	Proto-Norse	Old West Norse	Swedish	Danish	Dano-Norwegian
mushroom	sopp	soppur	sveppur	swǫppʀ	*swampu	svampr	svamp	svamp	sopp
steep	bratt	brattur	brattur	brattʀ	*brantaz	brantr	brant	brat	bratt
widow	enkje	einkja, arch. ekkja	ekkja	ekkja	*ain(a)kjōn	ænkja	änka	enke	enke
shrinke	kreppe	kreppa	kreppa	kreppa	*krimpan	krimpa	krympa	krympe	krympe
sprinte	sprette	spretta	spretta	spretta	*sprintan	sprinta	spritta, dial. sprinta	sprætte	sprette
sinke	søkke	søkka	sökkva	søkkva	*sankwian	sænkva	sjunka	synke	synke

Other websites

• Heimskringla.no, an online collection of Old Norse source material
• Old Norse Online by Todd B. Krause and Jonathan Slocum, free online lessons at the Linguistics Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin
• Video: Old Norse text read with a reconstructed pronunciation and a Modern Icelandic pronunciation, for comparison. With subtitles
• Old Norse sound samples for early Old Norse and 13th century Norwegian Old Norse by Arne Torp
• Old Norse sound sample by Haukur Þorgeirsson (archived from the original)
• Old Norse loans in Old and Middle English, and their legacy in the dialects of England and modern standard English
• Old Norse basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database