Old man norrois

The old norrois (or norrois , norois or old Icelandic ) corresponds to the first written certificates of a Scandinavian language medieval.

Distribution

The old man norrois to influence many languages, Russian , the English but also the French via the Norman . The languages which are to him today nearest are the Scandinavian languages.

Place du norrois in the evolution of the Scandinavian languages

One traditionally distinguishes three periods in the evolution from the Scandinavian languages:

  • before the 7th century, the stage of the former Scandinavian , who did not include/understand significant dialectal alternatives yet;
  • between the 7th century and the 15th century, that of the old Scandinavian , who was different in two very similar dialects:
    • the dialect of the Eastern Scandinavian , spoken with the Denmark and in Sweden, which was different as from the 12th century as old Swedish and Danish old man (one often adds to these two dialects a third branch, the old gutnisk spoken on the island about Gotland;
    • the dialect of the Scandinavian Westerner , usually indicated by the name of (old man) norrois, spoken in Norway and in the old colonies about the West (Iceland, Faroe Islands, islands the Shetland, islands the Orkneys, island of Man, most of the Ireland, certain parts of the Scotland, and the Greenland).
the current descendants of the Western Scandinavian are the Icelandic, the Féringien (of the Faroe Islands) and the Norwegian ; from the three, it is the latter which changed most radically, partly because of the influence of the Danish and the Swedish, but especially because of orientation given by the general linguistic evolution of the Scandinavia.
  • as from the 15th century, finally, one enters the era of the modern Scandinavian languages : mainly the Norwegian , the Danish, the Swedish and the Icelandic.

The old norrois is by far the variety best attested former Scandinavian; the “traditional” norrois is the language in which the Icelandic sagas of XIIe and 13th centuries were written, of which most known, the Edda describing with an astonishing neutrality on behalf of a clerk the Mythologie Viking.

Phonological system of the norrois

C-Ws communication and their phonetic value

The former Scandinavian is attested in two written forms:

  • in runic writing, also called futhark

  • in Latin alphabet, which was introduced at the same time as Christianity shortly after the year 1000.

In the Latin alphabet, it was necessary to add certain signs to represent all the sounds of the former Scandinavian. Here a table of the vowels of the former Scandinavian such as they were represented in the Latin alphabet: The symbols ǫ , ę (is not used any more and thus does not appear in the table) and ø (at the origin a binding by superposition of O and E ) date from XIIe century. They were proposed for the orthography of old Icelandic by the author of the First treaty of grammar . Æ is borrowed from the Vieil English. Old the norrois knew moreover three Diphtongue S: æi , ǫu and æy . These diphthongs were transcribed by Digramme S in the manuscripts.

For the consonants, one borrowed the Graphème S þ ( HT hard, as in faith in English, often transliterated HT ) and 2D ( HT soft , as in the the English ; often transliterated dh ) with the Old English; the sign transcribing the labial vowel of before closed was also borrowed there from the Anglo-Saxon.

To also consult Transcription of the Germanic languages .

The stressing

The norrois made the difference between stressed syllables and not-accentuated syllables. The accent usually carried on the radical of the words, i.e., in the majority of the cases, on the first syllable. In the compound words, the first element carried the primary education accent in general, but a secondary accent appeared on the second element. In certain cases, it was the prefix which was carrying the accent (and the radical remained inaccentué then).

Morphology of the norrois

Names

The names of the norrois are classified according to two criteria:

  1. their suffix of origin
  2. their kind.

Strong suffixes and weak suffixes

There were two possibilities:

  • the accentuated suffix of origin ended in the vowel has , O long, I or U : the name then raised of the strong variation ;
  • the accentuated suffix of origin ended in the sequence year , one or in : the name then raised of the weak variation . To this variation also belonged some names finishing in Nd or R , or those which did not end in an accentuated suffix.

The nominal kind

The norrois comprised 3 kind S: male , female , and neutral . The kind generally depended on the original accentuated suffix of the name; in general:
  • the names in - has were male or neutral;
  • names in - O long were female;
  • names in - U , masculines;
  • names in - N , Nd or R were either male or female.

The number

In the beginning, there existed three grammatical numbers: singular, plural and the duel, as in Greek old. At the time traditional, however, the duel had for a long time been melted with plural… with regard to the names, at least

Nominal variations

The variations of the norrois included/understood four Cas, the same ones as those which one finds in German modern: Personal , Accusative , Genitive and Dative .

Example of strong variation:

(Preceded by a point, the reconstituted shapes of former Scandinavian; with their continuation, forms attested in norrois traditional).

Weak example of variation:

Adjectives

In the beginning, the adjectives were declined like the names; however, already into proto-Germanic, one adopted certain pronominal forms which gave rise to a particular, mixed variation adjectival of the variations nominal and pronominal. The specifically pronominal forms are:

The other forms use:

  • the terminations in has with the masculine and the neutral;
  • and terminations in ō with the female one.

This variation is used when the adjective functions like predicate or modifies an indefinite nominal sentence. This variation is also called “strong variation” .

In the definite nominal sentences, one uses on the other hand a “variation weak” :

  • termination year with the masculine and the singular neutral;
  • termination ōn with the female singular;
  • in the plural, termination um with the dative for all the kinds, and U with all the other cases.
Comparative and superlative

There existed two systems in norrois:

  • the majority of the adjectives used the suffix - rear to form the comparative one and - ast for superlative: ríkr --> ríkari --> ríkarstr , “powerful”.

  • but an small group of adjectives formed their comparative and their superlative with the suffixes - R and - St associated with a inflection coming from a I disappeared which preceded the final: langr --> lengri --> lengstr , “length”.

Personal pronouns

The series of the pronouns is, in norrois, made up of three distinct morphological systems:
  • personal pronouns themselves
  • pronouns of the third nobody
  • conclusive pronouns of distance and proximity.

The three series are organized according to different systems.

Personal pronouns themselves

They are organized in three numbers (singular, duel, plural) and four cases, but do not make differences between the kinds. They are the pronouns of the first and the second nobody, and the reflexive ones of the third nobody. Among the numbers, the duel corresponds, as in old Greek, with the situations where two individuals (or two groups), not more, are face to face.

Table of the personal pronouns themselves:

Personal pronouns of the third nobody

This series is organized by distinguishing the kinds (masculine and female) and corresponds to a Germanic root characterized by a prefix H . In norrois, this system is used only in the singular and only for the kinds masculine and female. The genitive holds place of pronouns and possessive adjectives.

Variation of the pronouns of the third nobody:

Conclusive pronouns of distance and proximity

This series is divided into two groups:
  • conclusive the of distance : they are formed on two paradigms, its (which is used only for the personal singular and the female one), and þa :

  • and conclusive the of proximity . The latter in the beginning were formed on the basis of the conclusive ones of distance, to which one added the suffixes - if or - has, even both as in the former Scandinavian þansi . This system is however never attested in a consistent way; the root and the suffix seem to be mixed very early to form a new radical of very irregular variation. This is why the forms of this type of conclusive pronoun varied much according to the places and from the times.

Interrogative pronouns

Verbs

Like the other Germanic languages, the norrois makes the distinction between strong verbs and weak verbs. In the beginning, the weak verbs were made of a simple radical to which one added an accentuated suffix; with the past, one was satisfied to add a termination dental consonant to this accentuated suffix.

The strong verbs , on the contrary, did not have an accentuated suffix; the change of time was marked by a vocalic Alternance in the radical. In norrois, the temporal system is built around one only opposition: passed vis-a-vis all that did not pass (in particular, present). One finds a similar system in the Semitic languages, which oppose the Accompli to the Inaccompli (see the Arab article language).

Syntax of the norrois

At the Present

The sentence is organized in the following way:

Prone complement Verb

examples: At home I turn over. With my horse downtown you go.

Others

See too

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