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How different are Icelandic and Norse? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Ariail Newbie United States Joined 4245 days ago 23 posts - 23 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Finnish | Message 1 of 6 31 July 2013 at 7:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've already begun learning Icelandic, but I am an absolute beginner who can do little beyond introduce myself(Góðan daginn! Ég heiti Ariail. Hvað heitir þú). I must admit that one of the main reasons I chose to learn Icelandic is so I can one day read Norse sagas. Seeing as Old Norse is an archaic language, I figured it would be rather difficult, and that having knowledge of a living language very similar to it prior to studying would prove to be beneficial. However, I am not knowledgeable on the relationship between these two languages. I was hoping someone can answer a few questions of mine:
1) Would experience with Icelandic be helpful at all if I ever to choose to study Old Norse? I understand Icelandic is a conservative language in how it has made only a few changes in the past millennium, but there are still several important changes, particularly in how it's spoken. 2) If I tried learning Old Norse in addition to Icelandic, would I confuse the two and "corrupt" (that is, make mistakes) my knowledge of each one? If you are unsure of what is meant, I can elaborate on this upon request. 3) If the answer to question #1 is yes, would Icelandic be of more use than Old English when trying to learn Old Norse, or vice versa? Thank you for your time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4845 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 2 of 6 31 July 2013 at 9:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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Icelandic and Old Norse are virtually the same language. The main difference is the pronunciation, but when I read sagas I simply ignore the Old Norse pronunciation and read everything as if it were Modern Icelandic.
There are some minor differences in spelling, grammar, and - of course - vocabulary, but they're neglectable. If you know Modern Icelandic you will have no trouble reading an Old Norse saga except that there may be some words for medieval concepts that don't exist in the modern language anymore. The differences in spelling and grammar can be easily understood without really studying them. So, to answer your questions: 1) Yes, definitely. It's possible to understand Old Norse texts based only on the knowledge of Modern Icelandic. 2) No, the differences are so marginal that there is nothing to confuse. Of course, if you only study Old Norse texts your Modern Icelandic might gain some archaic features. But as you will use Old Norse only for reading and not for speaking the danger of this happening is really minimal. 3) Yes. Old Norse (or Old Icelandic, as it is also called) is the direct ancestor of Modern Icelandic. The language has changed minimally, so knowing Modern Icelandic will be much more helpful than knowing Old English (or Anglo-Saxon), which is a completely different language. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4522 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 3 of 6 31 July 2013 at 10:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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If you want to read Old Norse, you are faster concentrating on Old Norse vocabulary than on Icelandic. Most of the words learnt will carry over to Icelandic, but the other way round, you have a lot of neologisms you won't need for Old Norse.
A good way to learn to read Old Norse sagas is to read Old Norse sagas. Learn some grammar, learn some high-frequency vocabulary (500 words or so), then start reading (with a dictionary and a compact Old Norse student's grammar at your side). This way you learn by doing what you like to do. There are different normalizations used for Old Norse, one is very similar to Icelandic. The íslendingasögur are published in this normalization. Other sagas like fornaldarsögur norðurlanda are published (eg. by Rafn) in a slightly different normalization. Eddic poems look often even more obscure, especially Germans like to make them look archaic it seems. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ariail Newbie United States Joined 4245 days ago 23 posts - 23 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Finnish | Message 4 of 6 31 July 2013 at 11:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Josquin: Thank you very much.
Daegga: Your answer confuses me. Are you suggesting I learn Norse vocabulary first, then Icelandic later on? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 6 01 August 2013 at 3:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have chosen to learn Icelandic first because it is a living language, but I have also read a number of sagas in normalized versions. If I really wanted to study the sagas in depth I might want buy a true Norse dictionary instead of just relying on my Modern Icelandic dictionaries because I know from experience that there are words in the sagas which I can't find in a modern dictionary. But I doubt that I would need to buy a grammar too, and if I did so then the reason would be that I wanted to learn some more about the history behind Old Norse. Actually I own an old book about Norse by the Swedish scholar Wessén, and it is heavily loaded with sound changes and morphology, but weak on everything else.
The differences in morphology are at the level of -r becoming -ur etc., and the changes in syntax are more like changing fads than things becoming totally obsolete. For instance Old Norse text are full of constructions with impersonal verbs; these are still possible, but they have become much rarer and I suppose they sound somewhat oldfashioned to a modern youngster from Reykjavík. The difference between Modern Ielandic and Old Norse is not like the difference between Modern English and Old English, but more like the difference between Modern English and Shakespeare - at least as long as you use the normalized editions. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4522 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 6 of 6 01 August 2013 at 9:35pm | IP Logged | ||
sorry for causing confusion :) I suggest two things: a) only learn passively until you are able to read sagas b) concentrate on vocabulary with a high frequency in Old Norse early on It doesn't matter if you learn the vocabulary in their Old Norse or in their Icelandic form. It doesn't matter if you use a grammar for Old Norse or for Icelandic (an Old Norse one would be handy for reference though, because it shows you the variations like -st/-sk/-sc for medio-passive 3rd person, modern Icelandic only gives you -st). So if you want to be able to speak and write modern Icelandic, choose the Icelandic variant. Basically, you could just use a good Icelandic textbook and ignore all the modern vocabulary for now and all the active parts. This gets you faster to reading sagas, because you have more free capacities to concentrate on the important things. Once you are able to read, you can put in all the missing pieces at the same time as enjoying nice literature. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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