Old Norse
Though Old Gutnish is sometimes included in the Old East Norse dialect due to geographical associations, it developed its own unique features and shared in changes to both other branches.
[7] Old East Norse was spoken in Denmark, Sweden, Kievan Rus',[8] eastern England, and Danish settlements in Normandy.
In the 11th century, Old Norse was the most widely spoken European language, ranging from Vinland in the West to the Volga River in the East.
[citation needed] The modern descendants of the Old West Norse dialect are the West Scandinavian languages of Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, and the extinct Norn language of Orkney and Shetland, although Norwegian was heavily influenced by the East dialect, and is today more similar to East Scandinavian (Danish and Swedish) than to Icelandic and Faroese.
[12][13][14][15] A similar influence is found in Scottish Gaelic, with over one hundred loanwords estimated to be in the language, many of which are related to fishing and sailing.
[23][24][clarification needed] The Old East Norse /ʀ/ was an apical consonant, with its precise position unknown; it is reconstructed as a palatal sibilant.
In Old Norwegian, Old Danish and later Old Swedish, the groups ⟨hl⟩, ⟨hr⟩, and ⟨hn⟩ were reduced to plain ⟨l⟩, ⟨r⟩, ⟨n⟩, which suggests that they had most likely already been pronounced as voiceless sonorants by Old Norse times.
It appears in words like gøra (gjǫra, geyra), from Proto-Germanic *garwijaną, and commonly in verbs with a velar consonant before the suffix like søkkva < *sankwijaną.
Compare runic OEN glaʀ, haʀi, hrauʀ with OWN gler, heri (later héri), hrøyrr/hreyrr ("glass", "hare", "pile of rocks").
The rule is not absolute, with certain counter-examples such as vinr ('friend'), which has the synonym vin, yet retains the unabsorbed version, and jǫtunn ('giant'), where assimilation takes place even though the root vowel, ǫ, is short.
Furthermore, wherever the cluster */rʀ/ is expected to exist, such as in the male names Ragnarr, Steinarr (supposedly *Ragnarʀ, *Steinarʀ), the result is apparently always /rː/ rather than */rʀ/ or */ʀː/.
[37][38] Nouns, adjectives, and pronouns were declined in four grammatical cases – nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative – in singular and plural numbers.
Best known are the Norse sagas, the Icelanders' sagas and the mythological literature, but there also survives a large body of religious literature, translations into Old Norse of courtly romances, classical mythology, and the Old Testament, as well as instructional material, grammatical treatises and a large body of letters and official documents.
All the while, the changes resulting in breaking (for example hiarta from *hertō) were more influential in the East probably once again due to generalizations within the inflectional system.
God help his spirit'The OEN original text above is transliterated according to traditional scholarly methods, wherein u-umlaut is not regarded in runic Old East Norse.
During the 12th and 13th centuries, Trøndelag and Western Norway were the most important areas of the Norwegian kingdom and they shaped Old West Norse as an archaic language with a rich set of declensions.
[citation needed] Old West Norse underwent a lengthening of initial vowels at some point, especially in Norwegian, so that OWN eta became éta, ONW akr > ákr, OIC ek > ék.
Demonstrating either difficulty with or total lack of natural distinction, the manuscripts show separation of the two phonemes in some places, but they frequently confuse the letters chosen to distinguish them in others.
þessi sveinn Alexander var í skóla settr, sem siðvenja er til ríkra manna útanlands at láta gera við bǫrn sín.
Þessi sveinn Alexander var í skóla settur, sem siðvenja er til ríkra manna utanlands að láta gera við börn sín.
It survived in rural Swedish dialects in the provinces of Westro- and North Bothnia, Skåne, Blekinge, Småland, Halland, Västergötland and south of Bohuslän into the 18th, 19th and 20th century.
In summation, the /w/-sound survived in the East Nordic tongues almost a millennium longer than in the West Norse counterparts, and does still subsist at the present.
Feminine o-stems often preserve the plural ending -aʀ, while in OWN they more often merge with the feminine i-stems: (runic OEN) *sōlaʀ, *hafnaʀ, *hamnaʀ, *wāgaʀ versus OWN sólir, hafnir and vágir (modern Swedish solar, hamnar, vågar ("suns, havens, scales"); Danish has mainly lost the distinction between the two stems, with both endings now being rendered as -er or -e alternatively for the o-stems).
Vice versa, masculine i-stems with the root ending in either g or k tended to shift the plural ending to that of the ja-stems while OEN kept the original: drængiaʀ, *ælgiaʀ and *bænkiaʀ versus OWN drengir, elgir ("elks") and bekkir (modern Danish drenge, elge, bænke, modern Swedish drängar, älgar, bänkar).
The plural ending of ja-stems were mostly preserved while those of OWN often acquired that of the i-stems: *bæðiaʀ, *bækkiaʀ, *wæfiaʀ versus OWN beðir ("beds"), bekkir, vefir (modern Swedish bäddar, bäckar, vävar).
Dræpær maþær vtlænskan man, eigh ma frid flyia or landi sinu oc j æth hans.
Varþær suþærman dræpin ællær ænskær maþær, ta skal bøta firi marchum fiurum þem sakinæ søkir, ok tvar marchar konongi.
If someone slays a Swede or a Smålander, a man from the kingdom, but not a West Geat, he will pay eight örtugar and thirteen marks, but no weregild.
For example, the diphthong ai in aigu, þair and waita was not subject to anticipatory assimilation to ei as in e.g. Old Icelandic eigu, þeir and veita.
This part relates to the agreement that the Gotlanders had with the Swedish king sometime before the 9th century: So gingu gutar sielfs wiliandi vndir suia kunung þy at þair mattin frir Oc frelsir sykia suiariki j huerium staþ.
