Proto-Norse language
Proto-Norse | |
---|---|
Ancient Nordic | |
Region | Scandinavia |
Era | 2nd to 8th centuries |
Indo-European
| |
Elder Futhark | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | – |
1be | |
qdl "Runic" (perhaps Old Norse is intended) | |
Glottolog | olde1239 Older Runic (perhaps) |
Proto-Norse (also called Ancient Nordic, Ancient Scandinavian, Ancient Norse, Primitive Norse, Proto-Nordic, Proto-Scandinavian and Proto-North Germanic) was an
Part of a series on |
Indo-European topics |
---|
Phonology
Proto-Norse phonology probably did not differ substantially from that of Proto-Germanic. Although the phonetic realisation of several phonemes had probably changed over time, the overall system of phonemes and their distribution remained largely unchanged.
Consonants
Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labial–velar | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n | (ŋ) | (ŋʷ) | |||
Stop
|
p b | t d | k ɡ | kʷ ɡʷ | |||
Fricative
|
ɸ (β) | θ (ð) | s | z | h (ɣ) | hʷ | |
Trill | r | ||||||
Approximant
|
j | w | |||||
Lateral | l |
- /n/ assimilated to a following velar consonant. It was [ŋ] before a plain velar, and probably [ŋʷ] before a labial-velar consonant.
- Unlike its Proto-Germanic ancestor /x/, the phoneme /h/ probably no longer had a velar place of articulation. It eventually disappeared except word-initially.
- [t/, /k/.
- The exact realisation of the phoneme / in the later period. The sound was still written with its own letter in runic Old East Norse around the end of the first millennium.
Vowels
The system of vowels differed somewhat more from that of Proto-Germanic than the consonants. Earlier /ɛː/ had been lowered to /ɑː/, and unstressed /ɑi/ and /ɑu/ had developed into /eː/ and /ɔː/. Shortening of word-final vowels had eliminated the Proto-Germanic overlong vowels.
|
|
- /o/ had developed from /u/ through a-mutation. It also occurred word-finally as a result of the shortening of Proto-Germanic /ɔː/.
- The long nasal vowels /ɑ̃ː/, /ĩː/ and /ũː/ occurred only before /h/. Their presence was noted in the 12th-century First Grammatical Treatise, and they survive in modern Elfdalian.
- All other nasal vowels occurred only word-finally, although it is unclear whether they had retained their nasality in Proto-Norse or had already merged with the oral vowels. The vowels /o/ and /ɔ̃/ were contrastive, however, as the former eventually developed into /u/ (triggering u-mutation) while the latter was lowered to /ɑ/.
- The back vowels probably had central or front allophones when /i/ or /j/ followed, as a result of i-mutation:
- /ɑ/ > [æ], /ɑː/ > [æː]
- /u/ > [ʉ], /uː/ > [ʉː] (later /y/, /yː/)
- /ɔː/ > [ɞː] (later [œː] or [øː])
- /o/ did not originally occur before /i/ or /j/, but it was later introduced by analogy (as can be seen on the Gallehus horns). Its allophone was probably [ɵ], later [ø].
- Towards the end of the Proto-Norse period, stressed /e/ underwent breaking, becoming a rising diphthong /jɑ/.
- Also towards the end of the Proto-Norse period, u-mutation began to take effect, which created rounded allophones of unrounded vowels.
Accent
Old Norse had a
Attestations
Runic inscriptions
The surviving examples of Proto-Norse are all runic inscriptions in the Elder Futhark. There are about 260 surviving Elder Futhark inscriptions in Proto-Norse, the earliest dating to the 2nd century.
Examples
- Sievers' law.
- Golden Horn of Gallehus 2, South Jutland, Denmark 400 CE, ek hlewagastiz holtijaz horna tawido, "I, Hlewagastis of Holt, made the horn." Note again the ija suffix
- Tune stone, Østfold, Norway, 400 CE. ek wiwaz after woduride witadahalaiban worahto. [me]z woduride staina þrijoz dohtriz dalidun arbija sijostez arbijano, I, Wiwaz, after Woduridaz bread-warden wrought. For me Woduridaz, the stone, three daughters prepared, the most noble of heirs.
- The Einang stone, near Fagernes, Norway, is dated to the 4th century. It contains the message [ek go]dagastiz runo faihido ([I, Go]dguest drew the secret), in O–N ek goðgestr rún fáða. The first four letters of the inscription have not survived and are conjectured, and the personal name could well have been Gudagasti or something similar.
- Kragehul spear, Denmark, c. 500 CE. ek erilaz asugisalas muha haite, gagaga ginuga, he...lija... hagala wijubi... possibly, "I, Eril of Asgisl, was named Muha, ga-ga-ga mighty-ga (ga being most likely an abbreviation of indeterminable reference), (incomplete) hail I consecrate."
- The Björketorp Runestone, Blekinge, Sweden, is one of three menhirs, but is the only one of them where, in the 6th century, someone wrote a curse: haidʀ runo runu falh'k hedra ginnarunaʀ argiu hermalausʀ ... weladauþe saz þat brytʀ uþarba spa (Here, I have hidden the secret of powerful runes, strong runes. The one who breaks this memorial will be eternally tormented by anger. Treacherous death will hit him. I foresee perdition.)
- The Rö runestone, in Bohuslän, Sweden, was raised in the early 5th century and is the longest early inscription: Ek Hrazaz/Hraþaz satido [s]tain[a] ... Swabaharjaz s[a]irawidaz. ... Stainawarijaz fahido. "I, Hrazaz/Hraþaz raised the stone ... Swabaharjaz with wide wounds. ... Stainawarijaz (Stoneguardian's) carved."
Loanwords
Numerous early Germanic words have survived with relatively little change as borrowings in Finnic languages. Some of these may be of Proto-Germanic origin or older still, but others reflect developments specific to Norse. Some examples (with the reconstructed Proto-Norse form):
- Estonian juust, Finnish juusto "cheese" < *justaz (Old Norse ostr)
- Estonian/Finnish kuningas < *kuningaz "king" (Old Norse kunungr, konungr)
- Estonian/Finnish lammas "sheep" < *lambaz "lamb" (Old Norse lamb)
- Finnish hurskas "pious" < *hurskaz "prudent, wise, quick-minded" (Old Norse horskr)
- Finnish ruhtinas "prince" < *druhtinaz "lord" (Old Norse dróttinn)
- Finnish runo "poem, rune" < *rūno "secret, mystery, rune" (Old Norse rún)
- Finnish sairas "sick" < *sairaz "sore" (Old Norse sárr)
- Finnish vaate "garment" < *wādiz (Old Norse váð)
- Finnish viisas "wise" < *wīsaz (Old Norse víss)
A very extensive Proto-Norse loanword layer also exists in the Sámi languages.[8][9]
Other
Some Proto-Norse names are found in Latin works, like tribal names like Suiones (*Sweoniz, "
Evolution
Proto-Germanic to Proto-Norse
The differences between attested Proto-Norse and unattested
One early difference shared by the West Germanic dialects is the monophthongization of unstressed diphthongs. Unstressed *ai became ē, as in haitē (Kragehul I) from Proto-Germanic *haitai, and unstressed *au likewise became ō. Characteristic is also the Proto-Norse lowering of Proto-Germanic stressed *ē to ā, which is demonstrated by the pair Gothic mēna and Old Norse máni (English moon). Proto-Norse thus differs from the early West Germanic dialects, as West Germanic ē was lowered to ā regardless of stress; in Old Norse, earlier unstressed ē surfaces as i. For example, the weak third-person singular past tense ending -dē appears in Old High German as -ta, with a low vowel, but in Old Norse as -ði, with a high vowel.
The time that *z, a voiced apical alveolar fricative, represented in runic writing by the
Proto-Norse to Old Norse
From 500 to 800, two great changes occurred within Proto-Norse. Umlauts appeared, which means that a vowel was influenced by the succeeding vowel or semivowel: Old Norse gestr (guest) came from PN gastiz (guest). Another sound change is known as vowel breaking in which the vowel changed into a diphthong: hjarta from *hertō or fjǫrðr from *ferþuz.
Umlauts resulted in the appearance of the new vowels y (like fylla from *fullijaną) and œ (like dœma from *dōmijaną). The umlauts are divided into three categories: a-umlaut, i-umlaut and u-umlaut; the last was still productive in Old Norse. The first, however, appeared very early, and its effect can be seen already around 500, on the Golden Horns of Gallehus.[11] The variation caused by the umlauts was itself no great disruption in the language. It merely introduced new allophones of back vowels if certain vowels were in following syllables. However, the changes brought forth by syncope made the umlaut-vowels a distinctive non-transparent feature of the morphology and phonology, phonemicising what were previously allophones.
Syncope shortened the long vowels of unstressed syllables; many shortened vowels were lost. Also, most short unstressed vowels were lost. As in PN, the stress accent lay on the first syllable words as PN *katilōz became ON katlar (cauldrons), PN horną was changed into Old Norse horn (horn) and PN gastiz resulted in ON gestr (guest). Some words underwent even more drastic changes, like *habukaz which changed into ON haukr (hawk).
References
- from the original on 17 August 2021. Retrieved 3 September 2020.
- ISSN 0039-3193.
- ISSN 0176-4225.
- ^ Kristoffersen, Gjert (2004). "The development of tonal dialects in the Scandinavian languages. Analysis based on presentation at ESF-workshop 'Typology of Tone and Intonation'". Cascais, Portugal. Archived from the original on 17 July 2011. Retrieved 2 December 2007..
- ^ Elstad, Kåre, 1980: Some Remarks on Scandinavian Tonogenesis. I: Nordlyd: Tromsø University Working Papers on Language and Linguistics 3. 61–77.
- OCLC 825888933.
- ^ Bye, Patrick (2004). "Evolutionary typology and Scandinavian pitch accent" (PDF). hum.uit.no. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 April 2008. Retrieved 2 December 2007..
- ^ Theil, Rolf (2012). "Urnordiske lån i samisk". In Askedal, John Ole; Schmidt, Tom; Theil, Rolf (eds.). Germansk filologi og norske ord. Festskrift til Harald Bjorvand på 70-årsdagen den 30. juli 2012 (in Norwegian). Oslo: Novus forlag. Archived from the original on 18 August 2021. Retrieved 9 June 2017.
- ^ Aikio, Ante (2012). Grünthal, Riho; Kallio, Petri (eds.). "An Essay on Saami Ethnolinguistic Prehistory" (PDF). Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne (266, A Linguistic Map of Prehistoric Northern Europe). Helsinki: Finno-Ugrian Society: 76. Archived (PDF) from the original on 31 October 2020. Retrieved 9 June 2017.
- OCLC 40365383.
- ISBN 978-1-84383-186-0. Archivedfrom the original on 9 August 2023. Retrieved 13 December 2015.
Further reading
- Michael Schulte: Urnordisch. Eine Einführung (2018). Praesens Verlag, Wien. ISBN 978-3706909518.
External links
- General information
- Proto-Norse paradigms and links Archived 16 January 2022 at the Wayback Machine (archived copy)