Re: Beauty of Old Norse (was Re: New to the list)

Daniel reit:

>You know, I saw a tv-program from Iceland the other week and the narrator
>was speaking Icelandic, but for the first minute or so, I couldn't tell
>what it was. I thought it was like Dutch or Switzerd訳p?) or something.
>The Icelandic I've heard before didn't sound like that. Don't tell me
>you have dialects!
No, not at all. At least not anything like in Scandinavia. I don't have
anything to explain the difference in your perception.

> > Many Scandinavians have at least agreed with me in that Icelandic is the
> > most beautiful Nordic language.
>
>No, that would be Swedish. ;)
Swedish is actually my favourite Nordic, particularly the Swedish of Skåne
(!). I am, BTW, a "native" speaker of Copenhagen Danish (learnt it when I
was 9 years old), and have, thence, learnt to make very passable immitations
of Swedish and Norwegian.

>PS. Ser fram emot att tr䦦a alla nordiska conlangare i K宨avn om
>ett par veckor.
Virkelig? Har man så'n en fællesnordisk conlang-club? Det lyder sjovt
(roligt), selvom jeg ikke tror jeg kan komme, for jeg skal til Frankrig.

BP Jonson (if I recall right) said that his Icelandic teacher had said
Snorri Sturluson would probably understand Mod. Swedish better than Mod.
Icelandic (which Jonson doubted); this is a very interesting thought.
However, I must agree with Jonson in doubting it, however, as a) some of the
peculiarities of today must have been at an early stage even then (so he'd
perceive Mod. Icelandic as exaggeratedly local/dialectic in pronunciation,
or something like that); b) Swedish has borrowed far too many words from
German, French, and Latin, for Snorri to deal with (though we mustn't
underestimate him - he was a learned man); c) To understand Mod. Icelandic,
Snorri would mainly just have to "decode" the pronunciation differences,
after which he'd be able to access a very familiar lexicon.

Kvedjur,
Oskar
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