Talk:Öpir
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An entry from Öpir appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on January 18, 2007. |
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[edit] Bad spelling
I'm skeptical about the characterization of Öpir as a bad speller the better part of a millennia before standardized spelling became the norm. What is described here could, I think, more neutrally be described as an idiosyncracy that might represent error but seems equally likely to represent dialect, an artistic choice, or even an innovation that never caught on. House of Scandal 00:20, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- Wild speculation: Öpir may have even felt a geas against using the typical phoneme. House of Scandal 00:29, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- True, his use of the h phoneme was a dialectal trait, but I have still not been able to find a good reference for it. In fact this dialectal trait still survives in Roslagen from where he is believed to hail. However, the best you can say about his spelling is that it was inconsistent, even when he wrote his own name. Considering the time and effort it took to make a runestone, he could have bothered to enquire about whether words began with h or not ;-).--Berig 07:47, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- PS. I agree with your objections.--Berig 08:52, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Maybe a suitable DYK hook would be
...for reasons not understood, the 11th century runemaster Öpir did not use the rune for the phoneme "h"?
What do you think? I think the mention of dialectal trait that still survives in Roslagen would make an informative footnote for the article. I often include my unverified speculations in the footnotes; I think it's appropriate to do so and so far have not had any objections from other editors. However, in general, I hope the practice does NOT come into wide use. Can you image the Wiki-chaos? (c: House of Scandal 10:18, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- Well, I found a citation on the dialect thing. It is amazing that such a dialect trait can survive 1000 years or more, while the language changed from Old Norse to modern Swedish.--Berig 10:41, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
