Talk:Old Norwegian
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The second last paragraph:
The plagues that decimated Europe in the Middle Ages came to Norway in 1349 (The Black Plague), and caused the language to fall apart. At that time the wise men holding the key to the language died. Therefore the language went through several changes, including the removal of the cases system and a vowel reduction, reducing many of the last vowels in a word to a common "e".
seems to be too POV. I'll remove it unless anyone can show me wise men actually held the keys to the language...--Felix the Cassowary 11:23, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
If you read up on any books on the norse language history, you will find it to be true. Also, the union with Denmark in 1380 was a reason the language demised.
"Held the key to the written language" would be a more correct phrasing. The "wise men" were monks; and that group was severely affected by the plague, because many of them took care of the already sick.
[edit] Changing the focus of this article
The language is generally called old Norse, and it is described in the article on old Norse language. If there is to be any justification for a separate article on old Norwegian, it has to focus on what was specifically Norwegian, as opposed to the rest of the old Norse area.--Barend 16:08, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
- None of the changes mentioned outside of the comparison to Icelandic are unique to Old Norwegian. The cutting of cases and inflections is identical to what happened in Old Danish and Old Swedish, and so is dental spirants merging with dental stops. Change of final vowels to "e" is dubious, it is a reduction to ə (schwa) in danish, and I think norwegian too?? And of course the wording is highly confusing: "...in some dialects, including in parts of Norway...": it's worded like the article is actually about Old Norse changes, but it has to be read "...in some dialects [of old norwegian], including in parts of Norway..." which makes little sense, or at worst implies that Old Norwegian was spoken widely outside of Norway.
- If the article is cleaned of this non-unique material, and the confusing passages fixed, it reads:
The plagues that decimated Europe in the Middle Ages came to Norway in 1349 (The Black Plague), killing approximately half the Norwegian population, and this was probably part of the cause why the process of language development accelerated around this time. The language in Norway after 1350 up to about 1550 is generally referred to as Middle Norwegian. The language went through several changes. Grammar was simplified. The phonemic repertoire also underwent changes."
- That's hardly a justification for an independent status.--AkselGerner (talk) 22:35, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
- Even worse, if you read the black death stuff critically it appears that that whole section belongs to a nonexisting article Middle Norwegian rather than to Old Norwegian. Taking that into account all that remains is the following:
- "Old Norwegian is a dialect or daughter language of Old Norse, spoken in Norway between 800AD and 1350AD.
- And that's completely absurd.--AkselGerner (talk) 00:01, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
