Talk:Proto-Norse

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Contents

[edit] distinction?

the thing i'm unclear on here is:

is there a distinction between proto-norse and proto-north germanic?

Well, no there isn't. I'll add that name.--Wiglaf 01:34, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Though there is some (small) differences between P-N an Proto-Germanic --Asdfgl 22:09, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] fleshing out article

I will flesh out this article some more once I've managed to get som sleep... --Asdfgl 22:09, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] norse languages

from what i undestand, there are a group of languages called norse languages, and 2 groups within norse languages known as west norse languages and east norse languages. i'm not sure whether or not all north germanic languages are norse languages or not.

Pretty correct! North Germanic equals Norse - the term Norse seems to be treated approximately as the "Conscandinavian" (I invented that word now - don't use it as a term!) word Nordisk when referring to c:a 700-1100 AD. The common opinion of Nordic linguistics is that, there are two Norse languages in the linguist sense, East Nordic, and West Nordic. I was going to write an extensive explanation here, but it may suffice that I claim that this family tree of the Nordic Languages is what I've been taught and expericenced - with the exception: the distinction between the Sveamål and the Götamål has disolved so much that practically they're just pronunciation variants of the same dialect. Also the status of Gutnish in relation to Swedish is disputed - my personal non-professional opinion is that Gutnish is a third group beside East and West Norse. User:Rursus 09:31, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Flag of East Geatland This user is a East Geat of the Swedish people.

i'm under the impression that germanic and nordic are pretty much synonymous. Gringo300 23:15, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

No. You must have meant that "north germanic and nordic" are pretty much synonymous, which is perfectly true. User:Rursus 09:31, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] two different names for the same thing

Proto-Norse and Proto-North Germanic are just two different names for the same thing. On the other hand, Proto-Norse is not Proto-Germanic, as such is the protolanguage for all the Germanic languages, not just the North Germanic languages -- 15:42, 2 July 2005 (CDT)
On the other hand, early Proto-Norse was very similar to Proto-Germanic.--Wiglaf 2 July 2005 20:49 (UTC)

I must beg to differ. If you call the language Proto North-Germanic, you implicitly state that there is no such thing as a Proto-Norse language, that the language did not become norse before the Viking Age. I prefer Proto-Norse myself, but, of course.--Alexlykke (talk) 10:56, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Phonology

So, were /w/ and /j/ also phonemes of the language? They show up, or at least <w> and <j> do, in the inscriptions they display. Are these realized differently than one might expect? In any case, the phonology section is apparently incomplete. -Branddobbe 15:39, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

And on a different note, is <h> really supposed to be IPA [χ] (voiceless uvular fricativ), or is this a leftover from other transcription systems that use chi for IPA [x] (voiceless velar fricativ)? --Tropylium 14:26, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
To start with the first question first. Yes, the phonology section is incomplete. I never got around cleaning that one up properly. So /w/ and /j/ should be added. Or rather, the /u/ and /i/ should be classified as semivowels.
As for the second question. Yes, /h/ should be IPA [x].
-Asdfgl 16:09, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

"When the phoneme /z/, represented in runic writing by the *Algiz-rune, changed to a sound represented by ʀ is debated. Also it may be mentioned that it is argued whether the language should be called Proto-Norse, or Northern Proto-Germanic." To whoever changed this: The phoneme /z/ never changed to /y/, as represented by the ýr-rune. It did change, however, to a new phoneme believed to be pronounced roughly alike to modern american-english /r/,e.g. as in "president".--Alexlykke (talk) 10:30, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

It has probably been mistaken for the IPA symbol that looks like theʀ, namely ʀ--AkselGerner (talk) 19:26, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Yeah? Still seems like a mix up between phonology and graphology, because /y/ that correlates grapho-phonologically with the Ýr-rune (in the viking age), never had naytinhg to do with what said in the text. Except of course that the AlgiR-rune, came to be the Ýr-rune later, i. e. 500 years after what we are writing about here. The IPA-symbol is for the french /R/, right? That hasn't got anything to do with /y/.--Alexlykke (talk) 23:05, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
As I read it, the original meaning didn't concern the Ýr-rune at all, except through the link to that rune hidden in the R symbol. I read the sentence to be concerned only with the representative sound of the Algiz-rune changing. But that would involve a grapheme-phoneme mixup, the sound represented by the Algiz changed from a (protogermanic) retroflex voiced sibilant to a ... retroflex voiced apical flap or trill or something? Most sources aren't very keen on precise IPA use so I don't know what it is thought to have been.--AkselGerner (talk) 21:53, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Is Proto-Norse a legitimate classification?

The term has traditionally been used to refer to the language of the early runic inscriptions, but it fails on two counts. First, a protolanguage is defined as a reconstruction from attested linguistic data. The language of the runic inscriptions, however, comes from actual attested data (obviously), and so is not a reconstruction and therefore not a protolangauge. The second failure of the term proto-Norse is that the language of the early runic inscriptions could just as easily have been ancestral to West Germanic languages as to North Germanic languages.

It would be better to call the language of the early runic inscriptions Northwest Germanic and the language of the later runic inscriptions of Scandinavia and Scandinavian settlements Old Norse. (Note that good evidence in support of this suggestion can be found in the sources given in the article for Northwest Germanic.)

Consider the problems caused by the classification Proto-Norse that are evident in the article itself:

The differences between attested Proto-Norse and unattested Proto-Germanic are small. The difference in name is mostly a matter of convention. Inscriptions found in Scandinavia are considered to be in P-N; inscriptions found elsewhere that are old enough are considered to be Proto-Germanic. For example, the name inscribed on the Negau helmet is Proto-Germanic though it would be the same in Proto-Norse. One distinctive difference between the two is the P-N lowering of P-G ē to ā; this is easiest seen in the pair mēna (Gothic) and máni (Old Norse) (English moon).

That's from the article as it stands tonight while I write this. It claims that the difference between PN and PGmc is just a matter of convention rather than an indication of actual difference. The only real difference offered between PGmc and PN is the lowering of ē to ā; but this change occurred not only in North Germanic, but also in West Germanic (māne in MDutch, māno in OSaxon and OHG). Rather than being a distinction between PGmc and PN, this lowering is a distinction between PGmc and NWGmc.

It seems silly to perpetuate a flawed distinction like Proto-Norse just for the sake of convention. We could just as easily call it something more accurate (like Northwest Germanic or Early Runic) and redirect searches for Proto-Norse to the more accurately titled page — we could even have a note in the page that the language has commonly (though wrongly) been called Proto-Norse in the past. 128.187.0.164 02:03, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Coming up with new definitions of languages is not within the scope of wikipedia. It would be original research. If Proto-Norse is the term which is generally used among scholars, and in general discourse, than that is what we should use. --Barend 11:52, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Agreed 97.531%, this is the well chosen policy of a dictionary, and it should classify things as the majority of experts are used to, so that ordinary hominoids like me, may learn what our experts have researched. But, and this is a major but, Mr User:128.187.0.164 have a point - even science is sometimes plagued by prejudices and badly grounded opinions that must be challenged. This should of course be outside the scope of dictionaries, except the Criticism sections, which are very important IMHO to get scientific accuracy and a balanced view. They should be considerably shorter than the facts, but they must accurately and neutrally (NPOVly) reflect major criticisms. This is important in order to get Wikipedia converge towards truth at the same speed as science converges towards truth. User:Rursus 09:47, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
The problem with treating runic inscriptions as attestation is that it ignores the fact that the runic script is likely to have been highly conservative. Look at modern english phonetics and written standards, the written standard is only a few hundred years old and yet it is extraordinarily conservative when comparing to the currently spoken languages. A runic script, being of high status and low pervasion is even more liable to remain unchanged despite (compare [dispait]) phonological changes. It is learned by heart, and it being difficult and arcane only adds to the power that it gives to its users. The same runes could have been used to write north and west germanic at that time, but that doesn't mean that language spoken by the north germanic casters of the runes was the same as that of west germanic speakers of the time.--AkselGerner (talk) 23:20, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Well, that is only speculation, and I don't find it very convincing. One might also speculate that the runic script was likely to be the opposite of conservative - very similar to the spoken language, because there was no written norm, no dictionaries, and no large text corpus which could serve to make certain spellings of words authoritative. Indeed, in the later runic inscriptions, from medieval times, the orthography clearly evolves, along with the spoken language. And I don't think it's very reasonable to call it "difficult and arcane" either - it's no more difficult than our modern alphabet, and in the high middle ages it seems to have been very widespread, as evidenced by the Bryggen inscriptions. We don't know that it wasn't as widespread in proto-norse times - as any everyday inscriptions on wooden items that might have existed would have been very unlikely to survive to our time.--Barend (talk) 20:43, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
You're quite simply mistaken. The general conservativeness of runic scripts is an established fact. Also, are you suggesting widespread literacy in iron age northern europe? And to top that you are arguing at once that there was not a large amount written discourse and at the same time that there was. The fact is that any writing system is conventional and low-occurring compared to spoken language, as such it always deviates from the spoken language in a conservative way, counting from the date of it's inception or latest authoritative revision. The runes in the proto-norse times were of cultist importance and their inscribers in all credible research is seen to have been highly trained specialists, even though not always free men. The futhark was an instrument of power, and it's very purpose involved it being in fact difficult and arcane, not in the sense that it is difficult for us modern, educated people to learn, but in the sense that their mastery in that day and age was something to be enawed of. This is not a system of writing owned by just anyone and with which just anyone can write whatever he wants, the runes were seen to be of magical religious significance, not to be tampered with lightheartedly. The ones learning their use have most likely been taught using existing (old) inscriptions. Also, a proto-language is by definition one that can be reconstructed by comparative research, for natural reasons comparative analysis cannot penetrate from the old scandinavian languages through the unified Old Norse (ie. there can in fact be no Proto-Norse or Proto North Germanic), because all existing north germanic languages descend from that language (Old Norse). The whole article is then a fallacy. Proto-Norse (which would be the reconstruction based on Old Danish, Old Swedish, Old Norwegian and Old Icelandic) coincides with Old Norse, which unlike the purported subject of this article is an attested language, and for that reason cannot be a protolanguage. I suggest this article be moved to "The oldest north germanic runic inscriptions (and the language form they imply".--AkselGerner (talk) 22:23, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Am I "quite simply mistaken"? I disagree. I wasn't claiming that anything was definitely this way or the other, I'm merely saying that we can not know, we can only speculate, and what you are speculating, is also speculation. You believe the futhark was "an instrument of power, owned by not just anyone, etc." I am merely saying that we know that that was not the case in the 13th-14th centuries, because of the massive amount of mundane inscriptions we have preserved from that time. And we can not know that there were not also thousands of everyday, mundane inscriptions in the iron age, because if they had existed, they would not have survived until now. Quite possibly the never existed, but we don't know that. We can only speculate.
As for this article, it is not in itself a fallacy, because it describes a language that existed. Exactly where it was spoken, we may not know for sure, but we know that it did exist, and it's so different from the languages which it evolved into that it must be considered a separate language. So it should have an article. The name of that article should, by fundamental wikipedia-policy, be the name under which it is widely known. If that is "proto-norse", than that is where we must have the article.--Barend (talk) 08:53, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
When a "speculation" is widely accepted in the scientific community, then the speculations of other people should take second place at best. And the article does not in fact describe a language that existed. Instead it describes a runic script and the conjectures made about the language it was used to transcribe (or the history thereof). The sources are overwhelmingly runic, the mentioned words loaned into finnish, for example are accredited to protogermanic, not proto-norse. The article should be named for the subject that it deals with, namely that of Iron Age Futhark. The name of any reconstructed language should be based on scientific definitions, because "the name by which it is widely known" is open to all kinds of opinions rather than fact (e.g. "everybody I know calls the language of the elder futhark Proto-norse", or "here in denmark we call the language of the elder futhark proto-danish). For widely used misconceptions there should be clarifying articles redirecting to the accepted name.--AkselGerner (talk) 20:52, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Runic attestation is attestation like any other. By your logic, we shouldn't have an article about Latin, but The oldest romance latin alphabet texts (and the language form they imply). There was a language spoken in the Nordic area in the period 200-700 AD, I assume you're not disputing that. We know this language from the runic inscriptions. If you're saying that is controversial, you should come up with references, in stead of merely claiming "wide acceptance in the scientific community". At the University of Oslo, you can study GERM1101, Germanic languages:Gothic and Proto-Norse (Urnordisk in Norwegian), and the University of Oslo is very much part of the scientific community. I don't know why you make a dig at the danes, as far as I can see, they call it da:urnordisk, just like we do in Norway and Sweden, German de:Urnordisch. I don't want to have a strong opinion about the precisely correct term in English, I'll leave that to the mother-tongue speakers, but Proto-Norse is the term I've always seen. I don't know exactly what it is you want to do, but you seem to say that the language this article describes never existed. Well, references, please! What I know is that there is some controversy as to whether a distinction can be made between Proto-Norse and earlier Proto-Germanic. This is an ongoing debate, and is mentioned in the article, as it should be.--Barend (talk) 08:37, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Proto-Norse is clearly a legitimate classification as Barend writes.--Berig (talk) 16:41, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
It appears that I have been unclear, for that I apologize. I do not object to runes, or to danes or to anything else. I object to the use of the term "proto" for a language that is not in the article stated to be a reconstruction of the comparative method. I am not an expert on this specific subject, having studied it only through one course, but I am an expert on the comparative method, and proto-language should be strictly reserved for the reconstructions of that method. If proto-norse is a reconstruction (and in that case, as I said, it can have been reconstructed only on the basis of the variations within the daughter languages of Old Norse da:fællesnordisk since Old Norse is regarded as a single language. If "proto-norse" is a product of Old Norse Internal reconstruction then its proper scientific name is pre-Old Norse (or maybe Pre-Norse as the "old" is a bit superfluous anyway. The article as it stands seems to focus on the runes, not the process of reconstruction. If it is a reconstruct then the method of reconstruction as well as examples of the variations upon which the reconstruction was based MUST be given, these are not only of major encyclopedic interest to the subject but also, I believe, quite attractive to the public in general.
Also, for clarification, I made a dig at danes because I am myself danish and wanted to add a fictive example of the possible ridiculous claims that may or may not be made. In this case there probably are in fact those out there that feel that since an endonym for Old Norse was "dansk tunga" then it should be reconstructed also with that label. If I had made up the example about say icelandics or swedes it would given me a guilty conscience. To reclarify: The article makes no in line mention of how its subject has been found, but focus on runes may imply to others as it implied to me that the statements on the phonology was based on the runic findings.
I agree with you that there should be mention of the potential proto-germanic source language of the oldest runic inscriptions, but in that section I believe should be mention of the general conservativity of written scripts, especially high-status scripts.
As for latin, it has been spoken continuously even through the disintegration of it's mother culture, and its degree of written attestation is otherwise of an altogether different magnitude than a handful of inscriptions. However, if it's article was called proto-latin then I would object to that as well.--AkselGerner (talk) 21:49, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for the clarification. It seems, then, that the disagreement is mainly about the name for the article, and on that, as I said, I don't want to have a strong opinion, as I'm not a native English speaker, except that I think it should be under the name which is most commonly used for the language in English language scholarly discourse. Just another point, though, by your definition of proto-languages, it seems to me that "Proto-Norse" (or whatever one may call it) is a borderline case, since, in fact, much of the presumed vocabulary and other details about the language is actually reconstructed, since the attestation is so, relatively, sparse (a couple of hundreds inscriptions, if I remember correctly). Is that not so?--Barend (talk) 22:52, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Well, that's what I would like to know too! Especially the method used. Obviously, if the reconstruction is based on the early forms of the daughter languages of Old Norse then it is on the border of internal reconstruction and comparative reconstruction since the variation between the languages at that point was probably more on the lines of dialect than of different languages. --AkselGerner (talk) 20:35, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
IMHO, the difference between the modern Scandinavian languages are still on the lines of dialect (dialect vs language is often just politics). I believe that sholars have reconstructed Proto-Norse both based on a variety of sources: Old English, Gothic, OHG and Old Norse. In fact these languages are referred to when they analyse Proto-Norse runic inscriptions. I am not entirely happy with the prefix proto- either, but according to Wikipedia's naming conventions we have to call the language by its most common name in English.--Berig (talk) 06:49, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Dialects:If Cantonese is a dialect of chinese, well, then definitely. On the other hand, speakers of Vendsyssel, Bornholm and Alsing dialects of danish probably can't understand each other without some use of standard danish, and those are all inside a 500km radius circle. Understandability isn't a rock-hard criteria either, but at least it's better than nothing.
Wiki-policy: That wouldn't and shouldn't stop us from clarifying the problems in the naming, if there are such. It is a common task of encyclopedias to clarify potential misnomers, usually via redirects, but not always. For example, peanuts are not nuts, and while that doesn't mean encyclopedias should redirect to "root-peas" or other made up name, they should still point out that fact. But I still don't know enough to say either way. The mentioned languages as input for the comparative method will always give proto-germanic, but biased towards west-germanic.--AkselGerner (talk) 20:49, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Proto-Norse (Urnordisk) is the term used in lectures at the University in Oslo (UiO)--Alexlykke (talk) 10:59, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Ur- is not a translation for Proto-. Nobody talks about "Urindoeuropæisk" or "Ururalsk". Proto- specifically refers to a product of comparative reconstruction, just as pre- refers to a product of internal reconstruction. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AkselGerner (talk • contribs) 20:37, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

That may be so, but Proto-scandinavian, (not Proto-norse, I forgot, sorry) is still the term used in lectures, given in english language at the university in Oslo, at least by Terje Spurkland. I am fully aware that (ur-) is not an accurate translation for (proto-), as languages is my field of study, especially germanic and nordic languages. --Alexlykke (talk) 11:09, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, I thought the parantheses implied an identification of the two terms with each other.--AkselGerner (talk) 19:34, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Hey, no problem, I was a little vague, not your fault.--Alexlykke (talk) 22:58, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Kragehul absurdity

Just want to criticize the interpretation of the Kragehul spear: it's not mine, but taken from "Runristningar - Från spjutspetsen i Stabu till Anna i Älvdalen - FABEL I KLASSIKER", ISBN 91-7842-1750. As not entirely unusual, a part of the translation is ridiculous: gagaga ginuga == ga-ga-ga, super-ga. Very informative, or: when ideas are lacking resort to some undeterminable magic we cannot reconstruct. I instead claim gagaga ginuga == gagangan, ginunga, some n:s forgotten or customary omitted. gagangan, ginunga == walked far. I.e.: I the eril of Asgisl, (have) walked far, .... This is original "research" however. If you find a doctor who interprets unlike what's in the current text, then the text can be rewritten - otherwise, I'm not a linguist. Twirling his moustaches, does: Rursus 16:19, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

It is sadly a well established fact that runecarvers used single-rune abbreviations, magical ones usually repeated. One example is the triple T as a magical invocation of Tyr, that's at least a likely interpretation given some of the contexts in which it is found. Most of the interpretations of the gaga-ginuga are just that, ga-ga. It's ridiculous to use mental resources and paper on discussions on something that just cannot any longer be established as fact. The meaning is lost, it cannot be reestablished, especially since the vocabulary items to which it may have originally referred may have been lost. The only interpretation worth mentioning is the one single interpretation which is (a tiny bit) more supportable than the rest, namely that the runes refer to the word for which the runes are named, in this case Gebô and Ansuz > Gift (of) Aesir.--AkselGerner (talk) 20:57, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] -z/-R

I have a question for all the proto-norse experts out there. I've studied Old Norse in Norway, and in the process have had a rough introduction to proto-Norse. I am also very interested in Runes, and have therefore read a couple of books about runes. In all the Norwegian literature I have read, the letter which is in this article written z, is written R, and described as a retroflex r-sound. And, of course, it evolved into the r in Old Norse. Why is the R not used in this article? Is it a case of the Norwegian academic community disagreeing with the rest of the world? Or is it, simply, an omission?--Barend (talk) 09:00, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

The reason is that it is regarded in protogermanic as a retroflex voiced sibilant or the like that gradually converted to the sound you mentioned in the north germanic branch. There is little basis for assuming that the change would have happened at this time, but also little basis for assuming that it hadn't. The cautious approach is to use the "phoneme" z that can be tracked to proto-germanic, since the runic script bears so much more likeness to that language than to Old Norse, a note can be made of the transition this element's phonetic correlation went through. A useful solution would be to line up the historical developments side by side in a chart. On the left the protogermanic (the "before" state), in the middle the runes and the phonetic values they are assumed to refer to, and on the right the corresponding phonological elements of Old Norse (the "after" state).--AkselGerner (talk) 21:04, 17 March 2008 (UTC)