Breaking in Old Norse and Old English: With Special Reference to the Relations between Them

Language ◽  
1937 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 123
Author(s):  
George T. Flom
Keyword(s):  
Special Reference ◽  
Old English ◽  
Old Norse

scholarly journals Metrical Positions and their Linguistic Realisations in Old Germanic Metres: A Typological Overview

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 9-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seiichi Suzuki
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
The Other ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
Old Saxon ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Common Scale ◽  
The Common ◽  
Linguistic Alignment ◽  
The One ◽  
Linguistic Material

This paper provides a typological account of Old Germanic metre by investigating its parametric variations that largely determine the metrical identities of the Old English Beowulf, the Old Saxon Heliand, and Old Norse eddic poetry (composed in fornyrðislag, málaháttr, or ljóðaháttr). The primary parameters to be explored here are the principle of four metrical positions per verse and the differing ways in which these constituent positions are aligned to linguistic material. On the one hand, the four-position principle works with a maximal strictness in Beowulf, and to a slightly lesser extent in fornyrðislag, whereas it allows for a wider range of deviations in verse size in the Heliand and ljóðaháttr. In málaháttr, however, the principle in itself gives way to the five-position counterpart. On the other hand, the variation in the metrical– linguistic alignment in the three close cognate metres may be generalised by positing the common scale, Heliand > Beowulf > fornyrðislag, for the decreasing likelihood of resolution, the increasing likelihood of suspending resolution, and the decreasing size of the drop.

scholarly journals Translating the Gospel in Viking Age England: The Evidence from Two Old Norse Loan Translations from Old English

2019 ◽  
Vol 137 (4) ◽  
pp. 527-560
Author(s):  
Nikolas Gunn
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Early Medieval Period ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Speech Communities ◽  
Contact Situation ◽  
Biblical Translation

Abstract A recent resurgence of interest in Old Norse linguistic borrowings in Old English has greatly expanded our knowledge of the contact situation between these two speech communities in the early medieval period and beyond. However, there are a significant number of words that have been considered borrowings in the “other” direction, i. e. from Old English to Old Norse, which have not attracted the same amount of attention in current scholarship. Much of this material requires reassessment and this paper provides a case study of two parallel compound formations in both languages – OE bærsynnig [mann]/ON bersynðugr [maðr] (‘one who is openly sinful; publican’), and OE healsbōc/ON hálsbók (‘phylactery, amulet’, lit. ‘neck-book’) – that have traditionally been considered loan translations from Old English to Old Norse with little evidence other than their formation from cognate elements. In the absence of clear-cut linguistic criteria for identifying loan translations between these two closely related languages, this paper draws on a range of literary evidence to argue for a strong likelihood of a relationship between the two compounds. Both words offer important evidence for biblical translation practices, and contribute to our knowledge about the Christianisation of Norse speaking peoples and Anglo-Norse language contact in Viking Age England.

Urgermanisch *þe-na-z ‘Gefolgsmann’

2000 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-299
Author(s):  
Stefan Zimmer
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Technical Term ◽  
Old Saxon

Proto-Germanic *þe-na-z (Old English, Old Saxon, Old High German, Old Norse) is traditionally understood as ‘child, follower, servant’, connected with Greek teknon ‘child’, both from *tek- ‘to beget’.This is unfounded; the meaning ‘child’ is unattested, the traditional etymology highly improbable. Proto-Germanic *þe-na-z is from *tek- ‘to stretch out one's hand, touch, receive’, designating basically ‘follower, retainer’, thus a technical term of Germanic Gefolgschaftswesen. Pertinent textual passages, the theory of Germanic heathen baptism, and the rites whereby a warrior is accepted into a lord's retinue are crucial for the analysis.

NIS þæt Seldguma: Beowulf 249

PMLA ◽  
1960 ◽  
Vol 75 (5) ◽  
pp. 481-484
Author(s):  
Cecil Wood
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Half Line ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
Precise Meaning ◽  
At Home

“Now there is a man,” says Hrothgar's coast watch as Beowulf appears. No one doubts that nisþæt seldguma means this, once the litotes is resolved, but the precise meaning of the half line is another matter. Seldguma has been compared to Old Norse húskarl and the phrase then read as “this is no mere retainer.” It has been translated as “stay-at-home, cottager,” and compared to Old English cotsetla.

scholarly journals The Emergence and Transformation of Medieval Cumbria

2014 ◽  
Vol 93 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-216
Author(s):  
Fiona Edmonds
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
Large Area ◽  
New Name ◽  
Late Ninth Century ◽  
Administrative Units ◽  
The Relationship

There has long been uncertainty about the relationship between the polities known as Strathclyde and Cumbria. Did medieval writers apply these terms to the same kingdom, or were Strathclyde and Cumbria separate entities? This debate has significant implications for our understanding of the politics of northern Britain during the period from the late ninth century to the twelfth. In this article I analyse the terminology in Latin, Old English, Old Norse, Welsh and Irish texts. I argue that Strathclyde developed into Cumbria: the expansion of the kingdom of Strathclyde beyond the limits of the Clyde valley necessitated the use of a new name. This process occurred during the early tenth century and created a Cumbrian kingdom that stretched from the Clyde to the south of the Solway Firth. The kingdom met its demise in the mid-eleventh century and Cumbrian terminology was subsequently appropriated for smaller ecclesiastical and administrative units. Yet these later usages should not be confused with the tenth-century kingdom, which encompassed a large area that straddled the modern Anglo-Scottish border.

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