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| Proto-Norse | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Scandinavia | |
| Language extinction: | evolved into Old Norse from the 8th century | |
| Language family: | Indo-European Germanic North Germanic Proto-Norse | |
| Writing system: | Elder Futhark | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | gem | |
| ISO 639-3: | — | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
Proto-Norse (also Primitive Norse, Proto-Nordic, Ancient Nordic, Old Scandinavian and Proto-North Germanic) was an Indo-European language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved from Proto-Germanic over the first centuries AD. It is the earliest stage of a characteristically North Germanic language, and the language of the oldest Scandinavian Elder Futhark inscriptions, spoken ca. from the 3rd to 7th centuries (corresponding to the later Roman Iron Age and the earlier Germanic Iron Age). It evolved into the dialects of the Old Norse language at the beginning of the Viking Age.
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The stress accent fell on the first syllable. Several scholars have proposed that Proto-Norse also had a separate pitch accent, which was inherited from Proto-Indo-European and has evolved into the tonal accents of modern Swedish and Norwegian.Kock, Axel, 1901: Die alt- und neuschwedische Akzentuierung. Quellen und Forschungen 87. StrassburgHamp, Eric P., 1959: Final syllables in Germanic and the Scandinavian accent system. I: Studia Linguistica 13. S.29-48. Another recently advanced theory is that each Proto-Norse long syllable and every other short syllable received stress, marked by pitch, eventually leading to the development of the Swedish and Norwegian tonal accent distinction.Riad, Tomas, 1998: The origin of Scandinavian tone accents. I: Diachronica XV(1). S.63–98. Finally, quite a number of linguists have assumed that even the first phonetic rudiments of the distinction didn\'t appear until the Old Norse period.Kristoffersen, Gjert, 2004: The development of tonal dialects in the Scandinavian languages. Analysis based on presentation at ESF-workshop \'Typology of Tone and Intonation\', Cascais, Portugal 1-3 April 2004. [1].Elstad, Kåre, 1980: Some Remarks on Scandinavian Tonogenesis. I: Nordlyd: Tromsø University Working Papers on Language and Linguistics 3. 61-77.Öhman, Sven, 1967: Word and sentence intonation: a quantitative model. Speech Transmission Laboratory Quarterly Progress and Status Report, KTH, 2-3. 20-54, 1967., 8(2-3):20-54.[2]Bye, Patrick, 2004: Evolutionary typology and Scandinavian pitch accent. Kluwer Academic Publishers. [3].
A distinguishing feature of the Proto-Norse vowel system is the lack of symmetry between long and short vowels as seen below.
Short vowels
Long vowels
Diphthongs
Stops Proto-Norse had the same six stops as had Old Norse. When one of the voiced stops stands in between vowels, it is realized as a fricative.
Fricatives
Nasals
Approximants
Liquids
composite photograph of the Einang stone inscription (ca. AD 400)
The surviving examples we have of Proto-Norse are all runic inscriptions in the Elder Futhark. There are about 260 surviving Elder Futhark inscriptions in Proto-Norse, the earliest dating to the 2nd century.
Examples of inscriptions:
Numerous Proto-Norse words have survived as borrowings in Estonian and Finnish. Some of these words are (with the reconstructed form in P-N): rõngas/rengas < *hrengaz (ring), kuningas < *kuningaz (king), ruhtinas < *druhtinaz (sv. drott), püksid < *bukse (trousers), silt < *skild (tag, token), märk/ama < *mērke (to spot, to catch sight of), riik < *rik (state, land, commonwealth), väärt < *vaērd (worth), kapp < *skap (chest of drawers; shelf)
Some Proto-Norse names are found in Latin works, for example tribal names like Suiones (*Sweoniz, Swedes). Others can be conjectured from manuscripts such as Beowulf.
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).
In the period 500–800, two great changes occurred within Proto-Norse. Umlauts appeared which means that a vowel was influenced by the succeeding vowel or semi-vowel, e.g. Old Norse gestr (guest) came from P-N ȝastiz (guest). Umlauts also resulted in the appearance of the new vowels y (e.g. fylla from *fullian) and œ (e.g. dœma from *dōmian). There was also a special umlaut resulting in breaking, i.e. the vowel changed into a diphthong, e.g. hiarta from *herto. This change was by and in itself no great disruption in the language. It merely introduced new allophones of back vowels if certain vowels were in following syllables. However, the changes brought forth by syncope made umlaut a distinctive non-transparent feature of the morphology.
Due to syncope the long vowels of unstressed syllables were shortened and the shortened vowels lost. As in P-N the stress accent lay on the first syllable words as P-N *katilōz became ON katlar (cauldrons), P-N hurna was changed into Old Norse horn and P-N ȝastiz resulted in ON gestr (guest). Some words underwent even more drastic changes, like the polysyllabic *haƀukaz which changed into a monosyllabic ON haukr (hawk).
The postpositioned definite article also appeared during this time e.g. ON dagrinn (the day).
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