| Old Gutnish | |
| Region: | Gotland |
| Familycolor: | Indo-European |
| Fam2: | Germanic |
| Fam3: | North Germanic |
| Iso3: | none |
| Linglist: | non-gut |
| Glotto: | gutn1238 |
| Glottorefname: | Archaic Gutnish |
| Ietf: | non-u-sd-sei |
Old Gutnish or Old Gotlandic was a North Germanic language spoken on the Baltic island of Gotland. It shows sufficient differences from the Old West Norse and Old East Norse dialects that it is considered to be a separate branch. While vastly divergent from Old Gutnish and closer to Modern Swedish, a modern version of Gutnish is still spoken in some parts of Gotland and the adjoining island of Fårö.
The root Gut is identical to Goth, and it is often remarked that the language has similarities with the Gothic language. These similarities have led scholars such as Elias Wessén and Dietrich Hofmann to suggest that it is most closely related to Gothic. The best known example of such a similarity is that Gothic and Gutnish called both adult and young sheep Germanic languages: lamb.
The Old Norse diphthong au (e.g. Norse, Old: auga "eye") remained in Old Gutnish and Old West Norse, while in Old East Norse – except for peripheral dialects – it evolved into the monophthong ǿ, i.e. a long version of ø. Likewise the diphthong ai in Norse, Old: bain ("bone") remained in Old Gutnish while in Old West Norse it became ei as in Norse, Old: bein and in Old East Norse it became é (Norse, Old: bén). Whereas Old West Norse had the ey diphthong and Old East Norse evolved the monophthong ǿ) Old Gutnish had oy.
| Proto-Germanic | Old Gutnish | Old West Norse | Old East Norse | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Germanic languages: *augô (eye) | Norse, Old: auga | Norse, Old: auga | Norse, Old: auga > Norse, Old: ǿga | |
| Germanic languages: *bainą (bone) | Norse, Old: bain | Norse, Old: bein | Norse, Old: bæin > Norse, Old: bén | |
| Germanic languages: *hauzijaną (to hear) | Norse, Old: hoyra | Norse, Old: heyra | Norse, Old: høyra > Norse, Old: hǿra |
Most of the corpus of Old Gutnish is found in the law of the Gutes (Old Gutnish: Guta lag) from the 13th century.
Citation (from the Gutasaga):
With somewhat normalized orthography:
Translation in Icelandic:
Translation in English: