Proto-Norse language explained

Proto-Norse
Also Known As:	Ancient Nordic
Region:	Scandinavia
Era:	2nd to 8th centuries
Familycolor:	Indo-European
Fam2:	Germanic
Script:	Elder Futhark
Notice:	IPA
Isoexception:	historical
Linglist:	1be
Linglist2:	qdl
Lingname2:	"Runic" (perhaps Old Norse is intended)
Glotto:	olde1239
Glottoname:	Older Runic (perhaps)
Glottorefname:	Older Runic

Proto-Norse (also called Ancient Nordic, Ancient Scandinavian, Ancient Norse, Primitive Norse, Proto-Nordic, Proto-Scandinavian and Proto-North Germanic) was an Indo-European language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved as a northern dialect of Proto-Germanic in the first centuries CE. It is the earliest stage of a characteristically North Germanic language, and the language attested in the oldest Scandinavian Elder Futhark inscriptions, spoken from around the 2nd to the 8th centuries CE (corresponding to the late Roman Iron Age and the Germanic Iron Age). It evolved into the dialects of Old Norse at the beginning of the Viking Age around 800 CE, which later themselves evolved into the modern North Germanic languages (Faroese, Icelandic, the Continental Scandinavian languages, and their dialects).

Phonology

Proto-Norse phonology probably did not differ substantially from that of Proto-Germanic. Although the phonetic realisation of several phonemes had probably changed over time, the overall system of phonemes and their distribution remained largely unchanged.

Consonants

Proto-Norse consonants

	Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar		Palatal	Velar	Labial–velar
Nasal	pronounced as /m/		pronounced as /n/			(pronounced as /ŋ/)	(pronounced as /ŋʷ/)
Stop	pronounced as /p/  pronounced as /b/	pronounced as /t/  pronounced as /d/				pronounced as /k/  pronounced as /ɡ/	pronounced as /kʷ/  pronounced as /ɡʷ/
Fricative	pronounced as /ɸ/  (pronounced as /β/)	pronounced as /θ/  (pronounced as /ð/)	pronounced as /s/	pronounced as /z/		pronounced as /h/  (pronounced as /ɣ/)	pronounced as /hʷ/
Trill			pronounced as /r/
Approximant					pronounced as /j/		pronounced as /w/
Lateral			pronounced as /l/

1. pronounced as /link/ assimilated to a following velar consonant. It was pronounced as /link/ before a plain velar, and probably pronounced as /[ŋʷ]/ before a labial-velar consonant.
2. Unlike its Proto-Germanic ancestor pronounced as /link/, the phoneme pronounced as /link/ probably no longer had a velar place of articulation. It eventually disappeared except word-initially.
3. pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/ were allophones of pronounced as /link/, pronounced as //d// and pronounced as //ɡ//, and occurred in most word-medial positions. Plosives appeared when the consonants were lengthened (geminated), and also after a nasal consonant. Word-finally, pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/ were devoiced and merged with pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/.
4. The exact realisation of the phoneme pronounced as /link/, traditionally written as ʀ in transcriptions of runic Norse (not to be confused with the phonetic symbol pronounced as /link/ used in other languages), is unclear. While it was a simple alveolar sibilant in Proto-Germanic (as in Gothic), it eventually underwent rhotacization and merged with pronounced as /link/ towards the end of the runic period. It may have been pronounced as pronounced as /link/ or pronounced as /link/, tending towards a trill in the later period. The sound was still written with its own letter in runic Old East Norse around the end of the first millennium.

Vowels

The system of vowels differed somewhat more from that of Proto-Germanic than the consonants. Earlier pronounced as //ɛː// had been lowered to pronounced as //ɑː//, and unstressed pronounced as //ɑi// and pronounced as //ɑu// had developed into pronounced as //eː// and pronounced as //ɔː//. Shortening of word-final vowels had eliminated the Proto-Germanic overlong vowels.

Oral vowels Front Back short long short long Close pronounced as /i/ pronounced as /iː/ pronounced as /u/ pronounced as /uː/ Mid pronounced as /e/ pronounced as /eː/ pronounced as /o/ pronounced as /ɔː/ Open pronounced as /ɑ/ pronounced as /ɑː/

Nasal vowels Front Back short long short long Close pronounced as /ĩ/? pronounced as /ĩː/ pronounced as /ũ/? pronounced as /ũː/ Mid pronounced as /ɔ̃/ pronounced as /ɔ̃ː/ Open pronounced as /ɑ̃/? pronounced as /ɑ̃ː/

1. pronounced as //o// had developed from pronounced as //u// through a-mutation. It also occurred word-finally as a result of the shortening of Proto-Germanic pronounced as //ɔː//.
2. The long nasal vowels pronounced as //ɑ̃ː//, pronounced as //ĩː// and pronounced as //ũː// occurred only before pronounced as //h//. Their presence was noted in the 12th-century First Grammatical Treatise, and they survive in modern Elfdalian.
3. All other nasal vowels occurred only word-finally, although it is unclear whether they had retained their nasality in Proto-Norse or had already merged with the oral vowels. The vowels pronounced as //o// and pronounced as //ɔ̃// were contrastive, however, as the former eventually developed into pronounced as //u// (triggering u-mutation) while the latter was lowered to pronounced as //ɑ//.
4. The back vowels probably had central or front allophones when pronounced as //i// or pronounced as //j// followed, as a result of i-mutation:
   • pronounced as //ɑ// > pronounced as /[æ]/, pronounced as //ɑː// > pronounced as /[æː]/
   • pronounced as //u// > pronounced as /[ʉ]/, pronounced as //uː// > pronounced as /[ʉː]/ (later pronounced as //y//, pronounced as //yː//)
   • pronounced as //ɔː// > pronounced as /[ɞː]/ (later pronounced as /[œː]/ or pronounced as /[øː]/)
   • pronounced as //o// did not originally occur before pronounced as //i// or pronounced as //j//, but it was later introduced by analogy (as can be seen on the Gallehus horns). Its allophone was probably pronounced as /[ɵ]/, later pronounced as /[ø]/.
5. Towards the end of the Proto-Norse period, stressed pronounced as //e// underwent breaking, becoming a rising diphthong pronounced as //jɑ//.
6. Also towards the end of the Proto-Norse period, u-mutation began to take effect, which created rounded allophones of unrounded vowels.

Accent

Old Norse had a stress accent which fell on the first syllable, like its ancestor, Proto-Germanic. 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, which in turn have evolved into the stød of modern Danish.^{[1] [2]} 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.^[3] Finally, quite a number of linguists have assumed that even the first phonetic rudiments of the distinction did not appear until the Old Norse period.^{[4] [5] [6] [7]}

Attestations

All attestations of Proto-Norse are Elder Futhark inscriptions. There are about 260 of these inscriptions in Proto-Norse, the earliest dating to the 2nd century.

Examples

• Øvre Stabu spearhead, Oppland, Norway. Second century, ON Norse, Old: raun "tester", cf. Norwegian Norwegian: røyne "try, test". Swedish Swedish: rön "finding" and Swedish: utröna "find out". The word formation with a suffix is evidence of Sievers' law.
• Golden Horn of Gallehus 2, South Jutland, Denmark 400 CE,, "I, Hlewagastis of Holt, made the horn." Note again the suffix
• Tune stone, Østfold, Norway, 400 CE., I, Wiwaz, after Woduridaz bread-warden wrought. For me Woduridaz, the stone, three daughters prepared, the most noble of heirs.
• The Einang stone, near Fagernes, Norway, is dated to the 4th century. It contains the message ([I, Go]dguest drew the secret), in O–N Norse, Old: ek goðgestr rún fáða. The first four letters of the inscription have not survived and are conjectured, and the personal name could well have been Gudagasti or something similar.
• Kragehul spear, Denmark, c. 500 CE. possibly, "I, Eril of Asgisl, was named Muha, ga-ga-ga mighty-ga (ga being most likely an abbreviation of indeterminable reference), (incomplete) hail I consecrate."
• The Björketorp Runestone, Blekinge, Sweden, is one of three menhirs, but is the only one of them where, in the 6th century, someone wrote a curse: (Here, I have hidden the secret of powerful runes, strong runes. The one who breaks this memorial will be eternally tormented by anger. Treacherous death will hit him. I foresee perdition.)
• The Rö runestone, in Bohuslän, Sweden, was raised in the early 5th century and is the longest early inscription: "I, Hrazaz/Hraþaz raised the stone ... Swabaharjaz with wide wounds. ... Stainawarijaz (Stoneguardian's) carved."

Loanwords

Numerous early Germanic words have survived with relatively little change as borrowings in Finnic languages. Some of these may be of Proto-Germanic origin or older still, but others reflect developments specific to Norse. Some examples (with the reconstructed Proto-Norse form):

• Estonian Estonian: juust, Finnish Finnish: juusto "cheese" < *Germanic languages: justaz (Old Norse Norse, Old: ostr)
• Estonian/Finnish kuningas < *Germanic languages: [[Germanic kingship|kuningaz]] "king" (Old Norse Norse, Old: kunungr, Norse, Old: konungr)
• Estonian/Finnish lammas "sheep" < *Germanic languages: lambaz "lamb" (Old Norse Norse, Old: lamb)
• Finnish Finnish: hurskas "pious" < *Germanic languages: hurskaz "prudent, wise, quick-minded" (Old Norse Norse, Old: horskr)
• Finnish Finnish: ruhtinas "prince" < *Germanic languages: druhtinaz "lord" (Old Norse Norse, Old: dróttinn)
• Finnish Finnish: runo "poem, rune" < *Germanic languages: rūno "secret, mystery, rune" (Old Norse Norse, Old: rún)
• Finnish Finnish: sairas "sick" < *Germanic languages: sairaz "sore" (Old Norse Norse, Old: sárr)
• Finnish Finnish: vaate "garment" < *Germanic languages: wādiz (Old Norse Norse, Old: váð)
• Finnish Finnish: viisas "wise" < *Germanic languages: wīsaz (Old Norse Norse, Old: víss)

A very extensive Proto-Norse loanword layer also exists in the Sámi languages.^{[8] [9]}

Other

Some Proto-Norse names are found in Latin works, like tribal names like Suiones (*Uncoded languages: Sweoniz, "Swedes"). Others can be conjectured from manuscripts such as Beowulf.

Evolution

Proto-Germanic to Proto-Norse

The differences between attested Proto-Norse and unattested Proto-Germanic are rather small. Separating Proto-Norse from Northwest Germanic can be said to be a matter of convention, as sufficient evidence from the remaining parts of the Germanic-speaking area (Northern Germany and the Netherlands) is lacking in a degree to provide sufficient comparison. Inscriptions found in Scandinavia are considered to be in Proto-Norse. Several scholars argue about this subject matter. Wolfgang von Krause sees the language of the runic inscriptions of the Proto-Norse period as an immediate precursor to Old Norse, but Elmer Antonsen views them as Northwest Germanic.^[10]

One early difference shared by the West Germanic dialects is the monophthongization of unstressed diphthongs. Unstressed Germanic languages: ai became Uncoded languages: ē, as in Uncoded languages: haitē (Kragehul I) from Proto-Germanic Germanic languages: haitai, and unstressed Germanic languages: au likewise became Uncoded languages: ō. Characteristic is also the Proto-Norse lowering of Proto-Germanic stressed Germanic languages: ē to Uncoded languages: ā, which is demonstrated by the pair Gothic Gothic: mēna and Old Norse Norse, Old: máni (English moon). Proto-Norse thus differs from the early West Germanic dialects, as West Germanic Uncoded languages: ē was lowered to Uncoded languages: ā regardless of stress; in Old Norse, earlier unstressed Uncoded languages: ē surfaces as Norse, Old: i. For example, the weak third-person singular past tense ending Uncoded languages: -dē appears in Old High German as German, Old High (ca.750-1050);: -t'''a''', with a low vowel, but in Old Norse as Norse, Old: -ð'''i''', with a high vowel.

The time that Germanic languages: z, a voiced apical alveolar fricative, represented in runic writing by the algiz rune, changed to Uncoded languages: ʀ, an apical post-alveolar approximant, is debated. If the general Proto-Norse principle of devoicing of consonants in final position is taken into account, Germanic languages: z, if retained, would have been devoiced to pronounced as /link/ and would be spelled as such in runes. There is, however, no trace of that in the Elder Futhark runic inscriptions, so it can be safely assumed that the quality of this consonant must have changed before the devoicing, or the phoneme would not have been marked with a rune different from the sowilō rune used for s. The quality of the consonant can be conjectured, and the general opinion is that it was something between pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/, the Old Norse reflex of the sound. In Old Swedish, the phonemic distinction between r and ʀ was retained into the 11th century, as shown by the numerous runestones from Sweden from then.

Proto-Norse to Old Norse

From 500 to 800, two great changes occurred within Proto-Norse. Umlauts appeared, which means that a vowel was influenced by the succeeding vowel or semivowel: Old Norse Norse, Old: [[wikt:gestr|gestr]] (guest) came from PN Uncoded languages: gastiz (guest). Another sound change is known as vowel breaking in which the vowel changed into a diphthong: Norse, Old: hjarta from *Uncoded languages: hertō or Norse, Old: fjǫrðr from *Uncoded languages: ferþuz.

Umlauts resulted in the appearance of the new vowels Norse, Old: y (like Norse, Old: [[wikt:fylla|fylla]] from *Uncoded languages: fullijaną) and Norse, Old: œ (like Norse, Old: [[wikt:dœma|dœma]] from *Uncoded languages: dōmijaną). The umlauts are divided into three categories: a-umlaut, i-umlaut and u-umlaut; the last was still productive in Old Norse. The first, however, appeared very early, and its effect can be seen already around 500, on the Golden Horns of Gallehus.^[11] The variation caused by the umlauts was 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 the umlaut-vowels a distinctive non-transparent feature of the morphology and phonology, phonemicising what were previously allophones.

Syncope shortened the long vowels of unstressed syllables; many shortened vowels were lost. Also, most short unstressed vowels were lost. As in PN, the stress accent lay on the first syllable words as PN *Uncoded languages: katilōz became ON Norse, Old: katlar (cauldrons), PN Uncoded languages: horną was changed into Old Norse Norse, Old: horn (horn) and PN Uncoded languages: gastiz resulted in ON Norse, Old: gestr (guest). Some words underwent even more drastic changes, like *Uncoded languages: habukaz which changed into ON Norse, Old: haukr (hawk).

Further reading

• Michael Schulte: Urnordisch. Eine Einführung (2018). Praesens Verlag, Wien. .

External links

• General information
• Proto-Norse paradigms and links (archived copy)

Notes and References

1. Kristensen. Marius. 1 January 1902. Kock A. Die alt- und neuschwedische Akzentuierung· unter Berücksichtigung der andern nordischen Sprachen. Indogermanische Forschungen. 13. 1. 54–56. 10.1515/if-1902-0130. 170224007. 1613-0405. 3 September 2020. 17 August 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210817042632/https://zenodo.org/record/1791845. live.
2. Hamp. Eric P.. 1959. Final Syllables in Germanic and the Scandinavian Accent System. Studia Linguistica. 13. 1–2. 29–48. 10.1111/j.1467-9582.1959.tb00392.x. 0039-3193.
3. Riad. Tomas. 1998. The Origin of Scandinavian Tone Accents. Diachronica. 15. 1. 63–98. 10.1075/dia.15.1.04ria. 0176-4225.
4. Web site: The development of tonal dialects in the Scandinavian languages. Analysis based on presentation at ESF-workshop 'Typology of Tone and Intonation' . Kristoffersen . Gjert . 2004 . Cascais, Portugal . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110717233112/http://helmer.hit.uib.no/NTT/Cascais/0404ManusCascaisRevised.htm . 17 July 2011 . 2 December 2007 . .
5. Elstad, Kåre, 1980: Some Remarks on Scandinavian Tonogenesis. I: Nordlyd: Tromsø University Working Papers on Language and Linguistics 3. 61–77.
6. Book: Öhman . Sven. Word and sentence intonation : a quantitative model. 1967. Speech Transmission Laboratory, Dept. of Speech Communication, Royal Institute of Technology. 825888933.
7. Web site: Evolutionary typology and Scandinavian pitch accent . Bye . Patrick . 2004 . hum.uit.no . Kluwer Academic Publishers . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20080410051839/http://www.hum.uit.no/a/bye/Papers/pitch-accent-kluw.pdf . 10 April 2008 . 2 December 2007 . .
8. Book: Theil . Rolf . Germansk filologi og norske ord. Festskrift til Harald Bjorvand på 70-årsdagen den 30. juli 2012 . 2012 . Novus forlag . Askedal . John Ole . Oslo . no . Urnordiske lån i samisk . 9 June 2017 . Schmidt . Tom . Theil . Rolf . https://www.academia.edu/8439830 . 18 August 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210818051732/https://www.academia.edu/8439830 . live .
9. Aikio . Ante . 2012 . Grünthal . Riho . Kallio . Petri . An Essay on Saami Ethnolinguistic Prehistory . Helsinki . Finno-Ugrian Society . 266, A Linguistic Map of Prehistoric Northern Europe . 76 . Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne . 9 June 2017 . 31 October 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20201031225218/https://www.sgr.fi/sust/sust266/sust266_aikio.pdf . live .
10. Book: Runeninschriften als Quellen interdisziplinärer Forschung : Abhandlungen des Vierten Internationalen Symposiums über Runen und Runeninschriften in Göttingen; Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on Runes and Runic Inscriptions in Göttingen, 4–9 August 1995. 1998. Walter de Gruyter. Düwel . Klaus . Nowak . Sean. 3-11-015455-2. Berlin. 40365383.
11. Book: Spurkland . Terje . Norwegian Runes and Runic Inscriptions . Boydell Press . 2005 . 978-1-84383-186-0 . 13 December 2015 . 9 August 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230809085731/https://books.google.com/books?id=1QDKqY-NWvUC . live .