Re: Ynglingatal and the Old Norse challenge

"Inger E" <inger_e.johansson@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:nH4xi.6319$ZA.2982@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

<flexford@xxxxxxxxxxxx> skrev i meddelandet
news:1187303958.244284.150540@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On 11 Aug, 08:14, "Inger E" <inger_e.johans...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
<trim>

Now you could compare following texts spellings and usage of
grammar:
which
is from an 1170's text of the Icelandic Law (Ref Arnamagnæanske
Haandskrift
Nr. 334)

"Ef þeim manne tömiz erfð er erlendis er. þa a sa maðr at taca þat
fe er
hinn nanasti niðr er her hinum andaþa. scal hann lata virða fe þat
..v.
landeigendr iafnt sem omaga eyri. oc sva at öllo hafa fe þat sem
omaga
eyri.
"
with
same text
"Ef maðr andaz a englande eða i eyiom eða idylflinni .." Edited from
the
Danish Konglige Biblioteket's handwritten text in V Finsson's
transcription.

<trim>
Inger E

Now I'm just a beginner at this Old Norse lark, but it seems to me
that there are two different legal situations defined here.

Taking the second quotation first, as it's shorter and easier than the
first quotation:

"If a man dies in England or the isles or in Dublin [i dyflinni, I
presume]..."

and comparing it with the first quotation:

"If an inheritance falls vacant to a man who is abroad, then that man
takes the property who is nearest kin to the one who died. He shall
have it valued by five landowners exactly like the property of a minor
and he holds all that property like the property of a minor [that is,
holding the estate at valuation in trust, but having the use thereof,
presumably until the true heir returns from abroad]."

I'm sure Alan will be able to correct my doubtless defective
translation, but as I say, it seems to me that these texts are
fundamentally not the same.

Pete is right in thinking that they are not two variants of the same
text.


Could you be trying in your reply to blind me with science and
otherwise confuse me?

By the way, Alan's ring quotation was much easier -- perhaps you could
favour us with your translation -- I believe you claimed above that
you had done one?

Pete Stretton

IEJ: I have, but I don't have access to it from where I am at present.
No
matter that, the Old Norse of Alan isn't the same as all the Old Norse
texts. That's a problem which I can't see that Alan addressed anywhere
at
all. If you for example compare texts written in Bergen in 1180's with
texts
written in Iceland and the few "Swedish" texts we have access to, the
value
of words aren't the same neither the idioms etc. One funny thing is
that
some words, not many but still a few, could be used meaning one thing
when
written in an Icelandic text on parchment and an other when written
elsewhere. We had some examples which gave more laughs then when
students
had written their latintests back in high-school....


Inger,
I understand that family concerns are making it hard for you to spend as
much time at the computer as you normally would, so I can forgive you
for thinking that I "did not address anywhere at all" the problem of
different varieties of Old Norse. I therefore repeat what I posted in
reply to Pete on 25 July:

=========================================
The differences between Old Norwegian and Old Icelandic at this time
were tiny. So tiny that the best experts often find it hard to say,
without any other evidence, whether a text was written by a Norwegian or
an Icelander.

Here's what Astrid Salvesen says in the introduction to her "Studies in
the Vocabulary of the Old Norse Elucidarium" (Oslo, 1968), a translation
of a Latin work into Old Norse:

"As for the nationality of the translator, whether he was an Icelander
or a Norwegian, no certain proof has so far been given. The manuscripts
give little evidence. Syntax and vocabulary were the same in both
languages, only certain endings and inflected forms were distinguished."

So to answer your question, the difference between Old Icelandic and Old
Norwegian is not a serious issue. They are nearly identical forms of Old
Norse. To take an analogy: If you can read and understand the London
Times, you should have no difficulty with the New York Times.
=========================================


By the way, your Norwegian friends who laughed at my translation of the
passage from Sverrir's Saga might be interested in the following:
http://menneskeritid1.cappelen.no/c196990/tekstoppgave/vis.html?tid=231497&strukt_tid=196990

This confirms once again that the passage is a speech against
drunkenness and not a story of a German raid and an exchange of skins.

And I found yet another Norwegian translation of the saga online:
http://home.online.no/~olhov/sverre4.html
Go to chapter 97


Best wishes
Alan

.

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