Historical Germanic Languages

North Germanic

The North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages is spoken by the Germanic-speaking people who stayed in northern part of the Germanic homeland. Between about 800 C.E. and 1000 C.E., the dialects of North Germanic diverged into West and East Norse. West Norse can be further divided into Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian, while East Norse developed into Old Danishand Old Swedish.

A characteristic of the North Germanic languages is the use of a postposed definite article.

Old Norse

Old Norse was a Western North Germanic language used in Iceland, Ireland, Norway, the Hebrides, the Orkneys, Shetland (see Norn), and the Faroe Islands from approximately the tenth to the thirteenth century. It started diverging from common North Germanic at about 800 C. E. It is the language of the Norse Eddas and Sagas. Its living descendents are Icelandic, Faroese, and Norwegian (but Norwegian has been affected by extensive contact with East Norse languages to a much greater degree than Faroese or Icelandic).

Terminology for varieties of Norse is vexed. Old Icelandic & Old Norwegian are sometimes called Old Norse or (Old) West Norse, and Danish and Swedish (Old) East Norse. Other people refer to Old Norse-Icelandic, excluding Norwegian. (Paul Acker).

Old Danish

Old Danish was an Eastern North Germanic language, spoken in Denmark, the ancestor of modern Danish and Bokmål. It is preserved in runic inscriptions and (in the Roman alphabet) in some 13th century documents.

Old Swedish

Old Swedish was an Eastern North Germanic language attested in about 2000 runic inscriptions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries C. E. Its contemporary descendant is modern Swedish. From the early 13th century onwards Old Swedish was also written in Roman script.

Norn

Norn was a mixed language of Old Norseand Irish spoken in the Shetland Islands. It is extinct.

There is extant an entire ballad text in Norn, Hildina-kvadet.

The ballad is described in the article: Hildina-kvaedet. Ein etteroeknad og ei tolking by Eigil Lehmann, printed in: Fra Fjon til Fusa 1984. Årbok for Hordamuseet og for Nord- og Midhordland sogelag.

Hildina-kvadet was written down in 1774 by the Scot George Low. He got it from a farmer - Guttorm - at the Shetland island Foula. Low did not understand the language, so the transcription may not be very accurate. Lehmann tries to reconstruct the Norn version of the song.

Lehmann's preface contains a bibliography, translated here by Reidar Moberg:

"The song was printed as early as 1808 by James Headrick, in 1838 by the Norwegian P.A. Munch. Others, who have been working on this kvad, is the Dane Svend Grundtvig, the Norwegian Sophus Bugge, Jakob Jakobsen from the Faroe Islands, the Norwegian Moltke Moe and the Dane Axel Olrik. These have mostly tried to bring the kvad back to old Norse. Such a reconstruct from Axel Olrik from 1898 could be found in a work on the kvad of the Dane Hakon Grüner-Nielsen in the honour book to Gustav Indrebo 1939. The most thorough work is done by the Norwegian Marius Haegstad in the book Hildina-kvadet from 1900."