icelandicprimer.pdf

An Icelandic Primer

With Grammar, Notes, and Glossary

By Henry Sweet, M.A.

This book has been modiÍed slightly from the original to make the paradigm ref-

erences clear. The original was the second edition, published by Oxford at the

Clarendon Press, 1895.

Theoriginalpageimages 1 werescannedinbySeanCrist 2 . TheywerethenOCRed

and reformatted for Project Gutenberg into text, HTML, and T E X by Ben Crow-

der 3 . Other versions of the text may be found at the current homepage for the

primer 4 or through Project Gutenberg 5 . Special thanks to Jonas Oster 6 for provid-

ing the OmegaWTP code to Íx nondisplaying characters.

1 http://www.ling.upenn.edu/kurisuto/germanic/oi sweet about.html

2 kurisuto@unagi.cis.upenn.edu

3 crowderb@blankslate.net

4 http://www.blankslate.net/lang/etexts.php

5 http://www.gutenberg.net/

6 d97ost@dtek.chalmers.se

Preface

The want of a short and easy introduction to the study of Icelandic has been

feltforalongtimeuinfact, fromtheverybeginningofthatstudyinEngland. The

IcelandicReader , editedbyMessrs. VigfussonandPowell, intheClarendonPress

Series, is a most valuable book, which ought to be in the hands of every student;

butitstillleavesroomforanelementaryprimer. Astheengagementsoftheeditors

of the Reader would have made it impossible for them to undertake such a work

for some years to come, they raised no objections to my proposal to undertake it

myself. Meanwhile, I found the task was a more formidable one than I had antici-

pated, and accordingly, before deÍnitely committingmyself to it, I made one Ínal

attempt to induce Messrs. Vigfusson and Powell to take it oÌ my hands; but they

very kindly encouraged me to proceed withit; and as I myselfthoughtthat an Ice-

landicprimer, onthelinesofmyAnglo-Saxonone, mightperhapsbethemeansof

inducing some students of Old English to take up Icelandic as well, I determined

to go on.

In the spelling I have not thoughtit necessary to adhere strictlyto that adopted

in the Reader, for the editors have themselvesdeviated from it in their Corpus Po-

eticumBoreale , intheway ofseparating È from o , etc. Myownprinciplehasbeen

to deviate as little as possible from the traditional spelling followed in normal-

ized texts. There is, indeed, no practical gain for the beginner in writing t ¤ *me for

t¤*mi , discarding 2 , etc., although these changes certainly bring us nearer the oldest

MSS., and cannot be dispensed with in scientiÍc works. The essential thing for

the beginner is to have regular forms presented to him, to the exclusion, as far as

possible, of isolated archaisms, and to have the defective distinctions of the MSS.

supplementedbydiacritics. I have nothesitatedto substitute (¤) for (R) as the mark

of length; the latter ought in my opinion to be used exclusivelyuin Icelandic as

well as in Old English and Old Irishuto represent the actual accents of the MSS.

In the grammar I have to acknowledge my great obligations to Noreenis Al-

tislandische Grammatik , which is by far the best Icelandic grammar that has yet

iii

An Icelandic Primer

appeareduat least from that narrow point of view which ignores syntax, and con-

centrates itself on phonology and inÎections.

Thetextsare intendedtobeas easy, interesting, andrepresentativeaspossible.

With such a language, and such a master of it as Snorri to choose from, this com-

bination is not diÏcult to realise. The beginner is indeed to be envied who makes

his Írst acquaintance with the splendid mythological tales of the North, told in an

absolutely perfect style. As the death of Olaf Tryggvason is given in the Reader

only from the longer recension of the Heimskringla, I have been able to give the

shorter text, which is admirably suited for the purposes of this book. The story of

Au2un is not only a beautiful one in itself, but, together with the preceding piece,

givesavividideaoftheNorseidealofthekinglycharacter, whichwasthefounda-

tionoftheirwholepoliticalsystem. AstheReader doesnotincludepoetry (except

incidentally), I have added one of the Ínest of the Eddaic poems, which is at the

same time freest from obscurity and corruptionuthe song of Thoris quest of his

hammer.

In the glossary I have ventured to deviate from the very inconvenient Scandi-

navian arrangement, which puts 4 , 1 , > , right at the end of the alphabet.

I have to acknowledge the great help I have had in preparing the texts and the

glossaryfromWimmeris OldnordiskL1sebog ,whichIconsidertobe,onthewhole,

thebestreading-bookthatexistsinanylanguage. SoexcellentisWimmerisselec-

tionoftexts,thatitwasimpossibleformetodootherwisethanfollowhiminnearly

every case.

In conclusion, it is almost superÎuous to say that this book makes no preten-

sion to originality of any kind. If it contributes towards restoring to Englishmen

thatpreciousheritageutheoldlanguageandliteratureofIcelanduwhichourmis-

erably narrow scheme of education has hitherto defrauded them of, it will have

fulÍlled its purpose.

HENRY SWEET.

London,

February , 1886

Contents

I Grammar

1 Pronunciation 3

1.1 Vowels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

1.2 Consonants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

1.3 Stress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2 Phonology 7

2.1 Vowels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2.1.1 Mutation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2.1.2 Fracture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

2.1.3 Gradation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

2.1.4 Other changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

2.2 Consonants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

3 InÎections 11

3.1 Nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

3.1.1 Strong Masculines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

3.1.2 Strong Neuters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

3.1.3 Strong Feminines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

3.1.4 Weak Masculines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

3.1.5 Weak Neuters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

3.1.6 Weak Feminines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

3.2 Adjectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

3.2.1 Strong Adjectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

3.2.2 Weak Adjectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

3.3 Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

3.4 Numerals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

3.5 Pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

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