norsebysw

Manuscripts (Patreon)

Published:

2016-11-10 00:23:51

Imported:

2023-11

Tags:

rewards

Content

Let me start off by thankingeveryone who continues to be a patron of my educational videos. Yourcontributions are making a positive difference in my life.

Last week I posted a video inwhich I shared some tips and tricks for reading Old Norse in actualmanuscripts. Historical handwriting (paleography) is an under-studied aspect oflearning Old Norse, but if you're serious about the language, it's veryrewarding to be able to read it not just in the original language but on theoriginal page.

By the way, if you ever want tolook at the original manuscript of the Poetic Edda, you can find excellentscans of it at this link: http://www.am.hi.is:8087/ where dozens of medievalNorse manuscripts are scanned. Scroll down to the bottom and find themanuscript named "GKS 2365 4to: Eddukvæði" and click "Skoða."

Then you will see a menu onyour right that will allow you to look at each page. The pages are divided into7 groups, and each page has a "recto" and a "verso" side. Goto the second group of pages, and you will find the first poem of the PoeticEdda, Vǫluspá, starting on page 001recto.

I'm attaching to this post a scan of my replica ofthe phrase from Grímnismál that I used in the video. The numbers above thewords stand for the following common phenomena that we find when reading OldNorse in manuscripts:

1. Capital letters used toindicate a doubled letter (e.g. "Huginn" spelled "hugiN").

2. The tironian nota, whichlooks somewhat like a number seven, stands for "and" (or"ok" in Old Norse).

3. I is used for both I and J,and U and V are used interchangeably.

4. The tittle (which can varyin shape from a nine-like loop to a lightning bolt, but generally pointsdiagonally to the upper right) stands for an "er" or "ir"that has been left out following the letter it is written above (so"huian" with the tittle above the "u" means"hverjan").

5. The letter R may be writtenas R-rotunda, which is like half of a capital R written as if it were growingoff of the preceding letter.

Files

Reading Old Norse Manuscripts: Tips & Tricks

A look at some of the abbreviations and symbols used in writing Old Norse manuscripts like the Codex Regius. Dr. Jackson Crawford is an Old Norse specialist who teaches in the Department of Scandinavian at the University of California, Berkeley (formerly at UCLA), and is credited in Disney’s Frozen. His new, contemporary translation of the Poetic Edda—the most important source for the stories of the Norse gods and heroes—is available at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1624663567 Support Jackson Crawford's educational videos about Old Norse language and myth on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/norsebysw and get exclusive bonus content including translation requests, rune fonts, and previews of upcoming publications. Learn the Old Norse language with this step-by-step video series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLATNGYBQ-TjrVWv1Vh4aS3M-Twg-Ymwtf Popular videos: What’s the difference between Old Norse and Modern Icelandic?: https://youtu.be/5_T5jxWyxk8 How do we know what a dead language sounded like?: https://youtu.be/VVnOdRgkvwU How to pronounce Old Norse (part of the Old Norse lesson series): https://youtu.be/4rajv8BSzRI Why are Norse and Viking names spelled so inconsistently?: https://youtu.be/w4ahKtGW4N0 Hávamál (an Old Norse wisdom poem attributed to Odin): https://youtu.be/YKeKiLk8ZOg Who is Loki? A two-minute introduction: https://youtu.be/L8h51Ss5upQ Introduction to the Indo-European languages: https://youtu.be/XTkf9bEB8RU Introduction to Old Norse (from the Old Norse lesson series): https://youtu.be/yfWoqIryYa8 How nouns work in Old Norse (from the Old Norse lesson series): https://youtu.be/mxzw2kUbC_I Viking names (from the Old Norse lesson series): https://youtu.be/JmZBwcBgZhU Writing Old Norse in runes: https://youtu.be/aZ0vLcdgfF0