dǫnsk tunga ('Danish tongue') norrǿnt mál ('Northern speech')
Native to
Scandinavia, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Greenland and other Norse settlements
Region
Nordic countries, Great Britain, Ireland, Isle of Man, Normandy, Newfoundland, the Volga and places in-between
Ethnicity
Norsemen and their descendants
Era
Evolved from Proto-Norse in the 8th century, developed into the various North Germanic languages by the 15th century
Language family
Indo-European
Germanic
North Germanic
Old Norse
Early form
Proto-Norse (attested)
Writing system
Runic, later Latin (Old Norse alphabet)
Language codes
ISO 639-2
non
ISO 639-3
non
Glottolog
oldn1244
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Part of a series on
Old Norse
Dialects
Old West Norse
(Old Icelandic
Old Norwegian
Greenlandic Norse)
Old East Norse
(Old Danish
Old Swedish)
Old Gutnish
Use
Orthography
Runic alphabet
(Younger Futhark
Medieval)
Latin alphabet
Grammar
Phonology
Morphology
Literature
Poetry (alliterative verse)
Sagas
(of Icelanders
Legendary)
Edda
(Poetic Edda
Prose Edda)
First Grammatical Treatise
Ancestors
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Norse
Descendants
Dalecarlian
Danish
Faroese
Greenlandic Norse (extinct)
Gutnish
Icelandic
Norn (extinct)
Norwegian
Swedish
English words of Old Norse origin
WikiProject Norse history and culture
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Part of a series on the
Norsemen
Extent of Norse language in CE 900: Western Norse in red and Eastern Norse in orange. Yellow and green denote related Germanic languages.
Scandinavia
History
History
Nordic Stone Age
Nordic Bronze Age
Pre-Roman Iron Age
Roman Iron Age
Germanic Iron Age
Migration Period
Viking Age
Norse–Gaels
Normans
Christianization
Old Norse religion
Gods
Æsir
Vanir
Jötunn
Sigurd
Sigmund
Wayland the Smith
Vættir
Elf
Dökkálfar and Ljósálfar
Dwarf (folklore)
Einherjar
Fenrir
Hel (mythological being)
Dís
Norns
Valkyrie
Jörmungandr
Ask and Embla
Cosmology
Asgard
Vanaheimr
Midgard
Vígríðr
Bifröst
Fólkvangr
Ginnungagap
Hel (location)
Muspelheim
Niflheim
Mímisbrunnr
Hvergelmir
Urðarbrunnr
Yggdrasill
Valhalla
Jötunheimr
Rituals and worship
Blót
Seiðr
Norse funeral
Yule
Walpurgis Night
Midsummer
Hörgr
Heathen hof
Vé (shrine)
Gothi
Early Germanic calendars
Runic magic
Seeress (Germanic)
Galdr
Death in Norse paganism
Society
Berserker
Earl
Ergi
Erilaz
Félag
Germanic kingship
Hird
Holmgang
Leidang
Mead hall
Medieval Scandinavian law
Nithing pole
Nīþ
Norse clans
Old Norse
Thing
Thrall
Events
Æsir–Vanir War
Fimbulwinter Ragnarök
Wild Hunt
Sources
Poetic Edda
Prose Edda
Tyrfing Cycle
Völsung Cycle
Saga
Runestones
WikiProject Norse history and culture
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Old Norse, Old Nordic,[1] or Old Scandinavian is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements and chronologically coincides with the Viking Age, the Christianization of Scandinavia and the consolidation of Scandinavian kingdoms from about the 8th to the 15th centuries.[2]
The Proto-Norse language developed into Old Norse by the 8th century, and Old Norse began to develop into the modern North Germanic languages in the mid-to-late 14th century, ending the language phase known as Old Norse. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse is found well into the 15th century.[3][better source needed]
Old Norse was divided into three dialects: Old West Norse or Old West Nordic (often referred to as Old Norse[4]), Old East Norse or Old East Nordic, and Old Gutnish. Old West Norse and Old East Norse formed a dialect continuum, with no clear geographical boundary between them. For example, Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway, although Old Norwegian is classified as Old West Norse, and Old West Norse traits were found in western Sweden. Most speakers spoke Old East Norse in what is present-day Denmark and Sweden. Old Gutnish is sometimes included in the Old East Norse dialect due to geographical associations. It developed its own unique features and shared in changes to both other branches.[5]
The 12th-century Icelandic Gray Goose Laws state that Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders, and Danes spoke the same language, dǫnsk tunga ("Danish tongue"; speakers of Old East Norse would have said dansk tunga). Another term was norrœnt mál ("northern speech"). Today Old Norse has developed into the modern North Germanic languages Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, and other North Germanic varieties of which Norwegian, Danish and Swedish retain considerable mutual intelligibility while Icelandic remains the closest to Old Norse.
^Josephson, Folke; Söhrman, Ingmar (29 August 2008). Interdependence of Diachronic and Synchronic Analyses. John Benjamins. ISBN 9789027290359. Archived from the original on 17 April 2023. Retrieved 7 January 2021.
^König, Ekkehard; van der Auwera, Johan, eds. (2002). The Germanic Languages. Routledge. p. 38. ISBN 978-0415280792.
^Torp & Vikør 1993.
^König, Ekkehard; van der Auwera, Johan, eds. (2002). The Germanic Languages. Routledge. p. 38. ISBN 978-0415280792.
^"Old Norse language". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 3 August 2020. Retrieved 5 August 2020.
dialects: Old West Norse or Old West Nordic (often referred to as OldNorse), Old East Norse or Old East Nordic, and Old Gutnish. Old West Norse and Old East...
OldNorse religion, also known as Norse paganism, is a branch of Germanic religion which developed during the Proto-Norse period, when the North Germanic...
speakers of OldNorse from about the 9th to the 13th centuries. Norse may also refer to: Norse mythology Norse paganism Norse art Norse activity in the...
The orthography of the OldNorse language was diverse, being written in both Runic and Latin alphabets, with many spelling conventions, variant letterforms...
OldNorse poetry encompasses a range of verse forms written in the OldNorse language, during the period from the 8th century to as late as the far end...
Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology, is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from OldNorse religion and continuing...
OldNorse has three categories of verbs (strong, weak, & present-preterite) and two categories of nouns (strong, weak). Conjugation and declension are...
OldNorse literature refers to the vernacular literature of the Scandinavian peoples up to c. 1350. It chiefly consists of Icelandic writings. From the...
other symbols. Words of OldNorse origin have entered the English language, primarily from the contact between OldNorse and Old English during colonisation...
Hávamál OldNorse philosophy was the philosophy of the early Scandinavians. Similar to the patterns of thought of other early Germanic peoples, OldNorse philosophy...
in medieval Europe was Latin, sagas were composed in the vernacular: OldNorse and its later descendants, primarily Icelandic. While sagas are written...
The Norsemen (or Norse people) were a North Germanic linguistic group of the Early Middle Ages, during which they spoke the OldNorse language. The language...
The Norse exploration of North America began in the late 10th century, when Norsemen explored areas of the North Atlantic colonizing Greenland and creating...
time and space play a major role in the OldNorse corpus's presentation of Norse cosmology. While events in Norse mythology describe a somewhat linear progression...
In Norse mythology, a valkyrie (from OldNorse valkyrja "chooser of the fallen") is one of a host of female figures who decide who will die in battle...
Norse gods, the Æsir. In ancient Germanic mythology, the world of Men is known by several names. The Old English middangeard is cognate with the Old Norse...
France and Belgium; this is called "Pre-Normanic". Others contain OldNorse and Old English male names and toponymic appellatives. These intermingle with...
England was subject to strong OldNorse influence due to Scandinavian rule and settlement beginning in the 9th century. Old English is one of the West Germanic...
The Scandinavian clan or ætt/ätt (pronounced [ˈæːtː] in OldNorse) was a social group based on common descent, equivalent to a clan. In the absence of...
overall. Swedish, like the other Nordic languages, is a descendant of OldNorse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during...
number of different phonemes in the spoken language, when Proto-Norse evolved into OldNorse. Also, the writing custom avoided carving the same rune consecutively...
archaeology and from historical accounts such as the Icelandic sagas and OldNorse poetry. Throughout Scandinavia, there are many remaining tumuli in honour...
Norse invaders ruled much of northern England, in the 9th and 10th centuries, and left English surnames of Norse origin in the area now called the Danelaw...
The Norse people traveled abroad as Vikings and Varangians. As such, they often named the locations and peoples they visited with OldNorse words unrelated...
/gg/, /ng/). In OldNorse and Old English, voiceless fricatives became voiced between vowels (and finally after a vowel in OldNorse); as a result, voiced...
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