Learning Old Norse
Some Suggestions
This site is intended to provide some no-frills, graphics free suggestions for learning Old Norse on your own. I am concentrating here on providing information on language studies only. I assume you will be able to find suitable materials on cultural, historical, and critical studies on your own! The site is deliberately graphics free (save for the banner ad) so that it will load fairly fast and not distract from the main purpose which is to provide information.
1. Print Materials
The news here is not very encouraging. The hard fact
of the matter is that there is not much available! However, having said
that, I would like to strongly recommend the following as a minimal print
library.
An
Introduction To Old Norse - 2nd ed. Gordon/Taylor (ed). This is
the "Bible" of Old Norse used in many university courses. It is still in
print (The Borders in Tallahassee just got a new copy in as of 06/12/01).
The 82 page Introduction alone is well worth the price of the book. Be
warned however, this is not a book for beginners with graded lessons, exercises
etc. The early part of the book is a series of extracts in Old Norse
followed by a rather full but terse grammar. The glossary is extremely
helpful. Unless you are already very familiar with how to learn a foreign
language from a grammar summary approach, this is not going to help you
much in the beginning stages. However, it is an indespensible reference
for later studies! As a bonus, the diagrams were all done by J. R. R. Tolkien!
Teach
Yourself Icelandic - Glendining. While modern Icelandic is not
the same as Old Icelandic/Old Norse (for purposes here I am not distinguishing
the two), it is still close enough that if you start with modern Icelandic
it i fairly easy to convert over to the medieval forms. Many on the web
have claimed they have successfully started their own Old Norse studies
with this book. Soapbox time: get this now before NTC decises to
"update" it to a more conversational approach! This has been an unfortunate
trend with NTC's language books where traditional approaches emphasing
reading have ben replaced with a more "hands on" conversational aproach.
The problem is that reading now takes a far back seat in the books. For
example in their newer edition of the main Spanish book, there are very
few reading sections at all and the final poem by Neruda has been completely
cut, but there sure are lots of "let's fill in a job application" type
of activity! Arrrghhh!
The
Viking Society For Northern Research has published a series of
Old Norse texts in english by Barnes. You must be a member of the society
to purchase these. I do not have them yet, but many have said that they
are very useful, so I have provided a link to their page. Also here are
the reference details of the books:
M.P. Barnes: A New Introduction to Old Norse. Part
I. Grammar. 1999 ISBN 0 903521 45 8. £5/£7.50
A. Faulkes (ed. with introd. and notes), A New Introduction
to Old Norse. Part 2. Reader. 2000. £4.00/£6.00.
A. Faulkes (compiled), A New Introduction to Old Norse.
Part 3. Glossary and Index of Names. 2000.
£4.00/£6.00
Update: apparently now you can purchase them without
being a member (2nd reported price is nonmembers price) and they can be
ordered online at the UK
Amazon site.
In addition to these, you will probably want to have a
small collection of literature in translation. I highly recommend the following:
The
Poetic Edda - Larrington (tr).
Edda
- Faulkes (tr). This is a complete version of the Prose Edda.
Prose
Edda - Young (tr). Selections only.
The
Sagas Of Icelanders - Smiley/Kellog . Now in paperback!
2. Web Materials
Surprisingly, here the news is much better! There are
at least two sites that provide extensive and excellent tutorial materials
for free! There are also some sites with grammaar summaries and readings.
Also much of the Edda materials are online in both Icelandic and English!
Old
Norse Course Files - these are a series of lessons from a Yahoo
Old Norse Group! I highly recommend you download all of these, print them
out and begin with this material. Sufficient explanatory material is given
so that those new to the study of an inflected language will be able to
make an excellent start You may want to subscribe to the e-group and join
other students there!! Warning: The net is ephemeral - get these
NOW!!!! before they sudddenly may not be there! You may also wish
to go to the Main Web Site
where web versions of the lessons are available with solutions and other
materials! Even if you print out the lessons from the group site, be sure
to check this out for the solutions! In addition there is a special section
on readings with many of the words in the readings completely parsed.
Old
Icelandic Course Materials - This is an excellent site maintained
by Tarrin Wills. If the Icelandic does not display properly, be sure to
hit your reload button or go to the troubleshooting session. There are
6 tutorials with grammar links and exercises, a set of readings, and a
very nicely laid out grammar! All in all one of the best sites on the web
for OI/ON studies. I would highly recommend printing out the materials
here for study away from your computer and for reference. Again note the
warning above!!! If I have any criticism of this site (this is meant humurously
only!), I somewhat question the longer reading being Thrym's Saga! After
a while, the thought of Thor and Loki cross-dressing gets strangely curious!
I highly recommend this site either as your primary site of instruction
or after you have completed the first few lessons from the previous site.
Easy
Readings In Old Icelandic - here you will find a series of readings
dealing primarily with Norse Mythology. In each reading, glosses are given
of much of the vocabulary needed, but no grammar explanations. Go here
only after you have some grammar already under your belt.
Mimir
- an Icelandic Grammar Notebook. Mainly for reference.
The
Old Norse Language - an interesting approach at summarizing Old
Norse Grammar along with a word list.
Cours
d'Islandais Ancien - in French if that works for you!
Old
Norse Dictionary - English to Old Norse
A
Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic (1910)
- scanned dictionary of OI -> English. All 500+ pages available
as tiff files.
Old
Norse Linguistic Tools - links to various useful tools.
Old
Norse Sentences - some simple sentences with translatins. Good
examples.
My
Page of ON Links - a simple page of some links with no comments.
There are, however, some links to texts online.
Another
page of Old English/Old Icelandic Sites - just the link urls ,
not live (sorry!) -
Old
Norse/English Wordlist - just what it says!
3. Some suggestions
I would use the following approach if you are quite new
to all of this. First, go through the lessons either from Old
Norse Course Files or from Old
Icelandic Course Materials. Take your time and don't rush things! No
matter which you start with be sure to do the other as well before continuing.
Once you feel comfortable with the basic grammar, syntax and vocabulary,
do the readings at Easy
Readings In Old Icelandic . At this point you should be ready to
study Gordon's book An
Introduction To Old Norse with the readings and grammar. By this
point you will have progressed to an excellent reading knowledge of Old
Norse and have access to an exciting and beautiful literature in
the original!
I wish you well in your journey and hope this site has
helped you along the way. You may reach me at:
hasmith@nettally.com