106-532: Old Norse , also referred to as Old Nordic , or Old Scandinavian , was 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
212-688: A dialect continuum , with no clear geographical boundary between them. 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 . In what is present-day Denmark and Sweden, most speakers spoke Old East Norse. Though 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. The 12th-century Icelandic Gray Goose Laws state that Swedes , Norwegians , Icelanders , and Danes spoke
318-566: A West Scandinavian branch, consisting of Norwegian , Faroese and Icelandic and, thirdly, an Old Gutnish branch. Norwegian settlers brought Old West Norse to Iceland and the Faroe Islands around 800. Of the modern Scandinavian languages, written Icelandic is closest to this ancient language. An additional language, known as Norn , developed on Orkney and Shetland after Vikings had settled there around 800, but this language became extinct around 1700. In medieval times, speakers of all
424-698: A change known as Holtzmann's law . An epenthetic vowel became popular by 1200 in Old Danish, 1250 in Old Swedish and Old Norwegian, and 1300 in Old Icelandic. An unstressed vowel was used which varied by dialect. Old Norwegian exhibited all three: /u/ was used in West Norwegian south of Bergen , as in aftur , aftor (older aptr ); North of Bergen, /i/ appeared in aftir , after ; and East Norwegian used /a/ , after , aftær . Old Norse
530-622: A continental group (Danish, Norwegian and Swedish). The division between Insular Nordic ( önordiska / ønordisk / øynordisk ) and Continental Scandinavian ( Skandinavisk ) is based on mutual intelligibility between the two groups and developed due to different influences, particularly the political union of Denmark and Norway (1536–1814) which led to significant Danish influence on central and eastern Norwegian dialects ( Bokmål or Dano-Norwegian ). The North Germanic languages are national languages in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, whereas
636-414: A female raven or a male crow. All neuter words have identical nominative and accusative forms, and all feminine words have identical nominative and accusative plurals. The gender of some words' plurals does not agree with that of their singulars, such as lim and mund . Some words, such as hungr , have multiple genders, evidenced by their determiners being declined in different genders within
742-559: A francophone period), for example the Old Swedish word vindöga 'window' was replaced by fönster (from Middle Low German), whereas native vindue was kept in Danish. Norwegians, who spoke (and still speak) the Norwegian dialects derived from Old Norse, would say vindauga or similar. The written language of Denmark-Norway however, was based on the dialect of Copenhagen and thus had vindue . On
848-408: A front vowel to be split into a semivowel-vowel sequence before a back vowel in the following syllable. While West Norse only broke /e/ , East Norse also broke /i/ . The change was blocked by a /w/ , /l/ , or /ʀ/ preceding the potentially-broken vowel. Some /ja/ or /jɔ/ and /jaː/ or /jɔː/ result from breaking of /e/ and /eː/ respectively. When a noun, pronoun, adjective, or verb has
954-407: A given sentence. Nouns, adjectives, and pronouns were declined in four grammatical cases – nominative , accusative , genitive , and dative – in singular and plural numbers. Adjectives and pronouns were additionally declined in three grammatical genders. Some pronouns (first and second person) could have dual number in addition to singular and plural. The genitive
1060-582: A long vowel or diphthong in the accented syllable and its stem ends in a single l , n , or s , the r (or the elder r - or z -variant ʀ ) in an ending is assimilated. When the accented vowel is short, the ending is dropped. The nominative of the strong masculine declension and some i-stem feminine nouns uses one such -r (ʀ). Óðin-r ( Óðin-ʀ ) becomes Óðinn instead of * Óðinr ( * Óðinʀ ). The verb blása ('to blow'), has third person present tense blæss ('[he] blows') rather than * blæsr ( * blæsʀ ). Similarly,
1166-459: A more significant extent than the West Germanic languages do. These lexical, grammatical, and morphological similarities can be outlined in the table below. Given the aforementioned homogeneity, there exists some discussion on whether the continental group should be considered one or several languages. The Continental Scandinavian languages are often cited as proof of the aphorism " A language
SECTION 10
#17328375902611272-474: A noun must mirror the gender of that noun , so that one says, " heill maðr! " but, " heilt barn! ". As in other languages, the grammatical gender of an impersonal noun is generally unrelated to an expected natural gender of that noun. While indeed karl , "man" is masculine, kona , "woman", is feminine, and hús , "house", is neuter, so also are hrafn and kráka , for "raven" and "crow", masculine and feminine respectively, even in reference to
1378-535: A part of the Kingdom of Sweden. Unlike the dubious First Swedish crusade , there seems to be little doubt that Sweden's effort to Christianize Finland reached a culmination in the middle of the 13th century. Still, many details, including the year and the exact nature, remain the subject of debate. Although the chronicles attempted to paint the Crusade as a war of conquest, it was likely more of an unusually bloody phase in
1484-538: A poor command of Norwegian and Swedish. They do somewhat better with Danish, as they are taught Danish in school (Icelandic is not mutually intelligible with Scandinavian languages, nor any language, not even Faroese, which is though closest). When speakers of Faroese and Icelandic were tested on how well they understood the three Continental Scandinavian languages, the test results were as follows (maximum score 10.0): The North Germanic languages share many lexical, grammatical, phonological, and morphological similarities, to
1590-642: A separate language by many linguists. Traditionally regarded as a Swedish dialect, but by several criteria closer to West Scandinavian dialects, Elfdalian is a separate language by the standard of mutual intelligibility. Traveller Danish, Rodi, and Swedish Romani are varieties of Danish, Norwegian and Swedish with Romani vocabulary or Para-Romani known collectively as the Scandoromani language . They are spoken by Norwegian and Swedish Travellers . The Scando-Romani varieties in Sweden and Norway combine elements from
1696-471: A similar development influenced by Middle Low German . Various languages unrelated to Old Norse and others not closely related have been heavily influenced by Norse, particularly the Norman language ; to a lesser extent, Finnish and Estonian . Russian, Ukrainian , Belarusian , Lithuanian and Latvian also have a few Norse loanwords. The words Rus and Russia , according to one theory, may be named after
1802-596: A voiced velar fricative [ɣ] in all cases, and others have that realisation only in the middle of words and between vowels (with it otherwise being realised [ɡ] ). The Old East Norse /ʀ/ was an apical consonant , with its precise position unknown; it is reconstructed as a palatal sibilant . It descended from Proto-Germanic /z/ and eventually developed into /r/ , as had already occurred in Old West Norse. The consonant digraphs ⟨hl⟩ , ⟨hr⟩ , and ⟨hn⟩ occurred word-initially. It
1908-460: A vowel or semivowel of a different vowel backness . In the case of i-umlaut and ʀ-umlaut , this entails a fronting of back vowels, with retention of lip rounding. In the case of u-umlaut , this entails labialization of unrounded vowels. Umlaut is phonemic and in many situations grammatically significant as a side effect of losing the Proto-Germanic morphological suffixes whose vowels created
2014-448: A word. Strong verbs ablaut the lemma 's nucleus to derive the past forms of the verb. This parallels English conjugation, where, e.g., the nucleus of sing becomes sang in the past tense and sung in the past participle. Some verbs are derived by ablaut, as the present-in-past verbs do by consequence of being derived from the past tense forms of strong verbs. Umlaut or mutation is an assimilatory process acting on vowels preceding
2120-464: A work of poetry. According to Nordstrandh, the author of the chronicle uses a literary technique that suggests chronological links between episodes which are known to be separated by distance of some years, and sometimes even inverts the chronology. Since some of these events are almost contemporary to the chronicle, they cannot be regarded as mistakes, but indicate that the author used a wide artistic freedom with regard to chronology. The position that
2226-461: Is a dialect with an army and navy ". The differences in dialects within the countries of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark can often be greater than the differences across the borders, but the political independence of these countries leads continental Scandinavian to be classified into Norwegian , Swedish , and Danish in the popular mind as well as among most linguists. The generally agreed upon language border is, in other words, politically shaped. This
SECTION 20
#17328375902612332-452: Is also because of the strong influence of the standard languages , particularly in Denmark and Sweden. Even if the language policy of Norway has been more tolerant of rural dialectal variation in formal language, the prestige dialect often referred to as "Eastern Urban Norwegian", spoken mainly in and around the Oslo region, is sometimes considered normative. The influence of a standard Norwegian
2438-727: Is also spoken by the North Schleswig Germans , and German is a recognized minority language in this region. German is the primary language among the Danish minority of Southern Schleswig , and likewise, Danish is the primary language of the North Schleswig Germans. Both minority groups are highly bilingual. Traditionally, Danish and German were the two official languages of Denmark–Norway ; laws and other official instruments for use in Denmark and Norway were written in Danish, and local administrators spoke Danish or Norwegian. German
2544-541: Is difficult to determine from the sparse evidence of runic inscriptions, and they remained mutually intelligible to some degree during the Migration Period , so that some individual varieties are difficult to classify. Dialects with the features assigned to the northern group formed from the Proto-Germanic language in the late Pre-Roman Iron Age in Northern Europe . Eventually, around the year 200 AD, speakers of
2650-460: Is expected to exist, such as in the male names Ragnarr , Steinarr (supposedly * Ragnarʀ , * Steinarʀ ), the result is apparently always /rː/ rather than */rʀ/ or */ʀː/ . This is observable in the Runic corpus. In Old Norse, i/j adjacent to i , e , their u-umlauts, and æ was not possible, nor u/v adjacent to u , o , their i-umlauts, and ǫ . At
2756-574: Is more common in Old West Norse in both phonemic and allophonic positions, while it only occurs sparsely in post-runic Old East Norse and even in runic Old East Norse. This is still a major difference between Swedish and Faroese and Icelandic today. Plurals of neuters do not have u-umlaut at all in Swedish, but in Faroese and Icelandic they do, for example the Faroese and Icelandic plurals of the word land , lond and lönd respectively, in contrast to
2862-536: Is nevertheless less so than in Denmark and Sweden, since the prestige dialect in Norway has moved geographically several times over the past 200 years. The organised formation of Nynorsk out of western Norwegian dialects after Norway became independent from Denmark in 1814 intensified the politico-linguistic divisions. The Nordic Council has on several occasions referred to the (Germanic) languages spoken in Scandinavia as
2968-557: Is similar to Nynorsk and is used by a very small minority. Second Swedish Crusade In the Holy Land (1095–1291) Later Crusades (1291–1717) Northern (1147–1410) Against Christians (1209–1588) Popular (1096–1320) The Second Swedish Crusade was a military expedition by the Kingdom of Sweden into Tavastia ( Häme ) in southern Finland described by Erik's Chronicle . According to
3074-456: Is that the nonphonemic difference between the voiced and the voiceless dental fricative is marked. The oldest texts and runic inscriptions use þ exclusively. Long vowels are denoted with acutes . Most other letters are written with the same glyph as the IPA phoneme, except as shown in the table below. Ablaut patterns are groups of vowels which are swapped, or ablauted, in the nucleus of
3180-557: Is unclear whether they were sequences of two consonants (with the first element realised as /h/ or perhaps /x/ ) or as single voiceless sonorants /l̥/ , /r̥/ and /n̥/ respectively. In Old Norwegian, Old Danish and later Old Swedish, the groups ⟨hl⟩ , ⟨hr⟩ , and ⟨hn⟩ were reduced to plain ⟨l⟩ , ⟨r⟩ , ⟨n⟩ , which suggests that they had most likely already been pronounced as voiceless sonorants by Old Norse times. The pronunciation of ⟨hv⟩
3286-603: Is unclear, but it may have been /xʷ/ (the Proto-Germanic pronunciation), /hʷ/ or the similar phoneme /ʍ/ . Unlike the three other digraphs, it was retained much longer in all dialects. Without ever developing into a voiceless sonorant in Icelandic, it instead underwent fortition to a plosive /kv/ , which suggests that instead of being a voiceless sonorant, it retained a stronger frication. Primary stress in Old Norse falls on
Old Norse - Misplaced Pages Continue
3392-412: Is used in comparative linguistics , whereas the term Scandinavian languages appears in studies of the modern standard languages and the dialect continuum of Scandinavia . Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are close enough to form a strong mutual intelligibility where cross-border communication in native languages is very common, particularly between the latter two. Approximately 20 million people in
3498-815: The Isle of Man , and Norwegian settlements in Normandy . The Old East Norse dialect was spoken in Denmark, Sweden, settlements in Russia, England, and Danish settlements in Normandy. The Old Gutnish dialect was spoken in Gotland and in various settlements in the East. Yet, by 1600, another classification of the North Germanic language branches had arisen from a syntactic point of view, dividing them into an insular group (Icelandic and Faroese) and
3604-525: The Latin alphabet , there was no standardized orthography in use in the Middle Ages. A modified version of the letter wynn called vend was used briefly for the sounds /u/ , /v/ , and /w/ . Long vowels were sometimes marked with acutes but also sometimes left unmarked or geminated. The standardized Old Norse spelling was created in the 19th century and is, for the most part, phonemic. The most notable deviation
3710-656: The Neva campaign , which would in Gallén's dating have followed the crusade. The only Russian source to mention "Berger" as the leader of the Neva campaign is the apocryphal Testament of the Swedish King Magnus from the mid-14th century. John H. Lind has argued that in other cases the Testament contains historically accurate details, and cannot be refuted as a reliable source with respect to
3816-555: The Nordic countries speak a Scandinavian language as their native language, including an approximately 5% minority in Finland . Besides being the only North Germanic language with official status in two separate sovereign states, Swedish is also the most spoken of the languages overall. 15% of the population in Greenland speak Danish as a first language. This language branch is separated from
3922-543: The Northwest Germanic languages, divided into four main dialects: North Germanic, and the three groups conventionally called "West Germanic", namely Inability of the tree model to explain the existence of some features in the West Germanic languages stimulated the development of an alternative, the so-called wave model . Under this view, the properties that the West Germanic languages have in common separate from
4028-650: The Rus' people , a Norse tribe, probably from present-day east-central Sweden. The current Finnish and Estonian words for Sweden are Ruotsi and Rootsi , respectively. A number of loanwords have been introduced into Irish , many associated with fishing and sailing. A similar influence is found in Scottish Gaelic , with over one hundred loanwords estimated to be in the language, many of which are related to fishing and sailing. Old Norse vowel phonemes mostly come in pairs of long and short. The standardized orthography marks
4134-400: The West Germanic languages , consisting of languages like English, Dutch, and German to the south, and does not include Finnish to the east, which belongs to the completely unrelated Uralic language family . The modern languages and their dialects in this group are: The Germanic languages are traditionally divided into three groups: West , East and North Germanic. Their exact relation
4240-539: The bishop Thomas , were present within Tavastia in c. 1230 . The Tavastian uprising from 1236–1237 led to a justification for the Swedes to invade Tavastia, with Pope Gregory IX calling the Swedes to attack them. All details of the crusade are from Erik's Chronicle , which is largely propagandist in nature, written a century after the events, amidst internal unrest and a war against Novgorod. The chronicle places
4346-653: The word stem , so that hyrjar would be pronounced /ˈhyr.jar/ . In compound words, secondary stress falls on the second stem (e.g. lærisveinn , /ˈlɛːɾ.iˌswɛinː/ ). Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark , runic Old Norse was originally written with the Younger Futhark , which had only 16 letters. Because of the limited number of runes, several runes were used for different sounds, and long and short vowels were not distinguished in writing. Medieval runes came into use some time later. As for
Old Norse - Misplaced Pages Continue
4452-412: The Øresund Bridge and a larger number of cross-border commuters in the Øresund Region contribute to a better knowledge of spoken Danish and a better knowledge of the unique Danish words among the region's inhabitants. According to the study, youth in this region were able to understand the Danish language (slightly) better than the Norwegian language. But they still could not understand Danish as well as
4558-698: The "Scandinavian language" (singular); for instance, the official newsletter of the Nordic Council is written in the "Scandinavian language". The creation of one unified written language has been considered as highly unlikely, given the failure to agree upon a common standardized language in Norway . However, there is a slight chance of "some uniformization of spelling" between Norway, Sweden and Denmark. All North Germanic languages are descended from Old Norse . Divisions between subfamilies of North Germanic are rarely precisely defined: Most form continuous clines, with adjacent dialects being mutually intelligible and
4664-549: The 11th century in most of Old East Norse. However, the distinction still holds in Dalecarlian dialects . The dots in the following vowel table separate the oral from nasal phonemes. Note: The open or open-mid vowels may be transcribed differently: Sometime around the 13th century, /ɔ/ (spelled ⟨ǫ⟩ ) merged with /ø/ or /o/ in most dialects except Old Danish , and Icelandic where /ɔ/ ( ǫ ) merged with /ø/ . This can be determined by their distinction within
4770-593: The 1280s, when the position of the Duke of Finland was established. In 1249, the situation was also seen clear enough to establish the first monastery in Finland, a Dominican convent . The convent was next to the bishop's fortification in Koroinen until the end of the century. Erik's Chronicle tells of how, as an unexpected side effect, the expedition seems to have cost Birger the Swedish crown. When King Erik died in 1250, Birger
4876-957: The 12th-century First Grammatical Treatise but not within the early 13th-century Prose Edda . The nasal vowels, also noted in the First Grammatical Treatise, are assumed to have been lost in most dialects by this time (but notably they are retained in Elfdalian and other dialects of Ovansiljan ). See Old Icelandic for the mergers of /øː/ (spelled ⟨œ⟩ ) with /ɛː/ (spelled ⟨æ⟩ ) and /ɛ/ (spelled ⟨ę⟩ ) with /e/ (spelled ⟨e⟩ ). Old Norse had three diphthong phonemes: /ɛi/ , /ɔu/ , /øy ~ ɛy/ (spelled ⟨ei⟩ , ⟨au⟩ , ⟨ey⟩ respectively). In East Norse these would monophthongize and merge with /eː/ and /øː/ , whereas in West Norse and its descendants
4982-640: The 13th century there. The age of the Swedish-speaking population of Finland is strongly contested, but Swedish settlement had spread the language into the region by the time of the Second Swedish Crusade in the 13th century at the latest. The modern descendants of the Old West Norse dialect are the West Scandinavian languages of Icelandic , Faroese , Norwegian , and the extinct Norn language of Orkney and Shetland , although Norwegian
5088-572: The 8th to the 15th centuries. 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. Old Norse was divided into three dialects : Old West Norse (Old West Nordic, often referred to as Old Norse ), Old East Norse (Old East Nordic), and Old Gutnish . Old West Norse and Old East Norse formed
5194-405: The Danish vocabulary and grammar, and was nearly identical to written Danish until the spelling reform of 1907. (For this reason, Bokmål and its unofficial, more conservative variant Riksmål are sometimes considered East Scandinavian, and Nynorsk West Scandinavian via the west–east division shown above.) However, Danish has developed a greater distance between the spoken and written versions of
5300-560: The Faroe Islands, Faroese has also been influenced by Danish. Both Middle English (especially northern English dialects within the area of the Danelaw ) and Early Scots (including Lowland Scots ) were strongly influenced by Norse and contained many Old Norse loanwords . Consequently, Modern English (including Scottish English ), inherited a significant proportion of its vocabulary directly from Norse. The development of Norman French
5406-593: The Neva against the Novgorod Republic . The castle that the Swedes began constructing during the expedition has traditionally been identified as Häme Castle , but it may also have been the older Hakoinen Castle . The Second Swedish Crusade consolidated and extended Swedish control over Finland . Sweden had held a foothold within Finland, specifically Finland Proper since the First Swedish Crusade . Swedish missionary attempts, possibly having been led by
SECTION 50
#17328375902615512-426: The Neva campaign. The Chronicle mentions a fortress that was built by the Swedes, taffwesta borg . This has traditionally been interpreted as Häme Castle (Swedish Tavastehus ), but nowadays the nearby Hakoinen Castle is considered the more likely candidate. In 16th century sources, Hakoinen Castle is referred to as the "Old Häme Castle". Probably in an effort to prevent other parties from getting involved in
5618-419: The North Germanic branch became distinguishable from the other Germanic language speakers . The early development of this language branch is attested through runic inscriptions. The North Germanic group is characterized by a number of phonological and morphological innovations shared with West Germanic : Some have argued that after East Germanic broke off from the group, the remaining Germanic languages,
5724-540: The North Germanic family tree is divided into two main branches, West Scandinavian languages ( Norwegian , Faroese and Icelandic ) and East Scandinavian languages ( Danish and Swedish ), along with various dialects and varieties. The two branches are derived from the western and eastern dialect groups of Old Norse respectively. There was also an Old Gutnish branch spoken on the island of Gotland . The continental Scandinavian languages (Swedish, Norwegian and Danish) were heavily influenced by Middle Low German during
5830-598: The North Germanic languages are not inherited from a "Proto-West-Germanic" language, but rather spread by language contact among the Germanic languages spoken in central Europe, not reaching those spoken in Scandinavia. Some innovations are not found in West and East Germanic, such as: After the Old Norse period, the North Germanic languages developed into an East Scandinavian branch, consisting of Danish and Swedish ; and, secondly,
5936-470: The Northern Peoples . Dialectal variation between west and east in Old Norse however was certainly present during the Middle Ages and three dialects had emerged: Old West Norse, Old East Norse and Old Gutnish. Old Icelandic was essentially identical to Old Norwegian , and together they formed the Old West Norse dialect of Old Norse and were also spoken in settlements in Faroe Islands, Ireland , Scotland,
6042-435: The Norwegian border until it was resolved in the summer of 1249, leaving no time for an expedition to Finland that year. The saga also describes the election of the new king after King Erik's death. In contrast to the chronicle, the saga holds that Birger's arrival was crucial to secure his son's election. However, if the saga is to be believed, Birger could not have been in Finland at the time, as only eight days passed between
6148-550: The Norwegians could, demonstrating once again the relative distance of Swedish from Danish. Youth in Copenhagen had a very poor command of Swedish, showing that the Øresund connection was mostly one-way. The results from the study of how well native youth in different Scandinavian cities did when tested on their knowledge of the other Continental Scandinavian languages are summarized in table format, reproduced below. The maximum score
6254-542: The Nynorsk project (which had as a goal to re-establish a written Norwegian language) would have been much harder to carry out if Norway had been in a union with Sweden instead of with Denmark, simply because the differences would have been smaller. Currently, English loanwords are influencing the languages. A 2005 survey of words used by speakers of the Scandinavian languages showed that the number of English loanwords used in
6360-537: The Scandinavian languages could understand one another to a significant degree, and it was often referred to as a single language, called the "Danish tongue" until the 13th century by some in Sweden and Iceland. In the 16th century, many Danes and Swedes still referred to North Germanic as a single language, which is stated in the introduction to the first Danish translation of the Bible and in Olaus Magnus ' A Description of
6466-434: The Swedish dialects. Nynorsk incorporates much of these words, like byrja (cf. Swedish börja , Danish begynde ), veke (cf. Sw vecka , Dan uge ) and vatn (Sw vatten , Dan vand ) whereas Bokmål has retained the Danish forms ( begynne , uke , vann ). As a result, Nynorsk does not conform to the above east–west split model, since it shares a lot of features with Swedish. According to the Norwegian linguist Arne Torp ,
SECTION 60
#17328375902616572-467: The Swedish plural land and numerous other examples. That also applies to almost all feminine nouns, for example the largest feminine noun group, the o-stem nouns (except the Swedish noun jord mentioned above), and even i-stem nouns and root nouns , such as Old West Norse mǫrk ( mörk in Icelandic) in comparison with Modern and Old Swedish mark . Vowel breaking, or fracture, caused
6678-540: The beginning of words, this manifested as a dropping of the initial /j/ (which was general, independent of the following vowel) or /v/ . Compare ON orð , úlfr , ár with English word, wolf, year . In inflections, this manifested as the dropping of the inflectional vowels. Thus, klæði + dat -i remains klæði , and sjáum in Icelandic progressed to sjǫ́um > sjǫ́m > sjám . The * jj and * ww of Proto-Germanic became ggj and ggv respectively in Old Norse,
6784-505: The chronicle, the Swedes defeated the pagan Tavastians under the leadership of Birger Jarl , and started building a castle in Tavastia. The expedition has traditionally been dated to 1249–1250 based on the chronology of the chronicle. However, some researchers have suggested that the expedition instead took place already in 1238–1239, shortly after the Tavastian uprising and before the Battle of
6890-411: The cluster */Crʀ/ cannot be realized as /Crː/ , nor as */Crʀ/ , nor as */Cʀː/ . The same shortening as in vetr also occurs in lax = laks ('salmon') (as opposed to * lakss , * laksʀ ), botn ('bottom') (as opposed to * botnn , * botnʀ ), and jarl (as opposed to * jarll , * jarlʀ ). Furthermore, wherever the cluster */rʀ/
6996-579: The conflict, Pope Innocent IV took Finland under his special protection in August 1249 but without mentioning Sweden in any way. The bishop of Finland , Thomas , probably a Dominican friar, had resigned already in 1245 and died three years later in a Dominican convent in Gotland . The seat being vacant, the diocese had probably been under the direct command of the papal legate , William of Modena , whose last orders to Finnish priests were given in June 1248. Bero
7102-519: The crusade before the unsuccessful expedition to the Neva , in which the Swedes were beaten by the Novgorodian prince Alexander Nevsky . Swedish historian Dick Harrison also finds the theory of an early crusade most probable, based on the papal letter, which would also make the war a properly sanctioned crusade, and the fact that Sweden was otherwise peaceful during that period. In 1990, literary historian Gisela Nordstrandh studied Erik's Chronicle as
7208-406: The crusade between the Battle of Sparrsätra in 1247 and the death of King Erik Eriksson in 1250, and presents the pagan Tavastians ( the hedna taffwesta ) as the Swedes' opponents. According to the chronicle, the expedition was prepared in Sweden and then conducted over sea to a land on the coast, where the enemy was waiting. The Chronicle also mentioned that a castle called taffwesta borg
7314-582: The crusade to 1248, while Paulus Juusten gave the year as 1249 in one edition of Chronicon episcoporum finlandensium (Bishop Chronicle). The latter date has become the traditional date ascribed to the crusade. The dating to late 1240s has been challenged by later research. In 19th century, Norwegian historian Peter Andreas Munch pointed out that according to the Saga of Haakon Haakonarson —written 1264–1265 and considered more reliable than Erik's Chronicle —a Swedish-Norwegian crisis forced Birger Jarl to stay near
7420-578: The crusade took place from 1247–1250 was defended in 1926 by Rolf Pipping [ sv ] , who claimed that Munch misinterpreted the saga. According to Pipping, Birger did not stay on the Norwegian border in summer, but rather in winter, possibly March. Russian historian Igor Pavlovich Shaskol'skii also supported the traditional dating, and added an argument based on Paavali Juusten's Bishop Chronicle, according to which Bishop Thomas fled his see in 1245 because of an attack by "Curones" and Russians, and according to Shaskol'skii this would have provided
7526-541: The death and the election. In 1946, Jarl Gallén pointed out that the chronicle contains obvious chronological mistakes and maintained that it cannot be used to date the crusade. He suggested that the Second Swedish Crusade could only have taken place in 1238–39, after the Tavastian uprising and following Pope Gregory IX 's call to launch a crusade against the Tavastian pagans. Gallén's dating would also place
7632-441: The dialects of Western Sweden, Eastern Norway (Østlandet) and Trøndersk. Norwegian has two official written norms, Bokmål and Nynorsk. In addition, there are some unofficial norms. Riksmål is more conservative than Bokmål (that is, closer to Danish) and is used to various extents by numerous people, especially in the cities and by the largest newspaper in Norway, Aftenposten . On the other hand, Høgnorsk (High Norwegian)
7738-449: The diphthongs remained. Old Norse has six plosive phonemes, /p/ being rare word-initially and /d/ and /b/ pronounced as voiced fricative allophones between vowels except in compound words (e.g. veðrabati ), already in the Proto-Germanic language (e.g. * b *[β] > [v] between vowels). The /ɡ/ phoneme was pronounced as [ɡ] after an /n/ or another /ɡ/ and as [k] before /s/ and /t/ . Some accounts have it
7844-670: The language group. According to a study undertaken during 2002–2005 and funded by the Nordic Cultural Fund, Swedish speakers in Stockholm and Danish speakers in Copenhagen have the greatest difficulty in understanding other Nordic languages. The study, which focused mainly on native speakers under the age of 25, showed that the lowest ability to comprehend another language is demonstrated by youth in Stockholm in regard to Danish, producing
7950-453: The language, so the differences between spoken Norwegian and spoken Danish are somewhat more significant than the difference between their respective written forms. Written Danish is relatively close to the other Continental Scandinavian languages, but the sound developments of spoken Danish include reduction and assimilation of consonants and vowels, as well as the prosodic feature called stød in Danish, developments which have not occurred in
8056-617: The languages between different parts of the three language areas. Sweden left the Kalmar Union in 1523 due to conflicts with Denmark, leaving two Scandinavian units: The union of Denmark–Norway (ruled from Copenhagen, Denmark) and Sweden (including present-day Finland). The two countries took different sides during several wars until 1814, when the Denmark-Norway unit was disestablished, and made different international contacts. This led to different borrowings from foreign languages (Sweden had
8162-492: The languages has doubled during the last 30 years and is now 1.2%. Icelandic has imported fewer English words than the other North Germanic languages, despite the fact that it is the country that uses English most. The mutual intelligibility between the Continental Scandinavian languages is asymmetrical. Various studies have shown Norwegian speakers to be the best in Scandinavia at understanding other languages within
8268-407: The long vowels with an acute accent. In medieval manuscripts, it is often unmarked but sometimes marked with an accent or through gemination . Old Norse had nasalized versions of all ten vowel places. These occurred as allophones of the vowels before nasal consonants and in places where a nasal had followed it in an older form of the word, before it was absorbed into a neighboring sound. If the nasal
8374-431: The lowest ability score in the survey. The greatest variation in results between participants within the same country was also demonstrated by the Swedish speakers in the study. Participants from Malmö , located in the southernmost Swedish province of Scania (Skåne), demonstrated a better understanding of Danish than Swedish speakers to the north. Access to Danish television and radio, direct trains to Copenhagen over
8480-559: The most conservative language, such that in present-day Iceland, schoolchildren are able to read the 12th-century Icelandic sagas in the original language (in editions with normalised spelling). Old Icelandic was very close to Old Norwegian , and together they formed Old West Norse , which was also spoken in Norse settlements in Greenland , the Faroes , Ireland , Scotland , the Isle of Man , northwest England, and in Normandy . Old East Norse
8586-513: The most separated ones not. The Jamtlandic dialects share many characteristics with both Trøndersk and with Norrländska mål. Due to this ambiguous position, it is contested whether Jamtlandic belongs to the West Scandinavian or the East Scandinavian group. Elfdalian (Älvdalen speech), generally considered a Sveamål dialect, today has an official orthography and is, because of a lack of mutual intelligibility with Swedish , considered as
8692-478: The non-Germanic Finnish is spoken by the majority in Finland. In inter-Nordic contexts, texts are today often presented in three versions: Finnish, Icelandic, and one of the three languages Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. Another official language in the Nordic countries is Greenlandic (in the Eskimo–Aleut family ), the sole official language of Greenland . In Southern Jutland in southwestern Denmark, German
8798-520: The ongoing process by which Finland was incorporated in the Swedish state. Sweden had a central government and a strong ideological force in the form of the Catholic church. The Finnish chieftains who joined gained power and prestige. The exact date of the crusade is not directly mentioned in Erik's Chronicle , though the event is placed before King Erik's death in 1250. In the 16th century, Mikael Agricola dated
8904-639: The other North Germanic languages. Faroese retains many similarities but is influenced by Danish, Norwegian, and Gaelic ( Scottish and/or Irish ). Although Swedish, Danish and Norwegian have diverged the most, they still retain considerable mutual intelligibility . Speakers of modern Swedish, Norwegian and Danish can mostly understand each other without studying their neighboring languages, particularly if speaking slowly. The languages are also sufficiently similar in writing that they can mostly be understood across borders. This could be because these languages have been mutually affected by each other, as well as having
9010-510: The other hand, the word begynde 'begin' (now written begynne in Norwegian Bokmål) was borrowed into Danish and Norwegian, whereas native börja was kept in Swedish. Even though standard Swedish and Danish were moving apart, the dialects were not influenced that much. Thus Norwegian and Swedish remained similar in pronunciation, and words like børja were able to survive in some of the Norwegian dialects whereas vindöga survived in some of
9116-544: The other languages (though the stød corresponds to the changes in pitch in Norwegian and Swedish, which are pitch-accent languages ). Scandinavians are widely expected to understand some of the other spoken Scandinavian languages. There may be some difficulty particularly with elderly dialect speakers, however public radio and television presenters are often well understood by speakers of the other Scandinavian countries, although there are various regional differences of mutual intelligibility for understanding mainstream dialects of
9222-401: The period of Hanseatic expansion . Another way of classifying the languages – focusing on mutual intelligibility rather than the tree-of-life model – posits Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish as Continental Scandinavian , and Faroese and Icelandic as Insular Scandinavian . Because of the long political union between Norway and Denmark, moderate and conservative Norwegian Bokmål share most of
9328-429: The reason for mounting the crusade in late 1240s. However, a contemporary papal bull shows that Thomas was forced to resign his office due to misconduct, not due to an attack. According some Finnish historians, like Seppo Suvanto and Mauno Jokipii, the early dating is also problematic because Birger only became a jarl in 1248. However, Nordstrandh has pointed out that the author of Erik's Chronicle usually emphasizes
9434-535: The root vowel, ǫ , is short. The clusters */Clʀ, Csʀ, Cnʀ, Crʀ/ cannot yield */Clː, Csː, Cnː, Crː/ respectively, instead /Cl, Cs, Cn, Cr/ . The effect of this shortening can result in the lack of distinction between some forms of the noun. In the case of vetr ('winter'), the nominative and accusative singular and plural forms are identical. The nominative singular and nominative and accusative plural would otherwise have been OWN * vetrr , OEN * wintrʀ . These forms are impossible because
9540-441: 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 . Icelandic remains
9646-522: The three branches of the Germanic languages —a sub-family of the Indo-European languages —along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages . The language group is also referred to as the Nordic languages , a direct translation of the most common term used among Danish , Faroese , Icelandic , Norwegian , and Swedish scholars and people. The term North Germanic languages
9752-451: The title jarl , but when describing the crusade Birger is only presented as the king's brother-in-law and a forman of the expedition. According to John H. Lind, no contemporary sources support the notion that only the jarl could act as a forman , and he finds it plausible that Birger could have been in command of the expedition even before he was appointed jarl. Seppo Suvanto has also pointed out that no contemporary sources link Birger to
9858-495: The umlaut allophones . Some /y/ , /yː/ , /ø/ , /øː/ , /ɛ/ , /ɛː/ , /øy/ , and all /ɛi/ were obtained by i-umlaut from /u/ , /uː/ , /o/ , /oː/ , /a/ , /aː/ , /au/ , and /ai/ respectively. Others were formed via ʀ-umlaut from /u/ , /uː/ , /a/ , /aː/ , and /au/ . Some /y/ , /yː/ , /ø/ , /øː/ , and all /ɔ/ , /ɔː/ were obtained by u-umlaut from /i/ , /iː/ , /e/ , /eː/ , and /a/ , /aː/ respectively. See Old Icelandic for information on /ɔː/ . /œ/
9964-482: The verb skína ('to shine') had present tense third person skínn (rather than * skínr , * skínʀ ); while kala ('to cool down') had present tense third person kell (rather than * kelr , * kelʀ ). The rule is not absolute, with certain counter-examples such as vinr ('friend'), which has the synonym vin , yet retains the unabsorbed version, and jǫtunn (' giant '), where assimilation takes place even though
10070-502: Was 10.0: Faroese speakers (of the Insular Scandinavian languages group) are even better than the Norwegians at comprehending two or more languages within the Continental Scandinavian languages group, scoring high in both Danish (which they study at school) and Norwegian and having the highest score on a Scandinavian language other than their native language, as well as the highest average score. Icelandic speakers, in contrast, have
10176-404: Was a moderately inflected language with high levels of nominal and verbal inflection. Most of the fused morphemes are retained in modern Icelandic, especially in regard to noun case declensions, whereas modern Norwegian in comparison has moved towards more analytical word structures. Old Norse had three grammatical genders – masculine, feminine, and neuter. Adjectives or pronouns referring to
10282-589: Was absent from Sweden. The Swedish lords, led by Joar Blå , selected Birger's underaged son Valdemar as the new king, instead of the powerful jarl himself. From 1249 onwards, sources generally regard Finland Proper and Tavastia as a part of Sweden. The Diocese of Finland proper is listed among the Swedish dioceses for the first time in 1253. In the Novgorod First Chronicle , Tavastians ( yem ) and Finns proper ( sum ) are mentioned on an expedition with Swedes ( svei ) in 1256. However, very little
10388-492: Was absorbed by a stressed vowel, it would also lengthen the vowel. This nasalization also occurred in the other Germanic languages, but were not retained long. They were noted in the First Grammatical Treatise , and otherwise might have remained unknown. The First Grammarian marked these with a dot above the letter. This notation did not catch on, and would soon be obsolete. Nasal and oral vowels probably merged around
10494-400: Was also influenced by Norse. Through Norman, to a smaller extent, so was modern French. Written modern Icelandic derives from the Old Norse phonemic writing system. Contemporary Icelandic-speakers can read Old Norse, which varies slightly in spelling as well as semantics and word order. However, pronunciation, particularly of the vowel phonemes, has changed at least as much in Icelandic as in
10600-503: Was established after the war. The Chronicle also linked the Crusade to a contest with the Orthodox Russians, making a point of the fact that the "Russian king" had now lost the conquered land. The so-called " Detmar Chronicle ", originating from Lübeck around the year 1340, confirmed the expedition with a short note that Birger Jarl submitted Finland under Swedish rule. The " Lübeck Chronicle " states that in 1266, Finland become
10706-482: Was eventually appointed as the new bishop in 1248/9, presumably soon after William's visit to Sweden for an important church meeting at Skänninge that ended on 1 March 1248. The so-called " Palmsköld booklet " from 1448 noted that it was Bero who gave the Finns' tax to the Swedish king. Bero came directly from the Swedish court, like his two successors. It seems that Swedish bishops also held all secular power in Finland until
10812-464: Was heavily influenced by the East dialect, and is today more similar to East Scandinavian (Danish and Swedish) than to Icelandic and Faroese. The descendants of the Old East Norse dialect are the East Scandinavian languages of Danish and Swedish . Among these, the grammar of Icelandic and Faroese have changed the least from Old Norse in the last thousand years, though their pronunciations both have changed considerably from Old Norse. With Danish rule of
10918-534: Was obtained through a simultaneous u- and i-umlaut of /a/ . It appears in words like gøra ( gjǫra , geyra ), from Proto-Germanic *garwijaną , and commonly in verbs with a velar consonant before the suffix like søkkva < *sankwijaną . OEN often preserves the original value of the vowel directly preceding runic ʀ while OWN receives ʀ-umlaut. Compare runic OEN glaʀ, haʀi, hrauʀ with OWN gler, heri (later héri ), hrøyrr/hreyrr ("glass", "hare", "pile of rocks"). U-umlaut
11024-536: Was spoken in Denmark, Sweden, Kievan Rus' , eastern England, and Danish settlements in Normandy. The Old Gutnish dialect was spoken in Gotland and in various settlements in the East. In the 11th century, Old Norse was the most widely spoken European language , ranging from Vinland in the West to the Volga River in the East. In Kievan Rus' , it survived the longest in Veliky Novgorod , probably lasting into
11130-536: Was the administrative language of Holstein and the Duchy of Schleswig . Sami languages form an unrelated group that has coexisted with the North Germanic language group in Scandinavia since prehistory. Sami, like Finnish , is part of the group of the Uralic languages . During centuries of interaction, Finnish and Sami have imported many more loanwords from North Germanic languages than vice versa. In historical linguistics,
11236-421: Was used partitively and in compounds and kennings (e.g., Urðarbrunnr , the well of Urðr; Lokasenna , the gibing of Loki). There were several classes of nouns within each gender. The following is an example of the "strong" inflectional paradigms : North Germanic languages Continental Scandinavian languages: Insular Nordic languages: The North Germanic languages make up one of
#260739