Old Norse (was The magistrate said "Merry")

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

Who uses Modern Icelandic pronunciation in reading Old Norse literature aloud? Maybe people who speak Modern Icelandic natively. But why would anyone else? (Of course, there is not a lot of reading aloud of Old Norse anywhere in the world, anyway.)

Are the phonological differences really all that great? As I recall, skaldic is somewhat older than the language of the eddas and sagas.

Chronologically, Old Norse is more comparable to Old and Middle English. Nobody reads Beowulf or Gawain or Canterbury Tales with Modern English values for the letters.
------Original Message------
From: Amy West
Sender: ADS-L
To: ADS-L
ReplyTo: ADS-L
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] The magistrate said "Merry", the defendant said "Mary"
Sent: Jun 11, 2010 9:07 AM

On 6/11/10 12:01 AM, Automatic digest processor wrote:
> Date:    Thu, 10 Jun 2010 08:14:35 -0400
> From:    Charles Doyle<cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: The magistrate said "Merry", the defendant said "Mary"
>
> I'm reminded of the common assumption among actors (especially Americans?) that "authentic" Shakespearean language can be performed on the stage by the imitating of present-day "prestige" British speech.
>
> The opposite assumption obtains with costuming; dress the characters very differently from modern people, and they can pass for Elizabethan.
>
> Charlie

And then there's Ren Faire dialect. . . .

The discussion of historical accents has gotten me thinking: in dealing
with Old Norse-Old Icelandic, I have always opted for using the
reconstructed historical pronunciation. But others use modern Icelandic
pronunciation. This has always struck me as a bit odd.

But then I got to thinking of Shakespeare and how we deal with his
language as an analogy. Do we use a historical pronunciation when
reading it in class or performing it on stage, or do we use our modern
American or British accents? The majority seem to do the latter.

Which makes me, once again, the odd one in using the historical pron.
for ON/OI. Again. Sigh.

--
---Amy West

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org