Wednesday, July 12, 2017

... on Old Norse Poetry (ft. a Jackson Crawford video)


Any response, to any of the questions, would be welcome, but most of all the one marked "at last".

The Art of Viking Poetry: A How-To (Includes Kennings)
Jackson Crawford
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsX70ZSJkOQ


earning in yearnest .. or reverse ... this would be related to original yod sound being lost (year = år), and new yod sound coming from vowel e (jord = earth, Erde)?

Similarily, can't one alliterate v- with any back vowel, since v was lost before back vowels while still pronounced w?

How close or far is OE poetry to FYL?

The five patterns given in On Translating Beowulf, do they still hold as analysis?

Because if so, a clear "cretic" would be possible in FYL but impossible in OE poetry?

I suppose for second halfline it is still clear : only first stressed syllable alliterates? (OE) And in FYL it is not so?

13:58 any vowel alliterates with any vowel ... a vowel initial word, how close is it to beginning with knacklaut?

Could one say from Hebrew perspective aleph alliterates with aleph?

Plus, yod alliterates with aleph ...

17:46 til and frá are usually unstressed and preposed to a noun - here they are postposed to a phrase and are contrasting.

Could we be dealing with :

HEI-lir HIL-dar TIL
HEI-lir HIL-dar FRÁ

rather than with

HEI-lir HIL-dar til
and
HEI-lir HIL-dar frá?

20:57 It is rather that English has lenthened in Middle English period stressed short syllables fara = faran > faren > fare, with a long fa.

Swedish did the same, Old Swedish "skip" is either "skepp" (lengthened p, at least graphically still so) or "skep" (lengthened e instead, not the version which gave rise to standard Swedish version).

22:21 Supposing the psalms had been translated to Old Icelandic metre (didn't happen, unlike OE translation of first 50 psalms, ordered by King Alfred) - would they not have been trying sth like Dróttkvætt?

32:42 As a Tolkien fan ... Gladden fields ... the flower in question is gladiolus, right? Latin for "little sword" ..

Or wait, was gladiolus the mistranslation by Ohlmarks?

36:27 ek em at ... = I am at ... like in Celtic syntax (thá mí aig óibre or what "I am working/I am at work" is in Scots Gaelic)?

39:32 Sure almsíma refers to bow rather than to skis? Both are associated with Ullr ...

43:09 Hummingbirds are warlike? Is that a reason behind a certain character in Aztek myth?

45:12 pain of pine trees = wind?

Well, there is a Swedish pop song echoing this to this day ...

Gunde Johansson Torparvisa
lunkentuss51
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4CyvVvRBMo


at last

Once again, a certain challenge ... try something in the metre of Beowulf or of Heliand ... put either into the Proto-Norse etymological equivalents. Check out how that metre is, if it is mostly regular, even out the mistakes. THEN get that into Old Norse (kuningaz > konungr and so on), also irrespective of whether the words exist or not. Would the metre NOW involve mostly the kind of halflines you get in 1, 2, 4, 5 of Ljóðaháttr or halflines of FYL, and sometimes things like 3, 6 in Ljóðaháttr, somewhat irregularly, like in Galdralag?

If so, Havamál could be inherited with slight "retouches" according to how to regularise the 3/6 longer lines from a poem in Proto-Norse - a language Odin must have spoken if ever he communicated with Swedes in such time that his stepgrandson Fjolner could died in the reign of Caesar Augustus.

So, how about giving it a try, you who are the linguist in Germanic esp. Scandinavian and esp. Old Norse languages?

Pretty please!

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