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Old Norse orthography

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The orthography of the Old Norse language since the introduction of the Latin alphabet in Iceland is a thorny subject. In particular the names of Old Norse mythological characters often seem to have several different spellings.

Contents

Manuscript spelling

The original Icelandic manuscripts which are the source of our knowledge of Norse mythology did not employ a unified system of spelling. Thus the same name might be spelled several different ways even in the original manuscripts. In particular the length of vowels was only sporadically marked and various umlauted vowels were often not distinguished from others. Another complication is that several shortcut forms for common words and grammatical endings developed. One example is the use of the rune named maðr (man) for the word maðr. Another is the use of a special glyph for the various r-endings so common in Old Norse.

Standardized spelling

For various reasons 19th century scholars came up with a standardized spelling of Old Norse which remains in use. It is primarily based on the so called First Grammatical Treatise. This spelling is designed to be phonemically precise rather than representative of the manuscripts. Vowel length is marked and umlauted vowels are unambiguously represented.

The standardized spelling employs a few characters that are not available in the most common electronic character sets. Replacements are often used, particularly in electronic formats, the most important is to use ö instead of o-with-tail (ogonek) ǫ.

Icelandic spelling

In many modern Icelandic publications of Old Norse works, the modern Icelandic spelling is used. Since it is based on the same basic system the difference is not great. One notable difference is probably the insertion of u before r in many names. Thus the Old Norse name Baldr comes out as Baldur in modern Icelandic. Other differences include vowel-shifts, whereby old norse ǫ became Icelandic ö, and old norse œ became Icelandic æ.

One of the advantages of using Icelandic spelling is that all the relevant characters are available in the most common character sets and most fonts. In fact, if it weren't for Icelandic, characters like þ would not be as easily available for writing Old Norse and Old English.

Anglicized spelling

For the convenience of English writers and readers the Old Norse characters not used in English are commonly replaced with English ones. This can lead to ambiguity and confusion. Here is a sample conversion table:

Another common convention in English is to drop consonant nominative endings:

When a name ends with r which is not an ending it is often changed to er or (Modern Icelandic) ur to facilitate pronunciation.

One more convention is to use i instead of j.

Sometimes the j is simply dropped.

Sometimes the ending i is spelled e (supported by manuscript spelling and mainland Scandinavian custom).

Other quirks sometimes seen include adding a to the names of goddesses.

Obviously the various permutations allow for many possible spellings for a given name.

Some authors, for example, replace þ with th and ð with th, dh or d but keep the accents; others may not replace ǫ with ö but prefer o.

Thus, in addition to the various versions below, the name of Hǫðr could come out as:

List of names

A list of some commonly encountered Old Norse names with some of their English versions follows.

Gods

Goddesses

Giants

Giantesses

Animals

Places

Other

See also

 Norse mythology
List of Norse gods | Æsir | Vanir | Giants | Elves | Dwarves | Valkyries | Einherjar | Norns
Odin | Thor | Freyr | Freya | Loki | Balder | Tyr | Yggdrasil | Ginnungagap | Ragnarök
Sources:
Poetic Edda | Prose Edda | The Sagas | Volsung Cycle | Tyrfing Cycle
Rune stones | Old Norse language | Orthography | Later influence
Society:
Viking Age | Skald | Kenning | Blót | Seid | Numbers
The nine worlds of Norse mythology | People, places and things

 

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