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Old Norse
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Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300. The changing processes that distinguish Old Norse from its older form, Proto-Norse, were mostly concluded around the 8th century, and another transitional period that led up to the modern descendants of Old Norse (i.e., the modern North Germanic languages) started in the mid- to late 14th century, thereby ending the language phase known as Old Norse. These dates, however, are not absolute. For instance, one can still find written Old Norse well into the 15th century. Most speakers of Old Norse dialects spoke the Old East Norse dialect in what are present-day Denmark and Sweden. In texts which date from the Medieval Icelandic time, writers wrote with Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian dialects. These dialects derive from the Old West Norse dialect. No clear geographical boundary exists between the two dialects. Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway and Old West Norse traits were found in western Sweden. Old Gutnish is sometimes included in the Old East Norse dialect because it is the third, least known dialect. It shares traits with both Old West Norse and Old East Norse but had also developed on its own. The Icelandic Gray Goose Laws state that Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders and Danes spoke the same language, dnsk tunga. Speakers of the eastern dialect, spoken in Sweden and Denmark, would have said dansk tunga ("Danish tongue") or norrønt mál ("Nordic language") to name their language. Gradually, Old Norse splintered into the modern North Germanic languages: Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian (nynorsk), Norwegian (bokmål), Danish and Swedish. Of the modern languages, Icelandic is the closest to Old Norse. Written modern Icelandic derives from the Old Norse phonemic writing system. Contemporary Icelandic-speakers can read Old Norse, which differs slightly in spelling as well as semantics and word order. However, pronunciation, particularly of the vowel phonemes, has changed at least as much as in 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 the Norwegian languages have diverged the most, they still retain mutual intelligibility, although it is strongly asymmetric. This could be because these languages have been mutually affected by each other, as well as having a similar development influenced by Middle Low German. Another language which derives from Old Norse is Elfdalian, spoken in the Älvdalen municipality of Sweden, by about 1,000–5,000 speakers (various sources). This North Germanic language is not comprehensible to speakers of the other Scandinavian languages, and hence is often considered a language in its own right rather than a dialect of Swedish. Geographical distributionOld 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 Ireland and Scotland. The Old East Norse dialect was spoken in Denmark and Sweden and settlements in Russia,Article Nordiska språk, section Historia, subsection Omkring 800–1100, in Nationalencyklopedin (1994). England and 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 in the East. In Russia, it survived the longest in Novgorod, probably lasting into the 13th century there.Modern descendantsThe modern descendants of the Old West Norse dialect are the West Scandinavian languages of Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian and the extinct Norn language of the Orkney and the Shetland Islands; the descendants of the Old East Norse dialect are the East Scandinavian languages of Danish and Swedish. Norwegian is descended from Old West Norse, but over the centuries it has been heavily influenced by East Norse, particularly during the Denmark-Norway union.Among these, Icelandic and the closely related Faroese have changed the least from Old Norse in the last thousand years, although with Danish rule of the Faroe Islands, Faroese has also been influenced by Danish. Old Norse also had an influence on English dialects and Lowland Scots, which contains many Old Norse loanwords. It also influenced the development of the Norman language. Various other languages, which are not closely related, have been heavily influenced by Norse, particularly the Norman dialects, Scottish Gaelic and Waterford Irish Gaelic. Russian, Finnish and Estonian also have a number of Norse loanwords; the words Rus and Russia, according to one theory, may be named after the Rus, the name of a Norse tribe (see Etymology of Rus and derivatives). The current Finnish and Estonian words for Sweden are Ruotsi and Rootsi, respectively. PhonologyVowelsThe vowel phonemes mostly come in pairs of long and short. The standardized orthography marks the long vowels with an acute accent. In medieval manuscripts, it is variously marked with an accent, unmarked, or less frequently geminated. All phonemes have, more or less, the expected phonetic realization.Some //, //, //, //, //, and all //, // were obtained by i-mutation from //, //, //, //, //, and // respectively. Some //, //, //, //, and all //, // were obtained by u-mutation from //, //, //, //, and /, // respectively. See Old Icelandic for information on . Old Norse had nasalized versions of all nine vowel places.Cleasby-Vigfússon These occurred as allophones of the vowels before Ns and in places where an N had followed before being absorbed. If the N was absorbed by a stressed vowel, it would also lengthen the vowel. These nasalizations also occurred in the other Germanic languages, but were not retained long. They were noted in the Grammatical Treatises, 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. Sometime around the 13th century, Ǫ merged to Ø in all dialects except Old Danish. This can be determined by their distinction within the 12th-century Grammatical Treatises but not within the early 13th century Younger Edda. As well, the nasals, also noted in the Grammatical Treatises, are assumed to have been lost by this time. See Old Icelandic for the Œ ⇒ Æ and Ę ⇒ E mergers. ConsonantsOld Norse has six stop phonemes. Of these is rare word-initially and and do not occur between vowels, except in compound words (e.g. veðrabati), because of the fricative allophones of the Proto-Germanic language (e.g. *b *[β] > v between vowels). The phoneme is realized as a voiced velar fricative inside words and wordfinally, except when it is geminated.The velar fricative is an allophone of and before and . OrthographyThe standardized Old Norse spelling was created in the 19th century, and is for the most part phonemic. The most notable deviation is that the non-phonemic difference between the voiced and the unvoiced dental fricatives is marked — the oldest texts as well as 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.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 , , and . Long vowels were sometimes marked with acutes, but also sometimes left unmarked or geminated. GrammarOld Norse 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 or neuter. Nouns, adjectives and pronouns were declined in four grammatical cases – nominative, accusative, genitive and dative, in singular and plural. Some pronouns (first and second person) could have dual number in addition to singular and plural. The genitive is used partitively, and quite often 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: In addition to these examples there were the numerous "weak" noun paradigms, which had a much higher degree of syncretism between the different cases in its paradigms, i.e. they didn't have as many different forms as the "strong" nouns. A definite article was realised as a suffix, that retained an independendent declension e.g. troll (a troll) – trollit (the troll), hll ( a hall) – hllin (the hall), armr (an arm) – armrinn (the arm). This definite article, however, did not evolve before later stages of the Old Norse period. Gender hierarchyOld Norse inherited the Proto-Germanic feature of having neuter as the default gender. In other words, when the gender of a noun is unknown, adjectives and pronouns referencing it use the neuter gender forms, rather than the masculine or feminine. Thus, if speaking or writing to a general audience, one would say velkomit, "well is it come," rather than velkominn or velkomin, "well is [he or she] come," as one does not know whether the person hearing it is going to be male or female.One generally sees adjectives in their neuter form when used pronominally for this reason. For words more commonly used in this way (rather than to describe a noun) one sees their neuter forms more often than their masculine or feminine. Normally the masculine form would be the most beneficial form of an adjective to learn learn first, given that the majority of nouns are masculine. In these cases, however, the most practical form to learn first would be the neuter. NounOld Norse and other Germanic languages had two types of regular declension. They are called the strong and weak declensions by analogy with the strong and weak verbs. One main feature of weak nouns is that they do not distinguish the non-nominative singular cases from each other. This effectively forms a nominative-oblique case dynamic confined to the weak singulars. Historically, the Proto-Germanic weak nouns were characterized by a nasal suffix applied as a case marker. These were mostly absorbed by their preceding vowels by the time Old Norse developed, with the exceptions being those suffices in the weak feminine and neuter declensions' genitive plurals.Weak nounsAs the nominative of neuter words is also the accusative, and as weak nouns have the same dative and genitive as accusative in the singulars, all of the singular forms are the same for the weak neuters. One subset of the declension contains 6 nouns for parts of the body. Another contains words for objects, forming no genitive plural.The plurals of the weak masculine declension are the same as those of the 1st strong masculine. The declension contains the endings -ingi, -yrki, and -verki, as well as some weak versions of strong masculine nouns, names, and endings. The weak feminines with the -a ending vary greatly in the genitive plural, but most fall into a few groups: Nouns with -na as ending; nouns with no genitive plural; nouns that form the genitive plural by attaching the definite article's genitive plural to the nominative singular; nouns whose genitive singular is used collectively. The Indeclinable Feminines are an additional class of weak noun. They are conceptual in meaning, and because of this have no plurals and do not differentiate case. They may, in charts, be included with the feminines in -a, in which case said chart becomes: VerbVerbs were conjugated in person and number, in present and past tense, in indicative, imperative and subjunctive mood.TextsThe earliest inscriptions in Old Norse are runic, from the 8th century. Runes continued to be commonly used until the 15th century and have been recorded to be in use in some form as late as the 19th century in some parts of Sweden. With the conversion to Christianity in the 11th century came the Latin alphabet. The oldest preserved texts in Old Norse in the Latin alphabet date from the middle of the 12th century. Subsequently, Old Norse became the vehicle of a large and varied body of vernacular literature, unique in medieval Europe. Most of the surviving literature was written in Iceland. Best known are the Norse sagas, the Icelanders' sagas and the mythological literature, but there also survives a large body of religious literature, translations into Old Norse of courtly romances, classical mythology, and the Old Testament, as well as instructional material, grammatical treatises and a large body of letters and official documents.Relationship to EnglishOld English and Old Norse were closely related languages, and it is therefore not surprising that many words in Old Norse look familiar to English speakers, e.g. armr (arm), fótr (foot), land (land), fullr (full), hanga (to hang), standa (to stand), etc. This is because both English and Old Norse stem from a Proto-Germanic mother language. In addition, a large number of common, everyday Old Norse words mainly of East Norse origin were adopted into the Old English language during the Viking age. A few examples of Old Norse loanwords in modern English are (English/Viking age Old East Norse):
In a simple sentence like "They are both weak" the extent of the Old Norse loanwords becomes quite clear (Old East Norse with archaic pronunciation: "ÞæiR eRu báðiR wæikiR" while Old English "híe syndon bégen (þá) wáce"). The words "they" and "weak" are both borrowed from Old Norse, and the word "both" might also be a borrowing, though this is still disputed by some. While the number of loanwords adopted from the Scandinavians wasn't as numerous as that of Norman French or Latin, their depth and every day nature make them a substantial and very important part of every day English speech as they are part of the very core of the modern English vocabulary. Words like "bull" and "Thursday" are more difficult when it comes to their origins. "Bull" may be from either Old English "bula" or Old Norse "buli" while "Thursday" may be a borrowing, or it could simply be from the Old English "Þunresdæg" which could have been influenced by the Old Norse cognate. The word "are" is from Old English "earun"/"aron" as well as the Old Norse cognates. DialectsAs Proto-Norse evolved into Old Norse, in the 8th century, the effects of the umlauts seem to have been very much the same over the whole Old Norse area. But in later dialects of the language a split occurred mainly between west and east as the use of umlauts began to vary. The typical umlauts (for example fylla from *fullian) were better preserved in the West due to later generalizations in the east where many instances of umlaut were removed (many archaic Eastern texts as well as eastern runic inscriptions however portray the same extent of umlauts as in later Western Old Norse). All the while the changes resulting in breaking (for example hiarta from *hertō) were more influential in the East probably once again due to generalizations within the inflectional system. This difference was one of the greatest reasons behind the dialectalization that took place in the 9th and 10th centuries shaping an Old West Norse dialect in Norway and the Atlantic settlements and an Old East Norse dialect in Denmark and Sweden.A second difference was that Old West Norse lost certain combinations of consonants. The combinations -mp-, -nt-, and -nk- were assimilated into -pp-, -tt- and -kk- in Old West Norse, but this phenomenon was limited in Old East Norse. However, these differences were an exception. The dialects were very similar and considered to be the same language, a language that they sometimes called the Danish tongue (dnsk tunga), sometimes Norse language (norrœnt mál), as evidenced in the following two quotes from Heimskringla by Snorri Sturluson: Móðir Dyggva var Drótt, dóttir Danps konungs, sonar Rígs er fyrstr var konungr kallaðr á danska tungu. Dyggve's mother was Drott, the daughter of king Danp, Ríg's son, who was the first to be called king in the Danish tongue. …stirt var honum norrœnt mál, ok kylfdi mJk til orðanna, ok hfðu margir menn þat mJk at spotti. …the Norse language was hard for him, and he often fumbled for words, which amused people greatly. Here is a comparison between the two dialects as well as Old Gutnish. It is a transcription from one of the Funbo Runestones (U990) meaning : Veðr and Thane and Gunnar raised this stone after Haursi, their father. God help his spirit: Veðr ok Þegn ok Gunnarr reistu stein þenna at Haursa, fður sinn. Guð hjalpi nd hans. (OWN) Veðr ok Þegn ok Gunnarr ræistu stæin þenna at Haursa, faður sinn. Guð hialpi and hans (OEN) Veðr ok Þegn ok Gunnarr raistu stain þenna at Haursa, faður sinn. Guð hialpi and hans (OG) The OEN original text above is transliterated according to traditional scholar methods meaning u-umlaut is not regarded in runic Old East Norse even though more recent studies have shown that the positions where it applies are the same as for runic Old West Norse. An alternative and probably more accurate transliteration would therefore render the text in OEN as such: Veðr ok Þegn ok Gunnarr ræistu stæin þenna at Haursa, fður sinn. Guð hialpi nd hans (OEN) Old West NorseMost of the innovations that appeared in Old Norse spread evenly through the Old Norse area, but some were geographically limited and created a dialectal difference between Old West Norse and Old East Norse. One difference was that Old West Norse and Old Gutnish did not take part in the monophthongization which changed æi (ei) into ē, øy (ey) and au into . An early difference was that Old West Norse had the forms bú (dwelling), kú (accusative for cow) and trú (faith) whereas Old East Norse had bō, kō and trō. Old West Norse was also characterized by the preservation of u-umlaut, which meant that for example Proto-Norse *tanþu (tooth) was pronounced tnn and not tann as in post-runic Old East Norse; OWN gs and runic OEN gs, while post-runic OEN gās. Moreoever, there were nasal assimilations as in bekkr (bench) from Proto-Norse *bankiR (OEN bænker).The earliest body of text appears in runic inscriptions and in poems composed ca 900 by Tjodolf of Hvin. The earliest manuscripts are from the period 1150-1200 and concern both legal, religious and historical matters. During the 12th and 13th centuries, Trøndelag and Vestlandet were the most important areas of the Norwegian kingdom and they shaped Old West Norse as an archaic language with a rich set of declensions. In the body of text that has come down to us from until ca 1300, Old West Norse had little dialect variation, and Old Icelandic does not diverge much more than the Old Norwegian dialects do from each other. Old Norwegian differentiated early from Old Icelandic by the loss of the consonant h in initial position before l, n and r, thus whereas Old Icelandic manuscripts might use the form hnefi (fist), Old Norwegian manuscripts might use nefi. From the late 13th century, old Icelandic and old Norwegian started to diverge more. After c. 1350, the Black Death and following social upheavals seem to have accelerated language changes in Norway. From the late 14th century, the language used in Norway is generally referred to as Middle Norwegian. Old IcelandicA specifically Icelandic sound, the long, u-umlauted A, spelled Ǫ́ and pronounced //, developed circa the early 11th century. It was short-lived, being marked in the Grammatical Treatises and remaining until the end of the 12th century.Around the 13th century, Œ/Ǿ (//) merged to Æ (//).Cleasby-Vigfússon Thus, pre-13th century grœnn (green) became modern Icelandic grænn. The 12th century Grágás manuscripts distinguish the vowels, and so the Codex Regius copy does as well. However, the 13th century Codex Regius copy of the Elder Edda probably relied on newer and/or poorer quality sources. Demonstrating either difficulty with or total lack of natural distinction, the manuscripts show separation of the two phonemes in some places, but frequent confusion of the letters chosen to distinguish them in others. Towards the end of the 13th century, Ę (//) merged to E (//).Cleasby-Vigfússon Text exampleThe following text is from Egils saga. The manuscript is the oldest known for that saga, the so called θ-fragment from the 13th century. The text clearly shows how little Icelandic has changed structurally. The last version is legitimate Modern Icelandic, although nothing has been altered but the spelling. The text also demonstrates, however, that a modern reader might have difficulties with the unaltered manuscript text, to say nothing of the lettering, although it might help him with understanding by trying to pronounce the words.Old East Norse The Rök Runestone in Östergötland, Sweden, is the longest surviving source of early Old East Norse. It is inscribed on both sides. Runic Old East Norse is characteristic of being archaic in form, especially Swedish (which is still true for modern Swedish compared to Danish). In essence it corresponds to or surpasses the archaic structure of post runic Old West Norse which in its turn is generally more archaic than post runic Old East Norse. While typically "Eastern" in structure many later post runic changes and trademarks of EON had yet to happen. At the end of the 10th and early 11th century initial -h before -l, -n and -r was still preserved in the middle and northern parts of Sweden, and is sporadically still preserved in some northern dialects as g-, e.g. gly (lukewarm), from hlýR. The phoneme -R (evolved during the Proto-Norse period from -z) was still clearly separated from -r in most positions, even when being geminated (while in OWN it had already merged with -r) and the monophthongization of æi and øy/au into and respectively had yet to take place: (runic OEN) fæigR (PN *faigiaz; bound to die; dead), gæiRR (PN *gaizaz; spear), haugR (PN *haugaz; mound, pile), møydōmR (PN *mawi- + dōmaz; virginity), diūR (PN *diuza; (wild) animal) while OWN feigr, geirr, haugr, meydómr, dýr (post runic OEN fēgher, gēr, hø̄gher, mø̄dōmber, diūr). The combinations -mp-, -nt-, and -nk- were often preserved while merging into -pp-, -tt- and -kk- in Old West Norse: (runic OEN) *krimpa, (Proto-Norse *krimpan) *sprinta, (PN *sprintan) *sænkva (PN *sankwian) while OWN kreppa, spretta and søkkva (modern Swedish krympa, sprinta (dialect), sänka, modern Danish krympe, sprinte, sænke; to shrink, to sprint, to sink (transitive; compare intransitive "*sionkva" while OWN "søkkva" for both variations)). Feminine o-stems often preserve the plural ending -aR while in OWN they more often merge with the feminine i-stems: (runic OEN) *sōlaR, *hafnaR/*hamnaR, *vāgaR while OWN sólir, hafnir and vágir (modern Swedish solar, hamnar, vågar; suns, havens, scales; Danish has mainly lost the distinction between the two stems with both endings now being rendered as -er or -e alternatively for the o-stems). OEN often preserves the original value of the vowel directly preceding runic R while OWN receives R-umlaut (resulting in the same change as with i-umlaut): (runic OEN) *glaR, *haRi and hrauR while OWN gler, heri (later héri) and hrøyrr/hreyrr (modern Swedish glar (older form), hare, rör; glass, hare, pile of rocks). u-umlaut is still preserved in both phonemic and allophonic positions like in post runic Old West Norse (while sparsely preserved in post runic OEN): fður (accusative), vrðr and rn (post runic Swedish faþur, varþer, örn (u-umlaut preserved); father, guardian/care taking, eagle). The plural ending of ja-stems were mostly preserved while those of OWN often acquired that of the i-stems: *bæðiaR, *bækkiaR, *væfiaR while OWN beðir, bekkir, vefir (modern Swedish bäddar, bäckar, vävar; beds, rivers, webs). Vice versa masculine i-stems with the root ending in either g or k tended to shift the plural ending to that of the ja-stems while OWN kept the original: drængiaR, *ælgiaR and *bænkiaR while OWN drengir, elgir and bekkir (modern Swedish drängar (new meaning), älgar, bänkar; lads (farmhands), elks, benches). Until the early 12th century, Old East Norse was very much a uniform dialect. It was in Denmark that the first innovations appeared that would differentiate Old Danish from Old Swedish as these innovations spread north unevenly (unlike the earlier changes that spread more evenly over the East Norse area) creating a series of isoglosses going from Zealand to Svealand. The word final vowels -a, -o and -e (Old Norse -a, -u and -i) started to merge into -ə, represented with the letter e. At the same time, the voiceless stop consonants p, t and k became voiced stops and even fricatives. These innovations resulted in that Danish has kage (cake), tunger (tongues) and gæster (guests) whereas (Standard) Swedish has retained older forms, kaka, tungor and gäster (OEN kaka, tungur, gæstir). Moreover, in Danish a tonal word accent distinction shared with Norwegian and Swedish changed into stød around this time. In modern Swedish and Norwegian there are two tone contours (acute accent and grave accent in Swedish terminology, Tone1 and Tone2 in Norwegian), in words having tone1 in Norwegian and acute accent in Swedish is found stød in Danish. Stød is a glottal gesture considered a kind of creaky voice, and it seems to have been documented by Swedish sources as early as the 14th century. The origin of Scandinavian word tones is unclear, they may have developed from a non-distinctive tonal feature thought to have existed in Proto-Norse which then became distinctive when the endings of words were reduced in continental Old Norse. There are tonal phenomena in neither Icelandic nor Faroese. Text exampleThis is an extract from the Westrogothic law (Västgötalagen). It is the oldest text written as a manuscript found in Sweden and from the 13th century. It is contemporaneous with most of the Icelandic literature. The text marks the beginning of Old Swedish. Dræpær maþar svænskan man eller smalenskæn, innan konongsrikis man, eigh væstgøskan, bøte firi atta ørtogher ok þrettan markær ok ænga ætar bot. […] Dræpar maþær danskan man allæ noræn man, bøte niv markum. Dræpær maþær vtlænskan man, eigh ma frid flyia or landi sinu oc j æth hans. Dræpær maþær vtlænskæn prest, bøte sva mykit firi sum hærlænskan man. Præstær skal i bondalaghum væræ. Varþær suþærman dræpin ællær ænskær maþær, ta skal bøta firi marchum fiurum þem sakinæ søkir, ok tvar marchar konongi. Translation: If someone slays a Swede or a Smålander, a man from the kingdom, but not a West Geat, he will pay eight örtugar and thirteen marks, but no wergild. [...] If someone slays a Dane or a Norwegian, he will pay nine marks. If someone slays a foreigner, he shall not be banished and have to flee to his clan. If someone slays a foreign priest, he will pay as much as for a fellow countryman. A priest counts as a freeman. If a Southerner is slain or an Englishman, he shall pay four marks to the plaintiff and two marks to the king. Old GutnishThe Gutasaga is the longest text surviving from Old Gutnish. It was written in the 13th century and dealt with the early history of the Gotlanders. This part relates of the agreement that the Gotlanders had with the Swedish king sometime before the 9th century: So gingu gutar sielfs wiliandi vndir suia kunung þy at þair mattin frir Oc frelsir sykia suiariki j huerium staþ. vtan tull oc allar utgiftir. So aigu oc suiar sykia gutland firir vtan cornband ellar annur forbuþ. hegnan oc hielp sculdi kunungur gutum at waita. En þair wiþr þorftin. oc kallaþin. sendimen al oc kunungr oc ierl samulaiþ a gutnal þing senda. Oc latta þar taka scatt sinn. þair sendibuþar aighu friþ lysa gutum alla steþi til sykia yfir haf sum upsala kunungi til hoyrir. Oc so þair sum þan wegin aigu hinget sykia. Translation: So, by their own will, the Gotlanders became the subjects of the Swedish king, so that they could travel freely and without risk to any location in the Swedish kingdom without toll and other fees. Likewise, the Swedes had the right to go to Gotland without corn restrictions or other prohibitions. The king was to provide protection and help, when they needed it and asked for it. The king and the jarl shall send emissaries to the Gutnish thing to receive the taxes. These emissaries shall declare free passage for the Gotlanders to all locations in the sea of the king at Uppsala (that is the Baltic Sea was under Swedish control) and likewise for everyone who wanted to travel to Gotland. Note here that the diphthong ai in aigu, þair and waita is not regressively umlauted to ei as in e.g. Old Icelandic eigu, þeir and veita. See alsoLiteratureIntroductionsAn Introduction to Old Norse. Second. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981.
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