Summary:The present paper is a study of the rendering of Latin in Scandinavian runic inscriptions. The analysis focuses on a small corpus of thirteen inscriptions from the whole of Scandinavia and its periph- eral settlements. The investigated phenomena are: 1) Lat. /e/ in stressed and unstressed position; 2) Lat. /d/ and /t/ in initial, intervocalic and final position; 3) Lat. /t/ + /j/ /_V; 4) Lat. /b/, /p/ and /v/ in initial and intervocalic position. From the analysis of the data it can be observed that the runic rendering of Latin can either adhere to its written model or mirror the actual pronunciation of Medieval Latin in Scandinavia.
The present article deals with the reflexes of Lat. scrībere in Germanic. It is proposed that the
word was borrowed into Germanic at quite an early stage (1st century AD) as a result of contacts between West-Germanic-speaking
populations and the Romans. Special stress is put on the importance of the Roman military in introducing the practice of writing
among those that served in the army. Special attention is given to the North Germanic reflexes of Lat. scrībere
in order to tentatively explain the morphological difference found in that branch of Germanic, where the verb is found both in the
first class of strong verbs and in the second class of weak verbs. It is proposed that the former conjugation is primary, and that
the rise of the latter is due to later developments such as lexical analogical processes and language-external causes.
Furthermore, the present study confirms from a different perspective that English influence on writing is primary in the
Old-West-Norse-speaking area. Finally, Schulte’s (2015) proposal is re-read in the
light of terminological evidence from England and Scandinavia.
<p>Anyone familiar with the Modern Icelandic language will know that the country’s policy is to avoid borrowing lexemes from other languages, and instead to draw on their own vocabulary. This often results in the formation of a word pair, consisting of a loanword and its respective native equivalent, as the process of borrowing systematically eludes the tight tangles of language policy. But how did this phenomenon develop in the Middle Ages, before a purist ideology was formed?</p>
<p>This volume offers a unique analysis of a previously unexplored area of Old Norse linguistics by investigating the way in which loanwords and native synonyms interacted in the Middle Ages. Through a linguistic-philological investigation of texts from all medieval Icelandic prose genres, the book maps out the strategies by which the variation and interplay between loanwords and native words were manifested in medieval Iceland, and suggests that it is possible to identify the same dynamics in other languages with a comparable literary tradition. In doing so, new light is shed on language development and usage in the Middle Ages and the gap between case-study and general linguistic theory is bridged over.</p>
<p>Appendices to: Matteo Tarsi, ‘Loanwords and Native Words in Old and Middle Icelandic. A Study in the History and Dynamics of the Icelandic Medieval Lexicon, from the Twelfth Century to 1550’, Studies in Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, 4 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2022) </p>
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