Old Norwegian

This article is about the language. For the sheep breed, see Spælsau.
Old Norwegian
norrǿnn mál[1]
RegionKingdom of Norway (872–1397)
Era11th–14th century
Early forms
Medieval Runes, Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3None (mis)
GlottologNone
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Old Norwegian (Norwegian: gammelnorsk and gam(m)alnorsk), also called Norwegian Norse, is an early form of the Norwegian language that was spoken between the 11th and 14th century; it is a transitional stage between Old West Norse and Middle Norwegian.

Its distinction from Old West Norse is mostly a matter of convention, but it is also the period when the language begun to develop its immense diversity.[2] Old Norwegian is typically divided into the following dialect areas:[3]

No sources appear to exist from which the dialectal variation of the rest of Norway might be discerned. There do, however, seem to be reasons to believe the region of Oppland constituted its own dialect area, though it is unclear whether this would fall within the Western or Eastern dialect group, as well as that Greenlandic Old Norse had begun to develop its own linguistic variety.[3]

  1. ^ "Ordbøkene.no - Bokmålsordboka og Nynorskordboka". ordbokene.no (in Norwegian). Retrieved 2023-12-15.
  2. ^ Schulte, Michael (2005). "Phonological developments from Old Nordic to Early Modern Nordic I: West Scandinavian". The Nordic Languages: An International Handbook of the History of the North Germanic Languages. Vol. 2. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. p. 1083. ISBN 3-11-017149-X.
  3. ^ a b Hagland, Jan Ragnar (2002). "Dialects and written language in Old Nordic I: Old Norwegian and Old Icelandic". The Nordic Languages: An International Handbook of the History of the North Germanic Languages. Vol. 1. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 1015–1017. ISBN 3-11-014876-5.