Old Norse language

Old Norse is the Germanic language once spoken by the inhabitants of the Nordic countries (for instance during the Viking Age). Formally, it can be divided into two similar dialects:\n;West Norse:Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian\n;East Norse:Old Danish and Old Swedish In the 11th century, it was the most widely spoken European language, ranging from the Norwegian settlements in Vinland and Greenland to the Swedish settlements in Russia in the East, and to the Danish settlements in England and Normandy in the south. Its modern descendants are the West Scandinavian languages of Icelandic, Norwegian, Faroese and the extinct Norn language of the Orkney and the Shetland Islands as well as the East Scandinavian languages of Swedish and Danish. Norwegian was later heavily influenced by East Scandinavian. Among these, Icelandic and the closely related Faroese have changed the least from Old Norse in the last thousand years. Old Norse also had an influence on English dialects and particularly Scots which contains many Old Norse loanwords. It also influenced the development of the Norman language. The earliest inscriptions are runic, from the 1st century, and runes continued to be used for a thousand years. The main literary texts are in the Latin alphabet, the great sagas and eddas of medieval Iceland.

Table of contents

1 Phonemes

1.1 Vowels
1.2 Stops
1.3 Fricatives
1.4 Liquids
1.5 Semi-vowels

2 References
3 External links