NORN KJOKL

I was thinking that I should make a greater contribution to this project. I know Hrafn is working on Orkney Norn, I too am keen on working on this in some mannar, though my favourite form of the language is the Foula dialect. The project seems to be spreadingto the hands of more people now, which I'm vrty appreciative of, so it's about time I made some greater contribution though I'm truthfully not sure where to start. I thought about some form of Swadesh list showing variation in, for example: attested form - standard nynorn - foula nynorn etc.
My other idea was to try and create a course in Orkney Norn, I'm now very familiar with the grammar, but I think I remember someone else saying they were doing one.
Anyway, this can be a place to discuss ideas.

Regards, Linden

Hi Linden, nice to see you back!
Any input on Orkney Nynorn from you will be much welcome!

I don't think Swadesh list is worth wasting your time upon, but if you do a draft of the grammar, that would be interesting to look at.

Access granted

I think translating the bible is a bad idea.
1. it is boring, unless you are really christian
2. religious text are very hard to read in a language you are about to learn, and often enquire you know the text in your mother tounge first.
3. Short, easy funny text are better and more interesting, and a better investment since we don't make allot of text anyhow.
4. We want to remind people from Orkney about their norse heritage? what is especially norse about the bible? and how does it differ culturally from the dominant english culture.


About working on Orkney norn, I have an idea:
For example, that á usually results in å, but we have a case where it results in aw, and another case with /a/. It would not be wierd if that just difference dialects. In northern Norway that is actually the case, some get /aw/ like icelandic, but most others get /å/. And in the faroese isles, some dialects have åa, while others just keep the long old norse /á/.

Thus i would like to choose á > å and generalize it. Because that is the sound development we generalized in shetland nynorn.

This would be mine approach to converting old norse into Orkney Nynorn. I can easly make a simple set of rules to follow and post them so everybody can do it. However, I want to know what you and Hnolt thinks about it before i start anything you maybe dont like.

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Hrafnsmærki skal væifa í vindinum á ný aftr, Þat sum es in sanna Danibrók!

I don't remember cases where ON 'á' would change to [aw] in Orcadian. I presume you might have confused it with the orthographical 'aw' which is spelled [ɔ:].

As for á > å I agree that we should generalize this rule where new words are concerned. If we use Norn words recorded by Marwick it would be better to keep their pronunciation unless there's influences from Scots we consider superfluous.

According to Marwick á > o: is the common development, while á > ɔu is rare.

But anyway, I will talk with Linden about Orkney norn ^^ he is really fashinated by it too I do not have so much time on my hand, the exams are soon upon me again!

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Hrafnsmærki skal væifa í vindinum á ný aftr, Þat sum es in sanna Danibrók!