Language Tip Number One, Still

I seem to recall we were talking about Norwegian.

I think there are plenty of reasons for finding out about this language, many connected to the interesting Norwegian culture. The three main well-known cultural personalities from Norway, in my view, are the playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), the painter Edvard Munch (1863-1944), and the composer Edvard Grieg (1843-1907). So even with only these three names on the list, there is a lot to think about. In addition, there are the great, rich, and evocative Sagas written down in the twelfth or thirteenth centuries A.D. Admittedly, these were written in Old Norse, the ancestor of Icelandic, but clearly there is a big connection in the culture (Old Norse was spoken in Norway at the time anyway), and I think any Scandinavian language is a window to some understanding of the others (they are all rather similar - excluding Finnish, which although it is spoken in a neighbouring country, is not a Germanic language but part of the Finno-Ugrian family). My favourite of the Sagas I know (which is not many!) is the Hávamál, or 'Words of the High One'. This work is a collection of wise sayings of the God Odin (Óðinn*).

[* the letter 'ð' is called eth, and is pronounced the same as the 'th' sound in words like 'the' and 'these'. It is one of three old letters that were still part of the English alphabet as late as 1400 or so. The others are called thorn and yogh. Thorn is another 'th' sound, sometimes the 'th' in 'theory' and 'think', sometimes the same 'th' as the letter eth (in Middle English; in Icelandic, thorn and eth are always differentiated). 'Yogh' is the mystery missing letter for the silent 'gh' in words like 'night' and 'drought': those special words that must make no sense at all to learners of English! There are codes for these characters for use in web pages, but they seem unpredictable so I didn't attempt it and you had better look them up for yourself!]

Back to the Hávamál!

Cherish those near you, never be
The first to break with a friend:
Care eats him who can no longer
Open his heart to another.

That is a good verse, I think. There is another one I should take more notice of:

Foolish is he who frets at night,
And lies awake to worry:
A weary man when morning comes,
He finds all as bad as before.

These verses were quoted from the translation by W. H. Auden and Paul B. Taylor.

So yes, the Norse Sagas! Many reasons to be excited about Scandinavian language and culture. Unfortunately we didn't get any nearer to my tips about Norwegian. Or did we?