Greenlandic Norse is an extinct
North Germanic language
The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is also ...
that was spoken in the
Norse settlements of Greenland until their demise in the late 15th century. The language is primarily attested by runic inscriptions found in Greenland. The limited inscriptional evidence shows some innovations, including the use of initial ''t'' for ''
þ'', but also the conservation of certain features that changed in other Norse languages. Some runic features are regarded as characteristically Greenlandic, and when they are sporadically found outside of Greenland, they may suggest travelling Greenlanders.
Non-runic evidence on the Greenlandic language is scarce and uncertain. A document issued in Greenland in 1409 is preserved in an Icelandic copy and may be a witness to some Greenlandic linguistic traits. The poem ''
Atlamál
''Atlamál in grǿnlenzku'' (''The Greenlandic Lay of List of names of Thor, Atli'') is one of the heroic poems of the ''Poetic Edda''. It relates the same basic story as ''Atlakviða'' at greater length and in a different style. The poem is beli ...
'' is credited as ''Greenlandic'' in the
Codex Regius
Codex Regius ( la, Cōdex Rēgius, "Royal Book" or "King's Book"; is, Konungsbók) or GKS 2365 4º is an Icelandic codex in which many Old Norse poems from the ''Poetic Edda'' are preserved. Thought to have been written during the 1270s, it ...
, but the preserved text reflects Icelandic scribal conventions, and it is not certain that the poem was composed in Greenland. Finally, Greenlandic Norse is believed to have been in
language contact with
Greenlandic and to have left loanwords in it.
Runic evidence
![Runesten fra Kingittorsuaq](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Runesten_fra_Kingittorsuaq.jpg)
Some 80
runic inscriptions
A runic inscription is an inscription made in one of the various runic alphabets. They generally contained practical information or memorials instead of magic or mythic stories. The body of runic inscriptions falls into the three categories of E ...
have been found in Greenland. Many of them are difficult to date and not all of them were necessarily carved by Greenlanders.
[Hagland, p. 1234.] It is difficult to identify specifically Greenlandic linguistic features in the limited runic material. Nevertheless, there are inscriptions showing the use of ''t'' for historical ''
þ'' in words such as rather than and rather than . This linguistic innovation has parallels in West Norwegian in the
late medieval period
The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the period of European history lasting from AD 1300 to 1500. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period (and in much of Europe, the Renai ...
.
On the other hand, Greenlandic appears to have retained some features which changed in other types of Scandinavian. This includes initial ''hl'' and ''hr'', otherwise only preserved in
Icelandic, and the long vowel ''œ'' (''oe'' ligature), which merged with ''æ'' (''ae'' ligature) in Icelandic but was preserved in
Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
* Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
* Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including ...
and
Faroese.
Certain runic forms have been seen by scholars as characteristically Greenlandic, including in particular an 'r' form with two parallel sloping branches which is found in 14 Greenlandic inscriptions. This form is sporadically found outside Greenland. It is, for example, found in a runic inscription discovered in
Orphir
Orphir (pronounced , Old Norse: Jorfjara/OrfjaraPedersen, Roy (January 1992) ''Orkneyjar ok Katanes'' (map, Inverness, Nevis Print)) is a parish and settlement on Mainland, Orkney. It is approximately southwest of Kirkwall, and comprises a s ...
in Orkney, which has been taken to imply that "the rune carver probably was a Greenlander".
The
Kingittorsuaq Runestone
The Kingittorsuaq Runestone (old spelling: ''Kingigtorssuaq''), listed as GR 1 in the Rundata catalog, is a runestone that was found on Kingittorsuaq Island, an island in the Upernavik Archipelago in northwestern Greenland.
Description
The Kingi ...
has one of the longest Norse inscriptions found in Greenland. It was discovered near
Upernavik
Upernavik (Kalaallisut: "Springtime Place") is a small town in the Avannaata municipality in northwestern Greenland, located on a small island of the same name. With 1,092 inhabitants as of 2020, it is the twelfth-largest town in Greenland. It c ...
, far north of the Norse settlements. It was presumably carved by Norse explorers. Like most Greenlandic inscriptions, it is traditionally dated to . However, Marie Stoklund has called for reconsideration of the dating of the Greenlandic material and points out that some of the parallels to the Kingittorsuaq inscription elsewhere in the Nordic world have been dated to .
The patronymic (
standardized Old Norse: ) shows the change from ''þ'' to ''t'' while the word (Old Icelandic , Old Norwegian ) shows the retention of initial ''hl''.
Manuscript evidence
A document written at
Garðar in Greenland in 1409 is preserved in an Icelandic transcription from 1625. The transcription was attested by bishop
Oddur Einarsson and is considered reliable. The document is a marriage certificate issued by two priests based in Greenland, attesting the
banns of marriage
The banns of marriage, commonly known simply as the "banns" or "bans" (from a Middle English word meaning "proclamation", rooted in Frankish and thence in Old French), are the public announcement in a Christian parish church, or in the town cou ...
for two Icelanders who had been
blown off course
To be blown off course in the sailing ship era meant be to diverted by unexpected winds, getting lost possibly to shipwreck or to a new destination. In the ancient world, this was especially a great danger before the maturation of the Maritime S ...
to Greenland,
Þorsteinn Ólafsson Þorsteinn is an Old Norse and Icelandic masculine given name. Notable people with the name include:
*Þorsteinn Bachmann (born 1965), Icelandic actor
*Þorsteinn Bjarnason (born 1957), Icelandic former professional footballer (goalkeeper)
*Þorste ...
and Sigríður Björnsdóttir. The language of the document is clearly not Icelandic and cannot without reservation be classified as Norwegian. It may have been produced by Norwegian-educated clergy who had been influenced by Greenlandic. The document contains orthographic traits which are consistent with the runic linguistic evidence. This includes the prepositional form ''þil'' for the older ''til'' which demonstrates the merger of initial 'þ' and 't'.
![Beginning of Atlamál](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Beginning_of_Atlam%C3%A1l.jpg)
It is possible that some other texts preserved in Icelandic manuscripts might be of Greenlandic origins. In particular, the poem ''
Atlamál
''Atlamál in grǿnlenzku'' (''The Greenlandic Lay of List of names of Thor, Atli'') is one of the heroic poems of the ''Poetic Edda''. It relates the same basic story as ''Atlakviða'' at greater length and in a different style. The poem is beli ...
'' is referred to as Greenlandic (''Atlamál in grœnlenzku'') in the
Codex Regius
Codex Regius ( la, Cōdex Rēgius, "Royal Book" or "King's Book"; is, Konungsbók) or GKS 2365 4º is an Icelandic codex in which many Old Norse poems from the ''Poetic Edda'' are preserved. Thought to have been written during the 1270s, it ...
. Many scholars have understood the reference to mean that the poem was composed by a Greenlander and various elements of the poem's text have been taken to support Greenlandic provenance.
Ursula Dronke
__NOTOC__
Ursula Miriam Dronke (née Brown, 3 November 1920 – 8 March 2012Heather O'Donoghue"Ursula Dronke obituary: Inspirational teacher of Old Norse literature specialising in the sagas and poetry of medieval Iceland" ''The Guardian'' 25 M ...
commented that "There is a rawness about the language ... that could reflect the conditions of an isolated society distant from the courts of kings and such refinements of manners and speech as were associated with them."
Finnur Jónsson
Finnur Jónsson (May 29, 1858 – March 30, 1934) was an Icelandic-Danish philologist and Professor of Nordic Philology at the University of Copenhagen. He made extensive contributions to the study of Old Norse literature.
Finnur Jónsson was b ...
argued that not only was ''Atlamál'' composed in Greenland, some other preserved Eddic poems were as well. He adduced various stylistic arguments in favor of Greenlandic provenance for ''
Helgakviða Hundingsbana I
"Völsungakviða" or "Helgakviða Hundingsbana I" ("The First Lay of Helgi Hundingsbane") is an Old Norse poem found in the ''Poetic Edda''. It constitutes one of the Helgi lays, together with '' Helgakviða Hundingsbana II'' and ''Helgakviða Hj ...
'', ''
Oddrúnargrátr
''Oddrúnargrátr'' (''Oddrún's lament'') or ''Oddrúnarkviða'' (''Oddrún's poem'') is an Eddic poem, found in the Codex Regius manuscript where it follows ''Guðrúnarkviða III'' and precedes ''Atlakviða''.
The main content of the poem is th ...
'', ''
Guðrúnarhvöt
Guðrúnarhvöt is one of the heroic poems of the ''Poetic Edda''. Gudrun had been married to the hero Sigurd and with him she had the daughter Svanhild. Svanhild had married the Gothic king Ermanaric (''Jörmunrekkr''), but betrayed him with ...
'', ''
Sigurðarkviða in skamma ''Sigurðarkviða'' ("lay of Sigurd") may refer to:
*''Sigurðarkviða hin skamma''
* ''Brot af Sigurðarkviðu''
*''Grípisspá'' ( ''Sigurðarkviða Fáfnisbana I'')
*''Reginsmál'' (a.k.a. ''Sigurðarkviða Fáfnisbana II'')
See also
*''Völ ...
'' and, more speculatively, ''
Helreið Brynhildar ''Helreið Brynhildar'' (Old Norse 'The Hel-ride of Brynhild') is a short Old Norse poem that is found in the ''Poetic Edda''. Most of the poem (except stanza 6) is also quoted in '' Norna-Gests þáttr''.
Henry Adams Bellows says in his comment ...
''. One linguistic trait which Finnur regarded as specifically Greenlandic was initial 'hn' in the word ''
Hniflungr'', found in'' Atlamál'', ''Helgakviða Hundingsbana I'' and ''Guðrúnarhvöt''. The word is otherwise preserved as ''Niflungr'' in Icelandic sources. Modern scholarship is doubtful of using ''Atlamál'' as a source on the Greenlandic language since its Greenlandic origin is not certain, it is difficult to date, and the preserved text reflects Icelandic scribal conventions.
Contact with Kalaallisut
Greenlandic Norse is believed to have been in
language contact with
Kalaallisut Kalaallisut may refer to:
* Greenlandic language
* West Greenlandic
West Greenlandic ( da, vestgrønlandsk), also known as Kalaallisut, is the primary language of Greenland and constitutes the Greenlandic language, spoken by the vast majority of ...
, the language of the
Kalaallit
Kalaallit make up the largest group of the Greenlandic Inuit and are concentrated in Kitaa. It is also a contemporary term in the Greenlandic language for the indigenous people living in Greenland (Greenlandic ''Kalaallit Nunaat'').Hessel, 8 Th ...
, and to have left
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...
s in that language. In particular, the Greenlandic word (older ), meaning ''Greenlander'', is believed to be derived from the word , the Norse term for the people they
encountered in North America. In the Greenlandic dictionary of 1750,
Hans Egede
Hans Poulsen Egede (31 January 1686 – 5 November 1758) was a Dano-Norwegian Lutheran missionary who launched mission efforts to Greenland, which led him to be styled the Apostle of Greenland. He established a successful mission among the Inui ...
states that is what the "old Christians" called the Greenlanders and that they use the word only with foreigners and not when speaking among themselves. Other words which may be of Norse origin include (female given name, probably from Old Norse "woman", "wife"), ("sheep", Old Norse ), ("porpoise", Old Norse ), ("pig", Old Norse "sow"), ("carrot", Old Norse ) and ("
angelica
''Angelica'' is a genus of about 60 species of tall biennial and perennial herbs in the family Apiaceae, native to temperate and subarctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere, reaching as far north as Iceland, Lapland, and Greenland. They gr ...
", Old Norse , plural ).
[Thalbitzer, pp. 35-36.]
The available evidence does not establish the presence of
language attrition
Language attrition is the process of losing a native or first language. This process is generally caused by both isolation from speakers of the first language ("L1") and the acquisition and use of a second language ("L2"), which interferes with ...
; the Norse language most likely disappeared with the ethnic group that spoke it.
See also
**
Hvalsey
Hvalsey ("Whale Island"; Greenlandic ''Qaqortukulooq'') is located near Qaqortoq, Greenland and is the site of Greenland's largest, best-preserved Norse ruins in the area known as the Eastern Settlement (''Eystribyggð''). In 2017, it was inscri ...
**
Norse colonization of North America
The Norse exploration of North America began in the late 10th century, when Norsemen explored areas of the North Atlantic colonizing Greenland and creating a short term settlement near the northern tip of Newfoundland. This is known now as L'Ans ...
**
Narsaq stick
The Narsaq stick is a pine twig inscribed with runic symbols dating to ca. 1000. The stick was discovered in Narsaq in Greenland in 1953 and was quickly seen as a significant find, as it was the first Viking Age runic inscription discovered in Gre ...
**
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...
**
List of extinct languages of Europe
This is a list of extinct languages of Europe, languages which have undergone language death, have no native speakers and no spoken descendant. As the vast majority of Europeans speak Indo-European languages, a result of the westward portion o ...
**
List of extinct languages of North America
This is a list of extinct languages of North America, languages which have undergone language death, have no native speakers and no spoken descendant, most of them being languages of former Native American tribes.
There are 108 languages lis ...
References
Works cited
* Barnes, Michael (2002). "History and development of Old Nordic outside the Scandinavia of today". In ''The Nordic Languages : An International Handbook of the History of the North Germanic Languages : Volume 1''.
* Barnes, Michael (2005). "Language" in ''A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture'', ed. by
Rory McTurk
Rory W. McTurk is a British philologist. McTurk graduated from Oxford University in 1963. He took a further degree at the University of Iceland in 1965, and subsequently taught at Lund University, the University of Copenhagen, and University Col ...
. .
* Bugge, Sophus (1867). ''Norrœn fornkvæði. Islandsk samling af folkelige oldtidsdigte om nordens guder og heroer almindelig kaldet Sæmundar Edda hins fróða''.
* Dronke, Ursula (1969). ''The Poetic Edda'' I.
* Egede, Hans (1750). ''Dictionarium grönlandico-danico-latinum''.
* Finnur Jónsson (1894). ''Den oldnorske og oldislandske litteraturs historie''.
* Hagland, Jan Ragnar (2002). "Language loss and destandardization in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Times". In ''The Nordic Languages : An International Handbook of the History of the North Germanic Languages : Volume 2'', pp. 1233–1237. .
* Hollander, Lee M. (1962). The Poetic Edda.
* Jahr, Ernst Håkon and Ingvild Broch (1996). ''Language Contact in the Arctic : Northern Pidgins and Contact Languages''. .
* Liestøl, Aslak (1984). "Runes" in The Northern and Western Isles in the Viking World. Survival, Continuity and Change, pp. 224–238. .
* Olsen, Magnus. "Kingigtórsoak-stenen og sproget i de grønlandske runeinnskrifter". ''Norsk tidsskrift for sprogvidenskap'' 1932, pp. 189–257.
*
Rundata database.
* von See, Klaus, Beatrice la Farge, Simone Horst and Katja Schulz (2012). ''Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda'' 7.
* Stoklund, Marie (1993). "Greenland runes. Isolation or cultural contact?" in ''The Viking Age in Caithness, Orkney and the North Atlantic'', pp. 528–543.
* Thalbitzer, William (1904). ''A Phonetical Study of the Eskimo Language''.
External links
Runic inscription from Greenland
{{Germanic languages
Norse settlements in Greenland
Old Norse
West Scandinavian languages
Extinct Germanic languages
Extinct languages of Greenland
Extinct languages of Europe
Languages of Greenland
Languages extinct in the 15th century
15th-century disestablishments in North America