Old Gutnish or Old Gotlandic was a

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 r ...

spoken on the

Baltic Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages * Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originati ...

island of

Gotland Gotland (, ; ''Gutland'' in Gutnish), also historically spelled Gottland or Gothland (), is Sweden's largest island. It is also a province, county, municipality, and diocese. The province includes the islands of Fårö and Gotska Sandön to the ...

. It shows sufficient differences from the

Old West Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...

and

Old East Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...

dialects that it is considered to be a separate branch. While vastly divergent from Old Gutnish and closer to Modern Swedish, a modern version of

Gutnish Gutnish ( ), or rarely Gutnic ( sv, gutniska or ), refers to the original language spoken on parts of the islands of Gotland and Fårö. The different dialects of Gutnish, while stemming from the Old Gutnish ( sv, Forngutniska) variety of Old N ...

is still spoken in some parts of Gotland and the adjoining island of

Fårö Fårö () or Fåre in Gutnish is a Baltic Sea island just north of the island of Gotland, itself off mainland Sweden's southeastern coast. It is the second-largest island in the province and it is a popular summer resort. It has its own language ...

. The root ''Gut'' is identical to ''Goth'', and it is often remarked that the language has similarities with the

Gothic language Gothic is an extinct East Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the ''Codex Argenteus'', a 6th-century copy of a 4th-century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizeable text cor ...

. These similarities have led scholars such as

Elias Wessén Elias Wessén (15 April 1889 – 30 January 1981) was a prominent Swedish linguist and a professor of Scandinavian languages at Stockholm University (1928–1956). In 1947, he was honoured with one of the 18 seats at the Swedish Academy (which f ...

and Dietrich Hofmann to suggest that it is most closely related to Gothic. The best known example of such a similarity is that Gothic and Gutnish called both adult and young sheep . The Old Norse diphthong ''au'' (e.g. "eye") remained in Old Gutnish and Old West Norse, while in Old East Norse – except for peripheral dialects – it evolved into the monophthong ''ǿ'', i.e. a long version of ''ø''. Likewise the diphthong ''ai'' in ("bone") remained in Old Gutnish while in Old West Norse it became ''ei'' as in and in Old East Norse it became ''é'' (). Whereas Old West Norse had the ''ey'' diphthong and Old East Norse evolved the monophthong ''ǿ'') Old Gutnish had ''oy''. Most of the corpus of Old Gutnish is found in the

Gutasaga Gutasaga (''Gutasagan'') is a saga regarding the history of Gotland before its Christianization. It was recorded in the 13th century and survives in only a single manuscript, the Codex Holm. B 64, dating to , kept at the National Library of Sweden ...

from the 13th century.

Language sample

Citation: Standardised Old Gutnish: Employing normalised Old Norse orthography: Translation in Icelandic: Translation in English:

References

Nationalencyklopedin ''Nationalencyklopedin'' (; "The National Encyclopedia" in English), abbreviated NE, is a comprehensive contemporary Swedish-language encyclopedia, initiated by a favourable loan from the Government of Sweden of 17 million Swedish kronor in 19 ...

* Christine Peel. "Guta Saga - The History of the Gotlanders," ''Viking Society for Northern Research Text Series.'' Vol. XII.

Viking Society for Northern Research The Viking Society for Northern Research is a group dedicated to the study and promotion of the ancient culture of Scandinavia. Founded in London in 1892 as the Orkney, Shetland and Northern Society or the Viking Club, its name was changed in 1902 ...

University College of London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = � ...

(1999). {{Germanic languages Gutnish

Old Gutnish Old Gutnish or Old Gotlandic was a North Germanic language spoken on the Baltic Sea, Baltic island of Gotland. It shows sufficient differences from the Old West Norse and Old East Norse dialects that it is considered to be a separate branch. ...

Gotland