Comparative Syntax of Old English and Old Icelandic: Linguistic, Literary and Historical Implications

by Graeme Davis

Study of the syntax of Old English and Old Icelandic has for long been dominated by the impressions of early philologists. Their assertions that these languages were «free» in their word-order were for many years unchallenged. Only within the last two decades has it been demonstrated that the word-order of each shows regular patterns which approach the status of rules, and which may be precisely described. This book takes the subject one step further by offering a comparison of the syntax of Old English and Old Icelandic, the two best-preserved Old Germanic languages. Overwhelmingly the two languages show the same word-order patterns – as do the other Old Germanic languages, at least as far as can be determined from the fragments which have survived. It has long been recognised that Old English and Old Icelandic have a high proportion of common lexis and very similar morphology, yet the convention has been to emphasise the differences between the two as representatives respectively of the West and North sub-families of Germanic. The argument of this book is that the similar word-order of the two should instead lead us to stress the similarities between the two languages. Old English and Old Icelandic were sufficiently close to be mutually comprehensible. This thesis receives copious support from historical and literary texts. Our understanding of the Old Germanic world should be modified by the concept of a common «Northern Speech» which provided a common Germanic ethnic identity and a platform for the free flow of cultural ideas.

Genres: Linguistics

189 pages, Paperback

First published December 29, 2005

About the author

Dr. Graeme J. Davis (born 1965) is an English linguist at the University of Buckingham. He holds a PhD in Anglo-Saxon from the University of St Andrews. He has lectured at the Manchester Metropolitan University, University of Northumbria and the Open University.

He is tutor for the University of Buckingham’s Stonehenge MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) and is editor of The Buckingham Journal of Language and Linguistics, which has developed from earlier journals edited by Dr. Davis, including Journal of Language and Linguistics and Lingua et Linguistica. He is series editor of two Peter Lang monograph series, Contemporary Studies in Descriptive Linguistics and Studies in Historical Linguistics. He is also academic advisor to the Fara Heim project for academic research around the history and archaeology of Hudson Bay and the Canadian Arctic.

His research interests include the mediaeval Germanic languages and cultures of the North Atlantic region. His book Contemporary Studies in Old English and Old Icelandic was supported by a British Academy research grant and by the University of Iceland. The Early English Settlement of Orkney and Shetland examines the cultural and linguistic background of the Northern Isles, while Vikings in America sets out the story of the Norse discovery and settlement of North America. Lexicographic work includes Dictionary of Surrey English, while the discipline of surname study has been developed in Research Your Surname and Your Family Tree. An author of more than two dozen books and dozens of articles, Dr. Davis has produced both primary research and popular accounts which seek to make scholarship accessible to a wide audience.