Course content

This course aims at giving an introduction to Old Norse. The goal is to give the students adequate knowledge so that they may use Old Norse originals as sources for studying the Middle Ages in different fields. Upon completion of the course, students should have adequate familiarity with Old Norse, especially Old Norwegian, phonology, morphology and syntax. This will enable the students to read and understand normalized and non-normalized texts, aided by a dictionary. This course will also teach students about the most important source-editions and other tools available for source study.

Learning outcome

Upon the completion of the course, students will have good knowledge of Old Norse and its geographical and chronological variants. Students will be able to read and understand Old Norse in the original, including hand-written texts, and will be familiar with the most important editions of Old Norse source texts, with an adequate knowledge of genre, text critical principles and practises of publishing so that s/he may use the texts critically as sources for different fields of study of the Middle Ages.

Learning methods and activities

Lectures and group work, including writing exercises. There will be supervision during the course of the semester. Required: Approved reading list and 2 exercises (up to one page each concerning translation and normalisation). There will be oral/written responses to the exercises (approved/not approved)
Students may bring Old Norse dictionary and the outline of Old Norse declinations to the exam.

Compulsory assignments

• Two approved written assignments
• Approved reading list

Recommended previous knowledge

None.

Required previous knowledge

None.

Course materials

A reading list will be available first day of class. The curriculum shall consist of 50 pages normalized Old Norse prose and 15 pages unnormalized Old Norse from different genres (diplomas, legal texts, cadestres and religious literature). Three of these 15 pages, should be read in original (photocopy of handwriting). Also: A selection of secondary literature on topics like paleography, Old West Norse dialects, written culture in the Middle Ages, text-critical questions, and the different genres of source materials.

Credit reductions