An Icelandic Primer

An Icelandic Primer

The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Icelandic Primer, by Henry Sweet
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Title: An Icelandic Primer With Grammar, Notes, and Glossary
Author: Henry Sweet
Release Date: April, 2004 [EBook #5424] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on July 14, 2002]
Edition: 10

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ICELANDIC PRIMER ***

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AN ICELANDIC PRIMER
With Grammar, Notes, and Glossary
By Henry Sweet, M.A.
SECOND EDITION
1895

PREFACE
The want of a short and easy introduction to the study of Icelandic has
been felt for a long time--in fact, from the very beginning of that study
in England. The Icelandic Reader, edited by Messrs. Vigfusson and
Powell, in the Clarendon Press Series, is a most valuable book, which
ought to be in the hands of every student; but it still leaves room for an
elementary primer. As the engagements of the editors of the Reader
would have made it impossible for them to undertake such a work for
some years to come, they raised no objections to my proposal to
undertake it myself. Meanwhile, I found the task was a more

formidable one than I had anticipated, and accordingly, before
definitely committing myself to it, I made one final attempt to induce
Messrs. Vigfusson and Powell to take it off my hands; but they very
kindly encouraged me to proceed with it; and as I myself thought that
an Icelandic primer, on the lines of my Anglo-Saxon one, might
perhaps be the means of inducing some students of Old English to take
up Icelandic as well, I determined to go on.
In the spelling I have not thought it necessary to adhere strictly to that
adopted in the Reader, for the editors have themselves deviated from it
in their Corpus Poeticum Boreale, in the way of separating ǫ from ö,
etc. My own principle has been to deviate as little as possible from the
traditional spelling followed in normalized texts. There is, indeed, no
practical gain for the beginner in writing tīme for tīmi, discarding
ð, etc., although these changes certainly bring us nearer the oldest
MSS., and cannot be dispensed with in scientific works. The essential
thing for the beginner is to have regular forms presented to him, to the
exclusion, as far as possible, of isolated archaisms, and to have the
defective distinctions of the MSS. supplemented by diacritics. I have
not hesitated to substitute (¯) for (´) as the mark of length; the latter
ought in my opinion to be used exclusively--in Icelandic as well as in
Old English and Old Irish--to represent the actual accents of the MSS.
In the grammar I have to acknowledge my great obligations to Noreen's
Altisländische Grammatik, which is by far the best Icelandic grammar
that has yet appeared--at least from that narrow point of view which
ignores syntax, and concentrates itself on phonology and inflections.
The texts are intended to be as easy, interesting, and representative as
possible. With such a language, and such a master of it as Snorri to
choose from, this combination is not difficult to realise. The beginner is
indeed to be envied who makes his first acquaintance with the splendid
mythological tales of the North, told in an absolutely perfect style. As
the death of Olaf Tryggvason is given in the Reader only from the
longer recension of the Heimskringla, I have been able to give the
shorter text, which is admirably suited for the purposes of this book.
The story of Auðun is not only a beautiful one in itself, but, together

with the preceding piece, gives a vivid idea of the Norse ideal of the
kingly character, which was the foundation of their whole political
system. As the Reader does