Íslendingabók (4)
Norse practice | Íslendingabók
We will pursue our Norse practice of extensive reading. As always, we will be reading and translating a lengthy piece of text, longer than those in the Grammar by sagas series. Nevertheless, we shall not spare a few observations on the grammar at issue. The aim, though, is to put into practice Galois's approach to extensive reading - which may be of interest to nerds learning any language, old or new.
We have just learned that Are Frode, who authored Íslendingabók, got his story from very reliable sources, his ancestors, and that the colonization of Iceland took place “from Norway in the days of Harald Fairhair”. Let's carry on. We are still in chapter one, Frá Íslands byggð, that is, About the Settlement of Iceland.
A hearty piece of Old Norse for today.
Ingólfr hét maðr nórrænn, er sannliga er sagt, at færi fyrst þaðan til Íslands, þá er Haraldr inn hárfagri var sextán vetra gamall, en í annat sinn fám vetrum síðar. Hann byggði suðr í Reykjarvík. Þar er Ingólfshöfði kallaðr fyr austan Minþakseyri, sem hann kom fyrst á land, en þar Ingólfsfell fyr vestan Ölfossá, er hann lagði sína eigu á síðan.
Í þann tíð var Ísland viði vaxit á milli fjalls ok fjöru. Þá váru hér menn kristnir, þeir er Norðmenn kalla Papa, en þeir fóru síðan á braut, af því at þeir vildu eigi vera hér við heiðna menn, ok létu eftir bækr írskar ok bjöllur ok bagla. Af því mátti skilja, at þeir váru menn írskir.
Let's take a look at the English translation. It is perfectly legitimate to go through it right now! Extensive reading consists precisely in reading the original text alongside its translation into a well-mastered language, and practicing with the utmost concentration to find, word group by word group, the correspondences between the two versions.
There was a Norwegian man named Ingolf, who it is truly said went first from there to Iceland when Harald Fair-hair was sixteen winters old, and a second time a few winters later. He settled south in Reykjavik. There is a place called Ingolf's Headland east of Minthak's Eyri, where he first came ashore, and there is Ingolf's Mountain west of Olfus River, where he later claimed his property.
At that time, Iceland was wooded between mountain and shore. There were Christian men here, whom the Northmen called Papar, but they later departed because they did not want to stay here with heathens, and they left behind Irish books, bells, and croziers. From this it could be understood that they were Irish men.
The pioneer of Icelandic colonization was a Norwegian named Ingolf, and the first sentence is simple. We highlight the main clause in blue.
The English here is not very literal. Closer to the text, we could translate this as Ingolf was named the Norse man, who… The formula is very common in the sagas. Here, the sentence's grammatical subject maðr nórrænn is positioned after the verb, and the predicate nominative Ingólfr - how maðr nórrænn is named - is in first position. Old Norse, as already mentioned, has a very rich inflectional system, so the subject-verb-object order, though very frequent, is not obligatory. In short, since grammatical cases - subject or object, for example - are clearly identifiable by their form - their suffix, their ending - Old Norse practitioners can take a few liberties with word order: the addressee can reverse-engineer the function by following the declension table.
What follows is a long relative proposition, of antecedent maðr nórrænn, and comprising a main (parenthetical) passive construction, er sannliga er sagt and a subordinate which itself comprises two time adjuncts connected by the coordinating conjunction en. We will become masters in the art of identifying this type of structure, just as we will become strong in conjunctions, relative particles and, in short, in connecting words.
First, the first occurrence of er, which could very well be the verb vera, to be, conjugated in the present indicative in the 3rd person, but which, in context, is the relative particle, a versatile subordination marker translatable as who or one of his close relatives. How do we know? Well, this clause already has a conjugated verb: precisely the second er, and a perfectum participle , sagt, is said.the second er! Not on its own, but accompanied by the perfectum participle sagt, from segja (to say) to form the complete finite form in the passiv er sagt, is said.
At functions as a complement (a subordinating conjunction) in Old Norse, introducing a complement clause, in this case a reported speech complement. Note that in English, this subordinating conjunction is not expressed. But we could rephrase a little, to stay closer to the Old Norse.
We are closer to the Old Norse because, firstly, the relative clause maintains the present passive verb, is said, and secondly, that appears, which directly mirrors the subordinating conjunction at. Our Old Norse relative particle, er, is invariable, so how can it distinctly translate the declensions of English who: whom or whose? Well, these variations can be rendered by association with a demonstrative pronoun - we shall have ample chance to illustrate this - but also simply by the structure of the relative proposition, which is the case here. But this relative particle can also accompany an adverb, as with þá er, and the whole functions as a modern subordinating conjunction, when: literally, then as. Speaking Norwegian, as we shall often say, can clear up a lot of ambiguities. The particle er can be translated fairly systematically into som, which can either be the Norwegian relative pronoun or mean as (in the comparison of equals, as big or as short as). þá translates transparently into the Norwegian da and the resulting *da som is perfectly comprehensible: the Norwegian would say da on its own. Finally, you need to recognize en, but (or and), immediately to best cut sentences into pieces.
The preceding syntactic analysis clearly illuminates the parallel framework of Old Norse and English. But we can work a bit more to understand this passive construction, er sannliga er sagt, which we have surreptitiously called parenthetical. The latter does not change the course of events, but only informs about the reliability of the sources, that this story is reported, and true. What is really the action of which Ingólfr is the agent? He went to Iceland. We shall rephrase a little more, as follows.
We are now highlighting our functional relative clause, which coincides with the syntactic relative of our new version. The inserted clause about the narrative can certainly be dispensed with altogether, all things being equal: a parenthesis, indeed.
The following sentence is clearly recognizable.
And this is all our extensive reading aims to do: recognize. To illuminate the parallel between Old Norse and English, clause for clause, word group for word group. To what depth? Well, somewhere before word-by-word and detailed grammatical analysis, until the Old Norse sentence structure and the correspondence appear crystal-clear. Sometimes a question nags at you, and you have a little time on your hands. So, grab a dictionary. What is the precise meaning of this suðr, place, the south of Reykjavik, or the south of Iceland, or movement, in that cardinal direction?
The class is clearly adverbial, with suðr preceded by no preposition. It can quite clearly express location, but it can also be interpreted as movement, depending on the hue given to the verb byggði: to settle (at a precise point on the map) or to go and settle (from where you dock, for example). In any case, Reykjavik is well to the south (of Iceland). We could rephrase as He settled in the south in Reykjavík or He went to settled southward in Reykjavík. This is a point of detail. The meaning and correspondence had already been achieved. Just to let you know that the depth of analysis, in truth, is up to you. Galois can't know for you when your understanding dawns. Let’s move on.
In the following, we identify our little linking words anew. In addition, we have highlighted the simple adverb of place, Þar.
We inspect the territory a little to the East, then a little to the West. The conjunction en articulates the whole. Thanks to the proper nouns and the repetition, we can clearly pinpoint our place indications.
And the two relative clauses mirror each other:
In the following sentence, perhaps the periphery reads more clearly than the center.
The time of action. Then the place, where we spot the binary structure, in the middle, ok.
This leaves
It seems that wooded renders viði vaxit. vaxit looks like a past participle. That leaves viði, and the desinence -i may appear to the connoisseur as evidence of a dative. Wooded means well covered with forest, or even closer to Old Norse, grown with forest.
Among the small connecting (groups of) words (or those indicating place) that are scattered throughout what follows, let's particularly note þeir er and af því at. The first illustrates what we were saying earlier: the relative particle er is combined with the personal pronoun þeir to signify them who together. So more literally
In the second you might recognize the singular neuter dative, því, of the demonstrative pronoun, its nominative being þat. af is precisely a preposition calling for the dative, from, out of, because of. And at is the subordinating conjunction that. Literally, out of/from this, that…, which simplifies into because….
From the skeleton, everything is easily recognizable. The second independent clause.
The adverbial subordinate of cause/reason introduced by our af því at.
And the third independent clause, where the ternary structure of the object has not escaped your notice.
A last mouthful of Old Norse. Quite simple.
We recognize our previous af því, literally from this. And the subordinating conjunction at which introduces the subordinate clause object to the main clause. We have made a lot of progress.
With the translation at hand, there is nothing too difficult about extensive reading. All it takes is a little application and curiosity.
References
Þorgilsson, A. (c. 1122-1133). Íslendingabók. In F. Jónsson (Ed.). (1930). Are hinn Froðe Þorgilsson Íslendingabók. Dansk-Islandsk Forbundsfond