Recordings of Reconstructed Old Norse
Kendra Willson writes (in a comment to another post, but I thought it would be better to move it to the front, so more people might see it):
Where can I find recordings of Old Norse texts with reconstructed pronunciation?
I have pointed out Raven of Denmark’s performance of part of Atlakviða
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xagMYiZ2NP0) to my students and to an actor who planned to make an audition video in Old Norse in hopes of getting a part in Mel Gibson’s film with Leonardo DiCaprio (I live in Los Angeles) before that project was suspended due to Gibson’s latest scandal. The only other recording with reconstructed pronunciation I have found online is a recitation of part of Völuspá recorded for Librivox (http://librivox.org/multilingual-poetry-collection-001/ – scroll down to Old Icelandic) by one Julian Jamison, an economist in Pacific Palisades. Are there more out there? Thanks for any tips.
Can anybody offer Kendra suggestions?
Administered by
The first video is made by Arne Torp from the University of Oslo. He has made a few other videos as well. Take a look at this page:
http://folk.uio.no/arnet/
Oh, great, finally some reconstructed pronunciation! Thanks for the links. For me, that’s the only way to read Old Norse, particularly poetry.
A few years ago there used to be recordings available from the ASNC department website at Cambridge of people reciting passages in Old Norse, Old English and Medieval Welsh&Irish, but they disappeared after they updated the site. They were readings by participants in the annual Peter Clemoes Reading Prize. I’m not sure if they can be found elsewhere (I had them all on my old harddrive before it blew up…) or if they still record the recitals or not.
Will need to check the website, but perhaps if you drop an email to someone at the department they may be able to provide the files?
Okay, I have just looked at the ASNC website and there are actually recordings of people reading passages in the various languages available from the ASNC department.
Go here:
http://www.asnc.cam.ac.uk/spokenword/
Click on one of the languages and choose one of the texts. At the bottom of the page there is a media player thing – press play and you get someone reading the text on that page.
Some of the recordings aren’t great quality, but they are interesting nonetheless!!
Here are a few snippets, short but notable for having been read by Stefán Karlsson:
http://www.fva.is/harpa/malsaga/3hluti/fornislensk.html
If I could bring in the larger question of reconstructed vs. modern pronunciation . . . this is something that I brought up on Language Log during last spring’s eruption because I mentioned that I use the historical reconstruction pronunciation of Old Norse and was pretty much called an “odd ball” because the respondent had *never* heard any Norse scholar use a reconstructed pronunciation.
Well, that’s what I was taught in my ON course. The one colleague I have in the area uses the modern Icelandic pronunciation. And this got me thinking and talking on ADS-L about the comparative treatment for English historical languages: in Shakespeare courses, generally, students are not taught a Renaissance pronunciation; but when reading Old English course we use a historical pron. So, I’ve always used the historical, reconstructed pron., treating ON as I would OE or OHG. Just how much of an odd ball am I? Is the academic “standard” really to use the modern Icelandic pron.?
Hi, Amy,
Reconstructed pronunciation is perfectly reputable and many people prefer it–not oddball at all! I use modern Icelandic pronunciation because that’s how I was taught, mainly, but I think it also depends on how and where students are learning the language. I teach in a Scandinavian department, where Modern Icelandic is also taught, and I think it would be very confusing for students doing both languages to have to deal with two pronunciations. But I also find it reassuring to know that Modern Icelandic pronunciation, though anachronistic, is at least attested–indeed we can hear as much of it as we want. Since the reconstructed pronunciation is basically a highly educated guess, I don’t think there’s any reason in principle to prefer it (except for some specialized purposes) and that we should use whichever works best for us.
Chris
Benjamin Bagby’s done a lot of sung performances in reconstructed pronunciation with Sequentia:
http://www.sequentia.org/recordings/recording23.html
http://www.sequentia.org/recordings/recording25.html
Groove on!
Alaric
My least bad offering is probably this one:
http://notendur.hi.is/haukurth/norse/sounds/krakumal.html
I see that Vísindavefur has now posted a video of Guðvarður Már Gunnlaugsson reading chapter 6 of Íslendingabók with reconstructed pronunciation ca. 1200:
http://visindavefur.is/svar.php?id=52263
Oh, great, finally some reconstructed pronunciation! Thanks for the links. For me, that’s the only way to read Old Norse, particularly poetry.
Julian Jamiesons pronunciation in the librivox.org recording is close to horrible. His american accent is way too heavy and it sounds nothing like Old Norse, which is closer to Old English or Icelandic.
Raven of Denmarks translation of Arne Torps recording is very dramatic, but also very precise in his forming the words and sounds.
I have studied Old English, Danish Language and Literature and some Norwegian and Swedish at Danish universities and have some knowledge in the matter.
Arne Torp today sent me a link to this resource
http://www.lazarus.no/aschehoug/grip_teksten/Norront/main.html
It is not in english, but click on the titles in the lefthand side and on the horn next to the old norse texts to hear i read aloud.
Perhaps google translate can help you navigate the site.
[...] all (as opposed to reading everything as if it were modern Icelandic). For reference, here’s a post listing a few [...]