pushing the language apart and others pulling it together, we can only speculate about
how closely speech in the eighth or ninth century resembled the mixture of uniformity
and diversity we find at the beginning of the manuscript age (Iceland and Norway
c. 1100 , Denmark and Sweden c. 1250 ). Possibly, as has sometimes been suggested
(Liestøl 1971 : 75 ; 1981 : 262 ; Widmark 2001 : 76 – 7 , 82 – 5 , 91 – 6 ), linguistic develop-
ment in the early Viking Age was steered by a mercantile coastal culture based in a few
influential trading centres. Imitation (or attempted imitation) of this allegedly pres-
tigious form of speech might have promoted a rudimentary linguistic uniformity. Or
there might have been rivalry between different centres of power, leading to different
prestige varieties. The scenario envisaged here has to be set against the rise of royal
power in Denmark and Norway in the tenth century, which must have offered alterna-
tive models of speech. Handbooks on Scandinavian linguistic history report as the
earliest dialect split one between East and West, with (by and large) medieval Danish
and Swedish representing East, Icelandic and Norwegian West Scandinavian. However,
the age of this dichotomy is difficult to establish. It is based chiefly on phonological and
morphological criteria found in medieval manuscripts, and to a lesser extent on runic
inscriptions of the late Viking Age. The inscriptions do provide evidence of some
differences between East and West. They indicate, for example, that monophthongisa-
tion of /ei/, /au/, /øy/ spread through Denmark in the tenth and Sweden in the eleventh
century, while failing to make much headway in Norway. On the other hand,
u-mutation (chiefly yielding //, written o ̨ in normalised Old Norse spelling) is well
documented in Danish and Swedish inscriptions, and there are examples of the -sk verb
suffix, notwithstanding two of the characteristics of (later) East Scandinavian are lack
of u-mutation and the reduction of the -sk suffix to -s. In reality, a great many
of the features presented in the handbooks as shibboleths dividing East and West
(cf. e.g. Wessén 1957 : 28 – 9 ) cannot be shown to have functioned as such in the Viking
Age.
While it is impossible to offer anything like an adequate account of Viking Age
Scandinavian, the flavour of the language can be gauged from examples. Below are
given the Kälvesten (Ög 8 , Östergötland, early 800 s), Jelling II (DR 42 , Jutland,
mid- 900 s) and Dynna (NIyR 68 , south-eastern Norway, early 1000 s) runic inscriptions.
Each is presented in transliteration (where ( ) denotes uncertain reading, [ ] editorial
suppletion), followed by an edited text, an English translation and brief notes on the
language.
Kälvesten
stikuR:karþi:kublþau:
aftauintsunusin:safialaustr
miRaiuisli:uikikRfaþi
aukrimulfRStyggu gærði kumbl þau aft Øyvind sunu sinn. Sá fial austr me Øyvísli.
Víking fáði auk Grímulf.Styggur made these memorials after Øyvindr his son. He fell east with Øyvísl.
Víkingr wrote and Grímulfr.–– Michael P. Barnes––