SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Notes 355
attempt is made to demonstrate that either "Friihurnordisch" or
"Spaturnordisch" is specifically "Nordisch" In the case of the
latter this is perhaps unnecessary, but since the title of this
section suggests that with "Urnordisch" we have left behind any
kind of common Germanic, a list of the criteria by which we can
distinguish North from West Germanic before c. A.D. 500 ought
to have been provided." If the purpose of Part I, B of the book is
not to demonstrate that we have from the time of the earliest
Norse inscriptions a language recognisable as specifically Norse,
there seems little point in making it separate from Part I, C ("Die
Sprachformen der urnordischen Inschriften"), and indeed in
numerous cases information contained in the one section is merely
repeated in the other. The confusion which arises from the lack
of any clear definition of "Urnordisch" is well illustrated by the
"Ausgewahlte Paradigmata zur urnordischen Flexion" which
appear on pp. 123-8. One might reasonably expect these
paradigms to consist of a series of tables containing such inflexions
as are attested in the inscriptions the book deals with. But this is
far from the case. The paradigms are almost entirely reconstructions
of a "Friihurnordisch" which would probably have been
incomprehensible to the writer of the Eggjum stone, yet this stone
is included as an "urnordische Inschrift" A number of inflexions
cannot be reconstructed on the basis of the medieval Scandinavian
languages (of which "Urnordisch" is presented as the common
parent), but only by reference to other Germanic languages.
This is the case, for example, with *gastimR, dat. pI. of gastiu,
medieval Scand. gestum, gaistum, Stentoften (Krause, Die
Runeninschriften im iilteren Futhark, 1966, hereafter abbreviated
Kr., No. 96) gestumR, Goth. gastim, OHG gestim. A prototype
which is reconstructed by reference to several languages, however,
is by definition the prototype of all these languages and not of just
the one. Because of the uncertainty as to whether we are dealing
with Northwest or North Germanic in the earliest inscriptions, and
since most of the following discussion is concerned with actual
rather than reconstructed forms, I propose to discard proto-Norse
in favour of the more general term Primitive Norse.
Let us now turn to the inscriptions themselves and Krause's
treatment of their language.
One should from the start be aware of the fact that Die Sprache
der urnordischen Runeninschriften is a grammar of Krause's
interpretation or understanding of the inscriptions. It could of
course hardly be otherwise, given the degree of uncertainty that
• The few remarks in Section A, p. 19 about the nom. masc. sing. -3 ending
and the and pers. sing. past indic. of strong verbs do not in any way establish
firm criteria.