SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Latin Influence on the Norwegian Language r67
gortt." Notice also the Latin accusative and infinitive
construction.
There is another peculiarity to be noted. It is a
characteristic feature of the Latin of the Middle Ages
that it has a passion for the sonorous, melodious word.
This can be achieved, among other things, by giving
preference to words extended by suffixes. It is easy to
observe this at work in the religious literature. Thus
bcenastabr can be preferred to been and the adjectival
and adverbial suffixes -legr and -lega can be used far
more extensively. People write heilagleg for heilag,
eilifieg for eilif, oftlega for oft, ranglega for rangt, etc.
The suffix -leiki supersedes -leikr with the result that
people send God's greeting ok brodorleghan kcerleika in
letters. Bishop Hakon complains on one occasion of
vanmaat ok krankleik, but on another of vanmcette ok
kranhleika. The cumulative form vinaattoleghlceikren
coming from the same writer can also be noted. One
still notices, even today, that many clergymen show a
marked preference for the long, sonorous, melodious
word, both in speech and in writing. It is for this reason
that the Norwegian translation of the Bible contains the
expression sannelig sier jeg eder, and, similarly, that
Henrik Ibsen, with his ears open to the smallest nuance,
has the "religious" merchant, Vigeland, go round saying
sandeligen in The Pillars of Society.
It is here that the present participle, too, comes in
with its somewhat drawling, sonorous rhythm. It is
not by chance that it appears so often in a religious
context, e.g. "er pat bcenastadr vaar ... at peer seet
preim vidr hialpande j sinni naud eptir pvi sem gud skytr
hverium i hugh at gera takande af gudi ambunena ..."
It is also characteristic that the participle is so usual in
connection with the verbs pakka and bioja, whether these
constitute the finite predicate of the sentence or the
participle itself: "Bidium ver at per heilsir sira Gilsa ok
sira Erlende ., pakkande pseim firir alIa luti." "Sendu