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108-486: Arvals , Arvels or Arthels ( Old Norse Arfr , "inheritance", and öl , Old English "Ale", a banquet ), primarily the funeral dinner, and later, especially in the north of England , a thin, light, sweet cake , spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg , served to the poor at such feasts. The funeral meal was called the Arvel-dinner . On such occasions, the custom seems to have been to hold an informal inquest , when

216-547: A "middle settlement". In contrast to the Inuit, who needed immediate access to the open sea as hunters and fishermen, the agricultural Grænlendingar settled in the protected areas at the end of the long fjords . The climatic conditions there were more favorable for agriculture and pasture farming. According to current estimates, the total number of Icelanders in Greenland was a maximum of 5,000 to 6,000 people, most of whom lived in

324-500: A Romanesque arch in the east facade. Another door and two slit windows are in the south wall. The window niches expand inwards in a funnel shape - a design that is also seen in early churches in the British Isles. The gables are approximately 5m high. There are a few wall niches, but no decoration inside the church. The roof, which is no longer preserved, was originally made of wood and sod. The appearance corresponds to churches in

432-454: A bell tower with bronze bells, both of which were particularly valuable imported goods. To the south of the church and connected by a tiled path, there was a large building complex with several rooms and a hall measuring 16.75 × 7.75 m as the bishop's residence. The farm included a well and two large stables - the larger of which was 60 m long - which could accommodate 100 cows, as well as several storehouses and farm buildings. This also included

540-485: A blacksmith shop have also been preserved. On the site, slightly separated from the main complex, was the earth-walled church of Brattahlíð, of which only sparse remains remain today (a reconstruction was built on the site a few years ago) and what is now known as the church built by Thjodhild applies. A cemetery was excavated around the church containing 144 skeletons, 24 of which were children, 65 men, 39 women and 16 adults whose gender could not be determined. About half of

648-620: A central structure in the style of a longhouse , which was built on a foundation of field stones made of alternating peat sods and layers of stone. The construction method may have been adopted by the Inuit, as it was already known to the Eskimos of the Saqqaq culture (2400–900 BC). The simple roof structure was made of driftwood (in some farms also made of whale bone) and was covered with sod. A practical and artfully executed water supply and drainage system made of covered canals irrigated and drained

756-727: A change known as Holtzmann's law . An epenthetic vowel became popular by 1200 in Old Danish, 1250 in Old Swedish and Old Norwegian, and 1300 in Old Icelandic. An unstressed vowel was used which varied by dialect. Old Norwegian exhibited all three: /u/ was used in West Norwegian south of Bergen , as in aftur , aftor (older aptr ); North of Bergen, /i/ appeared in aftir , after ; and East Norwegian used /a/ , after , aftær . Old Norse

864-505: A church or chapel and a bathhouse, similar to a sauna . Many farms also had remote "Saeters", huts that were only used in the summer months for harvesting hay on remote pastures, a system similar to the Maiensäße in the Alps . The traditional name is misleading in that this settlement is located on the west coast of Greenland. This is explained by the fact that their location at the end of

972-417: A female raven or a male crow. All neuter words have identical nominative and accusative forms, and all feminine words have identical nominative and accusative plurals. The gender of some words' plurals does not agree with that of their singulars, such as lim and mund . Some words, such as hungr , have multiple genders, evidenced by their determiners being declined in different genders within

1080-473: A forge where traces of bog iron were found. Connected to the property was a harbor with boat sheds on the Einarsfjord. In total, the complex includes around 40 larger and smaller buildings and this alone proves the outstanding position that Gardar held in Greenland's Viking society. Hvalsey Church is the best-preserved Grænlendingar building today. The simple, rectangular church was built around 1300 on

1188-412: A front vowel to be split into a semivowel-vowel sequence before a back vowel in the following syllable. While West Norse only broke /e/ , East Norse also broke /i/ . The change was blocked by a /w/ , /l/ , or /ʀ/ preceding the potentially-broken vowel. Some /ja/ or /jɔ/ and /jaː/ or /jɔː/ result from breaking of /e/ and /eː/ respectively. When a noun, pronoun, adjective, or verb has

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1296-410: A gentle slope not far from the fjord shore. As is usual with old churches, it is oriented east–west. The approximately 1.5 m thick walls are artfully stacked stone. Clay may also have been used as mortar. Turf then covered the clayThere is evidence that the exterior walls were originally whitewashed. The church has a low doorway with a rectangular window above it in the west facade and a larger window with

1404-409: A given sentence. Nouns, adjectives, and pronouns were declined in four grammatical cases – nominative , accusative , genitive , and dative  – in singular and plural numbers. Adjectives and pronouns were additionally declined in three grammatical genders. Some pronouns (first and second person) could have dual number in addition to singular and plural. The genitive

1512-414: A group of buildings on a larger area. It included stables for sheep, goats, cattle and - at least in the early days of the settlements - also pigs and Icelandic horses . There were also barns, storehouses and farm buildings, from the remains of which one can conclude that textile production and dairy farming were primarily carried out there. The main building was a conglomeration of interconnecting rooms with

1620-472: A horse. Bones of domestic cattle were also found. Based on the teeth, it was possible to determine that the cows lived to a relatively old age and were therefore used more for milk production than for meat production. The comparative measurements taken prove that the domesticated animals were rather small and strong in stature. Earth samples proved that the Vikings used slash-and-burn agriculture to cultivate

1728-690: A latitude of 73°. A twelve centimeter long runestone, known as the Kingittorsuaq Runestone , from the early 14th century was inserted into one of them, which names the date April 25 (the year is not specified) and the three members of such a hunting expedition. The living conditions must have been similar to those in Iceland. Of the 24 children's skeletons at the Thjodhilds Church in Brattahlid, 15 were of infants, one child

1836-494: A long time. In return, the colony received the promise of regular shipping connections. This step also resulted in a Norwegian trading monopoly. In 1294, King Eirik Magnusson of Norway issued letters of privilege to local merchants for the Greenland trade. All others, especially the Hanseatic League, were forbidden from shipping to Greenland. Apparently there was regular trade with one or two "state" ships per year until

1944-584: A long vowel or diphthong in the accented syllable and its stem ends in a single l , n , or s , the r (or the elder r - or z -variant ʀ ) in an ending is assimilated. When the accented vowel is short, the ending is dropped. The nominative of the strong masculine declension and some i-stem feminine nouns uses one such -r (ʀ). Óðin-r ( Óðin-ʀ ) becomes Óðinn instead of * Óðinr ( * Óðinʀ ). The verb blása ('to blow'), has third person present tense blæss ('[he] blows') rather than * blæsr ( * blæsʀ ). Similarly,

2052-474: A noun must mirror the gender of that noun , so that one says, " heill maðr! " but, " heilt barn! ". As in other languages, the grammatical gender of an impersonal noun is generally unrelated to an expected natural gender of that noun. While indeed karl , "man" is masculine, kona , "woman", is feminine, and hús , "house", is neuter, so also are hrafn and kráka , for "raven" and "crow", masculine and feminine respectively, even in reference to

2160-476: A similar development influenced by Middle Low German . Various languages unrelated to Old Norse and others not closely related have been heavily influenced by Norse, particularly the Norman language ; to a lesser extent, Finnish and Estonian . Russian, Ukrainian , Belarusian , Lithuanian and Latvian also have a few Norse loanwords. The words Rus and Russia , according to one theory, may be named after

2268-543: A small church built some distance from the court makes the very early presence of a priest appear credible. Apart from a few small amulets, there is no archaeological evidence of the practice of pagan rituals. Christian churches and chapels have been excavated on numerous farms, including the Church of Brattahlíð , to which the Grœnlendinga saga's account of the little church of Thjodhild fits exactly. These churches were built by

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2376-608: A voiced velar fricative [ɣ] in all cases, and others have that realisation only in the middle of words and between vowels (with it otherwise being realised [ɡ] ). The Old East Norse /ʀ/ was an apical consonant , with its precise position unknown; it is reconstructed as a palatal sibilant . It descended from Proto-Germanic /z/ and eventually developed into /r/ , as had already occurred in Old West Norse. The consonant digraphs ⟨hl⟩ , ⟨hr⟩ , and ⟨hn⟩ occurred word-initially. It

2484-467: A vowel or semivowel of a different vowel backness . In the case of i-umlaut and ʀ-umlaut , this entails a fronting of back vowels, with retention of lip rounding. In the case of u-umlaut , this entails labialization of unrounded vowels. Umlaut is phonemic and in many situations grammatically significant as a side effect of losing the Proto-Germanic morphological suffixes whose vowels created

2592-448: A word. Strong verbs ablaut the lemma 's nucleus to derive the past forms of the verb. This parallels English conjugation, where, e.g., the nucleus of sing becomes sang in the past tense and sung in the past participle. Some verbs are derived by ablaut, as the present-in-past verbs do by consequence of being derived from the past tense forms of strong verbs. Umlaut or mutation is an assimilatory process acting on vowels preceding

2700-560: Is called the " Medieval Warm Period ". The group departed Iceland with 25 ships, of which, according to the description in the land acquisition book, 14 reached the Greenland coast. The farms built by the first settlers on the Eriksfjord formed the core of the Eastern Settlement . Icelandic sources suggest that at least three more fleets carrying settlers reached Greenland in the following 14 years. The Western Settlement

2808-544: Is classified as Old West Norse, and Old West Norse traits were found in western Sweden . In what is present-day Denmark and Sweden, most speakers spoke Old East Norse. Though Old Gutnish is sometimes included in the Old East Norse dialect due to geographical associations, it developed its own unique features and shared in changes to both other branches. The 12th-century Icelandic Gray Goose Laws state that Swedes , Norwegians , Icelanders , and Danes spoke

2916-465: Is expected to exist, such as in the male names Ragnarr , Steinarr (supposedly * Ragnarʀ , * Steinarʀ ), the result is apparently always /rː/ rather than */rʀ/ or */ʀː/ . This is observable in the Runic corpus. In Old Norse, i/j adjacent to i , e , their u-umlauts, and æ was not possible, nor u/v adjacent to u , o , their i-umlauts, and ǫ . At

3024-540: Is located about 500 km north of the eastern settlement in the area around today's capital Nuuk in a less favorable climatic location. It was smaller and more modestly equipped and comprised around 90 farms near today's Kapisillit settlement. From 1991 to 1996, the Danish Polar Center, in collaboration with the University of Alberta , researched the "Gården under sandet or Farm beneath the sand" in

3132-525: Is located in a sheltered location at the end of the approximately 100 km long Eriksfjord. It goes back directly to a founding by Erik the Red. Fertile soils and rich pastures made livestock farming possible. The Norwegian priest Ívarr Bárðason reported around the middle of the 14th century that even apples were said to have ripened in favorable years. The eastern settlement includes the largest and richest farms in Greenland. Erik's farm Brattahlíð (Brattahlid)

3240-584: Is more common in Old West Norse in both phonemic and allophonic positions, while it only occurs sparsely in post-runic Old East Norse and even in runic Old East Norse. This is still a major difference between Swedish and Faroese and Icelandic today. Plurals of neuters do not have u-umlaut at all in Swedish, but in Faroese and Icelandic they do, for example the Faroese and Icelandic plurals of the word land , lond and lönd respectively, in contrast to

3348-454: Is obviously fabulous. The news found in Rimbert 's Vita Anskarii that Pope Gregory had also appointed Ansgar of Bremen legate for Greenland and that Pope Nicholas I had commissioned him to proselytize in Greenland, is considered a later, false insertion. However, Adam's news that Archbishop Adalbert had ordained the first bishop Ísleifur Gissurarson for Iceland and also for Greenland

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3456-469: Is particularly noticeable after 1300, when few sagas were written, and accounts of earlier events are unreliable. Original documents have varying credibility. Adam praises the Danish king Sven Estridson for his scholarship and confesses that he learned many important facts for his book, but his description of Greenlanders, whom he describes as "pale green like the sea," from which Greenland gets its name.,

3564-489: Is sound. Some accounts are derivative because they have been obviously taken from other sources. Other texts are obviously fictions, but their embedding in Greenlandic society can accurately reflect the conditions there as a background. Ari Þorgilsson writes in his Íslendingabók that he got his information from his uncle, who had a good memory and who spoke to someone in Greenland who had sailed to Greenland with Erik

3672-459: Is that the nonphonemic difference between the voiced and the voiceless dental fricative is marked. The oldest texts and runic inscriptions use þ exclusively. Long vowels are denoted with acutes . Most other letters are written with the same glyph as the IPA phoneme, except as shown in the table below. Ablaut patterns are groups of vowels which are swapped, or ablauted, in the nucleus of

3780-462: Is the description of Greenland by Ívarr Bárðarson , who stayed there for several years. The Skarðárannáll also enjoys a high reputation, although some dating errors can be found in later additions. Written sources can be confusing, for example, it is not possible to determine whether a date is 1406, 1456 or 1460. There are no source written in Greenland itself. There is no Greenlandic collection of laws, no chronicles, no annals of any kind. This absence

3888-557: Is unclear whether they were sequences of two consonants (with the first element realised as /h/ or perhaps /x/ ) or as single voiceless sonorants /l̥/ , /r̥/ and /n̥/ respectively. In Old Norwegian, Old Danish and later Old Swedish, the groups ⟨hl⟩ , ⟨hr⟩ , and ⟨hn⟩ were reduced to plain ⟨l⟩ , ⟨r⟩ , ⟨n⟩ , which suggests that they had most likely already been pronounced as voiceless sonorants by Old Norse times. The pronunciation of ⟨hv⟩

3996-620: Is unclear, but it may have been /xʷ/ (the Proto-Germanic pronunciation), /hʷ/ or the similar phoneme /ʍ/ . Unlike the three other digraphs, it was retained much longer in all dialects. Without ever developing into a voiceless sonorant in Icelandic, it instead underwent fortition to a plosive /kv/ , which suggests that instead of being a voiceless sonorant, it retained a stronger frication. Primary stress in Old Norse falls on

4104-891: The Króka-Refs saga (Story of Fox the Cunning), a more novelistic tale from the 14th century, the Fóstbrœðra saga (The Story of the Oath Brothers), the story of Olaf Tryggvason in the Heimskringla , the Konungs skuggsjá , and Adam of Bremen . Individual messages can also be found in the Icelandic Annals , which are reproduced in translation below. Geographical notes about Greenland (Gripla, Landabók and others) remain unmentioned here. Three Eskimo stories about

4212-490: The Arctic Circle to what is now Disko Bay . The following year he sailed back to Iceland. He managed to win over approximately 700 people by convincing them that they would find lush pastures and the best conditions for settlement in "Green land", as he called the newly discovered land. The chosen name was euphemistic, but probably not entirely unrealistic. Warming has also been proven elsewhere during this period and

4320-638: The Faroe Islands , Orkneys and Shetlands . Since church buildings in Iceland and Norway were usually made of wood, this may suggest regular contact between the colony and the British Isles. The church was the scene of the last recorded event in Greenland. A wedding took place there on September 14, 1408. The guests came from Iceland in 1408 and returned in 1410. Of the surrounding courtyards, only sparse remains of residential buildings, stables, warehouses and storehouses remain; some of them have not yet been examined by archaeologists. The western settlement

4428-535: The Latin alphabet , there was no standardized orthography in use in the Middle Ages. A modified version of the letter wynn called vend was used briefly for the sounds /u/ , /v/ , and /w/ . Long vowels were sometimes marked with acutes but also sometimes left unmarked or geminated. The standardized Old Norse spelling was created in the 19th century and is, for the most part, phonemic. The most notable deviation

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4536-667: The Rus' people , a Norse tribe, probably from present-day east-central Sweden. The current Finnish and Estonian words for Sweden are Ruotsi and Rootsi , respectively. A number of loanwords have been introduced into Irish , many associated with fishing and sailing. A similar influence is found in Scottish Gaelic , with over one hundred loanwords estimated to be in the language, many of which are related to fishing and sailing. Old Norse vowel phonemes mostly come in pairs of long and short. The standardized orthography marks

4644-472: The corpse was publicly exposed, to exculpate the heir and those entitled to the property of the dead from all accusations of foul play . Attribution: This death -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Old Norse Old Norse , also referred to as Old Nordic , or Old Scandinavian , was a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse

4752-668: The word stem , so that hyrjar would be pronounced /ˈhyr.jar/ . In compound words, secondary stress falls on the second stem (e.g. lærisveinn , /ˈlɛːɾ.iˌswɛinː/ ). Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark , runic Old Norse was originally written with the Younger Futhark , which had only 16 letters. Because of the limited number of runes, several runes were used for different sounds, and long and short vowels were not distinguished in writing. Medieval runes came into use some time later. As for

4860-557: The 11th century in most of Old East Norse. However, the distinction still holds in Dalecarlian dialects . The dots in the following vowel table separate the oral from nasal phonemes. Note: The open or open-mid vowels may be transcribed differently: Sometime around the 13th century, /ɔ/ (spelled ⟨ǫ⟩ ) merged with /ø/ or /o/ in most dialects except Old Danish , and Icelandic where /ɔ/ ( ǫ ) merged with /ø/ . This can be determined by their distinction within

4968-979: The 12th-century First Grammatical Treatise but not within the early 13th-century Prose Edda . The nasal vowels, also noted in the First Grammatical Treatise, are assumed to have been lost in most dialects by this time (but notably they are retained in Elfdalian and other dialects of Ovansiljan ). See Old Icelandic for the mergers of /øː/ (spelled ⟨œ⟩ ) with /ɛː/ (spelled ⟨æ⟩ ) and /ɛ/ (spelled ⟨ę⟩ ) with /e/ (spelled ⟨e⟩ ). Old Norse had three diphthong phonemes: /ɛi/ , /ɔu/ , /øy ~ ɛy/ (spelled ⟨ei⟩ , ⟨au⟩ , ⟨ey⟩ respectively). In East Norse these would monophthongize and merge with /eː/ and /øː/ , whereas in West Norse and its descendants

5076-668: The 13th century there. The age of the Swedish-speaking population of Finland is strongly contested, but Swedish settlement had spread the language into the region by the time of the Second Swedish Crusade in the 13th century at the latest. The modern descendants of the Old West Norse dialect are the West Scandinavian languages of Icelandic , Faroese , Norwegian , and the extinct Norn language of Orkney and Shetland , although Norwegian

5184-665: The Eastern one). Estimates put the combined population of the settlements at their height between 2,000 and 10,000, with recent estimates trending toward the lower figure. Archeologists have identified the ruins of approximately 620 farms: 500 in the Eastern Settlement, 95 in the Western Settlement, and 20 in the Middle Settlement. It is very likely that Erik the Red held a leadership position in

5292-483: The Einarfjord and was the episcopal see of Greenland. The largest agricultural property - even before Brattahlid - was owned by the church. Garðar Cathedral Ruins , dedicated to Saint Nicholas , of which little more than the foundation walls remain, was 27 m long when completed at the beginning of the 13th century and 16 m wide in the cross choir including the side chapels. It had windows made of greenish glass and

5400-432: The Eriksfjord, which extends to the east, required a longer journey from the coast to the east. The fjord is surrounded by rolling hills and characterized by numerous small and tiny islands. In the sheltered areas in the interior of the fjord, subarctic vegetation blooms lushly in summer. The climate is still the mildest in Greenland today. The eastern settlement is the oldest Grænlendingar settlement, comprised 192 farms and

5508-572: The Faroe Islands, Faroese has also been influenced by Danish. Both Middle English (especially northern English dialects within the area of the Danelaw ) and Early Scots (including Lowland Scots ) were strongly influenced by Norse and contained many Old Norse loanwords . Consequently, Modern English (including Scottish English ), inherited a significant proportion of its vocabulary directly from Norse. The development of Norman French

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5616-491: The Neo-Eskimo culture (Skrælingar). The following spring, Erik sailed further north and entered a large fjord that was named Eiriksfjord (Eriksfjord) after him. At the end of the fjord, at a latitude of around 61°, he founded his farm Brattahlíð (Brattahlid) in the most climatically favorable area of Greenland. First he built a rectangular wooden hall. From there he undertook several exploratory trips that took him beyond

5724-515: The Norsemen have been passed down in oral tradition. They were recorded in the 19th century and published by Hinrich Johannes Rink under the title "Eskimoiske Eventyr og Sagn" in Copenhagen 1866–1871. Even though these stories are very legendary and fairytale-like, they still represent the only evidence of the memory of the Eskimos on this topic. From the 14th century, the most important source

5832-590: The Red . Archeology has now produced results that can be used to check individual reports. The Viking expansion in the Early Middle Ages had its roots in two main social characteristics. The inheritance law in force among the Nordic peoples at the time favored the firstborn son . When new arable and pastureland in Scandinavia could no longer be developed due to the relatively dense settlement,

5940-595: The Saga of the Greenlanders, Erik's son Leifr (Leif Eriksson) brought Christianity to Greenland around 1000. The Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar ("Story of Olaf Tryggvason") reports the same thing in the Heimskringla . According to this report, he already had a priest with him. The Grœnlendinga saga did not mention him, but the fact that the wife of Erik the Red Þórhildr (Thorhild, after the baptism Þjóðhildr - Thjodhild) had

6048-586: The Snæfellsnes peninsula with the outlaws Þorbjörn (Thorbjörn), Eyjólfr (Eyjolf) and Styrr (Styr) to find Gunnbjörn's land. He reached the Greenland coast at "Miðjökull" (Midjökul; probably today's Amassalik in East Greenland), then sailed south and rounded Cape Farvel to find suitable land for settlement. He spent his first winter on an island off the south coast. According to the Íslendingabók, he found traces of settlement there, which probably came from

6156-473: The Swedish plural land and numerous other examples. That also applies to almost all feminine nouns, for example the largest feminine noun group, the o-stem nouns (except the Swedish noun jord mentioned above), and even i-stem nouns and root nouns , such as Old West Norse mǫrk ( mörk in Icelandic) in comparison with Modern and Old Swedish mark . Vowel breaking, or fracture, caused

6264-594: The Western Settlement, which dates back to between 1000 and 1400 AD. The excavation results provided important insights into the architecture and construction of a Viking residential building as well as the residents' food supply. The excavation field is located on a hill at the end of the Lysufjord, about 80 kilometers east of Nuuk. The rectangular residential building measuring 12 × 5 m was built entirely from peat sods , which were stacked on top of each other at an angle of approx. 45° and formed walls 1.9 m thick. The roof

6372-407: The area and burned down the birch bushes that originally grew there to create pastures. In summary, the excavation results so far allow us to conclude that the living conditions were significantly less favorable than in the eastern settlement. The northern hunting area played an important role in the food supply and in the procurement of export goods. It was probably located at a latitude of 70° in

6480-540: The area of today's Disko Bay. There are no known permanent Viking settlements north of the Arctic Circle, but written sources provide evidence of annual hunting expeditions in the summer months. These ventures served to provide the essential supply of meat as a nutritional supplement, but also to procure walrus ivory, narwhal teeth, seal and polar bear fur, eider down, muskox horns and caribou antlers. Norðrsetur could be reached by rowed boats in 30 days from

6588-541: The beginning of words, this manifested as a dropping of the initial /j/ (which was general, independent of the following vowel) or /v/ . Compare ON orð , úlfr , ár with English word, wolf, year . In inflections, this manifested as the dropping of the inflectional vowels. Thus, klæði + dat -i remains klæði , and sjáum in Icelandic progressed to sjǫ́um > sjǫ́m > sjám . The * jj and * ww of Proto-Germanic became ggj and ggv respectively in Old Norse,

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6696-411: The cluster */Crʀ/ cannot be realized as /Crː/ , nor as */Crʀ/ , nor as */Cʀː/ . The same shortening as in vetr also occurs in lax = laks ('salmon') (as opposed to * lakss , * laksʀ ), botn ('bottom') (as opposed to * botnn , * botnʀ ), and jarl (as opposed to * jarll , * jarlʀ ). Furthermore, wherever the cluster */rʀ/

6804-479: The common grave, 23 were between 30 and 50 years old. Of the 39 women, there were only three, and only one got older. There are also a few from a group whose age over 20 could not be determined. The average height of men was 171 cm - quite a few were 184–185 cm - and that of women was 156 cm; this is higher than the average in Denmark around 1900. All had good teeth, although significantly worn, and there

6912-457: The diet of Scandinavian Greenlanders. He found that the meat diet consisted on average of 20 percent beef, 20 percent goat and sheep meat, 45 percent seal meat, 10 percent caribou and 5 percent other meat, with the proportion of caribou and seal meat being significantly higher in the poorer western settlement was than in the eastern settlement. Apparently the inhabitants also regularly fished; because floats and weights from fishing nets were found in

7020-449: The diphthongs remained. Old Norse has six plosive phonemes, /p/ being rare word-initially and /d/ and /b/ pronounced as voiced fricative allophones between vowels except in compound words (e.g. veðrabati ), already in the Proto-Germanic language (e.g. * b *[β] > [v] between vowels). The /ɡ/ phoneme was pronounced as [ɡ] after an /n/ or another /ɡ/ and as [k] before /s/ and /t/ . Some accounts have it

7128-467: The early days of the colony. In contrast to Norway, Iceland and the Faroe Islands, Greenland was never politically organized as a coherent state. There is no evidence of an official leadership personality for the subsequent period. But the chief in Brattahlid can be said to have a special influence due to its central location and tradition. Since the 14th century, Brattahlid provided the Lögsögumaður ,

7236-485: The eastern settlement. So far, the remains of around 300 farms, 16 community churches (plus several chapels), a Benedictine monastery of St. Olaf near Unartok and a monastery on the Tasermiut Fjord are known. The excavations at Brattahlid, especially more so those of a farmstead near Narsaq in the 1950s and '60s, give a good idea of what the settlements looked like. The typical Grænlendingarhof consisted of

7344-404: The houses. The stables were also built from stones and sod. The cowshed always had two connected rooms, the cattle shed itself with the stalls and a larger feed chamber. The approximately 1.5 m thick outer wall, made of field stone, was preceded by a several meter thick wall made of sod and earth to insulate it from the cold. There are stone blocks weighing up to 10 tons. The more important farms had

7452-518: The large pasture areas required for livestock breeding, the farms were widely separated from each other and were effectively self-sufficient. The Norwegian textbook Konungs skuggsjá (King's Mirror) reports in the 13th century that the Greenlandic farmers lived primarily on meat, milk (Skyr, a sour milk product similar to our quark), butter and cheese. Archaeologist Thomas McGovern from the City University of New York used rubbish piles to study

7560-546: The larger eastern settlement (Eystribyggð) around today's Qaqortoq and the smaller western settlement (Vestribyggð) around today's city of Nuuk - both of which are located on the west coast of Greenland. Due to the far reaches of the Gulf Stream , the climate in these areas is significantly more favorable than in all other areas of Greenland. Between the two settlements there were still a few scattered farms (near today's Ivittuut ), which are summarized in some publications as

7668-399: The long vowels with an acute accent. In medieval manuscripts, it is often unmarked but sometimes marked with an accent or through gemination . Old Norse had nasalized versions of all ten vowel places. These occurred as allophones of the vowels before nasal consonants and in places where a nasal had followed it in an older form of the word, before it was absorbed into a neighboring sound. If

7776-408: The men - quite a few over 1.80 m tall - were between 40 and 60 years old. Many of them showed clear signs of arthritis and badly worn teeth. There is a mass grave in the cemetery containing the remains of 13 people. These skeletons, as well as several others, show traces of sword and ax blows, which suggest endemic violence. Gardar (today Igaliku ) lies on a fertile plain between the Eriksfjord and

7884-544: The mid- to late 14th century, ending the language phase known as Old Norse. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse is found well into the 15th century. Old Norse was divided into three dialects : Old West Norse (Old West Nordic, often referred to as Old Norse ), Old East Norse (Old East Nordic), and Old Gutnish . Old West Norse and Old East Norse formed a dialect continuum , with no clear geographical boundary between them. Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway , although Old Norwegian

7992-730: The most conservative language, such that in present-day Iceland, schoolchildren are able to read the 12th-century Icelandic sagas in the original language (in editions with normalised spelling). Old Icelandic was very close to Old Norwegian , and together they formed Old West Norse , which was also spoken in Norse settlements in Greenland , the Faroes , Ireland , Scotland , the Isle of Man , northwest England, and in Normandy . Old East Norse

8100-514: The nasal was absorbed by a stressed vowel, it would also lengthen the vowel. This nasalization also occurred in the other Germanic languages, but were not retained long. They were noted in the First Grammatical Treatise , and otherwise might have remained unknown. The First Grammarian marked these with a dot above the letter. This notation did not catch on, and would soon be obsolete. Nasal and oral vowels probably merged around

8208-429: The north and male skeletons in the south of the church. The greater the distance from the church, the more superficial the burial, which suggests that the distance of the grave from the church depended on the social status of the dead person. The Greenlandic economy was based primarily on three pillars: livestock farming, hunting and catching animals, which provided food, and trade goods in varying proportions. Because of

8316-425: The only alternative left to those born later was to build up their own property outside the established structures. This was promoted by the high value that personal daring, willingness to take risks and physical resilience had in the local society. With advances in shipbuilding around the 8th century, the tools became available to travel to the edge of the known world and found settlements there. The springboard for

8424-641: The other North Germanic languages. Faroese retains many similarities but is influenced by Danish, Norwegian, and Gaelic ( Scottish and/or Irish ). Although Swedish, Danish and Norwegian have diverged the most, they still retain considerable mutual intelligibility . Speakers of modern Swedish, Norwegian and Danish can mostly understand each other without studying their neighboring languages, particularly if speaking slowly. The languages are also sufficiently similar in writing that they can mostly be understood across borders. This could be because these languages have been mutually affected by each other, as well as having

8532-601: The relatively comfortable living conditions in Norway and travel to inhospitable Greenland. He was represented there by a vicar. He and his successors did not forego the Greenlanders' Church tithe . The lack of an overarching power meant that local rulers found themselves in an endless series of conflicts. In order to end the constant disputes, the Greenland colony subordinated itself to the Norwegian crown in 1261. King Hákon Hákonarson had also been working towards this step for

8640-524: The respective landlord, and he was therefore – initially – also entitled to the taxes payable by the parish. Until the 11th century, Greenland was under the Archdiocese of Bremen . The Grœnlendinga saga reports that in 1118 the colony sent Einarr Sokkason to Norway to persuade King Sigurðr Jórsalafari (Sigurd the Jerusalem Rider) to assign Greenland its own bishop. The first Greenlandic bishop

8748-536: The root vowel, ǫ , is short. The clusters */Clʀ, Csʀ, Cnʀ, Crʀ/ cannot yield */Clː, Csː, Cnː, Crː/ respectively, instead /Cl, Cs, Cn, Cr/ . The effect of this shortening can result in the lack of distinction between some forms of the noun. In the case of vetr ('winter'), the nominative and accusative singular and plural forms are identical. The nominative singular and nominative and accusative plural would otherwise have been OWN * vetrr , OEN * wintrʀ . These forms are impossible because

8856-441: The same language, dǫnsk tunga ("Danish tongue"; speakers of Old East Norse would have said dansk tunga ). Another term was norrœnt mál ("northern speech"). Today Old Norse has developed into the modern North Germanic languages Icelandic , Faroese , Norwegian , Danish , Swedish , and other North Germanic varieties of which Norwegian, Danish and Swedish retain considerable mutual intelligibility . Icelandic remains

8964-729: The scholar Ari Thorgilsson , the Landnámabók (the land seizure book) by an unknown author, but probably with Ari's involvement, the anonymous Grænlendinga saga (Saga of the Greenlanders) and the also anonymous Saga of Erik the Red . But there is also information about the inhabitants of Greenland in other works; these are: the Flóamanna saga (Story of the People of Flói), the Einars þáttr Sokkasonar (Story of Einar Sokkason),

9072-719: The seafarer Gunnbjörn Ulfsson was on a voyage from Norway to Iceland and his ship drifted towards a western coast, probably in the area of today's Cape Farvel on the southern tip of Greenland. He had sighted icebergs , skerries and a desolate, inhumane landscape and therefore did not go ashore. Erik the Red acquired the Haukadalr farm on the Icelandic Breiðafjörður (Breidafjord; near today's Búðardalur in northwest Iceland) through marriage. The Althing sent him into exile for three years for committing murder. The Landnámabók reports that in 982 he sailed west from

9180-420: The second half of the 14th century. The Kalmar Union was to prove disastrous for trade with Greenland because the remote outpost was of little interest to the Danish royal family and trade dried up. The extent to which the Hanseatic League filled the gap, defying the Norwegian monopoly, still requires further investigation. In the literature, a distinction is made between two Icelandic settlements in Greenland -

9288-408: The settlement of Greenland was the settlement of Iceland . According to current estimates, 50,000 to 60,000 people lived in Iceland in the 10th century. A stable social structure had been established and good land was in legally secure ownership. This stable distribution of land, several years of bad harvests and a famine provided the setting to look for new settlement areas in the 970s. Around 900,

9396-416: The settlements. Finds of hand mills in some farms in the eastern settlement suggest that grain was also grown to a small extent in favored locations. But it was probably mainly imported. The Konungs skuggsjá reports that only the most powerful Bonden (with farms in the best locations) grew some grain for their own use. An important source of vitamins was "Kvan" ( Angelica ), which was brought to Greenland by

9504-613: The settlers and can still be found in gardens there today. Stems and roots can be prepared as a salad or vegetable. The constant lack of wood proved to be a problem. At the turn of the millennium, only small Dwarf Birchs and Dwarf Willows grew in Greenland, and their use as timber was limited. The driftwood washed ashore with the Gulf Stream was of inferior quality. Therefore, lumber was an important (and expensive) imported commodity. Other crucial imports were iron implements and weapons. There were no known ore deposits in Greenland at

9612-481: The speaker of the law; it is not certain whether he performed the same function as in Iceland. Although according to tradition Erik the Red was not a Christian, the colony was soon Christianized. However, the Íslendingabók and the Grœnlendinga saga (Saga of the Greenlanders) unanimously report that at the first settlement Herjólfr (Herjolf), a companion of Erik, had a Christian from the Hebrides on board. According to

9720-462: The time of the Vikings. The already not very productive smelting of iron ore quickly reached its limits due to the lack of suitable fuel (charcoal), so that the settlements were almost entirely dependent on imports. An example shows how dramatic the iron shortage was: During excavations in the Western Settlement in the 1930s, a battle ax was found. It was modeled down to the smallest detail on an iron ax, but made from whale bone. Besides drying, curing

9828-497: The umlaut allophones . Some /y/ , /yː/ , /ø/ , /øː/ , /ɛ/ , /ɛː/ , /øy/ , and all /ɛi/ were obtained by i-umlaut from /u/ , /uː/ , /o/ , /oː/ , /a/ , /aː/ , /au/ , and /ai/ respectively. Others were formed via ʀ-umlaut from /u/ , /uː/ , /a/ , /aː/ , and /au/ . Some /y/ , /yː/ , /ø/ , /øː/ , and all /ɔ/ , /ɔː/ were obtained by u-umlaut from /i/ , /iː/ , /e/ , /eː/ , and /a/ , /aː/ respectively. See Old Icelandic for information on /ɔː/ . /œ/

9936-482: The verb skína ('to shine') had present tense third person skínn (rather than * skínr , * skínʀ ); while kala ('to cool down') had present tense third person kell (rather than * kelr , * kelʀ ). The rule is not absolute, with certain counter-examples such as vinr ('friend'), which has the synonym vin , yet retains the unabsorbed version, and jǫtunn (' giant '), where assimilation takes place even though

10044-526: The western settlement and in 50 days from the eastern settlement. In this area there may also have been encounters with the Inuit of the Thule culture. As early as 2500 BC. Settlements and hunting grounds of the Eskimo cultures have been documented at Disko Bay (Sermermiut). There is also clear evidence of occasional expeditions even further north. In 1824 three cairns were discovered on Kingittorsuaq Island at

10152-493: Was Arctic char ( Salvelinus alpinus ), followed by cod ( Gadus morhua ) and capelin ( Mallotus villosus ). The bird bones found and identified come primarily from ptarmigan ( Lagopus muta ) and to a lesser extent from mallards ( Anas platyrhynchos ) and eider ducks ( Somateria mollissima ). Important food animals from the mammalian fauna were seals and reindeer. The excavated remains of the breeding animals come - in roughly equal proportions - mainly from sheep and goats as well as from

10260-448: Was Arnaldr from 1126, whose presumed remains were unearthed under the floor of the church of Garðar (other assumptions go to Bishop Jón Smyrill, died 1209). Several other bishops followed, for whose support significant benefices were set up. Around 1350 the church owned the largest farm and around two thirds of the best pasture land. The last Greenlandic bishop died in 1378. A successor was also appointed for him, but he refused to give up

10368-404: Was a moderately inflected language with high levels of nominal and verbal inflection. Most of the fused morphemes are retained in modern Icelandic, especially in regard to noun case declensions, whereas modern Norwegian in comparison has moved towards more analytical word structures. Old Norse had three grammatical genders – masculine, feminine, and neuter. Adjectives or pronouns referring to

10476-400: Was also influenced by Norse. Through Norman, to a smaller extent, so was modern French. Written modern Icelandic derives from the Old Norse phonemic writing system. Contemporary Icelandic-speakers can read Old Norse, which varies slightly in spelling as well as semantics and word order. However, pronunciation, particularly of the vowel phonemes, has changed at least as much in Icelandic as in

10584-473: Was built about 500 km north of the East Settlement, but it always had to exist under less favorable conditions. By 1000, practically all climatically relevant areas of Greenland were populated. The Norse settled in three separate locations in south-western Greenland: the larger Eastern Settlement , the smaller Western Settlement, and the still smaller Middle Settlement (often considered part of

10692-583: Was heavily influenced by the East dialect, and is today more similar to East Scandinavian (Danish and Swedish) than to Icelandic and Faroese. The descendants of the Old East Norse dialect are the East Scandinavian languages of Danish and Swedish . Among these, the grammar of Icelandic and Faroese have changed the least from Old Norse in the last thousand years, though their pronunciations both have changed considerably from Old Norse. With Danish rule of

10800-467: Was made of wooden rafters (probably driftwood) and was covered with wattle and daub with long pieces of peat resting on it. In the middle of the house there was a long fireplace (Langeldr) with seats in the two side aisles. A cooking zone with a separate fireplace (Maleldr) was on the north side. As can be concluded from the excavated waste, the inhabitants' diet included both wild animals (fish, birds and mammals) and domesticated animals. The main food fish

10908-537: Was no tooth decay. The most common disease found in the skeletons was severe Gout in the back and hips. Some were so crooked and stiff in the joints that they could not be laid down for burial. However, gout was widespread in Scandinavia during the Viking Age . Other diseases can no longer be diagnosed today. The custom of the burial place was also adopted from Norway and Iceland: female skeletons predominate in

11016-535: Was obtained through a simultaneous u- and i-umlaut of /a/ . It appears in words like gøra ( gjǫra , geyra ), from Proto-Germanic *garwijaną , and commonly in verbs with a velar consonant before the suffix like søkkva < *sankwijaną . OEN often preserves the original value of the vowel directly preceding runic ʀ while OWN receives ʀ-umlaut. Compare runic OEN glaʀ, haʀi, hrauʀ with OWN gler, heri (later héri ), hrøyrr/hreyrr ("glass", "hare", "pile of rocks"). U-umlaut

11124-474: Was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements and chronologically coincides with the Viking Age , the Christianization of Scandinavia , and the consolidation of Scandinavian kingdoms from about the 8th to the 15th centuries. The Proto-Norse language developed into Old Norse by the 8th century, and Old Norse began to develop into the modern North Germanic languages in

11232-711: Was spoken in Denmark, Sweden, Kievan Rus' , eastern England, and Danish settlements in Normandy. The Old Gutnish dialect was spoken in Gotland and in various settlements in the East. In the 11th century, Old Norse was the most widely spoken European language , ranging from Vinland in the West to the Volga River in the East. In Kievan Rus' , it survived the longest in Veliky Novgorod , probably lasting into

11340-497: Was the most important in the eastern settlement; it was excavated in the 1930s. An extensive complex with several interconnecting residential buildings contained an 80-foot-long hall that served as a central living and meeting room. Two stable buildings accommodated 50 cows. The dimensions of the boxes and the bone finds suggest that the cattle, with a shoulder height of around 1.20 m, were much smaller than today's cattle. The foundations of several storehouses and farm buildings as well as

11448-531: Was the only way to preserve meat. This required salt, which also had to be imported. The settlement also had a number of export goods that were very popular in the rest of Europe: The white Gyrfalcons of Greenland were a very sought-after export item and reached the Arab countries along complex trade routes. The narwhal tusk, which was believed in European royal and princely courts to be able to neutralize poison,

11556-414: Was three years old, one was seven years old and four were eleven to twelve years old. The infant mortality rate in Iceland in 1850 was of a similar magnitude, even if one takes into account that not all dead newborns were buried at the church. The small number of older children who died indicates good living conditions. Nor do any infectious diseases appear to have raged on a large scale. Of the 53 men outside

11664-475: Was used partitively and in compounds and kennings (e.g., Urðarbrunnr , the well of Urðr; Lokasenna , the gibing of Loki). There were several classes of nouns within each gender. The following is an example of the "strong" inflectional paradigms : Norse settlements in Greenland The sources on the settlement of Greenland are sparse. The main sources are the Íslendingabók by

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