Colonial America English Accent and contemporary Brit accent

Trawick,

If Yiddish speakers can still understand German, and Spanish speakers can understand a good deal of Portuguese, even basic Italian and Romanian, I think that Icelanders could still understand much of of Leif Eriksson's speech were he to travel to modern day Reikjavik in a time machine.

The differences between Old Norse and Icelandic are very negligible compared to the differences between Old Norse and the continental Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish) which were radically altered by contact with the Low German of the Hanseatic League during the Middle Ages. These were changes not unlike the changes that Norman French made on English or that Chinese has made on Vietnamese, a language actually related to Indonesian.

<<"Once again, the reading thing is quite true, but the implication that the language hasn't changed or that it's changed very little is false and misleading."

Quite true. Using omniglot.com, the source dubiously used above as evidence, here's the pronunciation of the same phrases in Icelandic and Norse (I've omitted a few minor points, like devoicing in some environments, for clarity):

"Hver maður er borinn frjáls og jafn öðrum að virðingu og réttindum. Menn eru gæddir vitsmunum og samvizku, og ber þeim að breyta bróðurlega hverjum við annan."

In Icelandic:

kfEr maDYr Er bOrIn frjauls Og japn 2DrYm aD vIrDINY Og rjEhtIndYm . mEn ErY XaidIr vItsmYnYm Og samvIzkY, Oh bEr Teim aD breita brouDYrKEXa kverjYm vID anan.

In Old Norse:

Wer mADur er borin vrA:ls og jAfn 2Drum AD virDiNgu og re:tindum . men eru g{dir vitsmunum og sAmvizku , og ber Teim AD br&ytA bro:DurlegA Werjum viD AnAn.

As you can see, the differences, at least in pronunciation, are about as radical as those between Middle and Modern English, meaning that Icelandic has certainly developed since the middle ages. I don't doubt its conservative nature, but there is simply no way a modern Icelander could verbally communicate with a Viking.>>

Excellent post, Trawick! It's obvious from transcriptions like these that Icelandic phonology has changed significantly over the past millennium. While Icelandic morphology and orthography are conservative, orthography has no power to rein in the march of language change which affects all human languages.

In the above sample the only word that is pronounced the same in Old Norse and Icelandic is [Teim]. All other words have noteworthy differences in pronunciation, often to the point that it's quite unlikely that an Old Norse speaker could've understood much of modern spoken Icelandic (reading would be another thing). These two samples are roughly analogous to the differences between modern Spanish and modern Portuguese (the Icelandic/Old Norse samples are actually probably even further apart than Spanish and Portuguese) and communication between Spanish and Portuguese speakers is decidedly hit-and-miss in terms of transparency (even where forms haven't phonologically drifted much from each other, there's been semantic drift--that'd also be an issue between any version of a language now and its ancestor 1000 years ago).

<<The differences between Old Norse and Icelandic are very negligible compared to the differences between Old Norse and the continental Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish)>>

Only if we're consdering morphology and orthography, and orthography isn't language at all but an abstract representation of it, so how much it does or doesn't change is irrelevant to deducing how much language change has actually taken place.

<<I think that Icelanders could still understand much of of Leif Eriksson's speech were he to travel to modern day Reikjavik in a time machine.>>

As has been proven (with valid linguistic evidence being used as intended this time) by Trawick that's actually very unlikely.

"... Thanks to this conservatism, the medieval sagas, epic poems in Old Norse are still comprehensible to Icelandic speakers."

--- Comrie, Mathews, Polinsky

"The Atlas of Languages"

(Bernard Comrie is a respectable, well-known linguist)

"Icelandic today is much as it was during the Settlement Age. As a result, Icelanders can - and do - easily read the sagas in their original twelfth century forms."

--- Barbara A. Somervill
"Iceland - Enchantment of the world"

Come on guys! This many people can't be all wrong ...and I've only scratched the surface for lack of sufficient time. I'm sure I could find more authors who say essentially the same thing.

<<Come on guys! This many people can't be all wrong ...and I've only scratched the surface for lack of sufficient time. I'm sure I could find more authors who say essentially the same thing.>>

You're completely ignoring the points we've made before. Repeating the same misinterpreted arguments isn't going to cut it.

From way back in the first page, Shakespeare's Early MnE was described as pronouncing "silent" as [ˈsaɪlənt].

I must point out that that's likely *not* true! In all probability, the EMnE reflexes of ME /iː/, /uː/ were [əi] and [əu]! This is a quite an important point: It is likely the Scottish Vowel Length Rule uses conservative [əi] in "short" environments and innovative [ai] in "long" environments. It is likely that Canadian Rising uses conservative [əi] in unvoiced environments and innovative [ai] in voiced ones. It is likely that the very common (albeit non-standard) British diphthongs (also used in most of the southern hemisphere) [ɑi, ɑe, ɒi etc.] and [æʊ, ɛə, æɔ, etc.] represent not innovations from the standard base of [ai], [ɑu] as used in RP and some other British and American dialects, but rather innovations from the EMnE [əi]—from which the standard pronunciations are also innovations.

(The so-called "Diphthong Shift" phenomenon of Estuary English, Cockney and most Southern Hemispheric Englishes, then, is actually not much of a shift. It's just that [eɪ] fell into the space left open way back when ME [ai] "maid" merged with EMnE [eː]; and that the diphthongisation of /iː/ is, perhaps, more pronounced than in some other dialects. No PRICE-MOUTH crossover.)

I've heard some people mention that in Shakespeare's time that "sea"sounded like "say" and "me" as "may", what people seem to disregard is that this vowel sound is still in common use in the West Midlands (Shakespeare's birthplace). For some reason some linguists seem to pay greater attention temporal changes than spatial ones- In other words if the pronunciation isn't in existence in London today then it's a change over time rather than them looking in the wrong bloody place.

hey guys can U simply guide me how can i read those texts?
copy and paste kinda thing didn't work in my computer,

saw-rose

Well Rick, the thing is, there *were* poets born in London (and other areas which lost the merger) that obviously *had* the merger. There *was* a change over time, but there was also a change over space.

(No doubt there were also people in London who *didn't* have the merger, and there was also a change over the social implications of language-use.)

<<Well Rick, the thing is, there *were* poets born in London (and other areas which lost the merger) that obviously *had* the merger. There *was* a change over time, but there was also a change over space.

(No doubt there were also people in London who *didn't* have the merger, and there was also a change over the social implications of language-use.)>>

My comment wasn't aimed directly at you Felix, it just reminded me of something I had read. Re-reading what I wrote, it seems a little abrupt.

<<From way back in the first page, Shakespeare's Early MnE was described as pronouncing "silent" as [ˈsaɪlənt].

I must point out that that's likely *not* true! In all probability, the EMnE reflexes of ME /iː/, /uː/ were [əi] and [əu]! This is a quite an important point:>>

Yes, I was aware that those centralized diphthongs were most likely the initial change in bringing /i:/ > /aI/ and /u:/ > /aU/. However, seeing as that change began happening in Southern English probably even in the late 1400s, it was nothing new by the time Shakespeare was around. It's possible that by 1600 /aI/ had been reached at least in the most innovative of the vowel shifters, as the shift had already been around for over a century. I've read theries that Shakespeare (and/or his contemporaries in London) would've had either /@I/ or /aI/ there but in the end we can't be sure. Since I know Southern England and particularly London was typically most progressive in the vowel shift I figured it reasonable to postulate /aI/ for that text by the 1600 date which I envisioned being around the time the speech was that I was representing. Anyway, you are right that it could've been /@I/ at that time (and might've varied according to speaker) but I had to pick one so I chose /aI/.

<<It is likely the Scottish Vowel Length Rule uses conservative [əi] in "short" environments and innovative [ai] in "long" environments. It is likely that Canadian Rising uses conservative [əi] in unvoiced environments and innovative [ai] in voiced ones.>>

Yes, and linguists have debated whether Canadian Raising is a vestige from the intermediate /@I/ stage or whether it was an independent development. I could see either as being plausible explanations.

<<It is likely that the very common (albeit non-standard) British diphthongs (also used in most of the southern hemisphere) [ɑi, ɑe, ɒi etc.] and [æʊ, ɛə, æɔ, etc.] represent not innovations from the standard base of [ai], [ɑu] as used in RP and some other British and American dialects, but rather innovations from the EMnE [əi]—from which the standard pronunciations are also innovations.>>

That's true--I think it's true that not everyone reached /aI/ and then from /@I/ some shifted towards /aI/ while others started moving it back (so, /@I/ > /AI/). It also likely went /@I/ > /aI/ > /AI/ for many dialects as well.

Anyway, it is interesting to note that while I have [aI] in all positions, I have [{U] in all positions instead of [aU], which is not unheard of in North America. I don't know whether my [{U] is because of independent innovation or can be tied back to something much earlier in Britain.