Chapter VII: Section IV

_On the Scandinavian Languages. Resemblances between the Icelandic
and Anglo-Saxon. Recent Origin and extensive Nature of the
Differences among the Icelandic, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian
Tongues. Approximation of the Ancient Specimens of the
Scandinavian and Teutonic Languages._

The Island of Iceland abounds in diversified features of interest; and its Language, early History, and Institutions, will be found replete with instruction, in connexion with the inquiry pursued in this volume.

As has been previously stated, the Gothic Class of languages are naturally divisible into two great subordinate branches: the Teutonic or German, including the dialects of Germany, the Low Countries, and of Great Britain—and the Scandinavian, including those of the two Scandinavian Peninsulas and Iceland. These two great Divisions of the Languages of the Gothic race are radically the same, but they are supposed to display certain specific differences by which they are distinguished from each other.

Of the Teutonic—one of the most venerable specimens is the Anglo-Saxon, the primitive tongue of the Ancestors of the modern English. More ancient specimens of some of the other Gothic dialects have been preserved, but as these are for the most part mere fragments—while of the Anglo-Saxon literature and language we possess copious Remains—it has been inferred by eminent Scholars that it is in these Remains—to Englishmen so interesting for other reasons—that we may on the whole, perhaps, hope to find the nearest approach to a transcript of the early language of the Teutonic tribes.(41) Of all the Scandinavian Languages, on the other hand, the Icelandic—by the general concurrence of the scholars of the North—appears to be the most primitive.

Now in relation to these two Languages, a very interesting proposition has been established by Scandinavian scholars—and though they widely differ as to the cause of the results they discuss—they seem to be agreed with respect to the proposition itself. The Icelandic, they have shown, closely approaches to the Anglo-Saxon in numerous features in which it differs from the languages of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Moreover it has been pointed out by the writers who first noticed these resemblances, that—in their Literary and Bardic Institutions, as well as in their Language—the Icelanders approach to the Anglo-Saxons. In explanation of these facts, they propose the theory—that in the early ages of their history the Icelanders must have benefited by direct communication and instruction from the Anglo-Saxons.

These views have been fully discussed by Professor Rask, in a Preface prefixed to his Anglo-Saxon Grammar, which contains a valuable body of facts that serve to throw a new light on the history of the Scandinavian Tongues.(42) He does not deny the existence of these important common features in the Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon Languages and Remains; nor the absence of the same features as regards the Modern specimens of the Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian; but he maintains, nevertheless, that all these characteristics may be retraced in detail, either in the Ancient or in the Provincial specimens of those three Languages. In the present day the Icelandic differs widely from the Languages of the Mainland of Scandinavia, and those Languages also differ widely among themselves. But originally, he maintains, one common Speech, the ancient Scandinavian, (“Danska Tunge,”) was spoken from the coasts of Greenland to those of Finland, from the Frozen Ocean to the Eider.(43) As we ascend into the remoter periods of history we find the languages of Scandinavia gradually approximate to each other, and finally blend into one.(44) During the ninth century, and the period immediately succeeding, these tongues were perfectly identical.

Professor Rask’s proofs of this proposition may be said to consist of a reunion of the “Disjecta Membra” of the “Danska Tunge,” as found dispersed in the various kingdoms and provinces of the Scandinavian Mainland. Of these proofs I shall offer a few examples.

After observing that the Danish and Norwegian have from various causes become very much alike, he adds that a comparison of the Danish with the Swedish would, for that reason, be more instructive.

“The Swedish has almost from the introduction of Christianity, even during the Calmar union, A.D. 1397, and in the time of Gustavus I., been a distinct tongue; a comparison, therefore, with the Swedish is more to the present purpose.”

He then gives a specimen of an ancient Danish MS. of a date prior to the Reformation, which, “like all MSS. prior” to that event, “differs widely from the present Danish.... It has many _inflections now obsolete_, but which are to be found only in Old Swedish and _Icelandic_; many antiquated _words_ and phrases, exempli gratia, then annin,” Icelandic “thann annan.”

He then mentions some words contained in this MS. which are still preserved in “the _provinces_ of _Upland, Jutland, and Dalecarlia._”

He next notices an old Swedish document issued by King Magnus Smik, of which he observes: “This, although about a century older, greatly resembles the preceding specimen, and is scarcely distinguishable from the Danish of the same period.... But if we go further back to the language of the old Danish Laws, we there recognize nearly the _entire structure_ of the earliest Swedish, and the Icelandic though not always strictly adhered to, as the language in those unhappy and turbulent times which preceded the Calmar Union, underwent in Denmark what may be termed its _fermentation_, somewhat earlier than in the other states.”

He then gives a specimen from the Ecclesiastical Laws of Zealand, of which he observes: “The few deviations from the Icelandic bear, for the most part, _a strong resemblance to the Swedish_.

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“But the oldest remains of the Danish language are to be found on our Runic stone monuments, and here at length it perfectly coincides with the earliest Swedish, Norwegian, and Icelandic.

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“The Danish is closely allied to the Swedish, and both, in the earliest times, lapse into the Icelandic, which, according to all ancient records, was formerly universal over all the North, and must therefore be considered as the parent of both the modern Scandinavian dialects.”(45)

On the subject of the differences of dialect in the different _provinces_ of the Northern Kingdoms he says that, “In Norway as well as in Denmark one province terminates its verbs in _a_, another distinguishes all _the three genders_, while a third has preserved a vast number of _old_ WORDS _and inflections_ which to the others _are unintelligible_.”

We have thus a proof that even in the provinces of the same kingdom there are differences of “_words_, grammar, _and inflections_.” The difference _in the number_ of _genders_ is a very remarkable one.

The researches of Professor Rask will be found distinctly to warrant the following conclusions. These conclusions are in the nature of results that legitimately flow from his researches; they do not represent the inferences which he himself has thence deduced. With regard both to the languages of England and of his native Scandinavia, this learned writer seems evidently to have been perplexed by the extent and variety of the changes he has described. Hence, in both instances, he has shown an inclination to ascribe to the influence of War and Social disturbance changes which his own researches clearly prove to have been the effects neither of transient nor of local influences, but of causes progressively at work through a series of ages, and embracing large groups of nations and languages in their action.

1. The differences which now exist between the various Scandinavian Languages extend to all those features in which it is possible that one Language, or one Class of Languages, can differ from another; viz. to Words, Grammar, _Inflections,_(46) and to the _arrangement_ of Words in sentences,(47) or _Idioms_.

2. Not only do differences of this nature present themselves in the various Scandinavian _Kingdoms_—but also in the various Provinces of the same _Kingdom_, which in many instances are distinguished by the most marked differences in Words, Grammar, &c. Thus the Dialect of Dalecarlia in Sweden is very ancient and distinct, and approaches to the Gothic.(48)

3. These characteristic features of the various languages and dialects of Scandinavia have arisen progressively during the course of ages.

4. These differences principally consist in the abandonment in one Kingdom or Province of a portion of the Words, Idioms, Grammar, &c. of the Parent Speech—that part of the elements of the Original Tongue which have become obsolete in one dialect having generally been preserved in the dialects of other kingdoms and provinces—which have at the same time generally lost other distinct portions of the Vocabulary, Grammar, &c. of their common Original. In other words, the “Disjecta Membra” of the old Scandinavian, or “_Danska Tunge,_” when not preserved in the Danish, have been retained for the most part in the Swedish, Icelandic, and Norwegian, or in some of the Provincial dialects of Scandinavia, and vice versâ. _In the various provinces in which it was once spoken different portions of the Parent speech have been abandoned or preserved._

5. Hence it follows that the Primitive Language of Scandinavia, or “Danska Tunge,” does not exist in any one—but is dispersed in ALL its derivative dialects. (Compare the motto from Grotius on the title-page.)

6. It is a necessary consequence of the third and fourth propositions that the more ancient remains of the derivative dialects approach more nearly to the Parent Speech, and—in the ratio of their superior antiquity—unite a greater proportion of the distinctive peculiarities of all the sister-dialects, which, as previously stated, have arisen in consequence of certain portions of the Parent speech having been abandoned in some provinces and retained in others, and vice versâ.

An interesting illustration of this maxim occurs in a passage from Professor Rask’s preface already quoted, in which, after giving a specimen of old Danish, which approaches closely to the Icelandic, he adds, “The few deviations from the Icelandic bear for the most part _a strong resemblance_ to the _Swedish_.” In other words, the older specimens of the Danish _unite_ those peculiarities by which the modern collateral Tongues of Iceland, Denmark, and Sweden are distinguished from each other.

Let it be borne in mind, that the lapse of one thousand years has produced these changes, and the instructive nature of this example will be fully apparent. Of the accuracy of the data on which the previous deductions rest, all doubt must be removed by reference to one remarkable event. It is historically certain that the Island of Iceland is inhabited by a nation descended from emigrants from the opposite Norwegian coast. It is historically certain, also, that previously to the Ninth Century these warlike adventurers had not established themselves on the Icelandic soil. Anterior to that period, therefore, it is self-evident that, inasmuch as the Icelanders had no existence as a nation, the Icelandic Tongue could not have had a separate existence as a language. Yet it is certain that in the present day the Icelandic deviates at least as widely from the language of the adjoining Norwegian Coasts as that language deviates from the other Scandinavian Tongues.

The evidence furnished by Professor Rask and the writers whose views he has combated, will be found, when fairly balanced, distinctly to support a very important Conclusion, contemplated by neither. The facts adduced on both sides conspire to show a rapid approximation of the Teutonic and Scandinavian branches of the Gothic as we ascend into remote ages.

Of this approximation, the features of identity between the Anglo-Saxon and the Icelandic, pointed out by the writers whose views Professor Rask combats, furnish a reasonable presumption, which is converted into positive proof by the evidence collected by Professor Rask himself, that the same features occur in all the ancient, though they do not in the modern, specimens of the Languages of the Scandinavian Peninsulas. It is true, this learned writer, of whose researches I have chiefly availed myself in this Section, maintains that there are some features in which all the Scandinavian differ from the Anglo-Saxon and other Teutonic Dialects, a conclusion, however, but feebly supported by the examples he has adduced, and scarcely reconcilable in any way with the resemblance which the primitive Swedish dialect of Dalecarlia is said to bear to the Gothic. But, assuming the occurrence of some features of difference, even in the earliest specimens we possess, this assumption leaves untouched the proposition that these specimens show a rapid rate of approximation, which, if equally rapid prior to their date, implies that at an era not many ages anterior the identity of the languages of Germany and Scandinavia must have been complete.