Íslenzk tunga - 01.01.1959, Page 45

JÓMSVÍKINGA SAGA
43
iy for iu), part of the text which appears indubitably based on the
translation of Gunnlaug’s Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar and which can
hardly be thought to have existed in a south-east Norwegian
„prenidarosisk“ manuscript.40 It would have to be assumed that the
Norwegianisms were introduced by the man who combined I and II,
between about 1200, when Gunnlaugr must have completed his
work,47 and about 1230, after which date the original of 291 can
hardly have been written.48 If he were a Norwegian, he must then
have been working in Iceland; but he could not have been the author
tur, XX (1895), 121—122; Noreen, 127, § 146, Anm. 3; Sveinn Bergsveinsson,
Þróun ö-hljóða í íslenzku (Studia Islandica, XIV; Reykjavík 1955), 34; cf. M.
Hægstad, Vestnorske maalf0re fyre 1350, II, 2, 3 (lslandsk) (Skrifter utgitt av
Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi i Oslo. II. Hist.-filos. KI. 1941. No. 1; Oslo
1942), 97, where though the change to i0 is not considered separately from
isolative change to 0 (e.g. elscóþo, cf. Larsson, 645, XLVIIl). Seip has detected
Norwegian influence in 645, even in the first part (the collection of Þorlák’s
miracles), where all the exx. of io i0 are found (it is unfortunate that no
exx. of -iön stems with suffixed article are found in the later part of the manu-
script, where signs of Norwegian originals are more convincing), see Nye
studier, 27, 51 and 64; „Edda-diktning,“ 151, 179—180 and 194. He does not,
however, appear to have thought of this change as a Norwegianism, and it
would be interesting to know whether it can be regarded as such. The regularity
of the spelling in 645 again suggests that it was a change recognised by the
scribe of that manuscript himself and not simply due to the orthography of his
exemplar. -iy- for -iu- in stressed syllables is found in 645 only in miycliga 13020,
sivco 283 (n corrected from y), see Larsson, 645, L. It may be noted that o and
0 are practically never confused in 645 (Larsson, 645, LI; Sv. Bergsveinsson,
30), and that 0 is used both for 0 and p, the latter heing at that time an
indeterminate medial sound since the fronting process was still incomplete (see
Sv. Bergsveinsson, 22 ff.; 35—37). This phenomenon perhaps deserves
consideration in the discussion of whether Icelandic specch had -u in endings,
despite the regular o-endings of early texts (cf. Ilægstad, 145—147; Seip, Nye
studier, 12—23).
40 Cf. „Edda-diktning,“ 133.
47 Sig. Nordal, 203.
48 It is less likely that Norwegianisms were introduced by the writer of 291’s
exemplar, if he was responsible for the interpolations (I (d.2) is of peculiarly
Icelandic interest). The only Norwegianisms found in the interpolated passages