Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2013, Side 221

On Haukur Þorgeirsson’s doctoral dissertation
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The author tends to stress phonemic principles of writing systems but it should
not be overlooked that there are in fact many competing strategies involved. The
younger sixteen-grapheme futhark is a clear case in point (see 7. below). As Gary
Miller would have it (i994:xiv):
Writing systems are attempts at representing different “competing” aspects
of language (more specifically, language knowledge), some phonetic (non-
contrastive), some phonemic (contrast and opposition), some lexical/mor-
phological (root or affix unity), some morphophonemic (in the broad sense).
Such competing goals are apt to yield discrepancies and irregularities in
graphic conventions.
5. The issue of literacy: Oral versus literate society
When it comes to the pre-Old Icelandic era, Haukur’s approach is confronted
with two major problems at least. The first problem can be labeled the “literacy
problem” coupled with the notion of a “pre-literary period” while the second one
concerns the nature of the runic alphabet in the Viking Age around 700—1050.
Both problems shall be addressed in the following.
Given that the early periods until the end of the Viking Age, 1050 A.D. are
regarded as “pre-literate” or “semi-literate”, with sparse literary production and nei-
ther parchment literacy nor pragmatic literacy in evidence, we are faced with a gen-
eral problem.10 How can we invoke alphabet literacy as a supportive factor in a semi-
literate or basically oral period? To put it differently, are we really faced with an
alphabet culture in early Iceland and Norway before lOOO A.D.? Needless to say,
oral culture does not depend on alphabets or phonemic writing systems in the way
literate cultures do. There is not even one single runic inscriptions from the Viking
Age in Iceland while Norway has a limited number of Viking-Age runic inscriptions,
i.e. less than fifty runestones and some further objects with runes. The notion of lit-
eracy in the Viking Age is much discussed by Meijer (1997) who shows that a note
of caution is in place. It seems clear that the situation must have been fundamental-
ly different after the advent of Christian literacy with the establishment of Christian
scriptoria. Hence the question: How can the factor of written tradition and phone-
mic writing principles be assessed at times which a Norwegian linguist would char-
acterize as “tekst- og innskriftfattige perioder”? This state of affairs is reinforced by
the famous passage in the introductory chapter of the First Grammatical Treatise
(henceforth abbreviated FGT). The First Grammarian explicitly states that he has
undertaken to compose an alphabet for his fellow-country-men (FGT 84:13—15, cf.
Hreinn Benediktsson (útg.) 1972:208, the orthography is normalized here):
10 By way of contrast, compare the abundant manifestations of pragmatic literacy in
medieval Bryggen in Bergen in the period 1150—1350, on which see, e.g., Schulte 2012.