Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2003, Side 62
24*
INTRODU CTION
2. (i) e short and long is normally written <e). Hand A occasionally
writes <ee) for é but almost always at Iine-ends, e.g. ‘hvee’ 40ra7,
‘seeð’ 41rb8, ‘fee’ 44va3, 49rbl6, 52va24, and once <ée>, ‘Sée’
28rb29. Hand B usually writes ‘fe’ but ‘fé’ at e.g. 65ra4.
<æ) for e is rare, in Hand A ‘þeir hæfviz’ 16val3 and notably in
forms of vb. venda llva2, 14vb 11, 49ra33 (cf. Hand B ‘vendir’
77vb9); and in Hand B ‘fæR’ (=ferr) 62va5, ‘tækinn’ 64vb28.
(ii) Hand A shows diphthongisation of e before ng only once in Jóns
saga, ‘teingi’ 61rb29, but exx. elsewhere bear witness to the develop-
ment: e.g. ‘leingi’ lvb40, forms of engill 6rb33, 30vb25, 28, ‘-feing(-)’
20rbl5, 52ra20, ‘þveing’ 32rb42, ‘spreingði’ 55ra21. The diphthong-
isation is more commonly shown in Hand B, with e.g. six exx. in his
part of Jóns saga at 63val0, 63va41-42, 64ra4, 65ra20, 65rb42,
66vb41; and elsewhere e.g. ‘leing(-)’ 69val8-19, 73rbl3.
(iii) Hand A writes e.g. ‘reckio-’ 18va35, ‘re(c)kiv’ 52ral4, 52vb43,
55va40, but ‘reyckiv’ 34va30, 81va43 (on this form see p. 51*, n. 20);
Hand B writes ‘reckiv-’ 71vbll.
(iv) <ve> appears to be regularly written in forms of vættr/véttr, e.g.
‘ekki vetta’ lvall, 2rb24, ‘meinvettvm’ 65rb3, ‘vvettvm’ 65rb 11, ‘sv
vesla vetR’ 66rb21.
(v) There is no sign of the development of vé to væ before /, r and no
indication of diphthongisation of é to ie.
On <e)/<i> in suffixes and end syllables see 10 (viii, x, xii) below.
3. (i) (i) is occasionally written, whether the vowel represented be
short or long, with a diacritic accent, most often beside <m> and (n>.
Accents are usual too in <ij) endings.
(ii) Hand A sometimes writes <J> for initial i and for prep. í. Hand B
commonly has initial <J> in the name Jón, whether written in full or
abbreviated, and most often for prep. í.
(iii) The form is ‘kvikendi’ at 55ra4-5 but elsewhere is written
‘kvikvend-’ or ‘kykvend-’, e.g. Iva9, 25, 2vbl2, 5va26, 5rb38,
16vb33,17ral8, 40, 24vb38, 27va24.
(iv) In Jóns saga Hand A writes only <i> in forms of mikill, and his
spellings with <y> elsewhere are few and far between: ‘mycklv’ has
been noted once in Páls saga 28va30, for instance, and only seven
exx. of the same form in Antonius saga along with a solitary ‘mykl-
vm’ lval4. Hand B in Jóns saga prefers <y> to (i> in unsyncopated
forms, ‘mykill’, ‘mykils’, ‘mykillar’ (21 exx. against 7 with <i», and
still more so in syncopated forms before both a and u endings (13 exx.