Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2003, Síða 173
THE L RECENSION
131*
In Cod. Worm. it is evident that it was the main scribe who for some
reason shifted from his bookhand to a semi-cursive script on p. 108.
The possibility that in Stock. 5 the charter-like hand of fol. 48r might
be that of the scribe who wrote bookhand from 48v to 64r can how-
ever be dismissed. The letter-forms and orthographic features they
have in common are by no means unique to these hands, and distinc-
tive differences may be seen in the minims of <i) and <u> and the forms
of <y>, <d>, <k>, <p>, <r>, and <þ>.
II. Jóns saga Hand A: Orthography. Vowels and sonants.
1. Long a is usually <íu>, rarely with accent marks: ‘tæickn’ 1/17, ‘át’
prep. 2/12, ‘haar’ 3/13, ‘víur’ 1/2, ‘uíara’ 1/3. vá is also written <ua> in
‘sua’ 1/29, but elsewhere appears as <u>/<v>/<w> followed by <o> or
modified <o>: poss. adj. ‘vör’ (acc. pl. n.) 1/20, ‘uorre’ 1/25, ‘wqrn’
1/28, third pers. pl. ‘vorv’ 2/4 (abbr.‘w°’ 2/15). The only word in -ang-
is ‘langr’ 3/13.
2. Short and long e are normally written <e>, but the latter is indi-
cated by <ee> and <éé> in ‘Reeð’ 2/3, ‘téénadar’ 1/9. No word in -eng-
occurs on 48r.
3. <i>, often marked by a diacritic accent, is regular for ilj. <J>
is used as a capital initial in proper names and elsewhere and for prep.
í.
4. <o> is usual for short and long o, but the <o> is occasionally
marked, more frequently in expressing ó: ‘örda’ 1/29, ‘sQn’ 2/9, ‘köm’
3/4; Tíqs’ 1/18, ‘Qsnialltt’ 1/29, ‘dQmi’ 2/12, ‘aasÍQnu’ 3/13, ‘þiönastu’
3/11, ‘bólstat’ 2/12. The neg. prefix is written <o>/<Q>: ‘olistughann’,
‘Qsniallt’, ‘oalldar’, 1/28, 29, 2/25.
5. <u> is not used for the vowel in initial positions, but medially and
finally <u> is the norm for the vowel and medially for the sonant as
well. As initial vowel <w> occurs in ‘wmbQte’ 1/30, ‘wt’ 2/25, ‘wndr-
andizst’ 3/7. Initial sonant appears as <u> and <v> in roughly equal
measure, while <w> is more frequent than either (more or less regular
in abbr. ‘war\ ‘wer’). Analogical v is introduced in ‘vox’ 2/12. On
<fu> see III 2 below.
6. <y> is written in ‘fyrir' 2/3. (The form ‘for/r’ 2/25 may be ditto-
graphic: ‘for’ (-fór) is immediately above it in the preceding line; but
cf. VI 6 (i) below.) The spelling ‘mickil’ occurs at 2/14 but other forms