Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.10.2003, Blaðsíða 107

Linguistic and textual features
89*
2. ORTHOGRAPHY
Vowels 01 á is mostly written <a>. The following also occur: <aa> (x 17), <æ>
(x 13), <á> (or perhaps <á» once, in the name Sámr 49.14. The ligatured
double a spellings occur only in the word á when used as adverb or
preposition 3.11 - 49.22 (x 16) and in the name ‘Þraandur’ 48.12, at line-
end (ct usual ‘Þrand-’ 2.3 - 49.24 (x 9)). As for <æ>, which also occurs only
in the prep./adv. á, it is most likely a purely graphic phenomenon (see
above under Palaeography), but it is just possible that the development of
the á phoneme to a diphthong with lip-rounded final element is reflected in
that graph.
No special marking, by doubling or diacritics, of OI é, í or ú appears.
OI é appears as <ie> only in the pronoun ‘þier’ 26.26, 38, 39, 44 (all) (ct
‘mer’ 26.57, ‘ser’ 49.3).
For OI í both <i> and <j> are used. Apart from its use when final in
numerals, <j> is used only in initial position ‘Joru/z’ 1.5 - ‘jn«’ 48.13 (x 50,
28 of which are the prep./adv. í, while 5 are used in the abbreviation
‘j(arll)’). <i> is less common in initial position ‘ira’ 1.28 - ‘-iord’ 26.49 -
‘isum’ 48.16 (x 33, 18 of which are the prep./adv. í).
OI ó once occurs as <œ> ‘foostradur’ 1.5.
Front mutation of á (01 æ) and of ó (01 œ) is written indifferently <æ>
‘þær’ 1.4- ‘snæri’ 49.30 (x 17), <é> ‘gétur’ 1.1 - ‘béiar’ 48.14 (x 18), and
occasionally <e> ‘bendur’ 1.11 — ‘krekt’ 49.22 (x 4).
01 q (labial mutation of a) and OI 0 (irrespective of origin) appear to
have fallen together: <au> is the commonest representation ‘gaufgir’ 1.8 -
‘auxinm’ 49.22 - ‘auxl’ 49.25 (x 30), followed by <o> (x 13) and <ö> (x 8).
(There are no occurrences of the pres. sing. of koma.) On nQkkurr see
Individual word forms. The verb g0ra/gera has forms with both <er> (x 5),
<ior> (x 13), and <iör> (‘giördu’ 1.11).
Labial mutation of fractured e (01 jg) is most frequently <io> but <iö> is
common, especially in ‘Biörn’ (x 7), which also appears once as ‘Biaurn’
27.30. This scribe thus equates the main vowel of this mutation with that of
the labial mutation of a, whereas Hand iii distinguishes them.
au: <ö> occurs where <au> would be expected in ‘Hök’ 2.8 and ‘blöta’
26.78.
Specific vowel combinations The potential change eg > eig is not evi-
denced. (The present stem of segja does not occur in full.)
<eing> is always used for 01 eng, ‘dreingium’ 3.6 - Teingi’ 49.18 (x 11).
<aung> in ‘au«gu’ 26.32 and ‘gaungu’ 26.99 (all) is ambiguous (ct ‘ongu’
26.54).
OI vá is written <ua> in ‘uarid’ 3.5, ‘uarid’ 27.26, ‘uar’ nom. sing. fem.