Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series B - 01.06.1960, Page 14

XII
The date of the common original is difficult to
determine. Each manuscript has the spelling of its
own time and presents late linguistic forms and expres-
sions. When the worthwhile manuscripts agree on a
late form, it is a question whether they have introduced
it independently at the same point by coincidence, or
have copied it from the common original. But in
general the close agreement of the best manuscripts
on the wording of the text inspires confidence in them
as copies of their source, and this, together with the
frequency of their agreement on late forms, may
justify the assumption that the majority of the late
forms agreed upon by the most trustworthy manu-
scripts were in the common original.
One example of the lateness of the language of the
text handed down to us is that yclcar, ydar and ockar,
the genitives of the personal pronouns, are used much
more frequently than the appropriate cases of the
possessive adjectives (e.g. 65 yclcar replacing 0. Icel.
yklcru). The ratioismore than 3:1, and if this was true
of the common original, it is likely that that original
belonged to the second half of the sixteenth century.
Cf. Oskar Bandle, Ðie Sprache der Guðbrandsbiblía
(Bibl. Arnam. XVII, Copenhagen 1956), § 232.
A few other forms also seem to point to the sixteenth
century: the word huada ‘what sort of’ (719, 98 etc.),
the weak form puodi instead of 0. Icel. þ(v)ó (758),
and the use of þad instead of at (5514).
Many other words and forms reinforce the impres-
sion of lateness (though occasional examples of some
of them are found even in the fourteenth century),
e.g. yfirmann nom. (1187); lijka ‘also’ (39); þui instead
of hvi (1017 etc.); vegna ‘for the sake of’ (2510); þui
instead of því at and other conjunctions of a similar
kind (38 etc., II25 , 2118, 5715, 8413, 11912 etc.); einn
used as an indefinite article (8618); the demonstrative