Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series B - 01.06.1960, Blaðsíða 17

the ends of lines, and Jiere in particular commas and
full stops have been added in the transcript without
comment. Occasionally too, e.g. 126, the scribe antici-
pated the end of a clause with his punctuation. Where
the actual punctuation of the manuscript has been
altered (as distinct from supplying punctuation where
it is altogether lacking), attention is drawn to the
emendation by means of a footnote, e.g. II15. Con-
siderable further improvements would be necessary to
obtain a modern punctuation.
A great many words are abbreviated in one way
or another in the manuscript, for the good reason that
Brynjólfur Jónsson was sensibly economical in his use
of paper, but now that more and more facsimiles of
manuscripts are becoming available, and microfilms
and photostats can be easily obtained, it is unneces-
sary, as well as tiresome, to reproduce in a printed
edition the abbreviated forms and all the special let-
ters of manuscripts. Accordingly, where a word is
abbreviated by the use of a sign (such as ’ =er or ir)
or of a letter above the line, the word is here written
out in full without any indication that it has been
expanded; letters above the line are treated as marks
of abbreviation and are not necessarily reproduced in
the transcript, e.g. far% is farid 56. Where a word is
abbreviated simply by leaving off some or most of its
final letters, the rest of the word is added in round
brackets, e.g. ic(ongur) 25. Sometimes it is uncertain
how such an abbreviation should be expanded; for
example, s: might be seigir, sagdi, suarar or suaradi,
perhaps even spir or spurdi. There are about half a
dozen words in the whole manuscript to which the
colon indicating abbreviation has been added although
the word is complete, e.g. Vijfill: 419.
Abbreviated words have been expanded in accord-
ance with the full spelling most commonly used else-