Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2023, Side 98

reflected the influence of Norwegianisms. Still, this usage is different
from the other Norwegianisms because it did not disappear after 1400.
The preposition án was occasionally used with the genitive in the 14th
and the 15th century. In the 16th century, this feature became more pro -
minent, and as will be shown in Section 4.3, this use of án was striking
in the first Icelandic Bible translations.

4.3 Examples in the first Icelandic Bible translations
Around the middle of the 16th century, the Reformation occurred in
Iceland, and the Bible was translated into Icelandic. The New Testament
was first translated by Oddur Gottskálksson (hereafter, ONT) and pub-
lished in Denmark in 1540. This is the first printed book preserved in
Icelandic and one of the landmarks in the history of Icelandic literature
(Sigurður Nordal 1933:31, Margrét Eggertsdóttir 2006:177–180). The
translator, Oddur Gottskálksson (1495/1496–1556), grew up with his
fatherʼs family in Bergen during his youth and was educated there. Due
to his Norwegian background, he was called Oddur norski ‘Oddur the
Norwegian’ (Sigurður Nordal 1933:23–31). The entire text of the Bible
was published by Bishop Guðbrandur Þorláksson (c. 1541–1627) in 1584.
This edition, called Guðbrandsbiblía and always highly appreciated for its
language and style (Margrét Eggertsdóttir 2006:179–180), made use of
the ONT and some of the older translations of the Old Testament by
Gissur Einarsson (c. 1512–1548), the first Lutheran bishop in Iceland.
Here, the relevant examples are retrieved using the electronically search-
able text on Wikiheimild for Oddur Gottskálkssonʼs New Testa ment and
on the website of Hið íslenska biblíufélag for the Old Testa ment of
Guðbrandsbiblía (GOT).10 Table 3 shows the occurrences of án in these
translations.

Case A D G U Total
ONT 3 0 91 11 105
GOT 0 1 62 11   74

Table 3:  Frequency of án in the ONT and the GOT.
Yuki Minamisawa98
10 The data of the New Testament of Guðbrandsbiblía are similar to those of the
ONT, presumably because the former work was dependent on the latter, and have been
omitted in this study.