AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
Anyone here from Norway or Iceland?
I ask because it seems that a peculiar choice in outlander seems to be affecting some peoples opinions of the film. I've come across a couple of online comments from people in Iceland, norway, and even one from the netherlands (not sure why from there) about "linguistic errors" and such.
The comments are particularly odd if they are indeed refering to the language Caviezel's alien speaks at the outset of the film. Old norse is supposedly a dead language that only a few proffessors at universities know how to pronounce etc. Proto-Norse (similar to proto-germanic) was pretty much spoken between 200 to around 600 A.D. after which there was a gradual shift towards what is called Old-norse, with old norse pretty much being the norm by 800 A.D. and running it's course until around 1300 A.D. I assume the filmmakers used old norse and not proto-norse. Essentially old-norse is the language of the viking age. Outlander takes place in 709 A.D. which places it at or just before the start of the actual Viking age.
But it's also my understanding that Icelandic is one of the closest modern languages to old norse but mostly in how it's written and not how it's spoken. Norwegian is also a decendant language. So would the pronounciation of the ancient language in your opinion be close enough to the modern languages be enough to annoy filmgoers from that region when some words are pronounced differently and some words are simply different?
I ask because it seems that a peculiar choice in outlander seems to be affecting some peoples opinions of the film. I've come across a couple of online comments from people in Iceland, norway, and even one from the netherlands (not sure why from there) about "linguistic errors" and such.
The comments are particularly odd if they are indeed refering to the language Caviezel's alien speaks at the outset of the film. Old norse is supposedly a dead language that only a few proffessors at universities know how to pronounce etc. Proto-Norse (similar to proto-germanic) was pretty much spoken between 200 to around 600 A.D. after which there was a gradual shift towards what is called Old-norse, with old norse pretty much being the norm by 800 A.D. and running it's course until around 1300 A.D. I assume the filmmakers used old norse and not proto-norse. Essentially old-norse is the language of the viking age. Outlander takes place in 709 A.D. which places it at or just before the start of the actual Viking age.
But it's also my understanding that Icelandic is one of the closest modern languages to old norse but mostly in how it's written and not how it's spoken. Norwegian is also a decendant language. So would the pronounciation of the ancient language in your opinion be close enough to the modern languages be enough to annoy filmgoers from that region when some words are pronounced differently and some words are simply different?