Learning Old Icelandic (and the like)
Alaric has found himself creating various teaching resources for Old Icelandic and related areas. All have been created under pressure of time, for specific ad hoc purposes, so none is perfect, and it may be that none suit your personal needs! (Though Alaric is quite proud of his Magic Sheet.) All the same, Alaric thought it would be good to make his resources available incase other people find them useful. If you'd like not only to use any of the resources here but to alter them, then just email Alaric (alaric@cantab.net) and he'll send you the original files.
Grammar resources
- Alaric's Magic Sheet of Old Norse paradigms.
- Alarics magiske side (the Magic Sheet in Danish, translated by Richard Cole and Winnie Mohr Have Jensen).
For better or worse, Alaric's also made some videos aimed at native English-speakers with no previous background in language learning, to help them get started learing Old Norse/Icelandic using the Magic Sheet:
- Higher resolution, bigger files
- lecture 1 (what is Old Icelandic?): 18 minutes, 29MB
- lecture 2 (nouns): 33 minutes, 67MB
- lecture 3 (adjectives and pronouns): 18 minutes, 38MB
- lecture 4 (verbs and sound-changes): 34 minutes, 80MB
- Lower resolution, google video
- lecture 1 (what is Old Icelandic?): 18 minutes
- lecture 2 (nouns): 33 minutes
- lecture 3 (adjectives and pronouns): 18 minutes
- lecture 4 (verbs and sound-changes): 34 minutes
- Alaric's Magic Sheet of Modern Icelandic paradigms.
- Alaric's updated version of Henry Sweet's An Icelandic Primer.
(Alaric uploaded this at the request of some of the participants at a recent conference on teaching Old Norse; it's certainly not yet perfect, and also contravenes the Project Gutenberg licence, so Alaric's not sure how long he'll keep it up here! Email him if you want it as .doc.)
A series of low-tech videos aiming to give a quick guide to what was afoot in medieval Scandinavia, by way of a context for medieval Icelandic literature.
- Higher resolution, bigger files
- lecture 1 (mainly geography): 20 minutes, 52MB
- lecture 2 (mainly Vikings): 17 minutes, 40MB
- lecture 3 (mainly religious and political change from the Viking Age to the end of the Middle Ages): 39 minutes, 98MB
- lecture 4 (sketching the kinds of literature produced in medieval Iceland): 29 minutes, 86MB
- Lower resolution, google video
- lecture 1 (mainly geography): 20 minutes
- lecture 2 (mainly Vikings): 17 minutes
- lecture 3 (mainly religious and political change from the Viking Age to the end of the Middle Ages): 39 minutes
- lecture 4 (sketching the kinds of literature produced in medieval Iceland): 29 minutes