Reddit reviews Viking Language 1 Learn Old Norse, Runes, and Icelandic Sagas (Viking Language Series)

It depends what you mean by "Read Runic".

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Runic Alphabets

Runes themselves are an Alphabet, not a language, each character represents a sound, ᛖ means "E", ᚠ mens "F". Some charicters mean multiple Latin letters, þ means "th" and ᛠ means "ea". I could write the word "East" as "ᛠᛥ"

This alphabet can be used to write most European languages, simply replace the Latin characters with their Runic counterparts. This is easy to learn, simply find a guide online (for example, Google Anglo saxon runes) and replace your normal letters with the Runes. This only took me a few hours to do proficiently. Reading is harder than writing.

There are many Runic alphabets, I use Anglo Saxon because it works well with writing English and Old Norse, but you can choose whichever ones you like, for example Celtic Runes may work better with some romance languages.

Runic Languages

Runic is Also used to write Archaic languages. For example the other Language I wrote in my original comment was Old Norse, I wrote it in the Latin alphabet because it is easier and better for the sounds of the language.

Archaic languages are usually difficult to learn, because there are not a lot of easy to use resources for them. There are some good books on Old Norse, but there is thankfully a lot online for free.

Personally, I use: https://notendur.hi.is/haukurth/norse/

This is a good book if you want to learn more, but it is fairly expensive so make sure you are dedicated!

There are also a few good YouTubers such as Jackson Crawford, who make it easy to understand.

Other Runic languages include Old English, Proto Norse and Saxon. These are all equally difficult to learn, and are usually written in the Latin Alphabet for simplicity.

However, as with any language, Old Norse requires a lot of patience to learn, you need to make notes and practice. Modern Icelandic would be an easier alternative to Old Norse, because it has a lot of resources and fluent speakers.

If you want to Practice Old Norse, you can always look for people on r/Norse, I am still pretty amateur at the language, but you can DM me if you like after you've learned the basics.

Viking Language 1 and 2 by Jesse L. Byock. Here's the first one:

https://www.amazon.com/Viking-Language-Learn-Norse-Icelandic/dp/1480216445

You can get audio recordings for the lessons on Amazon or iTunes as well.

The courses are by far the most modernized, user-friendly courses available. A close second would be 'A New Introduction to Old Norse,' which can be purchased here:

https://acmrs.org/publications/catalog/new-introduction-old-norse-part-i-ii-and-iii-discount-set

From what I'm told, this is one of the best books to start with: https://smile.amazon.com/Viking-Language-Learn-Norse-Icelandic/dp/1480216445/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483301517&sr=8-1&keywords=learn+old+norse

I'm currently learning as well so definitely curious as to what resources you find!

I'm no expert in Medieval or Old-Norse studies, however I've do have an interest in it & from some searching on various different aspects of the Vikings I come across these:

The Cambridge History of Scandinavia: Volume 1. Prehistory to 1520 it's a anthological survey book consisting of both historiographical and hagiographical (biographies of saints) primary & secondary sources ranging from prehistory ( before historical events were documented) through to medieval history of Scandinavia. It's quite pricey but definitely worth the money if your serious...

>The first part of the volume surveys the prehistoric and historic Scandinavian landscape and its natural resources, and tells how man took possession of this landscape, adapting culturally to changing natural conditions and developing various types of community throughout the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages. The rest - and most substantial part of the volume - deals with the history of Scandinavia from the Viking Age to the end of the Scandinavian Middle Ages (c. 1520). The external Viking expansion opened Scandinavia to European influence to a hitherto unknown degree. A Christian church organisation was established, the first towns came into being, and the unification of the three medieval kingdoms of Scandinavia began, coinciding with the formation of the unique Icelandic 'Free State'.

The History of Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Denmark,Finland and Iceland) is similar to Cambridge History yet significantly cheaper

The Viking World by Stefan Brink & Neil Price is a mid-range anthological book compromising of many articles from various scholars.

>I would really appreciate material that covers linguistics.....philology, morphology and the like
As for the other categories, I would really appreciate some introductory material on archaeology.

This book will probably be the best one for you because it includes all of the above.

Myth and Religion of the North: the Religion Ancient Scandinavia this book is a good overview of the different mythologies before the christianisation of the nordics.

Women in the Viking Age is a good book on the niche subject area of Women roles within the viking age nordics & its various colonies (from Greenland to Russia). Jesch uses various pieces of evidence from archaeological finds, runic inscriptions, historical records & Old Norse literature.

I would also recommend you look into the Icelandic sagas & Eddas. I'd use SagaDB because there are many various different icelandic sagas & in a variety of languages including English, Icelandic & Old Norse. If you'd like to go about learning O.N. you check the Viking Society for Northern Research or check out the books: A New Introduction to Old Norse: I Grammar: 1 or Viking Language 1: Learn Old Norse, Runes, and Icelandic Sagas

If you're interested at all in the presence of the Vikings (and later scandinavians) in Eastern Europe check out Viking Rus: Studies on the Presence of Scandinavians in Eastern Europe

Hopefully this helps if you have any more specific questions don't be afraid to ask :)

For Old Norse, I strongly recommend Jesse L. Byock's Viking Language Series. Getting your hands on E.V. Gordon's work is going to be pretty expensive, and the material is pretty dated and dense. Byock's approach is very beginner friendly while still introducing the reader to the technicalities of the language. In the second book, it's very reminiscent of Wheelock's Latin where you will be asked to translate excerpts from the sagas. Hope that helps!

I just happened to end up at a university that had a professor of Old Norse. Modern Icelandic and Faroese are pretty close and there is an Old Norse dictionary (Zoega's concise dictionary - it's concise because he was going to make a larger one but died before he could). My old norse professor has two textbooks you can get on amazon (textbook 1 and textbook 2) but I don't know how good those are because he was writing them while I was taking his courses. There's also this textbook which I've never used but has good reviews.

You can also learn modern Icelandic and then study Old Norse because they very similar. It may be easier to do it that way. We also read the sagas in the original Old Norse which was very interesting.

I took an Old Norse class in college, and we used Viking Language by Jesse Byock (https://www.amazon.com/Viking-Language-Learn-Norse-Icelandic/dp/1480216445). It would be a good book to work through on your own and also includes culture and history lessons.

Jesse Byock's unfortunately titled but very well-executed Viking Language course has been compared to Wheelock's Latin in terms of its quality, as has Michael Barnes's A New Introduction to Old Norse.

For Old English, I recommend Baker as mentioned below or, if you're like me and like a straight-up grammar, Sweet's A Primer of Anglo-Saxon.

I'm new to Ásatrú but an old hand at ancient languages. Sweet was my grammar in undergrad years ago. PM me if you'd like more info.

These two textbooks are terrific:

https://www.amazon.com/Viking-Language-Learn-Norse-Icelandic/dp/1480216445

https://www.amazon.com/Viking-Language-Old-Norse-Reader/dp/1481175262

https://www.amazon.com/Viking-Language-Learn-Norse-Icelandic/dp/1480216445