Viking Language 1 Learn Old Norse, Runes, and Icelandic Sagas

by Jesse L. Byock

Overview

Viking Language 1: Learn Old Norse, Runes, and Icelandic Sagas (the first book in the Viking Language Series) is a new introduction to Old Norse and Icelandic. The beginner has everything in one book: Graded lessons, reading passages, vocabulary, grammar exercises, and pronunciation. A full complement of maps, runic inscriptions and culture sections explore the civilization, legends, and myths of the Vikings. The lessons follow an innovative word frequency strategy, a method that speeds learning. Because the grammar of Modern Icelandic has changed so little from Old Norse, the learner is well on the way to mastering Modern Icelandic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781480216440
Publisher:	Jules William Press
Publication date:	03/18/2013
Series:	Viking Language Series , #1
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	169,002
Product dimensions:	7.80(w) x 9.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Jesse Byock is Distinguished Professor of Old Norse and Medieval Scandinavian Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and professor at UCLA's Cotsen Institute of Archaeology. He directs the Mosfell Archaeological Project in Iceland. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University. Prof. Byock teaches Old Norse, the Icelandic sagas, Viking history and archaeology and directs the Mosfell Archaeological Project (MAP) in Iceland. Jesse Byock is the author of Viking Age Iceland, and Feud in the Icelandic Saga. His translations from Old Norse The Prose Edda, The Saga of the Volsungs, The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki, and Grettir´s Saga. See www.vikingnorse.com and oldnorse.com and vikinglanguage.com

Editorial Reviews

Even the many academics who have done their best to learn Old Norse old-style, and then to teach it, will benefit from working through the course. As for students coming to the language without prior experience, they have it all: a very thorough grammar, but carefully spaced-out, explained without short cuts, and reinforced by exercises graded from absolute no-knowledge upward; well-selected and well-varied texts, with considerable use not only of the sagas but also of runestone-inscriptions, eddic poems and even notoriously difficult skaldic poems; and cultural background which takes in strange reports like that of the Arab traveller Ibn Fadlan (which gave rise to the movie The Thirteenth Warrior), maps, explanations and reconstructions...There is no-one better-qualified than Professor Byock to link up sagas with archaeology.

From the Publisher

Even the many academics who have done their best to learn Old Norse old-style, and then to teach it, will benefit from working through the course. As for students coming to the language without prior experience, they have it all: a very thorough grammar, but carefully spaced-out, explained without short cuts, and reinforced by exercises graded from absolute no-knowledge upward; well-selected and well-varied texts, with considerable use not only of the sagas but also of runestone-inscriptions, eddic poems and even notoriously difficult skaldic poems; and cultural background which takes in strange reports like that of the Arab traveller Ibn Fadlan (which gave rise to the movie The Thirteenth Warrior), maps, explanations and reconstructions...There is no-one better-qualified than Professor Byock to link up sagas with archaeology.

Tom Shippey