“ek hræðumz ekki þik” – The dvergar in translated riddarasǫgur

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 335-355
Author(s):  
Felix Lummer
Keyword(s):  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Old French ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
Folk Belief ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
Chivalric Romances

Abstract This article investigates the usage of Old Nordic supernatural concepts in the Old Norse translations of Old French and Anglo-Norman chivalric romances and courtly lais from the twelfth to fourteenth centuries. This paper focuses on the usage of the term dvergr as a translation for the Old French nain, reflecting not only the narrative purposes involved in the choice of this word as a translation, but also the possible consequences it could have had on Icelandic folk belief when these works were read out loud alongside other works that formed part of Icelandic literature and Icelandic oral tradition.

scholarly journals Observaciones sobre la expresión colocacional de la intensidad en Beuve de Hamptone

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 165-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xavier Blanco Escoda
Keyword(s):  
Old French ◽  
The Other ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Chanson De Geste ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
The One

El artículo destaca la importancia del análisis de la expresión colocacional de la intensidad en francés antiguo a partir de ejemplos extraídos del cantar de gesta anglonormando Beuve de Hamptone. Por una parte, se muestra la tendencia de las traducciones al francés moderno a introducir masivamente valores colocacionales ausentes del original. Por otra parte, se presentan y comentan numerosos ejemplos de colocaciones adjetivas, adverbiales y verbales en francés antiguo, tanto colocaciones frecuentes y extendidas como colocaciones de carácter idiosincrático. Se pone de manifiesto hasta qué punto la elección de ciertos colocativos permite caracterizar el estilo de un autor. Basing on examples from the anglo-norman chanson de geste Beuve de Hampton, this paper emphasizes the importance of analysing the collocational expression of intensity in Old French. On the one hand, we observe the tendency of Modern French translations to massively introduce intensive collocations that are absent in the original text. On the other hand, we present and comment many examples of adjectival, adverbial and verbal collocations in Old French, as well usual and widespread collocations as idiosyncratic ones. We point out how the choice of certain collocatives allows to characterize an author’s style.

Archetypes of Comedy

2020 ◽  
pp. 55-68
Author(s):  
William V. Costanzo
Keyword(s):  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
Charlie Chaplin ◽  
Lars Von Trier ◽  
The People ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
Roberto Benigni ◽  
Cross National

Who are the people we laugh at or with in movie comedies? What kinds of individuals are the most frequent targets or perpetrators of cinematic mirth? Chapter 3 focuses on three of the world’s most popular figures of fun—the clown, the trickster, and the comic duo—revealing through the movies how these comic archetypes cross national boundaries by adopting local customs and traditions. Among the world’s most famous cinematic clowns are Britain’s Charlie Chaplin, America’s Lucille Ball, France’s Fernandel, Italy’s Roberto Benigni, and China’s Jackie Chan. The modern-day mischief of trickster figures like Denmark’s Lars von Trier and Hong Kong’s Stephen Chow can be traced back to the pranks of the Old Norse god Loki, to the wily animal heroes of Africa’s oral tradition, and to Japan’s spiritual folklore. The odd-couple comedy of Laurel and Hardy has its counterparts in Argentina’s Olmedo and Porcel and Taiwan’s Brother Wang and Brother Liu.

scholarly journals The Grammaticalization of the Epistemic Adverb Perhaps in Late Middle and Early Modern English

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafał Molencki
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Old French ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Hybrid Form ◽  
Prepositional Phrases ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
History Of

Abstract Old and Early Middle English did not yet have modal sentential adverbs of low probability. Old Norse did not have such words, either. From the 13th century onwards first epistemic prepositional phrases of Anglo-Norman origin functioning as modal adverbials consisting of the preposition per/par and nouns such as adventure, case, chance were borrowed into Middle English. In the late 15th century an analogous hybrid form per-hap(s), the combination of the Old French preposition per/par ‘by, through’ and the Old Norse noun hap(p) ‘chance’, both singular and plural, was coined according to the same pattern and was gradually grammaticalized as a univerbated modal sentence adverb in Early Modern English. The Norse root happ- was the source of some other new (Late) Middle English words which had no cognate equivalents in the source language: the adjective happy with its derivatives happily, happiness, etc. and the verb happen. Together with another new Late Middle English formation may-be, a calque of French peutêtre, perhaps superseded the competing forms mayhap, (modal) happily, percase, peradventure, perchance, prepositional phrases with the noun hap and, finally, per-hap itself in Early Modern English after two centuries of lexical layering or multiple synonymy. The history of perhaps is a clear example of grammaticalization, whereby a prepositional phrase became a modal adverb now also used as a discourse marker. We find here all the typical features of the process: phonetic attrition, decategorization, univerbation, and obligatorification.

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