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Sievers’ Law and the Skåäng Stone

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 November 2020

Bernard Mees
Bernard Mees*
Affiliation:
University of Tasmania
*
University of Tasmania Private Bag 84 Hobart TAS7001Australia [[email protected]]
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Abstract

Early runic inscriptions are the best evidence for the oldest historical development of North Germanic. Yet among the many unexpected features of the inscriptions as they are usually presented is the apparent presence of vowels before glides that seem to occur contrary to Sievers’ Law. These include perhaps most prominently the sequence usually read as <harija> on the Skåäng stone where the Vimose comb preserves the expected form <harja>. Rather than assume that a Neogrammarian sound law is violated in a runic text, a more profitable approach is usually to assume that it is the interpretation that is at fault. Many of the instances where Sievers’ Law vocalizations seem to occur in an aberrant manner are texts that are better explained in manners other than have traditionally been accepted.

Keywords

Sievers’ LawProto-Norserunic inscriptionsSkåäng stonehistorical phonology
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Germanic Linguistics , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , December 2020 , pp. 315 - 334
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Copyright
© Society for Germanic Linguistics 2020

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