Old Norse

High school (ages 12+)
History & Culture

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Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/old-norse

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the language family?North Germanic language, a subdivision of the Indo-European language family
2. What is the key literary works?Poetic Edda, Prose Edda, Icelandic Sagas, Skaldic verse
3. Where did people speak Old Norse?It was spoken in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and even as far as Eastern Europe and North America. Vikings carried the language on their travels.
4. What are some famous books written in Old Norse?The Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda, and many Icelandic Sagas are classic Old Norse writings. They tell myths, heroic adventures, and family histories.

Proto-Norse: The reconstructed common ancestor language from which Old Norse and other North Germanic languages developed.
Younger Futhark: The runic alphabet used during the Viking Age for inscriptions in Old Norse.
Skaldic Verse: A complex and formal style of Old Norse poetry, often found in sagas and Eddic poems.
Loanwords: Words adopted from one language into another, such as English words derived from Old Norse due to historical contact.