[Dean F. Marino]

A request for input from my colleagues familiar with modern, or ancient, languages in the area of Denmark and Norway....

Recently, I was asked to help with a translation of the following English phrase....

"storm on the sea"

FROM English INTO Old Norse. I have no experience with Old Norse, though I have worked in other Languages.

The desire was to come up with plausible Old Norse, circa 980 to 1380 AD - then to render this into the appropriate Runes that were likely used by Vikings during that period.

I have employed online translators (http://www.freelang.net/online/old_norse.php), and Rune converters (http://www.vikingrune.com/rune-converter/). The basic WORD translation that I have arrived at is:

veðr fram haf

I understand from work with OTHER languages that a WORD translation may very well provide a bad PHRASE translation. There could easily be an issue with word "gender", or word order.

IF you are familiar with modern, and/or ancient languages from the area of Norway or Denmark? I would GREATLY appreciate your criticism of this phrase. The gentleman requesting this translation will be engraving it on a custom blade - and as we all know, it is very difficult to erase a steel engraving.

The Younger Futhark runes that I have seen appear thus:



Of course, these depend on the correct PHRASE - and the Runes themselves MAY have issues.

Any help you could render in this matter would be GREATLY appreciated by two of your colleagues.

[Shahril Dzulkifli]

Dean, you seem to be an expert in reading runes. Many people throughout the world including myself cannot read runes. Some Viking swords, original or repro, have runes engraved on their blades. Only the makers can read them.

[Eric W. Norenberg]

Dean I'm finding "veðr" as having a few potential meanings, including "wind", "weather", and oddly, "wether" (as in a castrated male sheep). The word "stormr" I've found used directly to mean "storm", including a few metaphorical references to Thor as "a storm" or as "the storm".

Not sure about "fram", also seems to mean "from". Couple of online sources agree on "haf" meaning "the sea", either in a general or specific reference ("the sea" vs "that sea").

Old Norse is tricky to me because it seems to contain a lot of words that are only proper as part of a compound word, as if certain words exist just to be part of a kenning. If I were in this position I would contact a university with a good Scandinavian studies program, if they don't have an Old Norse expert on staff they might be able to point you toward one.

Runes were/are generally phonetic, so good readability was generally assumed, especially with Younger Futhark. Remember runes were widely used for public monuments, intended for folks to comprehend them. I used to think it was goofy to see English or Latin phrases written in runes but I feel now that such use is totally in the proper spirit of the runic alphabet, even if not absolutely historically appropriate. There is a tradition of "bind runes", combining two or more runes into one "glyph" which would be much harder to decipher to the average reader, and I've read of substitution uses (almost like hieroglyphs, instead of phonetic use), either of which would be the province of the "Rune Masters", if you follow- secret meanings and implied magic perhaps.

Wiser folks, please set me (us) straight if I'm wrong with any of this. I'm a self-taught amateur here.
Best,
Eric

[Dean F. Marino]

THANK YOU Eric ... this is JUST the kind of critical info we need. So far, things APPEAR acceptable. One general question I would have regarding even modern Nordic languages - do they have a word gender concept? For example - in certain languages, it might be critical to use the "female" noun for an inland sea, a "male" noun for the ocean.

[Eric W. Norenberg]

Well that's a good point. Yes I believe Old Norse (and modern Icelandic and Norwegian at least) have gendered nouns. Probably not crucial for a short inscription but again worth trying to find an expert contact in the realm of academia. If your Alma Mater or the local university can't help, maybe try your local Sons of Norway? I've actually made some international contacts through my local lodge in a similar pursuit.