A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose

A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose (ONP) is a historical dictionary of the prose language of medieval Norway (up to c. 1370) and Iceland (up to c. 1540). It will eventually define every Old Norse word in both Danish and English. ONP is funded by the Arnamagnæan Commission.

The dictionary in numbers

The dictionary consists of around 65,000 headwords and 840,000 citations. As of March 2019, around 30,000 of these headwords have been edited and 500,000 citations defined and/or structured. There are around 60,000 senses identified, with 16,000 having both English and Danish definitions (mainly words starting A-E), 15,000 in Danish only, 1,000 in English only and 28,000 without definitions (mainly verbs).

The dictionary also includes a catalogue of almost 5,000 independent manuscripts with prose contents and a bibliography of almost 5,000 items. Every citation in the dictionary is linked to the primary manuscript from which it originally derives.

 

 

Since the launch of ONP Online the dictionary has continued to evolve with the publication of edited dictionary entries and the addition of a variety of features. The editing process is somewhat different than for the print edition. Rather than following the alphabetical order of headwords the work is centred on specific word classes. From 2010-2016 the focus was on simplex nouns, verbs and prepositions. Nouns have been fully edited but verbs and prepositions have been structured formally and do not yet contain any definitions. More recently the focus has been on simplex adjectives (finished in March 2019), adverbs and pronouns.

 


You can find us at at Njalsgade 136, 3rd floor, København S 2300, or you can mail us at onp@hum.ku.dk

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Old Nordic Prose dictionary

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