An Icelandic-English Dictionary

Other Online Dictionaries

• Dictionary of Old Norse Prose
  • University of Copenhagen
    • This impressive resource is part of The Arnamagnæan Collection in the Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics at the University of Copenhagen. Maintained by Dr. Tarrin Wills.
    • Definitions are drawn from several sources:
      • An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Cleasby and Vigfusson (adapted from this version).
      • A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Zoëga (adapted from Thomas Stridman's version).
      • Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog, J. Fritzner (adapted from searchable database at the University of Oslo).
    • A large repository of digital transcriptions of manuscripts is available for searching.
• A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Zoëga
  • Northvegr
    • This is an HTML version of this dictionary with images for reference. The transcription was started by hand and then OCR was added later (all based on Sean Crist's page scans of Zoëga).
    • This version contains a search function.
    • Note: Zoëga's dictionary is based on Cleasby-Vigfusson, but omits the etymology and references/examples as well as the purely poetical and legal vocabulary. It's also worth pointing out that Zoëga distinguishes vowels etymologically (œ vs æ, ø vs ö), but this doesn't always match the vowels used in a given edition of a text (or even the vowels used in the original manuscript).
    • Note: This appears to be a mirror/archive of the original Northvegr website.
  • Norrœn Dýrð
    • Thomas Stridman OCR'd the images from the Germanic Lexicon Project and converted the text into a very nice HTML version of this dictionary.
    • See the note above about possible problems with the character encoding for this website.
  • The Germanic Lexicon Project
    • Just the page scans, no OCR'd text; but, these are the page scans that the other projects used to develop their HTML versions.
• Lexicon Poeticum, Jónsson and Egilsson
  • Septentrionalia
    • Page scans and OCR'd text. Maintained by Dr. Paul Langeslag.
    • Note: this lexicon contains the poetical vocabulary translated into Danish. Cleasby and Vigufsson made use of this dictionary when compiling theirs.
• Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog, Fritzner
  • University of Olso
    • Searchable database.
  • Internet Archive
    • Page scans.
  • Note: entries are in Norwegian. This dictionary has better coverage of Norwegian word forms compared to Cleasby/Vigfusson.
• An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Cleasby and Vigfusson
  • The Germanic Lexicon Project
    • This is the original project to scan and OCR the Cleasby-Vigfusson dictionary.
    • High-resolution .TIFF images are available for closer inspection of the original scan.
    • A simple search function is available; however, it doesn't accept accented vowels or characters like ð or þ, nor does it accept regular expressions. Also, it searches several Old English texts in addition to Cleasby-Vigfusson with no way of filtering the results.
  • Norrœn Dýrð
    • Thomas Stridman's updated version of the Germanic Lexicon Project version.
    • Text only. Many OCR errors have been fixed (especially the Greek text). Most of the errata and addenda have been folded into the main text.
    • The text encoding appears to be non-standard (e.g., Chrome displays lots of garbled characters, but Safari renders the page just fine.) If your browser supports manually choosing the encoding, forcing UTF-8 seems to work.
  • Northvegr
    • Just the page scans, no OCR'd text.
    • The images are easier to view than the Germanic Lexicon Project version (i.e., JPG rather than TIFF and each page is split into single columns).
    • These images are adapted from Sean Crist's page scans.
    • Note: This appears to be a mirror/archive of the original Northvegr website.

Notes:

• It's still possible to order a physical copy of Cleasby-Vigfusson from the Oxford University Press via their Print-On-Demand service. However, the quality of the binding is rather disappointing.
• Several re-prints of Zoëga's dictionary have appeared over the past decade or two; I like the MART series reprint from the University of Toronto Press.

Online Courses and Related Materials

• Dr. Paul Langeslag, Göttingen University: Old Norse Resources
  • A large collection of Old Norse resources that Dr. Langeslag has put together for his Old Norse students. I highly recommend spending time looking through these.
• Dr. Todd B. Krause and Dr. Jonathan Slocum, UT Austin: Old Norse Online
  • An online course with a similar approach to Byock's book (i.e., grammar concepts are introduced in the context of a reading with historical context given for each excerpt). The reading excerpts have audio recordings of the text as well as a very detailed analysis of the text followed by a more idiomatic translation of the entire passage.
• Dr. Jackson Crawford, U of Colorado: Old Norse Videos
  • Dr. Crawford has been posting videos related to Old Norse Mythology, poetry, and language since 2016. Lots of interesting stuff here.
• University of Iceland: Icelandic Online
  • This is a brief online course in modern Icelandic.

Online Texts

• Family Sagas and Tales of Icelanders
  • heimskringla.no
    • These versions are based on Guðni Jónsson's Íslendinga Sögur, but only ~50% have been transcribed.
  • snerpa.is
    • This collection of the family sagas and tales uses modern Icelandic spelling.
  • wikisaga.hi.is
    • Both Njal's saga and Egil's saga are presented here in both English and Icelandic text (modern spelling) with copious footnotes and links to scholarly articles and other related information.
• Eddic Poetry (and related material)
  • openbookpublishers.com
    • Edward Pettit's edition of the Poetic Edda. This has both the original text and a facing translation with detailed footnotes and introductions. Even better, the online version of the book is open access (both HTML and PDF). You can purchase a physical volume (or ebook) as well.
  • etext.old.no
    • Sophus Bugge's edition of the Poetic Edda.
  • heimskringla.no
    • Guðni Jónsson's edition of the Poetic Edda (and related texts).
  • snerpa.is
    • Eddic poems with modernized spelling.
  • heimskringla.no
    • The prose Edda.
  • snerpa.is
    • Excerpt from the Prose Edda (modernized spelling).
• Misc. Text Collections
  • Sjalfala
    • Dr. Fabian Schwabe has assembled a variety of interactive texts where clicking on each word reveals grammatical information for that word and links to online dictionary entries (both Fritzner and Cleasby/Vigfusson) for that word.
  • Icelandic Saga Map
    • A collection of the Íslendinga Sögur texts paired with an interactive map. Every reference to a location in the texts has a link that highlights the location on the map.
  • The Skaldic Project
    • A collection of the skaldic, eddic, and runic poems. A great deal of detailed information about the forms, historical context, manuscripts, etc. is included.
  • septentrionalia.net
    • A variety of old editions (mostly in PDF format).
  • Viking Society for Northern Research
    • Several relatively modern editions (some in translation) in PDF format. Many of these can also be purchased as physical books at gazellebookservices.co.uk (search for Viking Society).
  • heimskringla.no
    • A large variety of texts. Some texts are only partially transcribed and there are numerous OCR errors (e.g., u/n errors are rather common).
  • snerpa.is
    • Misc texts in modern Icelandic spelling.
  • sagadb.org
    • Sometimes this site is down. When it is working, it has a limited selection, but multiple languages for most texts.
  • Samnordisk runtextdatabas
    • Database of the Scandinavian runic inscriptions. Unfortunately, images of the original inscriptions aren't included; however, it does give the initial transliteration, a diplomatic transcription, and the normalized transcription.
• Manuscript Images
  • The Arnamagnæan Institute Digitised Manuscripts
  • handrit.is
  • Old Norse Prose Manuscript Index
    • Images of the original manuscripts are available at these sites. These are fantastic resources; however, the handwriting can be difficult to read unless you have some experience.

Other Resources

• Grammars and Introductory Texts
  • Several introductory texts focus on translating short passages from the very beginning as essential grammar principles are gradually introduced. The first two are out of print, but can usually be obtained via inter-library loan.
    • K. G. Chapman, Graded Readings and Exercises in Old Icelandic; ISBN: 9780520316805
    • W. A. Craigie, Easy Radings in Old Icelandic (with Outlines of Grammar and Vocabularies)
    • Jesse Byock, Viking Language (Vol 1 & 2); ISBN: 9780988176416, 9781481175265
  • The Viking Society for Northern Research has a more thorough and systematic introduction of the grammar principles with an excellent selection of texts and a comprehensive glossary. Note: PDF versions are available at the society website.
    • Michael Barnes & Anthony Faulkes, A New Introduction to Old Norse; ISBN: 9780903521741 (Grammar), 9780903521697 (Reader), 9780903521703 (Glossary)
  • Gordon's book has a very terse introduction to the grammar principles, but has an excellent selection of readings with a comprehensive glossary:
    • E. V. Gordon, An Introduction to Old Norse; ISBN: 9780198111849
• Texts in Old Norse
  • Hið Íslenska Bókmenntafélag has a large collection of books in Old Norse. I find it's easiest to purchase these via bóksala.is
  • The Viking Society for Northern Research has several texts in Old Norse. Some of these can be purchased at gazellebookservices.co.uk (search for Viking Society).
• Modern Icelandic
  • The Database of Icelandic Morphology (Beygingarlýsing íslensks nútímamáls) is an excellent website run by the Árna Magnússon Foundation that provides complete inflection tables for modern Icelandic words (you can search by headword or by the inflected form).