Húsnorsk

Húsnorsk
Hússnorską
Pronunciation	[xuːt͡s.nor.skɐ]
Created by	Melinoë
Date	February 23rd, 2026
Ethnicity	Húsnorsk
Language family	Indo-European Germanic North Germanic West Scandinavian Húsnorsk
Early forms	Old Norse Old West Norse Húsnorsk

Húsnorsk is a distinct West Nordic language, it is so named "House Norse" for its historical vernacular status. Húsnorsk is considered the continuation of the Norse spoken by the Varangians, though this is heavily disputed, as Húsnorsk is clearly West Nordic. Húsnorsk is considered decently divergent for a Nordic language, often being unintelligible to the others (Take Húsnorsk /ɔ:.dɐ/ vs Swedish /al/, Danish /ælˀ/, Icelandic /atlʏr/, and Old (West) Norse /ɑlːr̩/)

History

Development

Húsnorsk's phonological history is, for the most part, deeply understood. The development of certain consonants and vowels isn't fully understood, such as the mechanism behind Old Norse "ár" to Húsnorsk "aą", and Old Norse initial /x/ to Húsnorsk /k/, the latter of which is extremely poorly understood as it's not known what caused it nor where it happens.

The following are the reconstructed phonological and grammatical changes between Old West Norse and Húsnorsk. Grammatical changes will be indented.

(IRL note - Do keep in mind these are prone to change as I develop Húsnorsk more)

/ar/ to /r̩/, the mechnism behind "ár" > "aą" is currently unknown, but it may have occurred out of analogy.

/xʷ/ to /x/, the lost labialization affects the vowel, rounding or raising vowels.

Masculine a-stems reformed to all end in -r regardless of final consonant

/r̩/ to /ɐ/ (see rule #1 for "ár")

/Vl/ to /Vu̯/, but /Vl:/ to /Vu̯d/ (where /V/ is any vowel, /ul/ to /uː/)

/mb, nd, ŋg/ to /m:, n:, g:/

Dual pronouns lost? (The timing is uncertain, but it happened relatively early on)

/rn, rm/ to /tn, pm/

/v/ to /b/ before approximants (/f/ didn't exist in such positions)

/l̩/ to /ul/, spelling doesn't change though

coda geminates to /ʰC/ when voiceless, to a fricative when voiced, and nasals to /PN/ (/n:/ > /tn/)

Diphthong flattening: /au, ɛu, eu, iu, øu, yu, ɔu, ou/ /ɔː, øː, øː, yː, yː, yː, oː, uː/

/fp, vb/ to /pː, bː/

/θ, ð/ to /t, d/

Genitive singular leveled to -s, words in -s now have a genitive in -ss

Dative singular leveled to -i, thus words like "ríki" have a dative "ríkí"

/sː/ to /ts/ when occupying coda only

Word initial /x/ occasionaly strengthens to /k/ when not in a cluster (Unknown why this is inconsistent, though it seems to happen more, but not exclusively, before long vowels)

/ɣ/ to /g/

/rː/ to /ʒ/

Devoicing of stops in contact with /s/

Phonology

		Labial	Alveolar	Velar
Nasal		m	n
Stop	Unvoiced	p	t	k
	Voiced	b¹	d¹	g¹
Fricative	Unvoiced	f²	s	x³
	Voiced	v², ⁴	ʒ⁵
Affricate			t͡s
Approximant	Unvoiced		r̥, l̥
	Voiced		r⁶, l	j

1. /b, d, g/ becomes /p, t, k/ next to voiceless stops and /s/, but not /f/, which becomes /v/ next to these consonants.
2. It is extremely common to turn word initial /x/ into /k/, roughly 65% to 70% of native speakers do so, and it rather consistently happens in those who do it, though proper names form a major exception to this, for example, "Hémnǫ́dą" ("Heimdall") is almost never pronounced with an initial /k/ by any speaker, this is likely due to people's hesitance to modify names.
3. /f, v/ both become stops before /l, r/, /v/ always becomes /b/, and /f/ either becomes /p/ or /b/ depending on when the cluster happened ("fl" from Old Norse becomes "bl", but newly formed "fl" becomes "pl")
4. /v/ is /ʋ/ following a consonant (eg. /Cv/ = /Cʋ/), and for some speakers, word initially. /v/ is also occasionally realized as /u̯/ between a vowel and consonant (eg. /VvC/ > [Vu̯C], as in "javn" being [jau̯n] for some speakers).
5. Can technically be analyzed as an allophone of /rː/, it's listed as a separate phoneme here because it's a universal change.
6. Realized as /t, p/ before /n, m/ (as in "ormą" /opmɐ/). Additionally, /rs/ may be realized as [t͡s].
7. All stops have different values when geminated in coda position (Meaning when the geminate isn't split across syllables), they are:

Nasals: "mm, nn" /pm, tn/

Voiceless: "pp, tt, kk" /ʰp, ʰt, ʰk/

Voiced: "bb, dd, gg" /v, z, g/

	Front		Central	Back
	Unround	Round
High	i	y		u
Mid-High	e	ø		o
Mid-Low	ɛ			ɔ
Low			ɐ	ɑ

1. All vowels except /ɐ/ can be long, and the round vowels (/u, o, ɔ, y, ø/) can be overlong.

Orthography

Alphabet
Letter	IPA
A a	a
Á á	aː
Ą ą	ɐ
B b	b
D d	d
E e	e
É é	eː
Ę ę	ɛ
Ę́ ę́	ɛː
F f	f
G g	ɡ
H h	x
I i	i
Í í	iː
J j	j
K k	k
L l	l
M m	m
N n	n
O o	o
Ó ó	oː
Ō ō	oːː
Ǫ ǫ	ɔ
Ǫ́ ǫ́	ɔː
Ǭ ǭ	ɔːː
P p	p
R r	r
S s	s
T t	t
U u	u
Ú ú	uː
Ū ū	uːː
V v	v
Y y	y
Ý ý	yː
Ȳ ȳ	yːː
Z z	t͡s
Ø ø	ø
Ǿ ǿ	øː
Ø̄ ø̄	øːː

Morphology

Nouns

Masculine a-stem:

inflection of Norską - "Norse"
	Singular		Plural
	Indefinite	Definite	Indefinite	Definite
Nominative	Norską	Norskrinn	Norską	Norskąnir
Accusative	Norsk	Norskinn	Norska	Norskana
Dative	Norski	Norskinum	Norskum	Norskunum
Genitive	Norsks	Norsksins	Norska	Norskanna

Syntax

Húsnorsk has relatively free word order, outside of requiring V2, allowing nouns to appear anywhere in the sentence as long as they're marked correctly.

These following examples will serve to illustrate sentence construction in Húsnorsk. (subject in yellow, verb in blue, object in red).

mannvjódinn vą 1.500 —The population was 1,500

In this example, the word order matches English relatively well, and we see "vą" ("was") in the second position.

In this next example, we see it break away from English order, with the verb still occupying V2 position.

árit 2000 vą mannvjódinn 1.500—In 2000, the population was 1,500 (lit. The year 2000 was the population 1,500)

The prepositional phrase "árit 2000" (in green) counts as a single unit, thus the verb must come after 2000 rather than árit.

Unlike Icelandic, V2 order has no exceptions, as SV inversion isn't used for yes/no questions. In the following example, you'll see one method of question marking:

Ari havi sútin — Ari is hungry (lit. Ari has hungry)

and as a question:

Ari havi sútin? — Is Ari hungry? (lit. Ari has hungry?)

Here you see the most common form of question, one without grammatical change, these use a rising vocal intonation as their marking (or a question mark in writing).

Another method is SO inversion, as in:

sútin havi Ari? — Is Ari hungry? (lit. Hungry has Ari?)

Something important you'll notice here is the use of "to have" where "to be" is used in other Germanic languages, this is a feature of Húsnorsk where permanent attributes use "to be" while temporary states use "to have", thus:

Ari er sø̄ — Ari is happy (Ari is always happy)

Ari havi sø̄ — Ari is happy (Ari is happy right now)

While "hava" can generally only take a noun, when used this way, "hava" takes an adjective just like "vera". When both an adjective and a noun exist, there is a semantic difference in meaning between the two, so saying Ari havi sø̄ is the English "Ari is happy", but saying Ari havi sø̄d means she's possessing happiness, "having happiness" is roughly equivalent to saying "withholding/denying happiness".

This hava vs vera copula system is, in a way, similar to Spanish's two copulas.

Texts

Drømde mik en drøm i nat

Old East Norse:

Drømde mik en drøm i nat um
silki ok ærlik pæl

Old West Norse¹:

Dreymða mik (einn?) draum í nátt um
silki ok ærligan feld

Húsnorsk:

Drýmda mik ą² drým í nátt um
sýki ók dýran fǿd

English:

I dreamt a dream last night of
silk and fine fur.

1. This translation was done by me, so it may be a bit off.
2. "ą" is a filler syllable to pad the line out, it has no semantic meaning.