A posteriori

DARRA∂ARLO∂ (ON, "Song of Dorrud"): In the last chapters of Njal's Saga, a minor character named Dorrud sees a group of twelve mysterious women (probably intended to be the Valkyries). The women enter into a room and sing as they weave a loom composed of human heads, intestines, swords, and arrows--an idea often associated with the Norns (the Old Norse equivalent of the Greek Fates or Roman Parcae). Scholars traditionally refer to this section of Njal's Saga and the women's song as the darra∂arlo∂.

DATIVE: See discussion here.

DAWN SONG (also called an aubade): A genre of poetry common to Europe in which the poem is about the dawn or coming of dawn, or it is a piece of music meant to be sung or played outdoors at dawn. Examples include Browning's "The year's at the spring / And day's at the morn" from Pippa Passes or Shakespeare's "Hark! hark! the lark." Some poems, such as John Donne's "Busy old sun" share traits with the dawn song, and Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde also contains an example inside its larger narrative.

DEAD LANGUAGE: In linguistics, a dead language is one that does not change any more over time--it is "frozen" historically because it is no longer used in everyday discourse, but is instead learned only for ritual use, scholarly study, or the preservation of an ancient literature. Classical Latin and Sanskrit are two examples of dead languages. This situation contrasts with a living language, in which old words die out, new ones are added, and existing words change their meaning continuously over time from one generation to the next, as A. C. Baugh puts it (2).

DECLENSION: See discussion under declined language or click here for example cases.

DECLINED LANGUAGE: Also called a synthetic language, or an inflected language, a declined language is one in which word order is not as important in making meaning as the use of inflections or declensions--special endings stuck on the end of words--to indicate the case, or how each word functions. These endings are called declensions, a term that comes from the handwritten grammar charts used by medieval monks who create a series of angled or declined lines in specified patterns, and on these lines the students would write the correct word-ending as part of grammar exercises. Click here for further information.