 An early change that separated Runic Danish from the other dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é , as in stæinn to sténn " stone " . This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin . There was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr " dead " . This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr . Moreover , the øy diphthong changed into a long , close ø , as in the Old Norse word for " island " . By the end of the period , these innovations had affected most of the Runic Swedish @-@ speaking area as well , with the exception of the dialects spoken north and east of Mälardalen where the diphthongs still exist in remote areas . 
