Could a Viking Understand Modern Norwegian?
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- The relationship between Old Norse and Modern Norwegian is explored from the perspective of an Old Norse-speaking Viking trying to learn the modern language.
Jackson Crawford, Ph.D.: Sharing real expertise in Norse language and myth with people hungry to learn, free of both ivory tower elitism and the agendas of self-appointed gurus. Visit jacksonwcrawfo... (includes bio and linked list of all videos).
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You did an "Editing Jackson" scene. That means that, despite your efforts, you are officially a UA-camr. My condolences
what is that?
Lovely ‘freestyle’ tone in this episode. Love the indoor ‘footnote’ on “skjold”. Btw, it is interesting for me to tell my student goups of romance language AND Swedish students that Danish doesn’t do palatalization based on the vowel, but on whether the consonant is the first letter.
As an icelander, speaking a language that is some what close to the old norse, I would suspect a viking whould be conversant or even fluent in modern norwegian in about 3-6 months of living in Norway. Reason being that this is roughly how long it takes for an icelandic person to learn norvegian while living in Norway.
So it is so close to Norwegian. As "ny-norsk"- speaker, Icelandic is like German for me. I do sometime see so similarities but for the most of the time it is only sounds :)
@@PizzaPizzaPizzq Old norse would probably sound strange to a modern icelander, perhaps like faroese but probably less confusing (faroese is very close to icelandic but strangely different in unexpected ways). But much closer to icelandic than ny-norsk. I'm supposing a lot here, but I would think old norse would not be much farther a way from ny-norsk than icelandic to ny-norsk. Think of a isosceles triangle, where old norse and icelandic form the corners that are closest together and ny-norsk the farthest corner. That's roughly how I imagine it would be (wildly speculating here).
Icelandic is closer to original than Norwegian. Greetings from Finland.
Speaking as a Swede, any comparative video including Swedish or Old Swedish would be most interesting.
Interestingly, most Danish dialects had some degree of palatalisation, some even fronting [k g] to [tʃ dʒ] or [tʃ j]. But in northeastern Zealand where the capital is, it was only [kʲ gʲ] which later reverted to [k g] and spread to the whole country.
Not most; just Northern Jutland and Bornholm. But for sure, Copenhagen has been one of the main areas to channel German, Dutch and French influences into Scandinavia. Amager was an area with a large Dutch population.
@@o.3464 Note that I write in the past tense. 150 years ago all Danish dialects except Northeast Zealand and Southern Jutland had palatalisation to some degree. In Jutland it was typically /kj gj/. On Funen, Lolland-Falster and southern Zealand it was typically /tj j/.
From my own reading of old norse as a norwegian speaker with a conservative dialect i realized that many of the terms and words employed in the sagas are still present in norwegian, but less commonly used today (for example in old norse øngul - norwegian angell (but today krok is more commonly used) - meaning fish hook). By simply thinking in more poetic and archaic words and phrasings in terms of my own dialect and norwegian language, i found it relatively easy to read the sagas and understand quite alot (between 60-75% i would say).
Another fascinating thing comparing old norse and my own accent is how where i am from we have still retained gendered phrasings of speaking about physical aspects. For example "boka hu var god" - literally meaning "the book she was good" i.e. "it was a good book"
It's the same for dialects in Danish!
Also very much depends on the dialect. I speak a utttrøndersk dialect where "ongell" is more commonly used instead of krok.
It's similar to how in English you can still read Shakespeare today when it was written over 400 years ago and understand it just fine.
For those of us who are native English speakers who have had the opportunity of being exposed to more archaic forms of English, the same is true. We can sometimes flesh out older forms of English if we’ve had the proper exposure. A good example would be if one has had an exposure early in life to the Kjng James version of the Bible, one might theoretically have a better foundation for reading and understanding a text like The Canterbury Tales.
@@casthedemon Shakespeare is modern English though. The equivalent of Old Norse would be Old English which looks like this:
Hwæt. We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas. (Beowulf)
This is at least true in terms of time depth. But English has changed a lot, in a very different way to how Norwegian has changed, so in terms of how different the language Modern English probably diverges more from OE than Modern Norwegian does from ON. But then again, Middle English is too similar again:
Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licóur
Of which vertú engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne, (The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer)
So idk what the best equivalent would be.
As a Norwegian I must say you impress me, mr Crawford 🥇👏👏
A viking would surely struggle with all the new words that were imported from Low German around the 14th century.
A modern Norwegian could probably adapt his or her language to make it possible for 12th century Norwegian to understand it, but that wouldn't work the other way. Some sentences in 12th century Norwegians are perfectly comprehensible today, even taking sound changes into account, other sentences will be totally incomprehensible, and the rest (probably most) will be partly comprehensible given some context. But how well a modern Norwegian could adapt would greatly depends on his or her etymology knowledge. For instance, the modern Norwegian would have to be familiar with the Low German influence to know that "språk" wouldn't work and pick something like "tungemål" instead.
There are amusing videos on Yt that do practical inquiries into the capabilities of ordinary people today in their efforts to understand old Norse. This professor has moderated one, too. And the danish and norwegian speakers fail in understanding Icelandic. So why should it work the other way round?
Todays Scandinavians do better in understanding German. Not to mention Dutch, which would be interesting, since it is somehow a surviving low dutch dialect. I suppose the outcomes would be even better there than in standard German.
@@kellymcbright5456 What do you mean with "(Dutch) is a somehow surviving low dutch dialect"?
@@treslinguaesacrae Low German died out everywhere in it's original territory, considered Germany. It spread historically from Flanders in the west up to the baltic states of today.
Nearly nobody speaks it anymore in todays Germany, in the eastern realms it disappeared with WWII.
Southern standard German replaced it in Germany.
But in the Netherlands it became the state's official language. Thus it is somehow preserved there and can be taken for those interesting studies. Unfortunately nearly nobody does it.
@@kellymcbright5456 I think you're confusing Dutch and Low German. They are separate languages. You can cleaely see that in the northwestern Rhine Valley because there used to be a clear dialect border between them. And by the way, Low German is a minority language in the Netherlands of which the sole official language is Dutch. Yes both languages didn't undergo the High German consonant shift. And yes there is (was) a dialect contnuum between dutch and low german but so there was one between Low German und High German which is, and i think we both agree, a separate language
I forgot something: The spread is from flanders to the baltics is technically correct but the dutch dialects of these settlers were eventually by the low German ones of those areas leaving only lexical evidence (and perhaps some pronunciation relics) behind.
Fun exercise, if you like that sort of thing - take a norse text and instead of translating it, just apply nynorske spelling conventions or the spellings Norwegians use when writing our dialects, and see how much you can read. Depending on the text and what dialects you are familiar with, it may be more than you expected.
I'd be interested in the Danish comparison, as a learner of Danish and an English native I'm sure it would be helpful and enlightening! Tak for videoen
Du kan være ret så sikker på, at en nordbo fra vikingetiden - uanset om han var fra Danmark eller Norge- ikke ville forstå et kvæk af nutidens danske talesprog. Både udtale og ordforråd er alt for forskellige.
May be difficult since the old norse sources are in Norwegian or more correct old west norse
@@exentr We have a few Old East Norse Sources as well mostly from Rune stones. But even so Modern Danish and Modern Swedish are so far away from Old Norse due to European influences that it's more accurate to say that Swedish is French and German mixed with a tiny bit of Norse... that's how bad it is. Old Swedish had the word Biläte for Picture, Modern Swedish has Bild, which is a German loanword.
@ Well, I would probably say that that is somewhat exaggerated. All three Scandinavian languages have lots of Low German vocabulary (Old Swedish 'bilæte' is actually from Low German; the Norse word was 'mynd') but still the majority of words, the morphology, syntax and sound systems are Norse/Nordic.
Just as there is little difference between those three languages today, there is also little difference between Old West Norse and Old East Norse.
@@livedandletdie "Biläte" was already a loanword. The norse word for picture ist "mynd".
Sognemål is closer to Old Norse than most Norwegian dialects, as far as I know. I do not speak it, but I do understand (most of) it. Very informative video! Thank you, Mr. Crawford!
Tid only has a silent d in some dialects. There is indeed a general trend towards not pronouncing single d's at the end of words, double d's are always pronounced.
Yup. Bergenser here, we pronounce the d in Tid.
I dei aller fleste norske dialektane har ein enkel bokstav /d/ (som, unnateke i begynnelsen av eit ord og nokre fåe andre tilfelle, representerer ikkje norrønt /d/ men norrønt /ð/--tenk på norrønt dauðr, norsk daud/død [dø:]) naturleg vorte stum. Eit viktig naturleg unntak var eldre sunnmørskmål der [ð] vart uttalt her. I bergensk dialekt når man høyrer d-en (uttalt ikkje som [ð] men som [d]) i t.d. "tid" representerer dette påvirkning av skriftspråket (som er vanleg i denne gamle prestisjedialekten; tenk på tapet av hunkjønnet), som når man høyrer /t/ i engelsk "often" (jamfør "soften" med det naturlege tapet av /t/ etter /f/, som liknar på bortfallet av /t/ etter /f/ i norsk "etter" frå norrønt "eftir").
@@JacksonCrawford Fascinerende. Undres på hvor mange av de "eldre" aspektene av det norske talemålet har blitt overført fra skriftspråk, fremfor en organisk videreføring i dagligtale.
*bortfallet av /f/ før /t/
@@JacksonCrawford Just realized, I only pronounce the d in "død" as a noun, not as an adjective. So I'd say "Han er dø-", but also "En smertefull død". Southener here!
Funnily, modern German "Schild" comes in both genders: masculine "der Schild" meaning "shield", and neuter "das Schild" meaning "sign"
Whilst the two terms are similar in Swedish, they are nevertheless rather distinct, or have become so over time should the etymology be the same - sköld (shield) and skylt (sign).
@@TheEvolvedMind Skylt may be cognate with sköld, but is a German loanword, old enough to have been Swedicised and no longer thought of as a loanword. Ending up with two similar but distinct words for related but distinct concepts isn't rare, and often happens when you borrow words from a related language. Of course, sometimes a word may split into two without being borrowed as well, as has to some extent apparently happened to Schild (I'd say they're different words if they have different genders, even if they're spelled the same).
@@hazenoki628 "Der Schild" in the masculine gender is the original. From the late Middle Ages we can find the neuter form in the current meaning. And it is undoubtedly derived from the masculine form.
Let me just say
Skilpadde
More topics like this would be great!
Enjoyed this contrasting look at Old Norse vs Nynorsk. Very interesting indeed. IMHO, this would be a great topic to expound upon if materially feasible. Not sure how much academic work is out there on this topic but it’s fascinating nonetheless.
Eg antar skjolden blei skjoldet etter det hadde vore ute av bruk i nokre århundre, og at man difor sa kva som kjendes mest naturleg.
Men var det verkeleg ute av bruk?
Som eit apropos har ein jo også ordet skjold som i å tyda "ein flekk" (anna tyding, likt opphav). Det artige er at skjold i den tydinga er hankjønn både på bokmål og nynorsk: Altså "ein skjold - skjolden". Men adjektivsforma, som gjerne er meir brukt, vil på dansk til forveksling likna eit substantiv som er inkjekjønn. T.d. "duken blev skjoldet efter vask". (I moderne norsk vert det skrive "skjoldete"). Om det ligg ei forklaring her ein stad, veit eg ikkje.
In Danish the same thing is currently happening with the word hamster (the animal). Some people say "et hamster" instead of "en hamster".
I cannot think of any other examples... so perhaps it is a rare occurrence.
@@anotherelvis "et anker" or Swedish "ett finger"
I'm learning norwegian as a gateway to old norse poetry. Old norse/icelandic seem super difficult for my monolingual mind and norwegian, so far, seems pretty easy for me to wrap my head around. I hope to one day jump from bokmål (which i'm learning now), to nynorsk, then hopefully to icelandic or old norse. This video makes me hope that transitioning from language to language won't be too hard haha.
@@saviourly3186 I dare say that it's easier for foreigners to learn Nynorsk, if it wasn't for limited resources (maybe Jackson could correct that). The reason is that Nynorsk is more a fresh start, created with fewer written traditions to please, whereas Bokmål, though technically younger, due to somewhat conflicting influences has been more vulnerable to inconsistencies.
The only book I'm aware of on Nynorsk in English is digitized here: archive.org/details/norwegiannynorsk0000hall/mode/2up
@@midtskogen yeah I've heard the same but just like you mentioned, the resources to learn it, at least in English, are quite limited
Det er alltid interessant å høre på deg, godt jobbet! Du snakker bedre norsk enn de fleste :)
In Finnish the words "vakaa", "vakka", "vaaka" are three different things, and the only difference in pronunciation is how long or short the a and k sounds are.
vakaa is steadfast or sturdy;
vakka is a drum-shaped container with a cap;
vaaka is a scale.
So I guess "vakaa vakka ja vakaa vaaka" would be a sturdy container and a stable scale.
Cool example of how near homophones emerge. I would imagine vakaa / sturdy is the oldest word describing a timeless property, whereas vakka / drum-shaped container came in later as a loanword and vaaka / scale is the most recent loanword and the only word an Old Norse speaker would be able to recognize (vaaka / vágr / våg).
In Estonian, similarly, consonants and vowels can have 3 lengths. Like koli, kooli, kooli (written the same but the last one is overlong on the o).
I'm guessing the first two mean "junk" and "school's," but what about the third? And yes, vakaa in its archaic indeclinable form vaka is the first word of many books and chapters of the Kalevala (vaka vanha Väinämöinen, steadfast old Väinämöinen), whereas vakka seems to be borrowed from a Baltic word for "lid."
I've had dreams about this topic omds 😭 this vid is a godsend
I’ve missed following your videos so much! I’m glad this was recommended this morning! What would be the best resources to learn old norse? Paid or otherwise, cheers!
I occasionally offer paid Zoom classes online, but attendance has been declining so I'm not sure when I next will. A textbook based on the materials for that is planned with Hackett Publishing but has no fixed publication date set. In the meantime, Barnes's book A New Introduction to Old Norse is available free from the publisher online ( vsnr.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/NION-1.pdf ) and is better than any book currently available that you could pay for (except E. V. Gordon, but that is only good if you already know an inflected language like Latin or German). I also have a long series of Old Norse "class" videos starting at ua-cam.com/video/FJd_eOzgbgg/v-deo.html
Takk, flott informasjon 👍
Thanks for an illuminating video! A typo though for the definite plural: "the ravens" would be, as you said, "ravnene", but plural indefinite possesive "ravners - "ravens" " is shown in the 2nd definite column of the table at 11:35 instead .
Tid - "tea" - silent d?
If we are talking about Norwegian, the d isn't silent there though.
Aldri vært i østfold du vel? Vi sier ti å tia man uttaler ikke d litt engang
It varies by dialect. Here in the west, we usually do pronounce trailing 'd's and 't's that are often omitted in eastern and northern dialects - including the 'd' in 'tid'. Could be a correlation with whether or not your dialect has hard or soft 'r's? Just a guess.
@@ErikGjertsen i dont know, but i often get the feeling this south eastern accent has alot of swedish influences in it
@@ErikGjertsen If you fully unleash dialects, you can bypass any and all rules. Everything goes.
But if we are not disco dorking, but actually strict curling the word "tid" with the set parameters of Bokmål/Nynorsk, without dialect, without slang. Then in situations: you pronounce the 'd'.
(not when asking for the time: 'hva er tia?'
or if someone has the time to help: 'har du tia?' / 'har du ti?' (because "har du 10" doesnt make sense)
but after a fact, asking what it was: 'hva ble tiden?'
one word: 'tid.'
I only ever pronounce the d for emphasis. In any other instance it’s silent. No native speaker would make a big fuss about whether you pronounce the d in tid or not, so don’t worry about it ;)
Hei fra Norge :)
Though I am sure you are aware, I will mention this anyway; many Norwegian dialects have indeed shifted the quality of Old Norse's long and short vowels.
A preface; I am not a trained linguist, I have merely been learning things on my own as someone enthusiastic about languages and linguistics.
In my own dialect of Romsdalsk, the pattern is as written below, and while new vowel length has developed, there is no noticeable qualitative difference between these new long and short vowels at present time.
There is also an argument to be made for the dialect distinguishing the syllables types VC VːC VCː, though there are few words where the full contrast exists, a potential one is /ot/(prep. to), /oːt/(ate), /otː/(clipped form of eight ).
The modern vowel qualities are:
a=/ɑ/
á=/o/
e=/æ/
é=/e/
i=/e/
í=/i/
o=/o/
ó=/u/
u=/u/
ú=/ʉ/
y=/ø/
ý=/y/
ę=/æ/
æ=/e/
ø=/ø/
œ=/œ/(this last one is a bit sporadic though)
au=/ɛʉ̯/ sometimes /œ/
ei=/ɛ/ /æɪ̯/ when followed by a pronounced vowel
ey=/œ/ /œʏ̯/ when followed by a pronounced vowel and more common at the end of a word.
A note; high vowels have taken on their "long" pronunciation when preceding a long palatal consonant, /ɲ/, /ʎ/, /c͡ç/, /ɟ͡ʝ/, and that these pronunciations have also spread to before long velars when that same word alternates between velar and palatal pronunciations.
Gender hopping among nouns has also been somewhat common in my dialect due to how the dative forms developed.
The masculine/neuter strong definite dative singular ending -inu(m) has become /ɑ/ with a palatalising effect on a preceding velar, same as the feminine definite nominative singular and neuter definite nominative plural -in which also became /ɑ/, resulting in these forms becoming confused.
The same has happened with the weak masculine/neuter definite dative singular ending -anu(m), becoming /o/, while the weak feminine definite nominative singular -an has also developed into /o/.
I should note though that the datives have a different tone to the merged nominative/accusative forms, but fewer and fewer speakers are consistently using the dative forms and overtime reinterpreting them, particularly masculine nouns, as feminine nouns.
The dative forms were in full use among my grandfather's generation, and still in strong use among my mother's generation, but waning. Occasional consistent user among my own generation.
Nouns that have largely switched from masculine to feminine are for example "arm" and "varme".
Arm has had the forms nom-acc: /ɑrm˧˦˧ ɑrm˧˦˧ən ɑrm˧˦˧ɑ ɑrm˧˦˧ɑɲ/ dat: /ɑrm˥˩ɑ ɑrm˥˩o/
But now features /ɑrm˧˦˧ɑ/ as its sole definite singular for many speakers, some still keeping it as masculine.
I do apologise for my terrible formatting, hopefully everything was still understandable.
As an Icelandic man that moved to Norway 10 years ago, I could definitely not speak to people from day 1...it actually took me 2-3 years.
Random Norwegian stumbling across this video, and this is my input:
0:30 No matter which source you use, they are all written after the end of what is counted as the Viking age, some of them hundreds of years after. A few hundred years with nothing but oral transmission of any bits of language isn't necessary highly accurate
2:30 lowering or rising of vowels is entirely situational
3:00 It is not between the two.
3:52 "some spellings in modern Norwegian..." we have 2 written languages in Norway (of Norsk, not including Sami) and by "modern Norwegian" this would refer to Bokmål, where there is only 1 way to spell it: Tid. And the D is not silent! (btw, exact same in Nynorsk)
4:30 incorrect pronunciation of "skipet"
4:45 No, the T is not silent.
6:43 The vowel is short..because you say it wrong.
I get that you have studied the languages to some degree, but some awareness that you're not a native speaker wouldn't be amiss.
It wouldn't be a bad idea to ask some Norwegians before you make a video on the Norwegian language...
To answer the question in the topic, could a Viking understand Norwegian, the answer would be no.
I've studied Norse just a bit, but I've talked with people who speaks it fluently, and with my knowledge of all of the Scandinavian languages I can to some degree comprehend old Norse, so I doubt anyone from that time could understand much of our modern languages.
Working on an EU project now, I am seeing that there are quite a few similarities of sounds and certain words between Icelandic and the dialect of my Norwegian colleagues from the Leikanger/Sogndal area of (the west coast of) Norway.
I found the dialekt at Gotland easy to Apply on texts with old Norse
Old Danish doesn’t get nearly enough love. Would love to see a video on that!
Perhaps the change from masculine to neuter in Danish and Bokmål occurred under the influence of the German loanword "skilt" (sign)? In German, "der Schild" means shield and "das Schild" sign. Ultimately, however, both words probably have the same origin. Incidentally, "schildt" is one of the loanwords that has found its way into the modern Icelandic language (skilti). Which is also neuter, while "skjoldur" is masculine - now as before.
Apparently "en skjold" in Danish can mean a blotch or discoloration left on clothes after washing, but I had to look this up before posting.
A normal shield is called "et skjold"
@@anotherelvis I know. I suspect, however, that one has a completely different origin. It may be related to: skal/ afskalle?
Neat!
Super interesting exercise!
Will your upcoming Old Norse textbook be also sold by Grimfrost?
The definite and indefinite forms in Norwegian have that added trick in possessives ravnen min (most common) vs. min ravn (more formal sounding), and then den / det / de going in front of the former when there's an adjective (den svarte ravnen min). Does old Norse have any similar constructions?
Norwegian would be very hard, they could probably understand a word here and there.
But your video on Icelandic sounds quite interesting, I know their writing is still relatively close.
How much of the vocabulary has changed? My understanding is that Danish has imported a lot of loan words from low German.
There is a large amount of Low German words in the Scandinavian languages. But there is only little difference between the number of Low German words in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. The Hanseatic league were seafaring people, so it has quite little effect that Denmark and Germany share a border.
An incredible amount.
Take the word 'kjærlighet', meaning 'love'. 'kjærlig-' is native but the '-het/heit' is a (Middle)Low German suffix. The true native form would be 'kjærleik'. This holds true for countless everyday words. Then there are words that are just outright loans, with no native element to them.
Too many lol
@@nicolaiby1846 I did not know that. In Swedish the abstract noun is still kärlek. Despite of the language having -het as general suffix. This single word seems to have survived the hanseatic influence.
And although kær/kjær/kär is very old in Nordic, it is actually from Old Norman French. 🙂
@@troelspeterroland6998 I guessed that before, maybe related to "cher/cherie" in modern French. Thus, you stress it was an early loanword? Maybe imported via the norman settlers in the "normandie"?
One nitpick, a short vowel is caused by double consonants following it, meaning two of the same consonant. Two different consonants will not shorten the preceding vowel.
@@pernicious8523 I disagree. In modern Norwegian we have a long vowel in høg, djup, but there's a strong tendency to shorten it in høgt, djupt. Usually not if the consonant belongs to a different syllable as i compounds, though. Even diphthongs tend to get shortened: snau, snøtt (written snautt). In snautt I suppose the double t can be explained by a hidden d lost in snau(d).
The rule seems to be that the _stressed_ syllable either has to have a long vowel or end in multiple/double consonants. In the case of the placename Høgevarde, the stress is on the third syllable and the the ø is then indeed short.
There seems to be an exception in feminine "jamvektsord", at least in some dialects. I pronounce "furu" with a short u and short r. But my dialect (southern Buskerud) has lost these forms with a very few exception. "Sulu" (svale) also has a short syllable. "Gutu". "Holo". Can't think of more words. Not sure about the dialects that have better preserved these words. Masculine "jamvektsord" are preserved and I think all have a long syllable (beta, haga, stega). The same for infinitives in -a (sova, komma, eta).
@@midtskogen Weird, I'd say 'høgt' with a long vowel. Influence from 'høyt' maybe? 'Djupt' is short though, with the exception of putting emphasis on how incredibly 'djupt' something is.
@@nicolaiby1846 I only said "strong tendency". Not an absolute rule. There are pairs like spist - spisst, vist - visst, and others.
Typically, people from Iceland have little trouble learning Norwegian, and can even communicate with old people from the deep fjords of Sogn without switching, some times.
I expect it wouldn't take very long.
@ericmyrs Norwegian here. We actually had an Icelandic guy; Halldor, in our class. He moved to Norway from Iceland when he was 17. I can tell you that he went from not speaking Norwegian at all to fluent Norwegian speaker in 6 months.
I'm constantly fascinated by how English, which is usually thought of as quite a "progressive" language, preserves some archaic features of Old Norse that are lost in most modern Scandinavian languages. I wonder how well your Viking would do if he landed in modern-day Newcastle.
My brief encounter with Linguistics, when I studied English, taught me that the English language became highly influenced by the old Norse language.
The funny thing about ER is that no Norwegians pronounce it as written (or next to none) There is a lot of dialect variation- most used is «ÆR» «Æ» «E» . Then off cause we have Even more variation in the first singular «I» where people use «Eg, Jæi , E, Æ, I» so in sum we have : I E - Æ E - Jæi ær - E E - Eg Æ and a lot more😅
Should also be mentioned that it is for the most part possible to pronounce the words as written, a few exceptions here and there though. It generally serves as a good phonetic guide for people learning the language.
That's an exaggeration. Quite a few dialects traditionally pronounced -er but it is, to your point, increasingly rare yes.
Norwegian gendered words can be complicated. My favorite example is, in some dialects, "Bull" is female. (Oksa)
North West Norwegian?
Do we have any sources for how east norse would have sounded/worked?
Question to the Norwegians in the comment section:
For those of you who pronounce 'tid' like 'ti', do you also pronounce the expression "tid og sted" like "ti og ste"? I'm curious to know if there are many who exempt expressions from their personal norm.
Yep
Both are common. My family in southern Telemark say "ti og ste"
Yes, we do this in rural Vestfold but to a lesser degree in the bigger cities (like Tønsberg)
I'm from southwestern Norway and I always pronounce the D in sted, so I would say "ti og sted".
As I wrote in a comment of my own, yes, I pronounce the "d" in "tid" and "sted" as well as a list of other words that end in "d" currently and ended in "ð" in Old Norse.
As a Norwegian i wouldn't understand a Viking if he spoke to me at all , but i think i could recognize some words in written form.
There actually is a tiny village that still speaks a later old norse in Norway. 😁
Where? What's the name of this village?
Huh, are you refering to Setesdal?
I think looking at it from Nynorsk and Bokmål would be a bit wrong, as no one really speaks any of those written languages. As for dialects I would imagine that Vallemål in Setesdalen probably is the most conservative of the Norwegian dialects, that it would be interesting to see a video on as well, as Vallemål is well worth its own video.
as i norwegian, i think we got our modern norwegian from denmark, while iceland still remined the norse langauge
Easily answered question: Ask an Icelander who didn't learn Scandinavian language
Speaking of Finnish, we very much still use the cases system despite not being an Indo-European language.
It depends on the Viking one would assume. As a modern Norwegian speaker I do understand and write English quite fluently, but I don't have a clue about German which sounds almost impossible to get. For me Icelandic is more like a secret saga from the past, I can read some of it but not understand anything of it when spoken. Some Vikings would have better skills for learning, and also for speaking different forms of Indo European languages. Other Vikings again would know how to do runes and maybe even write letters. Most Vikings were horns and just died in battles. 😎👍
As a native Norwegian speaker, I pronounce the "d" in words like "tid", "bod", "sted", "bad", "strid", etc, all of which ended in ð in Old Norse.
Som du utvilsamt veit, er dette mindre vanleg men i alle fall avhengig på dialekt og sosiolekt. I dei aller fleste norske dialektane har ein enkel bokstav /d/ (som, unnateke i begynnelsen av eit ord og nokre fåe andre tilfelle, representerer ikkje norrønt /d/ men norrønt /ð/--tenk på norrønt dauðr, norsk daud/død [dø:]) naturleg vorte stum. Eit viktig naturleg unntak var eldre sunnmørskmål der [ð] vart uttalt her. I bergensk dialekt når man høyrer d-en (uttalt ikkje som [ð] men som [d]) i t.d. "tid" representerer dette påvirkning av skriftspråket (som er vanleg i denne gamle prestisjedialekten; tenk på tapet av hunkjønnet), som når man høyrer /t/ i engelsk "often" (jamfør "soften" med det naturlege tapet av /t/ etter /f/, som liknar på spegelbiletet av bortfallet av /f/ før /t/ i norsk "etter" frå norrønt "eftir").
Ei god kjelde for desse faga er den gamle men spennande "Norsk målsoga" av Gustav Indrebø.
Eg uttalar ikkje "d" i nokon av desse orda, utanom "bad". Men berre viss det er tale om "eit bad", ikkje dersom det er "bad" som i preteritum av "å be". Kanskje har det vorte slik nettopp for å skilja mellom dei?
@@JacksonCrawford Bra utgreiing. Kan leggja til at i moderne sunnmørsk og nordfjordsk, so vert D-ane framleis utalte, men som "harde" ordinære D-ar. Som er litt kontraintuitivt naturlegvis. Nordfjord: Allereide, saude, leide, lid, god, sida etc. Sunnfjord: sau´e, lei´e, li, go´, si´a.
Det finnast nokre unnatak, som til dømes fjord, uviss om kva som ligg bak detta.
The eastern speakers who pronounce the D in these type of words have adopted it from the written standard and the Danish legacy.
the aonly place,where the still speak old norse is the Faroe islands and iceland,comon knoledge in scandinavian schools
Nice to compare with Flemish dialect words: ’toale’ is ’language’ in Westvlaams.
A naive swede thinking the word "korp" would be THE word for raven in Scandinavia. 😂 Tungur knivur indeed!
Every swedish man born during the 70's and early 80's grew up on the Viking ninja movie "Korpen flyger".
*Modern Norwegian watching to see if I could understand a Viking* Probably not, lol.
Just as a little nitpick, *En ravns ving* is incorrect. 'Wing' in Norwegian has an -e at the end of it(vinge). *Ving* without an -e is not used for animal 'wings' but for stuff like 'the left wing' of a football team or something.
Edit: Unless nynorsk does it differently that is, but I've never ever heard 'vinge' being pronounced with that -e at the end.
🙂👍🙋♂️🇧🇻
12:53 I suspect he hypocritical Viking in the example is plenty impressed with your language and grammar skill.
- Speaking as a moderen Viking (Although the "modern Viking" is a somewhat neutered form)
Easy Island peapels speak old norse, we the Norwegians speak Danich lol
This is what happens when you drop 3 out of 4 cases.
Old Swedish however retained the Pronouns better than the other languages did. Jag äm Du äst Han/Hon/Det är Vi/De/Dem är. But yeah, the äst versus är usage is pretty difficult to say what's right, what happened first, and whether it's dialectal or anything else. As far as we know, most of the stuff is lost in time, since we only really have Old West Norse sources that are semi-reliable.
Meanwhile we do have sporadic Old East Norse sources at best, and trying to compliment anything with Gothic isn't really helpful despite being the Germanic branch most closely related to Old Norse. Since the sources in Gothic is also pretty thin.
I think nynorsk has developed too far from the old languages in sound. The way that it has the "singing" pitch has made it difficult for Danish and Swedes to understand spoken nynorsk; and I beleive that would be the same for an old norse speaker. As a dane I have sometimes spent some longer time in Norway, but even after a month, I still find it hard to divide the words from the "singing" unless spoken very slowly, while Swedish is understandable instantly, even old english sound familar.
When I hear old norse and old english as it would have supposedly been pronounced, I think of Jutland dialects (especially the mid/western parts) still spoken today; with so many similar sounding words and ways of expression, it is nearly undestandable without training for someone who grew up on western Jutland dialect.
Probably some older version of southern Sweden dialects are closer to old norse in sound, so think that would be the most comprehensible for a Viking.
Didn't we already get the answer from your Ecolinguist challenge video?. Scandinavians, in general, can understand Old Norse about the same as they can understand Icelandic (because while Icelandic has some innovations it also has some Scandinavian influence), that is, able to understand or piece together some simple sentences, as soon as it gets any more complex than deliberately rudimentary, the intelligibility plummets quite rapidly, and it goes both ways.
Even though it is the easiest language to learn for an Icelandic speaker, it still takes a long time of deliberate practice to understand a news broadcast.
No, maybe Danish? Or Swedish?
Years ago, on my first of many visits to Reykjavik, I did the Gulfoss bus tour. The Tourguide spoke in Islandic and English. I think I was the only English speaker onboard, but since Islandic is essentially Old Norse, the Danes, Norwegians and Swedes could all basically tell what he was saying in Islandic.
Icelanders learn Danish in school, so perhaps he was speaking Danish.(As a Dane I do not understand Icelandic)
Gott kvøld 🙂
"What I find remarkable is that when discussing the Old Norse language, no one mentions the Faroe Islands. Faroese is very close to Icelandic and New Norwegian. The Faroe Islands have almost an identical written language to Iceland. Of course, not completely identical. I have no trouble reading Icelandic and Faroese. What I am not particularly enthusiastic about is Bokmål. It is not a Norwegian language that our ancestors would have recognized, and it is a foreign imported language from Denmark."
Góða nátt 🇧🇻🇮🇸🇫🇴
😅 Not right
@maddie1446-c6w Not right? That's 100% correct
Modern Norwegian, is full of English, Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish, Somali and Urdu words, even a middle aged Norwegian wouldn’t, understand how «Norwegian» is spoken in the streets by the youth today…
Eit skjold, fleire skjold, alle skjolda, det skjoldet. Teknisk sett kan ein vel bruka "Skjold" i alle former, men det høyres litt rart ut.
No, because modern norwegian is based on "modern" danish and modern danish is very different from old danish (the language spoken in the viking age)
The closest to old danish is called icelandic today, icelanders can also read most of the icelandic sagas, because the language haven´t changed that much.
the pronounciation hurts my norwegian ears
NORSK SOM EN TORSK?! 🐟