VIKING INFLUENCE on the English Language!

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  • Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
  • This video is all about the Viking age and how it affected the English language. Special thanks to Oliver Jahren for his Norwegian samples!
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    Sources referenced for this video include:
    The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. David Crystal.
    The level of Old Norse influence on the development of Middle English. Hanna Dorthea. 2014. Hellem. brage.bibsys.n...
    *Old Norse Influence in Modern English: The Effect of the Viking Invasion*. Sandra Dögg Friðriksdóttir. 2014.
    skemman.is/bit...
    *Middle English*. British Library. www.bl.uk/medi...
    Do you make Scandinavian Mistakes? R.L.G. The Economist. 2012. www.economist....
    English is a Scandinavian language. Trine Nickelsen. Science Nordic. 2012. sciencenordic.c...
    *The Norman Conquest*.D J A Matthew. 1966.
    Music:
    Main: Master of the Feast by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (creativecommon...)
    Source: incompetech.com...
    Artist: incompetech.com/
    Outro: Home Base Groove by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (creativecommon...)
    Source: incompetech.com...
    Artist: incompetech.com/
    Creative commons 3.0 images:
    commons.wikime...
    commons.wikime...
    commons.wikime...
    Any still images from this video (ie. screenshots) containing the above images are available for use under Creative Commons 3.0 attribution/sharealike license. creativecommon...

КОМЕНТАРІ • 4,2 тис.

  • @Langfocus
    @Langfocus  Рік тому +9

    Hi, everyone! I hope you like the video.
    If you're learning a new language, try the world-famous *Pimsleur method* in its new-and-improved subscription format: ► imp.i271380.net/langfocus ► *Free trial - Use my link to gain access*
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    • @Lisbonized
      @Lisbonized Рік тому +2

      I’m hoping to learn Icelandic. It’s such an amazing sounding language.

  • @Rokkidud
    @Rokkidud 5 років тому +2499

    I am a Norwegian. An interesting fact about the originally norse word; "bag", or "baggi": That word, "bag", has now been reintroduced into Norwegian as an English loan-word. Full circle!

    • @chadchampion9796
      @chadchampion9796 5 років тому +58

      Jeg har lagt merke til ganske mange eksempler på dette.

    • @arkilos2253
      @arkilos2253 5 років тому +42

      Man hittar det med de flesta nordiska språken, förutom Finska, och möligt vis Icelendska.
      Fören du frågar, jag är Finlandssvensk.

    • @louleloup2607
      @louleloup2607 5 років тому +144

      There's a lot of such stories with French words ! (an example : la cour -> the court -> the (tennis) court -> le court (de tennis) I remember a teacher jokingly calling them ping pong words =D

    • @mysund
      @mysund 5 років тому +61

      Fun addition, in Danish, "Bag" also means behind. "bak" is move backward. Can this be from usually having your bag on the back (like a back-pack) ?

    • @arkilos2253
      @arkilos2253 5 років тому +11

      @@chadchampion9796
      Älskar att di nordiska språken är så liknade. men trår inte at jag skulle kunna lässa Danska, I alla fall inte utan hjälp.

  • @goldenermarz3910
    @goldenermarz3910 5 років тому +875

    Our German word for ''window'' is ''Fenster'', which stems from the latin word ''fenestra''. However, the English word stems from the Old Norse word ''vindauga''. This is a fantastic video and it really goes into the depth of a topic I am currently obsessed with.

    • @Kikkerv11
      @Kikkerv11 5 років тому +110

      Meanwhile the Swedish word is "fönster", also from Latin.

    • @malfriv
      @malfriv 5 років тому +67

      I speak english and spanish but I'm studying german. I've realized that, vocab words between spanish and german sometimes share roots without english sharing these same roots. In your example it's the opposite, in spanish the word for window is Ventana that sounds a lot closer to Vindauga than Fenestra despite spanish being a romance.

    • @huskydogable
      @huskydogable 5 років тому +45

      The present day English word "fenestration" also comes from Latin.

    • @ErlingStage
      @ErlingStage 5 років тому +49

      In danish 'vindue' means 'window'

    • @massiveferguson9466
      @massiveferguson9466 5 років тому +38

      The wind's eye.
      Fuinneog

  • @ipadista
    @ipadista 4 роки тому +676

    I’m Swedish, but lived in Middlesbrough for a couple of years as a young teen and did my secondary school there. What surprised me a lot was that quite a bit of the northern dialect that didnt match the English I had learned thus far was fairly comprehensible, since it kind of reminded me of a mixture of Norwegian and Swedish. Another thing I noticed was that when we studied literature, especially Shakespeare. A lot of the old words that my English class mates could not grasp was relatively easy for me to figure out, since it for me seemed fairly similar to Norwegian/Swedish. Not like identical, but you could often guess where it came from and thus being able to get the meaning of the phrase to a surprisingly high degree, thus greatly annoying my class mates “Whydo you get these obsolete English phrases when we dont?" They never fully accepted my statement that it sounded a bit like some kind of ancient Scandinavian.

    • @Ashitaka255
      @Ashitaka255 4 роки тому +73

      You might find it interesting to learn that Standard English was heavily driven by the rich, elites of London who loved everything to do with Latin,. ancient Greece and French. They spent a lot of time trying to eliminate "lower class" native English words in favour of more "sophisticated" Latin/Greek origin words. They tried to impose Latin grammar rules on English. Even the s in Island, to make it more Latin.
      Which is why Shakrespeare's English is more recognisable to you than to modern English people. I don't know how much English history you studied in school, but we tend to go from Rome to 1066 without ever really stopping to discuss the Anglo-saxons or the Vikings.

    • @antonycharnock2993
      @antonycharnock2993 4 роки тому +37

      Did you ever come across thee, thar and thissen in Middlesbrough? We still use those on a daily basis in Yorkshire. So much in Sheffield, they are known as "dee dars" because of the way they pronounce it. Also water is often pronounced as watter and many norse words are still used such as laik.

    • @Mothman156
      @Mothman156 4 роки тому +5

      @@Ashitaka255 That's a shame.

    • @williamjordan5554
      @williamjordan5554 4 роки тому +5

      @@Ashitaka255 and the b in doubt

    • @chrisdaniels3929
      @chrisdaniels3929 4 роки тому +6

      @@antonycharnock2993 do they shorten the a in father to a as in apple over the border, like Lancashire dialect ? Or sometimes use childer (I as in ill) for child? Or pad for path (pavement )?

  • @Paolur
    @Paolur 5 років тому +675

    Being norwegian, I remember reading in school as a kid that the word bag came from old norse, but it sounded ridiculous to me since that word has been imported to norwegian from english in the past 50 years. Then my mom mentioned that her grandma called her backpack a bag, with a long ah sound instead of the short english sound. So this word has died out and been reintroduced into norwegian from english in two generations. Just thought it's a funny fact.

    • @CarpetHater
      @CarpetHater 4 роки тому +1

      Æ sier sekk, har aldri hørt noen si bag. Me mindre det er baggasje.

    • @magnus00125
      @magnus00125 4 роки тому +5

      vi skandinavere importerer også helvedes meget engelsk i øjeblikket. det er sindssygt. hvorfor ved jeg ikke? måske fordi vi ser op til USA og de befriede os..

    • @ronnyhenriquez4060
      @ronnyhenriquez4060 4 роки тому

      @@CarpetHater mmmm what?

    • @CarpetHater
      @CarpetHater 4 роки тому +8

      @@magnus00125 Danmark gjør, resten av Skandinavia gjør litt mindre. Har lagt merke til at danmark bruker ord som: poolen, teenagers og weekend.
      Her i Norge bruker vi basseng, tenåringer og helg.

    • @emillarsson3896
      @emillarsson3896 4 роки тому +3

      @@magnus00125 Det har nog med vår mediekonsumtion att göra. Engelskan har blivit en så stor del av vår vardag att det blir naturligt för oss att låna ord därifrån.

  • @Ekphrasys
    @Ekphrasys 5 років тому +453

    It's important to Remember that normans were french just for a few centuries: originally they came from scandinavia and were "vikings" too.

    • @someguy3766
      @someguy3766 4 роки тому +80

      Indeed, even the name 'Norman' meant 'northmen/norsemen' in French.

    • @brendanmorin9935
      @brendanmorin9935 4 роки тому +35

      Omg really?? I never knew that lol, that’s so interesting

    • @kanut5493
      @kanut5493 4 роки тому +59

      Actually the Normans weren't Vikings at all, it was only the few lords and knights of Normandy who descended from vikings, and then were mixed with local population.

    • @samirkhoury2935
      @samirkhoury2935 4 роки тому +38

      @@kanut5493 and if i aint mistaken, the locals in france were frankish mostly, which means they WERE germanic too

    • @camillesayous1532
      @camillesayous1532 4 роки тому +29

      The Franks were a Gernanic people who invaded the Northern part of what we call France, yet the population was a mix of Celts (Gauls) and Romans who had mostly adopted Latin as a language. I dont think there was a huge population shift (Many Franks were warriors and became the noble elite) or language shift to a Germanic language but there was definitely Germanic influence on French (some words but not that many). I think I remember something about French not dropping subject pronouns and word order as being influenced by Frankish. Could be a great topic to cover in a video and to contrast with the evolution of English :)

  • @heidirichter
    @heidirichter 5 років тому +703

    First of all, I want to thank you Paul, because it was this channel, and specifically the video "Is English really a Germanic language?" that inspired me to actually start to learn the language some of my ancestors spoke when they immigrated to Australia from Prussia in 1850. I'm really enjoying learning German, and while I now know it may have been a bit of a tough first second language to learn, and that there may have been better languages for me to learn at the age of 40, it's that personal link that keeps me interested. Also, I feel like I've really achieved something when a new concept finally sinks in, so to speak. So thank you very much.
    Now, as someone who has become more and more fascinated with the evolution of the English language, I found this to be particularly interesting. I really appreciate the research that goes into these videos, and the way it makes me look at the language I use every day in a new light.
    Keep up the great work my good man!

    • @Langfocus
      @Langfocus  5 років тому +62

      Thank you! I appreciate the comment!

    • @francoisjohannson1458
      @francoisjohannson1458 5 років тому +36

      Dont worry, i started to learn french, spanish and italian around the age of 54 and now (with 58) i am with them all about at level B1. (I am German, by the way).

    • @prabhuthomas8770
      @prabhuthomas8770 5 років тому +8

      @Troy Wilkins
      I'm learning German as well, and I absolutely love it. I've just completed my own list of the strong stem verbs, slightly fewer than 200. My question for you: are you interested in learning Sanskrit and Paninian grammar?

    • @melluzi
      @melluzi 5 років тому +13

      Just wondering if Lithuanian or Latvian would have been closer to the language spoken by your ancestors. Old Prussian had been extinct only about 300 years ago.

    • @heidirichter
      @heidirichter 5 років тому +22

      @@melluzi Good question, but no, the part of Prussia they came from was a German speaking region (at least, at the time they fled to Australia) and up until World War 1 my family continued to speak German as well as learning English - my great-grandmother was the last person in our family who was fluent in German and English. In fact, while learning German, I've been surprised at how many words I already knew from my family calling household items their names in German and not English.

  • @steved7961
    @steved7961 5 років тому +47

    Regarding Anglo-Saxon and Viking integration, I recall watching a TV programme in the UK when DNA was first available. It was discovered that in the valley communities of West Yorkshire, those living in the lower parts of the valleys (the richer agricultural areas) were much more likely to have predominantly Scandinavian DNA and those in the upper parts (the less productive areas) were much more likely to possess Anglo-Saxon DNA. It was also remarked that, even up to the 1920's, those living in the lower and upper parts regarded each other with some reserve and were unlikely to socialise or inter-marry.

    • @lance-biggums
      @lance-biggums 5 років тому +5

      Questionable because even today geneticists have trouble distinguishing between Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian DNA. Maybe instead they looked at grave goods or something like that to determine which groups lived where?

    • @bobarmstrong4403
      @bobarmstrong4403 3 роки тому +1

      Geordie paternal ancestry,

    • @RosieWilliamOlivia
      @RosieWilliamOlivia 3 роки тому +4

      Growing up in the 80s Bristol we knew who was from which side by sight, I don't doubt those people in the 1920s did too and mixing with "foreigners" was frowned upon in general.
      It makes a lot of sense, sticking to your own is safest.

  • @meganbrummer4258
    @meganbrummer4258 5 років тому +122

    Yes! I can finally weigh in! I'm a native English speaker, but I've studied both Swedish and Norwegian and am pretty comfortable in Norwegian. I'll say that they are BY FAR the easiest foreign languages I've studied. So much of Norwegian just feels "intuitive" to my anglophone mind, so I didn't have to struggle and study hard to grasp the grammar. And I felt like I didn't need to work hard memorizing vocabulary because...well...I already knew a lot of it, but maybe with a different pronunciation or sense.

    • @AndriLindbergs
      @AndriLindbergs 5 років тому +23

      Interesting, I have the same experience, but the reverse. I'm a native Icelandic, but I know Faroese, Danish and Norwegian. I learned English more effortlessly than any other language outside of the Scandinavian language group. I always thought it was because English was simply so easy, but now I have started to think that it is due to these ancient relations between English and Old Norse.

    • @BanduTheGreat
      @BanduTheGreat 5 років тому +9

      I'm a native Spanish speaker that learned English as a kid in school. I find English frustrating at times not because of the grammar, rather all the hundreds of exceptions to the rules. I have found my knowledge of both English and Spanish helpful in my study of French.

    • @davidhanig2058
      @davidhanig2058 5 років тому +13

      I am a native English speaker, and I already had learned Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Italian, and some Russian, Japanese, Hebrew, and modern Greek when I started studying Swedish. Swedish was by far the easiest language I have ever studied. Syntax in Swedish and English is so similar that you could translate Swedish literally word for word and end up with a reasonable-sounding English sentence. The grammar of Middle English and Modern English seem more similar to Swedish than to Dutch, which I am now learning and which some say is the easiest language for English speakers, but I still think Swedish is much easier.

    • @emppulina
      @emppulina 5 років тому +5

      I studied Swedish, English and German side by side at school and it was most annoying, because I was often unsure to which language certain words belonged to. The huge amount of exceptions of the English grammar are also annoying as well as Swedish word order rules that did not make sense for me.

    • @bengagnon2894
      @bengagnon2894 5 років тому +8

      My mother tongue is french, but I learnt english from very young. Since a couple of months, I've made a hobby in learning swedish. And I must say that, when you know both french and english, swedish is way easier than norweigian. Especially pronunciation. It also comes to help that there are a lot of influences from french vocabulary in swedish, more so than in any other north germanic language. Some words are literally or almost literally borrowed from french.
      Citron (lemon), which comes from french 'citron'. Linje (line), which comes from french 'ligne'. Allé (avenue), which comes from french 'allée'. Ateljé (studio), which comes from french 'atelier'. Kostym (suit), which comes from french 'costume'. Kastrull (saucepan), which comes from french 'casserole'. Idé (idea), which comes from french 'idée'. Glass (ice cream), which comes from french 'glace'. Paraply (umbrella), which comes from french 'parapluie'. Roman (novel), which comes from french 'roman'. And so on...
      I also think that there are some expressions that comes from french, since there are some sentences that you can literally translate word by word in french (and not in english or in norweigian). It's quite stunning. Pronunciation of swedish oddly ressemble spanish to my ears.

  • @josephmetzinger159
    @josephmetzinger159 5 років тому +32

    Wow this may be your best video so far. As a speaker of English and German I was always puzzled by how all those Scandinavian words and patterns were present in very basic forms of the language. Very informative.

  • @pikachuisshook2795
    @pikachuisshook2795 4 роки тому +157

    Early englishmen: we don't even know what to say
    Viking: WELCOME
    Early englishmen: perfect

    • @mrbond4722
      @mrbond4722 3 роки тому +5

      well they did know what to say as they used the anglo-saxen WELKOM already

    • @Bjowolf2
      @Bjowolf2 3 роки тому +4

      OE wilcumian (!), wilcume , D & N velkommen, S välkommen ;-)

    • @ameen3857
      @ameen3857 3 роки тому +4

      @@Bjowolf2 German: willkommen :D

  • @hannawidman6135
    @hannawidman6135 5 років тому +201

    I actually did a presentation on this topic last semester! I find it really interesting how the Viking influence still affects the English language hundred of years later! Some of the words of old Norse origin are more similar to old Norse in English then in my native language Swedish! 😅
    /Hanna from 🇸🇪

    • @henroriro
      @henroriro 5 років тому +7

      Jag är också från Sverige och jag är en extrem språknörd

    • @hannawidman6135
      @hannawidman6135 5 років тому +2

      Kick Start Languages Yes, I agree! It is so very fascinating how languages have similarities and differences with one another!

    • @hannawidman6135
      @hannawidman6135 5 років тому +5

      Lord Henroriro Jag är också en språknörd! Så pass att jag pluggar till Svenska och Engelska lärare! 😅

    • @henroriro
      @henroriro 5 років тому +2

      @Kick Start Languages In any case, I've actually never heard of that. Maybe you are thinking about Norrländska or Älvdalska? Those are dialects (some concider Älvdalska as a separate language) quite distinct from the standard Swedish language.

    • @henroriro
      @henroriro 5 років тому +5

      @@hannawidman6135 Nice 👍 jag tänker antagligen studera lingvistik efter gymnasiet. Språk fascinerar mig eftersom det bevisar hur vi alla är relaterade till varandra

  • @effyleven
    @effyleven 5 років тому +207

    I am currently learning Norwegian with Duolingo. Sometimes whole sentences sound like English with funny accent.. or sometimes Old English.

    • @MrLundefaret
      @MrLundefaret 5 років тому +19

      I am a Norwegian, so interesting to hear that you are learning our language (well, it's really Danish with a Norwegian accent, the only ones speaking true Norwegian is the Icelandic, but that's another story), why would you go to all the trouble to learn Norwegian, it isn't exactly a World language? :)

    • @SoteriosXI
      @SoteriosXI 5 років тому +12

      ​@@MrLundefaret Jeg lærer Norsk med Duolingo også. Jeg bo i de forente stater, men jeg vil bo Norge eller Sverige fordi dere har veldig penn natur og god ... the Norwegian word for standard of living.

    • @MrLundefaret
      @MrLundefaret 5 років тому +10

      @@SoteriosXI God levestandard.
      Ok, da forstår jeg. Interessant å høre om. Hvilket yrke praktiserer du? Eller vil du komme til Norge for å studere?

    • @_yellow
      @_yellow 5 років тому +1

      effyleven Hvorfor lærer du norsk?

    • @ze_rubenator
      @ze_rubenator 4 роки тому +25

      For us Norwegians it's very fun to listen to Old English, because it's like English with Norwegian vowels.

  • @thomassteudter9074
    @thomassteudter9074 5 років тому +451

    I am a German native speaker. But nevertheless, I have noticed some similarities about languages that are spoken nowadays, even if that is not so obvious in all spellings.
    Examples for this are:
    Wasser (German)
    water (English)
    vand (Danish)
    vann (Norwegian)
    vatten (Swedish)
    vatn (Icelandic)
    therefore (English)
    derfor (Danish)
    derfor (Norwegian)
    därför (Swedish)
    neu (German)
    new (English)
    nieuw (Dutch)
    ny (Danish)
    ny (Norwegian)
    ny (Swedish)
    ný (Icelandic)
    Vater (German)
    father (English)
    far (Danish)
    far (Norwegian)
    far (Swedish)
    faðir (Icelandic)
    Sohn (German)
    son (English)
    son (Swedish)
    sonur (Icelandic)
    søn (Danish)
    sønn (Norwegian)
    Mutter (German)
    mother (English)
    mor (Danish)
    mor (Norwegian)
    mor (Swedish)
    móðir (Icelandic)
    Tochter (German)
    daughter (English)
    datter (Danish)
    datter (Norwegian)
    dotter (Swedish)
    dóttir (Icelandic)
    Bruder (German)
    brother (English)
    bror (Danish)
    bror (Norwegian)
    bror (Swedish)
    bróðir (Icelandic)
    Schwester (German)
    sister (English)
    søster (Danish)
    søster (Norwegian)
    syster (Swedish)
    systir (Icelandic)

    • @bekimbal9658
      @bekimbal9658 5 років тому +52

      If you really want to knock your socks off, then check this out:
      Lightning (english)
      baraq (semitic)
      pïrok (Uto-Aztec)
      Spend the night, or lie down (English)
      Bytu (semitic)
      pïtu (Uto-Aztec)
      Daughter (English)
      batt (semitic)
      pattï (Uto-Aztec)
      Cry (English)
      bakay( Semitic)
      paka (Uto-Aztec)
      Buttocks (English)
      dubur (Semitic)
      Tupur (Uto-Aztec)
      Make flat, stamp, crush (English)
      dakka (semitic)
      takka (Uto-Aztec)
      grass, pasture (English)
      dobɛr (semitic)
      tupi (Uto-Aztec)
      revolve, whirl (English)
      dwr (semitic)
      tur (Uto-Aztec)
      Male, man (English)
      Dakar (Aramaic)
      taka (Uto-Aztec)
      Wolf (English)
      di’b-aa (Aramaic)
      tï’pa (Uto-Aztec)
      Squirrel (English)
      siggoob (semitic)
      sikkuC (Uto-Aztec)
      Lion, Mountain lion (English)
      ’ariy / ’arii (Arabic)
      wari (Uto-Aztec)
      Man (English)
      ’iiš (Hebrew)
      wïsi (Uto-Aztec)
      Woman, wife (English)
      išaa (Hebrew)
      wïCti (Uto-Aztec)
      beautiful (English)
      ya’ya’ / yaa’ayaa’ (Semitic)
      yawáywa (Uto-Aztec)
      sell (English)
      Makar (Semitic)
      Maka (Uto-Aztec)
      Wash, bathe (English)
      ђmm (Semitic)
      Huma (Uto-Aztec)
      round (English)
      ʕagol (Phoenician/Semitic)
      wakol (Uto-Aztec)
      Vulva (English)
      ʕɛrwaa (Phoenician/Semitic)
      wowa (Uto-Aztec)

    • @thubuntu
      @thubuntu 5 років тому +11

      Vielleicht hättest du bei Norwegisch zwischen Bokmal und Nyorsk unterscheiden sollen... ;)

    • @thomassteudter9074
      @thomassteudter9074 5 років тому +2

      @@thubuntu
      Mag sein. Aber ich kenne mich damit jetzt nicht so mega gut aus, sorry. Manche von den Übersetzungen habe ich auch nur aus Google-Übersetzer herauskopiert. Und da steht leider nur "Norwegisch" zur Auswahl. Irgendetwas konkretes zu "Bokmål" oder "Nynorsk" habe ich da bisher leider noch nicht gefunden.

    • @ВасилийПушкарёв-у9и
      @ВасилийПушкарёв-у9и 5 років тому +55

      That's probably words with similar roots in different Indo-European languages, not special for German languages. Russian is close in some cases:
      water - вода (voda)
      new - новый (novij)
      son - сын (syn)
      mother - мать (mat')
      daughter - дочь (dotch)
      brother - брат (brat)
      sister - сестра (sestra)

    • @RFxSukhoi
      @RFxSukhoi 5 років тому +54

      The most interesting thing I see in your list of cognates is that many of the English words are most similar to the Icelandic cognates - meaning most similar to Old Norse.

  • @frankintegrity7996
    @frankintegrity7996 3 роки тому +37

    This has taken me back 40 plus years.Camping in the English lake district I played with two Swedish brothers who were holidaying also.Even as a child I could pick out individual words as they conversed with each other.We were throwing stones in a stream "Kastar sten" sten/stone and throw/cast .Being Northern English made it easier with similar pronunciation maybe ?Then only a few years ago holidaying in Croatia I was drinking with two Scandinavians and a American.The Scandinavians had no trouble understanding my not particularly strong northern English accent.But the American was struggling to understand me.I had to change my pronunciation for a fellow native English speaker not the Dutch and Norwegian second language speakers.

    • @MrSomervillen
      @MrSomervillen Рік тому +5

      I have always lived in the Northeast USA, but my mother is from Germany and I worked for a while at an airport in the terminal that served airlines from India, Canada, and the UK, so I got to hear many distinct English dialects regularly, as well as many non-native English speakers’ accents, and I’ve been on the other side of your experience. One day I was serving two customers, and while I could understand their English, I felt certain from their accents that they were non-native English speakers from perhaps Scandinavia or Central Europe. I politely asked them where they were from and the happily told me “England!” and I later figured out that I was interpreting their Northern English accent as a Northern European accent! It was a learning experience.

    • @ipadista
      @ipadista Рік тому +4

      I mostly work in various international IT projects. And I have observed this a lot. Most of us non-natives speak a somewhat flawed English, from time to time mixing grammar, using less obvious words in a given context, or building sentences that makes sense in our own language, but doesn't really work in propper English.
      We usually joke about this saying that we speak Broken English. Funily enough, me being from Sweden I rarely have any trouble understanding a for example French person, saying something English with a pretty rich touch of French, its like I expect mistakes, and when they happen I just look at the context and can fill in the blanks.
      The ones struggling with Broken English are always the natives. Every time we have somebody from UK,US,AU,NZ etc in the meeting everything slows down, since we have to explain to them what the speaker said in propper English. Its like they get so distracted by mistakes in delivery, that they focus on the mistake and forget to parse context, recent example a Spanish colleague used "By the beginning" and we had to explain to a NZ guy that he should just parse it as "In the beginning"

    • @Cumbrianlad3363
      @Cumbrianlad3363 Рік тому +1

      Wait are you also from Cumbria?

    • @SusanaXpeace2u
      @SusanaXpeace2u Рік тому +1

      The American was being awkward! There is no English speaker I can't understand. Well, it depends on the speed they talk as much as their accent.

    • @Cumbrianlad3363
      @Cumbrianlad3363 Рік тому

      @@SusanaXpeace2u what if the English speaker isn't speaking English at that time

  • @arthur_p_dent
    @arthur_p_dent 5 років тому +94

    "egg" is an interesting word: It had two different plurals in Middle English, "eggs" and "eyren". The latter obviously stemming from Old English, the former from Old Norse.

    • @bigaspidistra
      @bigaspidistra 5 років тому +16

      The use of OE ey/eyren continued to exist alongside ON egg/eggs until the 1500s when it seems to have died out. Possibly because it became a homonym with 'eye', the latter having lost g/ȝ which persists in say the German 'Auge'.

    • @heinrich.hitzinger
      @heinrich.hitzinger 5 років тому +4

      Egg - eyren
      Ei - Eier

    • @grzegorzgryc3586
      @grzegorzgryc3586 5 років тому +4

      BTW, "eyes" is still "een" in Scots. at least in some dialects. A similar form existed in Middle English, e,g Chaucer uses "eyen".

    • @MirtheValentijn
      @MirtheValentijn 5 років тому +2

      In Dutch it's ei and eieren.

    • @thedutchrepublic5785
      @thedutchrepublic5785 5 років тому +4

      Fried eggs: gebakken eitjes

  • @Dan-Einar
    @Dan-Einar 5 років тому +21

    The theory that Old Norse is the core of transitional English into Middle English has a ring of truth. Norwegian was my first language; English is my dominant language; and Danish is my third language. I studied German and achieved a survival-level proficiency. I find it much easier to express myself--and follow along-- in Danish than German. I stumble over vocabulary sometimes, in Danish, but the grammar seems quite natural to me. German challenges on both fronts. Fascinating! Thank you, Paul!

    • @ellaspeed6914
      @ellaspeed6914 5 років тому +1

      Well, sometimes it's hard to make a difference between conservative use of bokmal and Danish, I guess, unless you're talking about spelling words and some differences in vocabulary. From that point of view, German is fairly different.
      Survival level means you're able to express the basics, but not at ease when doing so. So I am not astonished you prefer Danish ...
      As to my experience, Scandinavian languages are easy to pick up for a German speaker in terms of reading and listening comprehension, especially after having learnt a first one. English helps, of course, but so does Lower German.

    • @kekeke8988
      @kekeke8988 5 років тому +1

      I always thought old Norse was supposed to have grammar like Icelandic, which is more similar to German or Old English.

    • @ellaspeed6914
      @ellaspeed6914 5 років тому

      @@kekeke8988 you're right

    • @nebucamv5524
      @nebucamv5524 5 років тому

      @@kekeke8988 Old Norse is the same as Old Icelandic, just different names, but same language, and New Icelandic is still very similar to Old Icelandic.

  • @williamsmith4950
    @williamsmith4950 4 роки тому +30

    In the Northern parts of England, streets are often named "gate", while in Norwegian many streets are also called "gate", albeit with Norwegian pronunciation. My wife also had a course in this in university where they covered word pairs that exist in English, where a word already existed, but then was borrowed again from Old Norse after the original word's meaning had changed. One example I remember is "shirt" and "skirt" (not sure which is which), and in Norwegian "skjorte" (shirt). And the Scottish use the word "ken" for to know. (kjenne in Danish).The grammar of English is definitely much closer to Scandinavian, and our English pronunciation largely comes from Danish. When a Dane says "god dag", it is almost indistinguishable in pronunciation from "good day" in English.

    • @mrbond4722
      @mrbond4722 3 роки тому +2

      ken is ken in dutch as wel,(ik ken jou) I know you.

    • @rachelw222
      @rachelw222 2 роки тому

      Case in point- Wigan has Wigan Wallgate train station.

    • @Cumbrianlad3363
      @Cumbrianlad3363 Рік тому

      Idk if Danish and Norwegian are the same here but god morgen sounds like something I've heard before I started learning norsk

  • @tomcross481
    @tomcross481 5 років тому +7

    When you listen to the Geordie dialect (from Newcastle) it's easy to hear the Scandinavian influence. They say "gan hyem" to mean "go home" - similar to Danish / Swedish / Norwegian.

  • @miamidolphinsfan
    @miamidolphinsfan 5 років тому +15

    Awesome again Paul. It's like taking in a college lecture. Thank you ! 👍

    • @Langfocus
      @Langfocus  5 років тому +5

      Hopefully that's a good thing! lol
      It's my pleasure!

    • @miamidolphinsfan
      @miamidolphinsfan 5 років тому

      VERY food thing !!!! :)

  • @zimsuk
    @zimsuk 5 років тому +7

    This makes a good point for why it's so easy for us Scandinavians to learn English, as they share a not so distant past.

  • @hoggarththewisesmeagol8362
    @hoggarththewisesmeagol8362 5 років тому +52

    I find English to be much more similar to Scandinavian languages than it is to Dutch and German. If I listen to Norwegian as a native English speaker, I sometimes understand full sentences and I’ve never studied it

    • @christianbuche9244
      @christianbuche9244 2 роки тому +7

      See also the Ecolinguist Video on how good speakers of English can understand Dutch without having learned it, and the guy who studies Old English (which is much closer to Dutch and German than today's English) understood almost everything, much more than the two other guys not familiar with Old English.

    • @marchauchler1622
      @marchauchler1622 10 місяців тому

      Speaking Dutch, German and French with high a interest in North Germanic languages which I started studying recently. I can confirm that Dutch, Frisian and Low German are the most closely related languages to English. However, it should be pointed out that the West Germanic languages and North Germanic languages are highly related as well. And thus any Dutch, Frisian or German will be able to pick up a North Germanic language with ease and vice versa.

  • @douglaspate9314
    @douglaspate9314 5 років тому +8

    Good one! I am a Scot. I speak Danish, Swedish (and Norwegian) as well as German and a few romance languages. Learning (first) Swedish the similarities between modern English and Swedish are not only very evident, having lived in Northern England there are local words you come across common to both languages. As an anecdote, one of the main streets in Manchester is Deansgate. Nothing to do with a dean (from a church) nor a gate. It was from "Danes Gata" (or in Danish today "gade" = street) means "Street of the Dane" I believe this is where you had to go to visit the ruling Dane of the area to pay your taxes.

  • @felixmarklund4794
    @felixmarklund4794 5 років тому +10

    I agree with your conclusion! And i like the idea of this ”semi-creol” to explain grammar regularization in general. Very impressive, balanced and very thought trough!

  • @eigobike3929
    @eigobike3929 4 роки тому +6

    This video went deep. It blew me away. The part where you ‘speculate’ about how structure (i.e. blurred syntaxes ) might have occurred on a partial basis between Old English and Old Norse was convincing. Gave me pause to consider how , where they may have taken place elsewhere.

  • @Otmjv
    @Otmjv 5 років тому +73

    Hey! I live in New Brunswick, in the Maritime region of Canada. We have a unique form of French spoken here by our Acadian population, primarily around Moncton. It is different from the Quebec form of French, which is also spoken in the province, mainly in the north around Edmondston. There is also a French-English creole based on Acadian French, called Chiac.
    Some info from Wikipedia:
    University of Orléans linguist Marie‑Ève Perrot describes Chiac as "the integration and transformation of English lexical, syntactic, morphological, and phonetic forms into French structures".
    "Ej vas tanker mon truck de soir pis ej va le driver. Ça va être right d'la fun." (I am going to go put gas in my truck and drive it tonight. It's going to be so much fun.)
    "Ton truck work tu? Ch'te baillra vingt piace pour une quick drive en ville." (Does your truck work? I'll give you twenty bucks for a quick drive to the city.)
    "On decole tu su la brosse desoir?" (Are we going out drinking tonight?)
    "Ton car é ti en pretty good shape?" (Is your car in working order?)
    "Cousse-tu veux chte-dise?" (What do you want me to tell you?)
    "Quossé tu parles about" (What are you talking about.)
    "C'é pretty right on man, mon truck handle dans les trails." (It's really fun, my truck handles well off-road.)

    • @Heavy-metaaal
      @Heavy-metaaal 5 років тому +3

      Is it used? If so, how many people speak it?

    • @Pidro__
      @Pidro__ 5 років тому +1

      C'est intéressant !!!

    • @eldromedario3315
      @eldromedario3315 5 років тому +4

      wow mec c'est formidable cette langue. Tres interessant, merci pour le partager avec nous. Ce serait trop dificile le connaitre sans etant la-bas donc grace a toi je le connais sur internet. Merci encore ! Et comment est la vie la-bas en Nouveau Brunswick ? C'est froid, pas ennuyeux ?

    • @rileysanderson3824
      @rileysanderson3824 5 років тому +3

      Theres another language like that i think here in Canada called Michif. Its blend of Cree and French.

    • @conbracchiassai
      @conbracchiassai 5 років тому

      Ben old one but a good one là: ua-cam.com/video/iqSRvbsEcQc/v-deo.html

  • @kaneki-ken96
    @kaneki-ken96 5 років тому +111

    Better explained than in my university

    • @VCYT
      @VCYT 5 років тому +7

      Was that Trump university ?

    • @dee74raz
      @dee74raz 5 років тому +2

      VC YT 😆

    • @marekskawinski191
      @marekskawinski191 5 років тому +1

      What's your uni?

    • @kaneki-ken96
      @kaneki-ken96 5 років тому +3

      @@marekskawinski191 One in Spain hehehe

    • @domonicsdaniel4497
      @domonicsdaniel4497 5 років тому +3

      Been studying Japanese at my uni, and Paul's video on the Japanese language brought some light into the still-unclear areas of Japanese for me, in spite of the uni "teaching" me the "linguistics" of Japanese... Great job, uni, great indeed... (sarcasm)

  • @GAR9BALDI
    @GAR9BALDI 5 років тому +9

    When BBC made its first broadcast, there were complaints from all over England and so the accent chosen was mid England. Benny Hill made fun of the different accents that were funny. The American English showed a strain in WW II when those from the South could not understand those from the north east coast but all could understand the Midwest accent, so officers came from the Midwest for the most part. But the African influence was another factor with breaking from racial discrimination. So when an African-American sergeant told me "cat down the road, pick up the wire,' I looked down the road and didn't see a cat, and walked to the ditch to pick up the wire. I had to translate that I was to run down the road like a cat (jog) and pick up the telephone wire and put on the road to be rolled up. African English has 'you needs to, British you must', and American, 'You have to." One Norse word we all know is "Fog" and I haven't the foggiest idea what someone is talking about because their ideas are too nebulous (Latin for cloud and fog is a cloud that comes down to Earth our planet while soil is also call earth.

  • @masterimbecile
    @masterimbecile 5 років тому +75

    Ryan Gosling is Old Norse?!

    • @Langfocus
      @Langfocus  5 років тому +41

      lol

    • @massiveferguson9466
      @massiveferguson9466 5 років тому +9

      masterimbecile
      You're a goose.

    • @masterimbecile
      @masterimbecile 5 років тому +3

      @@massiveferguson9466 Nah fam I'm an owl. The superb kind.

    • @eldromedario3315
      @eldromedario3315 5 років тому +5

      he's an immature young goose. At least that's the translation I came up with after checking the definition on marriam webster.

    • @SprunkCovers
      @SprunkCovers 5 років тому +1

      lmaooooo

  • @kenselin
    @kenselin 5 років тому +10

    I appreciate hearing about "the Viking influence" on the English language as I have a 100% Viking family name from the middle of Sweden by the Norwegian boarder: Selin. :o) A friend of mind (who studied many languages in and out of University) believes English to be a "creole" language. Having studied 11 languages at University and having done my studies in English and French at the University of Ottawa and having gone on to study other languages, I find English to be a "creole" language in that you can get away with saying a lot of *IMPRECISE* THINGS (like you do in pidgin languages) that is *NOT* tolerated one bit in French. I like saying to ESL learners that the Devil speaks English and if they're are Catholic, they should make the sign of the cross "PRIOR TO" speaking English. (Ha! Ha!) You left me - once again - FLABBERGASTED. CONGRATS on such A *STRONG* PRESENTATION. And THANKS AGAIN! :o)

    • @kenselin
      @kenselin 5 років тому +1

      Being SO FRUSTRATED with English, members of my family did *poorly* in school because of the "highly inconsistent pronunciations for letters". French is A *BLESSING* in this regard - except for a few exceptions like the word for "mister", 'monsieur'. THANKS FOR YOUR FEEDBACK.

    • @treeoflife7151
      @treeoflife7151 5 років тому

      thanks for the comment. could you elaborate on imprecise things ?

    • @kenselin
      @kenselin 5 років тому +1

      @@treeoflife7151 I was a car salesman and when we tell the person who is left in a state of shock that he'll only get $2,000 for his trade in NO MATTER how great the vehicle is in, we say with a straight face: "FAIR IS FAIR." Now what does that mean, really?By the way, the terms in the field of accounting are 100% clear compared to those in English. I wished I had done my accounting courses in French. Unlike English, there is NO ROOM FOR *FOGGY* TERMINOLOGY in French. English is clearly ONE HELL OF A LANGUAGE. :o)

    • @torbjrnlund903
      @torbjrnlund903 5 років тому

      These days saying a lot of imprecise things is halal.

  • @kevinbyrne4538
    @kevinbyrne4538 5 років тому +81

    England was invaded by the Anglo-Saxons, then by the Danes (their cousins), then by the Normans (their cousins who had learned to speak French).

    • @Randi-k6m
      @Randi-k6m 5 років тому +17

      The Jutes were actually the first that was invited to England (not an invasion), they were joined by the Angles, Saxons and probably also some Frisians. The Jutes were / are Danes, and so were the Angles. Today the Angles on the European mainland is a Danish minority i Northern Germany.

    • @DMC888
      @DMC888 5 років тому +11

      Invaded is not quite right, it was a migration over 100’s of years. The original Britons were not best pleased though, as they ended up in Wales 😏

    • @Bjowolf2
      @Bjowolf2 4 роки тому +8

      Yes, the first Cousins' War in a sense 😊

    • @poliowilso7875
      @poliowilso7875 4 роки тому +3

      @@DMC888 That is a fucking lie, they did not "end up in wales" They stayed where they were and integrated into anglo saxon cullture.

    • @weonanegesiscipelibba2973
      @weonanegesiscipelibba2973 4 роки тому +2

      @@Randi-k6m I think there was a historical Danish dialect called Angeldansk

  • @BlueBlaze99
    @BlueBlaze99 3 роки тому +10

    Vikings: **enter England, hoping to raid a different culture; finds out that the locals look, sound and smell like them**
    Vikings: (visible confusion)

  • @ChrisNova777
    @ChrisNova777 5 років тому +12

    amazing video thank you for sharing this very insightful - i am of English - Scandinavian descent; my mothers family from nottingham and my fathers from Turku - cheers all!

    • @vadlasletta
      @vadlasletta 5 років тому

      Chris Nova777 so is your father a native swedish or finish speaker?

    • @ChrisNova777
      @ChrisNova777 5 років тому

      @@vadlasletta no but great-grandfather was and was head of finnish-canadian society back in the day

    • @vadlasletta
      @vadlasletta 5 років тому

      Chris Nova777 finland is not a part of scandinavia, but I guess your probably still of scandi descent since the danes «enjoyed» themselves In Nottingham. I’m part finish, sami and norwegian myself.

    • @SebHaarfagre
      @SebHaarfagre 4 роки тому

      Hyvää Suomi! :)
      I'm a second-generation half-finn (Norwegian) on the mother side, half my grandparents is/were Finnish. Rural west.
      I love my Finnish family very much.

  • @MaciekMattMironowicz
    @MaciekMattMironowicz 5 років тому +3

    Incredible eye-opener on languages, many thanks Paul. As a multilinguist (3 foreign fluent and passive in some other). I do really enjoy your channel and enormous number of exquisite info. This really helps and enlarges my knowledge. Keep up with a great job

  • @eduardosuarez9259
    @eduardosuarez9259 5 років тому +1

    I'm a native speaker of Spanish, English is my second language and French is my third. However, I now live in the US and have been speaking English more than Spanish. When I talk to my mum or friends back home, they say I have a funny accent and not only do I have a funny accent in Spanish, but I've noticed I've been using a lot of English words in my Spanish daily talk, especially false cognates or just words Spanish monolinguals would never use. On the other hand, my English has become more sophisticated sounding because of the so many French and Spanish cognates I keep using. I once used "demonstrate" and "antiquated" instead of "show" and "old-school", and people just couldn't help but give me a funny look.
    Thank you for your videos.

  • @BjrnFjell
    @BjrnFjell 4 роки тому +5

    This video makes me even prouder to be a norwegian. I already knew that we had an impact of England, Isle of man, Ireland etc but that we had such an influence in english language was new to me. I find this so inspirational and interesting. Great videos!
    I know about cities ending in "by" (town in nor/swe/den) are most likely old norse settlements and old viking territory, but the language was new to me.
    Keep up your great language-videos. I love'em :)

    • @SofiaBerruxSubs
      @SofiaBerruxSubs 3 роки тому

      I study Norwegian and yes it is very familiar to me, sometimes i understand without much thought but the writing sometimes more familiar then pronunciation. Sometimes the pronunciation does but grammar and spelling more than anything.
      Yep, Ken means to know, biarn means child (in some English dialects), skäl, skulle and skull. Then you have rotinn, rotten and rätten.
      Got to say sometimes Norwgian and English just seem so similar that I should know what it says easily without study.. the pronunciation makes it hard but not so much the writting

    • @metamon2704
      @metamon2704 Рік тому

      As he also mentions the influence was mainly from Danish though, the Danish settled a lot while the Norwegians came and went and only influenced the very North.
      However modern Danish is very different than it was at that time, so back then Danish would have been more like Norwegian.

  • @matedarabos8280
    @matedarabos8280 5 років тому +5

    As a Hungarian learning Norwegian (and German as well ), I have noticed that those words are common in Norwegian and English that can also be found in German (in some cases of course, not the majority of common words). One of my favourite example is the word raw (in German it's roh, in Norwegian it's rå), it's like an ancient connection between the three languages.

    • @mrbond4722
      @mrbond4722 3 роки тому

      and in dutch it is rauw

  • @NotoriousMAN1
    @NotoriousMAN1 5 років тому +9

    Always enjoy your videos. Greetings from Sweden.

  • @salamut2202
    @salamut2202 5 років тому +6

    The Normans were descended from Vikings which is where the Romance influence came from so the answer is yes :P
    As a Tagalog speaker, Mandarin, Arabic and Spanish have had significant influence upon the Filipino languages.

    • @MammaMu778899
      @MammaMu778899 5 років тому

      And here are you commenting in english ;)

  • @sxr_WhiteRose
    @sxr_WhiteRose 4 роки тому +2

    Thank you so much for helping me understand the roots of English.
    As a natural English (EN) speaker, I find your videos absolutely fascinating.
    I am of half Northern (Yorkshire) and half Southern (West Country) stock
    I have noticed subtle differences (flat vowels and their length, not withstanding). My father comes from E Yorkshire and NE Lincolnshire, my mum from South Somerset/Dorset stock over at least 8 or 9 recordable generations, ie: before the Industrial and Agricultural revolutions.
    Differences are subtle, but nevertheless marked, and comply to many of your models.
    English, as the most widely spoken language across cultures and distance is of great interest.
    I am very interested in which direction it will take in a globalised world.
    Inflections from the United States will no doubt prevail, since it is culturally a world powerhouse, after Winston Churchill (ironically seen as the greatest of Englishmen) ceded its control after WWII to the United States
    An infusion of Latin American, Spanish and Portuguese into the English language as the World knows it through American English will surely be a powerful force in the next 100 years.
    Cultural influences are heard in English (EN) regularly not only from American English, but also other English derivatives, such as through inflection from Australia in particular, and in particular, migrant populations of Afro-Caribbean origin as vowels become scrambled - eg the word "wErd" becomes "wArd" and more importantly, the word "aSk" becomes "ARX" in Afro-Caribbean English, in turn influenced by Black Afro-Americans.
    Traditional English (EN) speakers find such incursions alien, irrespective of whether they live in the North, South or Midlands of England in particular.
    Yet, language is a living, breathing, flexible thing, based on democratic acceptability for British people.
    We will no doubt bend first to the cultural influence of Australia, next to London-centric norms.
    I cannot believe that in an increasingly globalised world where difference is discouraged and compliance to a sociocultural norm which has its roots in English (EN) becomes a true global language - an acceptable 'Esperanto', and in the course, loses its roots to survive in a radically different, globalised world.
    Your thoughts are gladly received.

  • @SoundBlackRecordings
    @SoundBlackRecordings 5 років тому +6

    Wow this was a good one. I've never heard these theories before but it makes sense. I've contemplated this while trying to learn Swedish and living in Germany. English is much more similar to Swedish than German, while Swedes think German is similar to Swedish. So they must be somewhere in the middle.

  • @edwardmclaughlin7935
    @edwardmclaughlin7935 4 роки тому +1

    Fascinating. What a great channel. I live in Yorkshire and as kids we would knock on mates' doors to see if they were 'laking out' (playing out). Years later I visited Norway to find the word means exactly the same there - kids no longer use it in Yorkshire. We do still refer to the beck (stream)

  • @luau5974
    @luau5974 5 років тому +4

    Wow, this is the first time I realize how much knife and canif (pocket knife in French) sound alike, and canif is probably directly borrowed from the Late Old English, it's pronounced almost the same! Thanks for that! (Well, the rest of the video was also very interesting, as usual, but that part just blew my mind!)

    • @ottov719
      @ottov719 5 років тому +2

      Actually it's from Old Norse - knifr.
      en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kniv

  • @samgaming5215
    @samgaming5215 5 років тому +4

    Absolutely fantastic video. So well researched and fascinating.

  • @mysteriouslabyrinth3504
    @mysteriouslabyrinth3504 5 років тому +2

    In Scotland the word Barn for child is the same as the Norwegian Barn and also Kirk for church is Kirke in Norwegian although the pronounciation is a bit different.

  • @swedishmetalbear
    @swedishmetalbear 5 років тому +130

    As a bilingual speaker of both Swedish and English since birth and with extensive knowledge in all North Germanic languages and the mainland Germanic languages (German, Frisian, Dutch and Flemish.) I am utterly convinced that English in it's more modern forms comes from Old Norse because the grammatical structure of the languages is identical with old Norse. That is a tell tale sign... I think the Norse people dominated more than you believe they did or than what the older scholars care to admit they did. It isn't really controversial.

    • @swedishmetalbear
      @swedishmetalbear 5 років тому +1

      Maksimilian Bauer Do you?

    • @swedishmetalbear
      @swedishmetalbear 5 років тому

      Yes @@maksimilianbauer5129

    • @arnoldschwarzenegger8005
      @arnoldschwarzenegger8005 5 років тому +9

      You were already talking and speaking two languages when you were born?

    • @Bjowolf2
      @Bjowolf2 5 років тому

      @@arnoldschwarzenegger8005 😂

    • @usayeed727
      @usayeed727 5 років тому +14

      It explains why Swedish and Norwegian are far easier to grasp than German. I’m native level in English and dabbled in German for a few years in high school- and despite similarities in some basic words, it’s a tough as nails language. Fast forward 10 years to holidaying in Sweden and I can tell you that understanding Swedish is much simpler and quicker than German. Thus, I too began to class English more as a North Germanic language with heavy Romance influence than West Germanic- but then again, I’m no expert.

  • @rachelw222
    @rachelw222 2 роки тому

    My late Grandad (born 1939) was born and bred near Wigan, Lancashire. He sometimes used to say "skriking" to mean crying. He'd also say that he was "going wom" to mean going home which I believe Geordie speakers in Newcastle also say.

  • @gunillajohnson9727
    @gunillajohnson9727 4 роки тому +5

    As a Swede, I found this discussion interesting. The other twist is the French influence, which obviously affected English dramatically (word order, plural endings, tnos of vocabulary). One thing that you could perhaps dig for is why English has a progressive tense, as this does not exist in Germanic language nor in French. Perhaps it used to exist in French as it does in Spanish today.

    • @jandron94
      @jandron94 3 роки тому

      In modern French the progressive form can be explicitely implied by "en train de" ("in action of") or a bit less explicitely by the present tense.
      For instance :
      EN: I am eating an apple.
      ES: Estoy comiendo una manzana.
      FR: Je suis en train de manger une pomme.
      FR: Je mange une pomme.
      Maybe in (very) old French they might have said (it would make sense):
      Je suis mangeant une pomme.
      But I a really not sure, maybe it did not happen.
      To be sure I would have to go back to middle-ages French litterature... (I am too lazy for that).
      -ant ending implies an action in progress :
      FR: Je mange une pomme en écoutant la radio
      EN: I am eating an apple while (I am) listening to the radio.
      more exactly :
      EN: I am listening to the radio while (I am) eating an apple.

    • @gunillajohnson9727
      @gunillajohnson9727 3 роки тому

      @@jandron94 That is expressing progressive, just like Swedish can do with a phrase but it’s not a tense. I suppose you could argue the l’imparfait is a type of Progressive but it has other uses too.

  • @Overlycomplicatedswede
    @Overlycomplicatedswede 11 місяців тому

    I’m a Swede and I knew us Scandinavians had an influence on English but I never realized how Jurassic the influence was.
    A few words in Swedish I see in English for example (in swedish definitions)
    Fart - speed
    slut - stop
    Titt - look
    Smorgasbord - large feast
    But that’s to name a few there so many more.
    But this was a really interesting video as I speak Swedish natively and now seeing how it’s impacted English gave me a new outlook on English and Swedish as a whole!
    Love from sweden

  • @AngelaRichter65
    @AngelaRichter65 5 років тому +14

    I think, if you wish to pursue this further, you should consult with Jackson Crawford, another UA-camr who is an expert in ancient Norse. He's done videos on just this sort of thing and has some ideas I think you would appreciate.

  • @rtaitm
    @rtaitm 4 роки тому +4

    One I noticed is in England we can say "Stop prattering on" (shut up) or "he's got the patter" (sales/business talk). In Scandinavian languages I think there is a word like pratter for talking/speaking?

    • @liseanettegranheim4404
      @liseanettegranheim4404 4 роки тому

      The word would be "prater", at least in norwegian, can't vouch for the other languages.

    • @jiros00
      @jiros00 4 роки тому +2

      Also prattling. I wonder if the derogatory word "prat" has some link.

    • @Danielhake
      @Danielhake 4 роки тому +2

      'Praten' in Dutch and Frisian

    • @_Viking
      @_Viking 4 роки тому

      To talk in Norwegian is "å snakke", but you can also use "å prate". Like they talk is "de prater". They spoke, is "de pratet". So yes, there is similarities there.

    • @ikeartfilms7783
      @ikeartfilms7783 4 роки тому

      " Praten " - to talk in Dutch

  • @Bjowolf2
    @Bjowolf2 4 роки тому +3

    Can we please get a list of the remaining 11 of the 14 syntactic elements that occur in both Old Norse and English but NOT in Old English, Paul?
    Preferably with some of your enlightened comments about each one, please 🤗
    Brilliant video btw. - many of these things are very obvious to Scandinavians, especially when we start learning English and discover that we as if by magic already know "half" of the basics in advance and don't have to think very much most of the time - whereas most of us are close to hopeless when it comes to learning and speaking German above the most basic level, since it's just way to complicated for us simple Northern folks 😅
    Is there any chance of a video about Danish some time soon? 😉

  • @brendadrew834
    @brendadrew834 4 роки тому

    Fascinated by Etymology. My first name is of Viking origin and is a Scottish-Irish Gaelic name which means "firing sword" or to "brand" from the Viking Norwegian word " brandar"! Said to originate on the Shetland and Orkney islands. The Drew name originated in Normandy, Dru aka Drogo, the Viking word as they were Viking in origin along with William the Conqueror, first king of England who compiled the Doomsday book in 1066 listing the first original families of England. The Drew family is one of the oldest in the UK. Thanks for sharing this...not surprised in the least! Am English/Scottish/Irish American on my maternal side who came here in 1721 one of them wounded at the Battle of Bunker Hill and German/Swiss i.e. Pennsylvania Dutch/Deutsch/German on my paternal side, three of them generals in the Revolutionary war who came here in 1738. Best place to find family history other than the internet is the New England Genealogy Society in Boston which houses all the history of every family that has come to America since the beginning and of course, Ancestors.com Important and great to know one's roots to pass on the family history for generations to come.

  • @orenoitchiro4744
    @orenoitchiro4744 5 років тому +33

    Can yo do Amazigh (berber ) language in north africa ? i think it s very intersting topic

    • @mohamedm9591
      @mohamedm9591 5 років тому +1

      Omar Oro sorry; Langfocus doesn’t do requests.

    • @sadaesthetics5674
      @sadaesthetics5674 5 років тому

      Amazigh isn't a language

    • @eliasfer4009
      @eliasfer4009 5 років тому

      Min tutlayt tamazight tsward ?nich tarifit

    • @jorgetoro2369
      @jorgetoro2369 5 років тому +1

      Paul has already made a video about Amazigh influence on Moroccan Arabic. You should check it out

    • @flinstone96
      @flinstone96 5 років тому

      @@jorgetoro2369 but he was rong all the way all the word he said they are berbers was arab

  • @dair1770
    @dair1770 5 років тому +81

    Warning: contains Vikings TV show spoilers

  • @janedoe1760
    @janedoe1760 Рік тому

    As an English Quebecer who became bilingual (with French), I can attest to the borrowing of sentence structure as well as vocabulary: I will sometimes find myself stating something with English words but French phrase/ sentence structure ; at times it seems to result from switching between the languages through the day, but other times it is more deliberate - when the manner of expressing a concept in the other language better fits the idea being shared. I initially thought of that as a degeneration of my ability to speak each language "properly" , but from your comments about language structure, it would seem to be part of the natural evolution of language. Fascinating presentation, thank-you

  • @mahaibrahim7463
    @mahaibrahim7463 5 років тому +4

    Thank you for this insightful video! The Creole Theory reminds me of Lebanese where it out of both Syriac and Arabic.

  • @txviking
    @txviking 5 років тому +7

    I was really struck (stricken? :) by the similarities by Old Norse and Old English. I see remnants of this between modern English and my native Norwegian, but the differences prior to the Roman Conquest were so much more striking.

    • @SofiaBerruxSubs
      @SofiaBerruxSubs 3 роки тому

      So you think an English Speaker could speak to a Norwgian and understand them just fine? I study Norwegian and yes it is very familiar to me, sometimes i understand without much thought but the writing sometimes more familiar then pronunciation. Sometimes the pronunciation does but grammar and spelling more than anything
      Also Scots (an English dialect) uses many words based on Norwgian. Bairn meaning child just like Barn, then you have Ken which mean know just like the Norwgian work kjenne (I think it's how you spelt it)

    • @txviking
      @txviking 3 роки тому

      @@SofiaBerruxSubs During the viking era, I think so. Nowadays it’s a different story. There’s a lot of shared Germanic ancestry, and many words look similar, but the languages are no longer mutually intelligible.

  • @ОвочеваБаза
    @ОвочеваБаза 5 років тому +4

    To me, as a non-native speaker of English and Swedish (and being a native bilingual speaker of Ukrainian and Russian), Swedish was extremely easy to pick up after English. The grammar, syntax, word order and everything about language structure was resembling English very much, and in some cases was like even more simplified (compared to Ukrainian and Russian, that being the Slavic languages are much more archaic and still have all that PIE goodness of cases, genders and stuff). The only thing I was struggling with (and still am) is the correct pronunciation.

  • @johnannerud6311
    @johnannerud6311 5 років тому +1

    (Swedish speaker) Interesting video! This link became apparent to me a while back when I realised that "window" is very similar to the old swedish word "vindöga" (ON: vindauga) meaning "wind-eye". I'm also learning Icelandic and learn lots of words very similar to the Old norse that way. :)

  • @allebedi
    @allebedi 5 років тому +5

    Amazing as usual

  • @geertvlaenckx9942
    @geertvlaenckx9942 4 роки тому

    Dutch has prépostion stranding as well :)
    - Waar speel je mee? / Waar praat je over?
    - What are you playing with? / What are you talking about?

  • @toslaw9615
    @toslaw9615 3 роки тому +3

    1:43 fun fact: one viking ruler of England from these times was a grandson of a polish ruler.

  • @Diaxminator
    @Diaxminator 5 років тому +2

    Polish has been influenced by German to a small extent.
    Lipstick (ENG) - Szminka (PL) - Schminke (GER)
    Roof - Dach - Dach
    Work Holiday - Urlop - Urlaub
    Refuel - Tankować - Tanken
    There used to be a few thousand German words in Polish grammar however they have fallen out of use.

    • @Terrus_38
      @Terrus_38 5 років тому

      TrεκγTroo But hundreds are in use.

  • @Correctrix
    @Correctrix 5 років тому +11

    Old English can also be called Anglo-Saxon. A distinction that I have heard made, which may be useful, is to reserve ‘Anglo-Saxon’ for the original blend of dialects that the Anglic, Saxon, Jutish and Frisian invaders brought, and reserve ‘Old English’ for the somewhat creolised variety that came out of that after Danish domination. Middle English is then this Old English further blended with Norman French.

  • @MsJSSB
    @MsJSSB 5 років тому +13

    Every language was influenced by its neighbours and had an influence on them too, its just a product of humans come together through the ages.

    • @noktuloespa2083
      @noktuloespa2083 5 років тому +2

      It's like the time when a Slovenian, a Croatian, a Hungarian and an Austrian sat at the same table in a pub and tried to talk, and so they created the Wendish language...

    • @MsJSSB
      @MsJSSB 5 років тому +1

      The Wendish! Never heard of it, could you tell me about it?

    • @noktuloespa2083
      @noktuloespa2083 5 років тому

      @@MsJSSB It's a South-West slavic language spoken in North Slovenia and South-West Hungary. It's similar to Slovenian and Croatian, but it also has Hungarian and German elements.

  • @Hyvelez
    @Hyvelez 4 роки тому +4

    As a Norwegian, I notice how similar middle english is to norwegian. It's more similar than modern english, especially the way it sounds. But Modern english still shares a lot with Norwegian, we use many of the same words.

    • @hoggarththewisesmeagol8362
      @hoggarththewisesmeagol8362 4 роки тому +1

      I’m native English and I went to Norway a few years ago. Sometimes I understood whole sentences. I’ve never studied Norwegian

  • @nachtegaelw5389
    @nachtegaelw5389 5 років тому +2

    Oh, and verb flexion in ME also varied by region, and the gradual loss of these endings throughout the period can also be attributed somewhat to pronunciation changes.
    Think about all those silent “e”s on the ends of nouns-originally those were all pronounced, then got reduced to schwa sounds on unstressed syllables, then people started omitting them all together.
    Same thing happened with weak verb flexion in ME: classes I, II, and III sort of combined into one big class (which varied a lot regionally), and since a lot of these endings were “e”, “es”, “en”, the unstressed endings got shortened over time, and eventually dropped. This happened most quickly in Midland dialects and in London. So by the end of the period, Chaucer was still writing with these endings but the scansion of his verse implies that they were silent.
    My problem with the creole theory is that grammatical changes were already happening (the loss of weak verb inflection for one) in regions of England that were not in contact with the Norse, and were conservative in adopting ON vocabulary and other features.
    Although I guess that theory could fit with the pattern of noun case simplification, since the very southern part of England kept nom-acc, genitive, and dative distinctions after the areas influenced by ON had merged those into one category. And didn’t simplification continue in the Early Modern English period as well? Which can hardly be blamed on foreign contact, because by that point the Norse had assimilated.
    So maybe there were multiple factors at play?

  • @Joth4851
    @Joth4851 4 роки тому +5

    I remember when I first began studying Old English that I thought that I had an advantage being a speaker of Swedish with a familiarity with Old Norse, because so much of the vocabulary was familiar to me even though it had been lost in Modern English.

  • @charlesvanderhoog7056
    @charlesvanderhoog7056 5 років тому +114

    The English of 800 CE is almost indistinguishable from Old Dutch.

    • @mcburcke
      @mcburcke 4 роки тому +8

      Now, that is some new information which I had never heard about before. Thanks for commenting on it. Very interesting!

    • @burtony3
      @burtony3 4 роки тому +21

      Even more like Early Frisian

    • @mcburcke
      @mcburcke 4 роки тому +23

      @@burtony3 I agree...even modern Frisian is very similar-sounding to English. I've heard Frisian being spoken, and from a little distance you'd swear it was English.

    • @AlamoOriginal
      @AlamoOriginal 4 роки тому +3

      That is why its called Old Frisian, Frisian even today are closely related to English

    • @kinnish5267
      @kinnish5267 3 роки тому +9

      you mean 800 AD -- hundred of thousands of Christians fought to keep Europe free from Islam so respect the heritage and use AD

  • @raecheldeaton
    @raecheldeaton 4 роки тому +1

    This video helped me tremendously for an etymology paper I had to do. Thank you!

  • @Norralin
    @Norralin 5 років тому +1

    Whilst not a similarity itself, since very few cities in Norway, Denmark and Sweden actually have the suffix - but English place names ending in -by are influence by old norse (by meaning city, town or village in old norse).

  • @cernunnos_lives
    @cernunnos_lives 5 років тому +10

    I'm curious how anybody can down vote this video?
    ...but not enough to look through the sea of comments.

  • @mondealenvers8657
    @mondealenvers8657 4 роки тому +1

    6:42 I like the fact that you are talking about stones at this part, I could not stop thinking about a monk character who became viking in the Viking drama series, his name was "Athelstan" meaning wise stone :)

    • @annakchf7084
      @annakchf7084 4 роки тому

      Athelstan means 'noble stone' (as in 'gem'). In Swedish we still use the word 'Ädelsten' when talking about precious stones. The letter Æ (named æsc or ash), still used today in Danish and Norwegian, used to exist in Old Swedish as well, but was replaced over time with Ä).

  • @Snow-pg9zl
    @Snow-pg9zl 5 років тому +6

    I thank you for what you have done ! love you

  • @Mothman156
    @Mothman156 5 років тому +16

    Don't the words 'kill' and 'skull' come from Old Norse as well? Take, hit....I'm seeing a pattern lmao.

    • @Girvid
      @Girvid 5 років тому +5

      Yes, because there are no cognates in German and Dutch.

    • @LuisAldamiz
      @LuisAldamiz 5 років тому

      @@Girvid - Always look in Frisian too. Frisian is probably the closest language to English (and viceversa).

    • @Girvid
      @Girvid 5 років тому +3

      @@LuisAldamiz Also no cognates in Frisian. To kill = deadzje (cognate of Dutch dood, German tot). Skull = schedel (cognate of Dutch Schedel and German Schädel).

    • @hanszickerman8051
      @hanszickerman8051 5 років тому +1

      Skull=skalle (swe)

  • @dboyen
    @dboyen 5 років тому +10

    When we write off the Normans as a source of English, we do the Scandinavians a disservice. The Germanic West-Franks gave Normandy to the Vikings. Then, the Frankish King, Karl der Große imposed Latin on the citizens of his newly-founded Heiliges römisches Reyche Deutscher Nationen; within 200 years, they had created French and Norman French. So, the Norman influence was Viking, Frankish and Latin.

  • @zzebowa
    @zzebowa 5 років тому

    You are a learned chap. Very good video. This is a crucial part of the development of English and is often overlooked, the simplification of the language prior to the Norman invasion was an important step.

  • @spongebobsquarepants4137
    @spongebobsquarepants4137 5 років тому +5

    Langfocus Paul

  • @andersbak5897
    @andersbak5897 5 років тому +3

    Maybe this is relevant for the topic i question. The danish dialects in the western parts of Jutland (i.e. only a short voyage away from England) have only one gender, utrus, and the articel is always before the substantiv. That is contrary to standard danish and other dialects. Example: western dialect: "æ hous, æ dør" -- danish: "huset, døren" -- meaning: "the house, the door". Etc. etc. Could this be a relict from the time when there was vivid contact over the North Sea?

    • @mrbond4722
      @mrbond4722 3 роки тому

      een huis, een deur in dutch, fact is al north western germanic based languages are very much alike

  • @2011littlejohn1
    @2011littlejohn1 5 років тому +4

    I feel the influence of viking speech is very obvious regarding the speech of the North East of England especially Danish. For example the word for home pronounced 'yam' or 'yem' in that area is very similar to the Danish hjem. These Danish words are used to such good effect that it becomes a dialect rather than an accent. As a native English speaker when I first went to live there the speech was mainly incomprehensible.

  • @meteoman7958
    @meteoman7958 4 роки тому +1

    Brilliant analysis!

  • @kwekwlos
    @kwekwlos 4 роки тому +2

    Thanks for the video Paul. I didn’t know that Old Norse influenced English and all the history behind it!

  • @davidp.7620
    @davidp.7620 5 років тому +6

    Modern Galician is an interesting case

  • @LaurentInghelbrecht
    @LaurentInghelbrecht 4 роки тому

    In medieval Flemish we had words that still exist in English, per example "kniver" (knife), "hille" (hill) etcetera.

  • @johnshannon9656
    @johnshannon9656 5 років тому

    You made an important point. It is the more basic portions of English that show it's Germanic legacy: numbers, simple verbs, days of the week, names for family members, etc. The French loan words sit on top of that Germanic base.

  • @alistairmcelwee7467
    @alistairmcelwee7467 Рік тому

    I learnt Latin and French at primary school then added German in secondary school. Learning those languages changed how I spoke/speak my native English.

  • @MaxAgapoff
    @MaxAgapoff 5 років тому +9

    Hey Paul! Love your channel! Keep going - make more jokes ;)

  • @BlitzOfTheReich
    @BlitzOfTheReich 5 років тому +4

    This really helps when I teach English. :D

  • @eivindkaisen6838
    @eivindkaisen6838 5 років тому +1

    For more details of mutual intelligibility between Old Norse and Old English (with references to modern Scandinavian languages) and more, search for "Old Norse and Old English" on Dr Jackson Crawford's channel.

  • @DTux5249
    @DTux5249 5 років тому +7

    Before viewing: reason we lost a lotta irregularities?
    After: wow this linguistic monstrosity really changed

  • @anglishbookcraft1516
    @anglishbookcraft1516 5 років тому +6

    Kindly do a “how Germanic is German or Dutch”

    • @mikespearwood3914
      @mikespearwood3914 5 років тому +1

      @Muup Muup That's a pretty controversial thing to say...are you sure?

    • @thebenis3157
      @thebenis3157 5 років тому +1

      Oh, yeah, and also "how Slavic is Russian", "how Hellenic is Greek" and "how Romance is Italian"

    • @LuisAldamiz
      @LuisAldamiz 5 років тому +1

      @Muup Muup - Dutch is too and many other languages are. German just retains the name (ironically from Latin "germanus" = brother, although the endonym is Deutsche and in French and Spanish it's called Allamand/Alemán from the tribe of the Allamani = all the men). German retains the name because Germany retained the name because it was the main area inhabited by Germanic peoples as known to Romans and also because it originally also included the Netherlands, most of Switzerland, Austria and even the Czech Republic (not Germanic at all but politically trapped into the German Kingdom of the Ottos and successors until recently).
      So basically Germany is Germania as known to ancient Romans. There were other Germanics (or "Germans") but lived outside Germania proper, further North in those remote ill known "islands" later known as Scandinavia, and even further East in parts of wild Sarmatia (Eastern Europe), etc. But it is Germania as known to Romans (or more exactly Medieval Franks), minus some countries that for various reasons got separated, such as the Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria.
      Incidentally standard German, what we now call German is Upper German (the dialect spoken in the south by the Allamani/Swabians and their Bavarian neighbors). Thus is identical or almost to the dialects spoken in Switzerland and Austria too. But there were other German dialects: Dutch is Middle German, i.e. it is the closest living Germanic to what the Frankish themselves spoke, while Saxon was Low German (now nearly extinct but historically spoken in North Germany). Additionally there is Frisian, which is a category on its own or rather together with English (Anglo-Frisian) and Norse or Scandinavian, and also the very much dead East Germanic (Gothic and such).

    • @anglishbookcraft1516
      @anglishbookcraft1516 5 років тому

      Muup Muup they aren’t pure you tards only wanted to know how much latin is in it

  • @3niknicholson
    @3niknicholson 3 роки тому +1

    Excellent video, thanks

  • @Sonia-ez8jb
    @Sonia-ez8jb 5 років тому +5

    In both Hindi & French Pineapple is called "ANANAS"

    • @Vetlund
      @Vetlund 5 років тому +1

      Pineapple is called ANANAS in Danish, Swedish and Norwegian too ;)

    • @lissandrafreljord7913
      @lissandrafreljord7913 5 років тому +1

      Same in Argentine and Uruguayan Spanish. The rest call them Piña. Anana is actually very common among the IndoEuropean languages. Most Slavic, Romance and Germanic languages call pineapple Anana or something close to it.

    • @Vetlund
      @Vetlund 5 років тому +1

      @@lissandrafreljord7913 Makes sense since Spanish is a language of Latin descent. The Scinetific (latin) name for pineapple is Ananas comosus.
      Apparently the natives of Brazil called it Ananas before Columbus came and brought it bact to Europe and thats why it's still called that.
      The name Ananas supposedly means "the unsurpassed fruit" in indian.

    • @lissandrafreljord7913
      @lissandrafreljord7913 5 років тому +1

      @@Vetlund Your statement is all correct, except for the parts where you say the scientific name is Latin (not all scientific names have to come from Latin), and Ananas means the "unsurpassed fruit" in Indian. It does mean the "unsurpassed fruit" in the Old Tupi language. I think you meant to say indigenous and not Indian. Lol. India is in South Asia, not the Americas (it's okay Christopher Columbus make the same mistake. He thought the native Americans were Indians, since he was finding a new trade route to India). The pineapple is a fruit that originated in Southern Brazil and Paraguay. The native people in that region were the Guarani and Tupi people, who are the most numerous indigenous people of Brazil. The Guarani language in Paraguay is a related language to the Old Tupi language, and together they form the Tupi-Guarani language family. Guarani is actually the most spoken language of this language family, as the Old Tupi language is extinct. In fact, Guarani is an official language of Paraguay (some people in Paraguay don't even know how to speak Spanish). You can find Guarani people in parts of Northeastern Argentina, Uruguay, Western Bolivia, and Southern Brazil as well. My guess as to why in Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay (sorry I forgot to mention it in my previous comment) call the pineapple "Anana" is because they adopted the original name of the fruit from the native people living in their land, the Guarani, who are linguistically related to the Tupis. Words like jaguar, piranha, petunia, and tapioca all come from the Tupi-Guarani language family too. The culture of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Southern Brazil are actually very similar. We have been influenced by the native Tupi/Guarani people, as seen through the our love of drinking mate and terere (a type of tea-like drink that is native to the Guarani people), and been demographically influenced by the heavy European immigrants (less prominent in Paraguay) as seen through our guacho (cowboy) culture and love for nice asado/churrasco (barbecue) in the weekend. The Argentine, Uruguayan and Paraguayan Spanish are also the closest related. We say vos instead of tu when referring to informal second person singular pronoun (you), say pancho for hotdog, colectivo/micro/bondi for bus, bombacha for panties, frutilla for strawberry, and use same slangs like boludo, pelotudo.

  • @MrPharoable
    @MrPharoable 5 років тому +1

    Hey Paul , you have done an excellent job. Please think of coming up with a video showing the connection between latin and neo romance languages like French and spanish , and also how Latin sounded like in comparison of French and other languages.

  • @CC-yh2yq
    @CC-yh2yq 4 роки тому +2

    I’m studying biological anthropology at university, however the other day i had a lecture in linguistic anthropology and this is really interesting stuff!

  • @frilink
    @frilink 4 роки тому +11

    OMG..... Knife has a "K" sound in old Norse......

    • @spacefertilizer
      @spacefertilizer 4 роки тому +4

      In Swedish we say “kniv” for “knife”, with a K sound.

    • @dr.zoidberg8666
      @dr.zoidberg8666 4 роки тому +3

      The now silent 'k' sounds were pronounced in Old English as well. 'knife', 'knight' (btw, the 'gh' wasn't silent either), knock, etc. It all used to be pronounced.

    • @vanefreja86
      @vanefreja86 4 роки тому +2

      And still do in all three Scandinavian languages: kniv :)

    • @mrbond4722
      @mrbond4722 3 роки тому +1

      can you tell me the old norse for knee? as it is knie in dutch

    • @vanefreja86
      @vanefreja86 3 роки тому

      @@mrbond4722 don't know abort oldnorse, but in Danish we say "knæ" and again pronounce the k. Do you pronounce the k in Dutch?

  • @reuven1961
    @reuven1961 5 років тому +31

    Interesting to remark that the Normans were also Vikings

    • @jayjasperjp
      @jayjasperjp 5 років тому +12

      reuven1961 yes but the normans had adopted a version of french as their spoken language

    • @reuven1961
      @reuven1961 5 років тому +18

      @@jayjasperjp Correct, but it is still amusing to notice that the same Vikings harassed the English during history, as themselves or disguised as French :)

    • @paulwatts7140
      @paulwatts7140 5 років тому +3

      The very word Norman (correctly Normand) means Norwegian in modern Norwegian.

    • @aleyzeeo-aleyzee2101
      @aleyzeeo-aleyzee2101 5 років тому +3

      @@paulwatts7140 Nordmann* and they pronounce it like noormān. Nor means north and Mann means man. So the word Norman is probably meaning someone belonging to the north (Scandinavia).

    • @paulwatts7140
      @paulwatts7140 5 років тому

      @@aleyzeeo-aleyzee2101 Normand means Norwegian in that language.

  • @heimdall7774
    @heimdall7774 4 роки тому +1

    There are many things to point to, but as a Norwegian (Nynorsk) speaker, I feel like English overall has a very personal feel. It is generally very easy to literally translate sentences and to express yourself exactly how you wish with the same syntax.

  • @Robert-Herman
    @Robert-Herman 3 роки тому

    I have been an adherent to the theory that ME was a creole (Bailey, C-J, Maroldt, K The French Lineage of English 1977).The mention of ME being a North Germanic language is very interesting and behooves me to research. Thank you.