Did the Vikings and the English Understand Each Other?
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- Опубліковано 19 тра 2024
- Sources on peasants contact with English
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Sources of royal contact with English
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Vikings in the East of Europe
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Vikings contact with Scottish
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Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements and chronologically coincides with the Viking Age, the Christianization of Scandinavia and the consolidation of Scandinavian kingdoms from about the 7th to the 15th centuries.
The Proto-Norse language developed into Old Norse by the 8th century, and Old Norse began to develop into the modern North Germanic languages in the mid-to-late 14th century, ending the language phase known as Old Norse. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse is found well into the 15th century.
Old Norse was divided into three dialects: Old West Norse or Old West Nordic (often referred to as Old Norse, Old East Norse or Old East Nordic, and Old Gutnish. Old West Norse and Old East Norse formed a dialect continuum, with no clear geographical boundary between them. For example, Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway, although Old Norwegian is classified as Old West Norse, and Old West Norse traits were found in western Sweden. Most speakers spoke Old East Norse in what is present-day Denmark and Sweden. Old Gutnish is sometimes included in the Old East Norse dialect due to geographical associations. It developed its own unique features and shared in changes to both other branches.
Old English (Englisċ, pronounced [ˈeŋɡliʃ]), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th century, and the first Old English literary works date from the mid-7th century. After the Norman conquest of 1066, English was replaced, for a time, by Anglo-Norman (a relative of French) as the language of the upper classes. This is regarded as marking the end of the Old English era, since during this period the English language was heavily influenced by Anglo-Norman, developing into a phase known now as Middle English in England and Early Scots in Scotland.
Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or Ingvaeonic dialects originally spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. As the Germanic settlers became dominant in England, their language replaced the languages of Roman Britain: Common Brittonic, a Celtic language; and Latin, brought to Britain by Roman invasion. Old English had four main dialects, associated with particular Anglo-Saxon kingdoms: Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish and West Saxon. It was West Saxon that formed the basis for the literary standard of the later Old English period, although the dominant forms of Middle and Modern English would develop mainly from Mercian, and Scots from Northumbrian. The speech of eastern and northern parts of England was subject to strong Old Norse influence due to Scandinavian rule and settlement beginning in the 9th century.
Old English is one of the West Germanic languages, and its closest relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon. Like other old Germanic languages, it is very different from Modern English and Modern Scots, and largely incomprehensible for Modern English or Modern Scots speakers without study. Within Old English grammar nouns, adjectives, pronouns and verbs have many inflectional endings and forms, and word order is much freer. The oldest Old English inscriptions were written using a runic system, but from about the 8th century this was replaced by a version of the Latin alphabet.
I'm a Londoner and I was on a train in Scotland sitting in front of two foreigners. I spent the whole time trying to identify the language they spoke. Turned out it was Glaswegian.
From what I hear Glaswegian is almost a language unto itself.
My father had a similar problem with a woman who spoke to him at Palma airport, Majorca. He couldn't understand her, and when she went off he turned to my mother (who had also been struggling to understand her) and said: "what language was that"? And my mother said: "English! She's a Geordie".
It wasn't always like that. Old highlanders mostly spoke Gaelic, English, depending on education french.
After the clearance and issues with politics the education and language fell apart. They actually had better English 200+ years ago than most places today.
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!
I'm Australian and this group of Europeans arrived where I was staying and I couldn't think for the life of me what language they were speaking. I finally realised they were from Yorkshire 😅
Shadiversity actually did a deep dive on literacy in the middle ages and came to the conclusion that commonfolk all over Europe were literate, just not to the extent of reading and writing like nobility due to lack of time, money, resources, or even much of a need to write as much.
It was actually Latin that was the baseline for literacy. A person in that time could most likely read or write in their own language but if they could not read or write Latin, they were not considered literate.
Before Christianity literacy was probably much like todays conception of literacy but I doubt it would have mattered much in places that had more oral traditions.
It all came down to phonics. All you had to learn was the alphabet, and how each letter sounded. Just string the sounds together as letters and you'll be close enough. It may not be an easy & quick read but you can get the picture. As evidenced when you read English from a few hundred years ago. Strict spelling and grammar didn't become an institutionalized thing until the 19th century. Before that it was rather loose, but it worked.
Yup.
@@brotherknight9484 even before Christianity Latin would be the dominate or universal language with the Roman empire conquering as much land as they could, including Brittany and Ireland.
That's the middle ages. The only literate people of the early medieval period were the Monks, which is why it's called "The Dark Ages".
I wholeheartedly believe that our lack of communication skills is directly related to our increasing dependence on technology, and most of that is simply for convenience not necessity.
I remember years ago, staying with family friends in Germany, a Norwegian couple were there as well. The lady of the couple was trying to describe something in English but didn’t know the English for it, “I don’t know the English for “laik”” to which my Dad replied “I was always being told to “quit laikin abaht” when I was a boy, so stop mucking around.”. Dad was a Yorkshireman, Yorkshire dialect is what he grew up with.
So what was she trying to describe?
@@dangerouswitch1066 children mucking about.
We use ‘larking about’ in the south.
Laikin is playing. I'm from the West Riding of Yorkshire. In Barnsley we would say "We're laikin" or "We're going laikin out". Yorkshire was part of the Danelaw so plenty of our local words have origins in the languages spoken in Yorkshire back then. The word snicket for instance.
@@SG-1-GRC exactly.
Just wanted to say that your videos have been so helpful and I’m glad you’re dedicated to providing historical resources and personal interpretations on the Norse pagan religion and society. Thank you!
You said all i wanted to say lol😂❤
I lived in Germany for 5 years, and when i got there i didn't know a damn word in German, and when i ran into someone who didn't speak English i had to learn to communicate without my words, i had to use hand gestures and body language. You would be surprised at just how quickly you start to learn a people when you start paying closer attention to their body language, just like the spoken word and how people in certain areas tend to have a local dialect, people too start to share similar body language and gestures that you will see repeated between them. I got so good at it that some German friends of mine thought that i understood what they were saying in German because i joined the conversation in English after realizing what they were talking about just by watching their movements.
Love your vision about understanding languages. I am Ukrainian Canadian and I admire how English speaking Canadians are patient with accents from all over the world, how they make an effort to understand non-English speaking newcomers and how encouraging they are, so immigrants feel at ease to speak even with mistakes. I love Canada for this.
We have so many immigrants even in small towns you just get used to hearing different accents a lot. The cities even more so.
MAY YOUR FAMILIES STAY STRONG ❣️FRIEND ❣️🍵🇺🇦❣️🇬🇧
unlike Americans, they're impatient and rude
It sounds like how the United States is supposed to be in theory but in reality, it's all too often not the case. 😔
There are of course a myriad of exceptions, but I live in south Texas and as many open minded and tolerant people do exist down here, it seems sometimes like we're outnumbered by clueless bumpkins.
@@joolsmacgrools1288 pretty shit take, how do you expect people who’ve lived their entire lives with only their own accents to suddenly understand every accent they encounter later? My dad had trouble with almost any accent that to me isn’t a challenge to understand. But I grew up with them nearby while he didn’t. Doesn’t make them ignorant.
In Scotland we often use the same words as Norse even today. However, they are Scots words and can confuse English speakers from other areas of British Isles.
It depends, northern England use some Scottish words too, its not such a hard border between ways of speaking
I went to University in Glasgow. Had a book in Scots and a Danish friend was amazed to see that he could read it easily.
@@PapaPhilip Well said, Father.
Me and my pal watched a Swedish comedy drama recently and even the little things like "aye" or "toon" for "yes" and "town" was crazy
@@PapaPhilip I speak Ulster Scots ( a dialect of Scots and Irish Gaelic) naturally and my first time in Copenhagen surprised me how much I could understand.
This was also before language standardization. Germany used to have many different types of German, where people from some regions couldn't even understand the people of other regions. It still blows my mind that the dictionary was invented in the year 1604. Imagine having no reference database for words. Traveling bards and poets must've been hugely popular in the ancient past as a living source of language.
Those old dictionaries are available online. Interesting reads! I just wish they were smaller in file size since they're image scans and can be a bit slow to digitally flip through.
Standardization of language will likely keep it from evolving and splitting as quickly as it used to before it was implemented. I suppose that's likely a long-term benefit.
Yeah now there’s really only standard German, high German, low German and Swabian. Then there’s Bavarian which is its own language. Probably the last like it in Germany. It’s also spoken in Austria.
@@Lingist081 Bavarian is spoken in Austria? Are you insane?
@@Naikomi603 uh yeah lol. Got family in Salzburg, around Innsbruck and in Graz. We all speak Bavarian around eachother
@@Lingist081 sure dude, and the people in Bremen obviously speak Dutch. Quit smoking that bad shit, Sweetheart
i have to agree with his assessment on how "proper" grammar is counterintuitive in communication amongst different cultures and languages...hell, 90 percent of communication is non-verbal.
Thanks for another informative video. I really enjoyed this one. Stay well.
Fascinating information! Thank you for sharing!
I’ve just had to subscribe after stumbling across your channel following my new found obsession with everything Norse. I traced back our family tree lately and what we unearthed has really resonated with me so I just want to find out even more now. Thank you for sharing as it’s proving very helpful indeed.
Awesome video as always man, Watching the Crawford lessons for a firm foundation in the laungauge and actually just reading the sagas for myself was the best thing I ever did.
A year in, just continually reading, and not freaking out over learning every infliction. After a while it feels like you learn them more organically.
I think the two languages were different enough that on upon hearing it for the first time, you may be able to puzzle out only the most obvious words and get enough information from them to kind of understand what the other person is saying (to an extent.) However, they were still close enough that I think it would be quite easy to understand one anothers languages with a degree of fluency within a year, maybe less; if each group had prolonged contact with each other then I don't think it would be long at all until you can understand one another even if you can't speak each others language. However, what would throw your average Scandinavian off at the time was the English case system, which was even more complex than Russian and German; Old Norse mercifully simplified English sentence structure quite a bit which I think was the tongues largest donation to ours. Also, they weren't eternal enemies as is often portrayed on tv. They often intermarried and lived amongst one another, and their children of course would pick up bits from both languages which is where many loanwords would come from. You could get a Viking from Denmark living in the Danelaw fighting alongside his Saxon neighbours against other Vikings from Norway who are raiding his village. They had a relationship that was complex and intertwined. I'm curious and have often wondered, are there any loanwords in Norwegian/Danish/Swedish etc that came from Old English that you know of?
I agree
I agree but not in the part you said about Russian being with less complexity in its grammar than old English. Old English got 6 cases I guess and Russian now got the same it also depends in what old English dialect and time we are talking about remember that old English wasn't a unified language but rather a lot of dialects of it
That happened in Ireland and Scotland at various times. The Irish Vikings might fight against one another while being allied to different Irish clans. The Norse Irish even became their own clans which fought Vikings and the other Irish. They were mostly pagan and even more ant Christianity than the norsemen. When the Norman’s came the Irish and Irish Norse fought them which is ironic as the Norman’s were Norse franks who in the end conquered Ireland.
Dude! That was awesome. This video felt like listing to a pal while having beers.
Wonderful information thank you! I agree we make a lot of things more difficult than they should be.
I was so excited when this guy mentioned Professor Jackson Crawford, he really knows his stuff!
This was the first video I've seen from this Channel, and I definitely have subscribed
I just finished the series recently. Great video!
Hi, glad I found your channel, I love etymology!
When I was in Spain, (I am from Lerwick in the Shetland Islands) a couple of us walked into this little ice-cream shop in a little town called Tarragona and the lady who owned the place if I remember right, she'd been running it for about 20 years. She couldn't speak one word of English, nor us a word of Spanish, but by the time we came out 10 minutes and a seriously amazing ice-cream later, we knew the words for snow, rain, cloudy, windy- all the basics that got us through the rest of the holiday no problem at all, and it only took 10 minutes eating an ice-cream and exchanging knowledge of our respective languages- she was as interested in language as all of us are!
I've watched Simon Roper. I really find his program fascinating.
Love this video. Thanks.
Thanks, buddy, very clear and insightful, I appreciate it! Cheers from Argentina!
Thank you so much for all your time and research. Really helps my learning of my ancestors. As a child attended a scandinivian church, sermons and songs in Swedish, my Danish Grandfather could understand Norweign but yes there is friendly banter between each other understanding the language not always able to speak the language.
Dane law in England is something I have been looking into and Lindisfarne/ holy island viking trading/ influence. In the museum I visited the Danish language very influenced in to English today. Example being "by" the norse name for village many northern fishing villages Grimsby and Whitby for example and freckle is also an old norse word.
I have been learning and understanding scottish gaelic and it is such a beautiful language deeply connected to the land and culture. Adopted son for example is translated as son of the breast as apposed to son of the womb. Really important language is preserved it is a deep part of our identity. Thank you again xx
Cajun french here in Louisiana is being taught in schools again.its so great . Grandchildren and grandparents can communicate again
I just wanted to let you know I've been watching your videos a while and I really do appreciate your view and Outlook on life and human interaction you seem like a super cool dude
Thank you for sharing.
I love your channel, your a fantastic communicator 👍
I’m Norwegian, Danish and a little Swede heritage born in US. Very interesting videos here, thank you for sharing them. I visited distant relatives in Norway years ago, loved it. I’ll listen to more of your videos, much to learn about.
Just came across your video.
I'm from Cumbria, in the North of England.
Our Cumbrian dialect is a lot similar to Old Norse as we had Viking settlers here and there language has remained and integrated into how we speak English.
We also have retained some Old Welsh from pre-Viking settlers, most notably the name of our County, Cumbria from Cumbri/Cymru.
Enjoying your channel.
I love what you said about strict adherence to grammar being a hindrance. It's so easy for mindset to slip into elitism. Over the years, I have really started to appreciate the English dialect I grew up around (rural Gulf Coast US) as a heritage marker rather than "wrong English". I know this wasn't the point of your video, but this is where it took me!
First time viewer. Really enjoyed the video!
I love this. I lived in Japan during college and the people I could communicate the best with were the ones who spoke the least amount of English. I think it was because we had to work harder to understand one another by using tones, body language, gestures, facial expressions and even drawings at times. Once you share that aha moment of "I get it!", I think it bonds you. Something in our cores wants to understand and be understood. To me, learning how to communicate with others outside of our native languages is thrilling. Thanks for the information.
As always thanks for the information 👊🏻
😊very nice video thanks for your perspective and thoughts..
Ganske interessant! Takk for det.
I really enjoy your channel. Being that my grandparents came to the north shores of Lake superior from Bergen 🇳🇴
I really enjoyed this one. It got me thinking about how, when I was 7 and 8, I lived in South Africa. It was pre-Mandela (barely) but it was DEEP in the bush! The language barriers were interesting, and they were between EVERYONE. Afrikaners, English-speakers, & Shangaan, we all had to just make it work. My best friend there, oddly, was a Shangaan boy. We didn't speak a word of one another's language (at first), but we just got along and played. It's a peculiar, but wonderful, memory.
Thank you for putting that out there
I love your channel bro! It's so informative and answers so many GD questions I have.
Sweet. Cool stuff bro. This is my kind of topic.
Thank you bro you doing great job (:
Man, you are speaking my kind of thoughts. I have learned a bunch of languages (most not to fluency) and my professional career is in multicultural communication. Most people who don't speak the lingua franca as their first language are usually so much more flexible and understanding let alone understandable. When it is the person's first language and they are not multicultural then they just cannot understand. It's amazing.
Really great channel.
I just want to remark that you look AMAZING. Nice hair bro. I wish I had hair and eyes like that lol. Thanks for the valuable info too, learning from you about the ancient Germanic life.
Thank you for sharing. Believe it or not you are educating me on Norse, Scotland 🏴 the brave and the Vikings. Keep your videos coming ✨Jeannie Fitzsimmons
Its videos like this that make me wonder why I haven't subbed to you yet. Changed! My fathers family arrived in England with William and in Normandy with Rollo and which has given me a good deal of interest in that history, so these vids that give a deal of clarification on some of these things are really appreciated.
I dare say the best modern parallel to Danes/Norse and anglo saxons communicating would possibly be Scottish English and English as we know it.
Growing up in the old ' Danelaw - Hucknall , Nottinghamshire we still use words from way back .
Eya gora wi yah serri?
" Have you got her with you my friend " ? . Great video from oer t watter lol
This was very interesting, and it got me thinking.
Old Frisian and Old English were closest in the past
"Bread, butter and green cheese is good English and good Fries", which sounds not very different from "Brea, bûter en griene tsiis is goed Ingelsk en goed Frysk".
Good vid man. Roper and Crawford are awesome.
Love the hair man❤️😊
i really like your channel and your personality. you also seem to be very fit wich is a good motivation. I am german and i am learning your language. very beautiful language. Skål!
The way you explained it made it seem like Portuguese-Spanish, 2 similar languages that are mutually intelligible without much effort.
Great video!
Yes, I’m a Native Spanish speaker and I thought about Portuguese and Spanish, but it could also be said about Italian and Spanish. My mom was in Italy some years ago and she understood a full conversation some people were having in Italian without realising it wasn’t Spanish
I agree there is more to understanding a conversation than just words. You have to take tonality, facial expressions, pacing between words, and of course hand gestures and body movements to get a complete understanding of what the person is really saying.
Toward the end of a book called "Crazyhorse and Custer, The Parallel Lives of Two American Heroes" by Steven E Ambrose, they mention a study on Native Americans they interviewed that stated they could remember things in finite details from several decades before because they were illiterate.
Also, I'm a backwoods North Central Florida hick who used to play videogames with Scots and t that's a pain in the ass to understand each other but it's funny now.
I wonder if its like how I can no longer spell by myself without the computer. lol. If we are offloading our remembrances to paper then we lose that connection in our brain that remembers those types of things. I can no longer spell the word guarantee to save my life. There was a time in my childhood when I could spell most words.
I am a North Ga hick, who backpacked across Europe and realized I can easily communicate with German, Scotts, Russian, and Dutch in the pubs.... yet I don't understand the British.
I wonder why????,
Y'all dang Yankees don't make no sense.
Hoots mon, fae Scotland!🏴
@@chrisbagwell6521 Scots are British though.
I would have loved that as a disertation. Wonderful.
I dig this guy. Id love to buy him a beer if he ever gets near Seattle. I say near cuz I live in the sticks and it's the nearest big city. Anyway...his vids are great, real, honest and easy going.
Ha det bra.
Love your videos, bro. You are such a creative, just look at that bed haha
My inner nerd is overjoyed with this video. Love the languages of northern Europe. Thanks
love the picture for the video lol
Fascinating!
Good gods, I spent 6 years studying this in college, and then the last 7 doing so in my spare time. With a good decade plus between. Unfortunately, this led to a career in construction.
Excellent analysis. And that's high praise on the topic.
I just randomly ran into this channel, and as a believer in the old gods(and educated historian but not professional), I shall be very interested to peruse more videos.
I am actually relatively fluent in both, for dead languages. Okay, I've spent the last 7 years studying northern Germanic languages both dead and alive.
I also speak a very northern backwoods dialect locally, and I've lived in England and apparently I have a pretty good way with accents in English.
Hey man I'm a newcomer to your channel love your channel
Kul video, kompis!
Several years ago I looked up The Lord's Prayer in Old English and Middle English and it's fascinating how it changed. Knowing what it was made a bit of sense of the older versions.
I looked up Old German and High German too, and Danish, Swedish and Norwegian.
Danke dir Bruder
You say there is no modern equivalent, but I remember a tale from my grandfather. He was an officer in the Merchant Navy (and so not illiterate) sailing mainly in ships around the North Sea. Coming from Newcastle his first language was obviously Geordie, the local dialect, as opposed to the Queen's English. He said that he could go into any North Sea port, be it in Germany, Norway, Denmark or the Netherlands, even Flemish Belgium, speak Geordie and be understood by the locals. Anyone from a few miles inland would have a problem, just as English people from just a few miles inland of Newcastle cannot understand Geordie, but the coastal people all spoke closely linked versions of a common North Sea language that must have stemmed from the same Germanic/Norse root stock.
I have the opposite problem to that being a Brummie, no one understands me! Lol
But that's pretty interesting to hear!
@@JackRabbit002 Strangely he ended up living in Gravesend, at the mouth of the Thames. Up until the early 19th Century there was a Gravesend dialect very similar to Geordie and also unintelligible to Londoners or other people from Kent. Sadly it died out as Estuary English came to dominate the Thames Estuary.
It could simply be, that the accent produced by his particular dialect presents an easier listening experience, if it happens to mimic some tonal patterns. Or it could be that we're just more used to listening to different accents here, since more people from different places swing by.
There are some small areas along the north-westerncoast of Jutland in Denmark where they pronounce a v like a w. This is very much laughed at from the Kopenhagerners as something utterly strange and depraved. They dont get that this is due to a very close oversea contact with Scotland for many centuries.
@@haberdashery148 That used to be a London characteristic too.
Your videos are really giving me insight into my own heritage, being descended from Rollo and William the Conqueror and about a half dozen Swedish queens and kings.
"about a half dozen Swedish queens and kings" -- who are those exactly?
@@leenpels7646 Sigurd Randeversson - King of Sweden 710 - 812 AD, ) Bjorn Ragnarsson - “Ironside” King of Sweden 778 - 833 AD, Refill Bjornssen - King of Sweden 796 - 873 AD, Ealdyth Ragnarsson - Queen of Sweden 797 - ??? AD, Erik Refilsson - King of Sweden 814 - 870 AD, Edmund Eriksson - King of Sweden 832 - 873 AD, Erik Edmundsson VI - King of Sweden “Weatherhat” 849 - 906 AD, Bjorn Eriksson III - “The Old King” of Sweden 868 - 956 AD, Prince Styrbjorn Olafsson - “The Strong” - King of Sweden 937 -1000 AD, Olof Mitkg Bjornsson III - King of Sweden 1000 - 1022 AD
, Ivar Halfdan - “The Valient” - King of Sweden ??? - ??? AD. I guess it's really closer to a dozen.
,
@@craigreid7178 That's kinda impressive ngl. So where's Rollo gonna fit in (and by proxy William)?
@@leenpels7646 That comes down through my maternal great grandmother's family - the Warrens. William, Longue Eppe, son of Rollo. William, the grandson of Rollo had a grandson - William, Duke of Normandy who was William the Conqueror - King of England.
@@craigreid7178 Damnit, you don't even have to pinpoint Rollo by saying he's the son in that scrabble ..
I want to know about Ealdyth Ragnarsson?
Great video. Interesting story on language. My father's family is from one of the most remote areas of the mountains in Western NC in the US--going back to before the Revolutionary War with Britain---and back even further. When my grandmother was in her 90s, a woman came to visit from Scotland and I heard them in another room speaking a strange language. My father later said they were speaking Scots-Gaelic. My family had NEVER traveled to Scotland at that point. Somehow members of my family had retained their Sots-Gaelic language for 200 years and could still speak it with a person from Scotland!! I was amazed! And unfortunately, due to prejudices and some shame, they never passed the language down to us. And unfortunately, I do not speak Gaelic.
We also have members of my family that use the old English intonation for words--they live on remote islands off of Virginia (Tangier Island) in the US. I can understand some of their dialect because I heard it as a child---but I still miss a lot of words. My father knew and spoke that old English dialect completely. I have known about Simon Roper for a while--it is now good to hear about the Old Norse expert as well.
The ancients were better off and better at things than we are today? I totally agree. Happy I found your channel sir.
I'm from the Great Lakes region of the US, and we have one of the biggest Scandinavian populations in this country. My grandpa was from Canada and was Anishinaabe and Danish, and his brother in law was from the Netherlands and had a habit of switching to Dutch in the middle of a sentence and it would actually take us a few minutes to catch that he wasn't speaking English anymore lol.
Because I grew up around people "code switching" from English to Dutch, French, Finnish, Mandarin, plus having accents from Northern Michigan, South East Michigan, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Wales, and Ireland, in pretty good at understanding people.
I can't understand heavy southern accents from say, southern Arkansas though, and they can't understand me unless I slow down (to be fair, I have an accent even in my own family because I'm the oldest kid and was raised around all the grandparents from different countries). I was an otr trucker and the best example I have of people misunderstanding me is in the south they always thought I was asking for extra onions when I asked for extra honey mustard sauce.
How you get onions out of honey mustard, IDK, but it happened all the time lol, from South Carolina straight across to Texas.
Interestingly enough I have no issues understanding Cajun accents, and will actually start to pick them up.
I think you prove his theory about people who are exposed to many different cultures and languages growing up. Sounds very cool to have all that variety of languages and cultures
@@kimzales87 it was pretty cool, but I wish I could have learned at least one of them enough to be fluent lol. The best I can do is understand what someone asks and respond in English (even if I know the response in the language, I don't know enough to have a full conversation, so I always answer in English), but that's come in handy many times in my life!
The only down side was I used to get teased for my accent and how I say certain words lol. That was frustrating as a child, but it no longer bothers me
@@SessaV I think that's still really commendable and it's never too late to add to what you know from the languages you learned
@@kimzales87 I've spent the last year learning French, and I've tried to find a program where I could learn ojibwe. I also brushed up on my welsh, but that was mostly to annoy my sister.
I've lost my ability to converse in mandarin, Japanese, Russian and Dutch, mostly because I don't have anyone to speak with. I can still understand what's being said, but it's hard to respond, especially mandarin with all its tones.
I've learned a bit of Spanish as an adult because being a truck driver I often times had people who couldn't speaking English coming up to me because they assumed I was Hispanic. I can cuss in Arabic for the same reason lol.
I mean growing up around all the different cultures and languages definitely made it easier for me to adapt my mannerisms and gave me an ear for picking up language. I'm pretty good for someone born in raised in the US, though nowhere near as good as some people I've met born in other countries. I'm still greatful for it though.
The 'English' came from Denmark(amongst other places) from around 450 on.
The Danes arrived a few hundred years later.
First, thanks for all the vids, always interesting.
Next: you make a throwaway example about exchanging fifteen fish for two shields... Now, that seems like too many shields for too few fish to me! I mean, obviously, it'd depend on if you've got a big f..k-off tuna or a nice bit of mackerel, but I've often wondered about the *value* of things in the Viking era. We can get some idea from the contemporary literature and the sagas, but I'd be fascinated if you put a vid out of your opinion on the average value of some items. It might be particularly interesting with regard to metals, the real value of gold as a status symbol compared to as a material compared again to quality steel etc.
Yes, amazing how much you can understand if you just pay attention. I attended a folkehøgskole in Norway, having just had a quick language camp in Bokmål 2 weeks prior. The headmaster wrote everything in Nynorsk. We had students from all over, including a couple of girls from an isolated fjord on the west coast. One of them taught me to knit, even though I didn’t understand a single word she said for the first 6 months. At the end of the year I could read and write both Bokmål and Nynorsk, and understand numerous dialects. When I stopped over in Iceland I found that I could understand them perfectly because Icelandic was so similar to my knitting friend’s dialect. They’d speak Icelandic to me, I’d answer in my own weird Norwegian dialect (gleaned from the wide variety of speakers I’d heard) then they’d usually glitch and answer in English or sometimes Danish. And we’d all understand everything. Good times! The whole year was a fantastic linguistic experience.
While visiting family in Bavaria several years ago, I was complimented on my grammar, which I was taken aback by. Bavarians, it seems, tend to be a little more lax in their speech due to their regional differences. I can only speak Hochdeutch, so it took me a bit to get accustomed to their pronunciation, but communication eventually became effective, when people weren't insistent on practicing their English with a native speaker.
Context helps with communication. I once had to get a non-English speaker to redesign a mechanical system 'in the field'. I could not speak his language ether. But because we were both engineers, we used gestures and drew drawings and knowing 'yes' 'no' in both languages, we got it done. This was not a basic task but required machining on his part. Worked flawlessly. So I can imagine that context wwould have helped here as well. A warrior knows how to warrior, a fisherman knows how to fish etc. So they have a common experience that can support understanding in a hybrid way.
You and Jackson Crawford are my most important UA-camrs 😅
My great grandfather was from Eidsvold and he was an interpreter and a seaman. This was back in the day before most Norwegians could speak English.
Absolutely agree with your central point here, that a thousand years ago, during the "Viking Age" and the Norman Invasion, even though the Germanic languages had been differentiating for more than 500 years, they were nonetheless probably much more mutually intelligible than we usually imagine. I think this might be particularly hard to really understand for people who don't speak a second language.
I can still remember two great shifts in my experience with related languages. The first was when I was maybe 15 and I more or less taught myself to read German--it was as if previously indecipherable symbols rather suddenly seemed to reveal themselves. The second was almost 10 years later, when I finally got to (West) Germany and learned how to speak it.
Once again, it was this sort of veils of Maya dropping away experience. Even more startling is that within maybe 5 months I had acquired such a thick Swabian accent (that's just where I happened to land, near Tübingen) that when I'd strike up conversations with Germans on holiday in Spain, they would never believe me when I said I was from Chicago, thinking I was some poser from the Schwäbische Alb trying to impress backpacker kids from Köln!
Finally, there's the time that I was standing at the check in counter in Schipol Airport in Amsterdam when the computer system went down. As I was standing at that counter thinking about other things while waiting for the machines to come back online, the conversation that the two Dutch girls behind the counter were having about the night before, when some obnoxious guy was hitting on one of them, slowly filtered into my consciousness. Almost embarrassingly, I felt like I was eavesdropping on their conversation simply because I was suddenly and inexplicably understanding almost all of it!
My point is that unless and until you've had some sort of significant experience with at least one other language, most particularly with one that is related, you can't really understand quite how easy the whole thing is. I do very much disagree, however, with your contention that grammar kills communication and language acquisition because it's so uptight and "anal." What kind of Waldorf school nonsense is that?!
The puzzle of German grammar is what attracted me in the first place. And in the second place, I am already hobbled when I speak German because I sound like a bartender from the Alb (which I was, sort of, one of the many under the counter jobs I had there). You can slur your endings and conjugations and whatnot all you want in German, and most people do, a little, in casual conversations, but you're going to sound like a complete moron if you attempt to avoid them altogether.
Nice video Uba
Saxons were a Germanic tribe to arrive in England from Denmark, and they invaded and settled in East Anglia, in the year 410 AD as the Romans left the area. Vikings were also Germanic tribe that invaded England in the 9th century, in the year 840 AD, in East Anglia.
So Vikings are Anglo-Saxons from the future?🤔🤔
They settled in Wessex and Sussex, the Angles were the ones settling East Anglia, that's why it's called East Anglia. The Saxons did not come from Denmark, but from Northern Germany and the Netherlands (the north-eastern part), the Angles were the ones that lived in the south of Denmark. Vikings were not a tribe, Vikings were Norse warriors, but the Norse had kingdoms and petty kingdoms as well, not just tribes. You had the kingdom of Jylland, Sjaelland, Svíþjoð (Sweden), Norþvegr (Norway), etc.
@@wulfheort8021 I agree with you I'm a Norse- Gael I'm 84% Nordic From Denmark the rest of me is Celtic..
The Norse-Gaels also known as Hiberno-Scandinavian (Old Irish: Gall-Goídil; Irish: Gall-Ghaeil; Scottish Gaelic: Gall-Ghàidheil, 'foreigner-Gaels') were a people of mixed Gaelic and Norse ancestry and culture. They emerged in the Viking Age, when Vikings who settled in Ireland and in Scotland adopted Gaelic culture and intermarried with Gaels.
@@LVQuinn83 I believe it were the Ívarrings that became the first royal Gael-Norsemen. The Germanics did not really leave any stone unturned on the British Isles, the Saxons and Angles conquered and drove away the Brits and later on dominated the remaining Brits, the Picts were conquered by the Gaels from Ireland, whom were in turn for a large part conquered by the Norsemen as well as the Irish Gaels.
I myself am of full Flemish descent, very closely related to the Saxons that settled in England.
@@wulfheort8021 My family is from Ireland I'm second generation Irish born thanks for sharing with me...
I fully agree with your assessment. It is very likely that mutual understanding of the language was common. Most conflict would arise in the differences of cultural interactions. Misunderstanding the traditions and manners of others. Although this is anecdotal, it is how I find my experiences as someone self taught in speaking Spanish (Latin American). Yes, I have no huge obstacles when having basic conversations with people from any country, save local slang. But I also find that I can in a limited fashion have those same simple exchanges you mentioned with Brazilian Portuguese despite it being a very different linguistic base. People will make that effort to understand for the sake of doing business.
I think some of them where able to learn other language as we do today ;) but i really like your video thanks
Hello, my name is Oliver. I live in Australia. I have been learning old Norse from songs like That Malti Min Modir and the Immigrant song. I read the words quite fine in the video you made on April 19th. But I don't know the English translation.
I’m new to your channel I’m from Tulsa, Oklahoma you’ll have to forgive me but I’m absolutely amazed at how you not only that your accent is nearly non existent when your speaking English but how it is you understand our expressions and slang as well as that is most of the issue I’m told with learning English and speaking it fluently? My dna and geneology Is Anglo-Norman as well as Frisian/duetsche/ German I’ve found your channel and your a brilliant student or I almost think your a scholar to listen to you teach thank you. We have lost a lot of our history and roots because of our melting pot.
As a Pole I can understand and do basic communication with Chech, Slovak, Slovenian, Ukrainian, Croatian and to some extend Russian (i understandup to 30% of russian).
What really supprises me, my daughter doesn't understand them, even though similarities are obvious to me 🤔
There is a difference during the childhood: I lived not that far from Chech Republic and even though we were not traveling there, as a kid I watched quite a lot of Chech cartoons in TV (back in the time there were no cartoons channels, as a kid you had to "hunt" for cartoons played on different channels on different hours). It made my brain open for slavic languages. When I was in Chroatia, I had zero issues to communicate in shops, ect., even though it's half the europe away 😉 IMHO - beeing exposed and necessity itself allows you to understand others, as a child I had to understand them (i loved cartoons), my daughter didn't had to, so now she doesn't understand slavic languages.
I agree with you - we should stop switching to 3rd language immediately, rather we should try to understand each other 😉 (especially when we're from same language group)
There's 2 coworkers that are German and talk to each other in their native language I love hearing it and although I don't know hardly any German I still feel like my soul understands it. One had said that most of the European countries understand each other because they're so close they end up learning the others language. Plus alot of them are as you said are in the same family of languages.
This bloke is one of the best youtubers. He's very proud of his Germanic/Norse roots but he doesn't look down upon other peoples and their cultures.
Because being proud doesnt mean being a nazi asshole something that modern germans apparently dont know
This is so interesting! Discovered some years ago the old word "thou" (you) and it sounds pretty much like the Swedish "du"! I'm friends with someone from England and we had this discussion a while back! I mentioned to her that the word "small" sounds like "smal", which could have an origin with the meaning of "you got a small (thin) belly/du har en smal (liten) mage", and she sort of agreed. The English translation for "smal" now days is "thin" and "small" is another word for "little", "liten" in Swedish. Maybe "small" meant more than one thing back then? I don't know! I'm not claiming to be an expert on these things, but its fun to discuss! :D
west coast Scotland here, i never heard of small meaning thin but little yes small stomach as in not big. i am sure i have heard a good few words of Norway and Faroe Islands that are almost the same as broad scots. we use wee as a word for small have you a similar word ? i love this stuff as well cheers.
@@BusbyTreeSurgery Oh, it was just me thinking why the words looks and sounds alike and thought of a way why that is! I could of course be way off XD Another word for "thin" in Swedish is "tunn" like in "tunnpannkaka/thin pancakes" so there definitely could be many translations from both sides! Just thought about this right now! "Wee" though, there's no similar word to it that, unfortunately, but hearing the word makes me think of something that's cute, like when you say "aww", and wee things are often cute! So I guess that would get the point across.
There are many more words alike in English and scandinavian languages.
Some adopted by vikings but many are also just because the languages are related.
Angles came from area just south of Danes before migrating to British Isles.
A source even say Angul (who gave name to Angles/English and Dan who gave name to Danes were both sons of Humbli. This is like way before viking age, like year 200.
@@saibot7218 Of course there's many, many more words that's similar and mean the same or almost the same, but I just gave an example! I can go much, much deeper if I want to, but I have no time to. Cool with the "angels" though! In Sweden we say "änglar!" Similar to that word is "älvor" which means "pixies/faries", and "alver"/ "elves." Love to disguss! :D
@@sofialarsson9100 in Germany and in the North East of The Netherlands (dialect) we also use 'Du' and 'Doe'. We have the same things with small and little :) You're example woould be in my dialect 'doe hest 'n leutje moage (stomach)'. Leutje (or lutje) means little. Oh and 'tunn' is in Dutch 'dun' :)
Great video.I have often wondered if Angel's and Saxon's had different languages.The Angels / Jutes came from Denmark a couple of hundred years earlier than the Vikings.
They both spoke a West Germanic language. When the Germanic tribes arrived in Britain, they associated with each other and traded, making them evolve to have a shared language and material culture. However, each Anglo-Saxon kingdom had its unique dialect which was probably influenced by the tribes they originated from, but also the peoples they conquered. Northumbrian diverged the most due to being so powerful and being considered the Germanics north of the Humber, a natural border.
Great video. Love the Norwegian flag in the background. 🇳🇴🇳🇴🇳🇴
Really Thanks for all of true information again. I have a question, as it seems, your body improved a lot brother! Do you train like a Bodybuilder, weightlifter, Powerlifter or anything else?
At the end when you say we'll see you next time sound so close to Danish it's easily understandable
What I'm hearing is awesome
Jackson is awesome. I have some of his books as well as Jesse Bylock
Very insightful take on this question. Traders and merchants tend to at least learn enough of other languages to conduct commerce (like me writing a business letter in French or being able to read one in German). One thinks of the Native Americans who traded and negotiated with many other tribes as well as European settlers. Always a pleasure! (P.S. When you invite friends over, make your bed! -- Your Mom :)
Till next time!
The Ying Yang Twings going Hææææææææ 😂 You're killing me!
Sold me with the ying yang twins reference
As you say the purpose of communication is to get a message across, perfect grammar is irrelevant. I live and travel around different parts of the world and have done for 33 years. I was even a Cantonese speaker at one point - having grown up in North East Scotland. But then I went deaf. Now life is easier. Language is irrelevant. I get on perfectly well wherever I go. Everyone knows someone who is at least partially deaf, usually a grandparent or such like. And so long as I use humour and smile and laugh a lot, especially at my own mistakes, communication is fine. People are too hung up on perfect enunciation etc. when all you need is to be flexible, have a laugh and enjoy each conversation.
Thank you for talking about this topic.. i did ask u about this topic while ago..
Was the language barrier closer back then compare to today between sweds/norse/danes?
2:07 Did you literally take that from Jackson Crawford's videos? He has the EXACT same thing in his video. The background is even Colorado where he's from. 😂