From Proto- to Old Scandinavian

A modern Swede, would likely be able to understand spoken Swedish down to the late middle ages, when the language underwent massive changes. Old Scandinavian languages are not intelligible without special education, but can be read by modern Icelanders in written form.
How far back would a speaker from the 1000-1200s be understand their ancestors? In the centuries before the viking age, the language in Scandinavia radically transformed, mostly through the loss of unstressed vowels, and words became at least a syllable shorter.
An old Norse speaker would not understand the spoken tongue in the 500s.

[@scottnance2200]

Fascinating. It would be interesting to see the modern Swedish equivalent of these words, to follow the evolution all the way through. Plus, my Swedish is much better than my Proto-Norse.

[@tidsdjupet-mr5ud]

@@scottnance2200 some of them, like "sömd", are obsolete in modern Swedish and much of the grammar is very different, making a 1 to 1 equivalent of the same text not really possible unless using archaic language forms unfamiliar to most speakers today.

[@scottnance2200]

@@tidsdjupet-mr5ud Thanks! That makes perfect sense. It looks like proto-Norse was heavily inflected, and modern Swedish has lost pretty much all its inflections, so I can see how it might be difficult or even impossible to give direct equivalents between proto-Norse and Swedish. The two are just too different (within context).

[@segul67]

same

[@sirseigan]

Hugleik = Håglek/Huglek = fantasi
You can see a similar word on "Hugskott" meaning an idea. Another related word is "håglös" meaning apathic, whithout will to do anything.

[@Survivethejive]

When did Icelandic cease to be mutually intelligible with other North Germanic languages?

[@tidsdjupet-mr5ud]

@@Survivethejive 14-1500s probably

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

Survive the Jive, interesting.

[@BasileosHerodou]

How nice to find you here!!

[@averagemeatballsenjoyer817]

All of northern europe post black death excluding certain regions in Norway and the Faroes.

[@marcusgustafsson9558]

It might be a more modern development, where Icelandic recreated an older language.
We do not really know since spoken and written are two different things.

[@Blockhaj]

gud stuff

[@Þeudōrīkē]

Great video. Unsurprisingly, I understand protonorse better than early swedish 😅

[@MrEnaric]

Fascinating developments from Proto-Germanic on. Likewise, Frisian to Old Frisian to Proto-Gmc is a challenge, though OldFrisian was spoken and written up to the 17th century. A trove of Old Frisian words and expressions survive also in the nether Saxon dialect of Groningen and 'Dutch' of northern Holland. Grammar hadn't changed that much from the 9th to 16th century, but especially the last 350 years my saw the fast developing of 'modern' Frisian by contrast. 'Wēz thu hael/ wês (du) hiel!'

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

I find refering the the leter "i" as ai rather than i to be confusing.

[@isaksalen97]

Finally a channel that focuses on these interesting topics BUT focus on the nordics!

[@c.m.bellman5721]

So during the migration period (folkvandringstiden) we didn't have those famous Rs at the end of certain words pronounced as "true R:s" but more like z:s right? I'm going off of how you pronounce them.

[@tidsdjupet-mr5ud]

@@c.m.bellman5721 They did not fully merge until around 1100.

[@cango5679]

at 3:56, wurkijar-wyrkir-yrkir (yrke) in english it must have somewhat retained the wyrkir - work. cool!

[@tidsdjupet-mr5ud]

@@cango5679 the dropping of w before a vowel is a nordic development, compared ulv, ord, orm with wolf,word,worm.

[@cango5679]

@@tidsdjupet-mr5ud interesting, Thanks!

[@private776]

Sounds like some old semitic

[@Powersnufkin]

No it really doesnt.

[@finnstroll]

There are certainly guttural sounds not found in modern scandinavian languages but present in semitic ones like hebrew, apart from that not so sure :/