A Conversation in Old English and Old Norse

Were Old Norse and Old English really mutually intelligible? Jackson Crawford and ‪@simonroper9218‬ set out to test this often-asserted statement as best as they know how.
Subscribe to ‪@simonroper9218‬ on KZbin for more excellent Old English content: / @simonroper9218
Jackson Crawford, Ph.D.: Sharing real expertise in Norse language and myth with people hungry to learn, free of both ivory tower elitism and the agendas of self-appointed gurus. Visit jacksonwcrawford.com/ (includes bio and linked list of all videos).
Jackson Crawford’s Patreon page: / norsebysw
Latest FAQs: vimeo.com/375149287 (updated Nov. 2019).
Jackson Crawford’s translation of Hávamál, with complete Old Norse text: www.hackettpublishing.com/the... or www.amazon.com/Wanderers-Hava...
Jackson Crawford’s translation of The Poetic Edda: www.hackettpublishing.com/the... or www.amazon.com/Poetic-Edda-St...
Audiobook: www.audible.com/pd/The-Poetic...
Jackson Crawford’s translation of The Saga of the Volsungs: www.hackettpublishing.com/the... or www.amazon.com/Saga-Volsungs-...
Audiobook: www.audible.com/pd/The-Saga-o...
Music © I See Hawks in L.A., courtesy of the artist. Visit www.iseehawks.com/
Logos by Elizabeth Porter (snowbringer at gmail).

[@JacksonCrawford]

A big thank-you to Simon Roper for collab'ing with me on this project! Be sure to check out his channel for more Old English content if you haven't come across him yet: kzbin.info/door/hnRk6mxWsSOGElm8phdSxw

[@figsrabbithole2093]

So my dad speaks Portuguese fluently (I didn't grow up learning it though). But I remember one day we had a Mexican family friend over. He spoke in Portuguese (Brazilian) and she spoke in Spanish. I sat on the couch watching. I took some Spanish in school so I could tell when they were asking clarifying questions and saying something like "ok so that's orange in spanish and orange is portuguese is this...."

[@jadet-g1486]

I don't think you read replies but this level of depth in free education means the world to me. I hope I can make donations to Patreon soon because your channel and work has made a huge difference in my life as I am not of age for college.

[@simonroper9218]

Thank you very much indeed for doing the bulk of the work, and glad to be in contact!

[@LivWildStyle]

This is what its about.

[@JS-fd8ey]

I'm curious if the original location of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes on the mainland of Europe has an effect on the intelligibility of Old Norse. Because when studying the Germanic languages, the mutual intelligibility spectrum, from west to east to north, makes the difference between Saxon vs. Anglian Old English dialects to Old Norse make sense to me.

[@CyrodiilicKhajiit]

As a subtitle reader, I understood everything.

[@Beaglefan]

Same bro

[@bobby-gl9qz]

Lmao

[@stefanwilkinson1536]

Highly underrated comment.

[@ruruyu59]

My language is also subtitle

[@zoverawizo7476]

As a subtitle reader, i understand billions of language, even if its alien or made up. 😜😜😜

[@jormungandr7885]

As a swede, I understand more of this danish old norse dialect than I understand modern danish.

[@64mickh]

Even the Danes don’t understand modern Danish

[@issyd2366]

It's also Old Swedish and Old Norwegian at the same time.

[@charzakwinn1398]

Kamelåså?

[@ytusersumone]

Va? Dyye skyygye fröy bryådå Svänske skeegäle hatt fri tsyjåå Tänske! 😡

[@peterrowswell7244]

Modern Swedish palatalises in a similar manner to Old English but Danish doesn't, does anyone have any idea when that happened?

[@albanborici8093]

"Good weather and true arrows" gotta be one of the most badass farewells i've ever heard

[@buia499]

As an icelander it's really cool to actually understand most of the words that they are saying.

[@riccardolaspina1053]

IWe have often hear nthat is possible, but yours is the first actual testimony of this. But which of the two come closest to your own language?

[@buia499]

@@riccardolaspina1053 Old English has the pronounciation of Icelandic but the words are very different. It's like a mix between Old norse, Gaelic, and Welsh. Old Norse however is spelled exactly the same as modern Icelandic but with a few tweaks to the pronounciation. It's sort of like trying to understanding a very weird dialect.

[@fani5000]

Þetta er geggjað!

[@eVill420]

@@buia499 I guess Icelandic just appeared around this time at 1000 AD so this is like the starting point

[@user-yl9sw4ed2f]

Ikke in Danish is not. Nej is no.

[@o...]

Now *_this_* is the most ambitious crossover event in history

[@user-hk8yp7cw1v]

þat hefir þú réttr í!

[@theroy7757]

Han har rett i det ja :)

[@gdbssa]

butter

[@Nihilio]

A Anglo Saxon and a Dane speaking? Far from the most ambitious crossover in history more like a daily occurrence in the Danelaw

[@pimplejuice8774]

Not really a crossover. Many English settled Germanic tribes and Norse tribes battled against each other and sometimes often traded.

[@Randomdudefromtheinternet]

This is how it feels when a latinoamerican/ talks with a Brazilian or an italian, we don't understand each other but at the same time we do.

[@Randomdudefromtheinternet]

@@Drive_Far_Away You'll be surprised (also Spanish and Latin American will of course understand each other, we speak spanish, only different versions of it).

[@KlavierMenn]

@@Randomdudefromtheinternet Yep. There's a certain degree of integibility between brazilian portuguese and tuscan italian moreso than the european variety of portuguese. This happened because we had a really big migration of italians on the beginning of the last century (it was such a gigantic migration that the word for 'foreigner' was 'italiano' to many people that lived on the rural parts of the newly-republican brazil) So, the italian vocabulary made way into the brazilian portuguese, but since both are latin languages, they shared many cognates and such, so, it became more of an accent than a pigdin language (Or a portuguese-based creole)

[@merineyit]

@@KlavierMenn - Interesting indeed!

[@merineyit]

@@Drive_Far_Away - Except Welsh has no relationship to English, so English people can't hope to understand it unless they have learned it - although, if Welsh people speak the bastardised version known as Wenglish, then an English person may think they can understand snippets.

[@yankoelgueta1116]

Im chilean , and when i hear brasilians i understand like 30%

[@aeronidas3647]

It's amazing hearing old languages like this being spoken again

[@Subieghost]

Lmao you say that like it's nostalgic

[@aeronidas3647]

@@Subieghost am VERY old

[@Awtora]

@J Miller well Catalan people are doing a great job at reviving their language, however Bretonnic language for example is sadly near extinction now(and Occitan too i believe)

[@CHRB-nn6qp]

​@Please unsubscribe The Prussian language has gone from extinction to having native speakers. Anything is possible :) (Btw when I say Prussian, I don't mean German, I mean the Baltic language related to Lithuanian and Latvian.).

[@viral_suppressor4154]

As a German non native speaker, I understand old danish a lot more than I expected. You guys did a great job! Thanks!

[@MrKarlozz]

I'm Danish and understood like 10% lol. But then again, I only speak English and Spanish apart from Danish

[@jackcraven7979]

English is my only language I could understand old English better than Norse

[@sadflix8754]

It’s kinda interesting to know that guten Morgen has stayed pretty much the same from these old languages until modern german

[@fwfry3144]

@@sadflix8754 ja

[@walterweiss7124]

@@sadflix8754 moooin :)

[@JFLATTERMANN]

Having studied medieval German language, I was astonished how well I understood both old Norse and old English.

[@KlavierMenn]

Both are germanic too, no? Pretty sure if you got your hands in some visigothic texts you would understand them too, because they were also germanic (The frankish tribes punted the visigoths into the Iberian Peninsula, where they made a few kingdoms before getting overrun by the Umayyad arabs)

[@kamalindsey]

I am baffled when someone told me the Palestinialied poem is very hard to understand for modern Germans when to my untrained ears it sounds like German.

[@isaac4273]

@@KlavierMenn yeah but the Gothic language has been extinct for a while now, and also didn't undergo certain changes like the rest of the germanic languages, still the East Germanic languages are quite an enigma

[@aurothelarper]

@@KlavierMenn The Visigoths were heavily latinized by the time they came to Iberia

[@Laikalister]

666th like

[@MrGeneration83]

As a dane who have live in the faroese and have learned german and english, I am suprised at how well I understand both the old norse and old english.

[@emcarnahan]

That’s very cool.

[@MSchmitz77]

I know both Old Norse and German, with the Old English bits I could understand pretty much everything without looking at the subtitles. Never have studied Old English either

[@alexlarsen6413]

Yeah me too, but Jackson did use old danish and they were talking really slowly. Interestingly enough, I would perhaps understand faroese about as well as old danish if you guys spoke more slowly but as it is, in normal conversation, both faroese and icelandic are unintelligible to me. German too. I catch a phrase here and there but that's about it. Norwegian and swedish on the other hand, I understand almost perfectly

[@MSchmitz77]

@@alexlarsen6413 I actually find spoken faroese a bit harder to understand, must be the accent

[@alexlarsen6413]

@@MSchmitz77 Me too, I literally can't say that I understand it. I mean, I understand it about as much as german without ever having learned german. Luckily all the faroese I've ever met spoke standard danish

[@iceomistar4302]

I've been basically obsessed with ancient languages since I was 15, I feel so happy when I can understand both of you without the subtitles.

[@kniviritsyn]

That's a super impressive skill dude!

[@mrCetus]

I've been studying icelandic for some years now and I could actually understand both of you in a 70-80% without reading. Great thing!

[@HistoryTime]

Awesome cross over

[@jurikurthambarskjelfir3533]

ᚷᛟᛏᛏᚨ᛫ᚺᚨᚹᛖ᛫ᚺᛟᛈᛖ᛬

[@brythonicman3267]

They even look alike

[@theirmanager5204]

History time!!!! ❤️

[@luiki3179]

Love this comment

[@matthewabln6989]

Should have known I'd find you here.

[@disengronkulifactice]

A friend (American) was backpacking in Ireland and fell in with a group of Germans. She spoke no German but their English was good. After a day or two of traveling together, one of the Germans turned to another and said, “Ich habe Wasser in meinen Schuhen,” to which my friend said “me too,” without noticing they had switched into German. It’s funny how quick that can happen where there are very clear correspondences. (edit: German inflectional endings!)

[@panzrok8701]

*Ich habe Wasser in meinen Schuhen ;)

[@jmolofsson]

@@panzrok8701 That hopeless grammar! We Dutch, English and Scandianivians never get it right! :D

[@disengronkulifactice]

@@panzrok8701 sorry. Ive not studied German myself, either! Thanks for the correction

[@Microtherion]

@@disengronkulifactice My brother's wife - and therefore rather obviously her parents - are German, and her mother very rarely uses any English. I've never studied German but I did study linguistics, as well as Latin, and later learned some Old English. So my sister-in-law's mother was talking to me in German, and I managed to hold a conversation for about half an hour - by talking some kind of mish-mash of bad German, Anglo-Saxon, and throwing in Latin words with German endings on them. I'm pretty sure my grammar was all over the place too though - whatever language I was technically using. I suppose, if we 'split the difference', it was probably some kind of 'Wonky Frisian'. :)

[@washinours]

I was visiting Romania (I'm Belgian) and on the 3rd day my host was arguing about something with a friend of his, ofc in Romanian. Well, after about 40min of discussion I got caught in it and he said something I disagreed with, over which I jumped in with a "nah man that's bs what you just said mate". They stopped, looked at me ; "dude you understood?" I wasn't aware either, but I did indeed, thanks for speaking French and Spanish I somehow grasped to an acceptable level the gist of it. I was absolutely thrilled, so they were, and the argument actually went away like this. Human interaction is fascinating :D

[@iberius9937]

Mr. Roper was so polite throughout this video, always pausing mid-speech to make sure Dr. Jackson still had something to say. Excellent talk! Very invaluable to Germanic comparative linguistics.

[@Johna41223]

The fact that such a niche interest can garner 2.3 MILLION views is nothing but insane

[@annbretagne2108]

Isn't K a thousanx?

[@Blake_Stone]

"How did your conversation with that Norseman go, Harold?" "Well I got most of the words, but it was hard to make out with that American accent of his."

[@tedarcher9120]

What's cool is that norseman could really be from america lol.

[@Krompierre.]

@@tedarcher9120 I'll ask you sarcasticaly, are you really stating that as a fact?

[@tedarcher9120]

@@Krompierre. I am. The norse colonies in the north america existed from 985 till about 1050, so there 100% could be a norseman from america in england in 1000

[@_nanking5374]

Ah, one from vinland then? A rare sight indeed.

[@Krompierre.]

Just because it could, doesnt mean it was. It's like saying that they could've potentialy had plate armour just because they had steel. We cant take "they did just because they could do it" as an evidence.

[@CandyCarbonnier]

This video was so cute- just two geniuses geeking out over their hunting convo in old norse/old english hehe

[@netanelohimwarren3629]

So sorry we dont have time machines

[@echolalia682]

Your guys' pronunciation notes are one of the funniest things I've seen in awhile yet simultaneously conveying the point perfectly. Great job. Beautiful languages. We should have never strayed from them

[@echolalia682]

@@mushroommanny One of them says "Picture Ah-nold saying bIRd". Another one says "The 'o' in 'coffee' in New Jersey"

[@thanosthearabtitan8722]

islam = terorrism religion

[@Rene-ie4im]

I mean evolution is unavoidable

[@jakesemrow2678]

i think this modern english language is a little simpler

[@rinzlr3554]

@@jakesemrow2678 it is. Far more simpler. Language changes with technology, we won’t speak the same English in 1000 years.

[@ReggieSova]

KZbin Algorithm. You've not only brought me here, but had me watching the full video! Kudos to you!

[@bread2546]

crawford with a gaming headset is what I needed in life

[@oe3567]

Wa he playing doe?

[@NotCthulhu]

Probably an incidental purchase, but who knows. Maybe he's hardcore into Skyrim 😂

[@thomasjuniardi3559]

He play for honor ?

[@sonnenhafen5499]

assasins creed valhalla... duh..

[@JangoBlader]

@Bradley Puppies what an irony

[@thomasparkin259]

English man here, it felt very strange because I could follow along listening to the bits about the doe, boars, river, hills and bears and the place names of (S)Nottingham, Derby and York. But there whole chunks I couldn't parse. I suppose it helps my grandfather was from York and spread some of that heritage to me. My father is also very keen on having a broad vocabulary so I've kept a lot of the different variations of words in my head. It was all not quite right to me, it was easier to understand when not reading.

[@opcscott2875]

Names don't change much when spoken in diff languages

[@partypao]

Modern English has a lot of French and Latin influence added to the old English. Not to mention a lot of Old Norse such as the pronouns and around 800+ words!

[@bri-annaedwardine1697]

It's so funny how you two look exactly alike yet are on the other side of the world, yet both speak these dialects of ancient language perfectly. Clearly twins!

[@GravityTwist3r]

As a native Dutch speaker it's funny that I understand more of the old English than old Norse. Guess the Frisian component is responsible for that. Funnily enough I'm also a native Portuguese speaker (Continental) and I can confirm the comment about it being easier for a Portuguese speaker to understand Spanish than the other way around. Love the video!

[@mariodatguy4988]

Feyenoord 💯

[@ak5659]

As a native English speaker who's studied German (hoch) and Old English, I can add that I found the Platt spoken in and around Hamburg much easier to understand than hoch deutsch. And every Portuguese speaker I've asked has told me the same thing about Spanish.

[@KlavierMenn]

Didn't the spanish had more arabic influence than the portuguese? Also, I heard that Bilac called the Portuguese the 'Last Flower of Lacio' that is, the last Larin Language to diferentiate from the Vulgar Latin, and thus retained more Latin words and grammar, and by doing so, anyone who learns it has a better chance to understand the other Latin languages

[@eTraxx]

When they were talking about saying 'No' .. I kept hearing Dutch 'Nee' .. which I have become familiar with watching Floor Jansen in interviews

[@ThePizzaGoblin]

apparently, according to the US diplomatic service, Dutch is the easiest language to learn for native English speakers.

[@norsemagicandbeliefs8134]

This is seriously cool. I did my thesis on exactly this, how well they were able to understand each other. Really happy to see this in practice

[@Sour01]

Anywhere we can access ur thesis or a summary??

[@norsemagicandbeliefs8134]

@@Sour01 It was published, through the University of Agder. Almost 10 years ago and wasn't able to find it now. I should try to get it posted online somewhere again.

[@cahallo5964]

@@norsemagicandbeliefs8134 If you ever did or do please come back to this comment

[@royhandy8365]

How I know we live in a simulation and I'm not even lying: I was just thinking, a couple of days ago, about a teacher who made me recite a poem in Old English. I then thought about how I'd like to hear a pro speak Old English to see just how bad I was. Today YT offers me Mr. Crawford's channel, out of the blue, and this afternoon I come across this fine video. Simulation for sure.

[@gamergirlmars]

Now I can see how cool English from today sounds hearing it all like this. When you understand history and this context it makes it so much more valuable to the ears. I am German-Slavic American and I have traced my heritage back and in the process found your channel. It is a fantastic resource!

[@Blake_Stone]

I thought the line where Simon gives Jackson permission to use "thou" (þū) was pretty cute. Only pre-Norman kids remember when English still had formal and informal pronouns!

[@weonanegesiscipelibba2973]

> Only pre-Norman kids will remember when English had formal and informal pronouns Maybe if you watched more than the first 2 minutes you'd know that only ON does that, and the Anglian character Simon's playing was only acknowledging that. "Oh yeah I forgot they do that weird thing to be polite."

[@jamesestrella5911]

Shakespeare retained them.

[@phil2854]

Thee and thou were used in Britain until not that long ago. In my dialect (Yorkshire) not many people still use them, but it's not that long since they were in common usage (the actor, Patrick Stewart used them as a child).

[@weonanegesiscipelibba2973]

@@phil2854 they're reduced tho right? "tha"

[@phil2854]

@@weonanegesiscipelibba2973 thou is pronounced "tha" or "ta" depending on the sentence ("Where's tha bin?" "hast ta seen owt?"), thee is still used ("that's not for thee"), thy becomes thi ("is this thi book").

[@legionitalia309]

The collaboration of the decade.

[@M3rover]

A great reminder that you shouldn't travel too far into the past or the future with that time machine you're building. Just keep it within a couple hundred years so you can still talk to people!

[@klausknielsen]

Interesting. My mother, born 1922 in the north-western part of Jutland told that the old fishermen had no trouble communicating with their English and Scotch colleagues from across the North Sea. And although it's a century ago this year, it was still far from the iron age.

[@keiths81ca]

Frisian is England's closest relative

[@christoguichard4311]

The Jutes from Jutland, settled the county of Kent where I live in the 6th to 8th centuries. In terms of DNA...us English are most similar to the people who live in present day Jutland.

[@Bjowolf2]

@@keiths81ca The closest relative of OLD English to be more precise - later on English would take a Norse turn to a remarkable degree.

[@Bjowolf2]

It was still the dark ages in Jutland back then though 😂 ( Copenhagen here 😉 )

[@macwinter7101]

@@Bjowolf2 Modern English has more words of italic origin (French and Latin) than Germanic origin. So while English is considered a Germanic language, it is more similar to French in terms of vocabulary. Old English, however, would've been most similar to Frisian.

[@lawnerddownunder3461]

My greeting from now on shall be "good weather and true arrows"

[@rogerfenn23]

Mutual intelligibility 03:07 Localizing the Old English, with Simon Roper 27:11 Localizing the Old Norse, with Jackson Crawford 35:55 Slang, informal speech, contractions 43:11 "False friends", pitfalls of sister languages 48:20 Colloquial or shortened forms of common words 52:37

[@AmosBatista]

Thank you for the hard work.

[@redberries8039]

Do they hold a conversation in the oldie speak anywhere?

[@3arendel]

I understood lots of it just listening. From Sweden.

[@jonwooldridge3766]

This was really great! I watch both channels, and seeing these languages converse was really great! Thank you.

[@TheTommasz]

If it was the only good thing that would come out of invention of the internet it would be still worth it.

[@syystomu]

18:43 I'm a native Finnish speaker and I definitely have this urge with Estonian despite the fact that Estonian is definitely not mutually intelligible with Finnish. It still feels familiar enough that trying to speak it feels like imitating a dialect that isn't my own and it feels weird. Mostly the problem is that Finnish and Estonian have a LOT of cognates that have shifted in meaning in one language or the other (usually in Finnish actually, Finnish tends to have more semantic shift in its vocabulary) and also words that sound similar by pure accident due to the similarities in phonology, which makes misunderstandings extremely common. I actually have a couple of joke books that just contain fairly ordinary phrases in Estonian that sound like something comical or macabre in Finnish. The example that always comes to mind for me is: Estonian: _Ruumide koristamine on mu töö_ ("Cleaning the rooms is my job") Which sounds a lot like: Finnish: _Ruumiiden koristaminen on mun työ_ ("Decorating the corpses is my job") _Koristamine(n)_ is a cognate ("decorate"/"clean up" - the underlying meaning is "make pretty") while _ruum_ is a Germanic loanword meaning "room" in Estonian and _ruumis_ in Finnish is of an unknown origin and means "body" (usually dead). _Mu töö_ and _mun työ_ are just perfectly ordinary cognates, except in Finnish it sounds colloquial and in Estonian it's standard. But yeah my point is that yes I could absolutely see this happening between Old Norse and Old English: people learning the differences but still mostly speaking their own language.

[@thego-dev]

estonian here, and i feel quite the same. i'll frequently have the radio playing and i passively hear something interesting, but when i focus on it, i realise that it's in finnish and i have no good idea what they're talking about, and it's one of the weirdest feelings ever.

[@transformersrevenge9]

Lebo värk noh.

[@Paveway-chan]

Reminds me of the Swedish experience with Dutch. Our languages are definitely not mutually intelligible, but Dutch sounds a little like what you'd get if a Swede tried to speak German bt with Swedish pronounciation, which means that at a distance, Dutch sounds like Swedish but you just don't understand any of the words xP

[@jimjones8736]

Great comment on the often subtle shifting of word meanings over time.

[@Katharsis540]

Check out the Book Saga. Tolkien loved that region for language.

[@kalina9198]

I’m an intermediate learner of Swedish and loved seeing how many words I could make out in Old Norse. Makes me appreciate both languages more.

[@themajesticbulldog3832]

As an Englishman myself I’m so eager to learn Old English

[@macwinter7101]

It honestly might be easier to learn Old English as a German Speaker or as a Dutch speaker than as an English speaker. But it definitely is still worth the effort for English speakers!

[@snagletoothscott3729]

"He can speak fluent Old English...in Old Norse. The most interesting man in the wrold"

[@dantopper123]

Amazing how English has radically changed over the centuries. Imagine if that English dialect was still used today

[@poplops1]

It would be if the Norwegians took over England instead of the Normans.

[@theTHwa3tes11]

@@poplops1 yes

[@Matt_Alaric]

@@poplops1 The Vikings aren't necessary, if the Norman invasion had failed at all then English would have carried on developing along this course all on its own.

[@wallacesousuke1433]

The Normans made this language palatable, unlike regular Germanic languages are all disgusting to listen to 🤣

[@user-wf5yh2dd2d]

it is spoken in Scotland

[@Dorodere89]

as a german it's nice to hear "guten Morgen" and "golden Morgen" and it's different but the same, because a sunny golden morning is a good morning, right? and I never thought I could understand danish. so awesome of you guys to show us something so incredible!

[@Bjowolf2]

You would be totally amazed by how many basic Danish words you are able to understand directly with very little effort - at least in writing, if you are just a bit relaxed about their spelling and notice some simple and quite systematic sound shifts ( E sh- = D sk-, E w- = D v- / _, E wh- = D hv-, E th- = D t- / d- etc. )

[@Dorodere89]

@@Bjowolf2 ah, that sounds interessting! like it's time to buy some danish vocabulary books or beginner books. since I hears it's one of the hardest languages to learn I don't dare to say I would ever be able to speak it, but it sounds like those shifts in words you described are a bit comparable to those between official german and those 400 dialects we have. sure nice to find something :) thank you for that input

[@Bjowolf2]

@@Dorodere89 Cool 😊 No, not really difficult for a German speaker - only some of the sounds and some extra vowels. And we don't really mind a bit of accent, if people make such an effort, or a mistaken grammatical gender ( e.g. "en sten" ( common gender ) vs. "et hus" [hoos] ( neuter gender )). The grammar is generally rather simple compared to that of German (😳 - caseless for nouns (except for the genitive), their articles and associated adjectives + the SAME verb conjugations for ALL grammatical persons! ), and with more or less the "same" word order as in a simplistic (older) English ( without "do" & "-ing" with verbs ). Norwegian and Swedish are also very similar with respect to their basic vocabularies ( 95 % & 85 % ) and grammatical structures, so it's "almost" a three for the price of one package ( very easy to learn once you know one of the three 😊). Our many mutual words are usually just pronounced somewhat differently and with melodic intonations in N & S - both probably easier than the Danish pronounciation for a "poor" foreigner. 🙄 You can btw. watch our Danish public service TV DR, which has lot of programmes with selectable subtitles in Danish, where you will then be able to understand many bits and pieces with just a little effort via German and / or English. dr. dk ( also radio ) App. DRTV / DR Lyd ( radio & podcast ) PS For movies, some TV-series, documentaries and sports you will need a VPN service to be able to watch them, but the rest of the programmes are actually freely available from abroad.

[@Bjowolf2]

@@Dorodere89 Yes, some N. German & Low German (!) dialects didn't go through the same Germanic sound shifts as (High) German did, so they are probably more similar to our Scandinavian languages in this respect, but I don't know very much about Platt G. But I do know that it has had a big impact on Danish over the centuries - often the bigger words, borrowed or loan translated and usually somewhat distorted by now ( e. g. "overleve" ("überleben"), " overtage" ( "über+nehmen"), "mulighed" ( Möglichkeit), "forvirring" ( Verwirrung )... ). Examples: E hope, D&N håbe [ho-be], S hoppa(s), but G hoffen E hate, D&N hade, S hata, but G hassen E bite, D&N bide, S bita, but G bissen OE hatan ! ( to be called), D hedde, N hete, S heta, but G heissen E live, D & N leve, S leva, but G leben Etc.

[@eVill420]

after learning Swedish, French and English I can legit make out what a German comment is saying 90% of the time

[@Teverell]

Just listening to the Old English... you really can hear where folks from the north of England got their accent!! 'Is the day unlucky?' sounded exactly as it would in a broad Yorkshire accent, at least to my ears!

[@anoukori316]

I'm an English Student from Germany and I had a class about the history of the English language last year. I am yet again stunned how incredible these two languages sound. At the same time, I can't believe that how much I (sort of) understand. It sometimes just sounds like a funny mix between English and German ☺️

[@elizabethford7263]

This is incredibly cool and it reminds me of those scenes in The Last Kingdom (& Vikings) where they had characters from each region trying to communicate. As an archaeologist, these exchanges really flesh out the people we are trying to resurrect.

[@vsync]

I will have to watch that

[@dersg1freak]

This was very interesting. I really enjoyed hearing about the thought processes to hone in on a specific time period. The script and delivery were a real joy as well. Thank you for making this!

[@angelasorensen4443]

This was super fascinating to hear both languages being spoken! The similarities between the two old languages and even how they have morphed into modern language is fascinating. Brilliant discussion!

[@allisonblack5803]

The crossover I didn't know I needed. This made my week!

[@lindagarczynski2415]

I’m from Leeds, Yorkshire. We were born just after the war. Many of our childhood words were from the original Viking words. I can’t say I’ve heard them in the modern day language.

[@TrithemiusFinnegan]

As a Native English and Native Spanish speaker, Old English and Old Norse have been on my radar for many months. Now, you two have come together to reinforce my quest to master these elder Germanic tongues.

[@iamrobberino2107]

Jag älskar dina videos Dr. Crawford! :D Keep 'em coming

[@Madkingstow]

This is fantastic. I'm glad I stumbled upon this video.

[@MaresBarres]

Reminds me of when I was learning Dutch and my friend was learning Swedish. We had no one to practice target languages with, so we just practiced with each other.

[@ak5659]

And it worked, right? I always tell people that the Germanic languages are actually much closer to each other that it sounds like from listening to them.

[@MaresBarres]

@@ak5659 Somewhat. More for me than my friend because of my historical linguistics interest.

[@paranoidrodent]

As a bilingual French and English speaker, I'm used to seeing this kind of partial intelligibility between Romance languages but it was really interesting seeing it between English and another Germanic language (albeit in their old forms). The Portuguese-Spanish comparison sounds fairly apt, although French and Occitan (or perhaps Franco-Provençal or Walloon) sprang to my mind first based on how easily I can follow them with my Canadian French (which admittedly has some archaic features compared to modern European French).

[@BreadLoeuf]

This might be kinda like Old Spanish and Portuguese (aka Galician Portuguese). When considering how they're both spoken nowadays, they're hardly mutually intelligible. The old version had much of the same sounds as back then. In regards to Old Norse/English, it feels like they're almost speaking the same language but different dialects, like you're a Midlands American English speaker trying to understand Northumbrian English.

[@joaomartins9800]

@@BreadLoeuf from my personal experience, portuguese speakers can understand spanish almost perfectly. The only problem are the few false cognates. However, maybe spanish speakers can't do the same.

[@isaac4273]

Yeah, partial for you. The Norman conquest of 1066 screwed up both English and French, making them the oddballs of their language families. I speak Spanish and Portuguese and can understand Italian, Occitan, Gascon, Romanian, but not a bit of French

[@Unethical.Dodgson]

Yeah I used to be fluent in French. That knowledge is loooong gone. I hated... no, despised that language. Italian is a nice Language. I can understand just a little of that. Everytime someone says "I can't understand French" or "I dislike learning French" I can be like "Yep. I feel ya."

[@AveSicarius]

@@isaac4273 I mean if you know English you should also have some good degree of intelligibility with German, Dutch (I can read both these languages somewhat but cannot speak them), and several other languages from the region still. But with French your only hope is if they are speaking some (partial) bastardization of the language, like Catalonian (which having spoken a bit of French and Spanish at the time of travelling through Andorra and neighbouring regions sounded like complete gibberish when combined with the local accent) or Canadian French. I can also understand snippets of French purely through the context of English but only if they have common wording, or should I say word's that we had stolen from them.

[@user-ik1qu9wp9x]

I could listen to you for hours. You have actually invented a time machine for me. Thanks for the great job you are doing!

[@yoonjay3239]

Thank you for your informative video. Both languages sound alike for a non-speaker like me. They both sound like modern German, especially 'Good morning neighbor' part. Your video is refreshing.

[@echolalia682]

??? Modern German? Have you ever heard modern German being spoken?

[@erzdev5669]

As a german, I have to disagree on that 👀

[@Unethical.Dodgson]

Yeah. Not hearing the modern German at all.

[@Tranitosaur]

Sounds more like Norwegian dialects to me

[@skulivalberg8071]

Highly inspiring nágrannar! As a native of the Icelandic tounge I am most thankful for your curiousity invoking research. I wonder why modern Icelandic hast lost the fine greeting “góðan morgun.” Even if perfectly grammatically correct we never say this akin to our Nordic nágrannar; “God morgen.” It almost sounds outlandish in Icelandic! We go directly to “góðan dag” until evening; “gott kvöld” and at bedtime; “góða nótt.” Perhaps due to the late dawning in winter and bright summer nights there is little sense of morning? Or because we all too often sleep in after long nights of drinking mjöður. Thus we seem quite binary in Iceland; it is either day or nigth. Or just day with midnight sun. I will experiment with “góðan morgun” as of now. I will report on the progress of this disruption. It may mark a comeback of praising the morning in Iceland 😁 Ykkar skál! 🍻

[@gunnaringvarsson5489]

I say góðan morgun all the time :)

[@sarco64]

As a native speaker of Icelandic, how much of the Old English and Old Norse did you understand? Which is closer to modern Icelandic?

[@orarinnorarinsson654]

@@sarco64 As an Icelander I think I understood everything in old Norse but I had some difficulties with Old English

[@Marta-oc8ng]

In the Faroe islands we use góðan morgun a lot!

[@Bjowolf2]

@@gunnaringvarsson5489 Don't people think that is a weird thing to do? 😂 ( saying "góðan morgun" all the time )

[@stannypk5k9]

For anyone interested in this subject, I recommend Matthew Townend's 'Language and History in Viking Age England' book. He delves into the topic of mutual intelligibility, provides examples from Old Norse texts and Old English texts which could provide some evidence and in the end makes a similar conclusion Dr. Crawford's in the video: that they were merely dialects that could be learned very quickly by either Saxon or Norse., leading to easy mutual understanding. The book is very extensive, it reads well and was written by a fantastic scholar who makes a compelling argument. I highly recommend.

[@magdahearne497]

Thanks for sharing that 💖

[@CocoAzoitei]

This was so badass!! Love it. I’ve learned a bit of Icelandic in the past and am now learning modern Swedish and am fascinated by how understandable these old languages are. I hope to get into Old Norse at some point. Discovered both your channels during lockdown and love them both. Keep the collabs coming! 💪🏻

[@ChantelStays]

This was brilliant. I felt transported. I wish I was blessed enough to know both old English and old Norse.

[@Lawson855]

It's interesting that the "Nay" word is also used in Hindi and Urdu to indicate "no"

[@__________________________7981]

i dont know if that is the cause but both hindi and urdu are also indo-european languages

[@andrewstephen9096]

Yes, it is absolutely because Hindi and Urdu are Indo-European languages..... I am an American native speaker of English who has studied Hindi and Urdu for many years and can speak fluently....... Here is a sentence in Hindi/Urdu that shows just how Indo-European the language is...... All of these words in this sentence descend from Sanskrit and have naturally morphed over the centuries...... Ye mere daant nahin hain.... - These are not my teeth.....

[@Katharsis540]

Check the Bok Saga. Also have Naysayers.

[@chan625]

It would be more like Nahi or just Naa (not sodium 😉) in informal. Marathi on the other hand has Naahi (same as Hindi but longer a vowel sound) and Naay in rural areas

[@AaronBiswas]

@@andrewstephen9096 Haa bhai yeh tumhare daant nhi hai

[@ingvarharaldsson677]

Wow! Until today I watched them separately. Seeing them discussing Old English and Old Norse, I thought I would die! 🔥🔥🔥

[@gregcollins7602]

I could butcher either one of these ancient languages with my West Texan draw. Very pleased to have stumbled upon this excellent discussion.

[@sbraypaynt]

0:34 That’s just glorious The last sentence in Old English sounds identical to the phrase in English with a Brummie accent.

[@cmx8352]

i have been waiting for this!

[@jennil7797]

This is fascinating!. I am Yorkshire born and had an enlightened head/class teacher who gave us a year off from learning about the glories of Rome, which seemed to be the mainstay of all children's history books in the early 60s. Instead, he used the time to instruct us in the effect the coming of the Vikings and the following settling and intermarriage had on local dialects (Yorkshire does not have one dialect even today, regardless on what some KZbin presenter's think), culture, attitudes and the closeness of family and community. I have often wondered how true this might be, but certain dialect words and place names do sound Norse to my untutored ear and many of the vowel sounds are similar. I also remember him giving each of us a small brush and white paint, asking us to open our text books and commanding us to paint over the enormous horns on the helmets of the advance Viking raiding party, so big they couldn't have stood side by side. Then I went to a grammar school and history reverted to being boring.....

[@magdahearne497]

Wish I'd have gone to your school back then, your teacher sounds epic. You're right about the Yorkshire dialect though, when you tell folk our dialect changes from village to village along with the colloquialisms used they don't believe you 😅

[@leegovan]

I was an adventurer once... until I took a arrow to the knee

[@stefaniasmanio5857]

Superb very well done! Thank you so much for this wonderful experience!

[@cyberroar]

12:08 In my local dialect from north western Norway and in related dialects further north in Trønderlag, we say oheppe (unlucky / accident) And if someone have wounded themself or had an accident we say that they have "ohapa se". Cool to see that this word have survived in parts of Norway.

[@hoathanatos6179]

And it is cognate to the English unhappy, where the concept of luck and happiness for ancient Germanic peoples were seen as pretty much synonymous. To be lucky is to be happy and vice versa. Thus you also have the German glücklich and Norwegian lykkelig meaning happy but being cognate with English lucky. Happen, haphazard, mayhap and mishap are other English words that have a meaning closer to fortune and luck than to happiness, though.

[@guestimator121]

@@hoathanatos6179 In most of the Slavic languages "lucky" and "happy" are the same word. I also thought in German glucklich also means both lucky and happy ( I know a bit of German, but I'm far from an expert and/or fluent speaker)

[@hoathanatos6179]

@@guestimator121 It is. Just English has evolved to not see them as synonymous where luck is even borrowed from Dutch due to sailors gambling bringing the word into English. Before English just had the word Hap for both. Celtic languages tend to be the weird ones out in European tongues where happiness is tied to knowledge and wisdom rather than to fortune and luck.

[@hoathanatos6179]

@@guestimator121 In my dialect of German the most common word for happy is the word social, for there is an understanding culturally that someone who has a community of others who care about them is happy.

[@EpochUnlocked]

Is Oheppe related in any way to oops?

[@Eulemunin]

It’s so nice to hear to experts speak so politely to each other. Never knew I wanted to hear this discussion about how languages changes form the base language.

[@jeremias-serus]

It should be noted that Simon is not an expert academically speaking, he regularly reminds people of this. His linguistic knowledge comes from purely personal interest in his spare time. Whereas Crawford has a degree and was formerly a teacher in the field.

[@nessalight8681]

This is so cool. Fantastic content, keep it up, please!

[@sojourner.]

Nice work guys that was fun to listen to, its interesting how similar the phonetics are yet the letters seem to make it seem so different until you grasp the alphabets.

[@niku..]

It's incredibly fascinating to me how many similarities there are between that particular form of Old English and the general Holstein variety of Low German or rather Middle Low German. The general lack of palatalization, the /-ik/ > /-ix/ shift etc. Obviously the Old Norse influence on Old English was much stronger than on Low German

[@unraed]

it depends on what do you mean by saying "Old Norse influence". The Norse settlers bring about several thousand words of Norse Origin. But in terms of phonology and sound changes the influence of the ON was minimal, especially on the West of England.

[@er6730]

Right?! I speak Low German and could understand much of the Old English. Interesting!

[@marconemeth9683]

English and Saxons lived in modern Northern Germany and Denmark before they migrated to the British Isles. It makes sense to be close to Low German as their ancestors lived in close proximity.

[@bleunt]

As a Swede, this was pretty neat to hear.

[@sorenbuenneke6434]

How much were you able to parse out of each language??

[@Ozzianman]

@@sorenbuenneke6434 As a Norwegian, I understood a surprising amount from that conversation. Without looking at the subtitles, I understood the general context of the conversation and some of the details. Probably helps that I am used to listening to a lot of different Norwegian dialects (If you are not used to this, do you even know Norwegian?), as well as Danish and Swedish.

[@RNFLACKOratshobo]

There's a really cool story thats been passed down in my family. My maternal great - grandfather was from Denmark (Jutland) and around the 1920s was working in Yorkshire, England where he met a man with the last name "Gunn" my great - grandfathers name being "Gunnar" he asked the man if he had any relatives from the village that he was from which was Bøvlingbjerg in Denmark because his last name sounded so Norse. The man said that he was from a village named Ravenscar in North Yorkshire and that his grandmother had told him stories passed down the generations of a man who had crossed over from a place called Boverskar and settled in what became modern day Ravenscar in Yorkshire and that the man was a Viking. My grandfather always spoke of feeling a strange connection to that man as if he was somehow related to him going way back, he also said that if you heard the people of the area speaking from a distance it sounded like they were speaking Danish and that their accents and local place names were oddly Scandinavian in either prefix or suffix. My great grandfather passed away in 1983 almost 40 years ago now, I never met him but did meet my Great grandmother though I remember nothing because she passed away when I was 1ish, she told a lot of stories to my grandmother who then passed them on to my mother and me. Lately I've been doing a lot of research into family history while simultaneously being interested in Norse history. All I can say is this story makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck, it gives me goosebumps to think that there was some guy probably named "Gunnar" or something; more around a 1000 years ago who emigrated from around Bøvlingbjerg in Denmark to Ravenscar in England and how that random man in Yorkshire and my great grandfather (and hence me) are related in some way going way back to the Viking age.

[@samarayyaz682]

That sounds amazing. Much luck to you on your quest.

[@mr_h831]

My dude if you're white you're probably related distantly to someone somewhere. Theres a guy in south Africa that bares my last name, he's not white but he looks damn near identical to me. My last Name's origins are Gaelic. I wouldn't be surprised if basically everyone with my last name are related in some way. I've got: danish, [irish somewhere] polish, and german blood in me. Heck for all I know you and I may be related. Lol

[@thereareantsbehindyoureyes7529]

@@mr_h831 bear in mind there are non related families with the same parternal name

[@mr_h831]

@@thereareantsbehindyoureyes7529 I've never met another human with my last name that wasnt related to my family in some way. It's a very specific galic corruption of a british last name.

[@jimjones8736]

Great comment. Go back far enough though and we're all related - and ultimately all African. Everyone with blue eyes in northern Europe is related within 5000 years, and all people with blue eyes within 15000.

[@kevinlawler3252]

It may sound odd, but in my research and and also hearing these old languages, it definitely stirs something in me.. I can feel the connection to my roots.. along with curiosity.. that is probably what makes people like us who find interest in this , and feverishly dive into the research and study.

[@olavc.oevele1902]

I hope that when I die this video is among the things I'll see passing by before my eyes once more. (And then I will see my father and mother and all my dead relatives seated and so on.) With this video you made a sad day cheerful in its end.

[@Subcleff]

This is the most geeky and also coolest thing I've ever seen! :D Also, as a dane it's amazing how much is actually understandable when you pay attention

[@yourmother7504]

This is awesome dude I really want to find more of this stuff 😁

[@imJustaCrow69]

This is so cool! I'm going to have to show this to my history professor next week!

[@grytshrt]

OMG YAAAAAAAASSSSSS. the collab we've been waiting for!

[@logansmith6342]

So cool. Love to see more stuff like this

[@thresher7772]

Great video guys it’s amazing how much English and German are derived from these languages. I really enjoy this channel 👍🏻

[@marinatedweasel5424]

germanics gonna germanic

[@rh645]

Where I've lived in Durham/Newcastle and now Northumberland we still use so many of these old pronunciations when talking amongst each other, but usually drop most of it in more pollite/formal situations, or to be understood by people not from the region

[@gizmogoose.2486]

This is the cleverest, most interesting thing I've seen on the interwebs in......years !!!!

[@sebastianliancourt5200]

Quite interesting. That's nice there are such experts. That can give a good idea and an insight on the development of the languages and its analysis.

[@scronx]

Fantastic. Love it. Thank you!

[@procrastinator99]

Just watched this on Simon's channel, now I'm coming here so you don't "lose" likes, etc. This was SO great, thank you both!

[@SunnyAquamarine2]

We language aficionados can't get enough of this stuff! I really appreciate how you had the original languages subtitled plus the English translation and explanations for various words. Great!

[@Sickoftheinsanity]

That was fun! I love hearing the old languages.

[@hussamgunter7381]

It’s super Interesting to see how language evolved, I only speak English fluently but I was able to keep up with most of the conversation.

[@richardgreer459]

Thanks doc!! The collab we all needed in our life.

[@shmoobalizer]

This is epic, great to see you two work together.

[@nathanversluys6625]

I'm a german speaker from the U.S. it was really cool to watch this video and see the similarities and contrasts between the pronunciations and dialect of the two languages!

[@deltasquared7777]

Loved this collaboration !

[@manorueda1432]

A dream come true. Couldn't get more interesting. Thanks to both of you.

[@man_made_marsupial]

Wow old English it literally evolved.

[@odenbeatmeat]

I ignore this video so many times, but now I'm here to watch it

[@wulfgreyhame6857]

I've been following both Jackson and Simon for a while now; I never thought to see a collaboration - what a wonderful surprise! I'd looked at various articles and evidence about the relationships of ON and OE but this really brings the information into focus.

[@miniworld3d]

Thank you so much Jackson and Simon for giving this to the internet. It may be silly but this might be one of the deepest and long-lasting contributions for both on your fields to the general public.