Hávamál 77 at Each Language Stage

Take a trip back through language time with a look at what the most famous quote in Old Norse poetry (Hávamál st. 77: deyr fé, deyja frændr, etc.) might look like in Proto-Norse, Gothic, and even Proto-Indo-European.
Jackson Crawford, Ph.D.: Sharing real expertise in Norse language and myth with people hungry to learn, free of both ivory tower elitism and the agendas of self-appointed gurus. Visit jacksonwcrawfo... (includes bio and linked list of all videos).
Jackson Crawford’s Patreon page: / norsebysw
Visit Grimfrost at glnk.io/6q1z/j...
Latest FAQs: vimeo.com/3751... (updated Nov. 2019).
Jackson Crawford’s translation of Hávamál, with complete Old Norse text: www.hackettpub... or www.amazon.com...
Jackson Crawford’s translation of The Poetic Edda: www.hackettpub... or www.amazon.com...
Audiobook: www.audible.co...
Music © I See Hawks in L.A., courtesy of the artist. Visit www.iseehawks.com/
Logos and channel artwork by Justin Baird. See more of his work at: justinbairddesign.com

[@JacksonCrawford]

Patreon supporter Jay writes in to note that I mistakenly spelled "of the high one" in Gothic as 'hauƕins' when it ought to be 'hauhins;' I think I trusted too much to my Old Norse instincts there. He also points to Gothic 'mel' as a cognate to Old Norse 'mál,' so you could get the pretty similar-looking *'Hauhinsmel.'

[@ValentineMJ]

I would’ve thought that 'maþl' (P.Gmc *maþlą) was cognate with 'mál', however I’m now seeing that Proto-Germanic *mēlą also yields mál. Also, I’ve mostly seen and heard that the 'i' in 'ik' was phonetically /i/ and not /ɪ/, so it is rather interesting to hear you pronounce it this way. Edit: I forgot that Kroonen suggests that short i, could’ve been pronounced as /ɪ/

[@visserskarel]

There is another spelling mistake in ƕarjizuh, it seems like you forgot the "j".

[@the-human-being]

Isn’t PIE *ḱléwos the ancestor of hlewa in hlewagastiʀ in the gallehus horn inscription and of the Læs in the danish island name Læsø (Hlésey in ON if I’m not mistaken), do you think it can consequently be assumed to have in some capacity survived and retained its meaning in germanic (making it a disappearing synonym in Proto-Norse for example)?

[@aerobolt256]

Having it in PIE is amazing

[@tsarvladimirputin409]

No

[@tsarvladimirputin409]

thats not how PIE. The text on the screen says dh multiple times while he pronounce them as plain d. There is no aspiration. Thats not how a aspirated stop is pronounced. That would change the meaning of the words. Also he is aspirating p, k, and t even when they are not aspirated. In proto indo european that would change the meaning as aspirated p, k, and t would simply be ph₁ kh₁ and th₁ which would change the meaning of the words. Same thing with pitch accent. His pitch accent is off which would again change the meaning of the whole thing

[@purple_purpur7379]

@@tsarvladimirputin409 i mean it's not like we know how pie was actually pronounced. or gothic for that matter. what he's doing is fine because it doesn't actually really matter

[@tsarvladimirputin409]

@@purple_purpur7379 we absolutely do know. Who told you that we don't?

[@dreyri2736]

​​​@@tsarvladimirputin409we absolutely do not know with any certainty. We don't even have written record of PIE. Besides, PIE must have spanned over a thousand years over a large area with possible dialects. Hell, we don't even know how Latin really sounded like with 100% certainty despite being a younger language. And we're talking about PIE

[@antonyhunzinger]

oh man, Jackson, you're such a legend... they will write sagas about you when we are all gone.

[@MilluMArt]

That was a perfect pronunciation of 'jeg' in Danish. 'Måltid' also means meal in Denmark, så I guess we kept 'mål' in our language still

[@hjalmarolethorchristensen9761]

Greetings from Skandinavia Danmark 🇩🇰...love your work....

[@Noeaskr]

OG Patreon here, love this idea! Please more like this, it would also be good to have your PIE friend in on it to provide his commentary.

[@Robin_Goodfellow]

If we got PIE even a little bit right, seems like it was a very breathy language

[@bjarnitryggvason7866]

Áhugavert og fræðandi. 👍

[@SplendidMisanthropy]

Again, that was enlightening - thanks!

[@Cruuzie]

Very interesting. Love me some gothic

[@EliasHansenu7f]

parts of Low German which is a language and hasn't made some sound changes like German knows the word daud such in "se kuëmt bi Malöörs to Daude" [They died in accidents] , "de swatte Daud" [the black death]

[@jorgevidal5453]

BRAVO!!

[@tylerbrubaker6642]

Awesome

[@JRANDALL93]

Arthur Morgan teaching me Indo European. Nice.

[@tjwhite1963]

If I'm remembering correctly, the OS "Heliand" renders a nearly identical passage using the cognate form 'gimahalta' ('made speech').

[@tjwhite1963]

The Anglo-Saxon "Genesis A/B" has "Adam gemælde and tō Euan spræc ..." where 'gemælde' means basically 'made speech'. "Gawain and the Green Knight" (EME) has "meled þus much wiþ his mouþ..." in pretty much the same sense.

[@Monkey-Boy2006]

I'm a Goth (of the modern day subculture of course) and have an interest in the Ancient Gothic people. Mostly because I don't know enough about them. It's also a running joke in the Gothic Sub Culture about the comparison of Goths and Ancient Goths. He, he!

[@earnestwanderer2471]

We need a time machine.

[@eliseybochin995]

Great video as always Mr. Crawford! Illuminating… One little point though. At my uni I was taught that the letter “d” becomes a voiced fricative in the intervocalic position, so the “right” way to pronounce a Gothic word like “gadauþniþ” would rather be /gaˈðaʊθniθ/ and not /gaˈdaʊθniθ/. Please correct me if I’m wrong. Cheers both from Russia and Israel.

[@eliseybochin995]

Or is it still a /d/, since ga- is a prefix?

[@ookydooky8892]

@@eliseybochin995 /d/ becomes /ð/ in an intervocalic position within a morpheme. So yes it is still /d/ even though ga- comes before, since ga- is a prefix.

[@eliseybochin995]

@@ookydooky8892 thanks for clearing this up!

[@ssmedja]

Im REALLY interested in huarjanoh. Could you explain that word a bit more? That sound rings alot of bells.

[@mattarmstrong8197]

Is there a good resource for reconstructed PIE that you could recommend?

[@arealisticexpectationpera]

Wow legacy

[@petty.ritsimi]

Q: staua. from greek "ståa. " ? (in norw. also)eng: condition ..all the best ,

[@maciejkuls7719]

How come the "Old Norse original text" section spelling differs from what is in the Codex Regius? Like "Deyr fe" in the video is " Deyr j:e" in the original manuscript?

[@mattcarnevali]

Interesting that proto-indo-European sounds so breathy. I would think it would be hard to speak like that with it frequently occurring in phrases

[@oneukum]

Did protonorse already drop the dental in the verbal ending of the third person plural?

[@martinnyberg71]

2:19 Is the beta used for a bilabial ”v”? 🤔

[@troelspeterroland6998]

Yes.

[@faramund9865]

It's funny to see gedauþ because in Dutch 'gedood' meaans 'killed'. So to me it reads: Cattle is killed andsoforth.

[@trondsi]

Strange how "to die" seems more familiar to me in proto-Norse compared to Norse. Normally "å dø" is typical but many Norwegians pronounce it "å daue".

[@christianfernandezcarrillo]

nerdgasm❤

[@faramund9865]

Word of advice, if possible, boost the audio of all your videos up to ad-level. I am punished for running them, because whenever they play, the entire neighbourhood can hear them.

[@DwarfLordAirsoft]

My better half: "proto indo european sounds like you just ran up a hill"

[@earthian2850]

Did we skip PGmc just because it wasn't different enough from proto norse to be interesting?

[@beepboop204]

[@JhoferGamer]

the translation is a bit wrong but it gets the point across. I would translate it as "If livestock dies; family dies; and you the same. Though I know one thing that never dies; the judgement around ones death."

[@tsarvladimirputin409]

I'm not trying to be disrespectful professor and you know lot more than me but thats not how PIE works. The text on the screen says dh multiple times while you pronounce them as plain d. There is no aspiration. Thats not how a aspirated stop is pronounced. That would change the meaning of the words. Also your are aspirating p, k, and t even when they are not aspirated. In proto indo european that would change the meaning as aspirated p, k, and t would simply be ph₁ kh₁ and th₁ which would change the meaning of the words. Same thing with pitch accent. Your pitch accent is off which would again change the meaning of the whole thing

[@HlewagastizHoltijaz]

I love Jackson but his pronunciation is quite lacking, even in Old Norse and especially the modern Scandinavian languages. Like most English speakers he diphthongises a lot of the vowels for example.

[@HlewagastizHoltijaz]

I don't claim to pronounce English perfectly myself though. My L1 is Swedish so I make a lot of mistakes when speaking in English.

[@midtskogen]

You'll find most Norwegians pronounce Old Norse and proto-Norse with a thick Norwegisn accent, and Icelandic people pronounce it with a thick Icelandic accent, so who's to blame Jackson's thick Anerican accent really. I wish there was more published on reconstructing the more precise pronunciation in the different stages, though. I think a pretty distinct trsit of Old Norse until at least around 1000 would be the nasal vowels, but who today tries to reconstruct that?

[@faramund9865]

Nobody is perfect. I bet if you made a video on this, there'd also be people in the comments critiquing your shortcomings. There is also the fact that not everyone reconstructs the pronunciation the same way.