How the Vikings Changed the English Language

About 600-900 common English words come from Old Norse that was the language of the Vikings. In this video we look at the history of the Vikings in Britain and how they influenced the English language. If English is not your first language you'll learn a lot of vocabulary and useful expressions too.
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0:00 What is Old Norse?
01:64 The Brittonic Tribes
02:48 The Romans
03:25 The Anglo-Saxons
04:32 The Vikings
05:26 Viking names in modern Britain
06:18 Old Norse influence on Modern English
09:41 Is English a Scandinavian language?
13:52 Old English/Old Norse doublets
14:59 The ill- prefix
17:05 Egg on and Scot free
18:42 10 Viking words to improve your vocabulary
21:22 Norn and Nynorn
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[@jonbeargenx]

Being Norwegian and having a great deal of English speaking friends this is something that I been thinking about as well as talked about. Languages are like a history map.

[@messire9837]

Leading to France. Yes. Remind me who asked for permission to Louis XIV to honor the French Fleur-de-Lys with your french colored standard, again?

[@slimytoad1447]

I have irish scots and norwegian dna and of course english dna too

[@messire9837]

@@slimytoad1447 *OFF course in glitch dna too.

[@alexgareau3310]

Im French canadians with of course some french dna but also alot of danish dna🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇩🇰🇩🇰🇩🇰💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼

[@Demobius]

Norsk was an easy language to learn because of all the cognates in English or Scots. Sentence structure is also identical.

[@oleplanthafer7034]

Here's a surprising relic of norse in modern English: Dashboard! The "daskebord", "later daskebrett, was the vertikal plank in the very front of a sleigh or carriage on which the bridles would be slapped ("dasket"). Hence, "dashing" means slapping, in a sense of striking surprise. All the best from Norway! We love your beautififul grammar! 😁

[@PLODay-bk8ws]

And "dashing through the snow?"🤔 Would you say that comes from slapping reins to speed up the horse, or from the slapping of the horse's movement through snow? (Of course we also dash about on our own legs.) I love "dashboard" having such an old origin! ☺️

[@concernedcitizen6313]

The fact that it's "dash" in English and not "dask" actually tells you that English is in fact a West Germanic language, not North Germanic.

[@DoubleMrE]

The dashboard was originally a low, angled horizontal plank (on the inside of a wagon) that you would put your feet on to brace yourself (along with the seat of your pants) when you were going fast (or “dashing”). When the wagon transformed into the automobile, the horizontal board was moved up but retained the name.

[@elainechubb971]

The verb "to dash" exists in English, in the sense of to strike something to knock it away--if you see your friend about to drink from a poisoned chalice, you could dash the cup from their lips! This seems to be a similar meaning to that of your Norwegian verb.

[@Bjowolf2]

A funny word is "kidnap", which we have borrowed into Scandinavian from (American) English within the past 100 years, but where both "kid" ( the young of a goat etc.) and "nap" both come from ON ( nappa = to grab or pinch etc. ).

[@Vitaskuld]

Being Icelandic (icelandic had changed very little since old norse) this makes so much sense to me. Im a language buff and ive always been wondering how and why many of our words are similar to english, the grammar as well ofc, and it makes honestly more sense that english was more influenced by old norse than vice versa

[@Demobius]

The grammar is an example of parallel evolution. Both Old Norse and Old English were heavily inflected languages. They both lost that, but didn't do it to each other.

[@Bjowolf2]

So are the Icelandic and the Faroese people able to understand each others to some degree or just some mutual words here and there? Greetings from DK 😊

[@Vitaskuld]

@@Bjowolf2 nahh cant understand anything when its spoken. A bit when i read it

[@Bjowolf2]

@@Vitaskuld I see, thank you 😉 So it's a bit like, when I am attempting to read Icelandic - maybe 20 - 25 % on a really good day 🙄 - just about enough to get some rough idea what a text is about. When listening to Icelandic - for instance in your great TV series - , it is much harder to get the hang of it, but then suddenly there are some words, phrases or even whole small sentences here and there that are quite understandable to us poor Scandinavian amateur Vikings, if we just listen up 😂

[@Demobius]

@@Bjowolf2 Or the Orkneys. I think, but don't know, that there is quite a bit of shared vocabulary as you go north.

[@zoolook666]

"Scot free" still exists in Danish language: "Skattefri" which is tax-free. Scot=Skat Ministry of Tax in Denmark is: Skatteministeriet (Scot ministry) We also use "ransack" similar way; danish: "Ransage" (eg. the Police look through everything in ones appartment)

[@joetaylor486]

So does this mean a scotch egg is basically a posh egg for folk who have to pay the skat?

[@nobutheyonyou7990]

Same in Norwegian with both skattefri and «å ransake»

[@jameshickok2349]

Interesting. I've heard that expression all my life and never thought about its origins.

[@richardw3123]

I work in Norway and pay my tax to Skatteetaten.

[@drunvert]

And Scat is an English term for Bear shit ( or other animals) Scat=shit=tax Makes sense 🤳

[@davos535]

As a native English speaker I had little difficulty in getting the gist of articles printed in a Norwegian newspaper. And that was before I started to learn Norwegian seriously. The word order and the similarity of many words (taking into account the various dialects used in the British Isles) probably make written Norwegian the easiest foreign language for the English speaking world to learn. The spoken language is another matter!

[@nordicsailor2694]

Norwegian is extremely dialectic. Hence some dialects might be a bit difficult - even to some Norwegians! It's the same in the UK. For ex., who understands Scouse, unless you are from Liverpool? I think the easiest oral version of Norwegian to learn is probably the spoken version of Bokmål typical of Oslo and the southeast part of Norway.

[@LeeGee]

Same for me -- after 20-years failing to learn Hungarian to any useful degree, I have acquired usable Swedish in sixth months, and got a lot of Bokmål as a bonus. Half my family are from Scotland and Northumberland, so Scandinavian vocabulary and figures of speech are very similar, if not the same. Of course, that doesn't come out in Duolingo's American English, but it *is* there!

[@beefwellington7791]

Agreed, I am bilingual English/French, and found Norwegian very easy pick up, just in conversations, and a little teaching from Norwegian friends. I found it much easier than French.

[@sonjak8265]

@@LeeGee Why would you study Hungarian? Are you married to a Hungarian or have significant business interests there? I cannot think of any other reason. It has a reputation of being the most difficult language to learn.

[@Rico-oz4ct]

highly doubt you can understand a scandinavian newspaper as an english speaker.

[@blotski]

This is fascinating. I am English but speak Swedish (and therefore understand Norwegian and Danish to a fair extent) and am currently studying Icelandic. I have long thought that English had more in common with the Nordic languages than Dutch or German but I didn't realise any linguists had proposed it as a theory. I think it has a lot going for it. I am originally from county Durham and it is clear that the pronunciation of some vowels in this area is very similar to the Nordic languages. For example, the vowel in 'go, no, home' is not a diphthong in the north-east but sounds like the vowel written as å in Swedish. Similarly, the vowel in 'stay, play, day' is not a diphthong for us but similar to the way stressed 'e' is pronounced in many Swedish words like 'leka' (to play). The glottal stop said simultaneously with a consonant rather than instead of a consonant (glottal reinforcement) is reminiscent of Danish. You hear it in the way Geordies say 'happy, sticky, letter'. In terms of vocabulary you have words like bairn for child (Swedish/Icelandic - barn). I always remember my dad saying somebody looked 'loppy' if they looked dirty or unwashed. I later learned that the Swedish for a 'flea' is 'loppa'. Geordies talk about their snacks or packed lunches as 'bait' and I recently learned that Icelandic for a snack or a morsel is 'biti'.

[@LetThemTalkTV]

That's fascinating. On doing my research for the video I discovered that there are a many dialect words in the North East particularly that come from Old Norse. I had never heard most of them. Bairn was one of the few I did know.

[@lynnesookdawar3979]

Hi there. I m from County Durham too and speak a few languages but didn’t speak any Scandinavian languages until lockdown when I subscribed to a Babbel Norwegian course. I was amazed at how much the syntax was like English, and as you say, the Geordie flat vowel sounds. Fascinating

[@skaraborg55]

SWE - Vi använder många engelska ord i det svenska spåket också. Svenska är i många fall en blandning av både tyska och engelska ord. Ibland använder vi det engelska ordet och ibland det tyska ordet. ENG - We use many English words in the Swedish language as well. Swedish is in many cases a mixture of both German and English words. Sometimes we use the English word and sometimes we uses the German word instead. Exemple SWE - Berg GER - Berg ENG - Mountain SWE - Krig GER - Krieg ENG - War SWE - Television GER - Fernsehen ENG - Televison Sometimes the Scandinavian countries use the opposite word for the same thing. We in Sweden for exemple uses the english word for television while Norway uses the german word instead. Television in Norwegian is "Fjernsyn". It can be a bit confusing sometimes. Another difference is that we often uses one word while english uses two ord three words for the same tning. ENG - Christmas Eve SWE - Julafton ENG - Eurovision Song Contest SWE - Melodifestivalen (today it's even shorter and called "Mello". That's it. SWE - Tack för språklektionen. ENG - Thank you for the language lesson. Now i'm off to speak some old norse... 🙂😛

[@nethla314]

hyem! "I'm garn yem" sounds just like Norwegian!

[@helenamcginty4920]

I just remembered a Swedish penfriend (I am 74) sent me a little dish with the Our Father on it in Swedish. It was easy to read and understand.

[@jonntischnabel]

I always love these linguistic history videos. As a northerner but with Swedish heritage I am fascinated by this.

[@mette1245]

I live in Denmark and grew up in the northwestern corner of Jutland called Thy. When i began learning the english language in school i thought the sounds in english reminded me of the sounds in “thybomål” which is the local dialect where i lived. Sometimes i suddenly switched to thybomål while speaking english because it was so similar in sounds and pronounciation of words.

[@easterlinear]

Sounds like nonsense

[@richlisola1]

@@easterlinearIt’s regrettable that the Internet has given a platform for fools such as yourself.

[@billmullins6833]

I have studied German and could never understand how the two languages could be in the same family while having such radically different syntax. The notion that English is a Norse language makes perfect sense to me. Note: when I studied German the cases and syntax were very hard to get down. That and the whole gendering of all nouns and the associated inflection of articles. I am sorry to admit that it actually took me until my 3rd semester of German to reliably wrap my head around all the inflection in German. However having absorbed the idea of cases etc. while studying German, it actually made it easier to get into Koine Greek. Imagine that.

[@DoodiePunk]

I could never get the Esperanto accusative case (-n ending) till I learned German.

[@PhilDnz]

Try French and Latin first.

[@robertaschultze3684]

I learned English grammar, and sometimes spelling, by having French starting in 7th grade in San Jose, California. To this day, if I forget the spelling of the sweet course at the end of dinner, I write both desert and dessert down and pronounce them in French. 😅😅

[@oliverwright1909]

Gideon, great video. Here are some thoughts on Faarlund's theory: Though I entirely agree that English is structurally more similar to Mainland Scandinavian than to German or even Dutch, I think this is less due to English being Scandinavianised than in it is to both English and Scandinavian going through a similar levelling process, and becoming more analytical, as a result of intensive contact with fairly closely related languages. In the case of English the contact was with Old Norse. In the case of the Scandinavian languages it was Low German, not during the Viking period but during the Hanseatic period, several centuries later. Before that, the Scandinavian languages were heavily synthetic, as indeed Icelandic still is (presumably because it had little such contact). The group genitive is an example of this. It's true that this exists in both English and Mainland Scandinavian. It's also true that it didn't exist in Old English and still doesn't in German. But it didn't exist in Old Norse either. So rather than showing a genetic link, this is an example of parallel evolution in similar circumstances.

[@soleaguirre100]

Thanks!!! very interesting your comment! greetings from Santiago Chile 🇨🇱!

[@kinnish5267]

very interesting

[@ragathnor326]

Fascinating! Thank you!

[@jonathanlee5520]

真有意思 ！ Sehr interessant ! Veldig interessant !

[@CareyTisdal]

Thank you for the clear explanation of why leveling could be an alternate explanation.

[@DevPreston]

I really appreciate the level of depth of this video, which is just right for me. I have learnt quite a bit of Norwegian over about 10 years, though I am far from fluent. The language varies widely around the country and they have a couple of written standards (Bokmål and Nynorsk - meaning "Book language" and "New Norwegian" respectively), but in general there are such a lot of similarities to English that it really is fun to learn, and I am happy to put my vote towards viewing English as a Scandinavian language. One thing that strikes me, apart from grammatical similarities, is the very large quantity of shared idiomatic phrases between English and Norwegian - far more overlap than I perceived existing between French and English when I was at school. Of course, my lack of knowledge of modern German or its neighbours puts my opinion on pretty shaky ground.

[@ianmckenzie7255]

"ill" really seems to be a proper antonym for "well" -- thank you for the thoroughly researched video

[@markstott6689]

Being from Yorkshire and a part of the Danelaw I have always felt Viking heritage was important. There's an island off the coast of Norway named Støtt so I'm claiming Norse origin.

[@sebastianbergstl4423]

fair - it means bull in norwegian(stut) . not the island, as that wasnt a namingtradition, but as a quality or occupation, theres traditions for that

[@markstott6689]

@@sebastianbergstl4423 Thank you.

[@missa2855]

@@sebastianbergstl4423 just a bull? As in generic bull. In Danish a stud is a castrated bull.

[@nian60]

In Swedish, stött can mean supported, hurt, push, ran into, or offended. Wiktionary says it's originally from Old Norse stuttr, which means short, scant or snappish. And Proto-Germanic stuntaz.

[@josephstratti52]

@@nian60 stunt meaning short scrawny in modern English.

[@fredbrenno]

In Norway we got 2 official written standards, namely Bokmål and Nynorsk. The examples of Norwegian in this text is given in "Nynorsk" which is a new standard that was contructed from several dialects of Norway of that time (ca 1800), but when given spoken examples, the reader in this case talks "Bokmål. Example on "I have read the book" is on Nynorsk "Eg har lese boka" while on "Bokmål" would be "Jeg har lest boken"" and Bokmål "Dronningen av Englands hatt" and Nynorsk "Dronninga av englands hatt" All Norwegian learn both written standards in school :-) Thank you for an excelent chanel !

[@alexwang6207]

There are still those that use the feminine definite for bok, right? So it could also be "boka," I think?

[@furkanonal8]

@@alexwang6207 Yes, but it depends on the region. In the west of Norway, 2 gender system is dominant (Bergen, Stavanger area). But in the rest of Norway I think the 3 gender system is dominant (at least it is in Oslo area)

[@fredbrenno]

@@alexwang6207 Yes, it could be "jeg har lest boka" , the thing is that the text on the video was the "nynorsk standard form" and the example that was given in spoken form was "bokmål". There are many words that you can choose between the standard written old bokmålform and the femenine determant, like boken/boka and stuen/stua.

[@nordicsailor2694]

I noticed the same discrepancy between the written and spoken Norwegian in the examples: Nynorsk vs Bokmål. Note that the work for "sick" is "syk"in modern Norwegian and Danish, "sjuk" in Swedish and "sjukr" in Norse.

[@benhetland576]

@@furkanonal8 I'm sorry to tell you are mistaken. In practically all of spoken Norwegian all over the country a 3 gender system is used, with the only exception being Bergen bymål (city dialect) that truly has a 2 gender system (masculine/common + neuter). Now, as for the written forms the situation may appear different as a fair amount of those that use the Bokmål form (>80%) also choose the style where only the masculine articles and suffixes are used with _both_ the masculine and feminine nouns (which that spelling standard now allows). The users of Nynorsk does not have this option, and probably would not have chosen such a style of writing anyway, so there you will always see the 3 genders differentiated. Of course, many speakers also choose to adapt their speaking based on their own opinion and/or the social context, in which case you may also well come across speakers who speak more or less "normalised" towards the written standard, and as such some also will make use of a 2 gender system (generally considered "conservative"). The latter is more of a sosiolect thing rather than a geographical differentiation.

[@erikgranqvist3680]

1 thing that has been somewhat forgotten in most discussions: the importance of dialects to trace a language. Since dialects tend to be a bit older, and kind of more rooted in the history of a landscape, words and the grammar can differ wildly to the "official" standard language. At least that goes for parts of Sweden.

[@maiaallman4635]

Very much for English as well. We speak English as a second language in South Africa (at least I do), and when I used to travel to England for work I almost couldn't understand people in the small villages. I can say the same for small villages in Austria that don't speak Hochdeutsch.

[@jensholm5759]

Its not so difficult. If You listen to the many brittish dialects, You can hear where the vikings and which they were by accent. A star might be finding a map for settlements. Just as for sweden You can fin all the dialects even its more hidden in the Briitish mix up. I hear it in their humming. Im from Sjælland and have been in Southern sweden many many times. Skåne is more the one dialect. I know Halland and Blekinge well too. You can go up north from Gøteborg and the hum is as norway if you take away the Oslo dialect. I have been at Gotland twice long time ago. It was a kind of danish but also certainly not. Very unimportant by baker in Roskilde was in Gullandstræde. It was not Gotland or Gutland. have a nice day.

[@ejlufpedersen742]

Thanks for a brilliant and informative video. I can confirm your theory. I'm Danish and from the western part of Jutland born and bred ( Jutland is the peninsula of Denmark closest to the UK with the Northsea between us) The original dialect in this part of Denmark is very close to English. Many words are similar and the pronunciation sounds English. The grammar is closer to English than to correct Danish. Nowadays the dialect has faded away more or less. I only speak it when it comes naturally with people I know. Today day it has turned into an accent which immediately will tell people from the eastern part of Denmark that I'm from West Jutland. Comparable to a Scouser vs a Londoner. Being from West Jutland makes the pronunciation in English very easy. When Danes speak English I can normally tell from their accent if they are from West Jutland or Copenhagen. I had a DNA test taken some years ago, which showed that my roots were quite English. No doubt that we shared more than the language back in the Wiking age.🤔😉

[@phil2854]

The original Anglo-Saxon invasions came from northern Germany and what is now the Netherlands, but there were also Jutes invading and settling at the same time. I believe the Jutes settled mainly in South-East England (Kent), several hundred years before the Viking invasions. Their language would probably have been mutually intelligible with the Low German spoken by the Angles, Saxons and Frisians.

[@Slapnuts9627]

@@phil2854 The Angles had a large range really, you could consider the Angles from what is now Denmark.

[@RobertClaeson]

@@Slapnuts9627 Indeed, from the Jutland part of Denmark.

[@TheScottEF]

@@RobertClaeson -- You may be correct, but I believe that the Angles, which some think are named after the angle of land they lived on, were primarily situated in South Jutland (present day Denmark) and Southern Schleswig plus parts of Holstein (both in present day Germany). Those three areas plus the much larger Northern Jutland and Jutland Islands (both in present day Denmark) constituted the Jutland peninsula.

[@SchmulKrieger]

because Old Jutish is a West Germanic language.

[@annesaffer629]

Spot on about the English and Norwegian grammar. I have gotten conversational in French and Spanish and a bit more fluent in Norwegian. Norwegian was by far the easiest to get started in! I describe it broadly as English grammar, German words. You don’t have 30+ forms of the verb to learn (only about 7 in E & N), the sentence structure is very similar. You can almost start by speaking English, but using Norwegian words. You then learn and incorporate the particular Norwegian word orders so it doesn’t sound so odd to a Norwegian speaker. I have also learned many Norwegian expressions by hearing native speakers do the same in English! It is a beautiful and fascinating language!

[@dand.jensen]

The grammar is also spot on in danish

[@keith6706]

@@dand.jensen I was in Greenland about 20 years ago and watching Danish TV, I found I had an easier time getting the gist of what was going on than I ever did with watching something in German.

[@herrbonk3635]

German words? To us close neighbours to the east, Norwegian is a little like our language, but with a more English sounding vocabulary. Fewer French and Low German (Hansa league) words, usually.

[@nobutheyonyou7990]

I found it interesting how you mentioned that the words that came from old norse often used the SK sound, while the anglo-saxon words used sh, because in many Norwegian words starting with sk i is actually pronounced like sh. The word skinn (leather) is pronounced like shin.

[@Lubben]

I was about to say the same.

[@alfsalte9493]

That is a different origin as far as I know. Originally old norse had skin pronounced with s k sound. They also said help and harta for heart but at some point in Norwegian and in Swedish but not so much in Danish, a 'j' sound came in or modified it to the modern pronunciation, turning skip into skjip sound even though we do not write a j in that word but we do in case of heart (hjerte) and help (hjelp) and in hj the h is silent so we changed the consonant in the start of that word from h to j so that help becomes yelp in English spelling. A similar thing happened to many G words turning into GJ with a silent G making the pronunciation of hjerne (brain) and gjerne (happily) to be identical. For example in Danish the word for "gjerne" is spelled and pronounced as "gerne" without any j sound. We also often have that j sound even if not spelled. so we say go in infinitive form but we say gikk in pas tense but pronounce it yikk. In danish they say gikk with no j sound and so on. Another funny fact about this video is that when you had examples of Norwegian the text was written in Nynorsk but the lady spoke in Bokmål.

[@alfresco8442]

Modern English has a whole collection of words where both forms have been preserved...although sometimes they now have slightly different meanings. Shabby - scabby, shuttle - scuttle, shirt - skirt etc.

[@Niinsa62]

We have something similar in Swedish, some words are spelled with a SK, but are pronounced as SH. Like the word for shirt, skjorta. That one is pronounced a bit like the English word "shorter". But is still spelled with a K because we used to pronounce it that way, a bit like the beginning of the English word "skewered".

[@alfresco8442]

@@Niinsa62 Yes, I speak a little Norsk and am familiar with words that English has taken from Old Norse but which we now pronounce differently with a hard K...like ski and sky...although obviously sky means cloud in Norwegian.

[@Vermont2023]

Brilliant presentation and brilliant presenter!! Please keep doing these fantastic expositions!!

[@paholainen100]

good video. I am also an English speaker ( and ESL teacher) from Australia. In addition I also studied language families, Linguistics and majored in German, so I found this video fascinating. English is such a big mix of both related and unrelated languages.

[@masatwwo6549]

Hi, you really should dip a bit into Old English. I ran into an Old English grammar video (I misred the title) and was seriously confused why this guy explains German grammar with this weird words. After I realized that Old English has pretty much the same grammar like modern German, I was quite astonished.

[@MrTrilbe]

@@masatwwo6549 it's not German it's Frisian :p

[@TheMarilita7]

What an amazing research you have done! I am Greek living in London and I am obsessed with linguistics. Also, I really like your examples of old Norse words/expressions being in use today. Thank you so much for your videos, please keep offering us all this knowledge!

[@nkenchington6575]

Hiya. 'Research' is an uncountable noun, therefore there's no need for an article before it. Cheers!

[@5400bowen]

This is just great content. My whole life I've been looking for such a depth of knowledge and analysis on the English language, especially origins. And so enjoyable to have someone always give the correct meaning for all the words defined. Laying it all out in such a concise organized manner. It is truly enjoyable.

[@Mobraks]

Love it that you use Nynorsk as the written language and Bokmål as the spoken languauge in your video.

[@T_Lorentzen]

There is no spoken language named Bokmål in Norway. The examples in this video are spoken with an østlandsk dialect.

[@Neophema]

@@T_Lorentzen Strangely enough the person is said to be from Tromsø, so why isn't she speaking her own dialect?

[@T_Lorentzen]

@@Neophema Could be several reasons. If you want the correct answer you'll have to ask her. If you want some detailed theories i'd be happy to supply them.

[@carloswagner3621]

Hi Gideon, thank you for this fascinating video. I just want to suggest a little mistake you made regarding the daughter languages of Brittonic language. Welsh, Breton and Cornish indeed are descended from Brittonic, but Irish, Manx and Scottish Gaelic came from Goidelic language, a different Celtic language. Cheers from Mexico!

[@thepcmaster]

Thank you for a very informative and accurate video. As a native Slavic speaker, I learnt German and English at the same time, as a child. To me, they felt somewhat similar. Then, as an adult, I learnt Swedish and it felt even more remarkably similar to English (and less to German), not only in vocab but especially in the sentence structure. I'd classify English as a hybrid between North-Germanic and West-Germanic, with a bit too much Latin/French thrown in! Not sure if it's helpful to strive to classify it West or North Germanic, when it's such an obvious mixture.

[@peternewman7940]

I would say that you have an exceptionally accurate understanding of the origins of our language. I think of it as a German (maybe North Germanic) truck with a French/Latin cargo. My parents learned Latin at school which not only helped them with French, but immensely helped them with their native English. I have also heard that the language has been enriched by a habit of retaining a pair of words (German and French) for the same or a similar thing.

[@elainethemusician3310]

I suppose that as we are an island off North West mainland Europe, a North Germanic and West Germanic hybrid is a natural outcome of the merging of the two languages after the different invasions. I find linguistics very interesting and really enjoyed this.

[@suzkstein]

This video was absolutely amazing!! I am a native English speaker with ancestry from Sweden. I found this SO fascinating! It makes me want to study Swedish or Norwegian, since it would be easy for me to learn. Seriously, this was a great treat.

[@ragatrix]

This is a very novel idea to me. My mother tongue is German, I have studied English at uni and I live in Sweden. It never occured to me to question the fact that English is a fundamentally Germanic language. But now that I am getting used to the idea and knowing what i know of Swedish it does make a certain amount of sense. It's why I have always felt that when translating, German also seems to be stumbling block whereas English and Swedish mold much easier into each other... this could be why.

[@kjelleriksson2793]

allgoodisgone It could also be that English is a Plattdeutsch language and Swedish has a lot of Plattdeutsch words for some reason.

[@johnbrewer8954]

It is Germanic in the sense that it came from Angle and Saxon Germanic languages, that isnt the language of Modern Germany but the languages of the Germanic tribes who settled in UK, some of them were the Vikings. The Geordie dialect of Newcastle upon Tyne has a lot of old Norse in it. While my grandmothers Yorkshire dialect was very like platt Deutsch, she would say "five and twenty to" instead of twenty five, and frequently put a verb at the end of a sentence when Englih would have it in the middle. The word "doubt" meant think not to actually doubt. "He'll never do n'more good, I doubt" meant "I think he is close to the end of his life". For example.

[@alwinmitter2161]

Very interesting theory! But I‘d hesitate to regard the English grammar characteristics as exclusively of Scandinavian origin. As a German native speaker I find some comparable grammar structures also in regional German dialects. It just sounds awkward if you try to transform them into Standard German. But this seems more due to a historically grown convention for the form of the Standard speech. Originally there seems to have been a much wider range of possible forms of expression in Old West-Germanic languages. If this was the case for the old Anglosaxons meeting Viking people, of course they would have switched to the form of grammar structure easily intelligible for both sides. But they wouldn‘t have to take over or learn a completely new grammar structure which would be suggested by this new hypothesis.

[@StuffMadeOnDreams]

The reason why German has retained its declension system is the isolation of the territory over a long period. Languages that are isolated retain their old, complex character, such as Icelandic and Inuit. Remember that it was Napoleon who abolished the serfdom in the German territories as late as early 19th century. 3/4 of modern Americans have some kind of German ancestry, that bad it was in Germany until the third quarter of the 19th century, millions migrated searching for a better life because they had a very bad deal under the old system. This can also explain to understand the sociologic origins of the first and second world wars, especially the second one.

[@johnbrewer8954]

@@StuffMadeOnDreams The railways probably did more than Napoleon.

[@rooldaa]

When I started learning Swedish I was shocked by how similar grammar is comparing to English. And lots of similar words as well.

[@HALberdier17]

I started learning Swedish in 2017 and I had the same experience.

[@fjalls]

As a Swede I had an easy time learning English as a child. That's why we Scandinavians can speak English to a large extent

[@la7dfa]

@@fjalls I also helps we do not have that dubbing hell on TV, like the larger EU countries.

[@BajanEnglishman51]

You're shocked by another Germanic language 💀which English is

[@jcoker423]

@@fjalls You Scandics don't just speak English well, you often have local accents. As an Aussie I'm asking an Noggie if they are a Scouser, Jock or geordie.....

[@isabelatence7035]

This series has been very instructive, my knowledge only grows, I feel privileged to receive so much information, your effort to help us is precious. Thanks Gideon!🇬🇧❤️🇧🇷

[@LetThemTalkTV]

Thanks Isabel, I'm happy you found it interesting. I'll be doing more like this in the future.

[@isabelatence7035]

@@LetThemTalkTV Very cool, I'll be waiting👌

[@owlya1]

zrw

[@kevinrenn9123]

The more you know, the more you realize how much you don't know

[@hudzgh]

Isabel, I was thinking the very same things. Gideon was just blowing through information I didn't know existed! Thanks Gideon!!

[@bobstovall5449]

This is the most fascinating video I've seen in quite some time. Thank you. Looking forward to viewing more of your content.

[@dros4]

I am French from Paris and I appreciate you a lot, Gideon. Your videos are very interesting on the history of the English language. Plus, you bring a sensitive human dimension. It does us good in this world of violence. Thank you again, Gideon. Keep going.

[@manjirabanerjee7169]

Immensely helpful lesson replete with valuable informations on the history of English language. Thanks a lot.

[@Michal.Kaminski]

Incredibly good video! Very interesting and informative. Looking forward to more content like this.

[@paulmarsh3330]

Thanks for a very informative series of videos.I've been especially interested in the origins of the English langage,particularly since studying Chaucer for my English A level many years ago!

[@jameslaws69]

Fanatic video. Clear and informative. So glad I’ve stumbled onto this channel

[@NSYresearch]

As a native English man born and bred in Yorkshire from Yorkshire stock I found this absolutely fascinating. I found that a lot of Yorkshire dialect has Norse/Dane roots.

[@Bjowolf2]

Vi [ve] ha(ve)r *) mange ( many, OE moneGe ! ) af de samme simple (w)ord(s) i(n) Dansk, så [soa] en Engelsk-tal(k)ende person kan ofte direkte se hvad mening de [dee*] ("dey") ha(ve)r efter just få [foa] ((a) few) sekunder i(n) deres (their(s)) skriftlige ( "scribed-ly", written ) version, for de vil ligne ( liken, look like, seem like ) en mystisk sort af Pseudo-Engelsk 😉 Hav en god dag [daygh], min frænd{e} 😊 *) A 150 years ago we still said "haver" for "have" in the present tense in Danish, but nowadays we just say "har" [ hAr, like "far" ]. But the verb is still "at have", and the past tense is "havde" ("havede"), whereas Swedish has the reduced form "hade" [hA-de].

[@jillybe1873]

Why aye man (from geordieland)

[@jonathanlee5520]

Uansett, Yorkshire pudding kom *ikke fra vikingdietten ! ?*

[@nightravenonline]

Danes roots yes I was in Jorwick viking centre twice..and around danelaw..its impressing...fascinating. and I am danish...

[@simonpickles3027]

Laikin' is Norse apparently. My dad, born in 1931 in Batley used to use it for playing out

[@TheTAREQ1996]

Thank you Gideon for all the amazing vedios you're doing on youtube. What distinguishes you from others is the way you give the information, it's not the old boring one... You have a special way that attracts people such as including jokes or funny stuff in your vedios, in addition to your own life experience stories, and many other things.... Keep on the good work 👏👏👏 🇯🇴🇯🇴🇯🇴

[@LetThemTalkTV]

I appreciate your kind words. It inspires me to continue

[@LetThemTalkTV]

Two corrections from in the video. It's been pointed out that Irish, Manx and Scots Gaelic are Goidelic and not Brittonic. Secondly that in the language tree diagram West and East Scandinavian are labelled the wrong way round. Lots of comments about the two dialects of Norwegian. Bokmål and Nynorsk (a fact I did not know until after releasing the video). Apparently the written text is in Nynorsk which some commenters have said is unusual because it's only spoken by a small minority of Norwegians. I do not speak Norwegian (I wish I did because it sounds beautiful) but this is the text I found during my research. If I have blundered then please be gentle on me.

[@jiros00]

I thought your take was very good especially considering you don't speak any Scandinavian languages.

[@kjetilkjernsmo8499]

Yes, indeed, but I don't think linguists call nynorsk and bokmål dialects. They are two normatively defined written languages. In addition, there are myriads of spoken dialects, aligning to varying degrees to the two formal written languages. When spoken, Norwegian is very liberal. Back in the day, it was a gameshow on TV where linguists would compete in guessing where a certain person were from, and a supermarket chain has been running ads for several years on radio where a linguist has been guessing where the shop owner hails from. There are fairly subtle clues that makes it possible to tell one valley from the nearby valley or a town from the next. Anyway, I enjoyed the video a lot!

[@merchantoo]

Maybe one more nuance, the genetive s also exists in Dutch, e.g. ik heb Peters boek gelezen, i.e. I've read Peter's book, just to mix in with a obvious Germanic example. The other way of expressing possession with 'van' meaning of / belonging to, also exists.

[@timhuffmaster3588]

I’ve always been interested in languages and your delivery is a capper. I’m all in for your videos. Thanks!

[@adscri]

I’m currently volunteer-teaching ESL and constantly find myself totally at sea when trying to explain what appear to be the many idiosyncrasies of the language - ‘egging on’ being one such example. Having only just been utube ‘fed’ your videos , I can foresee that they are going to come in very handy. (Example ‘ill’ adjectives). Many thanks.

[@imalive5374]

Very informative video in terms of the English language history.

[@laurajaneluvsbeauty9596]

I absolutely LOVE THIS! I find the study of evolving languages so interesting! It’s like a history map!

[@LuisaAlfaro-sy6zo]

I just discovered your channel. I'm a Costa Rican (Spanish) native speaker. You explain very clearly that for me to enjoy your videos very much. Thank you. Greetings from Costa Rica, América Central, Luisa

[@Johan-vk5yd]

Great video, Gideon! I’ll be happy to spice up my english with more words of scandinavian origin.

[@LetThemTalkTV]

You can never have too much spice.

[@nineteenfortyeight6762]

But the Scandinavian words in English are the least spicy, I'm afraid.

[@kadowaluna1]

Hello, Mr. Gideon,as usual very well documented and the narrative,is exceptional..! Wow a lot of work in a very few minutes, thanks for your work. From a Mexican living in Japan. Gracias señor.

[@LetThemTalkTV]

Thanks for your comments. Glad you liked it. Gracias, arigato.

[@wingedpearloyster]

fascinating stuff! thanks for your informative videos.

[@LuisVillanuevaCubero]

Fascinating! Thanks for this video!

[@marcelroberto2270]

Much obliged sir for all your effortness to bring us such deeper knowledge about the English language.

[@ether6107]

I am American. In English if you say an adjective +ness, it will turn the adjective into a noun. However, "effort" is already a noun, so "effortness" is incorrect. Also, "much obliged" is a great thing to say... it makes you sound better than an average English learner!

[@OdinOfficialEmcee]

As a native english speaker learning danish, I must say the grammar is exceedingly similar and very easy to grasp. The hardest bit, for me, has been gaining the vocabulary and understanding the spoken language as it is so very different from english. But even then, compared to say, German or French, it is, on the whole, easier.

[@raymondkidwell7135]

The answer is Norse learned English. Their thinking remained Norse hence syntax but the words mostly English. French is similar the Germanic franks learned Latin or rather Latin with heavy Celtic influence. This much of French translates word for word into German but not usually Italian. Yet it has few actual German words. It’s the same thing if I try to speak German I just end up using German words with English grammar because English is my native language.

[@paulgnsn554]

Wonderfully informative and well presented, thank you! You have a new subscriber, keen to learn more!

[@seebanff7865]

All jokes aside, it is very informative work Gideon. Thank you for that.

[@urglefloggahthethird1202]

As a Norwegian teaching at university, though not English and not in either of those countries, this is something I really enjoy bringing up in my classes. I've even done guest lectures on the subject for various Chinese universities, and it is something that tends to fascinate those students interested in linguistics. Particularly as Mandarin Chinese, despite the considerable prevalence of loan words, tends to be presented as a very homogeneous language in the mainland education system. So those students with a more curious bent tend to find this kind of material both challenging and serious food for thought.

[@charsk541]

Thanks again for a fun and informative video. You are right, we do speak English well here in Scandinavia. But you have to take into account that we start to learn English as second language pretty early (at least in Norway). I can only speak for Norwegians. But all kids today have to start to learn English already in second grade in the primary school ( 7 years old.). We learn from 4. grade when I was kid. Plus of course listing to pop music and watching video/series in English. My grandparents didn't speak as good as the children growing up today. And those today children speak even better than me and some in my generation. The English speakers moving here tend to learn Norwegian pretty easily. But so do German and Dutch speaker. I saw you mentioned that Old-Norse had more simpler grammar than Old-English. I have to disagree there. The grammar was as complex as the Anglo-Saxons. With three genders and cases (except from instrumental). The inflection of the verbs followed the personal pronouns the same degree as in Old-English. This is still preserved in modern Icelandic. There are a couple of interesting video about Old-Norse influence in English. Form an Old-Norse professor: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eJK6mH2nbrSJfa8 From an Old-English enthusiast kzbin.info/www/bejne/nKvIn5iOjZuAeLc

[@Neophema]

More simpler? Mer enklere? ;)

[@alisn.7998]

Fascinating, and so well explained.

[@kari-mattipihkala3560]

Thank you. This was very interesting lesson. I am a native finn and speak finnish, but I understand also some swedish and english. We have also adapted meny words from swedish. Thorp is torppa etc.

[@katerinaxatzi8551]

Thanks for the very interesting information!👍 You are an excellent connoisseur and analyst of linguistic issues!❤ Could you also tell us about the great influence of the Greek language on English? ..... speaking of the huge number of Greek words in the English language, something that is verified by the Oxford Dictionary!!!

[@cindytappe6486]

Great video. Very informative and enjoyable. Thank you.

[@Caine61]

Incredibly interesting and insightful video, thank you.

[@flawlessly]

Thanks for the video! I learned a lot with it 😊 As for the Scandinavian language theory, as a non-native English speaker, I think it sounds plausible and makes plenty of sense in terms of grammar, at least. An English language expert may disagree, though.😅

[@LetThemTalkTV]

It's an interesting theory at least.

[@andreascarlberg3998]

Well, when I was little (1980) and in school started to learn English it was not so hard but at the age of 13 we started to leard deutsch ( german ) . Some similar words and loans of words but the grammar and sentence constuction, genus etc was just headache! Greetings from Sweden

[@SchmulKrieger]

it does not when you regard the development of the German dialects. only if you take standard Dutch and German. but I guess that's what that Scandinavian linguist didn't mention.

[@SchmulKrieger]

​@@andreascarlberg3998 learn Elfdalian.

[@Yorky222]

That was very interesting, I have always been interested in word origins and similarities between languages, especially German and French. I'm a Yorkshireman with Geordie roots and use many dialect words and pronunciations from Norse and German.

[@drey8]

I grew up in Yorkshire, and the most fascinating word to me is "leiking" - me and my mates would "leik footie" in the park. In West Yorkshire we pronounced it "lekk" to rhyme with "trek" but some of my friends with really traditional Yorkshire values (wore flat caps and keep whippets etc.) would pronounce it to rhyme with "lake". Said in a Yorkshire accent it's really nice. So I've looked up the etymology and there's a proto-German word "laiko" meaning "to play" and that gave an old Norse word "leikr" meaning a game. Also as a footnote that was a bugger to type with autocorrect.

[@stemorlando]

So interesting! Thank you for this video, I really enjoyed it.

[@samuelediscepoli9925]

I've genuinely loved this splendid video !

[@edwinvdv7030]

This is so much fun to watch and contemplate! I'm a Dutch native speaker, but I also understand German perfectly. Using your explanation and the tricks you came up with I can now very easily identify the Anglo Saxon words in English (which are close to German or Dutch) and the Norse words (which sound Germanic to me, but which are in general not familiar to me). Thanks for your explanation!

[@jensholm5759]

You are right. But dont forget Holland is not far away in this as well. We are very mixted.

[@alvinf6981]

This clears up an old mystery for me that I first noticed in Minnesota. When I would hear Norwegian or Swedish spoken, it so much like English, except with a different set of words. If we have inherited our language from them, no wonder this is the case.

[@plomben]

I guess the Norwenglish and Swenglish spoken by descendants of immigrants in Minnesota are much closer to English than the languages spoken in the actual countries :)

[@michellenyre]

Hi Alvin, I believe that in the northern mid-west states there was a lot of late 1800s immigrants from Scandinavian countries. I am a direct descendant from such immigrants. So, I grew up with words like Lefse as a 'normal english word'. I think it is most likely that in addition to the 5% practiced in UK english, our (US) english was influenced by modern Scandinavian immigrants to the US. I live in Norway now and was glad that so much knowledge was passed down, even though my ancestors arrived in the Dakotas in the 1880s. Coming here, I was already aware of many foods and customs, as I had actually grown up with them (unaware). Here is a phrase I often use in norway. Jeg vil komme tilbake. I will come back. They DO sound very similar when spoken. Have fun listening and connecting the dots in your community.

[@trumjohannsmancave]

Love this channel, sir! Stockholm based swede here and happy subscriber😊👍🏻 Cheers

[@Keokanis]

A great summary of languages and history. Hats off...

[@prospektarty1513]

I agree with the topical heading that the vikings changed the English language but it wasn’t that the old Norse words were borrowed into English. What happened is that prior to the 1066 Norman conquest, England was more or less linguistically and culturally divided into an Anglo-Saxon dominated southern and Southern west England called Wessex with its capital in Winchester. This included the Wessex dependencies in the Western half of the kingdom of Mercia or West Midlands. The rest of the country from London north of the Thames River, Essex, East Anglia, the East Midlands and Yorkshire as well as the North west was culturally Anglo-Norse and later became known as the Danelaw. Basically the area settled by Danish, Norwegian and Southern Swedish vikings and their families with their core settlements being the five boroughs of Lincoln, Stamford, Leicester, York and Derby. This part of England spoke Anglian dialects brought by the earlier Anglo Saxons invaders from the Danish peninsula. Old English or Anglo Saxon wasn’t a single language it was a group of related languages of which the most prominent at the time was the Wessex dialect which forms the bulk of the surviving old English documents we have today. That dialect was more or less the same as the Old Frisian language spoken in the Netherlands. The tribes that invaded England did not call themselves Anglo Saxons. There were three distinct groups the Saxons or Frisians from Lower Saxony and the northern Dutch coast, the Engels from the region of Schleswig Holstein in northern Germany and Denmark and Jutland peninsula and Jutes from the same region. They spoke related languages but they weren’t a single nation. It is possible that the Engles were the forebears of the people who later became known as Norse and perhaps spoke proto-Norse dialect or something closely related. Not much is known about the Jutes except that they settled in Kent and the Isle of Wight. Being described as the northernmost of the Anglo Saxon invaders, you would expect them to speak a more removed language from the Saxons but little to nothing is known about the Jutish language and the people people of Kent are akin to the Frisians than the people of Jutland in Denmark so it could simply have been a misnomer. So where did the English language as spoken today come from? As at the time of the Norman conquest in 1066. The kings of England were based in Winchester and they predominantly spoke Wessex Old English. This could be said to be the literary standard of English used at the time by scholars, scribes and clergy. The people of the Danelaw had received significant amounts of Danish and Norwegian settlers most of whom were not viking raiders but ordinary Danes and Norwegians settling to farm the land and a vast proportion of place names in the core Norse boroughs of England are today still of Scandinavian/Norse origin especially in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire and parts of East Anglia. The settlers lived and interacted with the native Angles and eventually over a 300 year period through intermarriages both communities would have merged and spoke various Anglo-Norse dialects which were significantly different from the standard old English of Wessex which by then was more like Old Frisian and Dutch and less like the Anglo-Danish dialects spoken in the Danelaw all the way down to london. The most important of the Anglo-Danish dialect was the Leicester dialect which became more prominent as Leicester became a wealthy trade centre in medieval times . In the meantime after the 5000 Norman troops (which consisted mainly of Flemings, Bretons, Normans, Gallo French, and other mercenary warriors such as the Burgundian’s ) invaded and conquered England not only were the English and their rulers reduced serfs by the Norman’s who confiscated their land , but after moving the capital of England from Winchester in Wessex back to London the Normans then proceeded to ban the English language or the Wessex dialect from being used in government and the royal courts for 200 years. In effect old English was banned from public places by the tiny but highly trained Norman conquerors. The Norman themselves were of Viking and Gallo french origin and had settled in Normandy in the way many vikings had settled in England. It was the banning of English that led to the disappearance of old English or the prestigious dialect of Wessex. S9 basically what happened was that the Wessex or what linguists today confusingly refer to as Old English faded into regional dialect status or what is today’s West Country dialect. By the time English was restored to its pride of place as the official language of the Kingdom of England in the late 13th century the population of London and its environs were already speaking a Norse based dialect of English based on the Anglo-Danish dialect of the important trading city of Leicester in additi9n to the many east midlanders and northern Danelaw and East Anglian immigrants who had flooded London over the two centuries. This version of English was grammatically and syntactically Scandinavian or North Germanic in nature and not Anglo Saxon or West Germanic. It was radically different from the Wessex based Old English that we often unjustly today call Old English or Anglo Saxon today. It was essentially a heavily scandinavianaised form of the old Anglian language . When the ban was lifted the language chosen to represent the official language of England was the variety of Anglo-Danish spoken in the English capital of London and that is what became Middle English and later evolved into the modern English we speak today. All our English pronouns are Norse in origin which in order for that to be the case it has to be the spoken language of the people and not loanwords, you can borrow as many nouns from a language but never pronouns and core words such as they their them and are. In essence what that means is Scandinavian English was already an established speech form in England having emerged from the interactions of the English and Dano-Norwegian inhabitants of the Danelaw. Most of the 41% Anglo french words borrowed into English do not come from Norman French but were imported whole sale by scholars in the 15th and 16th century after Latin ceased to be the language of education and our famed Oxbridge scholars didn’t see the standard of English at the time as being fit for educational purposes, so they went on a borrowing frenzy that brought in tens of thousands Latin Greek and french words into English the vast majority are redundant and not in use.

[@phil2854]

That was a really informative reply. Thanks for taking the time to write it. It makes a lot of sense, illustrating that the conventional simplistic picture of Old English - Middle English - Modern English doesn't really take account of historical events, relying solely on the few examples of written English from the 9th and 10th century that we have.

[@williamjordan5554]

Not entirely accurate. Norman French influence dwarfs Norse influence.

[@williamjordan5554]

@@seedsoflove7684 That kind of stuff is all over KZbin.

[@elainechubb971]

Great explanation. A few comments (which don't mean I disagree with your central thesis). First, yes, the Angles probably either always were the redominant group settling in Britain (there's a reason they gave their name to the country of England!). The earliest English literary dialect was almost certainly Northumbrian, part of the Anglian area (think of the earliest English historian who wrote in the vernacular, not just in Latin, the Venerable Bede). King Alfred of Wessex reported much later that English learning--primarily the province of the clergy and monks--had almost died out in the Danelaw. Second, regarding the Jutes: at the time I learned Old English in college (1950s), the "problem of the Jutes" was something that kept popping up. Where did the Jutes come from? Where was their ancestral home? At the time of the great movement of peoples in Europe as the Western Roman Empire fell apart, there was a great deal of fighting between the various tribes of Germanic peoples who settled up and down the eastern shores of the North Sea, from southern Norway and Sweden down to the Low Countries of the Netherlands, Belgium, and even northeastern France. The Jutes--the name was variously spelled---seemed to come from both southern Sweden and the Frisian islands and coastline of what's now the Netherlands. Apparently, they lost out in fighting and civil wars, and some fled their homeland, and migrated along the coast, while some stayed behind (regarded as quislings by the refugees--a word from a Norwegian source, by the way!). Probably it was some of the refugees who went on to Kent and the Isle of Wight. There's a long story-within-the-story in the epic poem "Beowulf" that recounts a tragedy from this time. Third, in the medieval period while Middle English was developing and slowly changing into Modern English, roughly A.D. 1100 to 1500, there were competing dialects in English that were significantly different. This made communication between, say, a Northumbrian and a Wessex person fairly difficult. Gradually a more standardized language came into use, probably first among the ruling and middle classes, since the peasants were tied to the land and didn't travel far from their home villages. The dialect that became standard English arose particularly in the triangle formed by the capital, London, and Oxford and Cambridge, the two universities and centers of learning. (I 'm not saying the Leicester dialect, or others in the main region of the London home counties, particularly north of the Thames, and southest Midlands, weren't influential in this development.) Four, the one point I would disagree with is your saying that "all our English pronouns are Norse in origin." In Old English, most of our personal pronouns in the third person began with an "h," and you could distinguish between those meaning, say, "he" and "they" (and the different cases) by the endings. When the grammatical endings blurred together in the late Old English period, probably under the influence of Old Norse, things got confusing! I learned that the English speakers adopted "they" from Old Norse because this was a practical solution. I didn't study Old Norse (alas), so am just assuming that this language had pronouns very similar to those in Old English for many forms of the personal pronoun, so "he, him, his," for example, could just be kept from OE. The relative pronouns who, which, that come down from OE. In the case of that, unchanged (it was written with the runic letter "thorn" for the "th" and runic letter for short "a." so spelled differently, but the same word. As for the demonstratives, this, that, those, these, I believe (without looing this up, however) that these also coe from OE. Were the ON forms identical or similar? Five, a side note: J.R.R. Tolkien, fluent in both Old English and Old Norse, was a Midlands man (Birmingham area) and partial to the Mercian dialect rather than concentrating almost solely on the Wessex dialect, as the teaching of Old English tended to do when I learned it, mainly because most of the literary manuscripts were composed or at least written down in Wessex. Just mentioning this because no doubt there are some fans of his works reading this chain! His use of Old English words to render the language of the Rohirrim was both his playful enjoyment of language history and a very logical way to show that the Rohirrim were immigrants from the north coming into a more sophisticated area, politically and technologically, just as the Angles and Saxons arrived in what had been part of the Roman Empire. Sorry to post at such great length! The history of English is so complicated and fascinating. Language has so much history in it, illuminating what life was like for our ancestors (wherever they came from).

[@johannaholmgren8088]

Well THAT certainly explains why Scandinavian language sounded so much like English to me when I began studying it! Of course it's the other way round, and I realised that at the time, but your explanation is amazing....and perfectly logical. It seemed to me, as I was learning Swedish/Norwegian/Danish that English had to have a lot more in common with Scandinavian that was being acknowledged.

[@vaxfantomen]

I think that "ill" is from "illa" or the scandinavian counterpart and it means to "got hurt". You dont simply say "illa" though but "gjorde du illa dig (did you get hurt)" or "jag gjorde illa mig (I got hurt)" so by removeing the "a" at the end it simply means hurt. Its something I never thought about untill now, great video!

[@Neophema]

In Norwegian it just means "bad".

[@johnparr5879]

Very informative and most importantly.... Enjoyable to listen to and watch.

[@Me2Lancer]

Thanks for sharing this informative post for those of us with an English Heritage.

[@stenlofgren7163]

Very interesting. As a native speaker of Swedish now living in the US I am very familiar with both languages. What is said about similarities to Norwegian can also be said about Swedish. The cognate of “scot” is “skatt“ that the Swedes render to the taxman. The word also means “treasure” in Swedish. Regarding East Germanic being extinct: I recall hearing that Gutnish, the indigenous dialect of the Gotland Island in the Baltic, is a surviving remnant of the East Germanic language branch. What is the status of that thought?

[@lhulugren5309]

In Swedish we have the word ’sjuk’, which means ’sick’ in english. ’Illa’ in Swedish means bad in english and is combined in similar way as in english.

[@Lewtable]

We also use "to egg (incite) someone" in the same way with "ägga", "att ägga på någon" / "to egg someone on".

[@nanorider426]

Hi there. I'm Danish and a amateur historian. This really old news to me but it's a very good video and clear and concise explanation. Good job! Let me add here the Danish names now: 5:45 By - City (Landsby - village) Fæstning/Slot - Fortress/castle Kirke - Church Næs - Headland "-torp" and "-toft" we still use today. By the way, I live in Toften, it's a kind of street name in the small city I live. 9:45 How it is that Scandinavians have so much easier with English? We in Norway, Sweden and Denmark can speak English to a high degree. Some have said that we are bi-lingual in that English speakers can with no problem come to Scandinavia and be understood in their language. It's so easy to learn. 18:00 Æg - Egg, Skat - tax.

[@willpalmer3683]

Well presented and very interesting.... thanks!

[@mauriziomoretti5392]

As an Italian who lives in Norway all I can say is that without my skill and partial command of English, especially in terms of grammar and syntax, learning Norwegian would have been far more difficult

[@alberttoiletbrush871]

ma communque sempre un casino imparare

[@torrawel]

Great video again! Please never stop making them! 😊😉 I recently found out about the theory about English as a North Germanic language. And it makes a lot of sense I think. I speak Dutch, English and Swedish to some extent and the grammatical similarities between English and Swedish are striking: -(almost) no verb conjunction. And no cases. Old English had it, like old Dutch but in Dutch it gradually disappeared. In English it seems to have disappeared suddenly (or...) -English is weird in a European context since the infitive is not an ending (like Dutch and German and Frisian) but a separate word in front of the verb (to). This is only found in Scandinavian languages ("att" in Swedish) -you already mentioned the word order. In Dutch, German and Frisian the 2nd verb always comes at the end. Not in Scandinavia and in English. Etc... My theory however is a bit different. To me it seems logical to me that old English is both west and north Germanic. They came from Denmark in the first place! Now, I am not a specialist. But do we have any idea whether the Jutes for example spoke a western or a northern language? How many "old English" texts do we have beside the runic texts? And are the Saxon, Anglian or Juttish? If the 3 Germanic languages (dialects of 1 language??) were west-germanic when still in Denmark & northern Germany, when did Denmark became North-Germanic? After the Jutes had left? So many questions... Does anyone here have some answers? I hope so!

[@LetThemTalkTV]

You speak both North and west Germanic languages so it's interesting to get your insight.

[@jim-es8qk]

....it is also French. We seem to have two words for every thing thanks to them pesky normans!!!

[@colinmacdonald5732]

Maybe should be Anglo Jute rather than Anglo Saxon.

[@johnchardine1886]

REALLY fascinating! Thanks.

[@eucherio]

Amazing video! Thank you!

[@mbd501]

Interesting theory. Personally, I'd call it a mixture of the two, with a heavy influence by Norman French afterwards. So you could make an argument for putting it into either the North or West Germanic branch. But I've always felt Scandinavians speak the best English of any non-native speakers. Some of them have little or no accent, if they've mastered it well enough.

[@manuelrenz7281]

I might add, they speak other languages (german for example) with few to no accent as well, to a degree that you can hardly tell they are non native speakers.

[@harrynewiss4630]

English is clearly West Germanic. There's no real debate on that. It just has heavy contact features.

[@douglaswilkinson5700]

I took Swedish at university after 2 years of German and a summer in Germany. It was surprisingly easy -- the grammar and vocabulary. The rhythm was difficult. When visiting relatives in "Sverige" I would speak Swedish and they would respond in English. I had better luck with small kids who hadn't yet studied English and my elder relations who had learned only German before the war.

[@lifeandtext]

Very informative and entertaining, thanks!

[@marieboutin9054]

Your videos are very interesting. You are a very good linguist and grammarian. You are explaining the origin of English language very well. I have a degree in English, but I don't speak this language as well as I used to.

[@loveitaly113]

I am Danish, and my husband is English. We lived in England for a considerable number of years before relocating to Denmark. We, both, found your video extremely interesting.

[@no15minutecities]

He is BRITISH!

[@loveitaly113]

@@no15minutecities Yes he is British, but he's also English!

[@eiveive]

as someone whose first langauge is english, and learnt german in school for 5 years, and have been studying swedish for the last year (and can now understand small chunks of norwegian and danish), scandinavian languages definitely ~feel~ closer to english than germanic, as i tried to learn dutch but it was harder to pick up than i expected

[@wolfgangeubel7637]

Very intersting, informative and extremely well spoken. Ta!

[@rosagonzalez6604]

Thank you, this is one of the most interesting videos about English language I'd ever seen. 👌👌👌👍👍👍

[@santhoshrider7348]

5:57 -thorpe= farm land. Interesting, in Tamil, a south Indian language, there's a word called "Thōppu" whose meaning is similar to "-thorpe". Thōppu is a special word for farm lands having certain trees. Ex: a farm land full of Mango trees, coconut trees are called as "Mānthōppu", "Thennanthōppu".

[@jean-claudewallard9309]

This theory about modern English being (more) related to old Norse is interesting. When you consider old English, clearly related to the Saxons and the Angles, it's a complete different language and I have never been happy with the explanations about simplifications over time. The shift between old and middle English around the 11th /12th centuries rather shows a prominency of old Norse mixed with Norman/French. There is no real continuity between old and middle, but one clearly sees it between middle and early modern English. I am learning Swedish and I thought my German would help, but this is rarely the case. Whereas my English helps most of the time.

[@LetThemTalkTV]

Thank you for your insight. Very interesting

[@jari2018]

one can see swedish as simpliefied german - the german words or similar are in swedish but not used ( anymore of much )- so when a swede hears german he can deduct whats said by deafult - and swedish learners are really not taught that - you get the modern swedish - have fun

[@harrynewiss4630]

That is not right. There are texts from the 11th, 12th and early 13th centuries that clearly show a continuous evolution of old to middle English.

[@patriziapadovani428]

Great teacher!!!thank you so much, your videos are unique!

[@petrichor649]

Concise and entertaining as always.

[@jiritichy7967]

Excellent presentation. Vikings from Denmark were similar people to Anglos who invaded England several centuries earlier. How much their language changed? Here are some examples using my (poor) knowledge of Norwegian: English vs. Norwegian. to have-(o) ha, I have-jeg (yay) har, we have-vi har, thick-tik, thin-tin, was-var, they-di, one-en, two-tu, three-tre, four-fire, five-fem.

[@steenlindholm8512]

I will make a complementary note for the danish language: English vs. Danish:. to have- at have, I have-jeg (yay) har, we have-vi har, thick-tyk, thin-tynd, was-var, they-de, one-en, two-to, three-tre, four-fire, five-fem. AND castle=borough=borg

[@SchmulKrieger]

I will make it for German and English. to have/haben, I have/ich habe, we have/wir haben (He has/er hat), thick/dick, thin/dünn etc.

[@triciasgallery669]

The words for Thick and Thin remind me of the Irish pronunciations of these words - more like Tic and Tin

[@MegaJohn144]

I learned German in high school, and then lived in Sweden for 2 1/2 years and learned Swedish. I tend to agree that English is a Scandinavian language. Between knowing English and German, it was really easy to learn Swedish. The syntax of Swedish is much more similar to English than that of German.

[@douglaswilkinson5700]

Being a native speaker of English and fluent in German I found Swedish vocabulary and grammar easy.

[@alanthomas2064]

@@douglaswilkinson5700I am a German speaker also, seems German grammar is more Latin than the "Latin" languages! Strikes me a little though, that Scandinavian languages have no definable article? Quite easy to get accustomed to though!

[@Neophema]

@@alanthomas2064 We do, it's just attached to the end of the word: a suffix.

[@iltc9734]

I love your videos. They are terrific !

[@traceythompson1092]

This wonderfully informative channel reminds me of a series that I saw on PBS in the US a few years ago. It was hosted by historian Simon Schama, and was called either the History of English or the Story of English.

[@MultiRandman]

I've been trying to learn German for the last several months, and continually screw up the word order. It's very confusing to me. It's nice to know that the word order in Norwegian is similar, I'll be looking in to learning more about it.

[@kalidesu]

Gives me hope to learn French and Norwegian.

[@ronin667]

Thank you for this very interesting video! I'd never heard of the theory that English might actually be a Scandinavian language, and it sounds quite interesting. However, I find the statement that languages tend to borrow vocabulary from other languages but rarely or never grammar not very convincing. For example, all Germanic languages except English are V2 languages, which means that the verb is always the 2nd part in the main clause of a sentence. English, however, doesn't follow this rule due to Normannic-French influence, so here, English did in fact borrow a grammatical construction. There are a lot of other examples: Balkan langues like Bulgarian, Hungarian and Romanian have been borrowing grammatical constructs from each other, despite belonging to completely different language families; Bulgarian e.g. has a definite article, something that Romanian (a Romance language) has, but no other Slavic language. I can see this live in my own language: Some German dialects near the area where I live have dropped declension of reflexive pronouns in favour of just one universal immutable reflexive pronoun, a feature found in neighbouring Czech, but not in Standard German. And the German verb "erinnern" (remember) is currently shifting from being reflexive to being transitive due to English influence. So, grammatical constructs being borrowed from other languages happens all the time, and since Anglo-Saxons and Danes have been living alongside each other for such a long time, it's no surprise they also adopt the grammar from each other.

[@GT-kb9oi]

You said that all Germanic languages except English are V2 languages. This statement isn't true, as Scandinavian (North Germanic) languages are not V2.

[@ronin667]

@@GT-kb9oi Can you give me an example sentence in Norwegian or Swedish where the V2 principle doesn't apply? From Wikipedia: "Svenskan är ett tydligt exempel på ett V2-språk, även om några få typer av satser, till exempel inledande konditionala bisatser utan om, är undantag från regeln."

[@DonyaLane]

This was fascinating!

[@spendor9377]

I love reference to Nigel. Excellent and informative video.

[@maggy8197]

Fascinating, thank you for this video. I'm German and also speak English as second language. Also learnt French in the past and just started a few months ago to learn Norwegian. The funny thing is, I could still not say if English is more a scandinavian or a germanic language, but while I learn more and more of the language, even compared with German, some sentence structures or especially words are quite easy to pick up. But for me it's different, some words I can easily pick up because they sound similar to the German version, but some I can only pick up, because I know English. Example: Daughter means Datter in Norwegian, but in German it would be Tochter, so in that case, English was easier to use to understand it. On the other hand side: det smakte godt is easier to understand from German (Das hat gut geschmeckt) than from English for me (That tasted good). Just interesting how much English is influenced by soooo many different languages.

[@keiths81ca]

You bring up a point on how languages are grouped together are words for family members, colours, and body parts. Based on what you mentioned, English is closest to Norwegian.

[@cat-on-a-tree8587]

Ill-at-ease reminds me so much of a Spanish phrase, mal a gusto, which we used in the north (it is not well considered by RAE) and it makes me marvel at how languages come to the same conclusions...or share so many roots.

[@commentymccommenterson4567]

Or in French Mal a l'aise.

[@ZER0ZER0SE7EN]

The structure and word order seem to be Norman French, but using Norwegian words.

[@asgeirnilsen6752]

Ill-at-ease, Ille til mote (Norwegian)