Old Norse "Class" 3: I, We, You, etc.

[@admancr2823]

I am from Poland and I became obssesed about Scandinavian culture after watching "Vikings". Thank you for these lessons, I study Old Norse with you!

[@treekangaroo.7691]

I'm from Seattle and in the past six or so years I've picked up y'all

[@petherarlemalm55]

Hey, I just realized something when watching this. When I speak colloquial Swedish and I want to say: "I see her", the correct way to say that in standard Swedish would be: "jag ser henne". But that's not what I and most Swedes actually say, we say: jag ser 'na" which is sort of odd until you realize that that the accusative old norse word for hon/henne used to be "hana" and has been abbreviated to 'na.

[@user-un7gp4bl2l]

That's really cool, I didn't know that. Actually kind of the same thing happens in English with "them." The Old English word for "they" was "hie" and "them" was "him" (same as the singular which can be a bit confusing). This pronoun was replaced by the Old Norse one, but we still say things like "I see 'em" which is actually "I see him," not "I see them."

[@petherarlemalm55]

@@haaa6236 över hela Östergötland säger vi så i vart fall. Edit: jag vill minnas att TV-serien Goltuppen som utspelar sig i Stockholm (90-tal?) använder 'na flitigt. Exempel från den serien: "Va? Ha'ru stoppat kärringen i väskan? Du skulle begravt 'na i blomsterlådan"

[@anghw2388]

I'm following with an empty work book and filling it with everythin you are teaching Jackson. Thank you for allowing me to tap into my Icelandic heritage

[@ddemaine]

In Scotland the 2nd person plural is "youse", also used in NE England too.

[@harperwalsh9041]

It's the same in some parts of Ireland like Dublin

[@ddemaine]

@@harperwalsh9041 Ah yes, well reminded... I think I've heard Keith Duffy say that, possible Angela Scanlon too.

[@anastasiossioulas83]

Amazing teaching series. It is giving me a great chance to learn, which I was always fascinated to learn. I completely understand ancient Greek and I am slightly versed in Latin, and I can see some similarities. Thank you for your work and keep going!!

[@BernaskaneyTheLangobard]

Being a Lombard, from north of Italy, I noticed some mild similarities between old Norse and both italian and my dialect (Celtic/Germanic with Italic influences). A sentence as "þú mik varðir", "you watch me", is incredibly similar to the italian "Tu mi guardi", and it literally means the same exact thing. As for the vocalization, in italian is the same except for the þ, ð and ú sounds, where ú, the long u, in italian is short, while in my dialect the verb varða is varða, while varda is used for some king of exclamation, probably because d is stronger than ð; in italian, the infinite, is guardare. It really surprised me when I found it out by practising old Norse. In reality, Italian is full of Lombardic words, and Lombards came from Scania. I was also thinking about the Lombardic God Wōþan, and I noticed that it ends with "an", which is used in old Norse as a declension for adjectives, and both Wōþ and Óð, from Óðinn, share the same exact meanings, while Óðinn, that here has the declension inn, is also and adjective, so you could also find it as Óðan.

[@MisterBones223]

I just woke up from a nap to this great gift. Thank you. I'm becoming a Patron this Friday.

[@justsomeguywholikesdrums1481]

please never take these down 😅

[@brianphillips1864]

Thank you, thank you, for putting good mind food out there Professor! We all appreciate it!

[@querziop3.142]

Just wanted to say that your pronounciation of the german pronouns was spot on. Lots of people either butcher the /ch/ in "ich" and "mich" or they try to trill the /r/ in "mir" like they're trying to imitate a certain (in)famous austrian from the 20th century. 2:30

[@SuperSaiyanSally]

This guy is amazing

[@toraesthetic8578]

Never been so relaxed by Viking content

[@sphinxie4585]

I just discovered you! Thank you for doing these. They are wonderful.

[@davidcufc]

Interestingly in the Geordie accent of north east England 'our child' is 'wor bairn'.

[@sonnenhafen5499]

wow! check out some shetlandic, theres a "wikitounge" video where a woman is speaking it, they also have some words like barn from the norse languages :)

[@davidcufc]

@@sonnenhafen5499 Yes bairn is widely used in Scotland and also the far north of England. It must be related to the word 'borne'. But equally interesting is the similarity between Old Norse 'vár' meaning 'our' and Geordie dialect 'wor'.

[@spraffman]

"War" with a a sound rather than the aw sound of the English word "war" is also used in some Scottish dialects for "our"

[@sonnenhafen5499]

@@davidcufc in norwegian it's "barn=kid" and "vår=vár=our"

[@BoltBarkingatthemoon]

@@davidcufc Scots dialects (including the aforementioned Shetlandic) also feature a "wir" for "our" form, pretty sure it's from Old Norse at some point

[@pierreabbat6157]

I've known since childhood that the English first-person and second-person possessives are adjectives, while the third-person singular possessive, unlike German "sein" which is an adjective, is a genitive. But the third-person plural I wasn't sure of until a few years ago. Knowing that "they" was borrowed from Norse, I looked up the Icelandic declension and concluded that "their" is a genitive.

[@faramund9865]

In Dutch we used to have 'u' as the second person plural accusative and possessive form ('jij' nominative). In Flemish you will still hear this, but the whole thing moved to the singular. 'gij zijt'. Y'all are. But that 'u' sounds almost exactly like the 'y' in yðr. Ik zie u. Ek sé yðr.

[@bryack]

When did De for formal you (now almost gone) enter Danish and Norwegian? Was it adapted from German Sie? When was that introduced? If these are not historically original but deliberately created (to express class distinctions?), it makes an interesting analogue to contemporary proposed pronoun innovations.

[@asjenmensink2740]

Dutch kinda did the same with thou and you. In the Netherlands jij(pronounced y-Eye) (acc-dat jou; poss jouw), both [pronounced y-OW) replaced the original singular du(dij dijn) in Middle Dutch around 1500. Then later 'jij lieden' (you people) was invented to distinguish the plural which became modern jullie (yuh-lee). The southern gij (kh-eye) became an archeic formal form while its dative-accusative u(poss uw) became the standard formal second person in the Netherlands. In Belgium gij and u are used both singular and plural. (Also writing Dutch pronunciation in English is tough). The Gronings and Limburgish dialects are the only dialects that stil use the d- form (dou and doe resp.).

[@faramund9865]

Zij niet echt dialecten, zijn talen op zich.

[@bigblackcrocs5158]

I’m struggling with trying to translate “I have no enemies” into old Norse. I’m understanding the Ek for I, but then for “have” is “enemies” an abstract concept that would be “hefa” or is it something that can be possessed and therefore be “eiga”. And then for “enemies” fjándi and óvinr. Fjándi seems to fit less as it means that devil/fiend kind of enemy while óvinr is not-friend kinda. But then I struggle with the total grammar and plural forms to get what the best way to translate the whole sentence is. If you could answer that would be very helpful.

[@KitAlda]

Some Norwegian dialects use "dokkar" for plural you.

[@shaevor5680]

You state the genitive as "þeira" where wiktionary lists "þeirra". Are both forms used interchangably? Or is maybe one form earlier and the other one later?

[@dispater5023]

Really good stuff here. Thanks!

[@jaktfalk]

I've made a Memrise course corresponding to these lessons. I'll update it as new videos are posted, here you go! www.memrise.com/course/5748240/old-norse-lessons-grammar-and-vocabulary/

[@oneukum]

So why is "hon" with a normal 'o', not caudata? Is that form not the result of dropping a -u?

[@mennskr]

Perhaps I missed something, but how do I say "my gifts" or "my wifes"? "kona mín" in plural, or in danish "mine gaver" or "mine koner"

[@ninjadude971]

Probably “konur mínar” I think

[@HeatherRenee2017]

I’ve got blisters on my fingers lol.

[@TheMoochins]

Thanks!

[@pppppaaaaaccccchhh]

Can the third person neuter singular - þat - be used to refer to people too?

[@Lindormber]

Is the "ei" in "their" pronounced the same as the "é" in mér? (Their gáfu...) Not an "e-i diphthong"? And the "í" in "mín" is a long vowel? It sounded kinda short. And the "thví" is pronounced like..."thwi"?

[@Kyle-uo5bg]

I definitely heard "ei" not "é" for þeir, þeim, etc. and afaik (short) i = /ɪ/ and (long) í = /i/ as mentioned in the first video of the series :)

[@s.c.johnson147]

he's explained before that he thinks that v after a consonant was probably pronounced like a w rather than a v.

[@irfanb4332]

In Dutch ‘baren’ is to give birth to something. I wonder if that is related to the Old Norse word barn.

[@hunterball902]

Well in English we have bear, as in "to bear a child"

[@johnloster6896]

Why doesn't honum have o caudata?

[@anotherelvis]

11:38 The nominative and accusative forms of he ("he" and "him") are different in modern Danish but similar in old Norse. Is it possible that west Norse and east Norse developed differently here or did Danish somehow reinvent the grammatical distinction at a later date?

[@aaronpearson1744]

These lessons are mostly focused on Old Icelandic, so I think it would be safe to assume it was an east/west norse distinction. But I don't really know so don't take my word for it lol

[@polyhistorphilomath]

Probably a collective decision (rightly decided) that the masculine accusative singular should be marked. Think about it. It was the right call. Thank you, Danes of yore.

[@k1lkenny]

All those forms exists exactly the same in Swedish still today, interestingly even the dative case (which is nowhere else in Swedish anymore from what I can remember) - Han, han , hans, honom

[@purple_purpur7379]

Does _þau_ being used as a pronoun for mixed groups mean that _þat_ was used as an epicene 3rd person singular pronoun?

[@stanislok.7106]

It was mainly used for neuter nouns and I don't think so it was used to call somebody whose sex is neither m nor f thinking of the culture and way of thinking back than I believe. And I'm 100% sure that in my language, which is Polish and has three genders as well, calling somebody the 3rd sg n sound very strange and even disrespectful, so maybe it was so in ON.

[@GreenLarsen]

Vit tvau, I will just assume everyone here will understand the reference/joke ^^

[@sonnenhafen5499]

...uhhhm?

[@pedropontes2230]

8:15

[@gearhead1234]

Lol.. "You all" around here is either "yous" or "yinz "... Can you guess where? 😜

[@seanbeadles7421]

Central PA? Yous is more East coast and Yinz is clear Pittsburgh

[@leocomerford]

6:29 Ye had to innovate something? ;P

[@fallen6060]

Oh hello lol.