Old Norse vs Modern Icelandic: A Demonstration

[@JacksonCrawford]

I knew I’d notice an error only once this was edited and posted, and here it is: in the Old Norse text, for ‘ørmul þau’ (accusative) in the last two lines, I ought to have written ‘ørm(u)lum þeim’ (dative), as the thing you rob (‘ræna’) is dative. The grammar of this part is right in the Modern Icelandic text (‘urmul’ is the dative of ‘urmull’), which lulled me into not noticing this discrepancy in the Old Norse-and my surprise that ‘ørmul’ and ‘urmull’ aren’t the same grammatical gender distracted me, as you rarely see that happen. Surely the rune tattoo guys of KZbin could do better if they deigned to.

[@annatraustadottir4387]

Very good modern Icelandic. A few points from a modern Icelander. The demonstrative pronoun (ábendingarfornafnið), sá, is still used in modern Icelandic. I use it every day. Sá dreymandi er Auðunn hét, would though be considered very formal and old fashioned sentence. Sá maður er kom fyrstur að slysinu ..., Sá maður sem/er ég virði mest..., are sentences that are not strange in modern Icelandic (especially written) and you can read such sentences in the news media. I sometimes use, er, instead of, sem. It is certainly more formal but not strange. In modern Icelandic it is polite to use borða for eat, if you are talking about people, but you use éta when referring to animals. But modern Icelanders still often use éta for people because Icelanders often are not polite and because it is natural to use the word éta if the person is eating with greed or in a messy way or you are angry with him for some reason. I would think that a modern Icelander would ask a troll not to éta him rather than not to borða him. I think a troll eating a man would not be civilized deed enough to deserve the word borða. I apologize for my English, it is much worse than your Icelandic. I love your channel.

[@paulmanson253]

@@annatraustadottir4387 Do not apologize. Your English was excellent.

[@hrafnkellhardarson9206]

@thesatanic6 If you read this you are not getting the joke and there is no self deprecation or self-hatred going on and just try to have some sense of humor.

[@beatmasterinn]

I would think that fishing in that sentence would almost always be translated to veiðar, "...var hann að veiða einn á ströndinni" I would also replace nær with nálægt, Auðun býr nálægt Eyjafjallajökli, It would be nær if you were talking about another place beeing near, like "Það eru tveir vegir heim til Auðuns og hann keyrir veginn nær Eyjafjallajökli" Your Icelandic pronounciation is great, I would love to discuss more about the Icelandic language but my english is definetly not as good as your Icelandic. The main problem with Icelandic is that there are so many words for the same things that you can almost newer translate Icelandic word for word (wich is why Google translate does not work) you have to translate sentences.

[@thefineartofwalkingpoint]

Ha, how self effacing of you.Absolutely love you and your channel( the transatlantic english accent was an affect that hollywood employed and the masses copied) Look forward to being able to afford everything you produce and take your courses direct from you.

[@magnush.gislason7169]

As a native speaker this was a great lesson. Its always a little freaky hearing a non native speaker pronounce something perfectly in Icelandic, its a bit like fey magic, somebody speaking your 'true name' . There are some words you pronounce with some accent, in some cases I heard your english accent but in a few others the modern icelandic might even have had a bit of an Old Norse accent? Thanks a lot for sharing your work with everybody. Thanks for the anti nonsense disclaimer.

[@alexanderficken9354]

I speak Icelandic at home with my mom, and not very often, but I heard some old Norse accent too, some of the i's and u's were out of place. I've always been taught by my mother that old Norse is basically the same as Icelandic, but apparently a lot of the words and pronunciations are different. Probably could learn old Norse pretty easily though, as it still looks pretty similar.

[@Branzinn01]

It was not perfect but cloos

[@ParagonPariah213]

we have this difrence in double LL. what about FL ? I mean like pronunciatoon of words like kafla or skofla. Did that change from old norsk as well ?

[@siggi250290]

Íslenskan er nánast alveg einsog gamla Norskan. Eina sem hefur eiginlega breyst (Sem er mjög umdeilt) er varðar framburð eru stafirnir Æ og É..... "Æ" var meira að mig minnir einsog "ei" og "é" einsog "e". Og afhverju er það umdeilt? Vegna þess að nýja Norskan, Sænskan og Danskan hefur svo mikið breyst undanfarin 600 ár að ég held við munum aldrei vita með vissu hvort sá framburður var réttur einsog ég minntist á og aðrir sem stúdera gömlu Norskuna. Ég persónulega tel framburð Íslendinga líklegastur til að hafa verið notaður í gömlu Norskunni aðalega afþví við getum enn skilið hvert einasta orð í Snorra Eddunni og höfum enn djúpann skilning á því hvaðan orðin koma og hvernig þeim var beygt á miðöldum. Lestu td. gömlu stjórnaskrá Danmörku og Svíþjóð frá 13. öld. Þú munt skilja hvert einasta orð, þó eru nokkur gömul þýsk orð en við skiljum þau líka. Þar með hefur gamla Norskan öll þau kjarna orð sem voru notuð í Skandinavíu, Saxónísku og engilsaxnesku (gömlu enskunni) sem við notum enn í dag eða geymum í orðaforða okkar í bækum eða undirmeðvitund. bara Td. beyging á orðum einsog Torf, Tyrfa, Tarfur gefur auga leið að orðin þýða það sama en þarna er hægt að breyta nafnorð yfir í sagnorð og koll að kolli. En þú svosem veist þetta. Við erum Íslendingar og stoltið okkar getur vel afvegaleitt umræðuna og veikt sannfæringamátt okkar til nágrannalanda okkar er varðar framburð. Ég hef þó miklar áhyggjur af framtíð Íslenskunnar, unga kynslóðin eftir 1990 er farinn að nota ensku slettur yfir annað hvert orð og skólarnir leggja ekki næga áheyrslu á mikilvægi tungumáls okkar. ég man að ég var algjörlega áhugalaus á Snorra eddu og heimskringlu td. í grunnskóla afþví námsefnið var kynnt á eins leiðilegann hátt og mögulega var. Það þurfti ekki nema smá myndræna og heilræna kynningu á efninu svo það myndi fanga athygli mínu, þvílíks skömm því ég fór ekki að lesa þessar bækur með neinum skilningi né metnaði fyrr en ég varð þrítugur. Bara það að bæta við lesningu á Völsungarsögum gefur okkar meira innsýn inní hugarheim Norðmanna og Svía fyrir Kristnitöku og þar sjáum við greinilega að Baldur sonur Óðins er í raun Jesú Kristur.

[@jurikurthambarskjelfir3533]

@@siggi250290 Sure..........

[@TheMDJ2000]

My Thai partner has been away from Thailand in Australia for around 30 years. She still speaks fluently, but locals can instantly tell she's been outside the country for a long time, because of the way modern Thai has evolved in just three decades.

[@Mrdresden]

As a native Icelandic speaker, I usually walk away from your videos with more understanding of my heritage then I had before. Don't let the armchair experts get to you, in all likelyhood you speak at least one (if not both) of these languages better then most of them. Hope you keep up the excellent work!

[@greywolfwalking6359]

Indeed,agreed 👍🧙‍♂️!

[@Handle5869]

*…better thAn most of them.

[@nielslund5959]

As an Icelander my jaw dropped when you started speaking. Best pronounciation from a foreigner I've heard. Good job mate👍

[@sadness5828]

Can I ask you a question?

[@AshwiniViolet7]

​@@sadness5828 no

[@tanya_thivier9]

You haven’t heard a lot of fireignets speak then :)

[@freyjasvansdottir9904]

I moved away from Iceland 18 years ago and I can really hear a definite difference in how the language is spoken now versus when I left

[@stoplaughing7363]

Why you moved away if i may ask?

[@GodstoneHawk]

Hvernig lýsir það sér? Það er auðvitað munur á milli kynslóða en svo sláandi eins þú ert að lýsa.

[@funsizedi88]

That's so crazy to hear! My father in law lived in Germany(on an US AF base) from birth until 8 yo(in the mid 1950s until the mid 1960s).When he went back to cost for a month in the 1980s and again in the 2010s, he said that both times it sounded very different. He speaks German on a daily basis, with people in Germany and in the US. He says he can tell the person's general age by how they speak(they are all from the same area, Frankfurt mostly- so not a regional thing).

[@faramund9865]

Hahaha I love how your voice pitch goes up when speaking Icelandic, so typical xD

[@myNamesTakin]

Everyone else says down lmao

[@Strykehjerne]

As a Norwegian I don't understand how he is dropping his voice so low.. it would be considered threatening.. men should sing higher than and more.. happily 😁

[@myNamesTakin]

@@Strykehjerne it could be that's how his teacher naturally spoke. Or just easier to speak like that

[@Strykehjerne]

@@myNamesTakin nah.. it's just.. his pitch definitely rises when he leaves the Old, serious mode. And goes with the modern 😉 (My comment is probably more related to his American, in a low, slow, deliberate mode . even compared to all the British dialectical variants). Not sure I really find it threatening at all 😉.. I have friends that speak like he does.. it is probably just a personal thing. Just Sounds introverted to most Norwegians. Remember. I don't understand Icelandic, off hand at all.. not sure I understand all Norwegians either.. With new Icelandic friend, we quickly switch to a mix of English and they rely on some kind of Danish education that some have had (I think - ? Which complicates things, because Danes and Norwegians aren't necessarily instantly mutually intelligeble to each other .. ) Personally I find Faroese easier than Icelandic. But that's just a little random. As I have a English/Norwegian bilingual brain from birth) I just find it fascinating. His vantage point, ours, and the past and the present - all right there - in words. ❤️ We Scandinavians all sing a lot, in a lot of different ways.. Mostly Not loudly. But we sing 🎵🎶 and get through a lot of different pitches. (My French friends think I sound like a turkey 🦃 when I speak Norwegian on the phone 🤪)

[@sirseigan]

​@@Strykehjerne And as a Swede I think Norwegians often sounds a bit to.... "happy" because of the higher pitch :-) Even though my dialect is heavily influenced by Old West-Norse we still tend to go down in the end, unless it is a question. Though the difference highly depends on what Norwegian dialect is spoken. Some are very very close, other not so close. However I too seem to have an easier time understand Faroese easier than Icelandic as some words seem to be closer to how we pronounce them, but far from all are though.

[@thogameskanaal]

"Go back to playing Fortnite or something" I don't know why, but hearing that from Jackson like that made me laugh really hard.

[@toti-pals]

Hi . Im a native Icelandic speaker and I have to say that your pronunciation of Icelandic is rather good. These vowels and r sound are no joke to master

[@littlesnowflakepunk855]

Weirdly, the thing I've had most trouble with as an English speaker is differentiating between þ and ð. Saying það is kind of rough when both letters are transcribed in english in my head as "th."

[@ivarszickus4570]

That’s odd because English has both sounds. The ‘th’ in thin is like þ , the ‘th’ in that is like ð.

[@littlesnowflakepunk855]

@@ivarszickus4570 We have the sounds but we use them more or less interchangeably, and a lot of them change depending on ones accent.

[@kijul468]

@@littlesnowflakepunk855 Yeah. My dialect only has [ð], but only word-initial. Everywhere else it's [v], and [θ] (þ) is [f]. that [ðat] - that [ðaʔ] father ['fɑ:ðə] - fava ['fɑ:va] bath [bɑθ] - baf [baf] But I can distinguish between [θ] and [ð].

[@raxamonbathory8633]

@@ivarszickus4570 One has to understand in English, the hard TH versus the soft th has no meaning for us, both are simply Th, there is no need for distinction in English (and thus no symbols for them). But then there is much about how English sounds and how it is written that is not distinctly clarified with the symbols of our alphabet as well. So as a fellow native English speaker I can wholly empathize with littlesnowflakepunk. We may have both the sounds...but there simply is no distinction and thus no need to clarify, I suspect the only reason we have a hard and soft Th sound at all is merely the vestigial remains of older languages in English's genesis. For little snowflake...I feel the way to know the difference is to listen to the sounds and write as you hear it...hard or soft. Then repeat as read. As long as your brain knows which symbol is hard and which is soft your tongue will follow suit with practice.

[@weepingscorpion8739]

Let me see how well I can translate this into Faroese, which is my native language: Ein droymandi maður, ið/sum æt Eyðun, býr nærindis Oyggjafjallajøkli. Í dreyminum hjá sær fiskaði hann einsamallur á strondini, tá hann sá eina trøllkonu og óttaðist tað versta. "Et meg ikki!" sigur hann. "Ikki eri eg mannátari," sigur hon. "Hvør vil ræna/stjala frá hávunum molarnar, ið/sum søma teimum?" Some constructions are not found in Faroese anymore, so this is as good as it gets from my hand.

[@weepingscorpion8739]

That's pretty grossly simplified. I would really like to know what you base that on.

[@MarkPierro]

Hi Scorpion, how comprehensible is Icelandic to you? Both modern and old. I only speak English, some bad German and a little bad swedish, so I’d value your opinion. All the best to you

[@sirhumpalotalot1657]

Eg hevði eisini skilt tað soleiðis

[@leafes1644]

@@weepingscorpion8739 did you just reply to yourself

[@Dyrlingur]

Icelandic people and Faroese people understand each other even though they do not speak 100% the same language. However when it comes to Icelandic Faroese people are the closest to the old Norse than any other country that used to speak the language. I have often met people from Faroe Islands and spoken to them with no problems. Both understanding them and they understanding me. That is because Iceland and Faroe Islands are the greatest countries in the world when it comes to our over 1000 year old cultures.

[@jonko82]

Excellent video. I, as an Icelander, I want to say that your Icelandic pronounciation is excellent. You don't sound quite like a native but that can't be expected of you. If you were to come and live in Iceland for maybe a couple of years you'd likely get to the same level of speech as the natives. Íslenska/Icelandic: Frábært myndband. Ég, sem Íslendingur, vil segja að íslenski framburðurinn þinn er frábær. Þú hljómar ekki alveg eins og innfæddur en það er ekki hægt að ætlast til þess af þér. Ef þú kæmir og byggir á Íslandi í kannski tvö ár eða svo þá kæmist þú líklega upp á sama málstig og hinir innfæddu.

[@jordanlake9819]

Thank you so much for sharing this super valuable information! I'm taking basics right now and am considering majoring in Anthropology/Linguistics and I love this type of content! Thank for sharing your knowledge ✨

[@limbridk]

From an Icelander: great video. Loads of tiny details that I picked up on and I can use to understand the Old Norse even easier. Your pronounciation is impressive. Well done.

[@jonko82]

In Icelandic we still use the verb 'to eat' (að éta) but many consider it improper when it refers to humans eating: 'Mannfólk borðar en dýr éta' as some in Iceland say. which kind of could be translated as: Humans dine but animals eat.

[@erikz1337]

jonko82 in Sweden we still use "äta" but the Danes say "spise"

[@Aremeriel]

@@erikz1337 in Norwegian, we use both 'spise' and 'ete'. ;)

[@lDanielHolm]

@@mroldnewbie Yeah, "æde" is considered a rather vulgar manner of eating, i.e. grabbing your food with your grubby paws instead of a knife and fork.

[@cwmyr]

Interesting. In German we have "essen", which is the normal way of "eat", "speisen" which is more fancy, and "fressen" which is vulgar or reserved for animals. As in "Fleischfresser" (Carnivore) or "Friss ...!" (Eat ...!).

[@jonko82]

@@mroldnewbie. Yeah, I've been told that this is most likely due to Danish influence. The reason we have two different verbs for proper dining and another for animals or humans who eat grubbily.

[@mundih]

Vel gert! Virkilega gaman að heyra þessu stillt upp svona, takk fyrir þetta Jackson!

[@beebscalicor]

Hahaha! "So...take one big step off of my back". lol. I love your channel, your videos are amazing. You are doing such a wonderful job! Skál!

[@RobinBaggett]

"Go back to playing Fortnite" Hahaha that's amazing. Great video as always!

[@superturkeylegs]

We need to see Dr. Crawford default dance in old Norse

[@Varasalvi2]

Your Icelandic pronunciation is so good, practiced or not, it's impressive. I know people that have lived here 10+ years and do not pronounce this well.

[@lordofooo4386]

The example of whether and weather made me feel exceptionally old.

[@captainfalldown]

Thank you, Dr. Crawford. Love your videos! The PSAs are a nice touch too - too much Völkisch craziness out there.

[@carmineginocchio7783]

The thing that is absolutely nuts, is the fact you could probably take someone from Scandinavia ~950AD, and they could probably have a relatively easier time communicating with an Icelander, than if you did the same with an Old English Speaker and modern speaker.

[@chuckfriebe843]

A German would have more in common linguistically with an Old English speaker than a modern English speaker, as you described.

[@melodi996]

@@chuckfriebe843 from comments on vids about Old English people also very often mention Danish as very close to what English was back then.

[@b43xoit]

Yeah, we English-speakers experienced that little hiccup in 1066.

[@bubach85]

Stuff like this is what makes KZbin great. Thanks dude!

[@rosimdark]

I'm from Iceland and have been living in Norway for the last 10 years "in the west" and its interesting to hear how some of the things that have change are still in the Norwegian language, your pronunciations are good, especially the hard words like Eyjafjallajökull. I am impressed! I can understand much of the old language but its true there is a big difference and it was taught in history at school when i was younger.

[@bomba1905]

Here in Norway it is often said that Icelandic is closer to old Norwegian than modern Norwegian is. Therefore, I found it interesting that there were several places, like some of the pronunciations, where the Old Norse sounded closer to modern Norwegian than to the modern Icelandic.

[@lpinbrez]

Takk fyrir for posting this! I was a German major in uni a million years ago, but had a course in Old Norse. Now I am trying to learn Scandinavian languages (mostly Swedish), so fun to see the similarities and differences.

[@simplemom8522]

That was fascinating, especially the word-for-word pronunciation comparisons. Recently found this channel and love it! Thank you for sharing your knowledge, Dr. Crawford.

[@skyoncloud5180]

This man is such a good guy. You can just tell.

[@DarDarBinks1986]

Videos like this make me wish we'd revive Old Norse as a modern language in the same way that the Vatican revived Latin or how the Israeli government resurrected Hebrew. It also makes me wonder how a descendant language of Old Norse would sound if the Norse had permanently settled the New World. They could still understand their cousins in Iceland and Greenland. Or their language could grow so distinct as to be unintelligible to outsiders. All I know is that they won't speak Icelandic or Norwegian because identical vocabularies aren't going to occur twice. They'd have their own North Germanic language.

[@MarkPierro]

Hi Doc, your videos are fascinating, keep making them!

[@anthonyappleyard5688]

I remember that volcano name Eyjafjallajokull :: when that eruption happened, the BBC newsreaders refused to try to pronounce it, but always called it "the Iceland volcano".

[@disekjoumoer]

In spite of the differences, it's incredible how close Icelandic is to old Norse. I know that there is a Swedish dialect that has kept case declensions, as has Faroese, but Icelandic really amazes me.

[@nurarihion]

whenever I see your thumbnails i think of a Cowboy Viking, or a viking that was raised in the midwest, excellent content as always

[@roryfriththetraveller4982]

i generally love languages (though im a native English speaker with a very clumsy tongue) and studied archaeology mostly around the Viking age in England, so this is absolutely fascinating! Its very interesting just looking at how languages change over time and in how much they stay the same ~

[@venm5887]

Doc, I will continue to give to your channel you provide so much knowledge. Thank you very much for your time and please continue.

[@zakarhaavevuo2574]

This is quality content man. Thank you for making these videos. Greetings from Finland.

[@nostopit179]

You are the hero that we all need but will never deserve

[@Axelth89]

Pretty well done. As a native Icelandic speaker, this was pretty good!

[@VosperCDN]

Great video, and the latter word by word comparison really helped show the difference.

Without a doubt there are changes but it is still perfectly understandable. In the sample text I saw just one word modern speakers might not know. A couple of those minor vocabulary differences still appear in modern formal language and song lyrics. "Borðaðu" for "et" could be replaced by "ét/éttu" but "éta" is mostly used when speaking of animals eating. "Eta" is also an option for humans eating but it is even rarer in modern speech.

[@matthewmcree1992]

If you had been my professor, I would have actually wanted to go to class (although I would have to work hard to not slobber all over). Nothing I like more than a PhD educated university professor that actually knows how to speak to normal (non-academic) people and looks good doing it LOL. In all seriousness though, I always learn a lot whenever I watch your videos Prof. Crawford!

[@svavarknuturkristinsson6671]

To be fair, Éta is still perfectly appropriate when referring to eating away from a domicile setting. :-)

[@Spooky96]

So interesting. I love this video, and you explain it so well. Thank you!

[@markhurdiss4378]

Just discovered your channel. What you have created here is amazing! Thank you.

[@doinkindonut]

I love you're videos, glad I found your channel!

[@artkoenig9434]

Just like we do not speak English like Geoffrey Chaucer or German like Oswald von Wolkenstein,, one can hardly expect Old Norse to sound like modern Icelandic. Thank you for your explanation!

[@SwedenTheHedgehog]

It is so interesting to me that, even though Swedish has clearly changed a lot more than Icelandic has over the centuries, I can definitely understand 90% of what you're saying, maybe 95% given that Ian follow along with the text, and that the pace isn't too quick! My linguistic background is just Swedish, and the fact that I am from a fairly rural and therefore dialectal place in Värmland, I understand this much of it. And I can also tell where Icelandic developed in one direction, and seemingly Swedish kept closer to the original form. Where the Old Norse sentence is >> "Ek em engi mannæta" segir hun "Jag är ingen människoätare", säger hon > "Ja' ä' inga mansätêrsk", sejêr ho'

[@templeofsticks8091]

Another awesome video. I picked up your translation of the Poetic Edda a while ago. Really great stuff, man!

[@fani5000]

Nice "ell" ;) And your use of the "secret H" as I like to call it, is impressive (aspiration before pp kk tt). I really liked seeing those texts side by side. Takk fyrir!

[@mikewellwood1412]

Many thanks for all the detailed hard work you put into this. Most appreciated by this absolute beginner.

[@TEV0714]

Have you ever looked in to Älvdalska? It's a very old Swedish dialect with only about 2000 remaining native speakers. Having been isolated, it retained many elements from Old Norse. Up until 100 years ago, the people of the region still wrote with runes.

[@annabackman3028]

Also Jamska (Jämtländska) is interesting. The county Jämtland is bordering Norway, and has been Norwegian for long times, in the middle of the Scandinavian peninsula. Many years ago I read an old book (from the 1940s - 1950s) about Jamska, comparing to (then) modern Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic and Old Norse. Nowadays very few people still speak the old dialects of Jamska, which is a petty I think, but when I came across that book people over 70ys couldn't speak Swedish. The grammar was much closer to Old and Icelandic than Norwegian nor Swedish, the vocabulary had some Swedish, but the greater part was words that were the same as Old Norse, Norwegian, some more similar to Icelandic and words and expressions that were used in Swedish now 150-200 years ago. I was around 14 - 15 when I read it, and it gave me a lifelong interest in the evolution and relationship between languages. Somehow it also gave me a "key" to look for words that look similar, but they mean different things. Often they are derived from the same origin, but the meanings have drifted apart, and vice versa. Swedish is heavily effected by German, Old Low German particularly, which is a reason we use a lot of different words than in Norwegian and Danish. Those worlds can still exist in Swedish but are very rarely used. (The typical example that stretches to English is "wind-eye"; window - vindu (Danish), - vindue - (Norwegian), - fönster (Swedish, from the Low German 'Vinster', in German 'Fenster', coming from the Latin 'fenstere'.) Sweden took in that word during the 'Hansa' era, when both Stockholm and Visby were trading centers and had a lot of Low German speaking living there. They were pretty wealthy people, and wanted glass windows, not mostly hatchets, 'vindaughe'. However, the word still exists, though rarely used, now 'vindöga' in Swedish, usually for a hatchet or a tiny window to an attic or loft. 'Glugg', 'vindsglugg' are synonyms for 'vindöga' in Swedish, but I think 'glugg' also is familiar to our Icelandic speaking brothers and sisters as 'gluggi'!

[@benni8057]

I love it when a native english speaker talks icelandic. The the accent sounds very Shakespearean.

[@keegster7167]

Benni That’s interesting! Do you mean it’s more sing-songy like a poem? Or is it the pronunciation itself?

[@benni8057]

@@keegster7167 the pronunciation and the tone.

[@jacksonrodabaugh9984]

Great vid Doc! Learned something new as always 😃 you deserve a million subscribers!!

[@joethetarotguy]

Your awesome, thank you for all your work and excellent teaching skills! 👍👍👍👍👍

[@SvartUlf]

As always thanks so much for providing this content to us for free.

[@mattbarclay]

As always, wonderfully informative. Many thanks for sharing your hard earned education with us.

[@yerdasellsavon9232]

The shades are brilliant

[@gunnargujohnsen-bollason3549]

Dr. Crawford. I admire your skills in Old Norse/Icelandic and like your videos very much.. I would, however, like to point out that some of the words in your comparishment that regarding ON that we still use in daily life here in Iceland, e.g. in television addresses. and formal speaches - Best regards from Iceland, - Gunnar.

[@anna_k_89]

Wow! Excellent pronunciation! It really messed up my mind when I heard you speak near perfect Icelandic. I just stumbled upon this video, but I'm watching more :)

[@olawcristophersoun1373]

Near perfect?

[@anna_k_89]

@@olawcristophersoun1373 That's what I wrote.

[@olawcristophersoun1373]

@@anna_k_89, I am Icelandic you silly person. Was no perfect, not even near. Pass able.

[@anna_k_89]

@@olawcristophersoun1373 Það er þá baaara algjörlega þín skoðun. Mér fannst'etta bara rugl töff hjá'onum. ;)

[@chrisb.1464]

Tusen takk for sharing dear Jackson. Actually I'm half-french, half-norwegian. It's so interesting to learn Old Norse and hear your pronounciation of nordic languages. In Icelandic you pronounce the "kk" of "ekki" (that means "not") the same way that some norwegians pronounce it in "ikke" [içæ] (same meaning), especially in Bergen. Even though the Icelandic is clother to Old Norse than Norwegian, the pronounciation of Norwegian is sometimes clother to Old Norse than Icelandic is. For example, "troll" [trɔll] in Norwegian ([tʁɔll] in Bergen) and "tröll" [trøtl] in Icelandic.

[@arndisheimis]

As a native speaker I just want to say well done! Interesting and fun to watch! Your accent is great. You can also say éttu meaning borðaðu. But we would generally use that as the negative way of saying eat (because animals éta but us humans borða). Takk fyrir áhugavert myndaband! :)

[@Bozemoto]

In Swedish we say Äta, so that's pretty interesting. 'Bord' means table in Swedish, so is it a kind of animals eat but people dine kind of vibe to it? Seems like each of the Nordic countries have retained different bits and pieces of old Norse.

[@beebobox]

You pronounced "ég er engin mannæta" nearly perfectly. You are awesome dude :)

[@fimbulsummer]

Thank you for this information. You don’t know how much I appreciate it. The university i studied Old Norse at got rid of all these subjects years ago - tried to destroy the Classics department. If you want to learn Old English, Middle English, Gothic, Old Norse etc. now, you’re out of luck in this state of Australia.

[@stepdancer05afgs0000]

This was an excellent, informative video. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us!

[@Darvit_Nu]

I keep coming back to your pronunciation videos to listen, repeat, listen... lol. We appreciate you, your knowledge and your time! This explains why I simply can not use the Icelandic speaker to help me sort things out. I also naturally speak with a more Norwegian accent and find it much easier to follow and understand your O.N. I'm grateful for you & your channel every day! Thank you ^_^

[@davidguardado8282]

Amazingly similar to each other if you ask me. A lot of languages nowadays have much larger regional variation than that.

[@TonyRichards93]

Thank you for all the work you have done/are still doing. I’m slowly making my way through your videos (with books on order) and am learning a lot. I am interested in trying to learn to read/speak Old Norse, would you suggest learning Modern Icelandic first to understand the basics and use it as a stepping stone? A positive would be to learn a new language that I could use in conversation even if only at a basic level. Which with Old Norse understandably there’s not many people who speak it/use it. Thanks again Dr Crawford!

[@myvikingmom6218]

As always, I learned something and I enjoyed it. Thank you. I have always loved how you pronounce your W.

[@Correctrix]

Do you really mean W, or WH?

[@oececawolf]

@@Correctrix Nice username, and I see you're living up to it 😄

[@dxundownload8635]

Love that shade! Haters gunna hate but this channel as helped me to reignite my love for learning languages. Thank you so much for all your work. Almost 30 and still havent been able to go to college because I have so many Bill's to pay but this channel has made me feel less like a layabout.

[@medanapepenel4736]

Great video as always, thank you for sharing with all of us such interesting information.

[@Mosern1977]

As a Norwegian, I'm sure that if my life depended upon it, and with some alcohol and finger pointing, I would be able to communicate with both an Old Norse speaker and an Icelandic speaker.

[@osirun6572]

Great video. As an icelander it was very illuminating on how old norse differs from modern icelandic. Seriously impressive modern iclelandic pronunciation too. Small side note: most icelanders use the word "veiđa" for fishing. Veiđa means hunting, but it's usually clear from context if youre referring to fishing or other forms of hunting. "... var han ađ veiđa einn á ströndinni..." would be how most modern icelanders would say it.

[@theintp1732]

Komdu sæll og blessaður, Jackson! Ég eingöngu tala reiprennandi ensku, en að vissu marki, ég get líka talað sænsku, dönsku, norsku, smá litháísku, pólsku, íslensku, og mjög smá þýsku og rússnesku.

[@oneaurora]

Does Old Norse poetry translated into modern Icelandic usually retain the alliteration, meter, etc of the original?

[@madbrad6282]

You’re so close to being a rockstar!!

[@thorstmixx]

Informative video, and impressive pronunciation for a non-native speaker! But I'd just like to mention something I noticed, just for clarity's sake: Some of the words you've chosen for the modern Icelandic version are absolutely correct and valid, but have equivalents that are closer to the original Norse. For example, "Borðaðu" could easily have been "Éttu", and "Ekki" could also have been "Eigi". Also, the word 'Er' can still be used in both of the senses it was used in the norse version of your story, especially in verse/poetry/storytelling! You can for example say "Hann var að fiska á ströndinni er hann sá tröllkonu", meaning "He was fishing on the beach when he saw a troll-woman".

[@toshineon]

This is really interesting, as a swedish speaker, it's fun to see how some words are still similar to what we have in swedish. Like "segir hann" means the same as "säger han", and "versta" means the same as "värsta".

[@pz29]

The expression "it is I who" is still alive and well in modern Norwegian. For example, when you call someone on the phone, you would say "This is (insert name) who is calling."

[@magnusg.bjornsson6641]

Very good indeed, and your modern Icelandic pronunciation is commendable. Two things I would like to add regarding your text: a) Modern Icelandic has got both the verb 'borða' and the verb 'eta' )with a comma above the e which my computer does not reckognise). Eta is now mostly used for animals but also for "uncouth" or vulgar eating habits. b) maybe hv-sound has now become a kv-sound all over Iceland, but 68 and 69 years ago hv was still pronounced like the 1940s US "whether-sound" in Suðurþingeyjarsyzla.

[@iddet8867]

I have noticed that when you write modern Icelandic the text tends to be very formal and old. An example is “borðaðu mig ekki”, we would say “Ekki éta mig”.

[@itsTmanGaming]

I am a native Icelandic speaker, and the only thing I heard that was different from what we tend to speak and what you sounded like is your pronunciation of Eyjafjallajokli is we have a distinct pronunciation of the “ll” that sound more like click or “ckt” sound. Every thing else is good. And it’s also a good lesson for me and those who are trying to learn, as Icelandic is quite a hard language to learn

[@Enoughdata]

I find this really fascinating. I've been studying Latin recently and I found it odd that there were a few similarities between old Norse/Icelandinc and Latin. One thing that's obvious is the grammatical cases. Now I don't speak a lick of Icelandic or old Norse, nor have I never studied them, but I'm guessing that the preposition "Í" takes its noun in the dative case, which is really interesting because the Latin preposition "in" also takes its noun in the dative case.

[@keegster7167]

Omega501 I’ve been learning Latin for a good chunk of my life. So, Latin “in” only takes the ablative or accusative, actually. But you’re not completely wrong: in Old English, and probably Old Norse too (although I’ve not studied Old Norse myself though), the ablative seems to have been replaced by the dative. The dative, in essence, is doing double duty as indirect object and as object of (many) prepositions. Exactly the same thing happened in Greek, too, actually: in Greek the dative is also more or less the equivalent of the Latin ablative. And there are some similarities going back to PIE from all of these languages, which are very interesting to see.

[@Starkardur]

I know an Italian guy who speaks very good Icelandic. He spoke German as well. I asked him that knowing German must have helped him learning Icelandic. He said yes but also studying Latin was a great base as well.

[@ZardoDhieldor]

það var ekki slæmt! I'm a German, learning (modern) Icelandic and despite the strong similarities between the languages I have quite some difficulties learning the pronunciation. Haltu áfram við góða verkið! (I hope that's correct!)

[@Muminalfurinn]

Nei, it's an awkward sentence in Icelandic. Haltu áfram or haltu þessu áfram is more fitting.

[@ZardoDhieldor]

@@Muminalfurinn Ah, thanks a lot. I'm afraid I still have very little feel for the language.

[@MarkPierro]

Hi Lepus, tell me what is it like learning Icelandic for a German speaker. Grammar, cases and vocabulary. My German is crap, but enough for a holiday and supermarket duties etc. I do see some similarities with Icelandic (but not much)

[@jonko82]

Þú stendur þig vel og haltu áfram á þessari braut. Literal word-by-word translation: You stand yourself well and continue on this course (track). að standa sig vel = to stand oneself well = to do a good job. Sidenote: the English verb 'to stand' is a loanword from Old Norse and comes from 'at standa' (Modern Icelandic: 'að standa').

[@ZardoDhieldor]

@@MarkPierro The grammar is almost completely the same: Four cases, three genders, six tenses, the same syntax (as far as I can tell) and many different declension groups... Learning vocabulary is also made easier by a lot of words being vaguely similar to (old) German or English words which makes reading much easier. However, learning all the different endings for nouns, adjectives and verbs is challenging (they don't resemble the German endings). And understanding oral Icelandic (without subtitles) is still very difficult for me even after two years of learning. The pronunciation is very close to the spelling. But Icelanders speak fast and mumble a lot! (ugh...)

[@Lester.M]

Excellent video.

[@freyjasvansdottir9904]

You wouldn’t say “borðaðu mig ekki”, you would say “ekki éta mig” meaning don’t eat me, versus don’t dine on me

[@tuckerrichardson2606]

That second one is super class though no lie, I wanna learn icelandic so bad but I just cannot figure out the tongue roll thing at all, so im doomed.

[@xryeau_1760]

@@tuckerrichardson2606 I found a way that sorta works for me if you'd like for me to share

[@IS-Benni]

@@Vissepisse11 éta is used to describes an animal who is eating vs if a human or humanoid eats/consumes it is described they are dining (borða) but you can use éta in this instance as well but it wouldn't be a scholarly description

[@lovisahafdisardottir2229]

alveg sammála dýr éta og menn borða var alltaf sagt við mann ef maður notaði vitlaust orð yfir þetta þegar ég var lítil

[@jpilegaaard1278]

This is very interesting. i am a Scandinavian/American and I am learning so much about my own culture and linguistic history.

[@jasonrickett561]

Recall that English in the 1930’s and 1940’s because of radio broadcasts and their sonic technology (audible frequency was limited) required distinct sounds that would have been otherwise misunderstood.... that changed though but was learned by other speakers at the time. Hence that trans-Atlantic style speech.

[@TheNumbers400]

Being a native Icelandic speaker I can state that your Icelandic is very good, not like a native but very very good none the less. It is clear that you have an understanding of the mechanics and traditions of our alphabet.

[@lordofooo4386]

FYI: My wife (from Hafnarfjörður) says your pronunciation is perfect.

[@Aditya-te7oo]

I love the archaicness of both Old Norse and modern Icelandic.

[@kamilarosinska5404]

Well done, sir!

[@ThatIcelandicDude]

Icelanders get ofcourse a bit carried away in their claims but I think the overall message rings true. We may not speak an identical language but just about any Icelander can pick up a book from the 13th century and understand it with ease and that cannot be said for pretty much any other language as far as I know (Maybe Faroese) Which is precisely what is so impressive about our language. It is part of an Icelandic school curriculum to teach kids the Saga's in old norse and although it can take a bit effort to get used to the sentance structures it does usually not take long for people to be just able to read the sagas as any other book. In fact I've done so quet regularly since I was kid I have both moder Icelandic translations and old norse versions of most Saga's and I pick up both every now and then for a read. Too be fair much of this is by design in the 19th and 20th century there was a concession effort by the nationalist movements to "clean" our language of any Danish influence and revert it back to what it was during the "Golden era" An Icelander today will often times have a harder time reading a book from the 18th century than he would the 13th.

[@halldorfannarsigurgeirsson7741]

It comes off as a really thick accent, but your spoken Icelandic is understandable enough. Well done!

[@monsteroids2045]

Well at least I still understand old Norse and can read it just fine. (native Icelander)

[@ZgunnZ]

Great job

[@swarley2500]

Norwegian native here. Very surprised over how much I was actually able to understand!

[@sgjoni]

It's interesting to see how many of those changes are quite recent, apart from the vowel changes. "Er" in stead of "sem" is still often used in writing though not so much in speech. But, when I was young old people still used it in speech, as well as some pronouncing the H.V. in "hv", that used to be a regional dialect in the south that, admittedly, a few people still use today, though it now sounds pretentious.

[@elbuggo]

I came, I watched, I liked, I shared.

[@sazji]

Very cool. It was interesting to see how many words are still spelled the same or nearly so, the largest difference being the sound shifts. -- Another dinosaur who pronounces the "h" in "wh". (Mainly because I grew up in southeastern Iowa and everyone just...did...?)

[@highway2run]

Well done Sir,

[@THEinSEnDeaieri]

Fricken awesome.