"So, what is Old Norse like?"

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

It’s a pleasure and an honor to be a guest on your channel. Thanks for the discussion!

[@nikburisson9-pissedoffpeasant-]

Stanza 55 Hàvamàl is your friend, you are interestingly wise. Continue to be you.

[@Lowlandlord]

Great episode, love the collab, and hats!

[@bendthebow]

I''m amazed how similar Norwegian is to Scots. Quine, bairn, speir / kvenne, barn, spørre. Many examples. And Norwegian also has 'bra'- good, similar to Scots 'braw'. So I check and indeed also from bravo/brave. That word's fairly travelled

[@ediwansilva7761]

Why not an episode of the roman soldier Lucius meeting a Viking, in their original languages... it could be fun

[@nnnn65490]

Have you ever heard of Dr Joshua Bowen from Digital Hammurabi? He has a free lecture series on Sumerian. But I think he also has a degree in Semitic languages more broadly due to him being an Assyriologist.

[@kelticsage]

What a crossover, now ya both have to go to Iceland and speak old norse on the streets

[@BigHossHackworth]

Hell yeah

[@alphawolf122]

interesting thing is that most if not all Icelandic people would have no problem understanding old Norse because as far as I know and have learned, Icelandic and old Norse are really similar, and modern Icelandic is basically the same as old Norse with a few changes in pronunciation and construct

[@kelticsage]

@@alphawolf122 very true, i can understand nearly all he says except a few words

[@KotrokoranaMavokely]

🫂💙

[@silviusforosiculensis]

Can't wait for the future video when Ranieri, Crawford and Roper have a discussion while Faraji is playing music in the background.

[@evenaskeladden]

Historical Linguistics: Infinity War

[@jeremias-serus]

Too bad there’s no one on yt who specializes Old Church Slavonic. Old English is not nearly old enough comparable to Latin and Old Norse, not to mention it’s just downstream from Old Norse. Having OCS would complete the three major branches’ old language of renown.

[@evenaskeladden]

@@jeremias-serus That would really be something. I'd just like to correct on something. Old English is actually slightly older than Old Norse by a few centuries. The oldest Old English literature is from the 7th century, whereas the earliest Old Norse poetry stems from the late 8th century.

[@Hvitserk67]

As a Norwegian, I can say that all Scandinavian children who learn English at school (which is compulsory) use this general procedure only the opposite way. There are so many similarities that "false friends" are what you should be most careful about (eg sky (cloud) -sky (himmel), at least until you reach a slightly higher level in English. The word "himmel" (sky) comes from German, but in Old Norse it was "himinn" which today has an English variant in the form of "heaven" (which has the same meaning as "himmel"). Pretty cool :)

[@kevinstachovak8842]

Cognate with Gothic 'Himinam' if i'm not mistaken. I love languages!

[@spellandshield]

But heaven is a native English word and sky was borrowed from Old Norse.

[@Hvitserk67]

@@spellandshield The word "heaven" most probably comes from Low German "heben" which is a variant of "* hibin" (proto-germanic). Old Norse was, as mentioned, "himinn". My point is that in Scandinavian languages today we use the same word for both sky and heaven ("himmel").

[@spellandshield]

@@Hvitserk67 You are right about hibin but heaven doesn't come from Low German; it is attested in Old English (heofon) multiple times and stems from the same proto-germanic source but I take your point.

[@PeterGaudiano]

In Swedish we use ’skyar’ to describe thin clouds or veils of rain.

[@Ciiran]

When I , as a Swede, learned English and later German in school cognates helped me out a lot. A few easy ones: Father, Mother, Bread, Dead Vater, Mutter, Brot, Tot Fader, Moder, Bröd, Död You could of course add in Danish, Dutch etc in the same patterns. Lots of similar cognates out there, and by studying them, you get a "feel" for quite a few specifics of the relevant languages.

[@ak5659]

I agree and think you can apply that even more broadly. Most things English already had in 1066 stayed and today those English words will be very similar in all the Germanic languages TODAY. After a while you adjust how you 'see' a word because your brain realizes that d,t, & th are all the same and f & v are the same. So you see them as 'one' unit or word. So if you see father, vater, or fader it all looks the same and you'll insist the word was in English when it really wasn't.

[@the_sad_wallet1553]

Awesome crossover that I didn’t know I wanted. Cool stuff!

[@y11971alex]

I’m still waiting for a detailed channel like yours for Avestan. It’s a long term goal of mine to learn Sanskrit and Avestan, since I already have exposure to Ancient Greek and Latin.

[@stevelknievel4183]

Its an Indo-European language. You just have to learn what the patterns are in terms of sound change like Jackson suggested in this video! 😛

[@romainvicta9793]

That would be really cool, it's a shame there isn't much attention for Avestan and old Iranic culture

[@chadwickreno8499]

Ilovelanguages and ABAlphaBeta have a few videos on the languages but no one's actually gone in depth into them, you'd probably have better luck searching for a channel in Persian though tbh

[@DubmanicGetFlazed]

make one

[@y11971alex]

@@DubmanicGetFlazed XD

[@charlesbourgoigne2130]

What a magnificent cross-over! More of it! (please)

[@Pengalen]

Now if we can only find an Irish/Celtic scholar like you guys, the set of Ancient Language dudes will be complete.

[@FPSIreland2]

Look up AnLoingseach, he does linguistic stuff for modern and old Irish. He has a bit if a tendency to go on tangents, hence the name loingseach (means wanderer) Edit: but said tangents are quite interesting

[@Pengalen]

@@FPSIreland2 I will check him out. Thanks. As an aside, your nick means radically different things depending on where you put the fada.

[@FPSIreland2]

@@Pengalen Is é an tuiseal ainmneach mo shloinne é

[@Pengalen]

@@FPSIreland2 That's pretty beyond my scant and humble knowledge of the language, but fortunately Google translate exists. :)

[@kevinstachovak8842]

@@Pengalen The Fada just lengthens a vowel, essentially. Try mandarin, where every syllable needs to be enunciated in one of four different ways in order to make yourself clear.

[@Teverell]

Placenames in England are hella fun in giving you a hint of who the people were who named it, or who the area was named for.... I live in Gillingham in Kent, which is near Rochester. -ham denotes a Saxon settlement (hame, heim). -chester, -cester, -caster is from castrum - there was a Roman fort in the area. The name of the county, Kent, is from the Celtic tribe of the Cantiaci, whose main settlement was in or near modern-day Canterbury. As you head north up the east coat, you start coming across words with a Viking background - the hills in the Lake District and a fair amount of the Yorkshire Dales are called fells, for example, and you might wade in a beck and swim in a tarn (if you're feeling brave enough, anyway!) and I am reliably informed that those few words still have cognates in Danish. I have absolutely no background in Old Norse or any Scandinavian language whatsoever. I just find etymology fun!

[@Hvitserk67]

Some areas and cities in England are named directly after the Vikings. A very good example is the city of York which is an anglicization of Jórvík. Cities that have an ending in "by" (which means city in Scandinavian languages) were usually established by the Vikings. A good example is Grimsby. In Norway there is a counterpart in the form of the city Grimstad (where the word "stad" means smaller city/town).

[@neilog747]

@@Hvitserk67 Cool. Grimstad would be Grimstead if it were in England.

[@WaywardSon1]

There are actually courses in Old Swedish - my alma mater has had one for many years - but you have to know a modern Scandinavian language to be able to participate. Great video!

[@mixuz91]

I've noticed a pattern from english to old norse to swedish. We dropped the i it seems :) Stone- Stein- Sten Home- Heim- Hem Bone- Bein- Ben

[@lalc__]

My greatest KZbin dream is for a channel like yours or like Luke's for the Hittite language

[@silver6380]

there's a hittite channel?!

[@valhoundmom]

Your Old Norse instruction actually is very helpful for me studying Finnish thanks! It's amazing how much Norwegian I can work out just because I speak English

[@valhoundmom]

@@user-tm8jt2py3d and those things that look the same, and oh wow they are not!!😄

[@ak5659]

Yes, all the Germanic languages are more similar than they appear when you first encounter them. What helps is that even 'false friends' are conceptually related. Or the meanings are the same but with a twist. Ex. 'flask' is a particular type of bottle in English but it's the word for a general bottle in many of the other Germanic.

[@jenlulabelle]

@@user-tm8jt2py3d I’m trying to learn Norwegian too. As a Scottish person I’m finding a lot of similarities between Scots and Norwegian. So having English and Scots knowledge is handy for me :)

[@LoisoPondohva]

Finnish has nothing to do with old Norse though, I'm confusion

[@valhoundmom]

@@LoisoPondohva I never said it did. I said it helps me with studying Finnish. I did not say Old Norse was similar. Being fluent in Spanish and having studied Japanese has also been a huge help with my process of learning Finnish.

[@JHaras]

On a less serious note, "En truck"/"Trucken" is perfectly acceptable in modern Swedish. Albeit it's a modern loan word, and primarily referring to a "forklift" technically speaking, it can also be a slang word for an actual truck/lorry.

[@c567591]

A pair of Cowboy Linguists... love both of you guys. Learn a lot from you guys.

[@jorgeclaverie6752]

I am forever grateful to you for sharing these videos and your work/knowledge with us! Thank you!!! Tack så jättemycket!!!!

[@stianharestad6601]

Its amazing how skilled you are in old norce, love and respect from Norway. I love your podcast.

[@lelyanra]

OH YEAH, loved the crossover

[@nobodyexceptme7794]

Following this guy since the ign video has been so much fun. Especially for ppl who like language. I wish u more success and growth!

[@HassenVEVO]

The heck with Dr Strange multiverse, these are real cameos.

[@jacobandrews2663]

A surprise to be sure, but a welcomed one.

[@TheBlimpFruit]

Great to see you two in person together!

[@myNamesTakin]

This is a series I will be fallowing great insights

[@ak5659]

"Say the English word with Old Norse grammar" -- Granted I was in Hamburg so that was in my favor, but that technique really helped to make myself understood when speaking to people. I'd only had 3 years of German in college but I was pleasantly surprised at how well I got along.

[@visserskarel]

Interesting how the "textbook" dialect for Old Greek and Old Norse are the dialects with most literature in it, while the textbook dialect of Old French is not the Picardian dialect (most Old French literature is in Picardian, and if it is in other dialects it is often influenced by Picardian), but instead the textbook dialect is the dialect of the Île de France, which only later became the dominant dialect.

[@HweolRidda]

Anglo-Norman has a comparable amount of "Old French" literature but who in France would teach anything with "Anglo" in its name. 🙂

[@ninjadude971]

That’s rather interesting, why is that the case?

[@ignasimontserrat]

It is great to see you together. It is magnificent to see two intelligent people just talking about something.

[@stefanjasovic2311]

BEST CROSSOVER EVER

[@DelphicLion]

Two of my favorite linguist channels doing a crossover?! Is it my birthday?

[@benw9949]

Having seen videos from both Luke and Jackson, with great content for anyone who loves languages, it's great to see you both together! English is such an unusual fusion of Germanic and Romance (Anglo-Saxon, Viking / Danes, Norman-French) with Latin and Greek thrown in for technical words, then melded together before (during) when it borrowed from all across the world...it's fascinating. How languages change over time. So much good stuff!

[@stevelknievel4183]

But umlaut and subsequent vowel loss is what makes Old Norse so fun!

[@user-eq8ww1gr6v]

I deeply respect your efforts to show case cross-discipline experts and deepen our understandung of our cultural, linguistic, and historical roots and how they interact

[@buddharuci2701]

Danish glottal stop: where does it come from and how does it relate to old Norse? Tak!

[@jockeberg4089]

It comes from the potato that got stuck in the throat of every Dane

[@collectorduck9061]

@@jockeberg4089 this is true. It’s actually quite sad. If the new world had not been discovered, Danes might still be able to communicate.

[@witchersilversteel3573]

This collaboration is such a joy to watch, both vids have been amazing!! Never knew i needed this until it happened, now i wanna see this more often lol

[@remen_emperor]

Two of my favorite KZbinrs starting off with an awkwardly scripted ad for the video I'm already watching. Perfect

[@ksbrook1430]

I'm enjoying this series. 😊

[@korp_skog]

Guessing and extrapolating is how I became conversational in Italian in three days.

[@overratedprogrammer]

"I wish I knew how to quit you.."

[@melissahdawn]

Where is this quote from. I like it. 👍

[@artawhirler]

Good rule there! "Don't start with what's easy. Start with what's frequent."

[@arthurmoran4951]

Best collab ever

[@LaFayVerte]

Nice shoutout for Simon Roper!

[@shruggzdastr8-facedclown]

Given the Old Norse root word "drifa" being the source for the M.E. word "drive", does "drift" also come from the same ancestral word?

[@kellimbt]

So excited for this series!

[@Purwapada]

now we need a sanskrit/pali youtuber. I don;t know if anyone does that but would be cool.

[@FuelFire]

Oh my, old norse is damn similar to german. Let me show you with some words in a "EN ‐ DE" template. Stone - Stein Home - Heim (or Heimat) Sword - Schwert Wind - Wind (W in german is pronounced like V in english)

[@lunda2222]

Bear in mind this is from the perspective of a native English speaker. If your first language is, say Spanish it may be different. And much different if you're native Icelandic.

[@ak5659]

Right. Jackson made a couple of references to inflections (ex. case endings) causing a problem. But If you've had exposure to the Slavic languages which are much more highly inflected, inflections are easy.

[@amalkatrazz]

As a Russian who speaks German and Icelandic, I indeed had no difficulties understanding the inflections of Old Norse when studying it.

[@ak5659]

@@amalkatrazz If Russian is yourfirst language maybe yeu can appreciate this problem. In German you have basically a half dozen case endings, right? But if you count up M,F,N,Pl nouns * 4 cases + the same for der words and again for ein words you have like 48 'boxes' that need endings. In the Slavic languages you'd have about 30 different endings, right? So can you explain how 6 endings can cover all that? It's like the endings can't do their 'job' as endings because there's so much repetition! Yes, I know I'm grossly oversimplifying, but do you see my point? So, in my German 101 class in the US a few of us had some Slavic language background and we're asking the professor where the rest of the endings are because we need more. Meanwhile the rest of the class is saying,"what am I supposed to do with 6 endings? There're too many!".....

[@LeoPlaw]

Two language nerds for the price of one! Bonus!

[@bnic9471]

Great video! I've been reading a lot of 100 y.o. Norwegian-American bogmaal, and the English borrowings are common. That's no monkeybisnis!

[@danmaertens7872]

Awesome crossover! The indo-European language mothership buffet!

[@cerberaodollam]

Best crossover ever ❤️

[@sushidawgz]

Thanks guys. A very imformative video that has changed how I view old norse.

[@hakon_dlc]

What a crossover, informative and entertaining to watch. Excited to watch more of this series' entries!

[@Fummy007]

Most ambitious crossover of the decade so far

[@Jumpoable]

2 handsome men in cowboy hats talking about ancient languages is my jam.

[@ak5659]

Thank you for saying that! I agree 1000%. The language geek part of my brain was battling with another part of my body for a limited blood supply. To make matters worse I stopped breathing at several points in this vid.

[@Jumpoable]

@@ak5659 LOLOLOL.

[@tmann986]

These two gentleman have me wanting to learn Latin and Icelandic haha 👏

[@juliamann9253]

I hope you were referring to your upcoming textbook!

[@emom358]

Fascinating. Thank you.

[@Fridrik-]

Damn, it is "Trukkur" in modern icelandic. Minute 13:10 or so. "Er þetta trukkurinn þinn" = "Is this your truck".

[@Purwapada]

amazing discussion love it

[@craighughes536]

Yes, Just Yes ..🎉

[@evenaskeladden]

So Luke is, like, staying in Colorado for a while?

[@janyceviero6026]

Yep, thats how i read german, old norse, Norwegian, and most of the germanic languages. To me is just like English. In portuguese we also pronounce W as V, and some words in portuguese have germanic roots and borrowed from germanic.

[@raifkolbjornson]

These vids are such fun, thanks. Ease of ON vs Greek: Results may vary. Me, I found ON decently easy (for a reading knowledge) but I cheated since I'm basically native in both Swedish (for vocab) and German (for grammer, especially the firehose of subjunctives). Whereas Greek, no way baby. Been there, did that, backed away slowly.

[@aesir1ases64]

Thanks for the great work man! Keep it up!!

[@robertoluigipagani1626]

Interesting take on the difficulty, as an Italian who studied both Latin and Greek but specialised in Old Icelandic, I have to say that the latter was a piece of cake to learn compared to Latin. Jackson refers only to morphological intricacies (which Latin doesn’t lack anyway), but he forgets the syntax: Old Icelandic sentences are more often than not quite linear and simple. Latin sentences can be insanely convoluted and have to be read over and over to work out what is referring to what. I would personally switch the order between Latin and Old Icelandic

[@spellandshield]

It must be an interesting experience to learn Latin as a speaker of modern Latin (Italian); it is one thing to learn it with German or English as a native language but in your case you can recognise so much of the quotidian vocabulary that is lacking in Germanic languages.

[@robertoluigipagani1626]

@@spellandshield a fair amount of vocab, yes, but so much has changed, so many words have a different meaning, that most of the links between Latin and Italian become obvious only after one has mastered both to a degree. I still find Old Icelandic much easier

[@HweolRidda]

What i have never figured out is whether all the covoluted structures in latin are a basic function of the language or of its literary writers? English would be a whole bunch harder if it were taught based on the pretentious literature of the Victorian era! Admittedly Latin is far more open to this type of abuse if one wishes.

[@robertoluigipagani1626]

@@HweolRidda a combination of both: the morphology at some point was as complicated as in the literary language, though it got simplified starting very early until it evolved in the morphology of the Romance languages; the syntax on the other hand was of course not so complicated in daily speech as it is in texts of authors like Cicero or Tacitus. Problem is we don’t learn Latin to study the daily speech of the romans as much as their literature

[@Philoglossos]

I would tend to agree, but I wonder if your perception would change if you used more CI based/active methods for learning Latin. I speak Latin but I learned through LLPSI and found it pretty intuitive. That said I'd still tend to agree with you, having studied Icelandic I think it's overall gonna be easier despite Icelandic morphology definitely being harder than Latin morphology.

[@40bc47]

Don’t rule out the Time Machine scenario, you never know😁

[@droops63]

This reminds me of the Liga Romanica group, which I follow because I'm re-learning my Portuguese and they're a fun group. Speaking of which, would be fun to see you both with Simon Roper and speaking ancient languages together. Dang, makes me want to get out my Homeric Greek texts, but I don't need that headache right now as my mind isn't as good as both of your minds in working through Indo-European languages. I know just enough to understand what you all are describing and otherwise get myself into trouble thinking I could learn this stuff. :) Regardless, fun collaboration. Hope to see more.

[@AimeeVignes]

Ok, I didn’t expect this 😳

[@historicalheathen5058]

I think runes are an essential study. They give a lot of clues to how things were pronounced different by looking at the spellings.

[@1227-z5w]

If you learn basics of any slavic language you will get a full image of the languages map. Old norsk have a lot of slavic structure, but in latinic it looks broken a little

[@Bjowolf2]

Luke: "So what is 'Romani ite domum' in Old Norse, Jackson?" 😂

[@evolagenda]

I needed this today

[@Thulgore]

Languages are THE parallel I use to explain evolution to people. Sadly it has the same problem, we have "fossils" though we will never know exactly how it sounded. (actual fossils we don't know exactly how they looked) In both cases we have a skeleton and current comparitives.

[@NeonCicada]

The hardest thing for me was learning to make the different 'r' sounds.

[@ulfdanielsen6009]

" I cod a ball?"

[@supremerevelations]

The best crossover

[@Bjowolf2]

You guys must be great fun at parties 😉

[@Ggdivhjkjl]

Why is it unlikely that I'm going to get in a time machine and go back to Iceland 900 years ago?

[@BerishStarr]

As a Swede, I understand more of old Norse than I thought I could 🤔😁

[@Artehenis]

The same thing happens for English speakers who learn German then read Old English.

[@Kylbir]

hey man, was wondering about the names of greenland and iceland; if the sagas or other source material mentions anything about why they were named what they are named. i've heard conflicting stories about either the "propaganda" of the names or maybe that the climate was different back then. anyway, just wondering if you know anything about it. thanks

[@sebsanchez6064]

this is my multiverse of madness

[@Artehenis]

OMG, you both were here in Colorado, too?

[@artawhirler]

Luke: "There's ONE regular verb in Ancient Greek." Only a slight exaggeration! lol

[@kratos692]

Dr Crawford, which Norse language should I learn Norwegian, Danish or Swedish that is closer to Old Norse? I know Icelandic is said to be the closest but I want to learn from either of these three. Also I know a little bit of German too.

[@Philoglossos]

Norwegian, and of the two standard forms Norwegian Nynorsk would be the closest.

[@arturoaguirre8469]

i follow both , Dr Jackson Crawford do you speak old english?

[@SAVAGE308408]

You live a bit south of me I believe, I would love the chance to come cowboy for you and maybe pick your brain on some old Norse from just the view of a Ole Wyoming cowboy

[@hollish196]

Sounds like it is just more difficult than Polish.

[@jacobklunder8552]

I already speak Danish, English, and German, how hard would it be for me?

[@aesir1ases64]

prob a thousand times easier than to me who only knows portuguese and english lol

[@longuevalnz]

All three will help with vocab and German will give you a big head start on the grammar!

[@lidyseinen]

Try dutch ..

[@mrkdrage5044]

I have a question, How do you say explore in old norse? And if it is regular or irregular and strong or weak

[@Bjowolf2]

Even today the three very similar Scandinavian languages are to a large extent like parallel worlds of an older simplistic (Middle) English at their basic levels, so once you discover all these predictable correspondence patterns, you will find them everywhere. Fortunately all these deep similarities in much of the basic vocabulary and the most important grammatical features ( case free for nouns and their articles as in E. , same word order as in E. (mostly), similar formation of tenses, many parallel irregular verbs, verbs conjugated the same way for ALL grammatical persons, sing. & plur. like E. nearly has it ) make it fairly for Scandinavians to learn English - it's as if we already have a crude core English in our brains in advance and an intuitive understanding of the essentials of English, so that we just need to fill in the gaps - often without even having to think very much. 😂 D Skal vi [ve] gå [go] ud igen [ee-gain] for at finde min [meen] ko og min kalv nu [noo*]? E Shall (OE sceal!) we go out again (for) to find my cow and my calf now? D Hvad vil du ( orig. "thu") give mig [migh] / ham [hAm] / os / dem efter din tur [toor] til England? E What will you (thou) give me / him / os / them after your (thine) trip (tour) to England? D Jeg [yigh] kan høre [hoer-e] dem komme - se, de er [air] allerede her(e). Kom, lad os møde [moeth-e] dem ude i(n) gård-en! E I can hear them coming (come) - look (see), they ("dey") are already here. Come, let us meet them out in the yard! And so on and on 😉

[@livedandletdie]

One day I want to understand how the f, the East Danish Dialects got so freaking messed up, but by then they might be long gone. All 3 dialects might be gone in 10-15 years.

[@joelm33]

So, I can actually learn Old Norse!?

[@jay5467]

i have a question for both of you linguists, what is the closest living language family to the IE language family?

[@oaknthyme4508]

How about if I already have German as a second language?

[@greywuuf]

Old Norse always sounds to me like English spoken by a German.

[@pierreabbat6157]

Do you get comments from Icelanders about your pronunciation like the ones Luke gets from Greeks?

[@Nomadicshieldmaid75]

Where is this nature? Can swap it from norge

[@alexmanning9961]

So... You're going to make an old Norse grammar book? Eh?

[@beepboop204]

👍

[@y11971alex]

I'm two minutes into the video and have already run into an assertion I don't agree with. I think Latin is more difficult than Ancient Greek.