The Old Norse in 'Vikings'

[fugithegreat]

It's the ultimate flex to say, "I've never seen the show but I am in the DVD extras." 😂

[le-chevalier-renaud]

As for the actor you say has the most consistent pronounciation I think that's Travis Fimmel, he's actually Australian, but he was the protagonist for most of the show and he's a really good actor, it makes a lot of sense that he'd be the one putting the most effort into getting a consistent sound since he knew he was going to be on the show for quite a while.

[polyMATHY_Luke]

Very happy you made this, my friend! Do more! This kind of this is fascinating, and is really helpful pedagogically: as students, we learn how to improve our ON this way by a lot.

[alexmanning]

The look of pain on your face as you got further into the quotes 😂.

[Caine]

Now we need to see Simon Roper do a breakdown of the Old English scenes in Vikings

[Blockhaj]

Hvat segir hann (vad säger han) was one of the few things from the show i understood without thinking as a Swedish speaker

[jasonw]

I am a huge fan of this show. And you haven't insulted anyone by your translations. That cast worked very hard. You actually gave them credit

[Darkurge]

I haven't seen these episodes in several years, but I seem to recall that as a native Swede, the so called "old norse" sounded very much like Swedish/Norwegian with weird accents. I appreciated the effort. :D Since Floki is a Swedish actor (Gustav Skarsgård, of the Skarsgård actor clan ;P), he probably helped with some Swedish words that they used to represent old norse. Just my speculation though.

[TheAntiburglar]

I didn't expect to see Admiral Ackbar in this video, but I certainly wasn't disappointed to 😂

[kevinmorgan]

Something to remember is that the actors playing the sons of Ragnar actively ape their fathers mannerism. It’s a great acting choice that you can see them making, and they deliberately pronounce things the way Fimmel did it. It’s not even close to relevant to what our Prof is talking about here, but comments are more like a reading group than the lecture of the video 🥸

[elijahhillman]

Floki has an interesting monologue in old norse in s5e4, a little over a half hour in. That would be cool to see analyzed. Thank you for sharing your expertise for free.

[dougalmctavish]

The accent coach for the show was Irish. Hopefully that’s helpful to to someone.

The international cast may be responsible for the inconsistency across the characters. As well as some individuals putting more effort in than others.

[echelonk]

Wish they had some Old Norse in The Last Kingdom series... Old English, too.

[alexanderb]

Fascinating how similar our sentence structures and words still are from that of our viking forebears. "Dräpa" is still in modern Swedish "to slay" for example, and "fylgja" meaning follow, is följa today. I can imagine Skarsgård had the easiest time of it, as I watched the show I even heard him sneak in modern swedish at times probably just to make things easy, who'd know the difference you know haha. As an example when he digs up his fathers grave to get the sword he says "hej pappa", which is just "hi dad" in Swedish. I think it was meant to be old norse also when Floki comments on Aela's table in his hall that "the table is very well made", to me it sounded much like he said "bordet är mycket välgjort" which is modern Swedish but the spelling was Icelandic/old norse in subtitles. Suffice to say as Scandinavian I was surprised to not often need subtitles.

[NikephorosLogothetes]

You can hear the pain in Dr Crawford’s voice 😭

[brutalisaxeworth]

The actors in this show are largely not from Scandenavia. The lead actor playing Ragnar is Australian, the actor playing Rollo is British, and the actress playing Lagertha is Canadian. Of this main cast, I believe only Floki, played by Gustaf Skarsgård, is Swedish.

[anthonywritesfantasy]

I would be interested in your commentary on The Northman....

Just found Cowboy Hàvamàl and I gotta say, that was cool man.

[wes]

I've hopped on the channel on and off since i was in high school a few years ago, and coming back a few months later on i see the very video I've been longing for since then! :D

[Paveway-chan]

15:55 could be that he isn't saying "Godina" there, could be he's just saying "Godin hata..." very fast and the h is lost since he's speaking so fast

[shruggzdastr-facedclown]

@Prof. Crawford: The actor that you credit for having the strongest grasp of Old Norse in this scene for this show is the one who played Ragnar Lothbrok