Did the Vikings and the English Understand Each Other?

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Sources on peasants contact with English

Sources of royal contact with English

Vikings in the East of Europe

Vikings contact with Scottish

Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements and chronologically coincides with the Viking Age, the Christianization of Scandinavia and the consolidation of Scandinavian kingdoms from about the 7th to the 15th centuries.

The Proto-Norse language developed into Old Norse by the 8th century, and Old Norse began to develop into the modern North Germanic languages in the mid-to-late 14th century, ending the language phase known as Old Norse. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse is found well into the 15th century.

Old Norse was divided into three dialects: Old West Norse or Old West Nordic (often referred to as Old Norse, Old East Norse or Old East Nordic, and Old Gutnish. Old West Norse and Old East Norse formed a dialect continuum, with no clear geographical boundary between them. For example, Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway, although Old Norwegian is classified as Old West Norse, and Old West Norse traits were found in western Sweden. Most speakers spoke Old East Norse in what is present-day Denmark and Sweden. Old Gutnish is sometimes included in the Old East Norse dialect due to geographical associations. It developed its own unique features and shared in changes to both other branches.

Old English (Englisċ, pronounced [ˈeŋɡliʃ]), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th century, and the first Old English literary works date from the mid-7th century. After the Norman conquest of 1066, English was replaced, for a time, by Anglo-Norman (a relative of French) as the language of the upper classes. This is regarded as marking the end of the Old English era, since during this period the English language was heavily influenced by Anglo-Norman, developing into a phase known now as Middle English in England and Early Scots in Scotland.

Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or Ingvaeonic dialects originally spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. As the Germanic settlers became dominant in England, their language replaced the languages of Roman Britain: Common Brittonic, a Celtic language; and Latin, brought to Britain by Roman invasion. Old English had four main dialects, associated with particular Anglo-Saxon kingdoms: Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish and West Saxon. It was West Saxon that formed the basis for the literary standard of the later Old English period, although the dominant forms of Middle and Modern English would develop mainly from Mercian, and Scots from Northumbrian. The speech of eastern and northern parts of England was subject to strong Old Norse influence due to Scandinavian rule and settlement beginning in the 9th century.

Old English is one of the West Germanic languages, and its closest relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon. Like other old Germanic languages, it is very different from Modern English and Modern Scots, and largely incomprehensible for Modern English or Modern Scots speakers without study. Within Old English grammar nouns, adjectives, pronouns and verbs have many inflectional endings and forms, and word order is much freer. The oldest Old English inscriptions were written using a runic system, but from about the 8th century this was replaced by a version of the Latin alphabet.
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I'm a Londoner and I was on a train in Scotland sitting in front of two foreigners. I spent the whole time trying to identify the language they spoke. Turned out it was Glaswegian.

fredneecher
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Just wanted to say that your videos have been so helpful and I’m glad you’re dedicated to providing historical resources and personal interpretations on the Norse pagan religion and society. Thank you!

infernalfleetwood
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I wholeheartedly believe that our lack of communication skills is directly related to our increasing dependence on technology, and most of that is simply for convenience not necessity.

RoughRoadHomestead
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Shadiversity actually did a deep dive on literacy in the middle ages and came to the conclusion that commonfolk all over Europe were literate, just not to the extent of reading and writing like nobility due to lack of time, money, resources, or even much of a need to write as much.

ShizaruBloodrayne
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Love your vision about understanding languages. I am Ukrainian Canadian and I admire how English speaking Canadians are patient with accents from all over the world, how they make an effort to understand non-English speaking newcomers and how encouraging they are, so immigrants feel at ease to speak even with mistakes. I love Canada for this.

natmelnych
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I remember years ago, staying with family friends in Germany, a Norwegian couple were there as well. The lady of the couple was trying to describe something in English but didn’t know the English for it, “I don’t know the English for “laik”” to which my Dad replied “I was always being told to “quit laikin abaht” when I was a boy, so stop mucking around.”. Dad was a Yorkshireman, Yorkshire dialect is what he grew up with.

keithorbell
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I lived in Germany for 5 years, and when i got there i didn't know a damn word in German, and when i ran into someone who didn't speak English i had to learn to communicate without my words, i had to use hand gestures and body language. You would be surprised at just how quickly you start to learn a people when you start paying closer attention to their body language, just like the spoken word and how people in certain areas tend to have a local dialect, people too start to share similar body language and gestures that you will see repeated between them. I got so good at it that some German friends of mine thought that i understood what they were saying in German because i joined the conversation in English after realizing what they were talking about just by watching their movements.

chrislaws
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I love what you said about strict adherence to grammar being a hindrance. It's so easy for mindset to slip into elitism. Over the years, I have really started to appreciate the English dialect I grew up around (rural Gulf Coast US) as a heritage marker rather than "wrong English". I know this wasn't the point of your video, but this is where it took me!
First time viewer. Really enjoyed the video!

hannahr
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I just want to remark that you look AMAZING. Nice hair bro. I wish I had hair and eyes like that lol. Thanks for the valuable info too, learning from you about the ancient Germanic life.

freepagan
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Cajun french here in Louisiana is being taught in schools again.its so great . Grandchildren and grandparents can communicate again

heatherpackard
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I love this. I lived in Japan during college and the people I could communicate the best with were the ones who spoke the least amount of English. I think it was because we had to work harder to understand one another by using tones, body language, gestures, facial expressions and even drawings at times. Once you share that aha moment of "I get it!", I think it bonds you. Something in our cores wants to understand and be understood. To me, learning how to communicate with others outside of our native languages is thrilling. Thanks for the information.

Ingachan
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I love your channel, your a fantastic communicator 👍

dylanclements
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Thanks for another informative video. I really enjoyed this one. Stay well.

cloudninetherapeutics
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i have to agree with his assessment on how "proper" grammar is counterintuitive in communication amongst different cultures and languages...hell, 90 percent of communication is non-verbal.

shawndale
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In Scotland we often use the same words as Norse even today. However, they are Scots words and can confuse English speakers from other areas of British Isles.

AV-fode
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This was also before language standardization. Germany used to have many different types of German, where people from some regions couldn't even understand the people of other regions. It still blows my mind that the dictionary was invented in the year 1604. Imagine having no reference database for words. Traveling bards and poets must've been hugely popular in the ancient past as a living source of language.

frost
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I think the two languages were different enough that on upon hearing it for the first time, you may be able to puzzle out only the most obvious words and get enough information from them to kind of understand what the other person is saying (to an extent.) However, they were still close enough that I think it would be quite easy to understand one anothers languages with a degree of fluency within a year, maybe less; if each group had prolonged contact with each other then I don't think it would be long at all until you can understand one another even if you can't speak each others language. However, what would throw your average Scandinavian off at the time was the English case system, which was even more complex than Russian and German; Old Norse mercifully simplified English sentence structure quite a bit which I think was the tongues largest donation to ours. Also, they weren't eternal enemies as is often portrayed on tv. They often intermarried and lived amongst one another, and their children of course would pick up bits from both languages which is where many loanwords would come from. You could get a Viking from Denmark living in the Danelaw fighting alongside his Saxon neighbours against other Vikings from Norway who are raiding his village. They had a relationship that was complex and intertwined. I'm curious and have often wondered, are there any loanwords in Norwegian/Danish/Swedish etc that came from Old English that you know of?

keighlancoe
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I really enjoy your channel. Being that my grandparents came to the north shores of Lake superior from Bergen 🇳🇴

philhoughton
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Dude! That was awesome. This video felt like listing to a pal while having beers.

NYFreeman
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I really enjoyed this one. It got me thinking about how, when I was 7 and 8, I lived in South Africa. It was pre-Mandela (barely) but it was DEEP in the bush! The language barriers were interesting, and they were between EVERYONE. Afrikaners, English-speakers, & Shangaan, we all had to just make it work. My best friend there, oddly, was a Shangaan boy. We didn't speak a word of one another's language (at first), but we just got along and played. It's a peculiar, but wonderful, memory.

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