A Conversation in Old English and Old Norse

Were Old Norse and Old English really mutually intelligible? Jackson Crawford and @simonroper9218 set out to test this often-asserted statement as best as they know how.

Logos by Elizabeth Porter (snowbringer at gmail).

[jormungandr]

As a swede, I understand more of this danish old norse dialect than I understand modern danish.

[CyrodiilicKhajiit]

As a subtitle reader, I understood everything.

[albanborici]

"Good weather and true arrows" gotta be one of the most badass farewells i've ever heard

[Randomdudefromtheinternet]

This is how it feels when a latinoamerican/ talks with a Brazilian or an italian, we don't understand each other but at the same time we do.

[o...]

Now *_this_* is the most ambitious crossover event in history

[buia]

As an icelander it's really cool to actually understand most of the words that they are saying.

[JFLATTERMANN]

Having studied medieval German language, I was astonished how well I understood both old Norse and old English.

[Blake_Stone]

"How did your conversation with that Norseman go, Harold?"
"Well I got most of the words, but it was hard to make out with that American accent of his."

[viral_suppressor]

As a German non native speaker, I understand old danish a lot more than I expected.
You guys did a great job!
Thanks!

[disengronkulifactice]

A friend (American) was backpacking in Ireland and fell in with a group of Germans. She spoke no German but their English was good. After a day or two of traveling together, one of the Germans turned to another and said, “Ich habe Wasser in meinen Schuhen, ” to which my friend said “me too, ” without noticing they had switched into German. It’s funny how quick that can happen where there are very clear correspondences. (edit: German inflectional endings!)

[MrGeneration]

As a dane who have live in the faroese and have learned german and english, I am suprised at how well I understand both the old norse and old english.

[aeronidas]

It's amazing hearing old languages like this being spoken again

[Blake_Stone]

I thought the line where Simon gives Jackson permission to use "thou" (þū) was pretty cute.

Only pre-Norman kids remember when English still had formal and informal pronouns!

[Johna]

The fact that such a niche interest can garner 2.3 MILLION views is nothing but insane

[GravityTwistr]

As a native Dutch speaker it's funny that I understand more of the old English than old Norse. Guess the Frisian component is responsible for that. Funnily enough I'm also a native Portuguese speaker (Continental) and I can confirm the comment about it being easier for a Portuguese speaker to understand Spanish than the other way around. Love the video!

[danielordonez]

I've been studying icelandic for some years now and I could actually understand both of you in a 70-80% without reading. Great thing!

[iceomistar]

I've been basically obsessed with ancient languages since I was 15, I feel so happy when I can understand both of you without the subtitles.

[CandyCarbonnier]

This video was so cute- just two geniuses geeking out over their hunting convo in old norse/old english hehe

[rogerfenn]

Mutual intelligibility 03:07
Localizing the Old English, with Simon Roper 27:11
Localizing the Old Norse, with Jackson Crawford 35:55
Slang, informal speech, contractions 43:11
"False friends", pitfalls of sister languages 48:20
Colloquial or shortened forms of common words 52:37

[syystomu]

18:43 I'm a native Finnish speaker and I definitely have this urge with Estonian despite the fact that Estonian is definitely not mutually intelligible with Finnish. It still feels familiar enough that trying to speak it feels like imitating a dialect that isn't my own and it feels weird. Mostly the problem is that Finnish and Estonian have a LOT of cognates that have shifted in meaning in one language or the other (usually in Finnish actually, Finnish tends to have more semantic shift in its vocabulary) and also words that sound similar by pure accident due to the similarities in phonology, which makes misunderstandings extremely common. I actually have a couple of joke books that just contain fairly ordinary phrases in Estonian that sound like something comical or macabre in Finnish.

The example that always comes to mind for me is:
Estonian: _Ruumide koristamine on mu töö_ ("Cleaning the rooms is my job")
Which sounds a lot like:
Finnish: _Ruumiiden koristaminen on mun työ_ ("Decorating the corpses is my job")

_Koristamine(n)_ is a cognate ("decorate"/"clean up" - the underlying meaning is "make pretty") while _ruum_ is a Germanic loanword meaning "room" in Estonian and _ruumis_ in Finnish is of an unknown origin and means "body" (usually dead). _Mu töö_ and _mun työ_ are just perfectly ordinary cognates, except in Finnish it sounds colloquial and in Estonian it's standard.

But yeah my point is that yes I could absolutely see this happening between Old Norse and Old English: people learning the differences but still mostly speaking their own language.