5 ms·

That's surprising! I know the Scottish dialects has a lot of Scandinavian influences, (ex they say "barn" to mean children) Lax is Swedish for salmon, so I wou

That's surprising! I know the Scottish dialects has a lot of Scandinavian influences, (ex they say "barn" to mean children) Lax is Swedish for salmon, so I would've expected a similar root for that word! Some quick googling suggests the Swedish variant has roots in the Germanic and Baltic languages, which are not directly related to Yiddish afaik. Funny how languages are so similar sometimes, seemingly by chance!

daleharvey 7y ago
lol "bairn" A Barn is still a farm building in Scotland
- jacobush 7y ago
  Yeah, but ignoring spelling and instead listening to how it's pronounced - it's the same. My Swedish grandmother pronounced it pretty much exactly to how Scottish sounds to me.
  - noir_lord 7y ago
    Not just Scotland, Part of north England I'm from "Bairn" is very widely used (but we had a massive Viking presence that still shows up in place names and such).
    - simonh 7y ago
      My mother's family are from Durham and my grandmother called us 'the bairns'. Also pigs were swine and when we were ill we were 'out of fettle'. I've no trace of it in my own speech now, but still love the sound of it. I once went to Norway and it seemed to me like they were speaking German with a Geordie accent.
  - Angostura 7y ago
    I've always heard 'bairn' and 'barn' pronounced quite differently, with the former rhyming with 'air'
    - OJFord 7y ago
      In my (English) head, a Scottish (and even more so Irish) accent does pronounce 'barn' to rhyme with 'air' too though. Of course I'm probably doing a terrible impression of each in my head.
  - daleharvey 7y ago
    There are some strong accents that could pronounce them similiarly, the islands / getting close to irish could pronounce the "air" in "barn". But in general / central belt those words are pronounced differently
    - jacobush 7y ago
      I was more implying that the Swedish pronunciation of its "barn" is more like English "air". (For some Swedish dialects.) The takeaway, when comparing related languages, don't think too much about spelling. Compare how actual people say words, and you will often find striking similarities.
  - alasdair_ 7y ago
    >Yeah, but ignoring spelling and instead listening to how it's pronounced - it's the same I’m Scottish and pronounce the two words quite differently. “Bairn” sounds like “bear” with an “n” at the end and “barn” has a much harder “a” sound. Interestingly, “burn” is a common word for a small stream in Scotland, but I digress.
gargarplex 7y ago
> the Swedish variant has roots in the Germanic and Baltic languages, which are not directly related to Yiddish afaik In fact, Yiddish is Judeo-German and has elements from Slavic languages.
WAHa_06x36 7y ago
....maybe read the article?
felixyz 7y ago
Yiddish is a germanic language with Hebrew elements. If you know German or a Scandinavian language, you can understand a fair bit of written Yiddish just by squinting and guessing along.

daleharvey 7y ago

lol "bairn" A Barn is still a farm building in Scotland

jacobush 7y ago
Yeah, but ignoring spelling and instead listening to how it's pronounced - it's the same. My Swedish grandmother pronounced it pretty much exactly to how Scottish sounds to me.
- noir_lord 7y ago
  Not just Scotland, Part of north England I'm from "Bairn" is very widely used (but we had a massive Viking presence that still shows up in place names and such).
  - simonh 7y ago
    My mother's family are from Durham and my grandmother called us 'the bairns'. Also pigs were swine and when we were ill we were 'out of fettle'. I've no trace of it in my own speech now, but still love the sound of it. I once went to Norway and it seemed to me like they were speaking German with a Geordie accent.
- Angostura 7y ago
  I've always heard 'bairn' and 'barn' pronounced quite differently, with the former rhyming with 'air'
  - OJFord 7y ago
    In my (English) head, a Scottish (and even more so Irish) accent does pronounce 'barn' to rhyme with 'air' too though. Of course I'm probably doing a terrible impression of each in my head.
- daleharvey 7y ago
  There are some strong accents that could pronounce them similiarly, the islands / getting close to irish could pronounce the "air" in "barn". But in general / central belt those words are pronounced differently
  - jacobush 7y ago
    I was more implying that the Swedish pronunciation of its "barn" is more like English "air". (For some Swedish dialects.) The takeaway, when comparing related languages, don't think too much about spelling. Compare how actual people say words, and you will often find striking similarities.
- alasdair_ 7y ago
  >Yeah, but ignoring spelling and instead listening to how it's pronounced - it's the same I’m Scottish and pronounce the two words quite differently. “Bairn” sounds like “bear” with an “n” at the end and “barn” has a much harder “a” sound. Interestingly, “burn” is a common word for a small stream in Scotland, but I digress.

gargarplex 7y ago

> the Swedish variant has roots in the Germanic and Baltic languages, which are not directly related to Yiddish afaik In fact, Yiddish is Judeo-German and has elements from Slavic languages.

WAHa_06x36 7y ago

....maybe read the article?

felixyz 7y ago

Yiddish is a germanic language with Hebrew elements. If you know German or a Scandinavian language, you can understand a fair bit of written Yiddish just by squinting and guessing along.