5 ms·

In my ears many of the early examples sound like English with strong Swedish accent ("Swenglish"). As if a Swedish AI-voice tried to read out English text. Now,

by mongol 5y ago

In my ears many of the early examples sound like English with strong Swedish accent ("Swenglish"). As if a Swedish AI-voice tried to read out English text. Now, it is more likely influenced by the norse ancestors, and they were not from Sweden as much as Norway and Denmark, but still...

sillyquiet 5y ago
You'd probably be interested in seeing the collaboration he did with Old Norse linguist Dr. Jackson Crawford in which he and Dr. Crawford had a scripted but mutually intelligible conversation in Old English and Old Norse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKzJEIUSWtc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKzJEIUSWtc
sigg3 5y ago
Tbh, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish languages are all bastard editions of each other. It's like the weird Northern offshoot of Germanic. Source: am Norwegian. Not an expert by any means.
- vidarh 5y ago
  It's not just "like" the Northern offshoot of Germanic, they are North Germanic languages, like English is a West Germanic language. The similarity is even stronger if you compare with Low German (most common in the North), which didn't go through the consonant shift of the now dominant High German (e.g. day: Norwegian dag vs. Low German Dag vs. High German Tag)
vidarh 5y ago
While there's probably (I'm not a linguist) direct Norse influence too, English is a West Germanic language, and so the further back you go the less Norman and French influence has diluted the Germanic foundation of the language shared with e.g. the Scandinavian languages, Dutch and German (the relationship with German is more obvious if you include the now relatively uncommon older Low German dialects that used to dominate Northern Germany - you get a continuous map with much more gradual changes).
- Bayart 5y ago
  The phonological history of English doesn't have much to do with French. English could have had its entire vocabulary replaced by French while still being grammatically and phonologically the same. Internal linguistic processes are much stronger than outside influences.
  - vidarh 5y ago
    You're probably right it was less significant, but both Norse and French have certainly contributed sounds to English. Scandinavian speakers tend to struggle with the w/v distinction at the start of words for example, because most of our dialects do not have a distinction like that and so many of us learn one of them and use it all over the place. English appear to have imported the sound as in vacation when it imported most of the words (including valley) starting with it. Another example is how when I first learned English in Norway the teacher spent a whole lesson early on drilling the pronunciation of the ch in chair (from Old French; compare "stol", Norwegian for chair vs. English "stool") because the sound was completely foreign to us but confusingly similar to e.g. the skj in skjorte (shirt; the skj is pronounced almost the same as the sh in shirt, depending on dialect) So it may have had less impact on changing the phonology of Germanic words in particular (though I'm curious about some as Norman French changed the orthography of many words that used to be pronounced in the Germanic way but that now match the Norman orthography - e.g. hus to house - did the pronunciation change first?), but the sheer volume of French words that in at least some cases brought with them different sounds means it certainly contributed to the overall English phonology appearing more foreign to us.
    - Bayart 5y ago
      > from Old French; compare "stol", Norwegian for chair vs. English "stool" "Stol" also exists in French, in a way. Frankish *faldistoel -> Modern French fauteuil. > though I'm curious about some as Norman French changed the orthography of many words that used to be pronounced in the Germanic way but that now match the Norman orthography - e.g. hus to house - did the pronunciation change first? The pronunciation of "house" changed with the Great Vowel Shift, that's much posterior to the Norman era and concurrent to the emancipation of English. > but the sheer volume of French words that in at least some cases brought with them different sounds means it certainly contributed to the overall English phonology appearing more foreign to us. Don't start from the assumption that your own language represents a purer form of Germanic linguistic features (though it may).
kkoncevicius 5y ago
Being from Lithuania I noticed that too. These old English words sound just as if some Lithuanian student would be reading English text for the very first time and uttered each letter just how it was meant to sound in Lithuanian. I suspect that over-time English, for some reason, lost the correspondence between the pronunciation and writing of their language. For example in Lithuanian I cannot think of a world where someone would have trouble reading the word after seeing how its spelled. Also, interestingly, we don't have "spelling bee" type competitions here.

by mongol 5y ago

sillyquiet 5y ago

You'd probably be interested in seeing the collaboration he did with Old Norse linguist Dr. Jackson Crawford in which he and Dr. Crawford had a scripted but mutually intelligible conversation in Old English and Old Norse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKzJEIUSWtc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKzJEIUSWtc

sigg3 5y ago

Tbh, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish languages are all bastard editions of each other. It's like the weird Northern offshoot of Germanic. Source: am Norwegian. Not an expert by any means.

vidarh 5y ago
It's not just "like" the Northern offshoot of Germanic, they are North Germanic languages, like English is a West Germanic language. The similarity is even stronger if you compare with Low German (most common in the North), which didn't go through the consonant shift of the now dominant High German (e.g. day: Norwegian dag vs. Low German Dag vs. High German Tag)

vidarh 5y ago

While there's probably (I'm not a linguist) direct Norse influence too, English is a West Germanic language, and so the further back you go the less Norman and French influence has diluted the Germanic foundation of the language shared with e.g. the Scandinavian languages, Dutch and German (the relationship with German is more obvious if you include the now relatively uncommon older Low German dialects that used to dominate Northern Germany - you get a continuous map with much more gradual changes).

Bayart 5y ago
The phonological history of English doesn't have much to do with French. English could have had its entire vocabulary replaced by French while still being grammatically and phonologically the same. Internal linguistic processes are much stronger than outside influences.
- vidarh 5y ago
  You're probably right it was less significant, but both Norse and French have certainly contributed sounds to English. Scandinavian speakers tend to struggle with the w/v distinction at the start of words for example, because most of our dialects do not have a distinction like that and so many of us learn one of them and use it all over the place. English appear to have imported the sound as in vacation when it imported most of the words (including valley) starting with it. Another example is how when I first learned English in Norway the teacher spent a whole lesson early on drilling the pronunciation of the ch in chair (from Old French; compare "stol", Norwegian for chair vs. English "stool") because the sound was completely foreign to us but confusingly similar to e.g. the skj in skjorte (shirt; the skj is pronounced almost the same as the sh in shirt, depending on dialect) So it may have had less impact on changing the phonology of Germanic words in particular (though I'm curious about some as Norman French changed the orthography of many words that used to be pronounced in the Germanic way but that now match the Norman orthography - e.g. hus to house - did the pronunciation change first?), but the sheer volume of French words that in at least some cases brought with them different sounds means it certainly contributed to the overall English phonology appearing more foreign to us.
  - Bayart 5y ago
    > from Old French; compare "stol", Norwegian for chair vs. English "stool" "Stol" also exists in French, in a way. Frankish *faldistoel -> Modern French fauteuil. > though I'm curious about some as Norman French changed the orthography of many words that used to be pronounced in the Germanic way but that now match the Norman orthography - e.g. hus to house - did the pronunciation change first? The pronunciation of "house" changed with the Great Vowel Shift, that's much posterior to the Norman era and concurrent to the emancipation of English. > but the sheer volume of French words that in at least some cases brought with them different sounds means it certainly contributed to the overall English phonology appearing more foreign to us. Don't start from the assumption that your own language represents a purer form of Germanic linguistic features (though it may).

kkoncevicius 5y ago

Being from Lithuania I noticed that too. These old English words sound just as if some Lithuanian student would be reading English text for the very first time and uttered each letter just how it was meant to sound in Lithuanian. I suspect that over-time English, for some reason, lost the correspondence between the pronunciation and writing of their language. For example in Lithuanian I cannot think of a world where someone would have trouble reading the word after seeing how its spelled. Also, interestingly, we don't have "spelling bee" type competitions here.