I´ve been learning Icelandic for three months, and have been searching for a video like this since the beginning! I can´t believe how helpful this is!!
Just watch out to take things too literally. Though I appreciate pedagogical techniques and I don’t doubt the maker of the video will go on explaining things further down the road, I have often found explanations such as the one regarding dative given in this video to be just as confusing to people as they might or might not be helpful. With the information given there, the minute you step outside of the material presented to you you will be confused. Má ég gera þetta fyrir fiskinum (dative)? May I do this with the fish’s permision? Má ég gera þetta fyrir fiskinn (accusative)? May I do this for (the benefit of) the fish? Ég fer til fisksins (genitive). I’m going to the fish. In the three examples above all have prepositions in front of the noun ‘fish’ but only one results in a dative. ----------------------------------------------------- Ég kastaði steininum (dative). I threw the stone. Ég kastaði á steininn (accusative). I threw [something] on the stone. Ég missti eitthvað á fótinn (accusative). I dropped something on the foot. On top you have the word ‘stone’ in dative yet it doesn’t imply that you are dropping a preposition in front of the word ‘stone’. Further more it doesn’t imply you’re giving the stone anything. In the second sentence you have the preposition á ‘on’ followed by the word ‘stone’ in accusative. Same is true in the last example and that very sentence was used in the video though for a different purpose than explaining how dative works. But then he went on to explain how dative occurs after prepositions with no further instructions as to the intricacies of that assertion or that it often isn’t so which can be very confusing. So where he stopped explaining things you might assume that the sentence “I dropped something on the foot” should be “Ég missti eitthvað á fætinum (dative)”. You can say it like that but the meaning would change and imply something quite different “I dropped something while I was located/standing on the foot”.
My point is that the so called dative case in all dead Old Germanic languages as well as in Modern Icelandic grammatically often isn’t an actual dative at all. The dative case in all of these languages actually preserves the functions of originally four separate Indo-European grammatical cases that all merged into the “dative” in the Germanic languages. These four are: Ablative case Noun pointing out an action or circumstance in the direction away from it or originating from it. Ég fór frá borðinu (dative ending) - I went from the table. In ablative usage an Icelandic dative always needs a preposition to avoid confusion with the other uses of the dative ending. Locative case Noun pointing out the location where something takes place. Fugl sat (á) kvisti (dative ending) - A bird sat (on) a twig. In locative usage an Icelandic dative can stand without preposition since it will rarely be confused with non locative meanings given the context of where it occurs. This is rarely used today though and even in Old Germanic times a dative designating a locative meaning would most often point that out by adding a preposition that made that more clear. Instrumental case Noun pointing out that it is the instrument/thing being used to perform an action. Ég kastaði steini (dative ending) - I threw a stone. Ég hjó víkinginn (með) sverði (dative ending) - I cut the viking with/using a sword. The actions of throwing and cutting both need an “instrument” in order to be performed, in this case a stone and a sword respectively. In instrumental usage an Icelandic dative often doesn’t need a preposition to avoid confusion with the other uses of the dative ending. So the preposition can often be left out even in Modern Icelandic. Sometimes you even have to leave the preposition out. That is for instance the case with “kasta” (cast, throw) here above since it would be just as redundant in Icelandic as it would be in English to say “I threw with a stone”. And lastly, "pure" dative case Noun pointing out that an action is carried out in the direction to/towards/against it. Ég kenndi stráknum (dative ending) ensku - I taught (to) the boy English. Ég gaf barninu (dative ending) leikfang - I gave (to) the child a toy. Ég ók að karlinum (dative ending) - I drove towards the man. When ever the pure dative usage can not be confused with the other usages of the dative ending any preposition can and often is left out. How ever note that you can’t for instance leave out the preposition “að” (towards) in the last sentence since “Ég ók karlinum” would cause the dative ending in “karlinum” to jump into instrumental mode seeing how “ók” needs an instrument to be performed in Icelandic. So the meaning would then change to “I was driving using the man as a vehicle”. If you don’t know about this very linguistic history and background that gave rise to the Icelandic “dative” the process of learning how it is used and why might end up a pain.
I've already been accustomed to these cases in my study of Turkish: balık - fish (nominative, bare form) balığa - to the fish (dative) balıkta - in the fish (locative) balıktan - from the fish (ablative) balıkla - with the fish (instrumental) E.g.: Balığa balıkla geliyorum. (I'm coming to the fish with the fish.) Similarly, there are genitives: Balıkın yemeği. (The fish's food/The food of the fish.)
Further to my concern at the end of part 1 of this series regarding your apparent encounters with fish, i would like to reiterate that your obsession with fish borders on a mania, seek help. That said, i found this a hugely informative and entertaining watch, many thanks. I had no idea we had icelandic/old norse taught in uk universities. I presume youtube suggested your videos after i have spent the last two months watching every video dr jackson crawford from UCLA has made (content i'm sure you'll be aware of and if not i recommend you search for as you might find it interesting). All the best :)
As an American English speaker with scant little knowledge of grammatical terminology I found lessons 1 and 2 to be extraordinarily helpful. I have self-studied Icelandic for about 3 years off and on with the Háskóli Íslands course and I have struggled mightily with all the NAGD stuff and you have clarified it for me so well. I had my own magic sheet (in NADG order because that made sense to my brain) but I am definitely keeping yours handy and might incorporate bits of it into mine. I am eager to get to your next videos and you almost make me want to learn old Norse after this. LOL. Seriously, these are so helpful that I feel I owe you dinner and a beer. Thanks so much!
Thank you so much for these videos, they're so useful. I'd love to be taught by you, you have such a fun and interesting way of explaining stuff that could potentially be incredibly dull!
great video. the only question i have is that in most icelandic grammar books the order is nominative, accusative dative and genitive. in the magig sheets the order is nom, acc, gen, dat. i find this a bit confusing. how does it come to this?
Sorry, yes. In the Anglophone world, we developed a custom for some reason of using NAGD, so that's what seems natural to me. Lots of places, including Iceland, use NADG -- which makes particularly good sense in Icelandic, because the accusative and dative are quite often identical, whereas the genitive is usually different.
I found my way back to this video after a bit more reading, not being able to compltely make sense of the usage of the "dative" case (þágufalli) and find that it's because it's inaccurate. There are different prepositions which govern different cases, and some that could even apply to multiple cases. That means that this video provides no meaningful description of what the Icelandic "dative" (þágufalli) is. Newcomers beware.
Good question. You get both words, and they mean the same thing. I'm not sure if there are particular differences in their frequency or connotations... But nemi is a regular weak masculine noun (islex.arnastofnun.is/is/ord/29710/tungumal/DA), which makes it more useful for learners than nemandi, which has an unusual declension (islex.arnastofnun.is/is/ord/29706/tungumal/DA).
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Alaric, you are freaking awesome! I wish more lecturers were as fun and as passionate as you are. Keep up the good work!
I´ve been learning Icelandic for three months, and have been searching for a video like this since the beginning! I can´t believe how helpful this is!!
Just watch out to take things too literally. Though I appreciate pedagogical techniques and I don’t doubt the maker of the video will go on explaining things further down the road, I have often found explanations such as the one regarding dative given in this video to be just as confusing to people as they might or might not be helpful. With the information given there, the minute you step outside of the material presented to you you will be confused.
Má ég gera þetta fyrir fiskinum (dative)? May I do this with the fish’s permision?
Má ég gera þetta fyrir fiskinn (accusative)? May I do this for (the benefit of) the fish?
Ég fer til fisksins (genitive). I’m going to the fish.
In the three examples above all have prepositions in front of the noun ‘fish’ but only one results in a dative.
-----------------------------------------------------
Ég kastaði steininum (dative). I threw the stone.
Ég kastaði á steininn (accusative). I threw [something] on the stone.
Ég missti eitthvað á fótinn (accusative). I dropped something on the foot.
On top you have the word ‘stone’ in dative yet it doesn’t imply that you are dropping a preposition in front of the word ‘stone’. Further more it doesn’t imply you’re giving the stone anything.
In the second sentence you have the preposition á ‘on’ followed by the word ‘stone’ in accusative. Same is true in the last example and that very sentence was used in the video though for a different purpose than explaining how dative works. But then he went on to explain how dative occurs after prepositions with no further instructions as to the intricacies of that assertion or that it often isn’t so which can be very confusing. So where he stopped explaining things you might assume that the sentence “I dropped something on the foot” should be “Ég missti eitthvað á fætinum (dative)”. You can say it like that but the meaning would change and imply something quite different “I dropped something while I was located/standing on the foot”.
My point is that the so called dative case in all dead Old Germanic languages as well as in Modern Icelandic grammatically often isn’t an actual dative at all. The dative case in all of these languages actually preserves the functions of originally four separate Indo-European grammatical cases that all merged into the “dative” in the Germanic languages. These four are:
Ablative case
Noun pointing out an action or circumstance in the direction away from it or originating from it.
Ég fór frá borðinu (dative ending) - I went from the table.
In ablative usage an Icelandic dative always needs a preposition to avoid confusion with the other uses of the dative ending.
Locative case
Noun pointing out the location where something takes place.
Fugl sat (á) kvisti (dative ending) - A bird sat (on) a twig.
In locative usage an Icelandic dative can stand without preposition since it will rarely be confused with non locative meanings given the context of where it occurs. This is rarely used today though and even in Old Germanic times a dative designating a locative meaning would most often point that out by adding a preposition that made that more clear.
Instrumental case
Noun pointing out that it is the instrument/thing being used to perform an action.
Ég kastaði steini (dative ending) - I threw a stone.
Ég hjó víkinginn (með) sverði (dative ending) - I cut the viking with/using a sword.
The actions of throwing and cutting both need an “instrument” in order to be performed, in this case a stone and a sword respectively.
In instrumental usage an Icelandic dative often doesn’t need a preposition to avoid confusion with the other uses of the dative ending. So the preposition can often be left out even in Modern Icelandic. Sometimes you even have to leave the preposition out. That is for instance the case with “kasta” (cast, throw) here above since it would be just as redundant in Icelandic as it would be in English to say “I threw with a stone”.
And lastly, "pure" dative case
Noun pointing out that an action is carried out in the direction to/towards/against it.
Ég kenndi stráknum (dative ending) ensku - I taught (to) the boy English.
Ég gaf barninu (dative ending) leikfang - I gave (to) the child a toy.
Ég ók að karlinum (dative ending) - I drove towards the man.
When ever the pure dative usage can not be confused with the other usages of the dative ending any preposition can and often is left out. How ever note that you can’t for instance leave out the preposition “að” (towards) in the last sentence since “Ég ók karlinum” would cause the dative ending in “karlinum” to jump into instrumental mode seeing how “ók” needs an instrument to be performed in Icelandic. So the meaning would then change to “I was driving using the man as a vehicle”.
If you don’t know about this very linguistic history and background that gave rise to the Icelandic “dative” the process of learning how it is used and why might end up a pain.
I've already been accustomed to these cases in my study of Turkish:
balık - fish (nominative, bare form)
balığa - to the fish (dative)
balıkta - in the fish (locative)
balıktan - from the fish (ablative)
balıkla - with the fish (instrumental)
E.g.:
Balığa balıkla geliyorum. (I'm coming to the fish with the fish.)
Similarly, there are genitives:
Balıkın yemeği. (The fish's food/The food of the fish.)
You give hope to an aspiring language teacher (me). Grammar can be interesting when it's not a wikipedia article explaining it but Alaric Hall.
You're an excellent teacher!
Further to my concern at the end of part 1 of this series regarding your apparent encounters with fish, i would like to reiterate that your obsession with fish borders on a mania, seek help. That said, i found this a hugely informative and entertaining watch, many thanks. I had no idea we had icelandic/old norse taught in uk universities. I presume youtube suggested your videos after i have spent the last two months watching every video dr jackson crawford from UCLA has made (content i'm sure you'll be aware of and if not i recommend you search for as you might find it interesting). All the best :)
i'll jump in here in defense of Alaric. i regularly both send things to fish and also place myself on fish.
This video helped me so much, thank you for teaching us!
As an American English speaker with scant little knowledge of grammatical terminology I found lessons 1 and 2 to be extraordinarily helpful. I have self-studied Icelandic for about 3 years off and on with the Háskóli Íslands course and I have struggled mightily with all the NAGD stuff and you have clarified it for me so well. I had my own magic sheet (in NADG order because that made sense to my brain) but I am definitely keeping yours handy and might incorporate bits of it into mine.
I am eager to get to your next videos and you almost make me want to learn old Norse after this. LOL. Seriously, these are so helpful that I feel I owe you dinner and a beer. Thanks so much!
Thank you so much for these videos, they're so useful. I'd love to be taught by you, you have such a fun and interesting way of explaining stuff that could potentially be incredibly dull!
"I don't know why I'm sending it to a fish, but I am." Lol!!
please make more videos. thank you for the help.
Amazing ! So clear !! Thank you a lot !
You're awesome, comrade. Takk fyrir!
great video. the only question i have is that in most icelandic grammar books the order is nominative, accusative dative and genitive. in the magig sheets the order is nom, acc, gen, dat.
i find this a bit confusing. how does it come to this?
Sorry, yes. In the Anglophone world, we developed a custom for some reason of using NAGD, so that's what seems natural to me. Lots of places, including Iceland, use NADG -- which makes particularly good sense in Icelandic, because the accusative and dative are quite often identical, whereas the genitive is usually different.
Excellent teacher
You are amazing! It helps a lot!
I found my way back to this video after a bit more reading, not being able to compltely make sense of the usage of the "dative" case (þágufalli) and find that it's because it's inaccurate. There are different prepositions which govern different cases, and some that could even apply to multiple cases. That means that this video provides no meaningful description of what the Icelandic "dative" (þágufalli) is. Newcomers beware.
I thought student was nemandi not nemi
Good question. You get both words, and they mean the same thing. I'm not sure if there are particular differences in their frequency or connotations... But nemi is a regular weak masculine noun (islex.arnastofnun.is/is/ord/29710/tungumal/DA), which makes it more useful for learners than nemandi, which has an unusual declension (islex.arnastofnun.is/is/ord/29706/tungumal/DA).
@@alarichall oh thanks for the info did not know that! :) your videos have been helpful