Similarities Between Norwegian and Icelandic
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 ต.ค. 2021
- Can Norwegians understand Icelandic? Norwegian and Icelandic are both descendants of Old Norse, which was spoken by the Germanic people living in Scandinavia during the Viking Age. As two North Germanic languages, Norwegian and Icelandic have a lot in common, and at one point in history, they were practically the same language, but over the course of time, they have diverged from one another.
In this video, Henning (Norwegian speaker) and Gabriel (Icelandic speaker) will start by reading a few short sentences which are all structured using similar words that share the same root. They will then move on to the more challenging part by reading a longer statement without the use of preselected common terms. Since Gabriel speaks Norwegian as well, he will translate the Norwegian portions directly into Icelandic to showcase the similarities between them.
Old Norse (Old Nordic / Old Scandinavian) was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia before it developed into separate Nordic languages, the modern North Germanic languages Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish, of which Icelandic remains the closest to Old Norse.
Please follow and contact us on Instagram if you'd like to participate in a future video: / bahadoralast
Norwegian (norsk) is the official language of Norway. It is classified as a North Germanic language and the descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Age. Norwegian is more or less mutually intelligible with Swedish, and Danish, which are also North Germanic languages. Other living North Germanic languages include Faroese and Icelandic which are also close to Norwegian, but not mutually intelligible.
The arrival of Christianity to Scandinavia in the 11the century, brought with it many loanwords from Latin, with much of it relating to the Church an its traditions, along with other cultural words. Starting in the 13th century, Scandinavian languages began to be greatly influenced by Low German, as a result of the Hanseatic League, a medieval confederation in central and northern Europe that originated from north German towns and used Middle Low German as its lingua franca.
Icelandic (íslenska) is a North Germanic language and the official language of Iceland. It is a conservative language compared to most other Germanic languages, as it retains many of the phonological and grammatical features of Old Norse and its written form has not changed much, making it possible for Icelanders to read classic Old Norse literature. Icelandic is closely related to Faroese; and to a lesser extent the continental Scandinavian languages, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, though not mutually intelligible. Due to its isolation, Icelandic has also preserved many of its own terms that originate from Old Norse. As a result, Icelandic resembles Old Norwegian before much of its fusional inflection was lost.
Due to being well-preserved over the course of history, the Icelandic Minister of Education, Science and Culture, Björn Bjarnason, proposed a day to celebrate the Icelandic language. This day, known as the Icelandic Language Day is set on November 16th, which is the birthday of Icelandic poet Jónas Hallgrímsson, to celebrate the Icelandic language.
All Germanic languages share a common ancestor, known as Proto-Germanic, which was a single language spoken in Iron Age Scandinavia. As one of the main branches of the Indo-European language family, Germanic languages are further split into 3 subdivisions:
- West Germanic languages: English, German, Dutch, Afrikaans, Yiddish, Scots, Luxembourgish, Limburgish varieties, and the Frisian languages.
- North Germanic languages: Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, and Faroese.
- East Germanic languages: Gothic, Burgundian, and Vandalic, all of which are now extinct.
Despite the differences, these languages still share a lot in common, and have a large number of cognates with the same roots.
Norwegian and Icelandic are both descendants of Old Norse and have a lot in common. Icelandic retains many of the phonological and grammatical features of Old Norse and has also preserved many of its own terms that originate from Old Norse. Hope you all enjoy this week's episode! Please follow and contact us on Instagram if you'd like to participate in a future video: instagram.com/BahadorAlast
Yes, Icelandic has pretty much remained untouched since medieval times
Icelandic is to Germanic languages what Yemenite Hebrew is to Semitic languages (in terms of preserving the old language)
@@SebastianSterner-ze9it But doesn't Icelandic really preserve much of old Norse?
@@SebastianSterner-ze9it Interesting, thanks for sharing. I will check out the video.
I know one Icelandic term that comes from Arabic, and that's fíll, which means elephant, from the Arabic فِيل (fil)
Very interesting! You should definitely do a video comparing Faroese to Norwegian and/or Icelandic, as Faroese is a very interesting blend of those two languages
Thank you. Would love to!
Yay
The faroese can understand danish, norwegian, swedish and can kinda understand icelandic
@@-_pi_- I feel the same
Faroese definitely isn’t a „blend“ of Icelandic and Norwegian, it’s simply a descendant of old Norse that evolved in its own way, just like the rest of the north Germanic languages.
My wife's from Iceland and I'm Norwegian, so I get a bit of icelandic every day (mostly swearing😝 ), but I find that my dialect (Stril) have a lot of words that are similar to icelandic words. More when you write them down, because the pronunciation can differ a bit. The "au" sound in naut, for instance, sounds more like how I would pronounce the letters "øy".
We don't have the letters ð and þ, but when you know the sounds they represent, it's not too hard. I'm by no means able to have a conversation in icelandic yet, but I can figure out what I'm being told, or what I read when I'm there, given a bit of time.
Gabriel should be a professor. The way he explains really makes it clear and easy to learn. Bravo 👏🏻
Totally agree!
I love videos like this, comparing icelandic to its sister languages is so interesting!! The first three sentences in swedish are:
1. Fängelset är långt borta
2. Vi älskar lukten av nötkött (we call cows and oxes ”nöt” (naut) but I wonder why?)
3. Bonden for till drottningen för att be (bedja) om nåd
Norwegian and Icelandic come from Western Old Nordic and swedish comes from Eastern but some things are actually more similar between swedish and icelandic which is interesting!
i was thinking the same thing! thank you for writing it out :) I'd love to see Danes speaking fast and have Swedes have to write it lol
Swedish retains more vocabulary than both Danish and Norwegian. Mainly because of the wide variety of dialects in the country that have older words that have been assimilated into the standard language that have changed in modern Norwegian or Danish. That is why it is easier for us to pick out icelandic.
Skulle precis till att skriva det. Du hann före! Slapp jag. :)
Bonden for til dronningen for å be om nåde
@@iksRoald De bør bruke folk som kan et minstemål av norsk. Fyren i videoen kjenner jo verken betydningen av ordet "be" eller "nåde".
I'm also Norwegian, but actually Swedish uses the term nötkött, so I could guess what nautakjöti meant. But yes, in Norwegian we don't use that term, but rather oksekjøtt or storfe.
Also you can say nåde in Norwegian for náðun
Although we do have the word naut for cattle in Norwegian. I have seen nautkjøtt, but it’s not common.
@@robinviden9148 Yeah, although I somehow thought that was more of a dialectal thing. Maybe it's not common in Northern Norwegian?
Nötkött in Swedish is beef in general though, not a particular cow. The Norwegian word would commonly be Storfe.
@Låtsaspappan I wasn’t aware that we made meat distinctions between different types of cow in Norwegian.
@Meh I have no idea of what’s common where. I’m mostly used to naut being used about a stupid person (as in ditt naut!). 😄
DOPE! 😍 Both Iceland and Norway are on my must-visit list 🥰🤗
Both countries have amazing nature
@@SamA-bo4tk exactly, I know
awsome go to both you are going to love it ;)
i hate winter here, its cold
very cold
very fucking cold
(norway)
even though i live at the south coastline
@@outlaw553 i agree, i want to go on an holiday :(
Icelandic is a unique and fascinating language. It's very old and yet hasn’t changed much. I just love this language so much 🇮🇸
Thanks for the video 💕
It has changed a lot in the last decades. The difference between how the older generation and the younger one speak is noticeable.
@@mattikul in what ways
@@christiankalinkina239 My children can have a hard time to understand me sometimes, so many words the younger gen dont use any more. The language isnlosing words and changing the meaning. English influences for sure, less colourful language. It is a pity. Indid not have any problems talking to my grandparents
@@mattikul In my opinion the language has not changed at all. There are only differences in the vocabulary of different generations. The young generation makes up new words. Most of them don't survive but a few of them become an addition to the language. There are always differences in the vocabulary of different groups of people.
Except for the days of the week. The norse gods disappeared from them, but are still retained in norwegian.
I love this!!!
I've noticed something... the verb "to write" in Icelandic is "Að skrifa ", in Norwegian "Skrive", in Romanian " a scrie" and in latin "Scribere", so basically this word was inherited on a Latin background and circulated in Germanic languages. Amazing.
It's a stain on the Icelandic language. :P I only use the verb "rita" ;)
@@meuspeus5483 nice
@@meuspeus5483 and 'skriva' in Swedish
The verb "to write" is "að skrifa" in Icelandic. "Skrifaðu" is an imperative verb, so basically telling someone to write. But yeah. I totally agree with you. It's pretty amazing.
@@r.bj.2427 My fault, I used a bad dictionary, haha
Next time do Setesdalsk dialect to Icelandic. Setesdalsk have preserved some Old Norse inflections on certain words. And many say it is the closest and most preserved Norwegian dialect in respect to Old Norse
I agree, and bring the swedish Älvdalska (Elfdalian) and we have a winner concept!🤩
Ja. Og generelt dialekter, er lettere for Islendinger å forstå hvis de snakker sakte, ifølge samboeren min som er Islandsk.
@@andurk Yes. They are even closer to Old Norse than some of our Norwegian dialects.
My mom is from Valle, Setesdal and I can vouch for that, I always have a hard time understanding them when we visit or she just switches to Vallemål. They have enteirely different words compared to common norwegian dialects. The word morsomt (fun) in regular dialect will be gama (fun) in Setesdsal dialect for example.
@@Xar0n83 Yes, Vallemål specifically is what i had in mind. It’s a very unique dialect since
they even have their own vocabulary (as you pointed out) unlike any other dialect in Norway in my opinion!
Vallemål er ekte Setesdalsk! :)
The reason Icelandic is more linguistically conservative than other Germanic languages is because it's a big part of the national identity and the reason Iceland is an independent country. The Icelandic language of today was purified for the most part. Also because it is relatively isolated, small, and homogeneous, and that's why after Icelandic, the second most conservative Germanic language is Faroese, which is very much related to Icelandic. Their grammar is very similar indeed, and they share quite a lot of vocabulary, yet it is a distinct language by all accounts.
Im icelandic lolll
And my friend is on norway
IM SO CONFUSED BRUH
Same with French in Canada
@@candidone1852 French in Canada just uses Church related items as curse words.
When I worked on an autoline boat many years ago, we had both crew from the Faroe Islands and Iceland on board! The fishing boat was once under Icelandic ownership so lots of fire instructions were still in Icelandic! It was pretty much the same in writing! I understood the crew best from the Faroe Islands but usually understood what was slow in Icelandic too! Greetings from Norway!
I love watching this and understanding everything being a Faroes guy🇫🇴
Norwegians and the Faroes are Iceland's favorite people, we literally adore you guys.
oh hey from denmark hahaha
@@tokehansen188 Danes were not big fans of faroese Iceland and norwegians back in the day but it's probably cool now right
This was really amazing. What we see with Icelandic is interesting indeed as it has changed very little over the past one thousand years. Take for instance, the word friður for peace. In English, there is the word frith which is not used anymore and has become very archaic, but in Old English its ancestor "friþ" was being used and it meant the same thing.
And in German it's 'Frieden'.
That's not exactly true Icelandic had been heavily influenced by Danish in the early 19 hundreds and was riedel with slang taken from Danish but after independence in 1944 the language started to roll back so the modern Icelandic is more alike old west Norse then Icelandic spoken in the 18 and early 19 hundreds
Ég lívar í ísland
In english:í live in iceland
@@schadegd6771I live in Iceland in Icelandic is Ég bý á Íslandi
Svo ertu frá Ísland?
What a great video. Gabriel is definitely linguistically talented. I was surprised by the Stunda and Tida difference. Like Stunde/Hour in German and Tide (as in yuletide) in English.
Mersi, Bahador!
In Serbo-Croatian, the word for a flat is ста̑н (stȃn) and I believe shares the same root with the German word for chair "Stuhl". But in proto-Slavic it meant something like a stand which is closer to chair.
@Roger Stêrk You get to read the texts, it makes a big difference. He doesn't have that advantage.
I'm German, I speak Dutch, English, Kleverlandse(a lower franconian dialect similar to flaams, Limburgse and Gelderlandse) as well. The more I read the more I get the point. I think it would be not so hard for me to learn Norwegian, Icelandic is a quite harder because of the pronunciation.
German and Norwegian has a lot of similar words and sentences.
As an Icelander I don't think the pronunciation is difficult. It is very clear and mostly pronounced like it is written. And there are no different dialects. However, Icelandic is difficult to learn for foreigners because of the grammar. Most words have many different forms and endings based on the context.
They are all Germanic (like how Slavic language have similar words), but Icelandic will be harder, as it is close to Old Norse, which is quite different than western Germanic langauegs
As a Swede I could figure most of these out, but of course, I got to read the text which he didnt.
I was surprised to see that the Icelandic examples had more similarities with Swedish than Norwegian! We say nötkött for beef in Swedish!
Bonden for till drottningen för att bedja om nåd. It's old fashioned Swedish that you would find in a Bible or something. But I still got the sentence right away!
The Norwegian part was obviously a cake-walk. It's almost the same as Swedish.
Yeah, I noticed several words that were more similar in Swedish than Norwegian.
Blame the Danes for that.
I was thinking with that sentence in particular that somehow I could understand it! but granted I could read the text below lol that makes sense
@@zarolikse2372 yea, nynorsk is more similar to icelandic though
The example with the farmer would be.
Bonden dro til dronning for å be om nåde.
Now you see it more like the icelandic sentence.
Gabriel makes a great teacher
Indeed 👍
Very nice and informative video, sir. ❤️❤️
6:04 "The queen part" - drottning/dronning - refers to a locative, which still exists in Icelandic, and existed in e.g. Old Norse, and Latin.
Its remaindings in Norwegian have become a genitive, which describes a direction/place:
Til bords, til fjells, til havs, til sjøs ecc. describe to the table, mountains, sea, ocean ecc.
Though the average Norwegian just uses it without caring/thinking of the "special" grammar.
You know it's interesting because nautakjöt actually has an English cognate which is not used any more, and that's "neat". In English today "neat" means tidy or clean, which has a different root. But an archaic English word "neat" was used to refer to a bull or cow.
Nötkött is Swedish for beef. Norwegian just uses a different word for the first element. I could guess the Icelandic from Swedish.
More proof of how well Icelandic preserves the old the language.
One neat, two neat, like sheep or deer. It's still used in "neat's foot oil".
We have the word "naut" in Norwegian as well, and it means cattle.
But it not used that often about meat, at least not in my dialect.
It is often used as a remark if you want to call someone an idiot or stupid.
You could say " ditt naut ! ", meaning that you are stupid as cattle.
meat!
Thank you for this episode especially, since these languages i'd like to learn.
That was a great video. I’ve been studying Norwegian as I have ancestors from there. I got a lot of it as I’ve also studied Icelandic.
The icelandic man looks attractive
Lol
XDDDDD
Haram
lmao
I wanna know his Instagram
Get someone from Western Norway to try to understand Icelandic, it will be very interesting considering how some things are similar to Icelandic in those western dialects
Which language form is closer to Old Norse, bokmål or nynorsk?
@@christianh4723 Nynorsk! By far
@@christianh4723 Heilt rett👍
@@christianh4723 yes probably nynorsk, but Icelandic is closest to old Norse (west) and maybe Faroese
@@9199aa Indeed. In order of closeness to Old Norse: Icelandic, Faroese, Nynorsk, Bokmål.
Thanks for the video, Bahador! I'm actually learning Icelandic right now and learned a few things here. My goal is to be a part of the movement to help preserve this fascinating language and ultimately settle down with an Icelandic woman.
Ertu íslendingur? Hefjum spjall!
Þetta er gott tungumál verður að segjast
@@TheFilmHubShorts Já örugglega!
@Thor Westernfjord Thank man, checked it out. Good stuff
vertu bara velkominn til Íslands hvenær sem er vinurinn og haltu áfram að læra
No offense, but the Norwegian guy has an exceptionally poor vocabulary and does not seem to know even common Norwegian words. In between, the Icelander, who only learned Norwegian in school for 6 months seen to be the more proficient Norwegian speaker and has to explain Norwegian words to him. If you want to demonstrate how Norwegians and Icelanders understand eachother, you should find a Norwegian with a normal level of language knowledge instead and perhaps find an Icelander, who has not learned Norwegian in school to give the Norwegian side a fair chance in the comparison :-)
"Naut" is also a Norwegian word for cattle. Perhaps not very commonly used, but at least known enough for Wikipedia to redirect from naut to the Norwegian article about cattle. If not commonly used for cattle, it is still used as a derogatory term for dumb or annoying persons. Even Henrik Ibsen used the term in Peer Gynt: "Du er et naut!"
The Norwegian expression he is struggling to find when trying to translate "biðja um náðun" is "be om nåde". He does not seem to know the word "nåde" at all, which is the most surprising thing. This is the standard and commonly used Norwegian expression for "ask for mercy".
The Norwegian cognate to "siður" is "sed" or "sedvane". "Sed" is a rather archaic word and not used that much anymore, but still common in some fixed expressions like "seder og skikker" ("customs and habits"). Also, the Norwegian word for "sturta" is simply "styrte" or "styrta". It is a word with many meanings, it can mean to fall (when walking or bicycling), to hurry or to crash an airplane or a government. Even if it is not used figuratively for flushing the toilet in Norwegian, it is used figuratively for fast movements of liquids in other senses, e.g. "styrte en øl" ("chug a beer").
He actually did fine. It's much easier when you see the words written out. He doesn't see them, and in Icelandic the pronunciations can be rather difficult at times. So all you said is easier said than done 😉
@@samspear8772 This is not just about the pronounciation and that he did not see the written text. A few times, the Icelander even tried to explain him the Norwegian words and he still seemed lost and did not understand what the Icelander was talking about.
@@tor-einarjarnbjo1661 u should volunteer then
Well, Gabriel has a bit more of an advantage than that. From what he says at 26:28, he not only learned Norwegian intensively for six months (three times a week), but he also moved to Norway at a young age (8) and conversed in Norwegian after that six month period. In essence, he became a naturalised Norwegian.
@@tor-einarjarnbjo1661
I would think one possibility is just not grasping the concept. You can have a friend or a family member and you explain a math problem to them several times and they still don’t understand that. Not giving him the benefit of the doubt or anything I don’t even know these people it’s just another possibility besides not being able to read the text.
I feel like this is a great way for Norwegians to learn Icelandic though. Because you exercise on the already similarities, and its a good way to learn how its "put together" and how you explain expressions makes it easier to make sense of. The icelander should make an icelandic course for Norwegian speakers 👍
Excellent video. These guys are good and just to add to all the interesting info. The word bóndi / bonde for farmer actually has an English cognate that is bond, but has drifted to mean something different. The original Old Norse term was used for farmer and husband, and in Old English 'bonda' was used for husband.
Husband must be related to the Icelandic word húsbóndi- hús(house)bóndi(farmer/man) = man of the house.
I don't know but seems pretty likely
@@logihrafn late Old English (in the senses ‘male head of a household’ and ‘manager, steward’), from Old Norse húsbóndi ‘master of a house’, from hús ‘house’ + bóndi ‘occupier and tiller of the soil’. The original sense of the verb was ‘till, cultivate’. In Norwegian the word ‘Husbonde’ still exists (although not in use anymore), and refers to the master of the house.
@@andurk ah perfect! Thanks, I didn't bother looking it up, seemed quite obvious, as we still use the word húsbóndi here in modern times iceland.
@@logihrafn "Husbonde" in modern Norwegian.
@@andurk jeg liker ordet husbonde. We still talk about husbonden in historic context, while talking about the farming society that we had long ago
I love all of the Nordic languages. So glad they're finally getting featured! (And hopefully soon Finnish can be in a video too.)
Finnish is not a Nordic language.
@@ankra12 I could be wrong, but I don't think they were implying that Finnish is Nordic. Seems to be an added statement considering how this channel never had a Finnish video.
Maybe compare finnish with estonian.
@@ankra12 but Finnish is a Nordic language. Even if it doesn't belong in the same language family, it is still one of the languages spoken in the Nordic countries. It's just not a Scandinavian language, as it's part of the Finno-Ugric language family.
I feel it's much easier for me as a Norwegian to understand these when I see it written down, but I did manage to understand everything, but you have to contextualize a lot of it to understand some of the words.
I live in Texas, but I was able to understand some of the words because when I was younger I had studied Middle English and Old English as a hobby. Between the two, Norwegian was easier for me.
Been waiting for this for ages! I’m impressed by my fellow Norwegian. Icelandic is so far from Norwegian due to separation and the Danification of Norwegian aka bokmål, that most Norwegians doesn’t understand Icelandic. Tho easier if you speak in a dialect as those are closer. Tho the «Icelandic» guy speak with a Norwegian accent my Icelandic boyfriend says. I could hear it too with certain words. I bust realized since we opened up Norway fully back in September, that they are in the same room. No cam, which helps with the sound quality, as one can hear everything more clearly.
So...i have a question. Norwegian and Danish were once seperate (east and west old Norse) ...with Norwegian turning into nynorsk and Danish bokmål. ..how did Norwegian adopt bokmal? If one was wanting to learn "Norwegian" would they learn bokmål or nynorsk.
The word in Norwegian for "náðun" would be "nåde", the act of pardoning would be "benåde", at least in bokmål. We also do have the word "naut" for "bull" in Norwegian as well, though it is not used much, and is now more usually used to mean "idiot".
In my dialect of Norwegian we have the words "einkvart(something)" and "einkvan(someone)", which is similar to the structure Icelandic uses.
The biggest issue with understanding Icelandic is vocabulary, since Norwegian contains a lot of loanwords from German and French, and more recently English, while Icelandic does not. Not to mention that words in common have sometimes drifted apart in meaning. The grammar can also make things a bit tricky, but one can learn.
Hvilke låneord har vi fra fransk? Vet om mange fra tysk, nederlansk og engelsk, men fransk kom jeg ikke på noe særlig mer enn restaurant og sjåfør?
@@AlphaChinoz Sjanse; idé; allé; café; ballong; fasong; interessant; ordene som ender på -ment, som departement; rang; etasje; sjarm; sjalu; generøs; geni; generell; gelé; sjy; revy; tur; succé/suksé; etat; turné; og mange flere.
Med tanke på hvor norsk tur blir sett som er det interessant at ordet kom fra fransk.
as a swede i almost instantly saw what most icelandic phrases meant after reading more carefully
"Staurta neður" seems similar to Swedish "Störta ned"
Icelandic: Fangelsið er langt í burtu.
Norwegian: Fengselet er langt borte.
Swedish: Fägelset är långt borta.
English: The prison is far away.
Icelandic: Við elskum lyktina af nautakjöti.
Norwegian Nynorsk: Vi elskar lukta av storfekjøt/oksekjøt*.
Norwegian Bokmål: Vi elsker lukten av storfekjøtt/oksekjøtt*.
Swedish: Vi älskar lukten av nötkött.
English: We love the smell of beef.
Icelandic: Bóndinn fór til drottningarinnar til að biðja um náð.
Norwegian Nynorsk: Bonden fór til dronninga for å beda** om nåde.
Norwegian Bokmål: Bonden for til dronningen for å be** om nåde.
Swedish: Bonden for till drottningen för att bedja** om nåd.
English: The farmer went to the queen to ask for mercy.
* Norwegian also has the noun naut for cattle, and I have seen nautkjøt(t) been used, but usually, we use the noun storfe for cattle and storfekjøtt (or oksekjøtt) for beef. Interestingly, the common Swedish word for beef is nötkött.
** Norwegian Nynorsk also has the shortened form be, and Bokmål had the longer form bede (but today it would be very archaic). Swedish bedja is more formal. The commonly used form of the verb is the shortened form be (as in Norwegian).
långt / langt is actually a cognate to the English word long
Perfect translation! I live close to the border with Sweden, so nautakjöti was pretty easy. Most of it was easy to understand, at least in writing. I even understood biðja um náð. Many words from icelandic can be found in norwegian dialects, because they both preserved some words from old norse.
Norwegian; Vi elsker lukta av nautkjøtt
til að biðja um náðun (amnesti) !
Maybe I’m splitting hairs, but I would say that ”bedja” is more archaic than formal.
I love how Scandinavian languages sound and especially Icelandic. I don't know, it sounds kind of magical. It's a very interesting video. Just some subtitles missing and the English translation of some parts that they only say in their languages.
Iceland is a Nordic country-not a Scandinavian. Scandinavia is only Norway, Denmark and Sweden.
As a norwegian, when reading icelandic its become so easy. understand at least 95% of it.
I’ve been learning some Swedish and I understood some of the sentences!
jeg bare elsker denne videoen.. ny på å lære norsk tusen takk
This was very interesting. If you want someone to compare Faroese with with, hit me up, as I'm native Faroese. :)
PS: you wrote that Icelandic has retained many phonological traits of Old Norse, this is partially true as especially Icelandic's vowels have changed a lot. Some consonant changes aswell. But this is true of all Nordic languages anyway.
Thank you! Would love to!
Could you contact me on Instagram: @bahadoralast
If you know nynorsk, or some of the dialects from the western parts of Norway, you can understand quite a lot. Try asking a person from Sogn to understand Icelandic. I bet he will do well :)
@@yarnivores Årdal?
Å fyfaen nynorsk....
Neida vakkert språk det altså haha
@@Christian_TH verken bokmål eller nynorsk er språk, de er kun skriftspråk. Norsk er språket
@@bitterwiththesweet4742 Joda, er klar over det.
@@Christian_TH ok jeg er også norsk så
I can Swedish as a second language. Actually, both Icelandic and Norwegian sound fairly similar. However, Norwegian feels easier to me in comparison to Icelandic. Thank you Bahador for this informative video! Keep up the good work 🙂
Some same words have very different meanings in norwegian and icelandic: Hugsa/huske means to think in IS but to remember in NO.
Especially in the bedroom can get pretty confusing😅:
Rúm/Rom means bed in IS but room in NO
Sæng/seng means blanket in IS but bed in NO
Dýna/dyne means mattress in IS but blanket in NO
As an Icelander living in Norway for quite a while, the whole rúm/sæng/dýna thing always gets me confused!
You should also do language comparisons from the pacific islands like Chamorro, Palauan or Native Hawaiian for example
Good luck finding someone who speaks Chamorro.
pravite tako dobre video klipove!!!
Amazing video! Actually in Swedish there is the word "nötkött". This is a combined term. With nöt representing the animal, and in Old Swedish nø̄t was used for cattle. The second part being "kött" as in meat. So as a combined term nötkött is beef.
In Norwegian dialects Naut means bull or cow
I also reacted on that, I speak swedish and understood it after some explaining. It’s also similar to the finnish word “nauti” which is “nötkött”. I think it’s pretty cool
@@williamg9857 Finnish is in a totally different language family though. How did it get there? Perhaps borrowed from Swedish?
@@andrew_be1379 yes I know that it’s probably a borrowed word. Finnish is a completely different language and a part of a completely different groups of languages, I just thought it was kinda cool I guess
@@williamg9857It's "nauta" though in Finnish. "Nauti" means "enjoy".
So fun to listen to this as a sweed and pick up words that we got but not the norwegian guy. And words that we don't have that they have. :P We got the word "sturta" here to. But we say störta. And it means that something falling down. Like "Tornet störtar ner i djupet" the tower falling down into the depths. Or a plane can störta from the sky too.
We have that word in Norwegian too and we use it all the time: Styrte/styrta.
Bonden for/dro til dronningen for å be om nåde. As a south western Norwegian I understood all the Icelandic, but it probably helped seeing it spelled out on the screen as well. Henning should have understood the word "naut", which means cow in Norwegian as well.
Hi Bahador. Just wondering if you'd be able to do a Finnish and Estonian one.
seconded!
Would love to. I'm currently in touch with a Finnish subscriber who wants to participate.
The imperialistic ambitions of Russia put a major dent on Estonia. The late Estonian president Konstantin Päts wished for a union of Finnic countries in his political testament due to the close relations of their languages, writing an outline of a unification plan. He used the term "soomesugu" in Estonian to point to the people and countries of Finland and Estonia when talking about common border law.
You should do a video on similaritys between finnish amd estonian
The Norwegian is from the Eastern/Northern part of Norway, so he seems a bit helpless regarding Icelandic words which Norwegians from the Western part of Norway would find quite easy to understand.
They use nåde and naut in Eastern and Northern Norway as well.
I love the poem! It hung above the toilet in my home when I lived with my grandparents till I turned 18 😅
Their English is outstanding!
Most young Norwegians speak English at that level.
Any thoughts on learning both at the same time i started Norwegian 3 years ago but stopped after a year of doing it i felt pimsleur was not clear on pronunciation but i should not have gotten trapped by this so i still have the program s for Norwegian so i would like to use it icelandic is a bit harder to find content not a lot of audiobooks lingQ is good any thoughts would be appreciated
I'm so happy to see someone from my country I'm icelandic))
As a norwegian girl myself it was fun to watch
icelandic and norweigian are similar to each other
4:30 The word noen/nokon is a contraction of a word that contained the word "hver", which means "who" in ON and Icelandic. The reason the word now ends in an "n", is because it's frozen in the accusative case.
The farmer went to the queen to ask for mercy/pardon. I figure that out right away and im Norwegian. But could be because i lived for a half year in Iceland so I catch it up faster. Also in Norwegian it can be "bonden for til dronningen for å be om nåde". So i believe nåde is the right word, and not tilgivelse. Though it haves similar meaning. So you probably can use both. "For" also mean "went" in Norwegian but mostly used in Western Norway. A friend from Ålesund always use "for" instead of "dro".
Also "naut" is used for cow/ox in some dialects i guess, as ive seen it used in old papers etc (i like to read those) but in common speech and understandig it is usually used as a negative term about someone who is well.. dumb or limited in some way 🙈
Anyways it just shows there is alot of diversity in Norwegian language. I speak some dialect and moved to Oslo. Some words I use people here barely understand, so Ive had to change the way i speak abit to not confuse people 🙈
I got the word written with four letters. Having taken German helped mit Buchstaben schreiben.
Very nice and informative video, i don't speak any language of the both just i love languages
You should really do one with Swedish and Icelandic :) its so much i understand. But i can speak Danish too so maybe it influce it a bit, but let me know if you need a swede :P
Sure, thanks! Could you message me on Instagram: @BahadorAlast
I remember we learned in school that icelanders Are descendants of Norwegians that left Norway for Iceland because of the christening of Norway.
But then years later i found out that it was actually Magnus Lagabøtes laws regarding property that made Norwegians leave for Iceland because the King repossesed their land to his own Fortune... 😉
Feel free to correct me if im wrong 🙂
Make a video of all the four Scandinavian dialects
Wow, as a swede I understood the icelandic sentences to some extent. For example at 3.09 in swedish it is: "Bonden for till drottningen för att be om nåd". That one I understood instantly, Icelandic is very fascinating and are one of many languages I want to learn. The norwegian I understood almost all of, as it is similar to swedish.
I got the first one right away and all but the last word of the second , though I’m just a beginner with both of the language, but I got lost completely trying to figure out what the farmer wanted from the queen.
We use "Styrta" in almost the same sense as Gabriel, only for us it refers to chugging a drink.
The Icelandic word "náðun/ náðugur/ náðug": -is directly related to the Norwegian word "nådig".
I'm studying both and it's incredibly interesting how well they can actually understand each other.
As for the beef part: I guess the Icelandic word has the same origin as the Swedish word "nötkött"?! :)
In Norway naut was used in a lot of dialects when talking about cows and oxen if you go back a generation or two., but it's replaced by ku/kyr and okse nowadays.
How do i change the pixel on my apple desktop phone page? I want it at 779 by 998 i dont like this high definition
As a German, I recognise here and there maybe one word in a sentence, but Icelandic has always been in one class with Finnish (until I learned Finnish). Norwegian is much easier to guess.
Good idea.
Gotta try with Faroese as well!
I live on the island of Gotland, in Sweden, and alot of the spoken icelandic I could understand, and this is probably due to our dialect being very different to standard Swedish.
Gotland has also been under the token of imperialistic ambitions. During the Middle Ages, Gotland became a fief of the Teutonic Knights who conquered the island in 1398, destroying Visby and driving the Victual Brothers from Gotland.
Hi Bahador jan,If you can invite Magnus Carsen ,and Ian Nepomniachtchi comparing Norwegian and Russian Language ! (and Also
chess related terms roots) it would be really cool considering that Nepo will challenge Magnus for the world championship title next month !
Please consider this .
2:20: "Naut" is indeed a word in Norwegian also, literally meaning bull. Not often used yet should still be common knowledge for native speakers. The following Icelandic: bidja um nadum" is also pretty close in Norwegian: "be om naade"..
Ny norsk would be : byde om nåde? No?
as someone whos trying to learn Norwegian but has no one to practice with, this blew me away lol. I honestly thought Id have some idea what was going on but nope.
Also depends on his personality types as without intuition it’s gonna be harder
Btw please do Faroese VS Norwegian. Closer to Norwegian, even though they use the Icelandic written form. I understand Icelandic, tho not fluent, my boyfriend is Icelandic, but as a Norwegian Faroese is much easier due to the influence of Norwegian and Danish, as most of them migrated from Norway. It also sounds fun y due to the intermixing of Celtic from northern Scotland, and the Northern Isles that used to be Norwegian territory.
Hmm I do not think you are Norwegian
In the Icelandic poem sturta does have a Norwegian cognate, but it’s not that obvious.
It’s cognate with styrte(NB/NN), chugging usually with beer. Or styrte regjeringen (NB) styrte regjerniga(NN), to bring the government down.
Or yet again, styrte utfor (NB/NN), to fall (over the edge) eg. the edge of a waterfall.
Basically to take something and moving it downwards fast, in two cases something waterbased, beer and waterfall, and in one case something based on shit.
2:27 We do have the word naut in Norwegian, and it means the same as in Icelandic. I'm surprised the native Norwegian guy doesn't know that.
"Bidja um nadun"
Well, "nadun" is "nåde" in Norwegian and int means "mercy" not "forgiveness".
"Bidja" is here used in a way like "bid her/for mercy". So "by" is _kind of correct_ by the Norwegian but doesn't make sense contextually in that language. "By" is "bid" like in an auction, in this context.
This word in particular seems to have been messed up between the three languages over time. Interesting!
Of course, you can say in Norwegian "be om nåde" which means "ask for mercy" literally and - again this is stretching it a tiny little bit - "bid her/for mercy".
Norwegian is written according to two distinct standards, “bokmål” (book language) and “nynorsk” (new Norwegian). Bokmål is the modernized version of the Danish written standard that was used until the first major language reform in 1907. Nynorsk was created by linguist Ivar Aasen in the 1850s, based on various Norwegian dialects, with more than a nod to the pre-Danish, Norse past. The movement away from Danish was fueled by a strong, nationalistic need for cultural nation-building, when 300 years of Danish rule came to a screeching end in 1814.
Because Sweden took over for almost 100 years ;).
@@loveatfirstfeel112 Sweden had colonies in the U.S as well
@@loveatfirstfeel112 which meant it wasn't politically correct to call Danish Danish, so they just called it Norwegian.. still a large majority of the population think that broken Danish is Norwegian...
I noticed some grammatical and pronunciation errors in the icelandic texts. For example it should be „seint skrifast með fjórum orðum“ instead of „fjögrum orðum“ and it should be „einhver fer að banka“ (someone goes knocking) and not „eitthver“ (that's a very common mistake among native icelanders however since the word whatever is „eitthvað“ in icelandic). These are very understable mistakes but since it's a video about the language I thought I should mention it.
I've been learning Norwegian on duolingo for almost a month now, (I wanted to learn Icelandic, but they dont have it available yet) and I could see a few similarities actually.
There is one Old Norse term that comes from Persian, it's the word for chess "skák". The word then entered Icelandic and other Nordic languages. Even though the Persian pronunciation is different and is applicable as one of the chess pieces, but ultimately it became the word for chess in Old Norse.
I don't know if Old Norse also had it but in Faroese, skák is indeed one word for chess, although talv is more common. The term "check" is called skák in Faroese, however. In addition, the rook (castle) is called rókur in Faroese, and this is also a word ultimately from Persian. There is also a bird in Faroese called rókur but this has a different etymology.
It would be interesting to learn how the Persian word made its way into the languages. Eastern Vikings traveled the rivers of Russia to create trade routes the byzantine empire. They probably also led to the creation of Russia.
@@DougWinfield The chessterms? Via English, French, and/or German, most likely. I doubt they came directly from the Persians but I won't rule it out completely either.
My salute friends ❤
6:00 I think the best translation of that sentence, would be "bonden dro til dronningen og ba om nåde" (i think nåde is the word that is similar to the Islandic one)
Yeah, that's what I said right away. Bonden dro til dronninga for å be om nåde. I'm surprised that common word (nåde) slipped their minds.
@@Neophema Náðun in Icelandic means pardon (benådning in Norwegian). The Icelandic word for nåde is náð, meaning mercy. Another word more common for mercy in Icelandic is miskunn.
@@asmhar Oh, thank you! :) I've just started learning Icelandic, so I appreciate it. We have the word miskunn in Norwegian (both bokmål and nynorsk) too, but it's not used that much.
Hvordan kunne nordmannen overse "naut" for okse/ku og "nåde" for tilgivelse?
The Norwegian word for pardoning is "benådning" btw.. ("be" as in ask, and "nåde" as mercy)
18:06 The word ‚mál‘ can mean many things including language/tongue, as well as the word ‚tunga‘ and ‚tungumál‘.
I feel like I understand more icelandic than most norwegians since I speak a quite archaic western dialect. I remember going to Iceland with my family as a kid and my dad being able to converse passably with the locals by speaking how he remembered his grandfather speaking.
My paternal grandfather came to New York in 1905 from Bodo and my maternal grandfather from between Harstad and Narvik. My maternal grandmother came from Arendal. I could perceive the difference between the northern and southern accents though Norwegian was the language that was spoken in the family when the adults did not want the children to know what they were saying or they could not come up with the right English word. The first sentence I learned was," Jeg kan ikke forstor" and the second was "Jeg kan ikke snakker Norsk." Today I can make a few sentences in Norwegian, probably grammatically incorrect, and have a vocabulary of no more than five hundred words, perhaps less.
It was interesting to me that both the northern and southern branches of the family found the solo dialect of the time strange.
My father's father lived in a house that had a Danish family on one side and a Scottish-American family on the other. In time the children moved away and he, now a widower, started renting out his house. For about a year, an Icelandic couple. My grandfather could understand the Danish women next door but not the Icelandic couple on the other side.
“Bonden for til dronningen for at bede om nåde” - in danish 🇩🇰
Interestingly enough, the Danish bonde is a cognate with the English word bond, and in Middle English bonde meant peasant
@@worldly8888
"bonde" come from the old norse word "búandi", that means "living a place", like if you own land and live there.
In English you have the word "husband" that comes from "hus" meaning "house" in Norwegian, and "band" have the same origin as "bonde".
English has kept the word "husband", but in Norwegian it is not in use anymore, instead we say "ektemann".
Third sentence i got right away as a Swede. " Bonden for till Drottningen för att bedja om nåd" Kinda similar
The chemistry is appalling lol. Both languages are absolutely gorgeous. I wish I could speak all of the Nordic languages ...what a blessing that would be.
Love to see Icelandic and Danish
20:10 i was supprised it meant to flush the toilet if so, as I read that last part ut was to "styrte ned" as in chugging down on a bottle 🤣
Haha same 😂
I could guess the second one. Nauta means cow meat in Finnish, too, although it's pronounced differently.