Everything You Never Wanted To Know About Old Norse
The Vikings not only broke the mold of the adventuring seafarers of the Medieval European North, but they also inherited and uniquely preserved aspects of a shared Germanic culture. The language they spoke, Old Norse, exhibits a similar tendency: vehicle of some of the most technical and innovative poetic styles of the day, yet repository of a fantastic heritage linked to other Germanic languages and beyond. In this talk we discuss how we can use the history of this Scandinavian culture to understand the language, and how we can use the language to understand history.
Cultures all across Medieval Europe record the dreadful impact of raiders upon unsuspecting commoners and clergy and kings. Less lauded is the impact these same Scandinavians had on the languages of the cultures they encountered. We will investigate the influence of Old Norse upon languages across the seas, like Old Russian and Old English. Were Old English and Old Norse mutually intelligible, like some ancient texts really suggest?
Just as important, this ancient Scandinavian culture and shared language did not come from nowhere. How do we understand the interrelatedness of cultures and their languages? Using the tools of historical linguistics, we will delve deeper into history to investigate less common questions: what features does Old Norse have in common with Hittite? Is the Old Norse word for “salmon” really the same as the Tocharian word? As we venture across space and time with the Vikings and their language, join us and find out.
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11 Comments
We are very lucky to have had this talk from such an expert on this field, thank you, Todd!
In Dutch we say ‘eieren’ as plural for eggs so at least it has survived somewhere 😉 Anyway I love all things Northern Europe so thank you for this fascinating presentation!
Excellent presentation! Thank you 🤗
This was incredibly put together and extremely fascinating, even for someone who knew next to nothing about Old Norse other than that it has ties with modern and Old English. Thank you for this wonderful presentation!
Fascinating, especially for those who were lucky enough to have attended the Polyglot Conference 2017 in Reykjavik!
What a wonderful talk and list of resources at the end. The LRC looks *very* interesting; thank you so much for sharing. How can one know if your book sees the light of day?
Fascinating and enjoyable presentation! Thank you.
So interesting! Thank you for sharing ❤️
Thank you very much for your presentation, it was very interesting. Your presentation came right at this moment when I am interested at old norse, and scandinavian languages. Can’t wait at your book !!
Very fun–thank you!
Very interesting and informative. I bookmarked the LRC link you provided for further exploration. Thank you very much for your presentation!