Linguistic Miscellany Thread

[Jonlang]

Are Old English and Old Norse actually mutually intelligible? To what degree? I have heard conflicting things.

I'm not sure how we'd know. I know Prof. Tom Shippey (who spoke both languages) made this argument, but in the absence of empirical evidence or reliable testimony it's a purely speculative one.

This video by Jackson Crawford with Simon Roper could be of interest.

[zompist]

Are Old English and Old Norse actually mutually intelligible? To what degree? I have heard conflicting things.

You can guess for yourself!

Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum; Si þin nama gehalgod to becume þin rice gewurþe ðin willa on eorðan swa swa on heofonum. Urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg and forgyf us ure gyltas swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge ac alys us of yfele soþlice

Faþer vár es ert í himenríki, verði nafn þitt hæilagt. Til kome ríke þitt, værði vili þin sva a iarðu sem í himnum. Gef oss í dag brauð vort dagligt, Ok fyr gefþu oss synþer órar, sem vér fyr gefom þeim er viþ oss hafa misgert. Leiðd oss eigi í freistni, heldr leys þv oss frá öllu illu.

As has been pointed out many times, intelligibility isn't binary or very clear-cut at all. It may not be mutual; it depends on familiarity and motivation and individual speakers and word choices; both sides can make adjustments on the fly. The cognates that are obvious to a reader are far less obvious when spoken.

Ideally you'd look at phonemes... e.g. if I'm not mistaken OE rice and ON rike are pronounced the same.

ON "Gef oss" could be understood by an English speaker today... not least because we borrowed "give" from ON, replacing OE giefan. Which this text doesn't use, preferring sellan, whose descendent is "sell". But an ON speaker probably would have understood, since they had the word as selja...

As lb says, we can't know for sure.

[Imralu]

Apparently Finnish has also undergone the high german consonant shift compare Proto Uralic *wete with Finnish *vesi. It's even got the *w > *v change. It's also apparently common amongst all the worlds languages.

Finnish hasn't undergone the High German shift. The word vesi shows an assibilation of *t before *i, which is also quite a common change which has nothing to do with the High German consonant shift, but also occurs, among others, in Greek.

Both of those sound changes (universal w->v and t->s before i) have also happened in Tongan. Finnish has undergone Tongan sound changes!

[Moose-tache]

Don't mind me, I'm just running Proto-Uralic through Hawai'ian sound changes...

EDIT: (I simplified geminates, broke up consonant codas with a, and unrounded the rounded front vowels, but I think it gets the point across)
’ai’i imiheka hinakiwaka wapaina ya kahawelakaihina alawolakaana ya oi’eu’ahilakaana. Eile ona aneku yala’i ya omakunako, ya eikana ona koimikawa koihiaana ’ohakaana welayeikena ’ena’eha.

[Imralu]

Don't mind me, I'm just running Proto-Uralic through Hawai'ian sound changes...

EDIT: (I simplified geminates, broke up consonant codas with a, and unrounded the rounded front vowels, but I think it gets the point across)
’ai’i imiheka hinakiwaka wapaina ya kahawelakaihina alawolakaana ya oi’eu’ahilakaana. Eile ona aneku yala’i ya omakunako, ya eikana ona koimikawa koihiaana ’ohakaana welayeikena ’ena’eha.

Love it! I recognised the first two words so I know what the text is. Hawai’ian doesn’t have /j/ though … so maybe “and” is better as “ia” …? etc.

[Linguoboy]

Ideally you'd look at phonemes... e.g. if I'm not mistaken OE rice and ON rike are pronounced the same.

I don't think so. OE had an affricate here (some normalised orthographies use <ċ> to reflect this), whereas I think the ON medial was at best [kʲ] (cf. Modern Icelandic [c]).

[Travis B.]

Ideally you'd look at phonemes... e.g. if I'm not mistaken OE rice and ON rike are pronounced the same.

I don't think so. OE had an affricate here (some normalised orthographies use <ċ> to reflect this), whereas I think the ON medial was at best [kʲ] (cf. Modern Icelandic [c]).

I am with you there - OE certainly had postalveolar affricates for many cases of orthographic <c> as in this case, while ON probably had palatalized but not affricated consonants in cases like these, given all its daughters, but we do not know for certain.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

That Old English "rice" had an affricate is also my understanding (the modern reflex is rich, where if Old English had /riːke/, I would expect it to be /raik/ in modern English), conflated with the form borrowed from Norman, which I believe is itself from Frankish). You can also see how English has this /k/ > /tʃ/ where most Germanic languages don't in some very old borrowings from Latin or Greek, note English church, but Scots kirk (influenced by Old Norse), Danish kirke, German Kirche, &c.

[zompist]

Ideally you'd look at phonemes... e.g. if I'm not mistaken OE rice and ON rike are pronounced the same.

I don't think so. OE had an affricate here (some normalised orthographies use <ċ> to reflect this), whereas I think the ON medial was at best [kʲ] (cf. Modern Icelandic [c]).

OK, I thought the affrication happened later than it did. Out of curiosity, when and what is the earliest evidence for the affrication?

[Travis B.]

Ideally you'd look at phonemes... e.g. if I'm not mistaken OE rice and ON rike are pronounced the same.

I don't think so. OE had an affricate here (some normalised orthographies use <ċ> to reflect this), whereas I think the ON medial was at best [kʲ] (cf. Modern Icelandic [c]).

OK, I thought the affrication happened later than it did. Out of curiosity, when and what is the earliest evidence for the affrication?

My guess is that affrication predates loaning of kirk by what became Scots from ON, or otherwise one would expect it to have undergone the same change as OE church.

I should note that palatalization dates back to Anglo-Frisian - take into account West Frisian tsjerke (English church) and West Frisian tsiis (English cheese).

[Linguoboy]

Ideally you'd look at phonemes... e.g. if I'm not mistaken OE rice and ON rike are pronounced the same.

I don't think so. OE had an affricate here (some normalised orthographies use <ċ> to reflect this), whereas I think the ON medial was at best [kʲ] (cf. Modern Icelandic [c]).

OK, I thought the affrication happened later than it did. Out of curiosity, when and what is the earliest evidence for the affrication?

I'll have to see what I can find in Jackson. There are early Germanic loans into Welsh which lack palatalisation (e.g. cist), but as palatalisation is a Middle Welsh development, it's unclear to me how earlier forms of the language would have handled an affricate like [t͡ʃ]. Offhand I can't think of any examples where OE /j/ from earlier *ǥ appears as a velar sound. (E.g. OE hlidgeat > OW llidiard.)

[Travis B.]

I don't think so. OE had an affricate here (some normalised orthographies use <ċ> to reflect this), whereas I think the ON medial was at best [kʲ] (cf. Modern Icelandic [c]).

OK, I thought the affrication happened later than it did. Out of curiosity, when and what is the earliest evidence for the affrication?

I'll have to see what I can find in Jackson. There are early Germanic loans into Welsh which lack palatalisation (e.g. cist), but as palatalisation is a Middle Welsh development, it's unclear to me how earlier forms of the language would have handled an affricate like [t͡ʃ]. Offhand I can't think of any examples where OE /j/ from earlier *ǥ appears as a velar sound. (E.g. OE hlidgeat > OW llidiard.)

It could be possible that palatalization and affrication did not occur at the same time in OE - that palatalization happened first (and was inherited from Anglo-Frisian), but actual affrication only happened later, independent of affrication in Frisian. (Affrication of palatals is such a common sound change that there is no need to assume that this only happened once in Anglo-Frisian..) While it seems unlikely that actual coronal affrication would be reverted to velars, mere palatalization without affrication seems more likely to be reverted in language contact.

[Moose-tache]

Another caveat: since we know there were multiple identities among the Anglo-Saxons, there is no reason to assume they all spoke the same dialect. The Britons could have encountered people with and without palatization or affrication. The palatization/affrication of English and Frisian could come from a single event, with outlier dialects surviving for a few centuries without it.

[bradrn]

I don't think so. OE had an affricate here (some normalised orthographies use <ċ> to reflect this), whereas I think the ON medial was at best [kʲ] (cf. Modern Icelandic [c]).

OK, I thought the affrication happened later than it did. Out of curiosity, when and what is the earliest evidence for the affrication?

I'll have to see what I can find in Jackson …

Out of curiosity, which source is ‘Jackson’?

[Kuchigakatai]

Mark Twain, saying, practically complaining, that German is too much of a sweet, mild, gentle language:

There are some German words which are singularly and powerfully effective. For instance, those which describe lowly, peaceful, and affectionate home life; those which deal with love, in any and all forms, from mere kindly feeling and honest good will toward the passing stranger, clear up to courtship; those which deal with outdoor Nature, in its softest and loveliest aspects--with meadows and forests, and birds and flowers, the fragrance and sunshine of summer, and the moonlight of peaceful winter nights; in a word, those which deal with any and all forms of rest, respose, and peace; those also which deal with the creatures and marvels of fairyland; and lastly and chiefly, in those words which express pathos, is the language surpassingly rich and affective. There are German songs which can make a stranger to the language cry.

"Verdammt," and its variations and enlargements, are words which have plenty of meaning, but the SOUNDS are so mild and ineffectual that German ladies can use them without sin. German ladies who could not be induced to commit a sin by any persuasion or compulsion, promptly rip out one of these harmless little words when they tear their dresses or don't like the soup. It sounds about as wicked as our "My gracious." German ladies are constantly saying, "Ach! Gott!" "Mein Gott!" "Gott in Himmel!" "Herr Gott" "Der Herr Jesus!" etc.

[Raphael]

And for a similar mental disconnect in reverse, here's a guy on a Scandinavian tv show briefly bringing up how scary some English words sound to him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0NmiALMDs0

[Linguoboy]

OK, I thought the affrication happened later than it did. Out of curiosity, when and what is the earliest evidence for the affrication?

I'll have to see what I can find in Jackson …

Out of curiosity, which source is ‘Jackson’?

Language and history in early Britain by Kenneth H. Jackson, one of the standard reference works for Proto-Brythonic and Old Welsh.

[Travis B.]

Mark Twain, saying, practically complaining, that German is too much of a sweet, mild, gentle language:

There are some German words which are singularly and powerfully effective. For instance, those which describe lowly, peaceful, and affectionate home life; those which deal with love, in any and all forms, from mere kindly feeling and honest good will toward the passing stranger, clear up to courtship; those which deal with outdoor Nature, in its softest and loveliest aspects--with meadows and forests, and birds and flowers, the fragrance and sunshine of summer, and the moonlight of peaceful winter nights; in a word, those which deal with any and all forms of rest, respose, and peace; those also which deal with the creatures and marvels of fairyland; and lastly and chiefly, in those words which express pathos, is the language surpassingly rich and affective. There are German songs which can make a stranger to the language cry.

"Verdammt," and its variations and enlargements, are words which have plenty of meaning, but the SOUNDS are so mild and ineffectual that German ladies can use them without sin. German ladies who could not be induced to commit a sin by any persuasion or compulsion, promptly rip out one of these harmless little words when they tear their dresses or don't like the soup. It sounds about as wicked as our "My gracious." German ladies are constantly saying, "Ach! Gott!" "Mein Gott!" "Gott in Himmel!" "Herr Gott" "Der Herr Jesus!" etc.

I think the idea that German is "harsh" is mostly an artifact of, ahem, 20th century history. Personally, I do find StG quite "soft"-sounding, particularly with its non-rhoticism (to borrow a term from English linguistics), actually.

[Raphael]

Mark Twain, saying, practically complaining, that German is too much of a sweet, mild, gentle language:

[...]
German ladies are constantly saying, "Ach! Gott!"
[...]

This reminds me, how did German and apparently some celtic languages end up with the same word - "ach" - meaning very similar things?

[Linguoboy]

This reminds me, how did German and apparently some celtic languages end up with the same word - "ach" - meaning very similar things?

Onomatopoeia. Cf. English ugh, yech, yuck, etc. which all have their origins in a similar sound.