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Icelandic / Old English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| rDaneel Newbie United States Joined 6355 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 1 of 28 18 December 2006 at 7:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Since the Icelandic language has changed relatively little from its Old Norse roots, and since Old English has some of the same roots as Icelandic, I was wondering how close Icelandic sounds to spoken Old English.
I also wonder why English lost its case and inflection system. It's funny to me that we might have considered the vikings to be simpler people in simpler times, yet their language is highly complex, whereas we live in a very complex and advanced society and yet English has developed into a 'simpler' language than what it used to be. I personally would like to see the thorn and eth reinstated in the English language, I think it would make things more interesting ;) -Daneel My concern is custom -- My interest is infinite 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| alexptrans Pentaglot Senior Member Israel Joined 6569 days ago 208 posts - 236 votes  Speaks: English, Modern Hebrew, Russian*, French, Arabic (Written) Studies: Icelandic | Message 2 of 28 19 December 2006 at 2:30am | IP Logged | |||||
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English is not simpler than Old Norse or Icelandic. Usually, when a language becomes simpler in one area, it compensates by becoming more complicated in another. So, while English morphology has indeed become simpler, its syntax has become much more complicated. English speakers tend to perceive languages with rich inflectional morphology (such as Russian or Icelandic) as more complicated simply because English is relatively poor in that field, relying instead on syntax and word order. I assure you that most Russian speakers find English to be a highly complicated, difficult language, even though Russian has more than six noun cases and English has none.
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| crafedog Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5622 days ago 166 posts - 337 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean, Tok Pisin, French | Message 3 of 28 22 September 2012 at 10:29am | IP Logged | |||||
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I just want to bump this quite ancient thread as I was curious about this question too.
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| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4648 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 4 of 28 22 September 2012 at 12:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
They are not mutually intelligible and they don't sound alike. Old English had a lot of sounds Icelandic doesn't have like [ʃ], [tʃ], [dʒ], [æ], [y] and the famous Old English diphthongs like [æa] and [eo]. Icelandic however has a lot of unvoiced consonants like [l̥], [m̥], [n̥], and [r̥] and some characteristic diphthongs like [au] and [øʏ]. Icelandic is a language that is spoken very fast and slurred, while no one can really say how Old English was spoken. Everything we know about this language is a reconstruction. But it seems that the Viking invaders managed to communicate rather well with the Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of England. Concerning "complex and simple" languages: Although the Vikings didn't have iPhones and laptops they weren't any more stupid than us. The Vikings created beautiful poetry and exciting stories of love, hate, and vengeance - the sagas - as well as a complex mythology. Actually, the Old Norse language is morphologically simplified compared to the Proto-Germanic or the Proto-Indo-European language, so the decay of morphological complexity seems to be a process that has been running for a very long time. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| boon Diglot Groupie Ireland Joined 5963 days ago 91 posts - 177 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Mandarin, Latin | Message 5 of 28 22 September 2012 at 5:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Most of the Romance languages lost the case system of Latin, plus the neuter gender.
I think the main reason English lost so much inflection is the influence of Norman French, from the Norman invasion. The common people kept speaking English but the wealthier people and the aristocrats spoke French. Eventually the language became a hybrid, or a creole, of French and English. I can see how this would make noun gender and cases less important. The same word might be masculine in English and feminine in French. Or when an English speaker and a French speaker were trying to communicate, naturally they would make mistakes with these details. The only other Indo-European language with no noun gender is Persian (Farsi). I believe this happened as a result of the influence of Arabic. A similar creole situation developed. Actually, I think I'm wrong there, technically. Other creoles such as Haitian creole don't have gender, and these are basically Indo-European too. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5257 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 6 of 28 22 September 2012 at 5:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is a possible explanation, but on the other hand, other Germanic languages have also lost inflection without a Norman invasion: Afrikaans, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| boon Diglot Groupie Ireland Joined 5963 days ago 91 posts - 177 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Mandarin, Latin | Message 7 of 28 22 September 2012 at 8:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
True. They didn't lose noun gender though. Okay, I admit they lost the neuter gender. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4648 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 8 of 28 22 September 2012 at 9:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
Dutch still has all three genders, while Afrikaans has lost grammatical gender altogether. Swedish and Danish, however, have lost the distinction between masculine and feminine gender, while Norwegian has kept it. All the Scandinavian languages still have a neuter gender though. Edited by Josquin on 22 September 2012 at 9:35pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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