The Billinge dialect

[Absinthe]

Somebody posted this on Skadi, I thought it was extremely interesting, linguistically speaking!

Listen to this dialect:

S8MwOUTOVuo

Can you hear the scandinavian "melody" of this dialect (especially in the first grandpa appearing in the video)?

Does the grandpa in the end of the video say "inte"? :)

[Vulpix]

It almost sounds like it, but I think he's saying "isn't she?" :tongue



Does the grandpa in the end of the video say "inte"? :)

[Absinthe]

Well, after all "isn't she", "ain't she" and "inte" are basically the same language ;)

It was very fun realizing how similar swedish are to english... Sometimes, reading swedish looks like reading misspelled english! :D

ex.

Jag trivs här---I thrive here

Vär är min bok?---Where is my book?

Jag ska gå nu---I shall go now

en död råtta---a dead rat

kungen är död---the king is dead

Hehe. And then, reading Norwegian, Danish and Dutch, is like reading misspelled swedish, in the same fashion :D

So, no wonder, Scandinavians become very fluent in English and from a very young age. The languages are so related!
And Scandinavian, being an older form, makes it logical that Scandinavians can very easily learn English, but the English cannot so easily learn Scandinavian.

Thoughts? :)

[Sigurd]

Local variation of "Innit", maybe? :D

[Vulpix]

LOL, I know what you mean :D! Esp. with Norwegian and Danish...:tongue



And then, reading Norwegian, Danish and Dutch, is like reading misspelled swedish, in the same fashion :D

[Hrolf Kraki]

Well, after all "isn't she", "ain't she" and "inte" are basically the same language ;)

It was very fun realizing how similar swedish are to english... Sometimes, reading swedish looks like reading misspelled english! :D

ex.

Jag trivs här---I thrive here

Vär är min bok?---Where is my book?

Jag ska gå nu---I shall go now

en död råtta---a dead rat

kungen är död---the king is dead

Hehe. And then, reading Norwegian, Danish and Dutch, is like reading misspelled swedish, in the same fashion :D

So, no wonder, Scandinavians become very fluent in English and from a very young age. The languages are so related!
And Scandinavian, being an older form, makes it logical that Scandinavians can very easily learn English, but the English cannot so easily learn Scandinavian.

Thoughts? :)

Have you been reading my mind again? :p

I´ve been reading a book that tells the history of English and it discusses many dialects that are used even today. Being from the United States, I experience virtually no English dialects so it was quite interesting to hear those men talk.

And I am quite intrigued by the similiarity between English and the Scandinavian Languages. I´ve studied two semesters worth of Danish and it´s unbelieveable how similar it is to English. Sometimes I invent my own sentence contructions based on English and they usually work in Danish. Sometimes all that is needed is perhaps an extra word.

Hav en god dag ---- Have a good day. Although the actual pronunciation sounds even closer to English than the spelling.

igen --- again
at se ---- to see. (Although 100 years ago the Danes spelled it ´at see´.)
at gå ---- to go
mig selv ---- myself (again, sounds more similar than the spelling; although they aren´t always used in the same fashion.)

I could probably add scores more, but you get the idea. Word similarities occur quite frequently between English and Danish. But if the word doesn´t resemble English, then a lot of times it resembles German. Quite convenient, I must say. :D

[Hrolf Kraki]

LOL, I know what you mean :D! Esp. with Norwegian and Danish...:tongue

Norwegian is just Danish spelled incorrectly (the way it sounds like it should be spelled). Right? :p

at bliver --- å blir

noget --- noe

end --- enn

The Danes have the fancy spellings. ;)

[HawkR]

Danes puke when they talk, that's the fact. We norwegians have such a cool language that other countries like sweden and denmark are green out of envy:p

[GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS]

What Norwegian language?

I've worked in areas in Norway where they speak a language more resembling Swedish than Norwegian. They say "mjölk" for example, instead of "melk".

[Osweo]

Danes puke when they talk, that's the fact. We norwegians have such a cool language that other countries like sweden and denmark are green out of envy:p
I couldn't resist:
s-mOy8VUEBk
eng5rJm9X7w
ZrGIhrs3HkI
:p

By the way, I only live 24 miles (38 kilometres) away from Billinge, and was still glad of the subtitles! The first few scenes weren't so bad, I use a few of the dialect terms myself, like myther and anyroad, but that last 'conversation' was impossible! They deliberately constructed an artificial exchange using as many terms peculiar to the area as possible, even the bald man looks a little strained at the effort! :D

That area was heavily Scandinavianised in comparison to my still rather Anglian part of the shire. It might also be worth noting that the area round Billinge has an unusually high survival rate of Welsh toponymy. They had barely changed from Welsh to English by the time the Norse turned up - no wonder they sound different!

[Treffie]

That area was heavily Scandinavianised in comparison to my still rather Anglian part of the shire. It might also be worth noting that the area round Billinge has an unusually high survival rate of Welsh toponymy. They had barely changed from Welsh to English by the time the Norse turned up - no wonder they sound different!

Really? How intriguing!

[Hilding]

Hehe. And then, reading Norwegian, Danish and Dutch, is like reading misspelled swedish, in the same fashion :D

So, no wonder, Scandinavians become very fluent in English and from a very young age. The languages are so related!
And Scandinavian, being an older form, makes it logical that Scandinavians can very easily learn English, but the English cannot so easily learn Scandinavian.

Thoughts? :)

Scandinavians and the people of todays Great Britain could talk to eachother without interpreters back in the viking era, it is suspected that the dialects of course would have varied but the language back then was pretty much the same actually. Probably as swedish and norwegian is today. The major differences are actually the more modern words. Spoon and fork (sked and gaffel) for instance differ alot while knife/kniv don't.

You also forget that we scandinavians are constantly being americanized. We see american films, learn english in early school classes etc. I believe that englishmen would be pretty good at speaking swedish aswell if they had the same swedish influence as we have influence from america.

[Absinthe]

Scandinavians and the people of todays Great Britain could talk to eachother without interpreters back in the viking era,

Really?! That's amazingly interesting... :lightbul:

[Hilding]

Really?! That's amazingly interesting... :lightbul:

Atleast that is what Fredrik Lindström claimed in the swedish tv-series Värsta Språket. He answered the question to why there are so many words that are pretty much the same in both swedish and english.

[Osweo]

Really?! That's amazingly interesting... :lightbul:

That's why so much free borrowing was able to take place between us. Such vitally necessary words as she, they, and so on.

There are plenty of instances in our old chronicles and poetry, of conversations between English and Norsemen. Often shouted over battlefields or from clifftops, so the differences can't have been that profound!

[Hrolf Kraki]

Atleast that is what Fredrik Lindström claimed in the swedish tv-series Värsta Språket. He answered the question to why there are so many words that are pretty much the same in both swedish and english.

Snorri also makes mention of the mutual intelligibility of Old Norse and Old English in the Heimskringla.

In fact, I believe Harald Gilli was born in the British Isles and when coming to Norway, people could understand him but said that his speech was funny.

[Osweo]

Snorri also makes mention of the mutual intelligibility of Old Norse and Old English in the Heimskringla.

In fact, I believe Harald Gilli was born in the British Isles and when coming to Norway, people could understand him but said that his speech was funny.

Interesting, I looked on Wiki:

Haraldr gillikristr) (1103 – 1136), king of Norway, was born in Ireland.

Thanks for bringing his example up, but he's an example more of another phenomenon, that of mixing with the Irish, the creation of the Hiberno-Norse, Norse Gaels, or 'Gall Gaidhel' (Foreign Gaels, who gave their name to Galloway in south west Scotland).

This man probably had an odd Irish accent.

Eeee, nasty business all these bastard half-brothers turning up all the time. Norway's successsion laws were not the most exemplary, if you could even say they existed as such!

[Heimmacht]

I think Danish is the easiest to read for the Dutch from all the Scandinavian languages.

[Hrolf Kraki]

I think Danish is the easiest to read for the Dutch from all the Scandinavian languages.

Coming from a background in English and German, I also find this to be true.

If anyone has interest, I recommend a book called "The Mother Tongue" by Bill Bryson. The book recounts much of the origins of the English language and the influences that shaped its current form.

[Grafbob]

It's hardly surprising that English is so like the Scandinavian languages is some ways. The Norsemen conquered at least a third of England and all of Scotland and lived there for a long time. Even people who lived close to the "Danelaw" would have heard the language and no doubt their Anglo-Saxon slowly changed. There are not a huge number of direct loan words from Norse, but it seems likely that having two vaguely similar Germanic languages in close contact would have had an effect. My guess is that this is when English started to lose its genders (we used to have three, like modern German). During the short time I spent learning Swedish - 3 months over 50 years ago - I was, however, surprised at how difficult it is to pronounce for an English speaker.

[Grafbob]

I don't believe anything by Bill Bryson. He write anything to be funny. I think he just makes stuff up.