What Did Old Norse Sound Like? | Icelandmag

Maybe your like

Culture What did Old Norse sound like?

By Staff |Oct 22 2018

Hávamál The wisdom of the Vikings, Hávamál is a collection of poems with wisdom and advice for the living, attributed to Óðinn, the poems were written down in Iceland in the 13th century. Photo/Screenshot from video, see below

Like the other Scandinavian languages modern Icelandic is descended from Old Norse, the language spoken by the Vikings. Unlike the other Scandinavian languages, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Faeroese, Icelandic has changed very little. Modern Icelanders can read the medieval manuscripts with little difficulty. Although we suspect that a ninth century Viking settler of Reykjavík might have difficulty recognizing his surroundings if he were to be transported in time to downtown Reykjavík, he should have no problem asking for directions!

(If said Viking has access to the internet he might find this map helpful: A handy map of the known archeological remains of Viking Age Reykjavík.)

But while the grammar and vocabulary have not changed very much, we still don't know exactly how the Vikings sounded like. But Dr. Jackson Crawford, one of the world's leading experts in Old Norse, has put together this fun video with our best guesses of what the Viking Age settlers of Iceland might have sounded like.

Dr. Crawford is an instructor of Nordic Studies and Nordic Program Coordinator at the University of Colorado Boulder (formerly UC Berkeley and UCLA). You can check out his other videos here.

Full profile

Share this
- Tweet
Ask the experts
Do you want to know more about this subject? Please send us a line at [email protected].
Share your experience with us
Have you had an experience related to the contents of this article? Let us know!