Home Artists Posts Import Register

Content

Here's the latest installment in our Patreon vocabulary series, featuring some new strong verbs from classes III-VII that are the focus of the next Old Norse lesson video you're getting a week early on Vimeo.

Today on the channel I addressed the frequently-asked question about cussing in Old Norse, though I suspect my (as usual) dry and neutral take on it, compounded by an attempt to make a larger point about language history (and how not every language is going to have the equivalent of a general-use offensive word like the English F-word, which can mean just about anything), made it not quite what people wanted, at least if what they wanted was just to cuss someone out in Old Norse. And surely that's the fondest dream of someone out there, for some reason.

Thank you very much for another week of your generous support on Patreon, and all the best for now,

Jackson Crawford

Files

Patreon Vocabulary 32: Strong Verbs p. 2

Comments

Anonymous

My DNA test indicated Swedish and Mongolian not Italian. I was always fascinated in those two cultures. I read the runes stone often. Odd you have no gay folk tales in the Norse? ugh!

Oliver

This is a bit confusing. Why does finna drop the d but binda keeps it?

norsebysw

Because of their origins. 'Finna' is from *finþan; the 'd' that appears in the past plural is because of the Verner's Law effects on an old /þ/ in what used to be an unstressed syllable (which the first syllable of the past plural of a strong verb was in Pre-Germanic); meanwhile, in the other forms of that verb (where the root was stressed in Pre-Germanic), an ancient sound change *nþ > nn has taken place. But 'binda' is just from *bindan; the 'd' has been there all along. In English this is obscured because the 'd' from the past plural has been extended to the present 'find' as well.