Comments by "Halfdan Ingolfsson" (@Halli50) on "RobWords" channel.

  1. Did you know that Iceland, despite it's language purification binge a century or two ago, is the only language in this sphere where the Church managed to abolish the Old Norse Gods from the weekday names? Sunday/Söndag is still Sunnudagur - no conflict there. Monday/Mandag is still Mánudagur, lit. Moon day - no conflict either. Tuessday/Tirsdag (Ty's day) is now Þriðjudagur, lit. "Third day" - but should be "Týsdagur". Wednesday/Onsdag (Wotans/Odins day) is now Miðvikudagur, lit. "Mid-week day" - but should be "Óðinsdagur". Thursday/Torsdag (Thors's day) is now Fimmtudagur, lit. "Fifth day" - but should "Þórsdagur". Friday/Fredag (Frey's day) is now Föstudagur, lit. "Fasting day" - but should be "Freysdagur". Saturday/Lördag is still Laugardagur, lit. "Bathing day". ("Laug" is Old Norse for a bath or a bathing pool)
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  2. I believe the word/concept "Viking" is a bit overrated. Only a minority of the Nordics "fóru í víking" (go Viking), much like a minority of English football fans "go Hooligan" when following their favourite football teams, the vast majority are just normal football fans, perhaps boisterous but not violent. The Vikings of old were actually just the troublemakers, just like English Hooligans are the troublemaker part of all the English that travel abroad. Most of the Nordics that sailed to England, Scotland, Ireland and other places were predominantly just traders, farmers and fishermen that emigrated from Denmark and Norway (the Swedes went east...).
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  3. My language (Icelandic) is apparently the only one to still use the Þþ and Ðð letters. In Icelandic, they (þey) are a sound formed by the same mouth/tongue movements, but the Þþ is un-voiced (the vocal cords are open), while the Ðð is voiced, the vocal cords are active.
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  4. A really clever move, not assigning a gender to every object (he, she or neither). This makes it far easier for non-English speakers to learn English. My language, Icelandic, assigns a gender to everything, which makes it hard for English-speakers to learn Icelandic. The same, I suppose, goes for e.g. French and German. An irritating side effect is that it also makes it harder for an Icelander to learn German and vice versa (even if the grammar is quite similar) because these languages tend to assign a different gender the the same objects.
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  5. How about simply adopting old letters into written modern English (like "Þ" and others) for all the sounds that currently have to be written with two letters?
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  6. The main reason English is so widespread is the fact that gender is a non-issue. A really HUGE issue knocked off the table. If you are an Icelander learning German, the fact that a floor is a HE in German while is is neutral (an IT) in Icelandic, another Germanic language, proves he case. What makes English easy it that a man in a "he", a woman or a ship is "she", EVERYTHING else is just an "it".
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