# Please ID the language in this text
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-the-language-in-this-text/423960
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 25, 2007, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-the-language-in-this-text/423960 "2007-10-25T14:34:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2007, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-the-language-in-this-text/423960/1 "2007-10-25T14:34:47Z")
I have the translation but I don’t know what language it is… some sort of germanic, celtic or norse tongue I reckon?
Bla nótt yfir himininn
Bla nótt yfir mér
Horf-inn ut um gluggann
Minn með hendur
Faldar undir kinn
Hugsum daginn minn
Í dag og i gær
Bla nattfötin klæða mig i
Beint upp i rum
Breiði mjuku sængina
Loka augunum
Ég fel hausinn undir sæng
Starir a mig litill alfur
Hleypur að mér en hreyfist ekki
Ur stað - sjalfur
Staralfur
Opna augun
Stirurnar ur
Teygi mig og tel
Kominn aftur og alltalltilæ
Samt vantar eitthvað
(Eins og alla veggina)
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### Author:  [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2007, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-the-language-in-this-text/423960/2 "2007-10-25T14:36:30Z")
I’ll pop a fin on “Icelandic”.
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### Author:  [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2007, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-the-language-in-this-text/423960/3 "2007-10-25T14:37:43Z")
Looks Icelandic to me.
Correction – Icelandic gibberish
> **[Sigur Rós](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vonlenska)**
>
> Sigur Rós (.mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}Icelandic pronunciation: \[ˈsɪːɣʏrous\] ⓘ) is an Icelandic post-rock band that formed in 1994 in Reykjavík. It comprises lead vocalist and guitarist Jón Þór "Jónsi" Birgisson, bassist Georg Hólm and keyboardist Kjartan Sveinsson. Known for their ethereal sound, frontman Jónsi's falsetto voc
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### Author:  [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2007, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-the-language-in-this-text/423960/4 "2007-10-25T14:43:55Z")
Are you sure, **DrFidelius**? I’m no expert, but it sure looks like authentic Icelandic to me (I can identify several words and understand a few sentences), and **Cosmic Relief** even says he has a translation, which is impossible as vonlenska is not a language.
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### Author:  [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2007, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-the-language-in-this-text/423960/5 "2007-10-25T14:53:21Z")
Sure? Of course not.
I tracked down the group who performs the song, and their site mentions that they mix Icelandic and that gibberish in their songs.
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### Author:  [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2007, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-the-language-in-this-text/423960/6 "2007-10-25T15:09:46Z")
Icelandic is easy to identify; it’s one of the few languages that uses the ð, Ð and þ, Þ characters. Vietanmese uses the Ð character, but it also has all those funky accents.
Also, ‘‘og’’ is a word in Icelandic.
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### Author:  [@auRa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/auRa)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2007, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-the-language-in-this-text/423960/7 "2007-10-25T15:21:47Z")
Definitely Icelandic. Funny how, if you read it on paper (on screen), it’s fairly easy to deduce at least some phrases or words, but when I was listening to Icelanders talk among themselves a few weeks ago…not a chance. Even worse than Danish.
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### Author:  [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2007, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-the-language-in-this-text/423960/8 "2007-10-25T15:22:44Z")
[QUOTE=DrFidelius]
Sure? Of course not.
I tracked down the group who performs the song, and their site mentions that they mix Icelandic and that gibberish in their songs.
[/QUOTE]
As far as I can tell, they do some songs in Icelandic and some in gibberish. All the gibberish songs are listed on the Wikipedia page you linked to. Do we know the name of the song?
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### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2007, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-the-language-in-this-text/423960/9 "2007-10-25T15:24:03Z")
Thanks all.
BTW I like Vietnamese because their accents have accents.
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### Author:  [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2007, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-the-language-in-this-text/423960/10 "2007-10-25T15:31:27Z")
[QUOTE=Priceguy]
As far as I can tell, they do some songs in Icelandic and some in gibberish. All the gibberish songs are listed on the Wikipedia page you linked to. Do we know the name of the song?
[/QUOTE]
Like I have time to READ Wiki?
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### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2007, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-the-language-in-this-text/423960/11 "2007-10-25T17:00:49Z")
[QUOTE=Priceguy]
As far as I can tell, they do some songs in Icelandic and some in gibberish. All the gibberish songs are listed on the Wikipedia page you linked to. Do we know the name of the song?
[/QUOTE]
Yes, it’s called “Staralfur”
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2007, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-the-language-in-this-text/423960/12 "2007-10-25T17:07:48Z")
[QUOTE=auRa]
Definitely Icelandic. Funny how, if you read it on paper (on screen), it’s fairly easy to deduce at least some phrases or words, but when I was listening to Icelanders talk among themselves a few weeks ago…not a chance. Even worse than Danish.
[/QUOTE]
Sort of like us English-speakers and Old English, since Icelandic is essentially Old Norse. I can make out many of the words if it’s written down, but damned if I can understand hardly anything at all if someone speaks it.
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### Author:  [@Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boozahol_Squid_P.I)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2007, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-the-language-in-this-text/423960/13 "2007-10-25T19:43:28Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace]
Sort of like us English-speakers and Old English, since Icelandic is essentially Old Norse. I can make out many of the words if it’s written down, but damned if I can understand hardly anything at all if someone speaks it.
[/QUOTE]
I think you’re confused about what Old English is. Funnily enough, I’ve been told that old English is actually, essentially, Icelandic. Apparently if you’re fluent in Iclandic, you can read works like Beowulf without too much a hitch.
Can you actually recognize any of these words (the first five lines of Beowulf)?
Hwæt! wē Gār-Dena in geār-dagum,
þeod-cyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorl.
Oft and eorls look vaguely like their modern day forms. Maybe you’re thinking of Chaucerian English? For me, however, that’s a lot easier to understand it spoken aloud than written.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2007, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-the-language-in-this-text/423960/14 "2007-10-25T20:17:53Z")
[QUOTE=Diomedes]
I think you’re confused about what Old English is. Funnily enough, I’ve been told that old English is actually, essentially, Icelandic. Apparently if you’re fluent in Iclandic, you can read works like Beowulf without too much a hitch.
[/QUOTE]
No, I’m not confused. Old English is closer to Icelandic than Modern English is, but it isn’t the same (unless you go back 2000 years or so). In fact, the Scandinavian languages are on a different branch of the Germanic language sub-family than English is (North vs West, respectively). They were, however, all mutual intelligible until about the 6th or 7th Century AD. And English borrowed pretty heavily from Old Norse when the Danes ruled over much of Britain during the 9th and 10th centuries, so that makes the similarity appear to be more than it otherwise would.
> [@](#):
>
> Can you actually recognize any of these words (the first five lines of Beowulf)?
>
> Hwæt! wē Gār-Dena in geār-dagum,
> þeod-cyninga, þrym gefrunon,
> æþelingas ellen fremedon.
> Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
> monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah,
> egsode eorl.
>
> Oft and eorls look vaguely like their modern day forms. Maybe you’re thinking of Chaucerian English? For me, however, that’s a lot easier to understand it spoken aloud than written.
Hwæt = What, or just an exclamation
We = we
dagum = day
cyninga = king
hu ða = how the
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### Author:  [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2007, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-the-language-in-this-text/423960/15 "2007-10-25T20:27:09Z")
I still think it’s a pity that Modern English lost the thorn (þ) and eth (ð) characters, which were voiceless and voiced ‘th’ respectively. (Vioced ‘th’ can be more clearly spelt as ‘dh’…)
I þink ðat spelling wiþ þorn and eð would be a lot clearer. But it would make reciting ðe alphabet a little different: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ… ÐÞ?
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### Author:  [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2007, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-the-language-in-this-text/423960/16 "2007-10-25T20:33:24Z")
[QUOTE=Diomedes]
Can you actually recognize any of these words (the first five lines of Beowulf)?
Hwæt! wē Gār-Dena in geār-dagum,
þeod-cyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorl.
[/QUOTE]
[This link](http://faculty.virginia.edu/OldEnglish/Beowulf.Readings/Beowulf.Readings.html) has parts of _Beowulf_ read. To me it sounds like a language I know, but am not very sure about.
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### Author:  [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2007, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-the-language-in-this-text/423960/17 "2007-10-25T20:38:35Z")
[QUOTE=Struan]
[This link](http://faculty.virginia.edu/OldEnglish/Beowulf.Readings/Beowulf.Readings.html) has parts of _Beowulf_ read. To me it sounds like a language I know, but am not very sure about.
[/QUOTE]
Well, I totally didn’t understand those. 🙂
Amazing how much things can change in only a thousand years or so…
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### Author:  [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2007, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-the-language-in-this-text/423960/18 "2007-10-25T20:42:55Z")
**Spoons** once recited a chunk of _Middle_ English to me. Much different, and much much closer to Modern English. The vowels were Italian, it seemed, and there was more of a rhythm to it. The spelling was better too (no silent e’s on the end of words); apparently our spelling froze somewhere slose to Middle English and the language just kept on changing.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2007, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-the-language-in-this-text/423960/19 "2007-10-25T20:44:05Z")
[QUOTE=Struan]
[This link](http://faculty.virginia.edu/OldEnglish/Beowulf.Readings/Beowulf.Readings.html) has parts of _Beowulf_ read. To me it sounds like a language I know, but am not very sure about.
[/QUOTE]
Sounds like Dutch to me.
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### Author:  [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2007, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-the-language-in-this-text/423960/20 "2007-10-25T20:50:24Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace]
Sounds like Dutch to me.
[/QUOTE]
Frisian, maybe?
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