Odp: Icelandic Lexical Similarity

From: Piotr Gąsiorowski
Message: 33
Date: 1999-09-22

 
----- Original Message -----
From: icelandicrain@...
To: cybalist@eGroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 1999 5:50 AM
Subject: [cybalist] Icelandic Lexical Similarity


Hello!  Can anyone tell me the lexical similarity between English and
Icelandic?  (It's a bet.  Yes, we gamble on stupid things here.)

Have a good day, and thanks for your help.
Mark Thornburg
eGroups.com home: http://www.egroups.com/group/cybalist
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Well, there are hundreds of obvious similarities between the two, plus many less obvious ones. Icelandic is a pretty archaic Scandinavian (= North Germanic) language and preserves a lot of shared Germanic vocabulary. Here are just a few examples (I have to omit some of the Icelandic diacritics like accents):
 
koma : come
lifa : live (verb)
fara 'to travel' : fare
fiskur : fish
taldi : (I) told
yfir : over
hus : house
fugl 'bird' : fowl (Old English fugol)
lata 'allow' : let
her : here
mikill 'great' : much (Old English micel, Norther & Scots dialects mickle, muckle)
brunn : brown
hringur : ring (Old English hring)
mot 'meeting, assembly' : moot (the verb meet is also related)
Is this enough to win you your bet?
 
Good luck,
Piotr Gasiorowski