hi I'm Dr Jackson Crawford I teach in
the department of Scandinavian at the
University of California Berkeley
formerly at
UCLA I've also recently translated the
potic ETA the main source of the myths
of the Norse gods and heroes and
contemporary English I'm back with
another one of my patreon supported
videos about topics in Norse language
and myth this video is part of a cluster
of videos that I'm making about words
and Old Norris that have multiple
meanings this video focuses on the word
o or in modern isic
pronunciation this is both a very common
form of a very common verb and it's a
very common preposition let's take a
look at some of the meanings of this
word o is related to the English
preposition on and frequently on can
translate o very nicely so
Haner he knocks on the door not too
difficult or E hog he Comet or langi no
no strike has come on me in a long time
so nothing has hit me in a long time um
fairly easily translated by English on
be aware that o May sometimes have a
sense closer to English onto uh
especially with an accusative object
like he steps onto a ship uh or there
some other kind of motion involved like
uh knocking onto a door I guess you
could say that in English knock onto a
door uh or a strike coming onto me uh
just be aware that onto may be a a shade
of meaning uh that you could add in an
English translation also it may
occasionally mean something closer to
English in uh old noris and the
Scandinavian languages today tend to say
on a language rather than in a language
for example uh so Be watchful for that
or is also a form of the very common
verb AA which means to own or have so
we'll frequently see it in an example
like
this but people tend to learn the
preposition first so often when they
come up on sentences like this they read
this is something like he on 12
Berserkers well there's no verb here if
you read it that way so be aware that
virtually every sentence has a verb
if this sentence has no verb uh if you
don't read this as a verb you need to
read all as a verb he has or owns 12
Berserkers notice in a sentence like
this Han konu it's like he he's got
himself a wife um he has a wife would be
a pretty plain translation of that in
English but notice that we have this
dative pronoun of
self uh Old Norris actually fairly fre
does this uh which in English is often
considered sort of informal uh to have
this sort of dative of the self you know
like um I'm going to get me some money
or uh I've got me a gun that sort of
thing sounds a little informal in
English but in fact it's pretty common
in uh Old Norris to reinforce that by
saying he not just has a woman but has a
woman himself he's got himself a woman
he's got himself a
wife or or in general the verb AA can
also shade into the meaning of have to
or ought so in a a sentence
like have I I have to him much to pay I
have to pay him a lot uh so a
similar uh change of meaning has
happened with English have and picking
up the meaning of have to be aware that
this is a possibility old NSE too with
o finally for this video keep in mind
that o appears in several idioms where
you cannot directly read it as either on
or as has or have uh the most common
idiom that it appears in with an sort of
unrelated meaning is
away B Road away the O B together simply
means away off uh into a different place
into the distance
so those are three meanings to watch for
when you encounter the word all in an
Old Norse text from the University of
California berlyn all the best to you