Know any more old words we should resurrect? Comment below. And🌏get NordVPN's 2Y plan + 4 months free here ➼ nordvpn.com/robwordsvpn It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✌

Some idiot drove arselong into my car this morning.

As a Swedish speaker I find myself missing the word Overmorrow, meaning the day after tomorrow, as I use the Swedish equivalent a lot: övermorgon

I think the word "overmorrow" would be a great addition as well!

“Wondersmith” is like the public domain word for “Imagineer.” I love it!

"Selfdom" is one of my favorites. It's your self-kingdom. The essence of one's self. Individuality. Independence.

I think "wordhasty" & "wondersmith" are the best of the list, I could totally see using them without anyone asking questions.

As a Dutch speaker, I often understand the words before they are explained. Many of these old English words are similar to old/middle Dutch or even modern Dutch words. It often fascinates me how similar English and Dutch are in certain aspects. Even with the Norman invasion of England and the way that the English language changed. The Dutch language was also influenced a lot by French, during this and later periods, often in the same way. There are also ways that Dutch was influenced by French but English wasn’t. Although Dutch and English are quite similar to each other nowadays, in the past they would’ve been even more similar, I suppose. 😊

Being a Dutch hobby philologist, I find Old English remarkably easy to follow. Fun!

Asslong is a slang word in certain midwestern US dialects already and means exactly what you described, going butt first. In usage: 'Bob fell asslong into the creek last night after having too many beers.'

I grew up in a very remote area in austria with an often outdated language. we used the word "aschling" for going backward. backward with the horses for instance. today we use "rückwärts" "backwards", but grandfather used "aschling", going backwards was "in aschling". he drove the car "in aschling"

I’ll have rewatch this again overmorrow

Wordhasty is absolutely gorgeous, works as a noun too! "We'd have gotten away with it, but for your wordhaste."

Ah! Thanks for the shoutout! I love your channel 🎉

I never realised how beautifully poetic Old English is, it's soooo cool

1. Wintrue (closer to the original and still conveys the right feeling with words that still hold similar meaning). "I like my friend, there is so much wintrue between us.") 2. Redword 3. Rouncrafty (Roun is an obscure but modern descendant of the word distinct from rune) 4. Wondersmith 5. Whaleway 6. Earthfast 7. Meaddream 8. Arselong 9. Utcare? (similar harken to "utmost") 10. Fullthrongen (maybe a bit too obtuse, but I feel it conveys the meaning still)

The last word still exists in Swedish, it’s ”Fullgången”, generally used only for babies/pregnancies which go to term. But it’s closely related to “Fulländad” which means absolutely perfect 🤩

As a dane it is interesting to hear these old english words as many of them are closer to modern danish than modern english. It reaaly shows the common germanic origin of the languages.

Winegeomor is a great one. In our culture, we don't value friends as much as we should, or at least not in our vocabulary. I've long thought we need a word for grieving the loss of a friend, or for the loss of a friendship. I have mourned my best friend every day since she died in 2019.

As an archaeologist, I already use 'earthfast' on a regular basis - it is used for a post which has been dug into the ground so that it stands up without needing support. But I like the idea of it being used for people as well as posts!

In Danish, friend is still “ven” and “uvenner” are friends which temporarily have fallen out. For me as a German that was a nice new word, because it does not equal to enemy, which would be “fjend”. It just means the special bond isn’t there right now … or no more.

Arselong was definitely a word we used at school back in the 1970s (25 miles northwest-ish of London, Hertfordshire/Essex border). Usually referring to falling or making a fool of oneself: kind of the opposite of headfirst

OMG! A word to describe those placid beautiful dragons flying at dawn... as opposed to the pesky noisy ones who fly at dusk. Absolutely taking this one with me. So happy I can finally describe different flying dragons!

Fun fact: we have a whaleway station in New Zealand - it's an old railway building in Kaikoura that has been renovated into the offices of a whale-watching company.

As a Dutchman, I especially like your videos on Old English, as there are so many words I recognise - not only the ones you highlighted as being similar to Dutch. Trouw (faithful), vast (fixed), gang (hallway/tunnel) to name a few... Thank you for your many interesting videos! ❤

Earthfast is still in use. We use it in archaeology to describe a rock or boulder that is immovably set into the ground.

walrus, still means "horse whale" btw. In German, Walross, Ross is just a fancy name for horse...

"Arschling" is still used in some parts of Bavaria, same meaning as earsling.

I must confess, I was not hugely moved by most of these, but "dawnsorrow" is beautiful

I’m Swedish and many of these still get plenty of use in their Swedish versions - connecting two words to make a new one comes very naturally in Swedish . Earthfast would be jordfast meaning someone who is rooted in their home soil, but jordfästa means fasten to the earth or bury.

One of my favourite quotes, "A good friend will help you move, but a true friend will help you move a body."

Rural Australia - Arselong is already a word used sorta like you describe. Sorta similar to 'Head over Heals' or 'Arse over Tit' - so if you fell over coming home from the pub you might say 'I fell arselong into the ditch'. Has a degree of 'ungraceful and chaotic' too it. Also used is 'Arsebackwards' - 'wrong but particularly so' - if you were making something from a drawing and you got it upside down AND mirrored, or followed an upside down wiring diagram you would say that you got it 'arsebackwards'.

Wow, seeing dream as joy in Old English makes a lot of sense into how it could have made it's way into many of the modern uses. A person can sleep and have a dream, but if someone were to ask, "do you have any dreams?" Usually that means do you have anything you aspire to or hopes you have to make yourself feel happy or content with life.

2:23 German still has that: Feindschaft. Actually, I wonder, as I'm starting this video, how many of those words can be perfectly translated into modern German...? In German, these terms would be: Freundestreue, worthastig, raunkräftig, Wunderschmied, Walweg, erdfest, Mettraum, arschlängs, uchtekar, (the last one I can't find an equivalent to). Although some of the words are only regional now or part of compounds, like kar, which we still use in Karfreitag (Good Friday).

My husband is a soldier. He liked the word "warfaith." It's a different type of bond and trust when you've served together in combat.

I'm from Denmark. And I can understand 90% of the words. In Danish we have ven meaning friend, fjende meaning foe, skab meaning ship. We also use the word uven to describe a person who you have had a falling out with, llatter means laughter in Danish. Some of the other words are not ones we use in spoken Danish however they make total sense.

Not a native speaker but I like germanic languages so it's very fun to always watch your enthusiastical videos❤

In modern Gaeilge (Irish), the word for 'secret' is still 'rún' (pronounced like rune). I suspect it's also from the Vikings, but it's very cool to see the links between Old English, Norse and Gaelic languages that still somewhat exist!

I absolutely love this. Theres a depth and sturdiness to these words that modern English often fails to capture. The merger with French added a unique dynamism and spontaneity to the language - but it was at a cost to these "earthfast" concepts which reach back to our cultural beginnings. I freaking love "earthfast" btw

German here, the German Traum for Old English dream still means both dream and joy.

Love your channel! In southern german and austrian dialects some of the descendants of these words are still in use today. This is why I'd like to add the meaning of "in the wrong order" or "having the wrong priorities" for earsling (in southern german dialects "arschlaengs") Also the word eardfaest ("bodenstaendig") describes people of "good judgement" or "not living in an ivory tower of the mind" , therefore "having a good and unshakeable sense of reality" ...like a rock on the ground.

I love that people are always people. Having friends, feeling deep emotions, naming foods after how obviously they look like body parts. Just like modern people.

Oh my goodness, the Max Miller recommendation made me jump because both Rob Words and Tasting History are two of my favorite channels. I never expected one to be in the other.

In Swedish, the literal translation of earthfast would be jordfäst, which has a very different meaning: it's an old fashioned way of saying buried. The closest equivalent (in meaning) to earthfast in Swedish would be jordnära (earthnear) which means down to earth.

The editor deserves a raise, the little details in this video is amazing, they're a true wondersmith

Fun fact. The word "Fastland" is still a Swedish word, regularly used. It doesn't mean fortified area though, but larger landmass. If you're on an island you could go to the "fastland", which would be the actual land. I also believe that Faest- is related to our "Fäste" which means firmament, or nest. It's most likely also related to "Fästning", which is a fortified building, like a caste.

Feondscipe is still in our current Dutch as vijandschap.

I love that there were so many words to describe types of friendships and agree we should bring them back!

The Swedish word for friend is "vän", presumably related to "wine", and we have the word "ovän" (the o-prefix works the same as un- in english)

Thank you for this Rob! While watching, I tried guessing what the Old English words meant before you gave us the meaning- I was right more often than I’d expected to be! It’s so cool hearing Old English words casually spoken. They’re different yet very familiar.

Nord VPN has never had a classier advertisement. Well done.

I find this whole topic of re-anglicizing English quite fascinating because it mirrors something that already happened in my own language. While English is a Germanic language with a barely perceptible Celtic substratum and a sizeable Romance (primarily French and Latin) influence, my own language - Romanian - is a Romance language with a slight Dacian substratum and a sizeable Slavic influence. In the late 18th century and throughout the 19th century there was a strong movement among Romanian language scholars to re-latinize the Romanian language after a millennium of Slavic influence. While the effects of this movement are maybe exaggerated sometimes, there's no doubt there was a large influx of Romance words during that time. Some directly from Latin, many from other Romance languages, primarily French. Today only about 15% of the vocabulary is Slavic and probably around 80% Latin in origin. Doing something similar with English would be, I believe, much, much harder. At best you might see some words making a comeback. For one, the percentage of Latin origin words, including those that came from French, is huge in English. Some estimates put it close to 60%. So it's not a favourable stating position. I don't know exactly how large the Slavic origin vocabulary was in Romanian before the process started, but it was nowhere near as large. Then there's the issue that English has become so widespread, spoken by so many people as a primary language in so many countries across the world, that it makes it difficult for local changes to make their way across the English speaking world. It does happen even today, but not on the grand scale required by some of the more fanciful ideas I've seen. Romanian, on the other hand, was (and still is) a much more localized language making such changes easier and faster. Then there's the not exactly insignificant aspect of how desirable such an effort is. When this happened in the Romanian language, there was a favourable current not only locally, but across Europe: it was the time of birth for many European nation-states and of romantic nationalism. Today I could see the idea of re-anglicizing English being easily co-opted, if not outright taken over, by some more unsavoury groups. The sort of groups that would use it service of ethnic and racial purity agendas.

I didn’t know hard and fast meant fixed… Im even learning about modern English right now, this is great.

On Fullthungen: in Dutch we speak of a "Voldongen feit" refering to a fact that is established beyond doubt.

This channel has become one of those where you go back and watch every video and then never miss any new uploads. Love it!

Man I love your editing. Everything flows so well with what you say. You get so much additional information out of it but never have to pause to get it into your head while listening.

Old English and Latin just sound so gooooood, they deserve to be taught at schools.

So cool that Max Miller mentioned you, and you mentioned Max!! I’m a big fan of you both .

As someone who likes to read Tolkien books, in which there are dozens and dozens of Old English (and Gothic) names, I'd love a video on Old English pronunciation. Have hou ever thought about making one? There seens to be too many different opinions on OE pronunciation on the internet and I wish there's was a more trustworthy video on the matter.

Honestly Rob, I would give you half a dozen thumbs up per video if it were possible to do so. You really do deserve the number of views you get. Thank you so much for making your videos. I love them ❤

I can't help but admire the way you encraft your sponsorship into your priogramme. Good job! Also. I am not a linguist, but it's fascinating how languages and geopolitics intersect - for instance many of your words for today have clear analogues in German. I don't speak Old English, but can certainly relate to your homophones, or maybe in some cases of loanwords. Interesting & informative as always!

Petition to bring back *overmorrow*

Aresling.. my Mum used to talk about “asscumfust” (arse come first) to mean “backwards” or misunderstood. “They’ve got it all asscumfust”. Sounds somewhat similar… maybe it’s a bit of Worcestershire dialect. I enjoyed the video Rob, thank you for continually reminding us of that which we’ve lost. Les

In Icelandic a poem is Ljóð. Run is rúnir or rún and is someone that knows well how to write and read runes (and people that could read and write runes were believed to be magical). Weg in German means road and also vegur Icelandic has the same meaning. Sorrow is Sorg in Icelandic. In Icelandic the word Þungur means heavy so the word Fullþungen would be more like as heavy as it can possibly get. And what is currently spoken is Iceland and Faroe Islands is the closest you can get to what people spoke in north Europe 1000 to 1500 years ago.

19:38 "Jordfast" exist in norwegian today. "Jord" means "soil"/"land". Jord=eard "Fast" in this context means "stuck" (in other contexts it can also mean "firm) Fast=fæst. "Jordfast" in norwegian means "stuck in soil/land"

My 7th grade English teacher (back during the Kennedy administration) would quote to us in Old & Middle English. He never gave us a word-for-word translation, however. He gave a general gist of the subject matter. I like the analysis of the individual words given here.

Wondersmith sounds like a D&D prestige class.

I love this channel! For someone who failed English in high school I love to learn about these Olde English words

"Dream" for "joy" isn't that far from the other modern sense -- "just what I've always dreamed of," "my dream job," etc.

I love words and language. Your channel is so much fun watch. Keep up the good work!

Dream, Dreamy Dreamy has the connotation of Joy, Glee ... not such a leap.

Morrowsorrow was the one I liked best. About sorrow (or sorg). In Swedish there is a word that might be thought of as "aboutsorrow" (omsorg) which means to care or take care of (mostly) people in some kind of need around you.

In Dutch, we have the word Vijand which is pronounced similar to Feond We also have the word Geduldig for patience We have the word Vast sounds like Faest, which means firm too. I am drawn to the word Dreamcraft...love it.

The countervailing criteria of wordcraft are clarity, brevity, and poetry. While "miracle-worker" contemporaneously enjoys precedence over "wondersmith," three syllables are usually preferable to five. On the other hand, for a poet, depending on the meter one means to meet... in re "any more old words": I've aggressively used both ravel and anon for decades now.

Nice video. I am a "closet conlanger" (amateur constructed (fictional) language creator). This video feels like a conlang: different "logic" to our standard english. -- Which is nice. I am in the "bring back thor, eth, ash, ethyl" team (þ, ð, æ, œ). I use and abuse them in my conlang!

As a non-native speaker and perpetual learner of this beautiful language, I can only say that I love you and thank you for so much knowledge put through your effort at our fingertips. Blessings!!!

As a German speaker, I find it very interesting, how many of these Old English words are easy to understand. My favorite is "earsling" , we still have that word. In bavarian dialect we say "arschlings" which means backwards.

I find it interesting, at least in my mind, old English seems quite removed from the English we use today, yet Rob always finds logical and interesting connections that help see how it has transformed and sometimes morphed into recognizable words and letters today.

The word ‘arselong’ is used here (Adelaide, Australia)

I love that you give Max Müller love 😁

Runecrafting was added to RuneScape in 2004 along with the quest "Rune Mysteries". I found it funny that the name is essentially saying mystery twice

15:00 In Dutch we have 'aarzeling' meaning 'hesitation'. If you are without 'aarzeling' you are determined/without doubt and moving forwards (instead of going backwards). Same etymology as 'aersling'.

"Oathling" is another favorite, meaning a person under oath--modern prince (borrowed from French). The arrow that killed King Harold Godwinson killed off all future English oathlings. They became princes and princesses.

Thank you so much for these videos. My family is bilingual, and I am often asked to explain the many oddities and inconsistencies of English. In the most entertaining but detailed fashion, RobWords has gifted me so many of the answers. I feel like an armchair etymologist, and I like it. Bravo!

As a Dutch/English bilingual I was pleasantly semi-surprised by the amount of words or parts of words I could recognize.

Great stuff Rob! I Too am a Brit living in Germany and am going to have alot of fun slipping some of these words into conversations and seeing what my friends do when they later try and find a translation 😂

'full-thungen': see also modern Dutch 'voldongen' which means exactly that

Words can't describe how much I appreciate the work you do. I do not dish out compliments. I genuinely mean it. Thank you so much!

Thanks for sharing all your wordy nerdiness. I so enjoy everything you share. Keep up to good work!

Your explanation of “runecrafty” really hearkens back to the old days of RuneScape Classic for me. There was a quest in the game called “Rune Mysteries,” whose name could possibly allude to some of the connections you were making. Great video as always, and thanks for the memories, Rob.

Great video. My personal favourites among Old English words are 'elfscyne', meaning 'elf-beautiful' (elfschön in German) and 'gebeorscipe', meaning 'beer-party' in English, although I find it funnier when 'etymologically' translated into German, which would give 'Gebierschaft'.

I absolutely LOVE hearing you pronuncing all those ancient words. And your words genealogy exposition is always a great delight to me~

As a musician, the Old English word for our profession/art of choice being Drēamcræft is indescribably validating

Wondersmith; fits what you do on KZfaq quite well.

"Arselong" and "wondersmith" are two that I can see myself incorporating into my daily speech and/or writing.

"Arselong" is my new favorite word ever ever ever. I'm going to use it as an adjective, verb, noun, adverb......Perfection! Chef's kiss. I'm thinking it might be used a lot at work. 😂😂😂😂😂

Thank you Rob for the quality content. I have always enjoyed etymology and linguistics. Fascinating for hours! Your channel is a boon to my passion.

In some lower German dialects there exists a word for dawn which is spelled „Ucht“ or „Uchte“. This directly corresponds to the uht in uhtceare. In Old Saxon this word exists as uhta.

I feel like we've lost a lot of interesting words from Old English. Your video really makes this clear!

Love how you’ve included extra words throughout the advert section🥰