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! ✌

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

Some idiot drove arselong into my car this morning.

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.

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.

"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.

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

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. 😊

I grew up in a very remote area in austria with an often outdated language.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"

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

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

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.

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

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.'

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

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.

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

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

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

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).

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.

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!

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

Feondscipe is still in our current Dutch as vijandschap.

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!

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!

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.

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

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.

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

I’m learning Icelandic and also learned some German a long time ago. It’s fun to pick out cognates between Old English, Icelandic, and German.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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)

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'.

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

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.

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.

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

Wondersmith sounds like a D&D prestige class.

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 😂

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'.

"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.

Love arselong. I know it’s very popular to say “ass backwards” in reference to something that is broken or convoluted, or my personal favorite, the spoonerized “back asswards.” Though “arselong” captures that sense of misplaced confidence in progressing forwards that “back asswards” does not.

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.

A very nice Old English word is acweorna, which was used for the squirrel, especially the red squirrel. The word acweorna directly corresponds to the German word for squirrel, which is “Eichhörnchen” or “Eichhorn”.

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

Old English is just such a beautiful language It's such a shame how many words we lost due to the Norman invasions and how many words got replaced with Latin counterparts EDIT: I wanna point out that I love your pronouncation of Old English

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

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 🤩

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

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

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

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.

Thanks for this, Rob. Speaking both English and German, it's easy to see where the words came from -when you look at how they have developed into modern use in German and Scandinavian languages.

Wondersmith; fits what you do on UKposts quite well.

Treow looks a lot like the Dutch word trouw, which means faith in English. Gedyldig is the same word as geduldig, which is patient in Dutch.

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

I have the feeling that you've taken a fancy to the Ænglish community. Since you made the first video on this topic, you even mentioned them explicitly because they helped you out. This is not a complaint, but a "keep it up"!

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.

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

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"

Thank you for sharing this with us. It's sad that we lost these hearty and rich expressions. Borrowing so many foreign terms made English 'cold' and inhuman-like that we are literally 'loss at words' to describe experiences we all humans share. Reminds me of a New Yorker comedian George Carlin's take on the power of language of how terms evolved over time to become more cold and authoritative from the word 'shell-shocked' back in 1900's to 'Post traumatic stress disorder' in our present time.

Thank you, sir Rob! Your vigor for etymology and linguistics inspires me continue my interests in the endless interests of language.

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.

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'.

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

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.

Old English having a word for Ocean that means "world water" makes me even more confident that Yggdrasil (The World Tree) was the Nordic way of describing Global trade Routes that they would traverse, and not literally that they believed the world to be small worlds connected via a giant tree. The "branches" being individual paths from destination to destination, and the tree representing all of the routes combined.

Always interesting, informative and entertaining, rare enough youtube. Also sincere, honest and genuine, even more uncommon. Truly enjoy, thanks.

I watched this straight after a Tasting History (Max Miller) video.Two of my favourite channels. This was great - I particularly I loved earthfast and runecrafty.

Could you teach us old and middle English? Like a mini series?

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)

I think Wondersmith has great appeal as a kind of tongue-in-cheek. You said it and I immediately got vibes of Willy Wonka and Elon Musk: people celebrated as industrial "miracle-worker" "geniuses" but whose truths are much more goofy and troubling. I think anything with hasty is going to have trouble catching on my side of the pond!

Αsslong is actually a word I made up myself to describe someone who (figuratively) leads with their αss. 5 out of 5 stars!

Dutch has "voldongen", which means 'complete', but rather in the sense of 'complete beyond the possibility of being changed'. Like 'fait accompli', or 'een voldongen feit'.

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

A lot of these words are great but my favorite is Earthfast by far. It is so versatile that I feel it can be used to describe anything literally or figuratively stuck to the ground. Personally, I feel it could describe someone who is so stubborn and closeminded that they're like an immovable rock stuck to the ground.

Great words! Why not bring them back? We definitely can do it. But, you, sir Rob, give me real Norman Bates vibes and I like it! Keep doing your great work! Much appreciation, much love from Voronezh, Russia.

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 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.

Such a good video. When cattle were still stalled in byres in Scotland , the raised walkway ( between the two grips or dung channels on either side ) was called the gang. When I looked it up before it was said to be also used in Scottish deep mining terminology. So earsgang is not such a stretch.

An awesome video to go with my morning coffee. Thank you.

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.

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 ❤

Dream originally meant joy. And music. How enchanting 😊❤

This one is among the very top of my preferred episodes you made! Speaking also German, I think I had extra reasons to enjoy it Thank you for this fantastic channel, please never stop

13:26 I didn't expect Tasting History to come up in a video about Old English words haha.

You know, as an Italian living in UK, I do immensely appreciate your passion and hard work you put into these videos. I find them fascinating and even though your whimsical "crusades" might come across as dystopical at times (i.e. wanting to reintroduce lost words or alphabets) I personally think it's important that people like you still exist in today's world, where we tend to simplify everything and lose the beautiful richness of language (and making us every day closer to that nightmare Orson Welles described so vividly in 1984). So, well done Rob and keep that going! ❤

You know what I'd like to see? A deep dive into the word "car", the first sound of which, "c", hasn't changed since biblical times -- at one time I had a whole list of related words, all related to transportation, all starting with "c" (car, caravan), or "ch" (chariot), but alas, I cannot remember most of it. Love your work!

This is a great list! I'm immediately embedding earthfast in my vocabulary.

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!

I think a lot of these words in a "modernized" form could work in English today imo (Also love the inclusion of the Thomas theme)