Øystein H. Brekke ᚯᛦᛌᛐᛅᛁᚿ ᚼ ᛒ

Historie, språk, nørding, grøn liberal.
History, languages, nerding, green (European) liberal.

@oysteib on Twitter

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Last Notes

2024-07-30 07:43:36

556 years ago today, the Lord Mayor of London led an armed retinue to the Hanseatic _Kontor_ in London, the settlement of German merchants known as the Steelyard. All the merchants were arrested and imprisoned in Ludgate, and the Kontor was closed. For the next six years, England was at war with cities of the Hanseatic League, as well as with Denmark and Norway.
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#history #histodons

2024-07-29 10:47:13

The joys of translating British understatement: "Something really untoward had gone on here." To wit, attempted murder.

2024-04-19 13:25:53

Francesco Negri from Ravenna, travelling in Norway in the 1660s, writes home about the natural wonders he sees here, and how no country in Christian Europe can compare - and then proceeds to list the most marvellous things each European region can boast:
"England its Birds born from Trees fallen into the Sea. Spain its river Guadiana, which runs for a long stretch underground. France its waters which turn into stone. Flanders its floating Islands" ...
#history
#histodons

2024-04-16 09:16:41

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@npub1hpc…hjn3 Nei, han var visst berre... oppdagelsesreisande. Nordens Marco Polo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Negri_(travel_writer)

2024-04-16 09:09:42

Glimt av daglegliv i Bergen på 1660-talet: Ein italienar skreiv ei reiseskildring frå Norden og fortel m.a. språklege detaljar. Han merkar seg at ingen (utanom adelen) har familienamn, berre -son og -datter. Folk blir berre kalla med fornamnet sitt, unntatt borgarmeisteren og prestane, som blir kalla "herr", og familieoverhovud blir kalla "far" og "mor".
Folk som er glad i kvarandre, seier "sodelam" ("søte lam"), og ektepar kallar kvarandre "mit ierte" ("mitt hjerte").

2024-03-29 18:47:07

499 years ago today, two privateer ships in the service of the deposed King Christian II of Denmark and Norway, raided Bergen, Norway's largest city. They captured the Bishop of Bergen, Olav Torkelsson, and the abbot of the nearby monastery of Lyse and [probably] received a large ransom for them.
Christian II had been deposed two years earlier and was now in exile, making trouble for the usurper and plotting his return. (Which never came.)
#history #histodons

2024-01-28 17:57:43

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Two of the king's men supported the Frenchmen's story that they had been headed for England - they said that "they could see it from their ship's instruments". Which makes me very curious! What does that mean? Had they plotted London into their GPS?
Anyway, it seems they were believed, were allowed to buy a new sail, anchor and rope and sent on their way.
Fin.

2024-01-28 17:55:19

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The Danish scribe gave the captain's name as Johann de Samelssen, and the merchants as Horti Gudfridssen, Ricard Hossze and Gudfrid Geladt.
Blowing that far off course on a voyage from Rouen to London does sound very... unfortunate. But definitely possible. 12 years before, a ship headed from Crete to Flanders ended up off Røst in the Lofoten Islands.

2024-01-28 17:52:28

Today's brief glimpse into Medieval sources: 580 years ago today, a ship's captain and three merchants from Rouen in Normandy appeared before a court in Bergen, Norway, after their ship was seized by the local royal representative in Karmsundet, near present Haugesund, Norway. The merchants said they were heading for London, but had been blown off course.
The court asked: "Are you absolutely sure you're not pirates or spies??" They answered definitely not, just heading for London.
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#history

2023-12-20 10:22:00

For 504 år sidan i dag samla bønder frå Hardanger og Nordhordland seg til ting på Bjelkarøyna, rett sør for Flesland flyplass i dag, for å rådslå om ein nytt og tungt skattepålegg: Kongen hadde skrive ut ein skatt på ein tidel av all fast eigedom - ein formueskatt på 10 %!
Kongens høvedsmann i Bergen, Jørgen Hanssøn, rusta ut ein militærstyrke for å dra ut og bryta opp det ulovlege tingmøtet.
Bakgrunnen for den ekstreme skattlegginga var at kong Kristian 2. av Noreg (og Danmark) ...
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https://s3.masto.ai/media_attachments/files/111/612/242/476/585/371/original/18c3197d957fa14a.png

2023-12-03 18:59:41

Venezuela byggjer opp til invasjon av nabolandet Guyana, litt Irak-Kuwait-style. Venezuela har folketal om lag som Australia. Guyana omtrent som Luxembourg.
Fryktar for kor store delar av norsk venstreside som kan koma til å definera overfall på ein lilleputt-nabo som "anti-imperialisme".
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/03/tensions-rise-as-venezuelans-vote-on-disputed-territory-in-neighbouring-guyana

2023-11-19 12:45:05

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The main enemy of the Hanseatic League was the Danish King Valdemar, who had been expanding his power over several years. Particularly threatening to the Hanseatic League was Valdemar's conquest of Gotland, with the Hanseatic city of Visby.
Norway was at this time an ally of Denmark.
In older Nordic history, detailed sources can be hard to come by. To a Norwegian historian (like me) the level of detail of the Hanseatic sources is mindblowing.

2023-11-19 12:39:44

#onthisday in 1367, a bunch of cities of the newly formed Hanseatic League, plus some more in Holland and Zeeland, formed an alliance to go to war against King Haakon VI of Norway and King Valdemar of Denmark. In the truce agreement with the King of Norway from 1370, 35 cities are named - the ones on this map. (Present day boundaries and Dutch coastline.) The Hanseatic victory in this war is often considered the height of the power of the Hanseatic League.
#histodons
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https://s3.masto.ai/media_attachments/files/111/437/162/739/684/720/original/dde106317fe8b67c.png

2023-09-28 17:42:04

A radical language map: The word for "root" in various languages.
The Germanic bit is slightly simplified - apparently, the "wurzel"-type words are actually from a compound of *wurt- + *waluz, so something like "root stock".
Bring on the puns about Belarusian Muslims going back to their roots.
#etymologidag #language #languages #linguistics
https://s3.masto.ai/media_attachments/files/111/143/988/871/765/181/original/012583206130729f.png

2023-09-28 08:02:50

Det er kanskje upopulært å sei nett no, men: Sjølv om det er sant at Aserbajdsjan er eit diktatur, at dei starta den siste krigen, og at dei etnisk rensar Nagorno-Karabakh - så er det òg sant at Nagorno-Karabakh sjølv var ein stat bygd på etnisk rensing.
Biletet viser byen Aghdam, som i 1989 hadde 28 000 innbyggjarar. Sidan 1993 har talet vore 0. Alle dei aserbajdsjanske innbyggarane vart drivne ut då byen vart erobra av utbrytarrepublikken Nagorno-Karabakh.
https://s3.masto.ai/media_attachments/files/111/141/724/130/791/604/original/98bcd16400c53ff8.png

2023-09-19 11:39:11

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@npub1hpc…hjn3 This is... not good.

2023-09-17 08:40:40

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@npub1hpc…hjn3 Ah, I see what you mean, but no. The context is that reports from Poland were positive, they seemed to have halted the German advance, and things were looking better - then came the Russian stab in the back.

2023-09-17 08:26:28

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@npub1hpc…hjn3
https://s3.masto.ai/media_attachments/files/111/079/533/979/900/483/original/dd93dfdb4951e070.jpg

2023-09-01 05:55:59

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@npub1hpc…hjn3 Wow, is that what "brå" in balderbrå means? I never realised!

2023-08-31 09:39:49

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@npub1p8v…gura @npub1hpc…hjn3 @npub1ctz…zyq5
But: https://mastodon.green/@ianhunt/110983175104085759

2023-08-31 06:54:54

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@npub1hpc…hjn3 Very trustworthy cheekbones.

2023-08-31 06:48:12

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@npub1hpc…hjn3 But the internal inconsistencies here are really something. So "the president's own polling" says he nearly got 50 %, apparently. But the official results - which in a country like Gabon is also, very literally, "the president's own polling" - gave him 64 %. So even in defending his client, Mr. Pursey is admitting that the election was a fraud.

2023-08-31 06:46:04

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@npub1hpc…hjn3 My thoughts exactly. Disappointing from a newspaper like the Guardian.

2023-08-31 06:42:33

Weird article in the #Guardian about #Gabon. Basically swallowing raw the claims of the president's own staff that he is very popular - without mentioning that he was a hereditary dictator, whose dynasty was in power for 56 years. And explicitly claiming that his regime was a democracy.
I know nothing about the coup makers, but going all in behind the Bongo dynasty seems... strange.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/30/ousted-ali-bongo-was-on-track-to-win-gabon-election-polling-shows about #Gabon.

2023-08-07 08:35:38

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@npub1hpc…hjn3 Yep!

2023-08-07 08:34:44

I know that "croco" means saffron, I just very much would like it to mean "crocodile".
King Håkon VI, 1370: "About the crocodile they say was released in Öresund, we have no recollection, but we have heard a crocodile was secretly taken there..."
https://s3.masto.ai/media_attachments/files/110/847/392/995/947/820/original/14002a80c483f6bb.png

2023-07-03 12:53:46

Using a topical war criminal to point out a Quite Interesting language fact:
There is no international system for transcribing Cyrillic. So here is the spelling of the name of a certain Pri*o*in* in various languages.
But the king of variety is Nikita S. Хрущёв.
Of course, not just is there no international system, there is no universally agreed system for English either. But these are the versions from the Wikipedias.
https://s3.masto.ai/media_attachments/files/110/650/240/190/005/357/original/1ef4778272ddf5fd.png
https://s3.masto.ai/media_attachments/files/110/650/240/782/749/871/original/ac13e63dd8600f5a.png

2023-05-24 20:44:26

The word for 'cheese' in some languages. Some languages have a more nuanced vocabulary - soft cheeses or things like cottage cheese may have a different word.
One of several cases where Finnic loaned a Germanic word a long time ago and preserves a "fossilized" form, preserving the initial j.
Scandinavian 'ost' is related to English 'juice'. Slavic 'syr' etc. is related to English 'sour'.
#etymologidag #language #languages #linguistics
https://s3.masto.ai/media_attachments/files/110/425/605/364/091/043/original/140dc24187002f98.png