Limburgish native speaker here (from Maastricht). In its written form Dutch (& German) speakers will definitely be able to understand most of what we write but when we speak, it gets more confusing for them. The differing grammar, intonation, pronunciation and different vocabulary which we use in a normal colloquial conversation can confuse them. And with no previous exposure most Dutch speakers will find it hard to understand us because of that. On holidays speaking Limburgish with friends and family is nice because Dutch speakers tend to think we're Germans and German speakers think we're Dutch/Flemish so you can sort of maneuver in the middle. Also here Hasselts looks a bit more different from Dutch because of the accents used. In reality I'd say it's a bit closer to standard Dutch than the Maastrichtian variant of Limburgish is. Also within West, Central and East Limburgish there are many more varieties. You can basically tell exactly where someone is from by listening to their variant of Limburgish. Within your own subregion you can usually tell exactly which village someone is from just by listening.
Zo ver ik weet is het Limburgs in Hasselt veel meer naar het Nederlands gegroeid dan het Limburgs in Nederland. Dat is natuurlijk met uitzondering van Noord Limburg, rond Venlo wat al veel meer op het Nederlands lijkt.
A few years ago, I stopped for a break in Kaldenkirchen (in Germany but very close to Venlo) and strolled through the church graveyard. The inscriptions on the gravestones are not in modern German. Are they in Limburgisch?
To me, a Norwegian, Faroese looks a lot like Icelandic. Visiting the Faroe Islands I was however suprised that I could understand the spoken language fairly well, unlike Icelandic where I only understand tiny bits of the spoken languages. Faroese people speaking Danish to me sounds like Norwegian with a few distinct Danish words.
Limburgish speaker from Belgium here! Growing up along the river Maas (Maaseik) in the early 2000s, Limburgish has always been the go to language to use with family or for informal communication in the area. Since it's the language that I was raised in, my mom recalls that when I first went to kindergarten, I couldn't understand the teacher who only spoke standard Dutch, but of course now both languages come naturally to me. In Maaseik, we speak a variety of Central Limburgish, like in Maastricht, but both the examples from Hasselt and Maastricht were easy to comprehend. Though I must say that nowadays the use of Limburgish is certainly more prevalent on the Dutch side. Especially in the western parts of Belgian Limburg, the language has come to resemble more closely to forms of Flemish or Brabantian and younger people tend to not use it anymore. But I would suggest this is a recent phenomenon that coincided with the introduction of Flemish public television, which popularised a sort of 'in-between-language' (tussentaal) as a standard Flemish variety of Dutch, which didn't really exist before. Another peculiar evolution has developed around the mining regions of Limburg, where in the mid 20th century immigrant workers from all around the Mediterranean were recruited to work in the coal mines. Their presence definitely put a stamp on the culture and language in and around these former coal mining towns, making them into a unique melting pot.
@@CheLanguages I believe Limburgish will continue to exist for at least a couple of centuries, but it will evolve separately within different subregions. The language would still be strongly used in the Dutch province of Limburg (since over there it's protected as an official language), though it will be influenced more by Standard Dutch depending on the location. In Belgian Limburg, I suppose the language will vary even more, with the varieties being spoken in the East and Nort-East along the Dutch border, still being more closely related to Dutch varieties of Limburgish, and the language in the West exhibiting more characteristics of the newly founded Flemish standard language. Overall, I think different dialects will change - more or less depending on their location - in accordance with the growing international community, towards 'street' versions of Limburgish, containing more slang words.
@@polwijnen I'm glad to hear that you don't think it will die out soon. Personally I believe it has persistence, but I think it will die out in Belgium within the next century perhaps
Hello Limburg! I really do hope you will be able to retain your valuable form of limburgish there. It is unfortunate that the parliament in Brussels is not so much concerned about the different languages and dialects in Belgium even if you do still very much use it on a daily basis as I have understood. The situation is a bit or very different on the other side of the border with the dutch Limburg, where they have made limburgish a regional official language. I hope this changes in Belgium. It resembles the situation in that of France and also Sweden. Italy has recognised some of the interesting differences in language.
"Another peculiar evolution has developed around the mining regions of Limburg, where in the mid 20th century immigrant workers from all around the Mediterranean were recruited to work in the coal mines. Their presence definitely put a stamp on the culture and language in and around these former coal mining towns, making them into a unique melting pot." How sad.
I can kinda make sense of the Elfdalian text as a Norwegian. ”Undą̊ för undą̊ (?) before I understood how dull you had it, my little prince. For a long while you didn't have anything to do other than to stare at sunsets. That I understood the morning of the fourth day, when you said to me: I like the sunset so much.” Some of the words aren't directly understandable, but thinking about the context for a while I think this makes sense. I assume ”undą̊ för undą̊” means that ”it took a while”, but I left it untranslated because I don't really understand ”undą̊”. Also not sure about ”grann”, which I think means ”grand”, but I don't understand it in this context. The rest also contains some guesswork (don't trust my translation), but I feel good about it. I tried to keep the translation direct, but had to swap some words around for English.
@@CheLanguages I think I understand the text decently well although it's probably to the same degree that I would understand written Danish and Norwegian. I'm from the complete opposite side of the country so I'd imagine that swedes closer to Älvdalen would understand it better. Right outside my hometown of Sölvesborg there's the dialect listerländska which is pretty odd and quite unintelligible for swedes as well, it's to the point that apart from people from Sölvesborg municipality most swedes wouldn't understand what they're saying. Aulawabbel is their word for manet (Jellyfish) for example. It's rare to find someone who speaks it nowadays but some seniors are still as unintelligible as ever.
In Faroese, the edh (I can't write it on my current keyboard) actually isn't pronounced as a t. It's pronunciation is sometimes like y in "yes", sometimes like a v and sometimes it's even silent. It all depends on the vowels next to that letter. It never comes at the beginning of words, where the sound indeed shifted to a t, but is also written as one.
Oh wow, that a bit more information than I could find. I found something about it never being able to start a word but I found sources only saying it's pronounced like a t, that's odd
@@CheLanguages g often acts the same way between vowels. You can find information about this under "Glide insertion" in the Wikipedia article on Faroese orthography.
Yes! Best way to think of the Faroese ð is that it's phonologically null in all positions. It was basically dropped entirely on a phonological level. It can be pronounced as [j] or [ʋ] or null depending on what vowels are surrounding it, but this follows exactly the same rules as vowel hiatus in general. So essentially, orthographic is entirely redundant in Faroese; it's just a pure etymological leftover which is phonologically not even a segment at all.
Just want to point out that it's not Dalecarian in English but Dalecarlian. The name comes from Swedish dalkarl which means man from Dalarna (the valleys).
Why are the school books in Limburg twice as thick as those in other provinces? ... The left page is for the words, the right page for the music notes.
Me as a Dutch person from Brabant (next to Limburg), I'm able to understand most of Limburgs, at leat enough to get the context of what's written or told. But it will cost me a lot of energy and i have to pay a lot of attention. Telling myself that they speak German also helps to understand them better :P What also should be mentioned is that it's also highy depending on where in Limburg the person is from. A person from Venlo (North-ish of Limburg) does sound nothing like a person from Maastricht (South/West of Limburg), or even worse, Kerkrade (South/East of Limburg).
Someone else here who is a native speaker of Limburg told me that they can tell where someone is within a 20 kilometer radius!! Amazing!!! It's great to hear from all these Dutch and Limburg speakers about their experiences
@@CheLanguages Haha, we can do that in the entire country.. if you drive through our country the language/dialect changes every twenty minutes. We can even tell from what specific village someone is within a region.
@@thijseijk25 THAT'S MIND-BLOWING. That being said, a similar thing happens here in England, though only people living in that region can tell. Someone here in Yorkshire can tell different towns or villages apart, I can't but I can tell cities. But I couldn't tell where someone is from in the Essex dialect, but an Essex person would
@@CheLanguages I think it's just the same as here. The further some grew up away from a region the harder it get to hear where another person is from within that region.
@@thijseijk25 yeah, you're more familiar with your own. Again however, I live in Yorkshire and have done most my life, but I cannot speak the Yorkshire dialect nor am I very good at telling where someone is from within Yorkshire except for certain cities/large towns e.g. Sheffield, Leeds, Hull, Huddersfield, Barnsley etc.
As a Dutch native speaker, I have to say that I can read both variaties of Limburgish quite easily, I don't have much experience with spoken Limburgish, but just going off the writing, it seems extremely close to Dutch.
Even I, with my simple Afrikaans, could pick out certain words. I've heard as a spoken language, this is different though, it becomes less clear, but neighboring dialects of Dutch can easily understand it, whereas someone from elsewhere in the country probably would have a harder time. Where are you from in the Netherlands?
@@CheLanguages I'm from the eastern part of the country, my family speaks a Low Saxon/Low German dialect at home, but we also know standard Dutch and use it in public life. I have had quite a bit of exposure to Afrikaans from people I've met online though and family of mine has gone to South Africa many times. I have to say, eventhough Afrikaans speakers would probably disagree, that Afrikaans doesn't even feel like a different language to me from Dutch. It is different from Dutch, but if you just spend like an afternoon getting used to the sounds and different grammar you'll be able to understand everything an Afrikaans speaker says (barring of course Malay loanwords). And written Afrikaans is completely readable to me. It seems much more like a dialect of Dutch, that's just my opinion though, I don't want to offend any Afrikaans speakers. In writing Limburgish actually looks more distinct that Afrikaans from Dutch in writing, but even then I can still read it pretty easily.
As someone who lives in the capital city of Limburg, Maastricht, I can tell you the language is starting to die out. The language is mostly spoken by older people and children don't really pick up the language anymore. Myself included, being born in Limburg, I never really picked up the language. I think that the language is only going to die out further as time passes.
That's fascinating because other Limburgers here stated how in their part of Limburg, the language is popular amongst younger people. Interesting to see how different regions react differently
A slight correction, the Faroes aren't just a territory of Denmark, they are a constituent country within the Kingdom of Denmark (just like Greenland).
Ah sorry, I'm not always updated on the exact geopolitical status of overseas territories. I know it's wrong to call them colonies in the modern world, I didn't realize they were an autonomous constituent country within Denmark like Greenland is though? That means they're equal to Scotland and Wales here in the UK, despite being an archipelago of tiny islands in the middle of nowhere!
@@CheLanguages indeed. It's a common misunderstanding stemming from the fact that Denmark is in fact a separate entity from the Kingdom of Denmark (which also has a separate, although similar flag). The Kingdom of Denmark (also commonly known as the Danish Realm) consists of the three constituent countries of Denmark, Greenland and the Faroes, each with a strong degree of autonomy, and officially holding the status of "country", they are however very reliant on the Kingdom as a whole in some other ways, such as defence. Incidentally, the same goes for the Netherlands, which is in fact a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (along with the countries of Curaçao, Aruba and Sint Maarten). Keep in mind, that the exact degree of autonomy for constituent countries varies on a case by case basis, e.g. the countries of the UK each have an even stronger degree of autonomy when compared to the Danish Realm's and Dutch Kingdom's countries. If you're curious as to how many of these "countries of countries" there are today, there's just one more: The Commonwealth of New Zealand, which consists of the constituent countries of Niue and New Zealand.
@@oyoo3323 That's really interesting. I studied politics at A-Level and I had no clue these existed! It makes sense I guess. Do other Monarchies like Spain not operate in the same way with their overseas territories like Las Islas Canarias?
@@CheLanguages actually, in the case of Spain it doesn't matter whether they're oversees or not. MOST of Spain's administrative divisions hold the status of "autonomous community", which do hold a very high degree of autonomy (not called "constituent countries" though). Even parts of mainland Spain like Andalusia, Galicia, Catalonia, Valencia etc. all hold this much power. The real difference (that I'm aware of) between these and the "constituent countries" is just what they're called. Terms for administrative divisions (provinces, cantons, prefecture, regions, states, and sometimes even countries) tend to vary a lot in what they mean on a country-by-country basis. If you want to learn more about Spain's autonomous communities, I'd advise Geography Now's video on them. Incidentally, the confusion with constituent countries also partially relates to the UN. The UN recognises the UK as an member state, but not its constituent countries, however... it recognises Denmark, the Netherlands and New Zealand as members, rather than their countries as a whole. Why? If I had to guess... they probably just got confused. It wouldn't be the first time. The UN recognises the Holy See as an observer state, in stead of the Vatican itself (the Holy See being the ruling organisation of the Vatican); that's like if they recognised the Chinese Community Party as a country in stead of China itself. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Very weird seeing a scandinavian language i don't at least understand. I looked up some basic stuff a few weeks back of Elfdalian and oculd understand it pretty alright (at least when it was: What does x word mean?) but that whole sentence is very weird. I guess i could try real hard to translate it but my understanding is its a poem about a sunset. "suolniðgaungga" id guess means sunset as the direct translation would be "sun down walk" and "Laindj" likely land. Something about a little princes men admiring the sunset in the fjords ending with: "i understand you in the mornin fjords, you must trust me: i really love the sunset"
""suolniðgaungga" - Norwegian "solnedgang". A common Scandinavian way of creating words by combining existing ones. In general the language is closer to (but not the same as) Old Norse than it is to Norwegian (I mention this because it was said to be closer to Norwegian than Swedish, in the video, but it isn't really).
@@CheLanguages I am a Swedish, Icelandic and Danish speaker with Icelandic my first language. Id say its got some Icelandic words in it making it the most intelligable (in writing only) but thats barely. Its mostly just the words not within Swedish/norwegian that are semi similar to Icelandic. Some of the words are just a weirdly written Swedish too. Very interesting.
Hey! I am a PhD Student conducting research on Elfdalian. The text is a translation from The Little Prince, it was published around 2008 and you can find the translation on omniglot. Saying that it's closer to Norwegian than it is to Swedish it's a bit of stretch, but one might argue that it can be compared to other varieties spoken on the other side of the border, such as Selbumål, which also retained nasal vowels to some extent. It is an interesting case in the Scandinavian dialect continuum. As @tbitfiddler stated, it can be said to be closer to Old Norse than it is to either Swedish or Norwegian, at least in its most conservative variety. There are reasons to believe that Dalecarlian as a whole started developing rather indipendently while Swedish and Dano-Norwegian where still closely resembling each other.
As a person from Iceland I can understand written Faroese Perfectly! IT just looks like it was written by a three year old who doesn't know what grammar is and uses the wrong word endings! But SPOKEN Faroese just sounds like mumbling and gibberish! Most Icelanders only understand the old people, not the younger generations!
I got some similar comments. It's the same for me with Romance languages that I don't speak, I can usually read them more or less but if I hear them spoken, it's impossible
Haha just discovered your channel a couple of days ago, binge watched your Forgotten Romance series, and I was wondering if you were going to ever make this video, suddenly here it is! I didn't have to wait at all!
It's been a long time in the making but I'm glad you enjoyed it! Welcome to the channel, I also plan on maybe making a 5th episode of the Forgotten Romance Languages series someday soon
I hadn't heard of the first two, and your explanation of Elfdalian as being one of a number of languages which all stem from Norse really interested me. That picture of a dominant city's language coming to dominate the rest of the country feels all too common, where smaller languages and nationalities were suppressed from France to the UK to apparently Sweden, too
What is special with Elfdalian is that it has Proto-Norse aspects. So when all other Scandinavian languages changed from Proto-Norse to Old Norse the Elfdalians kept some of the original language.
I met a couple of Limbourgish speakers whilst on holiday on Corfu a few years ago. They were really insistant that it was a separate language and, although they could also speak Dutch, it was their first language.
It does seem to be separate and has been for many centuries now. However, being in The Netherlands, most speakers will also be able to speak Dutch (like those who you met). I do wonder however how much a Limburgish speaker outside of The Netherlands would be able to understand Dutch, or vice versa with a Dutch speaker who has never been to Limburg...
@@CheLanguages strange thing was that the cadence (not sure if this is the correct expression, but I mean the way Russians think Portuguese sounds like Russian) was really similar to the regional accent of English that is spoken were I grew up. I vaguely overheard them speaking in a bar and initially thought they were from that area.
@@stubronstein9932 I was not aware of that word (cadence). I understand what you mean completely, the manner of speech Dutch people use can sound very similar to English, it's probably a good explanation of why I've met some people who are Dutch but I didn't realize until much later because their English sounds so perfect. An example of someone I haven't met however who is a good example of this is the RUclipsr "History with Hilbert", he's Dutch but you wouldn't know it (until he mentions it for like the 100000th time in his video)
I’m pausing the video at the text regarding Elfdalian. I’m far from fluent in Swedish, but I speak a little. (Skånska) if I’m correct, it’s saying “if you can’t understand me, this should be considered a different dialect.” Now I’m pushing play to see if I’m correct.
Sadly, there was no translation provided, but that might be exactly what Peter Helander said in his speech to Parliament, from when I watched the video of him doing it
The Netherlands (European part) has two official languages. Dutch and Frisian. Frisian is only an official language in the province of Frisia. Papiemento is an official language in the parts of the Kingdom in the Dutch Antilles, and English is an official language in Saba. Limburgish is not considered a language, but a dialect of Dutch. However, that is debated among linguïsts. Some see it as a separate language. I am not qualified to judge that.
Very interesting. Thank you for the clip. You mentioned Afrikaans, in South Africa, also Germanic. According to Charlese Theron 44 people are speaking it. ... Not sure of realistic numbers at present but probably about 4 million people in ZA use it as their first language and certainly more than 20 million can speak it as a second language. Very interesting how dialects develop and how distinct they become. We have not really experienced it in Afrikaans but I guess that is just because it is still so very young compared to these old Germanic languages.
I think you meant 44 million LOL? I've seen numbers around 36 million too. It's hard to measure. It's my favorite Germanic language besides Yiddish en ek ken praat 'n bietjie van Afrikaans!
I think you meant 44 million LOL? I've seen numbers around 36 million too. It's hard to measure. It's my favorite Germanic language besides Yiddish en ek ken praat 'n bietjie van Afrikaans!
As a Limburgish speaker form Maasmechelen living in Tessenderlo (West Limburg in Belgium but here they speak the Brabant dialect) once I adopt a kid I will speak only Limburgish to him/her to preserve our dialect. A language is way more than just a communication tool, it is backed by centuries of culture and people forming it. Hearing. Someone speak your language forms an instant bond. It's history and it's what my parents, grand parents and many great grand parents before them have spoken and shaped into what it is now today so ain't no fucking way I'm going to let it die off! 😉
@@CheLanguages Yeah no real problem here, kids go to school very early and there they'll learn Dutch. At home it was always Limburgish and I turned out a grammar Nazi when it comes to Dutch grammar (I get crazy when I see the many typos my husband makes). 😂
@@CheLanguages Tell that to my Dutch class teacher back in the day, 'direct object' in Dutch means 'lijdend voorwerp'. If you make a very literal translation you get 'suffering object' and if you didn't get de right 'direct object' during sentence parsings then you'd be the 'suffering object' when you get your score. 😂
If I may be so bold, at the end of this video, the guitar playing was so loud I could hardly hear you. I do hope that in future videos you turn the volume down on the guitar at the end. That said, as a student of languages (I created one for a story I wrote several years ago.), I enjoy learning about different languages spoken throughout the world.
Hey, I've been playing around with my editing software and I thought it wasn't too loud in this video, it was in the last. I'll try and soften it even more for next week's video. Thank you for letting me know!
@@CheLanguages Well, up until you had finished talking about the languages, the music was barely noticeable. It was just the last couple of minutes of the video that I had a hard time hearing what you said. Your voice is rather soft like a teacher's voice normally is.
@@drivernjax OK that's good to know. Also I take that last comment as a compliment, I don't want to come across as an annoying RUclipsr that's for sure. Thank you!
Great video! If you're going to make another video about Germanic languages, I think Wymysorys is a language worth mentioning! It's spoken in a single town in Poland and has only about 20-25 native speakers. Fortunately, revitalization efforts have begun and appear to be successful.
I've had other people recommend it before but you're the only person who's actually told me anything about it, I'm definitely going to check it out and include it in my next part
@@CheLanguages if you need any materials for wymysioeryś, there is a website called Ynzer Śpröh where you can find some both written and spoken records prepared by the native speakers. Btw it's crazy how it's not even a Slavic language, it's not fully intelligible to german speakers either, and yet Poland claims it's not a language
As a Swede i must say i did not expect that you would bring upp elfldalian since it has been almost forgotten, but i like to see folks like you bring this languages to the surface, great video. Ps, and also, can you make a video about gutnish. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutnish
Well, I do talk about 'forgotten languages' at the end of the day HAHA. What do you think of Elfdalian, and what of Peter Helander? P.S., I'll check out Gutnish, I assume that's spoken on Gutland?
@@CheLanguages Peter Helander seems to be a great man who defended a language that only a few knew about, and it is always of my interest to learn about different languages.
You should definitely mention about Lower German, Central German and Upper German (including Bavarian and Swabian). The difference between them is much bigger than between Polish and "Silesian" (Silesian is a dialect of Polish language, nothing more).
There's a joke that if you're a native English speaker who studied German, goes to Hamburg, and are astounded by how well you can communicate, you're 'cheating' because Low German (Platt) is 1/3 the way from Hoch to English.
@@CheLanguages There were parts of different countries/kingdoms for hundreds of years. And you said that they are effectively different languages, so it will be a good topic for forgotten languages nobody is talking about. Lower German is more like Dutch and Old English, yet considered as the same language as Bavarian :)
Elf is the old way to write or spell the word 'älv' which is the swedish word for 'river'. Älvdalen means simply riverdale. I don't agree that it is closer to norwegian. If you ask a dialectolog they will say that "elfdalian" is an east scandinavian dialect or language. The map you show is the municipal of Älvdalen and includes the parishes of Idre and Särna which before 1645 or something belonged to Norway and the dialect there is classified as norwegian though has undergone swedish influence over the centuries. The old boundary between Norway and Sweden is the boundary between Särna and Älvdalen. A person from Idre or Särna will not understand the language of Älvdalen. I can much easier understand Idre-dialect than elfdalian. The dialect or language of Älvdalen is in the southern part of the municipality that you showed. Älvdals-dialect belongs to the group called ovansiljansmål which means the language north of the lake Siljan. Every single dialect there - it is basically seven (7) - are very difficult for outsiders to understand. You have Orsa and Mora (with 30 village dialects) and Våmhus which is a transitional form between Mora and Älvdalen. The language picture is very complex in the landscape of Dalecarlia (or the "Dales"). In the western part they have almost as difficult and different dialects as they have in the area surrounding the Siljan. A person from Malung or Lima or Transtrand in the Western Dales cannot easily understand the speech of a person from Orsa or Älvdalen or even Venjan. I can't understand elfdalian but I can understand Idre-dialect and the closer dialects of Western Dales though the languages closer to me in Wermland is harder to understand than that of Idre. In Lima and Transtrand at the border to Norway they have diftongs which is of an older variety and it is very hard to understand. In Malung south of that you have no diftongs. Älvdalens 12 village dialects of which the ones in Åsen and Evertsberg is best preserved I believe, are actually more a swedish dialect or language if you will but very distinct with both older forms but also novations that you don't find elsewhere, it is both old and new at the same time. The languages of Siljan area are in a sense conservative in that they have gone a different way than the other dialects surrounding them
Limburgish has actually been recognized as a regional language under part 2 of the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages (in the Netherlands)
You should give examples of the mentioned "pitch accent" for people like me who don't understand not too much of linguistics expressions. How that differentiate words and meanings?
Good idea, sorry for not explaining. Basically, in a tonal language, tones exist in every word and for multiple syllables of a word, it is absolutely crucial to the meaning of that word. Pitch accent language however are a lot less strict about it, only one syllable in the word will have the tone and it only applies to a very select few words in that language, literally for words that sound the same (like to, too and two in English) to differentiate between them. It doesn't always exist in languages (like English) that have homophones, but some, such as Limburgs, Swedish and Slovenian do have this feature.
@@CheLanguages Thank you for your attention and answer. I don't know examples of what I think pitch accent means on those languages, but my rough idea about it in English would be we can differentiate between "we will preSENT the lecture" and "I gave you a PREsent" (or like PREsent tense), for instance.
@@andrefmartin yes, kinda. That's stress, now think about doing the same thing but on the same syllable instead of different ones. For example, imagine if instead of PREsent and preSENT, they were both preSENT but one you raise your voice at the end and one you don't. That's pitch accent in a nutshell.
@@CheLanguages So, it would be like the phrase intonation to make an affirmative into a question phrase, as it is in most of romance languages which don't have verb inversion with subject to make the question phrase explicitly. Example: "You did it" X "you did it (, right?)".
@@andrefmartin precisely, but just on a certain word, not necessarily to make it a questions. Sadly, I don't have any examples like Limburgs because I don't speak any pitch accent languages
Great video Here is the translation of the Elfdalian text Oh, little prince! Bit by bit I came to understand the secrets of your sad little life. For a long time you had found your only entertainment in the quiet pleasure of looking at the sunset. I learned that new detail on the morning of the fourth day, when you said to me: I am very fond of sunsets. Elfdalian Undą̊ för undą̊ fuor ig föstå ur launggsamt du add eð, Lisslprinsn menn. Laindj i seð add it du noð eller uonå dig ą̊ eld kuogå ą̊ grannsuolniðgaunggą. Eð föstuoð ig um morgun fiuord da'n, mes du lit að mig: Ig tyttjer so mitjið um suolniðgaunggą. I use the word standard Swedish to not get confused with any regional variations or dialects of Swedish. Standard Swedish Min lille prins, så småningom kom jag underfund med hur dystert ditt liv var! Långa tider hade du ingen annan förströelse än underbara solnedgångar. Det förstod jag den fjärde dagen på morgonen, då du anförtrodde mig: Jag tycker så mycket om solnedgångar.
@Che Languages I could see how the crest and colours would look good on a can of beer so I made a joke about how they like beer (I'm going out on a limb but I'm betting between Belgium and the Netherlands that they like beer)
I just looked up some Limburgish, so I could compare it to the languages and dialects I know. I'm personally of the opinion that classifying language vs dialect in part by having a standardised written form is stupid. Thus I absolutely see Low German (most dialects of which I do not understand) as its own language. Limburgish, however, doesn't sound distinct from Low German to me and I can understand it about as well as the (to me) most intelligible Low German dialects. I guess that's the thing with dialect continuums. Pretty difficult to put a hard border anywhere unless you have a lot of standardisation.
In linguistics, these borders are referred to by isolglosses. I can't even come up with a definition myself, but I think it also has something to do with the culture of those who speak it. Are they culturally distinctive, or just a "dialect" culture of the surrounding languages? That might help draw the isolgloss slightly better
(Limburgians will generally refer to their own language as Plat, as so many German(ic) dialect speakers). The :Limburg duchy was under Brabantian rule since the late 1100s, so independence is quite some time ago 🙂. The duchy was also situated further south (in most of the current Belgian province of Liege and the region around Maastricht) than the modern provinces. E.g. middle Limburg (Roermond region) was part of Gelder and Juelich (Dutch: Gullick) duchies. The Weert region and parts of Belgian Limburg formed the Country of Loon (the Loonies), and I assume Aachen asserted some terrain in the south east of the province Some terrain came from Church/monastery holdings.
The Limburgs speakers on the German side of the border I believe, as Plaatdeutsch is the language there (a language that forms a dialect continuum). In the Netherlands itself it is Limburgs from what I know
@@CheLanguages I'm from Roermond in the Dutch part of Limburg. "Limburgs" for the _language_ is kind of an exonym, only used with outsiders. The people itself refer to it as Plat, and that is afaik normal throughout the whole dialect area. A "plat" doesn't suggest a relation to Plattdeutsch, "plat" is/ was a general way of saying that it was a common people's language , contrary to more literary forms, court and judicial languages (often french)which were often French, and ecclesiastical Latin. The term nowadays often is a general moniker for a dialect (or not the national language, depending on status). In Dutch Brabant, specially the eastern areas they also refer to their own dialect as (a) Plat.
@@CheLanguages Keep in mind that Plattdeutsch are mostly Saxon dialects, while Limburgian dialects are mostly Franconian. It is easy to get confused by dialects in this area because the dialect-continuum changes rather rapidly here (search for "Rhenish Fan"). Also pedigree/grammar/vocabulary can take different routes. Lower German dialects (including Dutch and Plattdeutsch) sound the same (not having undergone High German consonant shift, but are not necessarily closely related. Still, if I sit down, and watch Ripuarian German Cologne Fast-nacht broadcasts, after half an hour I'm used to the sound changes and I understand most of it. OTOH I once attended a (wedding) mass in Erlangen/Nurnberg Franconian dialect, and it was abacadabra to me.
As the pinned comment from guy willems, its the same here in germany, düsseldorf. I speak an old Version of oir dialect, modern dialect speakers could not understand well. They think my dialect is a dutch like. Modern düsseldörpsch is more ripuarian than the old ones. Examples: Old, new Van, von Uut, uus Achtereruut, hengeruus Ruut, finster To, zo Jroot, jrooß Witt/weet, wiss/weeß And so one.... Of course there are some different dialects in a city and düsseldorf central, the old town of düsseldorf, was in old days more ripuarian than my own dialect from the left rhine side of düsseldorf. Days changing here. Most people couldnt even understand the new düsseldörpsch dialect bacause they only know standard german
Quite interesting indeed! The German languages will soon be replaced by Standard German sadly if the government does not take steps to recognize them as languages and preserve them
As a Limburgish speaker, I can tell you that there is no such thing as central Limburgish. However, there is a variety in contrast of West-Limburgish called East-Limburgish (I know, not very imaginative). Now, there is a dialect spoken in Maastricht, but it's a city dialect. The only other know city dialect is the Venlo dialect, where two isoglosses come together just west of the municipality. I am from the city of Venlo, and did quite some research about Venlo and Limburg. The only other thing I can say in this context is that Limburgish is considered a regional language, rather than an official language. The reason for this is that there is no official written compound of the language.
I love that you brought up Elfdalian! I also think Scots, Frisian and Yola are interesting forgotten Germanic language since they're all really closely related to English
Limburgish has official recognition in the Netherlands, so they definitely don't think of it as Dutch. Limburgish developed separately, but alongside Dutch from Frankish, so if we're to think of Afrikaans as a daughter language of Dutch, then Limburgish is Dutch's sister language. I don't know about its status in Belgium though.
I didn't say that the Dutch government denies it is a language, that's Germany. You're right, it developed along side and calling it a sister language of Dutch is a good comparison, whereas Afrikaans is the daughter language (though sometimes disputed to be either a creole or a half-creole half-daughter language hybrid due to the influx and mixing of Malaysian slaves with Boers in the Kaapsekolonie). If you check it the comments, a native Limburgish speaker left a great comment (I think I pinned it) which I recommend reading!
@@CheLanguages I didn't say you claimed it to not be a language. I was responding to your query at 9:39, you said you were unsure of its official/national status. Although I suppose I should've left the timestamp the first time to be more clear.
@@CheLanguages well, it has status as the official provincial language in Dutch Limburg. I've not been to Limburg, but in Friesland, West Frisian is in common use, is found on signs everywhere, and education is usually done both Dutch and West Frisian. Given West Frisian holds an equal status to Limburgish, I think it's a fair presumption that Limburgish is quite well off (at least in the Netherlands).
Great video. Coming from a Dutch person I’d say that the term Limburgish is more of a spectrum going from a Dutch dialect to a separate language. Sadly not a lot of people really speak a truly ‘pure’ version of the language. Of this topic. North Frisian and Saterland East Frisian would be cool to see in a future video. There also used to be another version of East Frisian surviving on the German island of Wangerooge called Wangerooger Frisian. Sadly the last speaker died in 1953 and not much information is available about it. Another really cool one is Crimean Gothic that was still spoken a few hundred years ago in Crimea which remained there for a long time as the last east Germanic language left on earth.
Yes, there are many more languages to talk about, and people definitely want me to make more videos on this. There's also Alsatian, the Germanic languages in Poland etc.
@@CheLanguages I mean, Limburgish as it exists now is much more like Dutch than it would have been 50 or even 150 years ago because of the influence of Dutch. This is particularly noticeable in the vocabulary, where more and more Dutch words are adopted but with a different pronunciation. If you have a conversation with older people though, they tend to use more actual Limburgish words which can be fun and sometimes confusing as a lot of younger people don’t know half of them
Not exactly relevant, but it's interesting to note that every nation of the British Isles has its own, home-grown Germanic language (or incredibly divergent English dialect), with the exception of Wales. Scotland has Scots, N.I. has Ulster Scots and Ireland had Yola, but Wales has Cymraeg and some quirky dialects/accents.
Thanks for your interesting videos! Another good, lesser known Gmc language would be traditional Newfoundland/Newfy English (I don't think it's politically recognized as a language [& not just a dialect], but it should be, as w/out some study, &/or a decent period of exposure/immersion, one of the traditional, coastal dialects would be largely unintelligible to a non-native speaker, due to the phonological, morphological, & syntactical differences). There is a good deal of Irish, etc., influence, but it is an early form of English, & so a Gmc language. Yiddish would be good as a topic, too (it is a little more well known than some others in this list, but it still doesn't get near as much discussion as such a fascinating language deserves).
I've spoken extensively about Yiddish before on two occasions, so I'm reluctant to cover it again as I think people are quite bored LOL. Thank you for the suggestion of Newfy English, I've heard Canadians tell me before about how unique it is and how it's traditionally been looked down upon. Thank you!
I'm Limburgish, Ripuarian transfer dialects to be exact, spoken around Heerlen. If I speak slowly to a Dutch person they might understand some words but not everything. Politically most people think Limburgs is a dialect and treat it as just weird or they call us German or something like that. I think Limburgs is a language which had many different dialects just like Dutch has.
While this is real nice, I have to say that all Germanic languages in their distict groups form their dialect continua: English (including English, Scots and Frisian), German (including Luxembourgish, Dutch, Low German, High German, Central German and various other dialects in eastern europe and the americas), Yiddish, Scandinavian (including Danish, Jutish, Swedish, Elfdalian, eastern Norwegian, central Norwegian and western Norwegian), Feroese, and Icelandic. That is my belief why Limburgish and Elfdalian are no languages but a part of a dialect continuum and thereby have to be sorted as dialects although they aren't intelligeable with their respective standard languages.
I guess so, but we can't all call them one language with many dialects, not only for reason political, but also practical. 1000 years ago, it may have been more possible (though separations still existed between North and West Germanic languages as much as they do today) but today, we need to draw lines somewhere. The same argument can be made for Slavic languages (if you watched my Forgotten Slavic Languages videos, you can see how many intermediatary languages act as a transition between two countries such as Silesian and Trasianka) and even Romance languages...
@@CheLanguages This is a tough topic. I think to call something a language is subjective. I speak german, standard and two dialects, and I must say, for a bavarian dutch might seem as a separate language, but for me who I speak a dialect closer to dutch, dutch sounds for me like a distant dialect. That's why I think that languages in their true form can only be called languages subjectively. Of course I'm not talking about standard versions of a tongue which make a dialect a language officially, I'm talking about dialect continua and language history. In case of slavic languages e.g. I count belarussian as part of russian but not ukrainian, as ukrainian is really a mix of western russian and south-eastern polish dialects historicly seen. That's why in the case of Limburgish I really think that it's not a language: it has no standard form and is part of a dialect continuum. I'm not sure about elfdalian that's why I won't say anything to that one.
Hi, I'm Dutch (from Amsterdam), and I can definitely read Limbourgish, but I sometimes need to translate words via German to understand them. The spoken language, however, will have me say "huh" quite often. As a kid, I would also have this with pretty much any Flemish and even some North-Brabant (southern Netherlands) accents. When you are used to conversation with someone speaking in these accents/dialects/languages, it is effortless to listen to, and I can talk back with my North-western-Dutch accent which is also easy to understand for most people as it is quite similar to the Dutch spoken on national TV/Radio. It all comes back to what you are used to hearing, really. Right now, I live in Haarlem, which is said to have one of the most "standard Dutch" accents (which by the way the big cities definitely are not regarded as having). In my opinion, standard Dutch as an accent doesn't really exist, as one can often region-guess where someone grew up down to a 20 or so km radius, just by their accent, with some accents being so distinct that they could be considered a language on the merit of being almost uninteligible to a Dutch person who lives further away and is not used to the accent.
Such an interesting comment, thank you for writing this! I find it mind-blowing that you can nail someone's accent within a 20ish kilometer radius, that's incredible! Thank you for this!
The pronounciation of ð is more complicated. I do not speak the language but the ð in my middle name is not pronounced at all. It depends on the letters around it and the dialect (yes, dialects).
Hej! I'm not dane but danish is my every-day language. When i see faroese i can understand what is written. It's bit like mix of danish and swedish... But I can not understand at all when they speaking. I think it's little bit like duch and limburgish as i see in the comment section.
@@CheLanguages Id rather live in Norway, much more beautiful. My people agree with me there being less than 10k in Denmark and more than 10k in Norway.
Given its location, Älvdalen should just mean “(the) Riverdale” unless Swedish or Norse have a specific claim for “älv” other than the Norwegian “river”. I also doubt that the language is really written like that, because it is unreadable to be honest. However, it does have some obvious elements of spoken coloquial language that are different from Swedish and Norwegian. I also thought it was funny to say that any speaker of Danish isn’t disadvantaged.
Three different proposals for a standardised orthography have been brought forward, one has a bit fewer diacritics (Steensland 2010, the one used for the dictionary) and another one has LOTS of them (Åkerberg 2012, used in his grammar), this one (Råðdjärum 2005 proposal) is a bit of a middle ground. There are facebook groups where people write in Elfdalian, each one using their approximation of a different ortography. Many people disregard the diacriticts alltogether (except those who are found on the swedish keyboard). A keyboard plugin has been recently released.
I talk about Hittite in my Anatolian Languages video, the problem with Albanian, Armenian and Greek is that they are all not very large branches of the Indoeuropean language family. Though Greek does have Tsakonian as a separate language and I've been told Western Armenian is sometimes considered a separate language, and also the Gheg dialect of Albanian is sometimes considered separate, these branches are largely agreed to be isolate branches. I will do the same for some other branches of the IE family like Indo-Iranian and I will also branch out (no pun intended) to other language families, like Forgotten Turkic Languages
Very interesting. Thanks. I don't want to over-comment. But here's my 2cents as a native speaker of Swedish and near-native ditto of German. You're right about Swedish and Norwegian being a dialect continuum. I'm from the west coast of Sweden near Norway and find eastern N transparent to understand, but west coast Norwegian very difficult. I can read Icelandic and Faroese is reasonably similar but sounds utterly different, as you say. Icelanders have told me that Faroese relocating to Iceland have little trouble learning Icelandic (of course). The Danish as spoken in the Faroes is easier for non-Danes to understand than Denmark Danish. ... Dutch, Limburgish etc. are simple to read if you're German but hard to understand; some Germans can, some cannot, it depends on your ear (my German wife has no difficulty, but I do). ... Thanks again, interesting.
Don't worry about over-commenting, I love hearing what my viewers have to say about certain topics, and I love discussing languages with you guys even more! It's really fascinating listening to all the Swedish speakers speak about how easy they find it to understand x language from y language. You didn't mention Elfdalian here, though perhaps you did in a previous comment, I don't entirely remember as I'm quite tired as I'm writing this. I heard there is a distinct dialect of Danish also spoken on the Faroe Islands, but I chose to speak about Faroese instead as that's a full-on language at least. Thank you for your comment!
Limburgish speaker who grew up in Maasmechelen here. The language (considered a dialect in our country) is dying due to multiculturalism. Maasmechelen is the most multicultural municipality of Limburg and over half of people living in Maasmechelen (59%) have foreign roots (15,1% Turkish, 16,9% southern Europe with Italy mostly Italians and Greeks and 11,9% Dutch are the biggest groups). There are 9 submunicipalities but over 1/3 of the almost 40k inhabitants come from 1 submunicipality and 1/4th from a second submunicipality (which is the one where the mines were). Those two are where most people with foreign roots live because those are most urban and standard Flemish Dutch or tussentaal is mostly spoken in public because with so much diversity you only speak Limburgish to people you're sure that speak it aswell. In the other 7 submunicipalities you might be able to speak it more freely since those are more or less the 'farm villages' as we say it here, but it feels like just speaking Flemish is mostly the norm here. When you go more West to Limburg in Tessenderlo where I now live, where the dialect is like the ones from the 'Kempen' region in Antwerp and Vlaams Brabant, you do notice that it's more homogeneous here because nearly no one speaks properly Flemish Dutch here and many even can't even if they try. They keep speaking 'Kempens dialect' which is why most people from other regions call them 'farmers' as form of an insult because farmers are (or used to be) known to not being able to speak proper (Flemish) Dutch and viewed as having bad manners and being dumber than people from more urbanised regions.
This is so fascinating, the situation seems much more complex than it is at face value. I've had lots of Limburgs speakers in the comments go into all sorts of details, but I think I learnt the most from this one. Thank you!
@@CheLanguages Np, and in Maastricht where Limburgish lives more than in Belgian Limburg (just as most of Netherlands Limburg in general) I also notice that not only Limburgish but even Dutch in general is rare at some places since ALOT of exchange students go to the University there. Heck in A Japanese restaurant last sunday the entire staff (waiters weren't Japanese btw) only spoke English and we weren't even able to communicate in Dutch which was kinda annoying, but probably due to students doing a student job lol.
@@CheLanguages Here an interesting article about Limburgish, don't know if you knew all of this already:Apr 11, 2016 by Audrey | 2 comments What do Limburgers and Chinese have in common? At first glance, maybe not much. At the most that you can hardly understand them all 😉 Both the Limburg dialects and the Chinese languages are tonal languages. This means that the meaning of a word can change due to a difference in tone. In standard Mandarin you have five tones, one of which is zero, and in Limburgish you find three, one of which is also neutral. The other two, drag tones and bump tones, is what I want to talk about today. Drag and bump tones What is the difference between bump tones and drag tones? A bump starts high and goes down very quickly. A sleep tone rises briefly at first, and then falls more slowly. You will also encounter differences in intonation in “ordinary” Dutch. If you ask a question, your voice (at the end) will sound higher. Try it out with a sentence like "Come along". If you try to say it without a question mark, it sounds more like a half order than a question. However, the sentence order ('are you coming along' versus 'you are coming along') makes it clear what is meant. In Limburgish, however, you get the intonation within a word, which can change the meaning. Take, for example, the word. In Dutch a preposition and an insect. Just like path and bank, for example, a homonym: a word that is exactly the same, but still has two meanings. The Limburg word bie has the same two meanings as in Dutch, but with the essential difference that you can hear the difference. If you talk about the animal, you will hear a beep. If you mean the preposition, you get a sleeptoon. To give another animal example: the word hare. With bump tone also here the animal, and with drag tone a… glove. I do not think that the word with the same meaning in this case is more similar to Dutch in terms of intonation. They are etymologically the same, while the hare as a glove has a completely different origin. I wouldn't even know what that is. Suggestions are very welcome! Singular and plural While creating a plural in Dutch is generally not too complicated, it is slightly different with Limburgish. In addition to the regular s, s and en (with some variations such as children instead of children), you can also go from singular to plural with a number of words in Limburgish with only a sound change. Examples are kop that becomes köp (pronounced kup), and paol (pole) that becomes päöl (I might try to explain how you pronounce those vowels, although it seems to me a mission impossible for a non-Limburger ). As if that wasn't complicated enough, you can also use your intonation to distinguish between singular and plural. A number of examples (where the word with dragtoon is singular and with bumptoon is plural): day (day(s)) knees (rabbit(s)) bein (leg/legs) And then I have perhaps one of the most beautiful Limburg words to offer: sjoon. The nice thing (Limburgers may already feel the pun coming) is that this word itself can mean beautiful. You then pronounce it with a spit tone. In the first episode of Limburgliefde I already linked to a page where you could (among other things) hear someone from Central Limburg translate 'nice shoes'. So that will be clean. That's two punches in a row. However, the singular of shoe is again sjoon with dragtoon, and therefore comparable to the list above. In case you're wondering: sjoon is occasionally also used for clean, although the original Limburg word for it is simply pure (pure - compare it with Flemish). Because in that respect Limburgish is just like Dutch, Mandarin and all other languages and dialects spoken in the world: living and therefore constantly changing.
@@CheLanguages And here an interesting fact about how it surprisingly has more tones than you might think : Mandarin Chinese The adult subjects were also presented with even more subtle differences in tone, namely within a tone category. For example, the subjects were told the word 'taaf' three times with tone 1, but one word sounded slightly different below that. The Limburgers also observed these subtle differences well. They scored just as well on this test as in the previous test. That was also surprising, says Ramachers. Because a comparable study among speakers of Mandarin Chinese had a different outcome: the Chinese heard the difference between categories very well, but they heard almost no difference within those categories. According to the researcher, this shows exactly where the differences lie between Mandarin Chinese and Limburgish. “Mandarin has four tones and Limburgish has two. On that basis, you might think that the tone system of Limburgish is less complex. But it's not that simple. In Limburgish, tone involves a complicated interplay with intonation, and as a result there are actually sixteen different tones. That makes Limburgish unique. And that is why the Limburgers recognize so many pitch variations.”
What stands out in especially the Maastricht dialect of Limburgish is the extensive use of Frensh loanwords as Maastricht borders to the language border. Especially the older people use them (like 'cuisineaire' for oven/stove instead of the Dutch 'fornuis') and that makes Maastrichts for Dutch people hard to understand. Nowadays these words have often been replaced by the Dutch variants. And there are many peculiar words which are only known to Maastrichts like 'baj' (derived from Latin caballus: horse), 'rebbedeb' for an older car, etc. So, the text represented in the video was quite good understandable for Dutch people (Limburgish is my native language, |I learned Dutch in school) but not a typical representation of Maastrichts.
1:50 No "älv" in "älvdalen" actually means "elf" in swedish and "älvdalen" means something like "the valley of elves". edit: or it could be "älv" as in river and it being "the valley of rivers".
@@CheLanguages so it probably refers to river and I guess our word "älva" is more "fairy" than "alv" which is elf. But you wouldn't be able to know if the first half of "älvdalen" is "älva" or "älv" since they would be the same in a double word thing...
Since Älvdalen is the upper course of Österdalälven (Eastern Valley River), I would be extremely surprised if there is any connection to älva (fairy) but rather to älv (river).
My grandma is basically a native speaker of one of the Limburgish varieties spoken in the Lower Rhine Region of Germany. It's kinda treated like a dialect of German over here - so called "Platt" or "Mundart". I even learned some songs in this Limburgish variety back in elementary school although I've basically already forgotten most of it. Really nowadays only older people (like over the age of 75) are still native speakers and the language is kind of dying out in my region sadly.
@@CheLanguages I mean the language won't completely be lost here either; in the place my grandma is from, there is a small club dedicated to the preservation of the dialect, teaching it to people and holding events in that language. And seasonal songs in the local dialect are also taught to kids in elementary school. It probably won't ever be a relevant language in day-to-day conversation again, but it'll still be there in some form or another.
@@CheLanguages Kvæði are Faroese songs that are usually sung in a "chain dance" (people would hold each others hands and dance in a line that bends around the room.) These songs are sung a cappella, but you can find versions online with instruments. The group "Fiddling Faroes" had some pretty cool arrangements of kvæði for strings. Some of my favorite kvæði are: Brestiskvæði, Sinklarsvisa, and Sigmundskvæðið Yngra.
Che, wonderful video. The text you used from Övdalska is from the book “The Little Prince”. I hope you make a video about the endangered Germanic language called Ostfriesian (or Seeltersk as they call it). I was there this summer and found it a wonderful sounding language with a fascinating story of how it was saved from extinction.
Yes😆. It’s only spoken along a short stretch of country road. Wonderful people. I flew home with a pile of books a bartender’s mom wrote and/or translated into Seeltersk. Her name was Gretchen Grosser. She worked with the black American linguist who set out to get the language written down and have it taught in school. I got a few of the people to speak on video. I could understand a fair amount because I’ve taught myself Plattdeutsch which is the language that surrounds the area ( which you probably know is also in rapid decline). Anyway I subscribed to your channel and look forward to more great videos
If you make a part two, could you please cover Krieewelsch!! I believe it's very related to limbourgish, as it's a low rhine dialect. It's spoken in the city of Krefeld, Germany (as well as some surrounding towns). It's sound is very unique, and has some really wholesome and amazing unique words like 'mimm', for cat!!. There is a lot off efforts in the city at the moment to promote it as well. 'Krieewelsch . de' has some good resources on it :). Here is a sample of Krieewelsch + German Hochdeutch translation: (Krieewelsch) En jootjefuorde mimm fengt emmer wier de weäg nooe hus. (German) Eine gutgefütterte Katze kommt immer wierder. (English) A well-fed cat keeps coming back. My own grand parents spoke it and I really think it's a beautiful, but little known germanic language.
Sorry for the late reply, my most recent community post explains exactly why. I've just done some quick research into it, it sounds very fascinating and I will be doing more research into it for Part 3 (Part 2 has already been recorded and will be released on Friday). Thank you for telling me about this, I would have never known about it otherwise!!!
I'm surprised about your pick of "Limburgish". In NL we wouldn't call that a language, but a dialect. There are many, many different dialects and accents of Dutch in NL and Belgium, you would have a field day, most provinces have more than one. But all these dialects in NL and Belgium use the same national dictionary, hence we don't consider them languages. Only exception of course being Frisian. That does have its own dictionary (and is a much older language than Dutch).
Good point, that being said, the Dutch government still have a bilingualism policy in Dutch Limburg, which would be odd for a dialect. Limburgish speakers in the comments say that it is a different language, but standard Dutch is still intelligible to them (if they don't already know it) and people from neighboring regions of the Netherlands say the same about them. I assume you are from the other side of the Netherlands perhaps? Also, Frisian will be in Part 3!
@@CheLanguages No, but just thinking: If you're going to call every dialect (that uses the standard dictionary) a "Forgotten Germanic Language" then your list is going to be very long ...
I didn't assume Faroese would be a "forgotten" Germanic Language until I realised most of the people you ask in public barely know Danish exists... Also you should have put a buffed Gigachad for Peter Helander.
Faroese sounds like West Norwegian with North Norwegian r's. North Norwegian is basically just West Norwegian with more apocope and vowel lowering. As someone from northern Norway who knows Nynorsk, I understand almost everything when I read Faroese, it's a bit harder to understand the spoken language, but I understand most of it.
I guess there are much more like for example Hianzisch. I heard my grandparents speaking it but I am sure I did not learn it properly. Now they are all under the ground.
Dutch sound [c], spelt with "tj", is the same sound as Indonesian "c", like 'cuma', 'cangkir', 'cabut'. Before 1973, we spelt this sound with "tj", too, since we had been colonized by the Dutch for hundreds of years. It consists of one sound only. English-speaking people pronounce it with two sounds /t/ and /ʃ/, thus: /tʃ/. Dutch [ɟ], spelt "dj", is the same sound as Indonesian "j", like 'jangan', 'Jakarta', 'Januari', etc. Before 1973, we spelt this sound with "dj", too, since we had been colonized by the Dutch for hundreds of years. It consists of one sound only. English-speaking people pronounce it with two sounds /d/ and /ʒ/, thus: /dʒ/.
@@CheLanguages "Odd"? No...of course. In linguistic discussion, we usually discuss speech sounds of languages in that way, comparing the speech sounds coming out from our mouths from how they are written in regular Latin letters.
@@CheLanguages I had to do it because I have to compare the the pronunciation and the spelling of the minimal pair 'ch' and 'j'...I did not edit the sentences typed there.
There's another forgotten Germanic language, spoken by less than fifty people in a small town in Southern Poland. (In case you were considering making part 2) The language is Wymysiöeryś. Its speakers, due to political reasons (communist dictatorship etc) stopped passing it down in the 1940s/50s and as a result nowadays it's spoken only by a handful of old people. It's basically the last chance to make records of it as it will most likely be extinct within the next decade.
@@CheLanguages oops sorry indeed I hadn't realised you talked about it, in fact I didn't 9 your part 2 video had already come. Spot on. Great of you to mention it, for the last fifteen years or so I've been based in krakow which is less than 100km away from that town & most of ppl here have no idea vilamovian even exists. Anyway just want to add I really like your videos, keep making them. Good on you!
True story: I was on the subway in NYC. Some tourists got in and this is what I heard.... -Wo gehen wir auf? -Wir gehen auf an dreizig dritte Straße. - Und dann? - zu die Museum. - Ich hoffe das ich will lieben die Museum. So, German words in English word order. Now here's the freaky part .. It was all as if spoken by.... Wait for it..... The Swedish Chef from Sesame Street! If you don't know the Swedish Chef, search Swedish Chef Hot Pepper here on YT. I was standing there dumbfounded. An elderly woman caught my eye and she was equally confused. She was like, "Do you have any idea???. My response was "none whatsoever". Here's my question: What were they speaking???? The 'boingy-boingy' was so strong it was like a parody of a Swedish accent. I've never heard anything like it before or since.
might it have been yiddish? yiddish is spoken in NYC by the hasidic jewish community and it uses a word order which is more like english/slavic than standard german. so you'll hear things like, "ikh vil geyn tsum muzey" instead of "ikh vil tsum muzey geyn" (I want to go to the museum)
Maybe I made a slip up, but I'm aware that the neighboring dialects in Germany are mutually intelligible with Luxembourgish and claim that it's the same language
@@CheLanguages the neighboring dialects in Germany are intelligible, yes. I live about 100km from Luxembourg and I do understand maybe 80% of spoken Luxembourgish. BUT these dialects, too, including Palatinate which I speak, are all High German ones, and like Luxembourgish, have undergone most of the High German sound shift that Low German, Fristian, Limburgs and Dutch have not. Limbourgish, and indeed any Low German dialect as well, isn't really intelligible to Germans living in the vicinity of Luxembourg. Perhaps it's different 100 or 200 km up north, yes. But not in the direct vicinity of Luxembourg, that's definitely too far south from the High German - Low German border.
Native Dutch speaker here, Limburgs is almost completely intelligible for me. It usually isn't seen as a seperate language, although the street signs in Limburg have both Dutch and Limburgs text on them. I think it may not be seen as a seperate language here because it is overshadowed by Frisian, which is much less intelligible for Dutch speakers. There are also a lot of other dialects here like Zeeuws from the region where I live or Gronings from the north of the country that are definitely not classified as seperate languages and are only a little more intelligible to us than Limburgs. As for the two dialects written in the video, both are in my opinion equally intelligible when you hear them, it is just the spelling that is very different from Dutch as they are, like most dialects here, written phonetically with áccènts and ümläuts which Dutch itself doesn't use that much. Also, if you like the Limburgish flag you should look at the flag of Zeeland, the region where I live. It has a lion too and waves to symbolize our constant battle against the sea.
You have answered my question on how intelligible it is! Thank you for your comment!! I was reluctant to mention Frisian in this video actually given how much attention it gets as a marginalized Germanic language, though I could talk about its Eastern Dialects in another video sometime.
It depends on where you are from. I am from Limburg and speak Limburgish and I have experienced on many occasions that people from the North (above the Rhine) have no clue what I am saying when I speak Limburgish. If you have only ever been to Venlo, you could be forgiven for thinking that Dutch and Limburgish could be the same, but the further south you go, and especially starting at Roermond or Sittard, the dialect becomes much more foreign to standard Dutch
@@seid3366 really? I even quietened it LOL. I've been messing around with the audio settings recently, I managed to make my voice louder in this one as that's what people wanted
@@CheLanguages Make sure when eqing both the master track of your voice, and to the BGM, that they're not overpowering each other. Two tests are the headphones test and the speakers
Limburgish native speaker here (from Maastricht). In its written form Dutch (& German) speakers will definitely be able to understand most of what we write but when we speak, it gets more confusing for them. The differing grammar, intonation, pronunciation and different vocabulary which we use in a normal colloquial conversation can confuse them. And with no previous exposure most Dutch speakers will find it hard to understand us because of that. On holidays speaking Limburgish with friends and family is nice because Dutch speakers tend to think we're Germans and German speakers think we're Dutch/Flemish so you can sort of maneuver in the middle.
Also here Hasselts looks a bit more different from Dutch because of the accents used. In reality I'd say it's a bit closer to standard Dutch than the Maastrichtian variant of Limburgish is. Also within West, Central and East Limburgish there are many more varieties. You can basically tell exactly where someone is from by listening to their variant of Limburgish. Within your own subregion you can usually tell exactly which village someone is from just by listening.
How incredible! Thank you for your comment, this was very helpful!
Zo ver ik weet is het Limburgs in Hasselt veel meer naar het Nederlands gegroeid dan het Limburgs in Nederland. Dat is natuurlijk met uitzondering van Noord Limburg, rond Venlo wat al veel meer op het Nederlands lijkt.
A few years ago, I stopped for a break in Kaldenkirchen (in Germany but very close to Venlo) and strolled through the church graveyard. The inscriptions on the gravestones are not in modern German. Are they in Limburgisch?
@@frankmitchell3594 Possibly, or in a local Low German dialect that is closely related
't Is een kwestie geduld... 😜
To me, a Norwegian, Faroese looks a lot like Icelandic. Visiting the Faroe Islands I was however suprised that I could understand the spoken language fairly well, unlike Icelandic where I only understand tiny bits of the spoken languages.
Faroese people speaking Danish to me sounds like Norwegian with a few distinct Danish words.
I've heard it's somewhere between the two, that confirms some of what I've read
Limburgish speaker from Belgium here! Growing up along the river Maas (Maaseik) in the early 2000s, Limburgish has always been the go to language to use with family or for informal communication in the area. Since it's the language that I was raised in, my mom recalls that when I first went to kindergarten, I couldn't understand the teacher who only spoke standard Dutch, but of course now both languages come naturally to me.
In Maaseik, we speak a variety of Central Limburgish, like in Maastricht, but both the examples from Hasselt and Maastricht were easy to comprehend. Though I must say that nowadays the use of Limburgish is certainly more prevalent on the Dutch side. Especially in the western parts of Belgian Limburg, the language has come to resemble more closely to forms of Flemish or Brabantian and younger people tend to not use it anymore. But I would suggest this is a recent phenomenon that coincided with the introduction of Flemish public television, which popularised a sort of 'in-between-language' (tussentaal) as a standard Flemish variety of Dutch, which didn't really exist before.
Another peculiar evolution has developed around the mining regions of Limburg, where in the mid 20th century immigrant workers from all around the Mediterranean were recruited to work in the coal mines. Their presence definitely put a stamp on the culture and language in and around these former coal mining towns, making them into a unique melting pot.
Nice to read your anecdote there, thank you for your comment! What would you predict is the future for Limburgish?
@@CheLanguages I believe Limburgish will continue to exist for at least a couple of centuries, but it will evolve separately within different subregions. The language would still be strongly used in the Dutch province of Limburg (since over there it's protected as an official language), though it will be influenced more by Standard Dutch depending on the location.
In Belgian Limburg, I suppose the language will vary even more, with the varieties being spoken in the East and Nort-East along the Dutch border, still being more closely related to Dutch varieties of Limburgish, and the language in the West exhibiting more characteristics of the newly founded Flemish standard language.
Overall, I think different dialects will change - more or less depending on their location - in accordance with the growing international community, towards 'street' versions of Limburgish, containing more slang words.
@@polwijnen I'm glad to hear that you don't think it will die out soon. Personally I believe it has persistence, but I think it will die out in Belgium within the next century perhaps
Hello Limburg! I really do hope you will be able to retain your valuable form of limburgish there. It is unfortunate that the parliament in Brussels is not so much concerned about the different languages and dialects in Belgium even if you do still very much use it on a daily basis as I have understood. The situation is a bit or very different on the other side of the border with the dutch Limburg, where they have made limburgish a regional official language. I hope this changes in Belgium. It resembles the situation in that of France and also Sweden. Italy has recognised some of the interesting differences in language.
"Another peculiar evolution has developed around the mining regions of Limburg, where in the mid 20th century immigrant workers from all around the Mediterranean were recruited to work in the coal mines. Their presence definitely put a stamp on the culture and language in and around these former coal mining towns, making them into a unique melting pot." How sad.
I can kinda make sense of the Elfdalian text as a Norwegian.
”Undą̊ för undą̊ (?) before I understood how dull you had it, my little prince. For a long while you didn't have anything to do other than to stare at sunsets. That I understood the morning of the fourth day, when you said to me: I like the sunset so much.”
Some of the words aren't directly understandable, but thinking about the context for a while I think this makes sense. I assume ”undą̊ för undą̊” means that ”it took a while”, but I left it untranslated because I don't really understand ”undą̊”. Also not sure about ”grann”, which I think means ”grand”, but I don't understand it in this context. The rest also contains some guesswork (don't trust my translation), but I feel good about it. I tried to keep the translation direct, but had to swap some words around for English.
If you speak and Eastern dialect of Norwegian it might be easier
We say “undan för undan” in standard Swedish. I’d translate it as “bit by bit”
@@christerromsonlande6502 I see, thanks!
@@christerromsonlande6502 That's quite similar between the Swedish and Elfdalian, interesting
@@CheLanguages I think I understand the text decently well although it's probably to the same degree that I would understand written Danish and Norwegian. I'm from the complete opposite side of the country so I'd imagine that swedes closer to Älvdalen would understand it better.
Right outside my hometown of Sölvesborg there's the dialect listerländska which is pretty odd and quite unintelligible for swedes as well, it's to the point that apart from people from Sölvesborg municipality most swedes wouldn't understand what they're saying. Aulawabbel is their word for manet (Jellyfish) for example. It's rare to find someone who speaks it nowadays but some seniors are still as unintelligible as ever.
Fascinating. Subscribed.
Cheers from a Middle English and _Mittelhochdeutsch_ freak from Vienna, Scott
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
In Faroese, the edh (I can't write it on my current keyboard) actually isn't pronounced as a t. It's pronunciation is sometimes like y in "yes", sometimes like a v and sometimes it's even silent. It all depends on the vowels next to that letter. It never comes at the beginning of words, where the sound indeed shifted to a t, but is also written as one.
Oh wow, that a bit more information than I could find. I found something about it never being able to start a word but I found sources only saying it's pronounced like a t, that's odd
@@CheLanguages g often acts the same way between vowels. You can find information about this under "Glide insertion" in the Wikipedia article on Faroese orthography.
Yes! Best way to think of the Faroese ð is that it's phonologically null in all positions. It was basically dropped entirely on a phonological level. It can be pronounced as [j] or [ʋ] or null depending on what vowels are surrounding it, but this follows exactly the same rules as vowel hiatus in general. So essentially, orthographic is entirely redundant in Faroese; it's just a pure etymological leftover which is phonologically not even a segment at all.
@@eve3614 damn, I have a lot more reading to do about Faroese!
Exactly! I think the only time it sounds like a t is when you pronounce the letter itself.
3:25 HAHAHAHA gigachad Peter Helander 💀💀💀
He is one tak
Chad
Just want to point out that it's not Dalecarian in English but Dalecarlian. The name comes from Swedish dalkarl which means man from Dalarna (the valleys).
Perhaps I read it wrong, that you for correcting me!
Why are the school books in Limburg twice as thick as those in other provinces? ... The left page is for the words, the right page for the music notes.
HAHAHA good one
Me as a Dutch person from Brabant (next to Limburg), I'm able to understand most of Limburgs, at leat enough to get the context of what's written or told. But it will cost me a lot of energy and i have to pay a lot of attention. Telling myself that they speak German also helps to understand them better :P
What also should be mentioned is that it's also highy depending on where in Limburg the person is from. A person from Venlo (North-ish of Limburg) does sound nothing like a person from Maastricht (South/West of Limburg), or even worse, Kerkrade (South/East of Limburg).
Someone else here who is a native speaker of Limburg told me that they can tell where someone is within a 20 kilometer radius!! Amazing!!! It's great to hear from all these Dutch and Limburg speakers about their experiences
@@CheLanguages Haha, we can do that in the entire country.. if you drive through our country the language/dialect changes every twenty minutes. We can even tell from what specific village someone is within a region.
@@thijseijk25 THAT'S MIND-BLOWING. That being said, a similar thing happens here in England, though only people living in that region can tell. Someone here in Yorkshire can tell different towns or villages apart, I can't but I can tell cities. But I couldn't tell where someone is from in the Essex dialect, but an Essex person would
@@CheLanguages I think it's just the same as here. The further some grew up away from a region the harder it get to hear where another person is from within that region.
@@thijseijk25 yeah, you're more familiar with your own. Again however, I live in Yorkshire and have done most my life, but I cannot speak the Yorkshire dialect nor am I very good at telling where someone is from within Yorkshire except for certain cities/large towns e.g. Sheffield, Leeds, Hull, Huddersfield, Barnsley etc.
As a Dutch native speaker, I have to say that I can read both variaties of Limburgish quite easily, I don't have much experience with spoken Limburgish, but just going off the writing, it seems extremely close to Dutch.
Even I, with my simple Afrikaans, could pick out certain words. I've heard as a spoken language, this is different though, it becomes less clear, but neighboring dialects of Dutch can easily understand it, whereas someone from elsewhere in the country probably would have a harder time. Where are you from in the Netherlands?
@@CheLanguages I'm from the eastern part of the country, my family speaks a Low Saxon/Low German dialect at home, but we also know standard Dutch and use it in public life. I have had quite a bit of exposure to Afrikaans from people I've met online though and family of mine has gone to South Africa many times. I have to say, eventhough Afrikaans speakers would probably disagree, that Afrikaans doesn't even feel like a different language to me from Dutch. It is different from Dutch, but if you just spend like an afternoon getting used to the sounds and different grammar you'll be able to understand everything an Afrikaans speaker says (barring of course Malay loanwords). And written Afrikaans is completely readable to me. It seems much more like a dialect of Dutch, that's just my opinion though, I don't want to offend any Afrikaans speakers. In writing Limburgish actually looks more distinct that Afrikaans from Dutch in writing, but even then I can still read it pretty easily.
@@buurmeisje ah, I would disagree and say Afrikaans is separate, but that's just part of my identity. Limburgish is equally a language in my opinion
As someone who lives in the capital city of Limburg, Maastricht, I can tell you the language is starting to die out. The language is mostly spoken by older people and children don't really pick up the language anymore. Myself included, being born in Limburg, I never really picked up the language. I think that the language is only going to die out further as time passes.
That's fascinating because other Limburgers here stated how in their part of Limburg, the language is popular amongst younger people. Interesting to see how different regions react differently
A slight correction, the Faroes aren't just a territory of Denmark, they are a constituent country within the Kingdom of Denmark (just like Greenland).
Ah sorry, I'm not always updated on the exact geopolitical status of overseas territories. I know it's wrong to call them colonies in the modern world, I didn't realize they were an autonomous constituent country within Denmark like Greenland is though? That means they're equal to Scotland and Wales here in the UK, despite being an archipelago of tiny islands in the middle of nowhere!
@@CheLanguages indeed. It's a common misunderstanding stemming from the fact that Denmark is in fact a separate entity from the Kingdom of Denmark (which also has a separate, although similar flag). The Kingdom of Denmark (also commonly known as the Danish Realm) consists of the three constituent countries of Denmark, Greenland and the Faroes, each with a strong degree of autonomy, and officially holding the status of "country", they are however very reliant on the Kingdom as a whole in some other ways, such as defence.
Incidentally, the same goes for the Netherlands, which is in fact a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (along with the countries of Curaçao, Aruba and Sint Maarten). Keep in mind, that the exact degree of autonomy for constituent countries varies on a case by case basis, e.g. the countries of the UK each have an even stronger degree of autonomy when compared to the Danish Realm's and Dutch Kingdom's countries.
If you're curious as to how many of these "countries of countries" there are today, there's just one more: The Commonwealth of New Zealand, which consists of the constituent countries of Niue and New Zealand.
@@oyoo3323 That's really interesting. I studied politics at A-Level and I had no clue these existed! It makes sense I guess. Do other Monarchies like Spain not operate in the same way with their overseas territories like Las Islas Canarias?
@@CheLanguages actually, in the case of Spain it doesn't matter whether they're oversees or not. MOST of Spain's administrative divisions hold the status of "autonomous community", which do hold a very high degree of autonomy (not called "constituent countries" though). Even parts of mainland Spain like Andalusia, Galicia, Catalonia, Valencia etc. all hold this much power. The real difference (that I'm aware of) between these and the "constituent countries" is just what they're called. Terms for administrative divisions (provinces, cantons, prefecture, regions, states, and sometimes even countries) tend to vary a lot in what they mean on a country-by-country basis. If you want to learn more about Spain's autonomous communities, I'd advise Geography Now's video on them.
Incidentally, the confusion with constituent countries also partially relates to the UN. The UN recognises the UK as an member state, but not its constituent countries, however... it recognises Denmark, the Netherlands and New Zealand as members, rather than their countries as a whole. Why? If I had to guess... they probably just got confused. It wouldn't be the first time. The UN recognises the Holy See as an observer state, in stead of the Vatican itself (the Holy See being the ruling organisation of the Vatican); that's like if they recognised the Chinese Community Party as a country in stead of China itself. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Very weird seeing a scandinavian language i don't at least understand. I looked up some basic stuff a few weeks back of Elfdalian and oculd understand it pretty alright (at least when it was: What does x word mean?) but that whole sentence is very weird.
I guess i could try real hard to translate it but my understanding is its a poem about a sunset. "suolniðgaungga" id guess means sunset as the direct translation would be "sun down walk" and "Laindj" likely land. Something about a little princes men admiring the sunset in the fjords ending with: "i understand you in the mornin fjords, you must trust me: i really love the sunset"
Are you a Swedish speaker? I wonder if it would be any easier if you spoke a Dalecarlian dialect
""suolniðgaungga" - Norwegian "solnedgang". A common Scandinavian way of creating words by combining existing ones. In general the language is closer to (but not the same as) Old Norse than it is to Norwegian (I mention this because it was said to be closer to Norwegian than Swedish, in the video, but it isn't really).
@@CheLanguages I am a Swedish, Icelandic and Danish speaker with Icelandic my first language.
Id say its got some Icelandic words in it making it the most intelligable (in writing only) but thats barely. Its mostly just the words not within Swedish/norwegian that are semi similar to Icelandic. Some of the words are just a weirdly written Swedish too. Very interesting.
@@thrashes6208 Ah that's impressive, I know next to nothing about Scandinavian languages LOL
Hey! I am a PhD Student conducting research on Elfdalian. The text is a translation from The Little Prince, it was published around 2008 and you can find the translation on omniglot.
Saying that it's closer to Norwegian than it is to Swedish it's a bit of stretch, but one might argue that it can be compared to other varieties spoken on the other side of the border, such as Selbumål, which also retained nasal vowels to some extent. It is an interesting case in the Scandinavian dialect continuum. As @tbitfiddler stated, it can be said to be closer to Old Norse than it is to either Swedish or Norwegian, at least in its most conservative variety. There are reasons to believe that Dalecarlian as a whole started developing rather indipendently while Swedish and Dano-Norwegian where still closely resembling each other.
As a learner of Faroese (Føroyskt mál), it is a really intriguing language! Greetings from Scotland!
That must be an interesting journey, what made you want to learn Faroese?
Good on that politician for standing up for his people!
אמת!
As a person from Iceland I can understand written Faroese Perfectly! IT just looks like it was written by a three year old who doesn't know what grammar is and uses the wrong word endings!
But SPOKEN Faroese just sounds like mumbling and gibberish! Most Icelanders only understand the old people, not the younger generations!
I got some similar comments. It's the same for me with Romance languages that I don't speak, I can usually read them more or less but if I hear them spoken, it's impossible
I'm german and I speak dutch as well. Maastricht Limburgs is definitely more easy for me to read and comprehend.
That's cool, it's the most Dutch-looking I guess
Homie active all subtitles in all idioms to we share to others linguists and lovers of langs.
I agree!
I'm not sure how I can do that, I just have English subtitles enabled
תודה רבה יאיר!
על לא דבר, גם אני מודה לך מאוד!
3:23
“Corporate needs you to identify the difference between these two pictures.”
“They’re the same picture.”
LOL exactly
Haha just discovered your channel a couple of days ago, binge watched your Forgotten Romance series, and I was wondering if you were going to ever make this video, suddenly here it is! I didn't have to wait at all!
It's been a long time in the making but I'm glad you enjoyed it! Welcome to the channel, I also plan on maybe making a 5th episode of the Forgotten Romance Languages series someday soon
As always, cool video.
Thank you!!!
Goofy ahh Swedish parliament vs Chad Peter Helander
Accurate representation of the events
I hope everybody enjoyed this video. Which language here struck you the most?
Elfdalian I had no idea about
Elfdalian
Elfdalian and Limburgish are new to me, I've known about Faroese for a while now. I like the look of Limburgish the most
I liked all three of them, I can't wait for part 2!
I hadn't heard of the first two, and your explanation of Elfdalian as being one of a number of languages which all stem from Norse really interested me. That picture of a dominant city's language coming to dominate the rest of the country feels all too common, where smaller languages and nationalities were suppressed from France to the UK to apparently Sweden, too
What is special with Elfdalian is that it has Proto-Norse aspects. So when all other Scandinavian languages changed from Proto-Norse to Old Norse the Elfdalians kept some of the original language.
It also preserves /w/, which along with English, is the only Germanic language to keep it!
I met a couple of Limbourgish speakers whilst on holiday on Corfu a few years ago. They were really insistant that it was a separate language and, although they could also speak Dutch, it was their first language.
It does seem to be separate and has been for many centuries now. However, being in The Netherlands, most speakers will also be able to speak Dutch (like those who you met). I do wonder however how much a Limburgish speaker outside of The Netherlands would be able to understand Dutch, or vice versa with a Dutch speaker who has never been to Limburg...
@@CheLanguages strange thing was that the cadence (not sure if this is the correct expression, but I mean the way Russians think Portuguese sounds like Russian) was really similar to the regional accent of English that is spoken were I grew up. I vaguely overheard them speaking in a bar and initially thought they were from that area.
@@stubronstein9932 I was not aware of that word (cadence). I understand what you mean completely, the manner of speech Dutch people use can sound very similar to English, it's probably a good explanation of why I've met some people who are Dutch but I didn't realize until much later because their English sounds so perfect. An example of someone I haven't met however who is a good example of this is the RUclipsr "History with Hilbert", he's Dutch but you wouldn't know it (until he mentions it for like the 100000th time in his video)
Danm. Everyone is on corfu
@@Rabid_Nationalist LOL, even I've been there
I’m pausing the video at the text regarding Elfdalian. I’m far from fluent in Swedish, but I speak a little. (Skånska) if I’m correct, it’s saying “if you can’t understand me, this should be considered a different dialect.” Now I’m pushing play to see if I’m correct.
Sadly, there was no translation provided, but that might be exactly what Peter Helander said in his speech to Parliament, from when I watched the video of him doing it
The Netherlands (European part) has two official languages. Dutch and Frisian. Frisian is only an official language in the province of Frisia. Papiemento is an official language in the parts of the Kingdom in the Dutch Antilles, and English is an official language in Saba. Limburgish is not considered a language, but a dialect of Dutch. However, that is debated among linguïsts. Some see it as a separate language. I am not qualified to judge that.
Given they don't classify it, the Dutch government still have measures in place to preserve it, that's good news at least
Very interesting. Thank you for the clip. You mentioned Afrikaans, in South Africa, also Germanic. According to Charlese Theron 44 people are speaking it. ... Not sure of realistic numbers at present but probably about 4 million people in ZA use it as their first language and certainly more than 20 million can speak it as a second language. Very interesting how dialects develop and how distinct they become. We have not really experienced it in Afrikaans but I guess that is just because it is still so very young compared to these old Germanic languages.
I think you meant 44 million LOL? I've seen numbers around 36 million too. It's hard to measure. It's my favorite Germanic language besides Yiddish en ek ken praat 'n bietjie van Afrikaans!
I think you meant 44 million LOL? I've seen numbers around 36 million too. It's hard to measure. It's my favorite Germanic language besides Yiddish en ek ken praat 'n bietjie van Afrikaans!
As a Limburgish speaker form Maasmechelen living in Tessenderlo (West Limburg in Belgium but here they speak the Brabant dialect) once I adopt a kid I will speak only Limburgish to him/her to preserve our dialect.
A language is way more than just a communication tool, it is backed by centuries of culture and people forming it. Hearing. Someone speak your language forms an instant bond. It's history and it's what my parents, grand parents and many great grand parents before them have spoken and shaped into what it is now today so ain't no fucking way I'm going to let it die off! 😉
Chad! But make sure you also teach Dutch to your kid, but with Limburgish as his first language, you don't want to isolate him from opportunities
@@CheLanguages Yeah no real problem here, kids go to school very early and there they'll learn Dutch.
At home it was always Limburgish and I turned out a grammar Nazi when it comes to Dutch grammar (I get crazy when I see the many typos my husband makes). 😂
@@dennisengelen2517 well, remember that language doesn't really have a 'right' and 'wrong'
@@CheLanguages Tell that to my Dutch class teacher back in the day, 'direct object' in Dutch means 'lijdend voorwerp'. If you make a very literal translation you get 'suffering object' and if you didn't get de right 'direct object' during sentence parsings then you'd be the 'suffering object' when you get your score. 😂
@@dennisengelen2517 LOL, that's great
If I may be so bold, at the end of this video, the guitar playing was so loud I could hardly hear you. I do hope that in future videos you turn the volume down on the guitar at the end. That said, as a student of languages (I created one for a story I wrote several years ago.), I enjoy learning about different languages spoken throughout the world.
Hey, I've been playing around with my editing software and I thought it wasn't too loud in this video, it was in the last. I'll try and soften it even more for next week's video. Thank you for letting me know!
@@CheLanguages Well, up until you had finished talking about the languages, the music was barely noticeable. It was just the last couple of minutes of the video that I had a hard time hearing what you said. Your voice is rather soft like a teacher's voice normally is.
@@drivernjax OK that's good to know. Also I take that last comment as a compliment, I don't want to come across as an annoying RUclipsr that's for sure. Thank you!
Great video!
If you're going to make another video about Germanic languages, I think Wymysorys is a language worth mentioning! It's spoken in a single town in Poland and has only about 20-25 native speakers. Fortunately, revitalization efforts have begun and appear to be successful.
I've had other people recommend it before but you're the only person who's actually told me anything about it, I'm definitely going to check it out and include it in my next part
Ooo that sounds interesting
Poland! 🇵🇱
@@CheLanguages if you need any materials for wymysioeryś, there is a website called Ynzer Śpröh where you can find some both written and spoken records prepared by the native speakers. Btw it's crazy how it's not even a Slavic language, it's not fully intelligible to german speakers either, and yet Poland claims it's not a language
@@NieJa_2137 thank you for telling me this, it will be super helpful!
As a Swede i must say i did not expect that you would bring upp elfldalian since it has been almost forgotten, but i like to see folks like you bring this languages to the surface, great video.
Ps, and also, can you make a video about gutnish. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutnish
Well, I do talk about 'forgotten languages' at the end of the day HAHA. What do you think of Elfdalian, and what of Peter Helander? P.S., I'll check out Gutnish, I assume that's spoken on Gutland?
@@CheLanguages Peter Helander seems to be a great man who defended a language that only a few knew about, and it is always of my interest to learn about different languages.
@@johannesrubbestad3937 are you in any way able to understand the Elfdalian in the video?
@@CheLanguages Well as a native Swedish speaker, i understand some of the language. butt it is mostly alien to me.
@@johannesrubbestad3937 is it easier to understand Norwegian or Danish than Elfdalian would you say?
You should definitely mention about Lower German, Central German and Upper German (including Bavarian and Swabian). The difference between them is much bigger than between Polish and "Silesian" (Silesian is a dialect of Polish language, nothing more).
There's a joke that if you're a native English speaker who studied German, goes to Hamburg, and are astounded by how well you can communicate, you're 'cheating' because Low German (Platt) is 1/3 the way from Hoch to English.
I've heard things like this yes
Well they are effectively different languages, if history went differently, I'm sure they would be designated as such
@@CheLanguages There were parts of different countries/kingdoms for hundreds of years. And you said that they are effectively different languages, so it will be a good topic for forgotten languages nobody is talking about.
Lower German is more like Dutch and Old English, yet considered as the same language as Bavarian :)
@@robertab929 indeed, a similar situation exists nell'Italia too
Elf is the old way to write or spell the word 'älv' which is the swedish word for 'river'.
Älvdalen means simply riverdale.
I don't agree that it is closer to norwegian. If you ask a dialectolog they will say that "elfdalian" is an east scandinavian dialect or language.
The map you show is the municipal of Älvdalen and includes the parishes of Idre and Särna which before 1645 or something belonged to Norway and the dialect there is classified as norwegian though has undergone swedish influence over the centuries.
The old boundary between Norway and Sweden is the boundary between Särna and Älvdalen. A person from Idre or Särna will not understand the language of Älvdalen. I can much easier understand Idre-dialect than elfdalian. The dialect or language of Älvdalen is in the southern part of the municipality that you showed.
Älvdals-dialect belongs to the group called ovansiljansmål which means the language north of the lake Siljan. Every single dialect there - it is basically seven (7) - are very difficult for outsiders to understand. You have Orsa and Mora (with 30 village dialects) and Våmhus which is a transitional form between Mora and Älvdalen. The language picture is very complex in the landscape of Dalecarlia (or the "Dales").
In the western part they have almost as difficult and different dialects as they have in the area surrounding the Siljan.
A person from Malung or Lima or Transtrand in the Western Dales cannot easily understand the speech of a person from Orsa or Älvdalen or even Venjan.
I can't understand elfdalian but I can understand Idre-dialect and the closer dialects of Western Dales though the languages closer to me in Wermland is harder to understand than that of Idre. In Lima and Transtrand at the border to Norway they have diftongs which is of an older variety and it is very hard to understand. In Malung south of that you have no diftongs.
Älvdalens 12 village dialects of which the ones in Åsen and Evertsberg is best preserved I believe, are actually more a swedish dialect or language if you will but very distinct with both older forms but also novations that you don't find elsewhere, it is both old and new at the same time. The languages of Siljan area are in a sense conservative in that they have gone a different way than the other dialects surrounding them
Thank you, I learnt a lot more from this comment than I did from some of the others here. The linguistic situation in Dalecarlia sounds intense!
@@CheLanguages
Yes it surely is!
@@LadetJahonen Definitely!
Very good video, As a germanic speaker am very pleased
Germanic speaker of what language(s) (besides English) may I ask?
And I'm glad to hear that you're pleased with the video, thank you!
@@CheLanguages Swedish good sir
@@Pofer Ah nice
@@Pofer So what thinks you of Elfdalian?
Fascinating.
Thank you!
part 2 please!
I uploaded part 2 over a year ago!
Limburgish has actually been recognized as a regional language under part 2 of the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages (in the Netherlands)
You didn't let me down
HAHA that's good to know, I hope you enjoyed the video!
You should give examples of the mentioned "pitch accent" for people like me who don't understand not too much of linguistics expressions. How that differentiate words and meanings?
Good idea, sorry for not explaining. Basically, in a tonal language, tones exist in every word and for multiple syllables of a word, it is absolutely crucial to the meaning of that word. Pitch accent language however are a lot less strict about it, only one syllable in the word will have the tone and it only applies to a very select few words in that language, literally for words that sound the same (like to, too and two in English) to differentiate between them. It doesn't always exist in languages (like English) that have homophones, but some, such as Limburgs, Swedish and Slovenian do have this feature.
@@CheLanguages Thank you for your attention and answer. I don't know examples of what I think pitch accent means on those languages, but my rough idea about it in English would be we can differentiate between "we will preSENT the lecture" and "I gave you a PREsent" (or like PREsent tense), for instance.
@@andrefmartin yes, kinda. That's stress, now think about doing the same thing but on the same syllable instead of different ones. For example, imagine if instead of PREsent and preSENT, they were both preSENT but one you raise your voice at the end and one you don't. That's pitch accent in a nutshell.
@@CheLanguages So, it would be like the phrase intonation to make an affirmative into a question phrase, as it is in most of romance languages which don't have verb inversion with subject to make the question phrase explicitly. Example: "You did it" X "you did it (, right?)".
@@andrefmartin precisely, but just on a certain word, not necessarily to make it a questions. Sadly, I don't have any examples like Limburgs because I don't speak any pitch accent languages
Great video
Here is the translation of the Elfdalian text
Oh, little prince! Bit by bit I came to understand the secrets of your sad little life. For a long time you had found your only entertainment in the quiet pleasure of looking at the sunset. I learned that new detail on the morning of the fourth day, when you said to me: I am very fond of sunsets.
Elfdalian
Undą̊ för undą̊ fuor ig föstå ur launggsamt du add eð, Lisslprinsn menn. Laindj i seð add it du noð eller uonå dig ą̊ eld kuogå ą̊ grannsuolniðgaunggą. Eð föstuoð ig um morgun fiuord da'n, mes du lit að mig: Ig tyttjer so mitjið um suolniðgaunggą.
I use the word standard Swedish to not get confused with any regional variations or dialects of Swedish.
Standard Swedish
Min lille prins, så småningom kom jag underfund med hur dystert ditt liv var! Långa tider hade du ingen annan förströelse än underbara solnedgångar. Det förstod jag den fjärde dagen på morgonen, då du anförtrodde mig: Jag tycker så mycket om solnedgångar.
Ahhh, it's the Little Prince, I should have known. Thank you
On Limburg's flag: Hey! That's not a flag it's a beer adv- ....oh I get it
I don't get it...
It's a cool flag though
@Che Languages I could see how the crest and colours would look good on a can of beer so I made a joke about how they like beer (I'm going out on a limb but I'm betting between Belgium and the Netherlands that they like beer)
@@jakegarvin7634 HAHA they probably do. Limburgs beer would be a cool can design
Älvdalen means rivervalley in swedish, so no elves unfortunately
I'm aware, it's just a cool name
I just looked up some Limburgish, so I could compare it to the languages and dialects I know. I'm personally of the opinion that classifying language vs dialect in part by having a standardised written form is stupid. Thus I absolutely see Low German (most dialects of which I do not understand) as its own language. Limburgish, however, doesn't sound distinct from Low German to me and I can understand it about as well as the (to me) most intelligible Low German dialects.
I guess that's the thing with dialect continuums. Pretty difficult to put a hard border anywhere unless you have a lot of standardisation.
In linguistics, these borders are referred to by isolglosses. I can't even come up with a definition myself, but I think it also has something to do with the culture of those who speak it. Are they culturally distinctive, or just a "dialect" culture of the surrounding languages? That might help draw the isolgloss slightly better
As a Dutch (not from Limburg), I classify Limburg as a German dialect. It sounds wildly different from Dutch
It is somewhere in between
(Limburgians will generally refer to their own language as Plat, as so many German(ic) dialect speakers). The :Limburg duchy was under Brabantian rule since the late 1100s, so independence is quite some time ago 🙂. The duchy was also situated further south (in most of the current Belgian province of Liege and the region around Maastricht) than the modern provinces. E.g. middle Limburg (Roermond region) was part of Gelder and Juelich (Dutch: Gullick) duchies. The Weert region and parts of Belgian Limburg formed the Country of Loon (the Loonies), and I assume Aachen asserted some terrain in the south east of the province Some terrain came from Church/monastery holdings.
The Limburgs speakers on the German side of the border I believe, as Plaatdeutsch is the language there (a language that forms a dialect continuum). In the Netherlands itself it is Limburgs from what I know
Thank you for your comment!
@@CheLanguages I'm from Roermond in the Dutch part of Limburg. "Limburgs" for the _language_ is kind of an exonym, only used with outsiders. The people itself refer to it as Plat, and that is afaik normal throughout the whole dialect area. A "plat" doesn't suggest a relation to Plattdeutsch, "plat" is/ was a general way of saying that it was a common people's language , contrary to more literary forms, court and judicial languages (often french)which were often French, and ecclesiastical Latin. The term nowadays often is a general moniker for a dialect (or not the national language, depending on status). In Dutch Brabant, specially the eastern areas they also refer to their own dialect as (a) Plat.
@@marcovtjev OK that's interesting and good to know, other commenters who were also Limburgs speakers never mentioned this name. Thank you
@@CheLanguages Keep in mind that Plattdeutsch are mostly Saxon dialects, while Limburgian dialects are mostly Franconian. It is easy to get confused by dialects in this area because the dialect-continuum changes rather rapidly here (search for "Rhenish Fan"). Also pedigree/grammar/vocabulary can take different routes. Lower German dialects (including Dutch and Plattdeutsch) sound the same (not having undergone High German consonant shift, but are not necessarily closely related. Still, if I sit down, and watch Ripuarian German Cologne Fast-nacht broadcasts, after half an hour I'm used to the sound changes and I understand most of it. OTOH I once attended a (wedding) mass in Erlangen/Nurnberg Franconian dialect, and it was abacadabra to me.
As the pinned comment from guy willems, its the same here in germany, düsseldorf.
I speak an old Version of oir dialect, modern dialect speakers could not understand well. They think my dialect is a dutch like.
Modern düsseldörpsch is more ripuarian than the old ones.
Examples:
Old, new
Van, von
Uut, uus
Achtereruut, hengeruus
Ruut, finster
To, zo
Jroot, jrooß
Witt/weet, wiss/weeß
And so one....
Of course there are some different dialects in a city and düsseldorf central, the old town of düsseldorf, was in old days more ripuarian than my own dialect from the left rhine side of düsseldorf.
Days changing here. Most people couldnt even understand the new düsseldörpsch dialect bacause they only know standard german
Quite interesting indeed! The German languages will soon be replaced by Standard German sadly if the government does not take steps to recognize them as languages and preserve them
Hope Wymysorys is here
Not here, but I will talk about it in part 2, I've read some interesting things about it!
@@CheLanguages great to hear!
As a Limburgish speaker, I can tell you that there is no such thing as central Limburgish. However, there is a variety in contrast of West-Limburgish called East-Limburgish (I know, not very imaginative). Now, there is a dialect spoken in Maastricht, but it's a city dialect. The only other know city dialect is the Venlo dialect, where two isoglosses come together just west of the municipality. I am from the city of Venlo, and did quite some research about Venlo and Limburg. The only other thing I can say in this context is that Limburgish is considered a regional language, rather than an official language. The reason for this is that there is no official written compound of the language.
I understand it being a city dialect, but it seems to be called Central interchangeably with Maastricht. Thank you for your information though!
I love that you brought up Elfdalian! I also think Scots, Frisian and Yola are interesting forgotten Germanic language since they're all really closely related to English
Yola will appear in another video, though not a Germanic one, I plan to include it in my part 2 of Revived Languages
Limburgish has official recognition in the Netherlands, so they definitely don't think of it as Dutch. Limburgish developed separately, but alongside Dutch from Frankish, so if we're to think of Afrikaans as a daughter language of Dutch, then Limburgish is Dutch's sister language. I don't know about its status in Belgium though.
I didn't say that the Dutch government denies it is a language, that's Germany. You're right, it developed along side and calling it a sister language of Dutch is a good comparison, whereas Afrikaans is the daughter language (though sometimes disputed to be either a creole or a half-creole half-daughter language hybrid due to the influx and mixing of Malaysian slaves with Boers in the Kaapsekolonie). If you check it the comments, a native Limburgish speaker left a great comment (I think I pinned it) which I recommend reading!
@@CheLanguages I didn't say you claimed it to not be a language. I was responding to your query at 9:39, you said you were unsure of its official/national status. Although I suppose I should've left the timestamp the first time to be more clear.
@@oyoo3323 Ah I see, yes I was unsure, I meant rather whether it is protected or not
@@CheLanguages well, it has status as the official provincial language in Dutch Limburg. I've not been to Limburg, but in Friesland, West Frisian is in common use, is found on signs everywhere, and education is usually done both Dutch and West Frisian. Given West Frisian holds an equal status to Limburgish, I think it's a fair presumption that Limburgish is quite well off (at least in the Netherlands).
@@oyoo3323 That's cool to know!
Is Faroese considered an endangered language? Or is it healthy enough since the speakers have their own self-governing territory?
From what I'm aware, it's got a steady growth. Almost everyone there speaks it alongside with Danish as their other language
Great video. Coming from a Dutch person I’d say that the term Limburgish is more of a spectrum going from a Dutch dialect to a separate language. Sadly not a lot of people really speak a truly ‘pure’ version of the language. Of this topic. North Frisian and Saterland East Frisian would be cool to see in a future video. There also used to be another version of East Frisian surviving on the German island of Wangerooge called Wangerooger Frisian. Sadly the last speaker died in 1953 and not much information is available about it. Another really cool one is Crimean Gothic that was still spoken a few hundred years ago in Crimea which remained there for a long time as the last east Germanic language left on earth.
Yes, there are many more languages to talk about, and people definitely want me to make more videos on this. There's also Alsatian, the Germanic languages in Poland etc.
What do you mean by pure?
@@sebe2255 I guess an idealized standard that no one really speaks but would like to think they do
@@CheLanguages I mean, Limburgish as it exists now is much more like Dutch than it would have been 50 or even 150 years ago because of the influence of Dutch. This is particularly noticeable in the vocabulary, where more and more Dutch words are adopted but with a different pronunciation. If you have a conversation with older people though, they tend to use more actual Limburgish words which can be fun and sometimes confusing as a lot of younger people don’t know half of them
And no, I could make little sense of the Älvdalska writing sample, other than picking out words.
Are you a Swedish speaker?
Just seen your other comment, you are indeed Swedish (West Coast)
Not exactly relevant, but it's interesting to note that every nation of the British Isles has its own, home-grown Germanic language (or incredibly divergent English dialect), with the exception of Wales.
Scotland has Scots, N.I. has Ulster Scots and Ireland had Yola, but Wales has Cymraeg and some quirky dialects/accents.
Well, the channel islands for example have Romance languages on them. Yola will pop up in my next video...
Shetlandic and Orkney English are also pretty unique.
@@thedarkenigma3834 ah yes, I am aware
Thanks for your interesting videos!
Another good, lesser known Gmc language would be traditional Newfoundland/Newfy English (I don't think it's politically recognized as a language [& not just a dialect], but it should be, as w/out some study, &/or a decent period of exposure/immersion, one of the traditional, coastal dialects would be largely unintelligible to a non-native speaker, due to the phonological, morphological, & syntactical differences).
There is a good deal of Irish, etc., influence, but it is an early form of English, & so a Gmc language.
Yiddish would be good as a topic, too (it is a little more well known than some others in this list, but it still doesn't get near as much discussion as such a fascinating language deserves).
I've spoken extensively about Yiddish before on two occasions, so I'm reluctant to cover it again as I think people are quite bored LOL. Thank you for the suggestion of Newfy English, I've heard Canadians tell me before about how unique it is and how it's traditionally been looked down upon. Thank you!
Oh, I'll have to check out your Yiddish videos - I hadn't seen them before! Thanks!
@@James-sq7hr enjoy! Look for my more recent one, it's much higher quality, my older one is embarrassing honestly
I'm Limburgish, Ripuarian transfer dialects to be exact, spoken around Heerlen. If I speak slowly to a Dutch person they might understand some words but not everything. Politically most people think Limburgs is a dialect and treat it as just weird or they call us German or something like that. I think Limburgs is a language which had many different dialects just like Dutch has.
Limburgs is definitely a language! Thank you for your perspective
Missed a chance to put wymysörys
I missed no chances, as I'm sure to make a part 2 later
While this is real nice, I have to say that all Germanic languages in their distict groups form their dialect continua: English (including English, Scots and Frisian), German (including Luxembourgish, Dutch, Low German, High German, Central German and various other dialects in eastern europe and the americas), Yiddish, Scandinavian (including Danish, Jutish, Swedish, Elfdalian, eastern Norwegian, central Norwegian and western Norwegian), Feroese, and Icelandic.
That is my belief why Limburgish and Elfdalian are no languages but a part of a dialect continuum and thereby have to be sorted as dialects although they aren't intelligeable with their respective standard languages.
I guess so, but we can't all call them one language with many dialects, not only for reason political, but also practical. 1000 years ago, it may have been more possible (though separations still existed between North and West Germanic languages as much as they do today) but today, we need to draw lines somewhere. The same argument can be made for Slavic languages (if you watched my Forgotten Slavic Languages videos, you can see how many intermediatary languages act as a transition between two countries such as Silesian and Trasianka) and even Romance languages...
@@CheLanguages This is a tough topic. I think to call something a language is subjective. I speak german, standard and two dialects, and I must say, for a bavarian dutch might seem as a separate language, but for me who I speak a dialect closer to dutch, dutch sounds for me like a distant dialect. That's why I think that languages in their true form can only be called languages subjectively. Of course I'm not talking about standard versions of a tongue which make a dialect a language officially, I'm talking about dialect continua and language history.
In case of slavic languages e.g. I count belarussian as part of russian but not ukrainian, as ukrainian is really a mix of western russian and south-eastern polish dialects historicly seen.
That's why in the case of Limburgish I really think that it's not a language: it has no standard form and is part of a dialect continuum. I'm not sure about elfdalian that's why I won't say anything to that one.
Hi, I'm Dutch (from Amsterdam), and I can definitely read Limbourgish, but I sometimes need to translate words via German to understand them. The spoken language, however, will have me say "huh" quite often. As a kid, I would also have this with pretty much any Flemish and even some North-Brabant (southern Netherlands) accents. When you are used to conversation with someone speaking in these accents/dialects/languages, it is effortless to listen to, and I can talk back with my North-western-Dutch accent which is also easy to understand for most people as it is quite similar to the Dutch spoken on national TV/Radio. It all comes back to what you are used to hearing, really. Right now, I live in Haarlem, which is said to have one of the most "standard Dutch" accents (which by the way the big cities definitely are not regarded as having). In my opinion, standard Dutch as an accent doesn't really exist, as one can often region-guess where someone grew up down to a 20 or so km radius, just by their accent, with some accents being so distinct that they could be considered a language on the merit of being almost uninteligible to a Dutch person who lives further away and is not used to the accent.
Such an interesting comment, thank you for writing this! I find it mind-blowing that you can nail someone's accent within a 20ish kilometer radius, that's incredible! Thank you for this!
The pronounciation of ð is more complicated. I do not speak the language but the ð in my middle name is not pronounced at all. It depends on the letters around it and the dialect (yes, dialects).
Some Faroese speakers told me it has a multitude of different sounds
Cimbrian is also worth mentioning
Never heard of it, I'll have to look into it
Hej! I'm not dane but danish is my every-day language. When i see faroese i can understand what is written. It's bit like mix of danish and swedish... But I can not understand at all when they speaking. I think it's little bit like duch and limburgish as i see in the comment section.
Interesting to hear what you think, thank you!
Who knows where this came from?
Scheene Beene hat de Kleene, aber Waden hat se Keene.
First time I heard that, was about 75 years ago.
I'm not sure, it sounds like a dialect of German perhaps?
@@CheLanguages It's German and I think it is a mix of Berliner and Pomeranian dialects
The Faroes really do belong with Norway. Why does Denmark get all the norwegian colonies?
True, but I'd rather live in Denmark today that Norway. One of the best countries in Europe
@@CheLanguages Id rather live in Norway, much more beautiful. My people agree with me there being less than 10k in Denmark and more than 10k in Norway.
Given its location, Älvdalen should just mean “(the) Riverdale” unless Swedish or Norse have a specific claim for “älv” other than the Norwegian “river”. I also doubt that the language is really written like that, because it is unreadable to be honest. However, it does have some obvious elements of spoken coloquial language that are different from Swedish and Norwegian.
I also thought it was funny to say that any speaker of Danish isn’t disadvantaged.
Other people said the same about Elfdalian!
Three different proposals for a standardised orthography have been brought forward, one has a bit fewer diacritics (Steensland 2010, the one used for the dictionary) and another one has LOTS of them (Åkerberg 2012, used in his grammar), this one (Råðdjärum 2005 proposal) is a bit of a middle ground. There are facebook groups where people write in Elfdalian, each one using their approximation of a different ortography. Many people disregard the diacriticts alltogether (except those who are found on the swedish keyboard). A keyboard plugin has been recently released.
@@deniedvalhalla standardization really helps to preserve a language, it can just be difficult to agree on a standard
Älvdalen most definitely means The Riverdale. The river in question of course being Dalälven
@@christerromsonlande6502 so The Riverdale is by The Dale River. Love it
Peter Helander is a true chad
"Yes."
Would you consider the lesser indo european like Hittite Albanian, Armenian or Greek?
I talk about Hittite in my Anatolian Languages video, the problem with Albanian, Armenian and Greek is that they are all not very large branches of the Indoeuropean language family. Though Greek does have Tsakonian as a separate language and I've been told Western Armenian is sometimes considered a separate language, and also the Gheg dialect of Albanian is sometimes considered separate, these branches are largely agreed to be isolate branches. I will do the same for some other branches of the IE family like Indo-Iranian and I will also branch out (no pun intended) to other language families, like Forgotten Turkic Languages
Very interesting. Thanks. I don't want to over-comment. But here's my 2cents as a native speaker of Swedish and near-native ditto of German. You're right about Swedish and Norwegian being a dialect continuum. I'm from the west coast of Sweden near Norway and find eastern N transparent to understand, but west coast Norwegian very difficult. I can read Icelandic and Faroese is reasonably similar but sounds utterly different, as you say. Icelanders have told me that Faroese relocating to Iceland have little trouble learning Icelandic (of course). The Danish as spoken in the Faroes is easier for non-Danes to understand than Denmark Danish. ... Dutch, Limburgish etc. are simple to read if you're German but hard to understand; some Germans can, some cannot, it depends on your ear (my German wife has no difficulty, but I do). ... Thanks again, interesting.
Don't worry about over-commenting, I love hearing what my viewers have to say about certain topics, and I love discussing languages with you guys even more! It's really fascinating listening to all the Swedish speakers speak about how easy they find it to understand x language from y language. You didn't mention Elfdalian here, though perhaps you did in a previous comment, I don't entirely remember as I'm quite tired as I'm writing this. I heard there is a distinct dialect of Danish also spoken on the Faroe Islands, but I chose to speak about Faroese instead as that's a full-on language at least. Thank you for your comment!
Limburgish speaker who grew up in Maasmechelen here. The language (considered a dialect in our country) is dying due to multiculturalism. Maasmechelen is the most multicultural municipality of Limburg and over half of people living in Maasmechelen (59%) have foreign roots (15,1% Turkish, 16,9% southern Europe with Italy mostly Italians and Greeks and 11,9% Dutch are the biggest groups).
There are 9 submunicipalities but over 1/3 of the almost 40k inhabitants come from 1 submunicipality and 1/4th from a second submunicipality (which is the one where the mines were). Those two are where most people with foreign roots live because those are most urban and standard Flemish Dutch or tussentaal is mostly spoken in public because with so much diversity you only speak Limburgish to people you're sure that speak it aswell. In the other 7 submunicipalities you might be able to speak it more freely since those are more or less the 'farm villages' as we say it here, but it feels like just speaking Flemish is mostly the norm here.
When you go more West to Limburg in Tessenderlo where I now live, where the dialect is like the ones from the 'Kempen' region in Antwerp and Vlaams Brabant, you do notice that it's more homogeneous here because nearly no one speaks properly Flemish Dutch here and many even can't even if they try. They keep speaking 'Kempens dialect' which is why most people from other regions call them 'farmers' as form of an insult because farmers are (or used to be) known to not being able to speak proper (Flemish) Dutch and viewed as having bad manners and being dumber than people from more urbanised regions.
This is so fascinating, the situation seems much more complex than it is at face value. I've had lots of Limburgs speakers in the comments go into all sorts of details, but I think I learnt the most from this one. Thank you!
@@CheLanguages Np, and in Maastricht where Limburgish lives more than in Belgian Limburg (just as most of Netherlands Limburg in general) I also notice that not only Limburgish but even Dutch in general is rare at some places since ALOT of exchange students go to the University there. Heck in A Japanese restaurant last sunday the entire staff (waiters weren't Japanese btw) only spoke English and we weren't even able to communicate in Dutch which was kinda annoying, but probably due to students doing a student job lol.
@@dennisengelen2517 true, this is the case with many international students though I guess
@@CheLanguages Here an interesting article about Limburgish, don't know if you knew all of this already:Apr 11, 2016 by Audrey | 2 comments
What do Limburgers and Chinese have in common? At first glance, maybe not much. At the most that you can hardly understand them all 😉 Both the Limburg dialects and the Chinese languages are tonal languages. This means that the meaning of a word can change due to a difference in tone. In standard Mandarin you have five tones, one of which is zero, and in Limburgish you find three, one of which is also neutral. The other two, drag tones and bump tones, is what I want to talk about today.
Drag and bump tones
What is the difference between bump tones and drag tones? A bump starts high and goes down very quickly. A sleep tone rises briefly at first, and then falls more slowly. You will also encounter differences in intonation in “ordinary” Dutch. If you ask a question, your voice (at the end) will sound higher. Try it out with a sentence like "Come along". If you try to say it without a question mark, it sounds more like a half order than a question. However, the sentence order ('are you coming along' versus 'you are coming along') makes it clear what is meant.
In Limburgish, however, you get the intonation within a word, which can change the meaning. Take, for example, the word. In Dutch a preposition and an insect. Just like path and bank, for example, a homonym: a word that is exactly the same, but still has two meanings. The Limburg word bie has the same two meanings as in Dutch, but with the essential difference that you can hear the difference. If you talk about the animal, you will hear a beep. If you mean the preposition, you get a sleeptoon.
To give another animal example: the word hare. With bump tone also here the animal, and with drag tone a… glove. I do not think that the word with the same meaning in this case is more similar to Dutch in terms of intonation. They are etymologically the same, while the hare as a glove has a completely different origin. I wouldn't even know what that is. Suggestions are very welcome!
Singular and plural
While creating a plural in Dutch is generally not too complicated, it is slightly different with Limburgish. In addition to the regular s, s and en (with some variations such as children instead of children), you can also go from singular to plural with a number of words in Limburgish with only a sound change. Examples are kop that becomes köp (pronounced kup), and paol (pole) that becomes päöl (I might try to explain how you pronounce those vowels, although it seems to me a mission impossible for a non-Limburger ).
As if that wasn't complicated enough, you can also use your intonation to distinguish between singular and plural. A number of examples (where the word with dragtoon is singular and with bumptoon is plural):
day (day(s))
knees (rabbit(s))
bein (leg/legs)
And then I have perhaps one of the most beautiful Limburg words to offer: sjoon. The nice thing (Limburgers may already feel the pun coming) is that this word itself can mean beautiful. You then pronounce it with a spit tone.
In the first episode of Limburgliefde I already linked to a page where you could (among other things) hear someone from Central Limburg translate 'nice shoes'. So that will be clean. That's two punches in a row. However, the singular of shoe is again sjoon with dragtoon, and therefore comparable to the list above. In case you're wondering: sjoon is occasionally also used for clean, although the original Limburg word for it is simply pure (pure - compare it with Flemish). Because in that respect Limburgish is just like Dutch, Mandarin and all other languages and dialects spoken in the world: living and therefore constantly changing.
@@CheLanguages And here an interesting fact about how it surprisingly has more tones than you might think : Mandarin Chinese
The adult subjects were also presented with even more subtle differences in tone, namely within a tone category. For example, the subjects were told the word 'taaf' three times with tone 1, but one word sounded slightly different below that. The Limburgers also observed these subtle differences well. They scored just as well on this test as in the previous test. That was also surprising, says Ramachers. Because a comparable study among speakers of Mandarin Chinese had a different outcome: the Chinese heard the difference between categories very well, but they heard almost no difference within those categories.
According to the researcher, this shows exactly where the differences lie between Mandarin Chinese and Limburgish. “Mandarin has four tones and Limburgish has two. On that basis, you might think that the tone system of Limburgish is less complex. But it's not that simple. In Limburgish, tone involves a complicated interplay with intonation, and as a result there are actually sixteen different tones. That makes Limburgish unique. And that is why the Limburgers recognize so many pitch variations.”
What stands out in especially the Maastricht dialect of Limburgish is the extensive use of Frensh loanwords as Maastricht borders to the language border. Especially the older people use them (like 'cuisineaire' for oven/stove instead of the Dutch 'fornuis') and that makes Maastrichts for Dutch people hard to understand. Nowadays these words have often been replaced by the Dutch variants. And there are many peculiar words which are only known to Maastrichts like 'baj' (derived from Latin caballus: horse), 'rebbedeb' for an older car, etc. So, the text represented in the video was quite good understandable for Dutch people (Limburgish is my native language, |I learned Dutch in school) but not a typical representation of Maastrichts.
That's interesting, I didn't expect that, I would have assumed it'd be more German influenced
1:50 No "älv" in "älvdalen" actually means "elf" in swedish and "älvdalen" means something like "the valley of elves".
edit: or it could be "älv" as in river and it being "the valley of rivers".
Other Swedes have told me it means "Riverdaleish", dale being an old word in English to mean valley
@@CheLanguages so it probably refers to river and I guess our word "älva" is more "fairy" than "alv" which is elf.
But you wouldn't be able to know if the first half of "älvdalen" is "älva" or "älv" since they would be the same in a double word thing...
@@Zapp4rn yeah I guess, sadly my knowledge of Swedish is very very limited, I'm going off what Swedish speakers in my comments told me already
Since Älvdalen is the upper course of Österdalälven (Eastern Valley River), I would be extremely surprised if there is any connection to älva (fairy) but rather to älv (river).
@@fredrikedin8880 I'm pretty sure it's meaning "river" judging by the official etymology and the comments here from Swedish speakers
My grandma is basically a native speaker of one of the Limburgish varieties spoken in the Lower Rhine Region of Germany. It's kinda treated like a dialect of German over here - so called "Platt" or "Mundart".
I even learned some songs in this Limburgish variety back in elementary school although I've basically already forgotten most of it. Really nowadays only older people (like over the age of 75) are still native speakers and the language is kind of dying out in my region sadly.
That is sad. At least it remains strong in Limburg itself
@@CheLanguages I mean the language won't completely be lost here either; in the place my grandma is from, there is a small club dedicated to the preservation of the dialect, teaching it to people and holding events in that language. And seasonal songs in the local dialect are also taught to kids in elementary school.
It probably won't ever be a relevant language in day-to-day conversation again, but it'll still be there in some form or another.
@@nextlevelgamer6936 Yeah, at least that I guess
Faroese being so forgotten it doesn't even appear in the timestamps
LOL. I don't make timestamps, RUclips does them automatically
The Limuburgisch was easy to read (I live in North Germany).
That's cool!
Älv means river and dal means valley. "Rivervalleyish"
Someone else told me that too yeah
@FeedsNoSliesMusic ah I never made that link to be honest
@FeedsNoSliesMusic Ah, that's interesting. I wonder why these words are related?
Yo Limburgish is fire
Fr
How about
Moselfränkischen or
Sauerlandisch?
Part 3 maybe
Fränkisch is still well and alive, but in much smaller areas than before.
Of course Luxemburgisch is a descendend of it.
@@Fritz999 Ah right, that clears me up on what it is
8:30 I'm pretty sure Dutch does not have pitch accent.
Dutch doesn't, Limburgs does
I love Faroese, especially Faroese kvæði. Everyone should give those a listen.
Awesome language. What is the thing you mentioned though, I'd like to know more?
@@CheLanguages Kvæði are Faroese songs that are usually sung in a "chain dance" (people would hold each others hands and dance in a line that bends around the room.)
These songs are sung a cappella, but you can find versions online with instruments. The group "Fiddling Faroes" had some pretty cool arrangements of kvæði for strings.
Some of my favorite kvæði are: Brestiskvæði, Sinklarsvisa, and Sigmundskvæðið Yngra.
@@august_astrom sounds very much like other Scandinavian traditions. I'll check it out when I have some time!
The plosive palatals are pronounced like /kj/ and /gj/ rather than /tj/ and /dj/
Thank you
Che, wonderful video. The text you used from Övdalska is from the book “The Little Prince”. I hope you make a video about the endangered Germanic language called Ostfriesian (or Seeltersk as they call it). I was there this summer and found it a wonderful sounding language with a fascinating story of how it was saved from extinction.
Oooo I'll have to look into it, I've never heard of that one before, thank you for telling me!
Oh wait, you mean East Frisian? Ah yes, I know it LOL. I plan on including it in the future
Yes😆. It’s only spoken along a short stretch of country road. Wonderful people. I flew home with a pile of books a bartender’s mom wrote and/or translated into Seeltersk. Her name was Gretchen Grosser. She worked with the black American linguist who set out to get the language written down and have it taught in school. I got a few of the people to speak on video. I could understand a fair amount because I’ve taught myself Plattdeutsch which is the language that surrounds the area ( which you probably know is also in rapid decline). Anyway I subscribed to your channel and look forward to more great videos
@@edmondpiffard2771 That's cool, and I'm glad you like my channel! Thank you!
What about Norn?
Watch part 2...
If you make a part two, could you please cover Krieewelsch!! I believe it's very related to limbourgish, as it's a low rhine dialect. It's spoken in the city of Krefeld, Germany (as well as some surrounding towns). It's sound is very unique, and has some really wholesome and amazing unique words like 'mimm', for cat!!. There is a lot off efforts in the city at the moment to promote it as well. 'Krieewelsch . de' has some good resources on it :). Here is a sample of Krieewelsch + German Hochdeutch translation: (Krieewelsch) En jootjefuorde mimm fengt emmer wier de weäg nooe hus. (German) Eine gutgefütterte Katze kommt immer wierder. (English) A well-fed cat keeps coming back. My own grand parents spoke it and I really think it's a beautiful, but little known germanic language.
Sorry for the late reply, my most recent community post explains exactly why. I've just done some quick research into it, it sounds very fascinating and I will be doing more research into it for Part 3 (Part 2 has already been recorded and will be released on Friday). Thank you for telling me about this, I would have never known about it otherwise!!!
@@CheLanguages wow! That's amazing, thank you so much for spreading awareness about all these languages!!
@@thedemongodvlogs7671 That's what I like doing. I hope you have a great day and I appreciate your comment, thank you!
I'm surprised about your pick of "Limburgish". In NL we wouldn't call that a language, but a dialect. There are many, many different dialects and accents of Dutch in NL and Belgium, you would have a field day, most provinces have more than one. But all these dialects in NL and Belgium use the same national dictionary, hence we don't consider them languages. Only exception of course being Frisian. That does have its own dictionary (and is a much older language than Dutch).
Good point, that being said, the Dutch government still have a bilingualism policy in Dutch Limburg, which would be odd for a dialect. Limburgish speakers in the comments say that it is a different language, but standard Dutch is still intelligible to them (if they don't already know it) and people from neighboring regions of the Netherlands say the same about them. I assume you are from the other side of the Netherlands perhaps? Also, Frisian will be in Part 3!
@@CheLanguages No, but just thinking: If you're going to call every dialect (that uses the standard dictionary) a "Forgotten Germanic Language" then your list is going to be very long ...
@@hvermout4248 I suppose, but then I get to shine light on more languages and/or divergent dialects in danger of dying out, and is that a bad thing?
@@CheLanguages Not at all! But you'll be in for a big task!
I didn't assume Faroese would be a "forgotten" Germanic Language until I realised most of the people you ask in public barely know Danish exists...
Also you should have put a buffed Gigachad for Peter Helander.
Still a gigachad nonetheless
@@CheLanguages Once a Gigachad always a Gigachad
Germanic languages are incredibly interesting!
They certainly are. What's your favourite?
@@CheLanguages Icelandic, it seems to be so close to Old Norse. Very inspiring.
Faroese sounds like West Norwegian with North Norwegian r's. North Norwegian is basically just West Norwegian with more apocope and vowel lowering. As someone from northern Norway who knows Nynorsk, I understand almost everything when I read Faroese, it's a bit harder to understand the spoken language, but I understand most of it.
That's really good to know, I'd like to learn more about the dialect continuum across Norway, Sweden and Denmark
I guess there are much more like for example Hianzisch. I heard my grandparents speaking it but I am sure I did not learn it properly. Now they are all under the ground.
Tomorrow I will be releasing part 2, I can make a part 3, 4, 5 and so on, there are so many more to talk about!
Dutch sound [c], spelt with "tj", is the same sound as Indonesian "c", like 'cuma', 'cangkir', 'cabut'. Before 1973, we spelt this sound with "tj", too, since we had been colonized by the Dutch for hundreds of years. It consists of one sound only. English-speaking people pronounce it with two sounds /t/ and /ʃ/, thus: /tʃ/.
Dutch [ɟ], spelt "dj", is the same sound as Indonesian "j", like 'jangan', 'Jakarta', 'Januari', etc. Before 1973, we spelt this sound with "dj", too, since we had been colonized by the Dutch for hundreds of years. It consists of one sound only. English-speaking people pronounce it with two sounds /d/ and /ʒ/, thus: /dʒ/.
Odd how you phrased it but yeah
@@CheLanguages "Odd"? No...of course. In linguistic discussion, we usually discuss speech sounds of languages in that way, comparing the speech sounds coming out from our mouths from how they are written in regular Latin letters.
@@ramamonato5039 I meant it's odd how you basically wrote the same paragraph word for word twice
@@CheLanguages Oh I see...that's the magic of 'copy paste'. Thank you.
@@CheLanguages I had to do it because I have to compare the the pronunciation and the spelling of the minimal pair 'ch' and 'j'...I did not edit the sentences typed there.
There's another forgotten Germanic language, spoken by less than fifty people in a small town in Southern Poland. (In case you were considering making part 2) The language is Wymysiöeryś. Its speakers, due to political reasons (communist dictatorship etc) stopped passing it down in the 1940s/50s and as a result nowadays it's spoken only by a handful of old people. It's basically the last chance to make records of it as it will most likely be extinct within the next decade.
You have not watched my part 2 video yet, that is exactly the first language I talk about
@@CheLanguages oops sorry indeed I hadn't realised you talked about it, in fact I didn't 9 your part 2 video had already come. Spot on. Great of you to mention it, for the last fifteen years or so I've been based in krakow which is less than 100km away from that town & most of ppl here have no idea vilamovian even exists. Anyway just want to add I really like your videos, keep making them. Good on you!
@@awbinn3377 thank you for your kind comment!! Czy ty jesteś Polakiem?
@@CheLanguages w polowie :)
@@awbinn3377 Ach, ciekawe, jaka jest druga połowa? Czy pochodzisz z Polski?
True story: I was on the subway in NYC. Some tourists got in and this is what I heard....
-Wo gehen wir auf?
-Wir gehen auf an dreizig dritte Straße.
- Und dann?
- zu die Museum.
- Ich hoffe das ich will lieben die Museum.
So, German words in English word order. Now here's the freaky part .. It was all as if spoken by.... Wait for it.....
The Swedish Chef from Sesame Street! If you don't know the Swedish Chef, search Swedish Chef Hot Pepper here on YT.
I was standing there dumbfounded. An elderly woman caught my eye and she was equally confused. She was like, "Do you have any idea???. My response was "none whatsoever".
Here's my question: What were they speaking???? The 'boingy-boingy' was so strong it was like a parody of a Swedish accent. I've never heard anything like it before or since.
Ich nisht spreke die Deutsch, what does this say?
might it have been yiddish? yiddish is spoken in NYC by the hasidic jewish community and it uses a word order which is more like english/slavic than standard german. so you'll hear things like, "ikh vil geyn tsum muzey" instead of "ikh vil tsum muzey geyn" (I want to go to the museum)
@@eve3614 It could have been, the Swedish sound he's talking about doesn't really exist in Yiddish though
It might have been Pennsylvania Dutch.
@@bernhardschmalhofer855 that is definitely a possibility too
Älvdalen means river valley
Yes, some others said this. It's nice to know
6:56 This isn't correct, Luxembourgish is decidedly a high German dialect, not a low German one.
Maybe I made a slip up, but I'm aware that the neighboring dialects in Germany are mutually intelligible with Luxembourgish and claim that it's the same language
@@CheLanguages the neighboring dialects in Germany are intelligible, yes. I live about 100km from Luxembourg and I do understand maybe 80% of spoken Luxembourgish. BUT these dialects, too, including Palatinate which I speak, are all High German ones, and like Luxembourgish, have undergone most of the High German sound shift that Low German, Fristian, Limburgs and Dutch have not. Limbourgish, and indeed any Low German dialect as well, isn't really intelligible to Germans living in the vicinity of Luxembourg. Perhaps it's different 100 or 200 km up north, yes. But not in the direct vicinity of Luxembourg, that's definitely too far south from the High German - Low German border.
@@arthur_p_dent ah, that's cleared a few things up for me. Thank you
Native Dutch speaker here, Limburgs is almost completely intelligible for me. It usually isn't seen as a seperate language, although the street signs in Limburg have both Dutch and Limburgs text on them. I think it may not be seen as a seperate language here because it is overshadowed by Frisian, which is much less intelligible for Dutch speakers. There are also a lot of other dialects here like Zeeuws from the region where I live or Gronings from the north of the country that are definitely not classified as seperate languages and are only a little more intelligible to us than Limburgs. As for the two dialects written in the video, both are in my opinion equally intelligible when you hear them, it is just the spelling that is very different from Dutch as they are, like most dialects here, written phonetically with áccènts and ümläuts which Dutch itself doesn't use that much.
Also, if you like the Limburgish flag you should look at the flag of Zeeland, the region where I live. It has a lion too and waves to symbolize our constant battle against the sea.
You have answered my question on how intelligible it is! Thank you for your comment!! I was reluctant to mention Frisian in this video actually given how much attention it gets as a marginalized Germanic language, though I could talk about its Eastern Dialects in another video sometime.
It depends on where you are from. I am from Limburg and speak Limburgish and I have experienced on many occasions that people from the North (above the Rhine) have no clue what I am saying when I speak Limburgish. If you have only ever been to Venlo, you could be forgiven for thinking that Dutch and Limburgish could be the same, but the further south you go, and especially starting at Roermond or Sittard, the dialect becomes much more foreign to standard Dutch
@@sebe2255 It seems like it's a continuum to me
Also yeah, I love that Zeeland flag!
As a Swede. I can understand about as much Elfdalian as Faroese
Which is how much?
Pronancation is closer, but yes, it's on a similar level of intelligibility as icelandic and faroese
@@simontollin2004 Good to know
@@CheLanguages About 70-80% I would say
@@svantenelander7131 that's interesting in comparison with my other comments
Let's see how many more times the cl community will guess correctly for the next vid
They weren't so correct when I put my poll up the other day. I hope you liked this video!
@@CheLanguages Outro music was too loud. Only real bad thing i can say
@@seid3366 really? I even quietened it LOL. I've been messing around with the audio settings recently, I managed to make my voice louder in this one as that's what people wanted
@@CheLanguages Make sure when eqing both the master track of your voice, and to the BGM, that they're not overpowering each other. Two tests are the headphones test and the speakers
@@seid3366 what's eqing and BGM?
As a native Swedish speaker, I can't understand Elfdalian at all lol
LOL
Can you spot any cognates though?
@@CheLanguages A few words I can recognize but I don't understand what the sentence in the video is about.
@@soup1649 that's interesting, I really hope Sweden designates it as a real language