@@unnamedchannel2202 Its a matter of youtube status. At the end of the day people just want content and apologies for being late on a video just ages like milk. I guess you are right though
This helps so much ! I am a speaker of a language coming from latin.I never studied any of that at school, obviously , as we study latin and our own language.They do not teach any of that at language schools either.I speak English and now I am studying german.So useful!Thank you!
Thank you, this was very interesting. I speak German and Dutch and recognise a lot. What surprises me is the combination `ae´ is pronounced like a modern A.
As an American that is learning German, the Old English is always interesting to me in these videos, as it really does seem to be a blend of the two. It really shows the Germanic roots of English to me.
I speak frisian, dutch, german and english. In my experiance modern frisian is still very close to old english. As you will have noticed they often use old frisian because it is, of all old languages, the most similar to old english.
Greetings from quarantined Spain. Love the tidbits by which you make language come eerily alive. It's awesome--in the sense that I'm filled with awe--whenever I see the various cognates and derivatives slowly merge out of a root, or point back to an Ur-trunk... Here in Spain, I love hearing the transformation, from Latin, to an O or a U or some other less clear ending, depending on the region, and depending on whether Latin was adapted to rhe pre-existing speech of Basques, Celts, Visigoths, or Berber invaders. Similarly, when I studied in Germany, it was an endless source of fun to hear the various dialects address the first person singular: Ish in the Rhein region, Ihhhhh in the north of Germany, Ick in the east (Berlin) and iccchhh in Bavaria... I believe there are regions where it's simply I (eeh)... Likewise, English is a garden bursting with such flowers... I look forward to seeing Baldrick lost in the interior of a modern English home. As in other such videos, it should be both fun and slightly heartbreaking... Thanks
Hi Simon I'm currently reading a book about the Norman Conquest and it says that sheriff comes from shire reeve, the word forest originally meant outside Latin for outside is foras and that sterling comes from the old English word stoer which means fixed ie the value of money was fixed.
I came back to this video after three years, because I hadn’t slapped a like on it. I appreciate your efforts, and I especially appreciate your willingness to backtrack and make corrections when necessary.I got a lot of flack recently for viewing videos, such as yours, as if it were not possible for a person to thoroughly and honestly study and discuss arcane things without a terminal degree. It’s embarrassing to think that such folks think of themselves as complete. After all, there’s just the joy of learning. Oh, and also, I wanted to get you up to 290 likes on this one.
The final scene was cool. I, too, commuted in almost empty trains at the beginning of the pandemic. Now they are heavily overcrowded with standing passengers due to the 9-euro ticket valid for one month and all over Germany. I like trains.
Thanks to you, Simon Roper, for making these fascinating videos. It opens a window on a world that is otherwise pretty inaccessible to most of us. Cheers!
My mothertongue is German and I can confirm, that "ich will" often reduces to " 'chwill", at least in my dialect. Example: "Was ich will" becomes "Was'ch will" (What I want). Btw. I like your Videos a lot! Old English reminds me lot of German.
Love the channel sir...I have heard many of my family ( Glaswegian Scots and Scots from Isle of Lewis ) use the phrase " no the now " and that always led me to believe that there was a merging of no and the into what is now "Not" as in "not Now" ... Didn't cross my mind until I heard it again in a movie from the 90's...
I am researching Middle English/Scots usages/informal terms. My starting place? The best rhyming dictionary I've ever come across, published by Blue Ribbon Books in 1936. It is astonishing how many ways folks of that time had to call someone a dope. And far more creatively than we do today. Fun-fun-fun!
Just a fun fact at 6:44: The Old English “ic will” is super similar to “ik wil” and „ich will” from Dutch and German respectively. Both of which have the same meaning as “I want (to)”.
Interesting discussion Simon. I completely agree on witting and unwitting evidence of elision and contraction in AS. Even today we get this in local pronunciation of places. In North Warwickshire, for instance, locals call Bedworth, 'Beduth'. It's always amusing when the BBC tv regional cub reporter rides a coach and horses through these local traditions. Look forward to further Anglo-Saxon self isolation!
Another instance of linguistic shift is the American influence on words like 'leverage' which is now pronounced 'lev-ridge' in UK but when I was at school was always 'Leever-ridge'.
Railway announcements typically don't follow local tradition: e.g. Crewe doesn't get the final "w" that you would hear in Staffordshire. Uttoxeter is pronounced "You-TOX-et-er," not "Ucheter" or even "Ugg."
The library example is an interesting one. You've mentioned long consonants in other videos and that we don't (really) have them in English, but your video made me realize that I think library is sometimes pronounced with a long r: librry
In Swedish we observe an actual sound change that seems similar to "efn" and "emn". "Hafn" became "hamn" (haven, harbor). "Rafn" became "ramn" (raven). "S(v)öfn" became "sömn" (sleep). In Danish, we instead get "havn", "ravn", and "søvn". I imagine due to how the vowel is pronounced. Fun fact: the Romanian cognate is "somn", from Latin "somnus", Proto. IE. "swepnos". Interesting to see how words with a common origin can maintain their similarities over thousands of years without contact. Of course, The Spanish "sueño" and Italian "sonno" have gone through more changes.
I say in my Viennese dialect "emn" (flat) and "ramn" (raven) as well Generally I noticed that people from Scandinavia but also Dutch can do our Viennese dialect way way better than Germans do..Well to be honest Germans don´t get it anyway their trys always sound very awful.
You're a great guy, mate. The speciality of your presentations is that you're not editing your videos and you're recording them just so naturally and also you don't have any scripts prepared. You seem to be a selfless guy that has a genuine scholarly interest and intellect. Keep it on.
Engeland in Dutch. Here the "la" is not dropped but reduced to a schwa. (Btw, if you'd literally translate it using modern Dutch, it would mean "long and narrow land" (like narrow path), or "creepy land").
Interesting! I can see how contractions would be difficult to reconstruct. For example, in spoken German, contractions are very widespread, but almost never written. So /mit 'aɪ.nəm/, ⟨mit einem⟩ gets reduced to [ˈmɪ.ʔm̩], but you'd never write that down It's not difficult to see how that also applies to Old English. Thanks for the video!
I think it's funny that UK English has such a different pronunciation for probably. In my region of the US (West Michigan), "prob'ly" is usually only said by children. (Educated/Middle class) Adults usually say the full "probably" when emphasizing the word, "proba'lY" or "probablY" (with emphasis shifted to the final syllable) as a one-word response to a question, and either "prolly" or "prai" in rapid speech. The use of "prai" is something I only really notice younger speakers doing. "Prob'ly" or "Proba'ly" (without the emphasis on the final syllable) are usually said by children and less educated adults in the same places where educated adults would likely say the full "probably", and this is one of the markers of which class you're from (along with hypercorrections like "whom" and "often" (with the t pronounced), among other things).
Thanks, Simon. Another great video. I'm Canadian. I say 'LIE-BERRY', instead of library. I don't know why, as I only started saying it this way in the last few years. It is much easier to pronounce, and laziness has its benefits. Only children pronounce it this way, and adults are too polite to correct my deliberate mispronunciation. But everyone can still understand me when I say it.
I know nothing about linguistics, but I love watching these videos - one of the few channels who's videos I watch to the very end. Please carry on with these!
Great to see you back, Simon. The spoken contracted versions being the forms a child would first hear and copy. I thought all the days of the week had two syllables.
So glad you're back and able to make more of these fascinating videos. "I'll try not to do it so regular that it become annoying..." LOL -- yes, Simon. Please don't become the Phil Collins of Anglo Saxon language videos!
I love your posts, thank you very much for them. "Chill" for "I will" - the chorus of William Byrd's song of 1588, "Though Amaryllis dance in green" has often been misunderstood - "Hey, ho, chill love no more", nothing to do with coldness.
An outstanding example of languages with a long written tradition having a distinct difference between the written or literary and spoken or vernacular language is Chinese which classical written manner maintained over 2000 years. It was only until the 1920's that colloquial Chinese became the common written form, but classical or literary form of Chinese is yet used for special announcements and occasions. Note I do not reference pronunciation or dialects which did not affect the writing of classical Chinese known as 文言文。The result is a person educated to classical Chinese can capably read texts from the Han to Qing dynasties regardless of how those characters were pronounced then or now; the written form communicates even if the pronunciations are mutually unintelligible.
Hi Simon from Munich, Germany! I am delighted to have recently discovered your channel, since I as a native English speaker help German pupils learn English. Could you explain how English got from wollde to want? So many of my young German students fall into the trap of wanting to use the English future tense "I will" for the German "Ich will" (which is"I want" in English). Same problem with the German word " bekommen" ("to get" in English) and the English word "to become" which is "werden" in German. I have found that it helps my students to remember or to catch themselves making the mistake if we discuss how English got to where it is from their own mother tongue,if possible. Hope you read this and can give me some information for my future lessons. Thx so much! Anita
I know this comment is a year old, but you've prompted me to do some research. It looks like "want" came to Middle English via Old Norse "vanta", originally meaning "to lack", I'd speculate that this evolved into "to desire" or "wish for" over time on the basis of mentioning that you lack something often implies that you also desire that thing. In this case it doesn't look like you can draw a line from "want" back to "wollde" because it seems to instead have been supplanted in Middle English by a new word with a different etymology.
The words “not”, “nought” and the dialectical “nowt” are ALL apparently contractions of the phrase “ne awiht, which literally means “not anything”, where “ne” meant not, the extinct word “a” (surprisingly not the indefinite article we are familiar with) meant any or ever, and “wiht” (which also evolves elsewhere into both “wight” and “whit”) meant thing. Curiously, the phrase “not a whit” has also survived in modern English, which would seem to be the original phrase, but with its own contraction, “not” (which has replaced “ne” in modern English in this context) included, and “a” assumed by modern speakers who use the phrase to be its homophone indefinite article. Essentially, the phrase “not a whit”, if you analyze it etymologically, is actually the somewhat tautological “ne awiht a wiht”. It’s modern meaning of “no, not even a little bit” is clearly pretty much the same as the original ne awiht meaning of “not any thing”. I find it kind of cool that the same exact phrase has survived independently into modern English in four different ways that modern speakers wouldn’t necessarily recognise as being the same, but that each retain much of the original meaning, that one modern Brit might say “I’ve had nowt to eat”, while another might say “I’ve had not a whit to eat” (possibly even “I’ve had no’ a whit to eat”), and the two would not only be saying things with the same meaning, but that are etymologically identical.
I find the way elision and contraction works between (groups of) accents to be fascinating. For example, I think virtually every English as a First Language Speaker elides “probably” into something resembling probly or prolly in a casually spoken setting, but most American and Canadian EFL speakers retain all three syllables in “library” in speech.
You raise the point that poetic speech may differ from ordinary speech. This is very obvious in Modern French, where a lot of final vowels and syllables are pronounced in verse and song that are not heard in ordinary speech. I don't know if that was the case in Middle French: if so it could have influenced Frenchified Middle English poets like Chaucer, in which case scansion might not be an accurate guide to the non-poetic language.
In Dutch that ik (I) gets reduced to 'k. So you could end up with something like 'kwil (ik wil, I want). Het becomes 't. Een becomes 'n. So we seem to pick the last letter of the personal pronouns to vocalise, when contracting.
In Afrikaans “ ‘n “ has become the formal equivalent of the English “ a “ or “an” which I suppose comes from the German/Dutch “een ”. Is this the same in written Dutch now?
In Dutch we contract it to ‘k wil en ‘k zal (I will and I shall, though the meaning of will is ‘want’) We often use a k sound when English or Frisian use a ‘ch’ like kalk, kerk etc (similar to Scots I believe too).
The efen/emn example is still exhibited in Standard Dutch (even, pronounced virtually identical to efen) versus many Dutch Low Saxon dialects (eemn, pronounced like emn)
In Serbian, the today standardized ''Nemam'' is an elision of ''Ne imam'', which I don't have.... Also, ''Neću'' is an elision of ''Ne hoću'', which is '' I don't want''...just thought I'd point out that commonality, especially given that it's been standardized for ...centuries, really.
Hey Simon, thanks for your work; your videos are entertaining, educational and inspiring. I'd like to point out, that in most german dialects will transform a "ben" into an "m". So in bavarian german for example you would probably say "Mer ham" instead of "Wir haben".
Eben being pronounced emn for even is also interesting from a Swedish standpoint where the word for even is emn with an addition of a pre j so jemn though the word is spelled with the Swedish letter ä in steed of the e so jämn.
![Run Away - Tzuyu(TWICE) ツウィ 쯔위 [Music Bank] | KBS WORLD TV 240906](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/KnHNNyAYiu0/mqdefault.jpg)
Rule number 1 of RUclips: never apologize for being late in a video. Five years from now when this video becomes suddenly popular it won't ever matter
So you are saying to be polite is a bad habit? 🤣
@@unnamedchannel2202 Its a matter of youtube status. At the end of the day people just want content and apologies for being late on a video just ages like milk. I guess you are right though
keep it up simon you’re the ceo of youtube linguistics
keep it up simon you're the ceo of youtube
@@Kelly_C keep it up simon you're the ceo
keep it up simon you're
Keep it up Simon
@@johnjokersey8313 keep it up
If I had to be quarantined with anyone it would be Simon, I would emerge in 3 weeks blinking into the sun, and speaking perfect old english.
I feel like everything is going to be alright now.
I would like very much to get a closer look at the collection of books behind you.
This helps so much ! I am a speaker of a language coming from latin.I never studied any of that at school, obviously , as we study latin and our own language.They do not teach any of that at language schools either.I speak English and now I am studying german.So useful!Thank you!
I think you wanted to send a calming message to your subscribers by sneaking the word “chill” into your video )))
Thank you, this was very interesting. I speak German and Dutch and recognise a lot. What surprises me is the combination `ae´ is pronounced like a modern A.
As an American that is learning German, the Old English is always interesting to me in these videos, as it really does seem to be a blend of the two. It really shows the Germanic roots of English to me.
I speak frisian, dutch, german and english.
In my experiance modern frisian is still very close to old english. As you will have noticed they often use old frisian because it is, of all old languages, the most similar to old english.
oh yeah daddy simon i love it when you talk historical linguistics to me
jail 💀
Sebastian. Stop it.
Ik was, 'kwas, ik wil, 'kwil, toen ik. Turned your examples into Dutch!
These videos are amazing, thanks!
Greetings from quarantined Spain. Love the tidbits by which you make language come eerily alive. It's awesome--in the sense that I'm filled with awe--whenever I see the various cognates and derivatives slowly merge out of a root, or point back to an Ur-trunk... Here in Spain, I love hearing the transformation, from Latin, to an O or a U or some other less clear ending, depending on the region, and depending on whether Latin was adapted to rhe pre-existing speech of Basques, Celts, Visigoths, or Berber invaders. Similarly, when I studied in Germany, it was an endless source of fun to hear the various dialects address the first person singular: Ish in the Rhein region, Ihhhhh in the north of Germany, Ick in the east (Berlin) and iccchhh in Bavaria... I believe there are regions where it's simply I (eeh)... Likewise, English is a garden bursting with such flowers...
I look forward to seeing Baldrick lost in the interior of a modern English home. As in other such videos, it should be both fun and slightly heartbreaking... Thanks
Thank you for your extreme interest in the history of our language.
Thank you for uploading. You've put me in a good mood.
these videos make me so happy. i love them. please make lots more.
All the best to you too Simon.
Thank you for this! Please stay safe!
Hope that you are well and thank you for interesting stuff to watch while we're trapped at home
Welcome back, I look forward to more videos!
You are a sane and erudite voice amidst the chaos. Yes, more vids are welcome, cheers Professor Roper x
Hi Simon I'm currently reading a book about the Norman Conquest and it says that sheriff comes from shire reeve, the word forest originally meant outside Latin for outside is foras and that sterling comes from the old English word stoer which means fixed ie the value of money was fixed.
Thank you for your time and effort. I love your chanel
Yes that is a fashionable shirt
I came back to this video after three years, because I hadn’t slapped a like on it. I appreciate your efforts, and I especially appreciate your willingness to backtrack and make corrections when necessary.I got a lot of flack recently for viewing videos, such as yours, as if it were not possible for a person to thoroughly and honestly study and discuss arcane things without a terminal degree. It’s embarrassing to think that such folks think of themselves as complete. After all, there’s just the joy of learning. Oh, and also, I wanted to get you up to 290 likes on this one.
Thanks again. You have a great knack of making 'obscure' knowledge fascinating.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Absolutely fascinating. Stay healthy, Simon.
To get our minds of COVID19 let’s have a look at English from the time of the Black Death 🤣
aye cully
Quite a long time before the Black Death!
I look forward to being entertained by your marvellously insightful talks. Thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge.
I don't know if this happens elsewhere but here in Australia "what's going on?" Has become "'skarnon?"
Ha! That’s funny. Great example but I still think “imma” for “I am going to” is the most astonishing
I'd'n't've (I would not have) is one of my favourite contractions in speech.
The final scene was cool. I, too, commuted in almost empty trains at the beginning of the pandemic. Now they are heavily overcrowded with standing passengers due to the 9-euro ticket valid for one month and all over Germany. I like trains.
Reminds me of Latin where "Scriptum est" was sometimes written as "Scriptust" or something like that. Clear evidence of elision.
Great to hear from you 😁
Thanks to you, Simon Roper, for making these fascinating videos. It opens a window on a world that is otherwise pretty inaccessible to most of us. Cheers!
Stay safe Simon, you'll probably be an Oxford Don one day.
thank you for being the indigenous affairs department in a nation that doesn't want it
Many thanks man! Great video, very valuable.
Absolutely hooked. I've had a theological brain explosion and I'm looking forward to making my Bishop groan from my insights😁😁😂😂
My mothertongue is German and I can confirm, that "ich will" often reduces to " 'chwill", at least in my dialect. Example: "Was ich will" becomes "Was'ch will" (What I want).
Btw. I like your Videos a lot! Old English reminds me lot of German.
My mum used to teach in a small Wiltshire school, many years ago. One child wrote that his school meals weren't large enough and he wanted "smordeat"
Keep producing the videos Simon, it is all interesting stuff
Always good to see you, Simon! We love your content.
Enjoying these videos Simon! Thank you.
I learned so much about languages from your videos, appreciate your work!
Love the channel sir...I have heard many of my family ( Glaswegian Scots and Scots from Isle of Lewis ) use the phrase " no the now " and that always led me to believe that there was a merging of no and the into what is now "Not" as in "not Now" ... Didn't cross my mind until I heard it again in a movie from the 90's...
Love your videos: of their time, but connecting us with past times.
I see YOU there Simon, love these lessons, fascinating!
Thank you! These videos are a great help with my learning of Old English.
I am researching Middle English/Scots usages/informal terms. My starting place? The best rhyming dictionary I've ever come across, published by Blue Ribbon Books in 1936. It is astonishing how many ways folks of that time had to call someone a dope. And far more creatively than we do today. Fun-fun-fun!
I really cant get enough of your videos man! These remind me of the best parts of studying in college =D
Just a fun fact at 6:44: The Old English “ic will” is super similar to “ik wil” and „ich will” from Dutch and German respectively.
Both of which have the same meaning as “I want (to)”.
Danish: Jeg [yigh] vil ... ( orig. "ek" in ON )
Jeg vil have = I will have / I want
He also mentions haebbe and wollde at 4:11, both words being very similar to the German habe and wollen respectively.
not Isaak The contraction is also similar
not Isaak The contraction is also similar in Dutch: ‘ik wil’ often becomes ‘ ‘k wil’.
‘kwil dat niet - I don’t want that.
Anglo-Saxon always puts me at ease. I have no idea why....
Interesting discussion Simon. I completely agree on witting and unwitting evidence of elision and contraction in AS. Even today we get this in local pronunciation of places. In North Warwickshire, for instance, locals call Bedworth, 'Beduth'. It's always amusing when the BBC tv regional cub reporter rides a coach and horses through these local traditions. Look forward to further Anglo-Saxon self isolation!
Even Beduff.
@@carlatate7678 True Carla...and let's not even get onto Cheylesmore (pron. Charles-moor) haha
Another instance of linguistic shift is the American influence on words like 'leverage' which is now pronounced 'lev-ridge' in UK but when I was at school was always 'Leever-ridge'.
Railway announcements typically don't follow local tradition: e.g. Crewe doesn't get the final "w" that you would hear in Staffordshire. Uttoxeter is pronounced "You-TOX-et-er," not "Ucheter" or even "Ugg."
Very intelligent discussion of what might have been said in the spoken language..
I am a big fan and love your shots of nature. This is all so surreal isn't it?
The library example is an interesting one. You've mentioned long consonants in other videos and that we don't (really) have them in English, but your video made me realize that I think library is sometimes pronounced with a long r: librry
In Swedish we observe an actual sound change that seems similar to "efn" and "emn". "Hafn" became "hamn" (haven, harbor). "Rafn" became "ramn" (raven). "S(v)öfn" became "sömn" (sleep). In Danish, we instead get "havn", "ravn", and "søvn". I imagine due to how the vowel is pronounced.
Fun fact: the Romanian cognate is "somn", from Latin "somnus", Proto. IE. "swepnos". Interesting to see how words with a common origin can maintain their similarities over thousands of years without contact. Of course, The Spanish "sueño" and Italian "sonno" have gone through more changes.
I say in my Viennese dialect "emn" (flat) and "ramn" (raven) as well
Generally I noticed that people from Scandinavia but also Dutch can do our Viennese dialect way way better than Germans do..Well to be honest Germans don´t get it anyway their trys always sound very awful.
its "eben", "Hafen", "Rabe" and "schlafen" in german
Thanks for the video! Need this in the duration of the pandemic.
You're a great guy, mate. The speciality of your presentations is that you're not editing your videos and you're recording them just so naturally and also you don't have any scripts prepared. You seem to be a selfless guy that has a genuine scholarly interest and intellect. Keep it on.
Sehr gute Beiträge.
Ænglaland gang
Engeland in Dutch. Here the "la" is not dropped but reduced to a schwa. (Btw, if you'd literally translate it using modern Dutch, it would mean "long and narrow land" (like narrow path), or "creepy land").
Or Angelþeoð, where þeoð is the noun to adjective Deutsch.
@@dorusie5 Engeland would be Tightland in German.
Well, I was born in Sussex, moved to Middlesex, and am now in Essex. I am surely in the gang.
Neil Wilson No love for Wessex then?
Interesting!
I can see how contractions would be difficult to reconstruct.
For example, in spoken German, contractions are very widespread, but almost never written.
So /mit 'aɪ.nəm/, ⟨mit einem⟩ gets reduced to [ˈmɪ.ʔm̩], but you'd never write that down
It's not difficult to see how that also applies to Old English.
Thanks for the video!
I think it's funny that UK English has such a different pronunciation for probably. In my region of the US (West Michigan), "prob'ly" is usually only said by children. (Educated/Middle class) Adults usually say the full "probably" when emphasizing the word, "proba'lY" or "probablY" (with emphasis shifted to the final syllable) as a one-word response to a question, and either "prolly" or "prai" in rapid speech. The use of "prai" is something I only really notice younger speakers doing. "Prob'ly" or "Proba'ly" (without the emphasis on the final syllable) are usually said by children and less educated adults in the same places where educated adults would likely say the full "probably", and this is one of the markers of which class you're from (along with hypercorrections like "whom" and "often" (with the t pronounced), among other things).
Thanks, Simon. Another great video. I'm Canadian. I say 'LIE-BERRY', instead of library. I don't know why, as I only started saying it this way in the last few years. It is much easier to pronounce, and laziness has its benefits. Only children pronounce it this way, and adults are too polite to correct my deliberate mispronunciation. But everyone can still understand me when I say it.
You are marvelous. This is information that I need. I'm writing a book set in sixteenth-century Cumbria. I am now actively looking for your videos.
No need to apologize about the lack of videos mate, we're just glad to see them when they appear.
I know nothing about linguistics, but I love watching these videos - one of the few channels who's videos I watch to the very end. Please carry on with these!
Great to see you back, Simon. The spoken contracted versions being the forms a child would first hear and copy. I thought all the days of the week had two syllables.
Ok so I understand Wensday but Satday? Satur? I've heard Sa'uhday, but that's still 3.
So glad you're back and able to make more of these fascinating videos. "I'll try not to do it so regular that it become annoying..." LOL -- yes, Simon. Please don't become the Phil Collins of Anglo Saxon language videos!
I'm reminded of some of my poetry, where sometimes I use "interest" & others I use "int'rest".
Excellent effort mate, I follow you from Turkey as an old-english learner, Greetings!
A video from the before times!
Looking forward to your next video. Stay safe and well.
I love your posts, thank you very much for them. "Chill" for "I will" - the chorus of William Byrd's song of 1588, "Though Amaryllis dance in green" has often been misunderstood - "Hey, ho, chill love no more", nothing to do with coldness.
An outstanding example of languages with a long written tradition having a distinct difference between the written or literary and spoken or vernacular language is Chinese which classical written manner maintained over 2000 years. It was only until the 1920's that colloquial Chinese became the common written form, but classical or literary form of Chinese is yet used for special announcements and occasions. Note I do not reference pronunciation or dialects which did not affect the writing of classical Chinese known as 文言文。The result is a person educated to classical Chinese can capably read texts from the Han to Qing dynasties regardless of how those characters were pronounced then or now; the written form communicates even if the pronunciations are mutually unintelligible.
I love simon's british accent. greetings from Venezuela!!!
Yes, Ich becomes I in the Bavarian dialect and is used quite often in colloquial speak there. Thanks, Simon. Be well.
Very interesting watching your videos while simultaneously learning German.
Could you do an authentic late middle ages speech? Like the Plantagenet reign?
Hi Simon from Munich, Germany! I am delighted to have recently discovered your channel, since I as a native English speaker help German pupils learn English. Could you explain how English got from wollde to want? So many of my young German students fall into the trap of wanting to use the English future tense "I will" for the German "Ich will" (which is"I want" in English). Same problem with the German word " bekommen" ("to get" in English) and the English word "to become" which is "werden" in German. I have found that it helps my students to remember or to catch themselves making the mistake if we discuss how English got to where it is from their own mother tongue,if possible. Hope you read this and can give me some information for my future lessons.
Thx so much! Anita
I know this comment is a year old, but you've prompted me to do some research. It looks like "want" came to Middle English via Old Norse "vanta", originally meaning "to lack", I'd speculate that this evolved into "to desire" or "wish for" over time on the basis of mentioning that you lack something often implies that you also desire that thing.
In this case it doesn't look like you can draw a line from "want" back to "wollde" because it seems to instead have been supplanted in Middle English by a new word with a different etymology.
The words “not”, “nought” and the dialectical “nowt” are ALL apparently contractions of the phrase “ne awiht, which literally means “not anything”, where “ne” meant not, the extinct word “a” (surprisingly not the indefinite article we are familiar with) meant any or ever, and “wiht” (which also evolves elsewhere into both “wight” and “whit”) meant thing.
Curiously, the phrase “not a whit” has also survived in modern English, which would seem to be the original phrase, but with its own contraction, “not” (which has replaced “ne” in modern English in this context) included, and “a” assumed by modern speakers who use the phrase to be its homophone indefinite article. Essentially, the phrase “not a whit”, if you analyze it etymologically, is actually the somewhat tautological “ne awiht a wiht”. It’s modern meaning of “no, not even a little bit” is clearly pretty much the same as the original ne awiht meaning of “not any thing”.
I find it kind of cool that the same exact phrase has survived independently into modern English in four different ways that modern speakers wouldn’t necessarily recognise as being the same, but that each retain much of the original meaning, that one modern Brit might say “I’ve had nowt to eat”, while another might say “I’ve had not a whit to eat” (possibly even “I’ve had no’ a whit to eat”), and the two would not only be saying things with the same meaning, but that are etymologically identical.
I find the way elision and contraction works between (groups of) accents to be fascinating. For example, I think virtually every English as a First Language Speaker elides “probably” into something resembling probly or prolly in a casually spoken setting, but most American and Canadian EFL speakers retain all three syllables in “library” in speech.
Good to see you. Stay well.
You raise the point that poetic speech may differ from ordinary speech. This is very obvious in Modern French, where a lot of final vowels and syllables are pronounced in verse and song that are not heard in ordinary speech.
I don't know if that was the case in Middle French: if so it could have influenced Frenchified Middle English poets like Chaucer, in which case scansion might not be an accurate guide to the non-poetic language.
In Dutch, ic will is 'ik wil'. In spoken language often abbrieviated to 'k wil'
In Dutch that ik (I) gets reduced to 'k. So you could end up with something like 'kwil (ik wil, I want). Het becomes 't. Een becomes 'n. So we seem to pick the last letter of the personal pronouns to vocalise, when contracting.
In Afrikaans “ ‘n “ has become the formal equivalent of the English “ a “ or “an” which I suppose comes from the German/Dutch “een ”. Is this the same in written Dutch now?
I love that you cut your own hair, I do too!
Nice video, with cool information.
In Dutch we contract it to ‘k wil en ‘k zal (I will and I shall, though the meaning of will is ‘want’) We often use a k sound when English or Frisian use a ‘ch’ like kalk, kerk etc (similar to Scots I believe too).
Old English is so very close to old Dutch - it almost feels more ‘Dutch’ (or lower German / Saxon) than British to me.
Probably has even shifted further into "prolly" in my dialect.
Interesting, as usual!
The efen/emn example is still exhibited in Standard Dutch (even, pronounced virtually identical to efen) versus many Dutch Low Saxon dialects (eemn, pronounced like emn)
Pandemic-bad, more videos-awesome! Let's have 'em!
"I'll be at home for the next weeks or months or however long"
little did he know
In Serbian, the today standardized ''Nemam'' is an elision of ''Ne imam'', which I don't have....
Also, ''Neću'' is an elision of ''Ne hoću'', which is '' I don't want''...just thought I'd point out that commonality, especially given that it's been standardized for ...centuries, really.
I was about to make the exact same comment, convinced that it would interesting...goddamn language imperialism:)
Cheers for the vid. Good luck with the write up.
Hey Simon, thanks for your work; your videos are entertaining, educational and inspiring.
I'd like to point out, that in most german dialects will transform a "ben" into an "m". So in bavarian german for example you would probably say "Mer ham" instead of "Wir haben".
Eben being pronounced emn for even is also interesting from a Swedish standpoint where the word for even is emn with an addition of a pre j so jemn though the word is spelled with the Swedish letter ä in steed of the e so jämn.
If you are talking Old English it sounds a bit like my own dialect which is Nedersaksisch. Looking forward to more videos. Take care!
As usual, you're infomative n entatainin
Rapid Speech is like Sleight of Words.