Celtic Influence on English
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- Опубликовано: 14 дек 2023
- In this video, I explore a few ways in which people have suggested that Celtic languages - such as Common Brittonic - may have influenced English.
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My Grandma was born in Wales and moved to the midlands in her early 20s. She is fast approaching 100 and she slowly becomes less proficient in English so much so that it's difficult for her great grandkids to understand her. I guess you never quite lose your native language - my kids have been learning Welsh for the past 11 months - tricky because we live in Poland but in the age of italki and whatnot, its definitely doable. This xmas period we'll be visiting her and hopefully she'll smile at the progress we've made!
wait, are you an Englishman living in Poland? how unusual!
Do you know "Mari Lwyd"?
It´s a spooky welsh tradition around x-mas, with a decorated horse head.
The word "Mari" means female horse.
In germany we still using "Mähre" for that and in english "Mare", is sill used.
Wish u all many fun there!!
I'm Breton, but I've also heard of such stories over here, in Brittany: people who've been raised in Breton reverting to their native Breton as they age and approach death, even after decades of practicing the language only sporadically. Apparently, it's quite a sad sight in some nursing homes, because Breton is in rapid decline and, as such, few young people are able to converse fluently in the language, so some elderly people have basically even more difficulties than usual of finding people they can have a basic, decent conversation with.
My own grandma was raised in Breton and didn't speak a single word of French before entering elementary school, at the age of 6. She speaks perfect French now, of course, but hasn't really spoken daily, regular, conversational Breton since, well, I don't know when, (probaly since the last native Breton speaker of her family died a few years ago, and even then...) although she still has retained a fair amount of proficiency in the language after all those years -- with some difficulties, obviously. Unfortunately she didn't raise her children in the language. She's still very healthy for her age and has a few years ahead of her, God willing, so I don't know how it'll play out in the end for her.
Greetings from France ! I wish you a wonderful time with your grandma during this blessed Christmas :)
"fast approaching" is almost approaching? If so, thats the same meaning as the german "fast"
@@derfelcadarn8230 Greetings! Similar stories indeed! We are fortunate that my aunt lives with my Grandma so they support each other. I'm really looking forward to visitng Wales again, my wife loves the place!
One fairly clear example of Irish influence on Irish-English is the so-called "after"-perfect. We say "I'm after giving him a ring there just now" meaning "I have just called him on the phone". "To be after doing X" as a way of saying "To have (just) done X" is a direct translation of the Irish construction "bheith i ndiaidh/tar éis X a dhéanamh", which is how the perfective aspect is expressed in Irish.
Yes, I was going to write that one. I am English, not Irish, but I was once out with a couple of Irish colleagues after work in London, and one of them said he had to go because his girlfriend was “after locking herself out of the house”. I was somewhat confused about exactly what he meant, but my other Irish colleague explained that it meant that his girlfriend had just locked herself out of the house, and that this was a direct translation from Irish grammar into English. I am glad you explained it though, because I was worried I would get detail or nuance wrong…
I've seen some Welsh Argentines speaking English, who still sound Welsh (and a bit Spanish) when speaking it. There's a good chance many of them don't know much English so it would be interesting to see how they sound when they learn it
According to some of my Welsh friends they used to have Welsh-speaking Argentinian exchange students in their school pretty regularly
To me, as a Welsh speaker, people from Patagonia have a definite 'Spanish' tinge to their accents.
I think it's difficult to really say because the "welsh" accent is actually extremely different depending on where you are in Wales. People from North Wales sound so far removed from the South Welsh accent that they only really share a minority of features. North Welsh accents are closer to North West English accents than they are to South Welsh. That is to say, what does "Welsh accent" even mean?
I know someone who grew up on the Isle of Lewis (born 1960s). As a young child, she only spoke and understood Scots Gaelic and didn’t learn English until starting primary school, this was typical of families living there at the time. She mentioned that this doesn’t really happen nowadays and children grow up bilingual.
Sadly even bilingualism is dying out in western Scotland. All our road signs in the Highlands are in English and Gaelic but hardly anybody can actually speak the language, certainly not in the North-East. The extent of our Gaelic education was six weeks in Primary 5 of Gaelic music. There was a Gaelic nursery which some parents sent their children to, but none of them grew up immersed in the language afterwards. Supposedly less than 60,000 Scottish people can speak Gaelic today in Scotland. That's very low out of a Highland population 600,000, all of whom would've been native speakers of Gaelic prior to the Highland Clearances of the 18th century.
@@shaddaboop7998 That’s very sad to hear. I grew up in Angus, and Gaelic just didn’t factor into my upbringing unfortunately. I have ancestors who were from Strathconon and after the clearances, ended up in the lowlands. The older generations were noted as being Gaelic speakers in one of the censuses (I think it was 1901 off the top of my head), but when I found their adult children, they were noted as English speakers only. I found it quite striking
Donald Trump's mum is actually a Scots Gaelic speaker from Stornoway
@@shaddaboop7998
To be fair even before the highland clearances not everyone in the Highlands would've been native Scots Gaelic speakers. Orkney and Shetland lost any Celtic language influence all the way back in the dark ages when the vikings invaded. They spoke a Nordic language called Norn which went extinct in 1850. Lots of aristocratic families would also likely have spoken Scots or English as their first language and quite likely Anglo-Norman French as a second one.
@@RealUlrichLeland The vast majority of people in the Highlands were Gaelic speakers, while the Lowlanders spoke Scots, a Germanic language. Scottish historical revisionism likes to cast the country as a united front against England in the Middle Ages and Early Modern age, but in reality it was a deeply divided country, with Gaelic speaking Catholic tribes in the north and Scots and English speaking feudal, and later also Protestant as well, populations in the south.
I wouldn't necessarily include Orkney and Shetland as being a part of the Highlands, culturally and historically they are distinct, like you said much more Norse influence (even compared to the Hebrides).
Was working down in a Gaeltacht (Irish speaking area) and the old lady on the farm was definitely more fluent in Irish. Though her English was excellent as had worked in London as a young lady, it was a bit stilted. I've heard other older people feeling more comfortable speaking Irish.
Sometimes it's hard to tell with certain people: is their English "incorrect" because their English is weak (better at Irish) or because they are speaking Hiberno-English? Or both?
However, with current generations it's almost impossible to find an adult more fluent in Irish than English.
However, many people still only learn English as a second language later in childhood. Though usually their level of English rapidly overtakes their Irish.
I know people, even in Dublin, for whom English is technically a second language. They usually learn later in childhood, when start school around 5. However functionally it is usually better than their Irish by time reach adulthood
I know two people in their 20s who would defeinetly say they speak Irish better than they speak English. One from the Donegal Gaeltacht and another form the Kerry Gaeltacht.
Take your meds, @@FrozenMermaid666
@@craiczaibatsu8930And they probably can barely understand each other or at least pretend not to. You haven’t seen a fight until you’ve seen a Donegal Irish vs Connemara Irish fight.
@@FrozenMermaid666 "superior", "pure being" How many impure thoughts did you have today? How many right after you just woke up? Get your new-age fake aess out of here. You narcissists are revealing yourselves now, I don't even have to search for you guys anymore
Who was working? You have a problem of omitting pronouns require for anaphora.
To comment on the question marker, "oder" ("or") is the go-to question marker in rather formal language, but in common speech we use other markers way more often. The most common one is a (regionally different) form of "nicht" ("not"). Including "nech" in the Northern dialects, espescially North-Eastern and Prussian, "ne" common in central Germany, "nid"/"nich"/"nh" common in the Southern dialects, espescially South west, "nit" used in Berlin. They are used in all kinds of questions that do not contain a negation, e.g. "Das Video ist echt gut, nh?" ("This video is really good, not?") It originated as a shortened form of the phrase "nicht wahr?" ("Isn't it true?") and this longer phrase may be found in formal speech aswell, although "oder?" seems to be more common in formal speech. Another common question marker in German is "gell" and various forms of it "gelle"/"göll". This marker is believed to come from the verb "gelten" ("to apply"/"to be considered as"/"to be legally enforced") though the exact origin is unclear as far as I know. In contrast to the various forms of "nicht?", "gell?" can be used with any kind of question, including those containing a negation: "Es ist draußen nicht gerade warm heute, gell?" ("It is not particulary warm outside today, is it?"). As well as "nicht?", "gell?" is more common than "oder?" in informal situations, but unlike "nicht wahr?", there exists no form of "gell" (that I know of) that can be used in formal situations.
As someone in the following comments has pointed out "wa?" is the most common question in Berlin and the surrounding areas. It's probably a shortened form of "oder was?" ("or what?") as this longer form does exist in Standard German aswell, though it may possibly could be another short form of "nicht wahr" ("isn't it true?"). I do think it's the former though because "was?" ("what?") and similar forms do exist throughout Germany, though this could possibly be a Berlinism that spread through Germany and was reinterpreted as a form of "oder was?", rather than "nicht wahr?".
Maybe you'll find this information useful or atleast interesting. Thanks for the video, Simon, I enjoy your linguistic uploads a lot.
'Gell and 'gelten' are related to the English word 'yield', I believe.
@@davidjames3787 Looks very much like they are, indeed. Though if true then the meanings drifted apart quite a bit.
let me politely disagree to the details: the variant with «oder?» is _not_ formal; it doesn't _sound_ particularly formal, «oder (etwa) nicht?» sounds somewhat formal, as does following «oder» with an alternative tailored to the respective sentence. what it does is sound standard and hardly anyone in Germany speaks true _standard_ German other than some telly announcers. however, for those who do (usually people who are diaglossic or freaks like me who autistically modelled their language after the telly as a child) «oder?» is actually the go-to. i personally do use «ne?» or variants and even «gell?» occasionally, but they also feel like they have a slight difference in meaning (being more expectant of a positive answer, whereas «oder?» can be used when you literally have no clue what the situation is) but that might be idiosyncratic usage.
also i just realised we have another form of «oder» at the "end" of a question and that's when
a) it is an actual grammatical question and
b) that end of the the utterance is an ellipsis.
it's probably a bit of a speech quirk to use these but it can be done when the alternative is basically clear and possibly too hard or complicated to put into words at that time, or when there are several possible alternatives and you realise mid-sentence you can't be bothered to list all of them.
that one probably translates quite verbatim to English as «or..»
This is very interesting. I grew up in the south east of Ireland, and people there frequently use "or" at the end of questions, both in speech and in text messages. E.g. "Are we going to the cinema tonight or?"
I always interpreted this as implying an implicit alternative (i.e. "Are we going to the cinema tonight or not?"). Perhaps that is indeed the case, but it is interesting that this construct is also present in German...
Berlin and surrounding areas use „wa“.
Afaik Irish English has a "to be after doing something" construction which is lifted from Irish. It expresses that you just did something, like French "venir de"
regarding making questions using the auxiliary "do": I know that in Westfries (in North Holland in the Netherlands), they use it, too. When I was a high school student ca. 50 years ago, an aunt from there asked me "doe je graag naar school toe gaan?" (= do you like to go to school). In regular Dutch it is "Ga je graag naar school?".
And I'm pretty sure in spoken German (at least in some regions), it's also pretty common to use "tun" in similar situations as in English.
ja. Meine Nachbarin "tut so reden" - wir finden es komisch. het is een zeldzaam ding ;-)
@@couchcamperTM The practise of using „tun“ in that way is actively discouraged in education and is classified as non-standard, even it seems to have been widespread.
while that's correct, I think education should discourage other things than the "tun" of a 65yo lady, imho ;-)@@wilkoufert8758
@@wilkoufert8758 The point is that this "do-support" feature exists in Germanic languages other than English regardless of whether it's seen as standard or not in those Germanic languages.
in Swiss German the do-support is widely used: Duesch koche? - Do you cook? / Due nochär no de abfall use bringe! - Bring the rubbish outside later! / Düen sie gärn danze? - Do they like to dance?
Such an interesting video. I’ve lived in Llandeilo, a majority Welsh speaking community (60%) about 20 miles north west of Swansea, that’s exists on the fault line of Welsh and English - a fault line that’s been in place for at least a hundred years, going by the different languages in use on the grave stones in the church yard. I’m English but have been living in this community for 10+ years and been learning Welsh all that time, I can only speak from lived-experience.
Some points to add from your video:
In Welsh in the South, ‘on'd yw e?’ is said at the end of a sentence in the just the way you’ve heard the use of ‘isn’t it’. Welsh teachers I’ve worked with suggest that the ‘isn’t it’ turned up in use in South Wales in English as Welsh speakers adopted English as their second language.
There are several dialects of Welsh in Wales as well as several accents, In country joke/finger pointing claim that North Walians speak Welsh with an English accent and South Walians speak English with a Welsh accent. Although many would say that the North Walian accent is very similar to the Liverpudlian accent and that could be due to the amount of North Walians who migrated to Liverpool for work. But Welsh would have died out in Liverpool relatively late - so it could just be the accent remaining regionally.
In Llandeilo I was surprised to discover the amount of Welsh speakers who operate with two separate accents - They speak Welsh in the local soft Carmarthenshire accent (think Elis James or Rhod Gilbert) but will speak with more RP when then speak English, they tend to be older - perhaps from a time when Welsh was considered a language that would hold you back. Younger people seem to have the same accent for both their Welsh and English speaking.
As an Irish-English speaker, the habitual be wouldn't be "I be" but "I do be" where "do" is mandatory. (Whereas in AAVE it's just "I be"). Maybe there are dialects of Irish-English where it isn't mandatory though and I'm just not aware.
I be and even thou/ you bist were preserved right to modern times in the Westcountry dialect derived from West Saxon- a typical construction is "where be (th)ee agoing to? I be gwain to vather's"
Same in Welsh, the verb to be Bod would literally be translated as rydwi'n (wi'n) - literally I (am) being.
Depending on dialect of AAVE and West Indian English, “I do be” is also used.
Yes, you described the Scottish Gaelic copula and substantive verb well ! I want to add a bit more. ‘S, the copula, is usually used as part of a rather bizarre structure in modern Scottish Gaelic. So, “it is a chair” would be “‘s e sèithear a th’ ann”, which would literally translate to something like “it is a chair that is in (it)”. It’s a bit less common nowadays, but the copula (‘s) can be used for certain emphatic expression. “Nach mór am beud” - “is it not a **great** loss”, with mór (big/great) being emphasised :)
Curious. In Polish we describe identity, by using the copula with an object in the instrumental case instead of nominative. Instrumental is the 'in'/'with' case, so it kinda potentially fits this paradigm at a glance.
@@GdotWdot I think it's more similar to the 'to' copula, derived from the sing/neuter general demonstrative ten/ta/to. 'To' can be used together with the verb 'być' (to be) to form constructions of the type 'nA is nB', eg: 'mój ulubiony deser to tiramisu' = my favourite dessert is tiramisu. 'To' is also used to indicate the focus of a sentence when it is placed at the front, eg: 'to tiramisu jest moim ulubionym deserem' = my favourite dessert is tiramisu (rather than something else)
french moment
This is, obviously, also a thing in Irish. Though I wouldn't say it's not as common nowadays for us, people still use it prodigiously. If I wanted to simply say ‘it is a chair’ I'd say ‘is cathaoir é’. But if I wanted to place emphasis on the fact that it's a *chair* (instead of a stool, maybe) I'd say ‘cathaoir atá ann’, which basically comes from a longer phrase almost identical to your example, ‘is é cathaoir atá ann’. The ‘X atá ann’ structure is actually really common in speech, especially in Connacht Irish (I think Munster would be more likely to still use the copula here, something like ‘cathaoir is ea é’). Your last example is common also, although it's not necessarily just for putting emphasis on the adjective e.g. ‘ba mhór an chaill dúinn’ (‘it was a great loss to us’), which is just the normal way to say it.
@@marcasdebarun6879
- Is it yourself that's in it?
- 'tis.
(- Are you there?
- Yes, I am.)
Typical English in Ireland...
I normally watch one of Simon’s videos when I’m looking into a certain time period in British history. Like clockwork a Celtic video arrives. Brilliant once again.
I am actually learning the 6 modern Celtic languages and all the Germanic languages, including Norse + Icelandic and Dutch and Norwegian etc, which are so pretty, just like English, and these languages are a lot more similar than one may think, even though they look very different at first sight, a lot of the words or most of the words are actually cognates, but the dudes that made the Celtic languages modified the words a lot, so most Celtic words look like a completely different word, but most of the words in Modern Celtic languages were modified from Latin, and Germanic languages come from Latin, so they are kinda related in a way,! There are many words in Welsh that look / sound just like an Old Norse / Icelandic word, and Welsh mostly sounds like Dutch, and also a bit like English as it has some of the sounds found in English! The modern languages have definitely influenced each other a lot, tho the real reason why Modern English uses the verb to do when asking questions is, because Modern English has been modified into a very neutral language with neutral word endings, so it wouldn’t sound right without the verb to do, but if one used the stronger verb endings like eth, one could say something like ‘doeth ye that?’ or ‘dothye that?’ instead of ‘do you do that?’ etc, it’s all about the word endings, English being the only Germanic language with very neutral verb / word endings, while the other Germanic languages have strong verb endings, so they do not need an extra verb like to do!
@@FrozenMermaid666AcTuAlLy
Great video!
I'm a native speaker of American English, but I began learning Scottish Gaelic in my teens from a native speaker living in my hometown in California, and I later spent a few stints doing short courses at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Scottish Gaelic college on Skye. I've spent some time in Ireland studying Irish as well, and over the years, I've dabbled in learning Breton.
There are certainly still people--old and young--for whom Scottish Gaelic is their native language at home. I've met several Scottish Gaelic-speaking adults (both native speakers and second-language fluent learners) who have gone to great lengths to minimize their children's exposure to English until school age. As late as the 1950s, children in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland were sometimes physically punished if they were heard speaking Gaelic in school. Not surprisingly, this is where you see a "lost generation" of people whose parents spoke Gaelic and who spoke it natively as young children but then transitioned to being monoglot English speakers. An acquaintance who teaches Gaelic calls such people "native non-speakers"; some have returned to the language later in life. Likewise, even though Gaelic-medium education has grown over the past few decades, the pressures of English on young people are immense such that their spoken Gaelic is peppered with English vocabulary, and they may lack confidence in the correctness of their Gaelic even if it's technically their native language.
One interesting feature of Highland English is that it tends to be a "milder"-sounding dialect than other Scottish English dialects spoken in the Lowlands. I've heard multiple people from the Highlands and Islands (both Gaelic speakers and monoglot English speakers) insist that this is because Highland English developed as a second language among Gaelic speakers who were keen to avoid prejudicial stigmas about their speech. I don't know to what extent there's any truth to that. In any case, it's not uncommon to hear bits of Gaelic peppered in Highland English ("Right, mach a' seo!", "Alright, ma-tha", etc.) as well as phrases whose construction seems borrowed from Gaelic. One that comes to mind is "I'm/I was just after ___________", e.g. "I was just after coming back from work", or in Gaelic, "Bha mi dìreach air tilleadh bho'n obair," using the pluperfect form of the verb. I've also heard people use this construction in both Irish and Irish English.
In terms of academic content, this is really interesting.
On a more "vibes based" evaluation , This has been such a pleasant watch. i really love how you incorporate garden footage into your videos, it makes for a really comfortable and cosy viewing experience. I just sat down to a cup of tea and this video and it made me very happy
It is such an interesting thought experiment to think of a Welsh language speaker learning English in adulthood, and seeing how similar the language features are to Welsh English or Welsh/English speakers, and deduce how many features comes from the Welsh language itself and how much is a regional variety of English.
Isle of Tenerife,
Spain,
Africa.
Well done!
Your comments on Irish English were spot on!
Including your pronunciations of "thick" and "thin", just like I used to say them before I adopted the more standard TH sounds in my English.
Another excellent video, thank you very much.
Best wishes,
Patchy.
your videos bring me such peace and contentment.
Great video and very interesting content. Also the end was a real treat, thank you for that
I'm currently studying for an undergraduate degree in Celtic languages at Glasgow and speak semi-decent Gàidhlig (Scottish Gaelic), so I feel I have some degree of knowledge on a few of the points raised in this video. With regards to 15:27, yes - a few of the lecturers I've met didn't learn English until they started school and prefer to speak Gàidhlig outside of classes (I can even recall instances of one professor who speaks Gàidhlig with his children forgetting certain English words). Moreover, the comment on 'th' sounds in Irish is interesting, I can't offer any conclusions but I do find it peculiar that the 'th' at the beginning of these words in Glaswegian (and other western Scottish regional dialects) is often pronounced as it would be in Gàidhlig, for example you'll hear 'cutla hings' instead of 'a couple of things'. The Hebridean accent (in English) is very clearly influenced by Scottish Gaelic, an S next to an i or e is always pronounced as 'sh' (the only exceptions are the copula; is, and loan words). As such, words like horse may be pronounced 'horshe' - although I think this is generally only the case amongst speakers who were monolingual Gàidhlig speakers for the first few years of their lives.
The more I hear about Gàidhlig the more I realise how similar it is to Gaeilge (Irish).
My Irish teacher in secondary school was from The Gaeltacht which is the name that collectively describes all the places in Ireland where Irish is spoken natively.
I was very surprised when he told me that when he went home for an extended period of time he would find himself hearing his thoughts in Irish. This was eye opening to me as being someone who grew up mostly in Dublin, I never knew anyone who had Irish as a first language.
As for the 'th' sound. As Simon said, it doesn't exist in the Irish language. This has had a noticeable effect on many accents within Ireland as to how they speak English. I would say the majority pronounce the 'th' "correctly" however many accents will replace the 'th' with 'd' as mentioned in the video. (There to dere.) They also either use the 't' or completely drop the sound at the end of words i.e 'with' becomes 'wih' or 'wit'.
An interesting complexity of this effect that you see in a lot of my parent's and grandparent's generation is an overcompensation, putting 'th' where it doesn't belong out of fear of sounding improper.
They'll pronounce the 'th' in Thailand or say 'Heighth' instead of 'Height'.
My granny even pronounced my own name wrong to the disapproval of my mother from 'Tadhg' to 'Thadhg'.
Maybe English copula "is" isn't influence by slenderisation because that "S" in "is" is typically pronounced as a /z/?
Thank you for another amazing video!! I was so happy to see the notification haha
posted just as my break's finished 😭 excited to watch later!
Your videos are always different and interesting thank you 😊
Thanks for another fascinating talk, and kudos for the bonus jay! I love jays :)
Man, you're such an inspiration. Love what you're doing.
I'm a native Welsh speaker from Gwynedd. Question tags are not that unusual when speaking Welsh, but aren't as obvious to the ear when used. Listeners might only hear a quick 'de' pasted onto the end of a sentence from the longer 'ynde?', which is the full form. Interestingly, native speakers from the North are less likely to use this when they switch over to English. Instead, you tend to hear question tags from the South East, where Welsh is much less spoken, and less spoken even less as a native language.
de - ynde - onid e (ai nid efe) Basically meaning DE is INNIT in North Walian.
The Mohawk language has a question tag, which is spelled “ken” and pronounced more like “g(uhn),” the last sound being similar to the French sound in “non.”
@@Tina06019 niá:wen
@@Tina06019 Total coincidence. Today I met a Mohawk speaker from Akwasasne. She told me the numbers from one to five.
Really interesting stuff as always, a whole video on question tags would be cool, its an aspect of English and language in general I'd not really thought about before but is clearly worth a deeper look.
Your question as to whether a Welsh accent is what a native, first language Welsh speaker would sound like if they learned English is very interesting. I can't attest to that, but in Ireland, although the last monolingual Irish speaker died about 40 years ago, we still have recordings of Irish speakers who learned English later on in life as a second language. Their accents are surprisingly similar to standard Irish accents, and yet sound broken, "incorrect" and have difficulty pronouncing certain sounds like "th", as you would expect from, for example, a French person. Their accents sound, to me, more like the accents very old farmers over 90 years old would use in the local pub. I have no idea what that means, I'm far from a linguist, but it's very interesting. I would love to see a study that delves into this question. There are plenty of recordings of native Irish speakers who have English as a second, learned language. I wonder if anyone has made the effort in analysing their accents yet, and if not, I'd love to do that if I ever won the lotto!!
informative analysis and also -- beautiful bird at the end of the video -- thanks for sharing.
So good to bump into you!
I studied linguistics at Preston and then Lancaster in the 90's. I now live in Spain... How wonderful languages and dialects are. Let's hope that modern languages will carry on to be taught to our children. My son is bi-lngual, the best thing we could do for him and so easy.
Look forward to following your papers and a Happy Christmas, Susan.
Great video Simon, I've been hoping you would do a video on something Celtic for a while now.
In regards to the existense of people who are more comfortable speaking in Irish rather than English, I can confirm that there are people like that in modern Ireland, usually on the older side, but I know a few people in their 20s and 30s who would describe themselves in this way. These are all people from the Gaeltacht, though I have heard of Irish speakers raised outside of the Gaeltacht who are more comfortable in Irish than English, though I don't know any personally.
I lived in the Connemara Gaeltacht for a time, and even today, it's still possible to meet people who speak Irish far more often and better than they do English. I recall briefly chatting to a pair of auld fellas from Ceantar na nÓileain (the area of lettermore and garmna, about an 80 mins west of Galway city) who certainly could speak English, but I wouldn't call them fluent in it at all. I spoke to them in Irish, but I heard them speaking English to a non-Irish speaking friend for a bit, and the difference in flunency seemed pretty clear to me. On the bus into Galway City I also once overheard a conversation between a group of young teenagers that started out in English, but as the discussion became a bit more animated (they were arguing about something), the conversation started to slowly drift into Irish, until no more English was being spoken at all, aside from the frequent loan-words that are comon to Connemara Irish.
In regards to the influence of Irish in the English of people I've known from the Gaeltacht, I can pretty confidently say that there are features that carry over. For instance, speakers of Connemara Irish often don't pronounce the letter "Z" when speaking in English (zoo becomes sue), which is absent from the Irish alphabet. There other tell tale signs, but I'm no linguist so I won't speculate any further.
Fantastic video, Simon! The TH sound in most Irish dialects is left behind in Modern Irish, with Connemara dialect having something similar but not exactly the same. Do support in Hiberno-English is used mostly with the habitual, as in "I do be goin' to the shops." Both Scots and Yola have do-support (Yola is extinct now) but operates a little differently. Another influence from Cetlic language is the after-construction instead of past perfect, as in "I'm just after comin' back from the shops." As for the question tags, I haven't heard this used in Irish, but there is the so-auxillery in Hiberno-English for emphasis, as in "I'll sit down now so."
I've heard question tags a fair bit in Irish, and use them myself a lot when I speak it.
Something like "Tá sé fuar inniu, nach bhfuil?" is common enough.
I've heard that after construction in Newfoundland English
@@chrisjohnston3512 Yep! We still use it, "B'ys, what's after happenin' now?"
One feature of Hiberno-English that I have heard could be a holdover from Irish is the tendency of Hiberno-English speakers to answer with the verb used in the question where a standard English speaker would simply use yes or no. So for example "Were you in the office yesterday?" would be answered with "I was" or "I wasn't". In the dialect of Hiberno-English that I speak, this survives but gets paired with a yes or no, so I would answer the question "Were you in the office yesterday?" with "I was, yes" or "I wasn't, no"
and yn gymraeg eto
I feel like we do this in Australia too, moreso than Americans at least. Something like "Did you go to the shops yesterday?" is usually answered "nah I didn't", or "Have you been to Adelaide?" with "Nah I haven't". Thinking about it now, it sounds weird to just answer "nah/no", almost rude. It probably isn't standard and definitely isn't something we're conscious of, but it happens. Might be influence from Irish English, might be an older feature from England, hard to say, but I'm curious if someone has info!
Interesting. I'm from the west of Cornwall and we definitely answer with "I was" ,"I wasn't", etc. Its rare to a get a straight yes or no answer.
I do this as well, as a Canadian, but I didn't always, and it seems to come from having started learning Irish (aged 18 or so) and spending lots of time speaking it during the summer (with weekly classes and immersion weekends a couple of times a year). In addition, even when I wasn't speaking Irish, I was talking to a lot of Hiberno-English speakers, and when it got into my own idiolect, I endeavoured to keep it there. Reminds me of my early 20s, in a positive way.
As an American schoolchild, I was taught to answer Yes/No questions in full sentences in formal situations, so ‘Yes’ informally but ‘Yes, I was’ formally. It never occurred to me that this might just be natural in some languages.
Some of the best content on RUclips. You'll be on the TV one day doing documentaries.
Enlightening as always.
Hello. I just wanted to say I absolutely love your content! I actually wanted to comment on the paper you brought up earlier in the video about the genetic evidence of the migration period in England during 3-6 centuries. If I remember correctly, the article more a less mentions there was a large influx of people from What is today Frisia, northern Germany, and south Scandinavia along the east coast of Britain, but the further west you go, the population becomes more mixed and or retains the continuity of the original Brythonic speakers. That being said, along the East Coast of Britain, their were pockets of mixed genetics and there numerous historical records, both legal and non legal documents, that do state the continuity of Welsh speakers living large portions of the Fens in East Anglia, in areas north of York, and etc. I do believe that is some Celtic influence on English but that being said it is still something up for debate. Other than that, this does a very good job of explaining this question.
There is a village on the West/South Yorkshire border, firmly within the boundary of the old Celtic kingdom of Elmet, which is called Cumberworth. The Cumber comes from the Welsh Cymru, so it's stipulated that that was a community of Welsh speakers. I'm more inclined to believe they were a community that was always there and one that must have maintained their language much longer than the surrounding areas, so we're perhaps speaking Cumbric until much later on.
Thank you for this interesting topic. Please stay warm, put on outdoors clothing if needed, stay safe and healthy. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and insights.
Faszinating - I'm learning a lot about German in your videos 😀
Something in Scots language that is pretty common especially in Glasgow area but pops up everywhere is a thing where certain words that begin with the 'th' sound as in θ in IPA get vocalised as h instead.
I.e. Hink instead of think, Hing instead of thing.
I've often wondered whether this might me related to the Scottish Gaelic 'th' spelling being pronounced just as h much like in Irish as was mentioned for why t is common there.
Also, do you have any plans to talk more in depth about Scots in future Simon? I'd love one of those conversation videos you've done where you go back through time, one from London speaking standard English vs one from central belt Scotland in Scots.
That is called debuccalization. My dialect of US English often does the voiced equivalent of this sound change with common function words, changing [ð] to [ɦ], e.g. "that one there" [ɦæt wʌn ɦeɹ]
Same here in central Pennsylvania but probly for German reasons
To add to that, iirc Old Irish used to have a 'th' sound, which was lost before it evolved into modern Irish and Scots Gaelic. Welsh still has both voiced and voiceless 'th' though
Just like in Old Persian!
Celtic languages come from there originally. Welsh grammar is similar to aramaic. @@arta.xshaca
Another great video, thanks :) In response to your thoughts on whether the Welsh accent when speaking English derived from their own accent when speaking Welsh - that's a definite yes! If you listen to a southern or northern Welsh person speaking Welsh, and then hear them speaking English, it's pretty apparent they use a very, very similar accent for both languages. I am learning Welsh myself (first language English) and I definitely sound much more native when I 'put on' a Welsh accent - whether I adopt a northern or southern one - I'm trying to learn a bit of both dialects and accents.
I've heard that Thin Lizzy named themselves after a british comic book character, Tin Lizzy, as the pronunciation of both is the same in the Dublin dialect Hiberno-English in particular.
In America, "tin lizzy" was a slang term meaning a Ford model T automobile.
With regards to population replacement in Britain due to Anglo-Saxon migrations: it is indeed a controversial subject, in large part due to the many technical challenges of answering the question via current archeogenetic methods (the relatively recent common ancestry of the two ancient populations in question, the heterogeneity of invader populations, later Scandinavian influence being commonly mistaken for earlier continental Germanic, and of course the many challenges of obtaining a representative sample of 1500-year-old genomes). Nevertheless, the general consensus seems to be that the extent of population replacement is geographically contingent, largely on an east-west axis. Eastern parts of England like East Anglia are upwards of 80% continental Germanic, while western places like Cumbria and Cornwall are almost entirely native Brythonic. Most of Britain falls somewhere in between, with the average English admixture being roughly 60% British and 40% continental Germanic. The data do appear to indicate that a significant number of native Brythonic speakers adopted the incoming Germanic languages both for their utility as prestige languages and as a result of intermarriage.
Did the Celtic groups move, or were they just massively outnumbered, so that it looks like a replacement today? If you have an original population of (arbitrary number) 10000, and then 100 000 move there, the native "signal" would almost drown in the archaelogical record.
Hard to say Sub Roman Britain is very hard to pin down. Did the Britons leave with the armies as families or as servants or slaves to rich Roman citizens who wanted to protect their legacies. The Welsh kingdoms were less dependent on Rome and carried on with their fairly stable governance so maybe it was safer for people to move to wales than stay in the east and get raided by Goths and Saxons.
@mytube001 There are no precise numbers for either the native Brythonic speakers or the Germanic invaders, so it's hard to say with confidence. However, we do know for a fact that many Brythonic natives fled from the east of the island, both to the western regions (especially Wales) and to various refuges in continental Europe (most notably Brittany in France and Galicia in Iberia). We also have mixed family burials from the early Medieval period in East Anglia where one spouse (usually the male) will cluster genetically with the modern Dutch and Danish while the other spouse (usually the female) will cluster with the modern Welsh, indicating a fair degree of intermarriage
I find it hard to believe there was much migration of the native Brits from east Britain to west. I imagine the practicalities of such a thing in those days would've been beyond most common people@@lucie4185
@@mytube001I find it hard to imagine an east Anglian fisherman going off to re-invent himself as a sheep farmer in Wales back then
Have just caught up on your videos from the last month. Excellent quality, and interesting as always!
Such a shame you're outside the paywalls now ☹️
I also wanted to say, I visited your zazzle shop (from the spiders episode) and am looking forward to getting my Gyða mid screawan tote bag!
scottish gaelic contrasts aspiration and not voicing on stops, are unaspirated and are aspirated (initially, they're preaspirated word internally but this varies by region)
I noticed those question tags on British English sentences years ago and have always wondered how that got started.
A very interesting and informative video as usual. 👍😊
On the do be's in Irish English, we were always told at school the Hiberno-English "do be doing" was lifted straight from the Irish language. From continuous present tense in Irish that is not there in English.
As far as I'm aware, the popular singer Enya is a native Irish speaker and learnt English as a second language in childhood.
every-time enya comes up i think of peep show
@@68able2 what a disaster
There are people that technically learn English as a second language, but realistically they are never unable to articulate themselves perfectly in English like a native past early childhood.
Sean ó heinrí was the last monolingual speaker because he *never* learned English, properly at least. He's the last Irish person to do so.
Simon , have you any interest in the English Romany Gypsy language ? How can I contact you ?
@@EVO6- FYI O hEinri was not the last monolingual speaker. There is a RUclips video that would give that impression but it isn’t true. There were many other monolingual speakers that lived in Gaeltachts up until the late nineties. My grandfather was one of them. These were people that didn’t leave their own area much.
Was about to go to bed but then i see you uploaded. Bye bye sleep schedule
I think you are a brilliant guy. So nice, so bright, intelligent, sweet, good, humble, different, lovely
Been curious about this topic for a long time.
West Germanic substrate effects have been suggested as an explanation for some differences in verb usage in American English- in this case, the influence of Pennsylvania Dutch (a High German variety from High Franconian and Alemannic German) and New York Dutch (from the Netherlands) by sone colonists. One place where this shows up is that US English is more likely to use subjunctives than British English.
This may effect "do" support since Pennsylvania Dutch has a verb form using "tun" plus infinitive which I saw described in an old paper (ca. 1880) as "aorist": "das Hund tut knarre" meaning "that dog does growl", somewhat like a French imperfect.
The same paper also points out that there is limited use of past tense in colloquial Pennsylvania Dutch, with the form known to the population from Hochdeutsch Biblical text but not commonly used.
YAY, back to videos about older english intricacies 😊
you blow my mind, every time.
As a Gàidhlig learner, I can confirm your take on the two verbs for "to be" was fairly accurate. Bi is for pairing nouns with adjectives, prepositions, etc., while Is is for pairing nouns with nouns.
Interesting. Spanish also has two forms of "to be," _ser_ and _estar,_ one for more essential and permanent things: _"Soy humano"_ ("I am human"), one for more temporary and contingent things: _"Estoy en la casa"_ ("I am in the house").
Simon could have shown us a blank screen, instead of taking time to record the flowers, rain, etc.. I am appreciative of this. 😊
A great video talk.
I only briefly studied some welsh a few years back, but something that struck me as an interesting coincidence was the usage of y(n) as a particle before verbs. Sometimes you can even chain them together. In welsh, y is pronounced as a schwa, and it’s usage reminded me of some similar usage in some English poetry or songs such as “I’m a-singing and a-dancing”
I wonder if this a- prefix is an example of Celtic influence in English.
(Sorry for my poor description of the feature in Welsh, I don’t want to accidentally say something incorrect, and tbh my welsh is fairly nonexistent at this point)
Is the a- prefix in (older) English not just from the same root as modern ge- in German (used in modern German for past participles, eg machen "do/make" -> gemacht "done/made")?
@@Muzer0 No, the ge- prefix became i- in Middle English and it's put on past participles, whereas a- is on present participles (or gerunds?). Like with your example, i-made, but a-making.
@@erutuonAh cool, TIL!
You are entirely correct that Welsh 'yn' was taken over into Old English, eventually giving forms such a a-coming and a-dancing. This is more or less proven by the fact that the a- prefix in earlier forms of English was actually -an, so even close to 'yn'. What the video fails to mention is the whole continuous present thing going on in English, 'I am coming' and 'I am dancing', etc. This is very, very odd for a West Germanic language. Very few languages in the world have this but Welsh does and it gave it to English as a substrate.
At a high level in Gaelic "is" is used to define and "bi" is used to describe, but both can do both with differences in emphasis and permanence. So your summary is accurate and fine for this level of detail.
A couple of items you did not mention. Irish speakers of English tend to use the term 'myself', etc. as a translation of the Gaelic emphatic pronouns, 'mise', etc. 'Sure, and tis myself', as emphatic pronouns do not exist in English. Another example is Appalachian dialect use of a' in gerunds. eg "I'm a hopin and a prayin". This is directly taken from the gerundial form in Gaelic, a plus verb.
regarding if the habitual do is Celtic influenced or not, it is clear there is a common sprachbund, and as LLMs (large language models) have shown, connections between internal elements are multidimensional; who knows how Anglic dialects were internally biases such that perhaps marginal features would find themselves 'promoted' in later centuries
You are a very good scholar
From my own knowledge of Irish and the Irish-speaking community as a non-native speaker of the language, there are still people who would have learnt Irish as their first language at home for the first few years, and would only have acquired English when they went to school at 4 or 5 (of course, many might have partially acquired it before this too). It goes without saying of course that this only happens for people living in the traditional Gaeltacht areas, mostly in the far far west of the country.
But this is definitely the case for a lot of older native speakers, and there's certainly still people who feel more comfortable speaking Irish than English. For younger people though it's generally far more common for them to be natively bilingual in both languages, and oftentimes they end up using English more because they're working and living outside of the Gaeltacht, only using Irish when talking with their family. I knew one person when I was in college who grew up in the Gaeltacht but had lived outside it for over 10 years and was taking Irish classes to rebuild their competency because they'd basically had no reason or opportunity to use it since they left.
I think you'd be hard pressed, if not unable, to find someone nowadays who didn't learn English until adolescence, let alone until adulthood.
Also, one thing on the habitual be in Hiberno-English: I wouldn't say ‘I be going to the shop’. Using the bare infinitive is certainly how African American Ebglish handles it, but in HE you have to use do-support with ‘be’, and of course conjugate the verb accordingly. So ‘I do be going to the shop’ or ‘she does be working very hard’. And actually, when you talked about the do-periphrasis in West Country dialects, I realised that I'd say the same sort of the thing myself: ‘I do go to the cinema every now and again’ is definitely something I'd say, and wouldn't necessarily use the habitual there.
As map men said: "Just a barely detectable hint of Celtic. Trust me, it'll make all the difference."
Hi Simon. Thank you for your excellent videos. Regarding the Hiberno English use of a continuous present tense (Aimsir Gnath-Láithreach in Irish), "I be in the house." would not really be heard. Far more likely would be "I do be in the house." This is a direct translation of "Bím (or Bíonn mé) sa teach." The Irish equivalent of "I am in the house now." would be "Tá mé sa teach anois." This "do/does" can pass unnoticed to unaccustomed ears as a sentence like "He does be hanging around the town" can be cut to something like "He 'd'sbe hanging..." I have heard (and used) this even in my own urban Dublin accent. You will even hear "He do be..." used as a continuous present in more rural areas. Again, a direct result of the Irish sub stratum.
Morning from Australia ❤ hope everyone has had a great week so far
Thank you much.
thank you!
There is a bit more subtlety about the copular verbs in Insular Celtic. While it’s true that there is the copula ‘is’ in Scottish Gaelic or Irish versus the substantive verb ‘bí/bi’ which behave sort of as you described, they both continue etymologically the same verb (copula was the unstressed version originally, the substantive verb continues the stressed variants).
There is one more thing, though - Insular Celtic languages have two present forms of the *substantive verb*. So, taking Irish as an example you have actually three different present copular forms:
‘is foghlaimeoir mé’ ‘I am a learner’ - the copula ‘is’, for expressing identities and more inherent qualities
‘táim sa tigh’ ‘I am in the house’ - the substantive verb ‘tá’ (with forms continuing the stand-root, the be-root, and the is-root) used with adverbials and adjectives to express immediate states,
‘bím sa chathair go mini’ ‘I often am/do be in the city’ - the habitual/consuetudinal present tense ‘bí’ expressing states that happen repeatedly or are more generally true.
In Scottish Gaelic they’d be ‘is’ vs ‘tha’ vs ‘bidh’ (but habitual present merged with future in Sc. Gaelic and expresses both). In Old Irish ‘is’, ‘at·tá’, ‘bíd’. Middle Welsh has a similar distinction between immediate present and habitual present (which also works as future).
I’m not entirely sure what is being postulated as the substrate influence on English, but I think it rather might be this immediate vs habitual present tenses rather than distinction between the copula and subst. verb.
Also note that the same sort of influence but much later is seen in Hiberno-English (Irish people saying ‘it does be sunny this part of the year’ in habitual etc.).
@simonroper9218 I’ve looked into some articles - and yes, seems that Tolkien 1963, Ahlqvist 2010, etc. talk about the immediate present vs habitual or consuetudinal present (which as I mentioned, is attested in all Insular Celtic languages, both historical stages and modern forms), not about the copula vs the substantive verb. So I think you misunderstood that specific point.
My grandparents had a “Do ‘e ‘ave zum more” butter dish. (Grandad Burton grew up in rural Suffolk at the turn of the century.)
A correction and some more examples of Irish influence on Irish-English:
1. We would not say 'I be,' but 'I do be,' so "I do be going to England (every month, every summer, etc)."
2. Another indisputable contribution from Irish is our twist on the perfect aspect using 'after.' We can say "I'm after letting the dog out" for what might be "I (have) just let the dog out." The use of 'after' is a direct translation of the construction in Irish "Táim tar éis an madra a ligean amach," with the English form ending in '-ing' as an approximation for the Irish verbal noun.
3. The way we form embedded questions within sentences is similar to how they are formed in Irish in that the embedded form is the same as standalone questions. "He asked did I have my keys" instead of "He asked if I had my keys."
There are more examples, some of which are mentioned on Langfocus's recent video on Irish-English, which I recommend
Do-support being used in speech, but not in writing is roughly the situation in German today. Young children tend to use it a lot, probably because that way you don't have to know how to conjugate the main verb. Though you don't usually hear it from adults.
The situation is similar with many such helper verbs, like the German equivalent of "have/had", as in "I have see that". In writing, you conjugate the main verb ("Ich sah das."), but in day-to-day speech, you use the helper verb ("Ich habe das gesehen."). There are just fewer particular conjugation rules you have to remember.
where I'm from depending on the village its also not that uncommon in adults, but only in dialectal speech and is still looked down upon like its suggesting poor education. But! in the same dialect its basically a standard feature when used in Conjunctive form like : " Gische morje in die Kirsch? 'Nä, awwa isch *däd* näkschd Wuch ginn.'" = "Gehst du morgen in die Kirche? ' Nein, aber ich würde nächste Woche gehen ' " and there its not seen as a sign of poor education at all.
@@climatechangeisrealyoubast3231 In Swiss German, it's in common use even by adults, though overusing it would definitely still make you sound childish. For something like "Tuesch du abwösche?" (Are you going to do the dishes?"), it would be completely normal, but with something like "cho" (kommen), "gah" (gehen), "haa" (haben), "sii" (sein) or any modal verb, it would sound quite odd. So it really depends on the verb.
@@TheRavenir yes thats very similar in the dialect of my region, which makes a lot of sense as its also spoken in the south west of germany, despite technically being considered as a central german dialect. because standard german influence is more pronounced in germany though, these features are slowly fading away as less and less younger people are taught to speak our dialect or reject it due to social stigma.
P.S : how would you express the conjunkive form in swiss german?
Old irish and early modern irish had dental fricatives but these became a glotal fricative for the voiceless dental fricative and a voiced velar fricative for the voiced dental fricative
As a Welsh speaker (and teacher of the language) I can confirm that Welsh question tags do, in fact, agree with the subject of the verb.
"Mae e'n dda, on'd yw e?" (He's good, isn't he?)
"Mae hi'n dda, on'd yw hi?" (She's good, isn't she?)
I've never heard the supposedly ubiquitous "isn't it" used in the way you suggest, which suggests to me that either it is a historical form that has passed out of use, or (more likely) its root is in an English stereotype of Welsh English dialects rather than actual usage.
Great video! As a german speaker I would like to say that we in the south where I'm from but I think also generally in the south would traditionally rather say "ne"(which derives from 'nid(nicht) wahr?' ) as in " Er war gestern da gewesen in der Kirche, ne?" instead of "oder?"
In Hiberno English, the habitual aspect illustrated with the sentence ‘I be going to England’ is more likely to present as ‘I do be going to England’, at least in Dublin.
I have to debate the opening script. It’s actually unseasonably warm right now (for winter) in the UK. 13 degrees Celsius/Centigrade is a typical late spring or early autumn temperature.
Still, incredibly interesting to delve into the history of one of the most prolific languages on earth.
Edit: I surmise it’s morning, we had some frosty starts last week so your complaint about temperature is forgiven.
Thanks for another fascinating video.
Scots had certainly been influenced by Soots Gaelic but not sure when - there are loan words, most obviously “loch” and likely syntax influence. E.g., the Scots for “today” is “the day” which is like the Gaelic “an diugh” (“an” meaning “the” and “diugh”meaning day).
Some of the Gaelic loan words in Scots have subsequently been loaned into Scottish Standard English, again, the most obvious example being “loch.”
Infinitely better than 99.99% of the stuff that's on telly (even BBC4 :)). Diolch for this, Simon, you are a one-man BBC.
The dressing gown looks quite good, in fact.
I thought the question about a Welsh native speaker learning English late in life was fascinating. I was relieved when I visited Paris for the first time last year and a woman complimented my French skills and asked if I was from Spain (I speak fluent Spanish but am actually from the U.S.)
A difference I encounter between Irish-English habitual present and AAVE is the inclusion of "do" or "does" before "be."
So "Sean does be at the home games" or "I do be at the home games meself"
However something I also encounter regularly enough is "be" becoming "be's"
"He be's at the home games"
Not that I never hear be alone as a habitual present. But it's far rarer than those two variations.
This is my native dialect and I'm typically not analysing my own speech. But if I had to venture a guess, I reckon I use/hear "does/do be" very regularly for habitual present, "be's" less so and "be" quite rarely.
Simon, your voice is pleasant and your speech like a metronome .Your accent is also just-right British. Your topics are also interesting, but truthfully you could be saying nothing at all interesting and I'd still be listening ♡
I think it's more common to say "do be" rather than "be" in the sense you're talking about. E.g. I'd expect to hear "He does be going to England on the regular" / "I do be..." over "He be going to England...".
Common to hear “I d’go’ (I do go etc) in the South Wales valleys as well as ‘innit’ added to the end of sentences
A French baby's burble has different "intonation patterns" [15:52] to an English baby's: we're born with an ability to mimic the 'music' of our mother-tongue, heard in the womb. This is why accents are so persistent: whatever languages/other accents we later hone, when push comes to shove,
we reach for our first love. There's no place like Home.
"Perhaps we are in Eden still and only our eyes have changed" [Chesterton] and perhaps
we're in Tolkien's Ainulindalë still,
and only our Ears have changed.
French babies are born with a Gallic shrug perfected.
@@Dreyno Most babies go 'mom mom mom', those who go 'Meh!' ne pas chercher la femme.
French is my native language, though I forgot almost all of it and had to re-learn it as an adult. My pronunciation is still almost perfect, though. I started school speaking almost no English. They provided a speech therapist for me to lose the accent and I was able (thank God) to learn to pronounce 'th' properly so I did not wind up sounding like Inspector Clouseau for the rest of my life. I still trip over 'L' and stutter sometimes because 'L' is pronounced with the tongue in a different position in French and English.
Regarding the Welsh "isn't it" - Cockney, of course, has the famous "innit", put at the end of pretty much any phrase to support it: "Cold today, innit?", "Leave it out, innit!"
I've noticed a similar-but-decidedly-different thing in Bristol though, where people say "is it" (or "izzit") in response to all sorts of statements, regardless of grammar: "Have you heard, Maz and Baz are back in Bris" "Izzit, no way!?"
If you read How Green Was My Valley, you'll see reverse Wenglish where they use Welsh structure of sentances ("There is a fool you are" "we went past Mared the Shop") as these speakers learnt English as a second language during foundation of the English-owned mines and steelworks. Modern Welsh English speakers still say "I'll be there now in a minute" borrowed straight from Welsh.
Many First language Welsh speakers from North Wales either pronounce English almost like it's written in Welsh orthography, often with the same accent as in Welsh (especially those in Ffestiniog (almost Russian sounding) and Wrecsam(more scouse/midlands)), many other L1W will sound like BBC presenters, not at all welsh, due to being in such Welsh environments that they learn English through the TV.
8:25 Scottish Gaelic distinguishes between aspiration not voicing, I believe this is also true for the ulster dialects of Irish
So if you're an English speaker you wouldn't be wrong for approximating them as [b] & [p]-[pʰ]
I have heard that the aspirated dental sounds in Hiberno-English are a remnant of Elizabethan English.
A thing that you didn't say was the use of "after" in Hiberno-English nor the different use of prepositions that are not used in other dialects
When it comes to þ and ð I've noticed thats one of the most difficult english sounds to make for non-native speakers, I'm norwegian and my gf is german. In my gfs German english accent the þ turns into t or d and the ð into s, notably the same sound change the german language went through hundreds of years ago: thee=sie, thing=ding etc
Ah, I noticed something rather obvious that I mention in my books in the phonetics. If you look at French compared to Italian, Spanish and etc, and look at English compared to other Germanic languages, there is an obvious flattening of the ends of words like there is in the Celtic tongues, like Uallach and Gwalais pronounced "Wally as well as Wallace." Although I would concede to some flattening being a Danish influence, the fact that it's worse in French makes me think that the whole way in which English was pronounced may have been influenced by the the Celtic tongues spoken there. I think sometimes if you look at very broad movements in language change, you can see the influence of neighbors. I have told my students that if something sounds silly it's probably Celtic, like the word "flimsy." English dictionaries used to search far to find "roots" that had nothing to do with Celtic, which was always amusing when the word was right next door. I do love your videos and the way that you show footage of what is going on outside while you are talking. Keep up the marvelous work. I also LOOOVEE your voice. :D A fine, deep voice it is...
It's pretty much universal that the end of words get reduced and suffer deletions. The "weak right edge" in some circles. It's not a good sign of Celticness. Pretty much the last sound of an utterance is most likely to not be fully realized (because you stop breathing in a way that makes speech noises, because you're done talking), so this has an effect of reducing the sounds at the end.
If you look at Italian, you actually see it - the Latin singular noun endings were -am, -um, -em, the plurals -os, -as, -a, -es. Italian saw them become a, u, e, and oi, ai, a, ei, now a, o, e, i, e, i. Spanish sees it too: standard el gato, los gatos is el gato, lo' gato' in the Carribbean and Andalusia. All of the Germanic languages saw it - the IE case system looked like Latin's, with Germanic inheriting -az where Latin has -us, for example, which in old Norse became -r, and in most modern Germanic languages just doesn't exist anymore.
Of course outside IE too. It's basically responsible for the tones in languages like Mandarin, Thai, or Vietnamese. Like where Cantonese has bat, sam, or leuk, Mandarin has ba, san, liu. Arabic has a feminine -t ending that goes silent at the end of phrases. Hebrew's equivalent t was already h by bible times. Egyptian to Coptic is even messier than French, with words like ra *ridu, bA *bal, sDm.f *sat'maf coming out as re, bu, fsotm.
It was illegal to speak Welsh before 1970 so no wonder the English missed it
@@jillybe1873
Welsh was not allowed in court proceedings during the reign of Henry VIII but then he was Welsh himself. But I've not heard of it being completely banned there, I well remember it being spoken in North Wales in the 1970s.
Fascinating as always, Simon. I've often wondered whether there may be some Celtic substrate residues in more archaic forms of English. For example, could there be any relationship between the Welsh use of the gerund form "yn" before a verb, such as "yn mynd" (going), "yn dod" (coming) etc. and the archaic English prefix "a" - as in "a-going", "a-coming" and so on? "Here we come a-wandering among the leaves so green..." It's used before adjectives too: "yn barod" (a-ready), "yn ffrwyd" (a-cold). Or is this a construction from Old English/Germanic? We've mostly dropped the "a" prefix now, though of course it's still hidden in modern words like "afraid" (a-feared) and "awake" etc.
What do you think?
What I suspect is that it comes from the fact that the participle (which is for example fallen as in I've fallen) used to have an i or y before it in middle English, (from ge- in Old English) and was also used with the verb to be rather than to have for some verbs. So "somer is icumen" means "summer has come"; but it sounds to us like "summer's a-coming" if the i- is pronounced like a schwa (uh) and the ng is pronounced like an n. So I think people may have gotten confused by older English, but that's just a hypothesis.
No, the 'a' prefix is a reduction of previous 'ge'
@@sigilmedia Nonsense. The a- in English is directly from the Welsh 'yn' as proven by the fact that a- used to be -an in earlier forms of English.
On the notion of two verbs having the same past tense: in Spanish, the preterite forms of "ir" (to go) and "ser" (to be, as an intrinsic quality) are identical. Yo fui, tú fuiste, etc. for both.
(But the imperfect forms remain separate. Yo iba vs. yo era, etc.)
I imagine England was a patchwork quilt of areas that had population displacement and others with peaceful integration
Love the goatee!
One thing that seems like an elephant in the room is how phonetically similar English and British Celtic languages sound. It's similar to Greek and Spanish sounding the same at a distance. To me it seems English and Gaelic and Welsh have been influencing each others' pronunciation for a long long time.
Thanks! I’m from Cape Breton in Canada and Scottish Gaelic was the main language spoken here from the time of the Clearances up until about 100 years ago. However, our accents sound a lot more Irish than Scottish and a lot of our words and sayings are similar to Irish English. I don’t know if it’s just that the modern Scottish accent comes from the Germanic Lowlands and the Gaelic Highlanders would have sounded closer to Irish when speaking English or if we picked up the accent from the smaller but mighty Irish population on the island (they would have been close to the only people here that spoke English so maybe they were who we learned English from). If anyone is from the Scottish Highlands, do older people sound more Irish than Lowlanders do?
Check out Cape Breton, NS. They still have Celtic and Gaelic languages. Newfoundland has some interesting dialects as well, mostly Irish influence. They don't pronounce their 'th', it's all Ds. And By's.
I've noticed that Welsh 1st language speakers (mainly in the north) have a much less 'welsh sounding' accent when speaking English than their southern Welsh neighbours who are predominantly English 1st language speakers