I actually have a friend with this exact background (Swedish, practiced English primarily with an Irishman growing up) and honestly you're kinda dead on LOL
I love this sort of thing. Just a French lad trying to help his fellow French refugees, and accidentally creates a brilliant primer on honest-to-goodness 16th c. street English, not the "proper" stuff taught at school. I'm sure Mr. Bellot would've been pleased to see us finding such utility in his humble phrasebook, all these centuries later.
its funny because more of these sort of language-to-language transliterations are incredibly helpful at preserving a time's pronounciation (in both languages)
I am not sure how humble it is to write something and than translate it twice.^^ The only reason I imagine him being so pedanticly is either, because that was his character or he wanted to profit of it.
Regardless, he was just some schmuck as we all are, and probably knew it too! I don’t do much of anything to directly benefit future generations, doubt he did either. Well, he did write a book, he was proud of all the work he put into it over the years, and was happy with the profit it (hopefully) brought him. Love to learn who he was, what he did in his free time, where he lived, was he an introvert or an extrovert (as someone who wrote a book about conversation in another language, it’s kind of a toss up!)
My great grandfather, a former native of Galway, born 140 years ago, used "tis" a lot. He also would pronounce a lot of words with extra syllables and then skip entire words if he thought you would think them implied by context. "Tis fine moranin, tain't na rain in sight." is an example. Or "ga fetcha me slippers lad, under bed." would be another. He died in 1964. He learned Irish from birth and spoke it exclusively until he was in his teens when he found it necessary to learn English to transact business in the nearest town, Loughrea.
'Tis still gets used in Ireland. Hiberno-English retains features of older forms of English alongside influences from the Irish language.Younger people such as myself use "'tis" slightly jokingly, I think, but it keeps it alive. It would be a shame for us to lose our dialect, after all.
The interesting thing about this, is it's held it's meaning depending on where you say it. Saying Howdy in the south us usually results in an answer responding to the question. Where it's just a simple greeting in other places
I loved hearing that! It's what you'd say today in German, rechnung, or Norwegian, regning, meaning "the bill". You'd call the waiter after you've finished your meal and request it.
I'm honestly amazed at how comprehensible this is. I had expected much more Middle-English era words and grammar to be present, especially in the middle of the Great Vowel Shift, but now I'm happy that, were I to acquire a time machine, I could have a pint with the lads 400 years ago 😂
I think that sentence structures, pronunciation and vocabulary are unfamiliar to a speaker of modern English, but yet they are understandable (especially when they were spoken slowly). A quite short exposure to this Middle English speech (maybe some weeks just living amongst 16th century Londoners, NOT formal training) should be enough to bridge the language gap. I bet that there are remote *modern* dialects of English, that are harder to understand.
this is early modern English, progressed well past Middle English even of Chaucer’s time. He died 1400. In 1586, the time of Bellot’s book, Shakespeare was 22 years old.
@@Galenus1234I’m from Northamptonshire, though I’ve lived on the south coast for 30 years. About 18 years ago I was talking to some drunk geordies and I could only understand about two out of every five words. You’d think being from the midlands I’d have had more chance of understanding them than a southerner would… but nope!
@@greva2904 I am sometimes a drunk Geordie, and I feel like there's a few similarities especially to the way older people used to speak in the 90s. They would have been born at the turn of the century if you're wondering. I do wonder if we just continue the southern dialect from previous generations as we stubbornly cling on to our regional speech over generations.
'What do you lack?' sounds like my late grandmother, who lived in the Appalachian mountains, when asking if we wanted seconds at the dinner table. This is a fascinating book! Thanks for the excellent video.
a lot of appalachian communities have been isolated from the rest of the world for quite a bit, so much so that linguistically they're said to be closer to the form of english from just before the period this video discusses.
@@rakninjaI'd be interested to see that quantified. Even in isolation language evolves. Is the speech of Appalachia closer to English of the 1500's or just different in different ways? It also depends on which 1500s dialect you compare it to. I hear a number of things I associate with Northern Ireland, but that accent probably hadn't formed yet,
@@HweolRidda if i recall the research, it's mostly referencing the great glottal shift. i wish i could help point you to the correct papers, but you know how youtube comments don't like links. it is pretty dang fascinating, though!
I've heard it all my life in west Texas, too. Plenty of people here whose ancestors came from the southern states within the last 150 years or so, of course. But it's pronounced "like" here. For example, if you're short of money when it comes time to pay, your companion (or a friendly bystander) might ask, "How much do you like?"
My elderly relatives (UK, Midlands) would say "Reckon up" e.g. a bill, or when they went to a checkout. They would have grown up close to the Black Country, where Old English is still presrved in the dialect
@@mrsrjlupin3650 Yes, my mum (in her 70s now) has always used 'reckoning up' when doing her income and expenditures. I like it. It is a good Old English word: reckon. Reckon, of course, really means to calculate, unlike now in Britain where it is often used interchangeably with 'to think'.
I found the phrase right at the end of this video really interesting, “what is of the clock?” “it is two of the clock” and explains why we say 2 o’clock now.
actually yea it does. what about the "i used to do (x)" thingy tho? like now to me in modern english it sounds kinda archaic ngl. like i think its one of the only actual archaic things people still use regularly
thank you for the tips, going to gradually pepper these phrases into my casual speech to subconsciously manipulate my friends into adopting them and spreading it to their friends
I like how this is pretty much how conversational or utilitarian language books are written today. Everyday dialogues, sometimes a bit stilted, and often presented in the same three columns: the language to be learned, the meaning in your own language, and a transliteration of the new language in your own phonetics.
@@UmbrellaGent Lol my Grammy is from TN. Whenever I ask her “Grammy aren’t you gonna tip him?” She always says “shit, I’ll tip my hat and say good day, but I’ll be damn if I got any more to pay.”
As an American, if I were greeted with the word "how", I would be compelled to include in my reply a phrase such as "paleface" or "smoke-um peace pipe" 🤔
@@Kerithanos I know that the first native American to make contact with the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony spoke English. His first words were "Welcome Englishmen". I wonder whether the "how" greeting was actually borrowed from English. btw I live in Plymouth England where the Mayflower set sail from.
I was born in Lancashire but have lived most of my life in the Netherlands. I speak Dutch fluently and without an English accent and am convinced that me having a broad Lancashire accent helped me as there are so many words and ways if speaking Dutch that are almost the same. We always hear English compared to French or German but really Dutch, Flemish and most of the Scandinavian languages are more similar.
As a Lancashire lass living in Sweden, I can only agree! I studied languages and I once read in an authoritative book that the closest language to English is in fact Dutch, but I think the Scandi languages of Swedish, Danish and Norwegian come a close second.
@@LMB2301A week ago I was having dinner with two Danish friends. I'm a Lancashire lad, the other guest is from Yorkshire. Half way through, Lars, at of the blue said, why is it so easy for me to understand you two so easily. I couldn't find any explanation, but after your comment, I can now.
If you find someone with a broad dialect in Sunderland or Newcastle, half the worlds are still Dutch and Scandinavian. I'm from Sunderland, and if I was to say "I'm going home" I'd say it in what is basically a pidgin Norwegian: "am gaan hjem".
Dutch and Flemish really are English's closest blood relatives, and the Danelaw saw to the Scandinavian influence being stronger than the French in many dialects. It's interesting seeing a map of the Danelaw reach right up to Lancashire.
Probably one of the best talks yet. A controversial view but one I am growing more and more to believe is that what Shakespeare wrote in the 1590s to 1610s was NOT everyday speech of that time but was some sort of confected recollected speech from perhaps 50 years earlier and then corrupted by memory and grandeloquence. I have a long text written by a very articulate man, John Mayer, Master of Sedbergh School in the 1590s. He was no fool, but a fellow of St. John's Cambridge. Like this gentleman he writes much more freely that Shakespeare makes his characters speak. The text was an answer to a Chancery Bill, but John Mayer was not a Lawyer and so he literally wrote to describe his everyday experience as articulately as he could, and he was articulate.
I think Shakespeare wrote in a register that was slightly above the everyday use of his time, but not so much that everyday people would not understand it.
Shakespeare wrote in blank verse, so it was already not a normal speech pattern. And sticking to the rules of the verse would have influenced word choices and and style.
Didn't he write plays set in the past? I know people weren't as educated back then, but maybe it would've still sounded weird if those historical kings sounded "contemporary", same as if we made a WW2 movie where Churchill says things like "cringe", "yikes" or "rizz"
*Working with a crew of hillbillies in western North Carolina years ago.* The boss comes over the radio: "Hey, Buster, how much d'you lack on that job?" Buster, visibly frustrated, answers, "I don't lack none of it". The boss goes silent for a moment, gritting his teeth at the pun. "Damn it, Buster..."
@@zeedub8560 Bill Bryson mentions a southern lady who asks him "How d'ya lack Miss Hippy?" and he is quite confused, not being acquainted with one Miss Hippy and certainly not experiencing any lack of her. Of course, she asked him what he thought of Mississippi.
@@DrWhom I was in class one day during my freshman year of h.s., only a year after moving from PA to TX. A girl asked, "Anyone have any type?" I thought, huh? My grandfather was a printer, so I though of printer's type. After a few seconds of confusion, I figured out she was asking for tape.
@@SupahTrunks7 In Western North Carolina, they pronounce the i sound in night, kite, bright, and etc very...widely. I'm from the Piedmont, and though we're very Southern it is something we don't do. It's jarring even to us. So, I take it that the long i sound made like and lack almost sound the same, so Buster is saying he doesn't like the work he is having to do and being a smart ass.
I don't know a lot about how Londoners spoke in 1586, but I do remember when I was a young child in NE England in the 1960s, that when counting money in shops, in phrases like 'two pence', 'three pence', 'six pence', people always used to stress the number and not the word 'pence'. So they said 'tuppence', 'threppence', 'sixpence' as if they were single words. The coins were known as 'tuppney, threpney and sixpenny' bits. But when the UK currency was decimalised in 1971, people in shops started saying, instead, "That will be six new pence, please' stressing the fact that it was new pence and not old. After a few years, they stopped saying 'new pence'. But the word pence continued to hold its stress. I never heard the word 'bit' used for coins any more after that. They became known as two-pence, five-pence and ten-pence pieces. Does anyone else remember this?
being an American no, I don’t remember that, but I remember the word “bits” being used to indicate monetary value. There was a sports cheer in which the usage appeared for a long time, “two bits four bits, six bits, a dollar, all for the Tigers, stand up and holler!” I remember reasoning that if the progression was two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar, then a dollar must have been eight bits, so two bits was 12 1/2 cents! I asked my dad and he had no idea what I was talking about.
@@dibblethwaite You're right, we spoke of "tuppence" but the 2d coin only existed in Maundy Money, which was worth far more than its face value. There was, however, the half penny coin, or "hA'penny bit." It had a galleon on the back: referenced by JK Rowling in the "Galleon," the largest coin in Wizarding Britain. Something cheap or tawdry could be described as "tuppenny ha'penny" or worth 2.5d, which at one time was enough to send a postcard, or an unsealed Xmas card: what later became second class post. Now that costs 85p, or 17 shillings in old money: though inflation means the increase is nothing like as bad as it looks.
What's funny about English in this time (say, 1500-1640ish) is that when subtitles are included, as you've done here, it's really easy to understand. But if the subtitles were to go away (i.e. if I were that time traveler) then I could maybe pick up about half of the conversational speech I heard. What I love about your videos is the eerieness of Middle and Early Modern English, almost like you're listening to some buried ancestral memory. I keep looking for ways to include your inspiration in my fiction. Thanks so much for this rare window into the past, Simon. ❤
@@Adonnus100 Nothing directly relevant to anything in this video 😅 It's literary historical fiction and time travel (1920s) but I have a real fixation for writing language exactly as it was - or as close as possible - whether that's Ohio in the 1920s or England in the 1400s. I end up writing a lot of fictional primary source material that's referenced in the story, and (in future books) there might be undead fragments of people left over from the Middle Ages - just as a vehicle to include this kind of spoken Middle English. I'm still playing with plot elements so there's a lot I don't know yet. The first book, "Mary, Everything" was published in 2020. 🙂 Thank you for asking! ❤
I read books from the 1500s, albeit printed in the early 1600s. Sometimes people look over my shoulder and ask me if it's Old English. "No," I tell them. "It's Early Modern English. Not too different from today, innit?" Cheers! Thanks. Lovely, this. Keep making these videos.
@@jsmithy643 I don't know how to respond, other than with 'ok'. The colosseum is about 2000 years old, but if your house was built in the 1800s I'm still going to call it an old building. Perhaps a useful distinction would be 'old English' vs 'Old English'. The latter is a term of art, while the former is more of a personal opinion.
I follow you Simon for years, since your early "on a chair" videos and untill now I find you my best discovery on YT. Not only the great knowledge and passion but the voice as well. Thank you for all you make and as always, best wishes from Poland :)
Interestingly, I'm starting to hear modern youth say, "Can I come with?" not, "Can I come with you?" Mitkommen is German, but in English this appears to be making a strange comeback.
"Come with", at least in American English, has been around for a long time I'm pretty sure! It was a Germanism (or maybe a Yiddish-ism?) originally, but spread from the language of German immigrants to colloquial speech more generally in some regions. Compare also "what gives?" from "was gibt's"?
Interesting….Growing up in the ‘80s in Northern Virginia in the U.S., I had a friend who always said “come with” without the “me,” and I always found it annoying somehow-like, “Just finish the sentence!!” But now I see there are historical reasons for that expression. I’m not sure where she got it from since no one else in our area seemed to say it that way, but it must have been something passed down in her family.
A common mistake for german speakers learning english: Asking for the time. They don't ask "What is the time?" or even "Is it late?", but "How late is it?", implying that they are late at any given moment and just request an estimation of their relative lateness.
It's interesting that modern English has the opposite trend. The vowel in "the" strengthens before a word starting with a vowel rather than disappearing. "Thə man" but "thee opposite".
That's because modern English diphthongises every tense vowel apart frombroad a, and at the end of the day this means they all get an optional final semiconsonant, preventing hiatus that English so hates
I like how you can vary the sound of your voice enough to make the two sides of the conversation sound different, but without either of them sounding cartoonish. I always do the audible equivalent of a double take, because it sounds like two different people with similar voices rather than one person playing two characters.
I was also surprised about how easy it was to understand 95%, the rest I would pass over. As a Brit thats been in the US for 40 years, I have the same problem today, I'm still acquiring UK English again, and many street talk I overhear is nearly incromprhensible to me.
I feel ya! I got back to Australia after 15 years in China, and the service staff in McDonald's were utterly unintelligible. I found myself thinking, "I speak English, German and Chinese, plus a smattering of Swedish. I've taught English for many years, and I have no idea what that kid just said!"
@@bootmii98 Very interesting, thank you! Regarding the use of 'ye' as a plural, I wonder if it was once more often used as an address to a group than to an individual. 'Howdy folks' will be familiar to anyone who's ever seen a Western.
As an Australian born in the 1960s, I've both heard and used "How goes it?", "How's it going?", and "How's it hanging?" The first of those is more old fashioned, the middle one still current, and the last is both more casual and more ... crude or uncouth.
As far as the informal use of "thou" as distinct from the more polite "you" is concerned, Shakespeare (and presumably his audiences) was keenly aware of the social nuances involved in the choice. Sometimes a speaker will even shift from one to the other to emphasise a shift in attitude. If I were to suddenly address you as "thou" rather than "you", it would mean I was either trying to be rude or, alternatively, trying to get more familiar in other ways!
There’s an old English folksong (As I roved out one May morning) where a man meets a maid and begs her to stop a while with him. He begins by addressing her with ‘you’ but after they have lain together he addresses her with ‘thou’. One can only imagine why…
Sounds to me (French Canadian) like an exact parallel of the French use of 'Tu' - singular familiar - and vous - plural, or singular formal/respectful.
I find this fascinating. As a school psychologist who is highly interested in dyslexia, this is a treasure trove of information about our use of language and the written symbols that allow us to reproduce the sounds of said language. The evolution of the language and the written words of it is itself fascinating.
I think you'd find the 1819 Burslem Dialogue quite interesting, its an account of two men from Stoke-on-Trent in the early 19th century, it's avaliable from Google books for free.
@@stephenryan7855 There are some differences, but it's hard to tell because the author wrote it phonetically, but not using a modern phonetic transcription. But when I've read it it doesn't sound too different from some of the oldest people I've met in the North of Stoke-on-Trent near to where the dialogue is supposed to have taken place.
Hello Simon. I have heard many of these sentences uttered by both rural dwellers and traveling people in Cumbria, so the language is still extant. The countryside is so conservative in nature and so steeped in heritage that some phrases are as enduring as the seasonal traditions, especially in this sometimes forgotten nook of furthest north-west England. I enjoy listening to your presentations and look forward to more of them.
I remember in 1967 my dear Wife and I visited her Sister who lived with her Yorkshire born Husband near Castleford in the West Riding, we came from Lewes East Sussex, and I remember we were surprised that on asking a wee Lad the way he answered us by using thou and thee in his Yorkshire Dialect.
My man, that was absolutely brilliant. And really educational on so many levels! I learned more about 16th century speech. I learned one of the ways we know how people spoke. I got to hear a likely genuine conversation, from 400 years ago. And I leaned the etymology for goodbye. Do more of these!
things like this make me so much more excited to study history in uni, yes all the language stuff is interesting, but the fact that we have records of what casual conversations might have been like? it's amazing! I love people just being people and going about their lives during different time periods
Fascinating. It occurred to me the lack of contractions may be to ensure non-native speakers aren't misunderstood, since accents can mess with pronunciation. But all the discussion about evolution of informal speech has made me want to listen to Fairport Convention's "Come All Ye". 😀
I'm from Lancashire, 60 years old now and people regularly used thee when I was a kid, pronounced 'the' or 'tha'. There was a joke we'd say, but only works in a Lancashire accent from that time. Someone wants to throw some rubbish away, and asks: "Where's the bin?" In an old Lancashire accent we'd answer ... "Nowhere. Where's you been?"
Fascinating. Sometime in the late 70s or 80s, I was in Victoria Station using a public pay telephone (no cell). I finished my call, and having noticed that an older man using the next phone was having trouble making his call. Public phones at that that time were "A and B button" phones, not user-friendly. So I offered to help. He responded quickly and gratefully, but I was shocked. I remember thinking at the time that he might have stepped out of Chaucer, using archaisms besides which the speech in this video is quite modern. Anyway, he told me that this was the first time in his life that he had left his village, somewhere in the southwest. I helped him place his call and when he got an answer I went on my way. But to this day I remember this encounter with the frozen past and regret missing the opportunity to perhaps buy him a cup of tea for a chat.
That’s a truly fascinating exposition on London’s spoken English at the time of Shakespeare. I never knew such a valuable document, with its guide to pronunciation existed. Thank you for sharing.
You should visit the west of Ireland where some of these things are still common. One weird thing is that we use "ye" (pronounced "yee") strictly as a plural for "you". Most of the time, people who hear this don't realize it's a plural and assume it's just a weird way of pronouncing "you". One time on a work trip to the US someone asked why we sometimes say "you" and sometimes "yee". I realized then it's not obvious because a lot of English speakers don't make any singular/plural distinction for "you" at all.
Actually many of us do have a plural for the you pronoun, but it isn't anything like "yee", in my area it "you guys" (regardless of gender), in some parts of North America is Y'all, (which is you+all).
9:30 My god, I’ve just realized that the “o” in “o’clock” stands for “of”, so when we say something like “it’s 5 o’clock”, we’re actually saying “it’s 5 of (the) clock” 😮
Okay but this is ridiculously helpful for people trying to learn an early modern English accent and don't want grandiose Shakespearean or lofty language as an example. It's nice to have examples from this period that's just two ordinary folks chatting.
Im learning Dutch (in Belgium). The first time I went to see Shakespeare since starting, I had a similar surprise. My understanding was improved allot by learning another germanic language.
@@sirkalasnefzenlot That was how I maintained a grasp on Dutch grammar too when I was studying it. I was just sat there thinking "Wow, this feels a lot like archaic English"
Also closer to modern German. I'm curious about when the "do" forms became required rather than optional for questions and negations in English, as in "Where do you live?" rather than "Where live you?" and "I don't live in London" rather than "I live not in London."
This older syntax is closer to other germanic languages in general, not just scandinavian languages. The ‘do’ forms likely arose as a result of the Norman invasion. If I remember correctly, in most romance languages descended from Vulgar Latin, the primary way in which you ask a question is simply with rising intonation, not necessarily with subject/verb inversion like in germanic languages. As the Norman-French speaking upper classes gradually intermixed with the Anglo-Saxon lower classes over the centuries, the ‘do’ form probably arose as a sort of grammatical compromise that tried to reconcile the germanic requirement that a question begin with a verb with the romance tendency to maintain SVO word order.
@@geisaune793 “The ‘do’ forms likely arose as a result of the Norman invasion.” One blog post, summarizing John McWhorter’s view in his book _his book Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue,_ says “What specific elements of the English grammar can be said to be of Celtic origin? One well-studied example of a trait now thought to derive from Celtic is the so-called do-support. In English, a ‘dummy’ auxiliary _do_ must be used to form negative and interrogative sentences; hence, we say _John does not swim_ (instead of _*John swims not_ or _*John not swims)_ and _Does John swim?_ (instead of _*Swims John?)._ Other Germanic languages (German, Dutch, Norwegian, Afrikaans, etc.) do not have this construction (note that the English use of do-support is different from the so-called emphatic _do,_ as in _John does swim!,_ which is found in other Germanic languages). Nor do Romance or Slavic languages have anything resembling do-support. In fact, it’s a rather rare quirk, cross-linguistically. “We now think that English picked it up from its Celtic neighbors. Unlike Germanic languages, Celtic languages like Cornish have had do-support since before English started using it. It is used in Celtic exactly as in English: to express tense and agreement in negative and interrogative sentences.” It then gives several objections to this Celtic hypothesis.
I’m Australian & can easily spot differences between your modern phrasing & pronunciation to ours here. But we’re a young country with English brought over only 200-odd years ago. What’s _really_ interesting to me - as I’ve been married to an Irishman & travelled a lot of Ireland in the past ten years (and always enjoyed their colourful, unique, almost theatrical dialogue) - is that in this video, I can hear a LOT of the current phrasing, vernacular, and style of Irish English in your 16th Century conversational English. And now, I have the uncanny sense that I’ve been hearing English preserved in a time capsule through my Irish family & friends! Particularly when outside of Dublin. Amazing.
and now imagine how much more uncanny it is when you know german. Half the sentences could be direct word-for-word translations and the rest use words that aren't typical in modern english, but have clear analogys in german.
“Hello” existed for a very long time, as a combination of “hail” and “all”, as “hall-oo” or “calling out hallows” to friends in the woods. I’ve seen many references in 17th century writing about people who recorded their stories of the day.
i remember reading that Quakers in the mid to late 1600s got into a lot of trouble by speaking informally to nobility, as per our stance on radical equality, and that included them using "thou" instead of "you"
Native Quebec French speaker here. I'll start off by saying that Quebec French has many archaic or unique features compared to Metropolitan French, and that's a whole Pandora's Box of its own, and Quebec French is closely related to older forms of French which had a lot of influence on Old English. Now to the point I mean to make, old English seems to have many grammatical structures that are similar to French. Inverting the verb and subject in a question for example, without the need for an auxiliary "do" for it to make sense. It "feels" natural to a French speaker. Also, I have some degree of knowledge of the Icelandic language, and an equivalent of "thou" is still used by the Icelanders. As a matter of fact, they still use it with the "original" letters "thorn" - Þú - when used in a more formally correct way, and with "eth" - ðu - when slipped into casual speech. The transition from þú to -ðu is similar to contractions using the apostrophe in the English language (you are not = you aren't, etc). A simple Icelandic greeting: What say you? (that choice of words for a greeting already feels archaic by modern English perspective) Formal - Hvað segir þú? Casual - Hvað segirðu? Considering Old English in the context of it historical linguistic ecosystem makes it all the more interesting, I find.
Considering how much of a thing linguistic purism is in France, it's realky surprising that quebec french is so much more resistant. And for the icelandic example I can add two more from the germanc area: "wat zeg je?" and "was sagst du?" which make it pretty clear where english got it's roots.
@@HappyBeezerStudios In Québec we have the "Office Québécois de la Langue Française" which is an official independent office that governs what is and isn't appropriate french language in Québec. It really helps keep it all structured and cohesive. Iceland has a similar "office" that decides things regarding the Icelandic language, like when some new tech becomes important enough to warrant a native Icelandic word. Most Germanic languages have some form of the word "computer" Not Icelandic. They dug out an old word that wasn't used anymore and there you go, a computer is "tölvu".
Like a bullet to the head I’ve just realised that growing up in Rotherham I used to hear “How do” (as a greeting) all the time between grown ups. Fantastic vid as always mate.
I found this phrase interesting: "Have you any good, broad cloth?" As "broadcloth" is a term used nowadays for any number of fulled plain-woven wool fabrics.
Hey Simon. There were love letters from king Henry the 8th to Anne boyelin. I thought: how about using that source and reading them as they were been read at the time? You would have a real cotemporary example from the early 1500s
"how are you going " for "how are you doing" is the way we say it in German, but also in norwegian. Good example for how out languages were more similar the further you go back
In Norwegian it would most likely be "how is it going?" or, if directly translated, "how goes it?" (hvordan går det?) or "how is it going with you?", which directly translated is, "how goes it with you?" (hvordan går det med deg?).
Very interesting. Would you please do a reading of William Caxton's Preface to Eneydos (1490), in the pronunciation of the time, where he discusses the difficulties of translating into English? Thank you very much!
What strikes me as interesting is all the ways in which speech had been made simpler or more casual, only to be reversed. At some point, people must have started saying the implied 'them' again
I might have misconstrued, but it may be worthwhile considering the the "y' " is not just a short form of ye, but the french pronunciation of 'y' - 'ee' (...mal y pense). I often had shouted at me as a boy "I'll give ee a thick ear if...".
Not just that - French's "y" as a particle, is related to Italian "ci" and galloitalic "ghe", meaning it was probably originally a consonant+vowel sequence; it could be that, at Bellot''s time, "y" was still pronounced [ji] or [i:] rather than [i] a in modern French
'how goes it?' is still used in the UK ironically (as many archaisms, such as 'little did he know...' etc.). Once in a pub the barman greeted a customer saying, 'hello James! How goes it?' and the guy, a bit taken aback replied, 'I'm good, how... goes you?' That made me laugh😅
Hello Hilbert my good man, wine as well as most commonly consumed alcohol would have been of a lower alcohol content and considered to be a healthsome beverage. It was also made of fruits other than grapes. Depending on the quality of the wine and such like, it could have been drunken in more generous quantites than the modern equivalents.
The acohol in wine, let alone older styles of wine, isn't enough to prevent the growth of microorganism. At most, it can be safer in that you're allowing selected microorganisms to thrive in the hope that they monopolise the environment. But most likely, it was just people liking their sugary beverages, including to cover the taste of dirty water
Not only a fascinating and powerful presentation here, but a wonderful community of thoughtful enthusiastic commenters. What can all think and write proper, like . . . eh! Tremendous! I love to hear this language. Thanks to Simon Roper and everyone!
It's weird to think that in one thousand years people will be able to know exactly how we talked now. They'll be able to watch videos of us, see exactly what we looked like and how we lived. It would be amazing if had videos of people form hundreds of years ago. I think in the future this time will regarded as highly significant in the same we regard the beginning of recorded history as significant. This is the time that history started to be recorded both visually and audibly.
Many say that our digital age and culture will vanish because of its reliance on specific mediums/software and hardware to access. If you found a heap of CDs in 100, let alone 1000 years, how could you read them? The internet and digital files will go even more completely up like smoke.
@@alexandrashaw314 strongly doubt it. YOu can find the first video and audio ever recorded, right here on UA-cam and somehow I don't think when they recorded it in 1880 they intended for it to be uploaded to a global network of computers that didn't even exist at the time. I wouldn't worry about it. Those willing to preserve our recordings will always find a way. The 20th century will indeed be a watershed moment for recorded history, thousands of years from now, in the same way that clay tablets are today.
![[PLEASE READ DESCRIPTION] Interview with an Anglo-Saxon in Old English](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/oFX1nbD3dV0/mqdefault.jpg)
![[PLEASE READ DESCRIPTION] Interview with an Anglo-Saxon in Old English](/img/tr.png)
Sounds like a modern-day Swede speaking English after learning it from an Irishman
Oh my god. This. You nailed it, and all of a sudden im having flashbacks to the ranting swede from sheep in the big city.
Lol
Yes! THAT! Loooool.
I actually have a friend with this exact background (Swedish, practiced English primarily with an Irishman growing up) and honestly you're kinda dead on LOL
Unbelievable, that's what I thought
I love this sort of thing. Just a French lad trying to help his fellow French refugees, and accidentally creates a brilliant primer on honest-to-goodness 16th c. street English, not the "proper" stuff taught at school. I'm sure Mr. Bellot would've been pleased to see us finding such utility in his humble phrasebook, all these centuries later.
Totally fascinating! Thank you for an inspiring video.
its funny because more of these sort of language-to-language transliterations are incredibly helpful at preserving a time's pronounciation (in both languages)
It's incredible that we have it.
I am not sure how humble it is to write something and than translate it twice.^^
The only reason I imagine him being so pedanticly is either, because that was his character or he wanted to profit of it.
Regardless, he was just some schmuck as we all are, and probably knew it too! I don’t do much of anything to directly benefit future generations, doubt he did either.
Well, he did write a book, he was proud of all the work he put into it over the years, and was happy with the profit it (hopefully) brought him.
Love to learn who he was, what he did in his free time, where he lived, was he an introvert or an extrovert (as someone who wrote a book about conversation in another language, it’s kind of a toss up!)
I love how the whole video is just some random footage of some grass.
So close to touching it, yet so far
And isopods!
Woodlice everywhere
Rolly-pollies
peak youtube
My great grandfather, a former native of Galway, born 140 years ago, used "tis" a lot. He also would pronounce a lot of words with extra syllables and then skip entire words if he thought you would think them implied by context. "Tis fine moranin, tain't na rain in sight." is an example. Or "ga fetcha me slippers lad, under bed." would be another. He died in 1964. He learned Irish from birth and spoke it exclusively until he was in his teens when he found it necessary to learn English to transact business in the nearest town, Loughrea.
'Tis still gets used in Ireland. Hiberno-English retains features of older forms of English alongside influences from the Irish language.Younger people such as myself use "'tis" slightly jokingly, I think, but it keeps it alive. It would be a shame for us to lose our dialect, after all.
Cool
Thanks for this little bit of history. God bless.
Thank you for sharing
As you probabaly know, many words in Northern England are often inferred. I live in West Yorkshire and much of my vocabulary is inferred
"How do you?" = Howdy
Oh wow!!
The interesting thing about this, is it's held it's meaning depending on where you say it. Saying Howdy in the south us usually results in an answer responding to the question. Where it's just a simple greeting in other places
Pint of wine ?
@@dannyboy-ym3uuwe shall go together, if you will
My guess is that it could be a contraction of “How do ye do” to “How’d ye do” to “Howdy do” and finally to “Howdy”.
"Let us have a reckoning". Gotta remember that one next time I'm at Aldi
As someone going to Aldi later today, I'll test the waters with it for you! If I do not update, expect the worst...
"Let us have a reckoning" sounds like a Florence and the Machine song
Report, good sir/ma'am?
Fare ye well to Aldi!
I loved hearing that! It's what you'd say today in German, rechnung, or Norwegian, regning, meaning "the bill". You'd call the waiter after you've finished your meal and request it.
Always up for a pint of wine
I'd prefer 568ml though
Sam Allardyce would fit right in
It comes in pints?
I think they did that sadly . It wasn't necessary :(
A cheeky pint of wine
I'm honestly amazed at how comprehensible this is. I had expected much more Middle-English era words and grammar to be present, especially in the middle of the Great Vowel Shift, but now I'm happy that, were I to acquire a time machine, I could have a pint with the lads 400 years ago 😂
I think that sentence structures, pronunciation and vocabulary are unfamiliar to a speaker of modern English, but yet they are understandable (especially when they were spoken slowly). A quite short exposure to this Middle English speech (maybe some weeks just living amongst 16th century Londoners, NOT formal training) should be enough to bridge the language gap.
I bet that there are remote *modern* dialects of English, that are harder to understand.
this is early modern English, progressed well past Middle English even of Chaucer’s time. He died 1400. In 1586, the time of Bellot’s book, Shakespeare was 22 years old.
Then you'd miss the lads by 38 years ;)
@@Galenus1234I’m from Northamptonshire, though I’ve lived on the south coast for 30 years. About 18 years ago I was talking to some drunk geordies and I could only understand about two out of every five words. You’d think being from the midlands I’d have had more chance of understanding them than a southerner would… but nope!
@@greva2904 I am sometimes a drunk Geordie, and I feel like there's a few similarities especially to the way older people used to speak in the 90s. They would have been born at the turn of the century if you're wondering. I do wonder if we just continue the southern dialect from previous generations as we stubbornly cling on to our regional speech over generations.
I love that old "how is it with you?" ... literally how it's said in the Netherlands and Norway
hoe gaat het met jou
@@DIOBrando-wl4xq ja, of: hoe is het met jou? Kan allebei :)
@@timoloef fakka met jou
They greet each other "How are you Now?" In Canada
@@robertsaget6918 or: hey bud
'What do you lack?' sounds like my late grandmother, who lived in the Appalachian mountains, when asking if we wanted seconds at the dinner table. This is a fascinating book! Thanks for the excellent video.
I grew up in rural eastern middle Tennessee in the 80s and 90s and this type of expression was absolutely normal
a lot of appalachian communities have been isolated from the rest of the world for quite a bit, so much so that linguistically they're said to be closer to the form of english from just before the period this video discusses.
@@rakninjaI'd be interested to see that quantified. Even in isolation language evolves. Is the speech of Appalachia closer to English of the 1500's or just different in different ways?
It also depends on which 1500s dialect you compare it to. I hear a number of things I associate with Northern Ireland, but that accent probably hadn't formed yet,
@@HweolRidda if i recall the research, it's mostly referencing the great glottal shift. i wish i could help point you to the correct papers, but you know how youtube comments don't like links.
it is pretty dang fascinating, though!
I've heard it all my life in west Texas, too. Plenty of people here whose ancestors came from the southern states within the last 150 years or so, of course. But it's pronounced "like" here. For example, if you're short of money when it comes time to pay, your companion (or a friendly bystander) might ask, "How much do you like?"
This is also how people speak when i hide in the bushes to hear them talk
Ah yes, the legendary bushes of time. Not to be confused with particularly overgrown thyme plants.
But the trees speak Vietnamese.
Were you searching for mutilated porn mags?
I hide in the people to hear bushes talk. Built different
Uhhhhhh…..
Totally using ‘shall we have a reckoning’ when paying for something
them fighting words in some places, be careful mate now
My elderly relatives (UK, Midlands) would say "Reckon up" e.g. a bill, or when they went to a checkout. They would have grown up close to the Black Country, where Old English is still presrved in the dialect
"Reckoning" sounds a lot like "rekening" in this context. A rekening is the Dutch word for a calculation and often refers to the bill yet to be paid.
@@michelvanbriemen3459Same as "rechnen" in German. My elderly mum says "reckon up the bill" in a shop/restaurant.
@@mrsrjlupin3650 Yes, my mum (in her 70s now) has always used 'reckoning up' when doing her income and expenditures. I like it. It is a good Old English word: reckon. Reckon, of course, really means to calculate, unlike now in Britain where it is often used interchangeably with 'to think'.
I found the phrase right at the end of this video really interesting, “what is of the clock?” “it is two of the clock” and explains why we say 2 o’clock now.
In the US it’s more like 2 a’clock.
actually yea it does. what about the "i used to do (x)" thingy tho? like now to me in modern english it sounds kinda archaic ngl. like i think its one of the only actual archaic things people still use regularly
@tristantheoofer2 I used to do exercise. How is this archaic? I don’t understand
@pipipip815 I thought it was obvious 2 o’clock was an abbreviation for a longer phrase. “2 on the clock” is what I always thought it meant
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How goes the night? At odds with morning which is which. What's amiss? You are, and do not know it.
Listening to that haggle conversation was incredible. I was cast back in time. Thank you.
thank you for the tips, going to gradually pepper these phrases into my casual speech to subconsciously manipulate my friends into adopting them and spreading it to their friends
How has that been going? I’d like to know!
YES.
let’s revive the heck out this old english
“god be wy” looks like how someone might type “god be with you” over text lol
It’s actually pretty fascinating as this is in the midst of “god be with you” turning into “goodbye” and then “bye”
In Geordie speak it would be W ye (or w yu) tho the phrase has died since people don't tend to say that phrase now
Elizabethan AF
Just wait til the younger folk start pronouncing English the way they text it!
That will be a serious headache for older folk.
@@jimthain8777 well we’ve had texting first 25 years and no sign of that happening lol
I like how this is pretty much how conversational or utilitarian language books are written today. Everyday dialogues, sometimes a bit stilted, and often presented in the same three columns: the language to be learned, the meaning in your own language, and a transliteration of the new language in your own phonetics.
7:22 lmao he said “farewell, then”
😂😂
That made me laugh idk why. I wish haggling like this was available everywhere
A perfect phrase for a passive-agressive goodbye.
@@UmbrellaGent
Lol my Grammy is from TN. Whenever I ask her “Grammy aren’t you gonna tip him?” She always says “shit, I’ll tip my hat and say good day, but I’ll be damn if I got any more to pay.”
@@UmbrellaGent I wonder if the dialogue was passive agressive for the time, if this type of passive-agressive was normal, or if it wasn't at all
@@pyrenees2695
Nah I think he was just saying bye.
@@UmbrellaGentit’s like how I say “laters” if I want to be passive-aggressive. Just as in Dizzee Rascal: “playa hatoh? see you latoh!”
I'm a simple man. I see a video about conversational English in 1586 and I click
Gary Rossington?
Lol
Literally a man of culture
Aye
Aye.
I may not sell them so.
Farewell then.
Haha love how haggling is still the same even all these years later.
very slightly more polite than the alternate: "Alright, Fook Ye Off now..."
Absolutely it was lol
We still routinely greet people with "How..." in the north-east. "How lad, ya alreet?"
As an American, if I were greeted with the word "how", I would be compelled to include in my reply a phrase such as "paleface" or "smoke-um peace pipe" 🤔
@@Kerithanos I know that the first native American to make contact with the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony spoke English. His first words were "Welcome Englishmen". I wonder whether the "how" greeting was actually borrowed from English. btw I live in Plymouth England where the Mayflower set sail from.
@Kerithanos seems the native Americans were speaking good English lol 😊
@@mistressofstones That particular one was - it seems he had actually crossed the Atlantic on an English merchant ship.
In the Guaraní language, the common greeting is "Mba'éichapa", which is basically "How" plus a "pa!" to make it a question 😆
THIS IS WHY THE INTERNET IS GREAT. It brings me joy that you share this for free. I commend you.
this is what I came here for! The development of English as a spoken language. thanks Simon, for getting back to this topic.
I was born in Lancashire but have lived most of my life in the Netherlands.
I speak Dutch fluently and without an English accent and am convinced that me having a broad Lancashire accent helped me as there are so many words and ways if speaking Dutch that are almost the same.
We always hear English compared to French or German but really Dutch, Flemish and most of the Scandinavian languages are more similar.
As a Lancashire lass living in Sweden, I can only agree! I studied languages and I once read in an authoritative book that the closest language to English is in fact Dutch, but I think the Scandi languages of Swedish, Danish and Norwegian come a close second.
Yes, me too. Cheshire cat.
@@LMB2301A week ago I was having dinner with two Danish friends. I'm a Lancashire lad, the other guest is from Yorkshire. Half way through, Lars, at of the blue said, why is it so easy for me to understand you two so easily. I couldn't find any explanation, but after your comment, I can now.
If you find someone with a broad dialect in Sunderland or Newcastle, half the worlds are still Dutch and Scandinavian.
I'm from Sunderland, and if I was to say "I'm going home" I'd say it in what is basically a pidgin Norwegian: "am gaan hjem".
Dutch and Flemish really are English's closest blood relatives, and the Danelaw saw to the Scandinavian influence being stronger than the French in many dialects. It's interesting seeing a map of the Danelaw reach right up to Lancashire.
One of my favourite British English greetings which makes no sense when I think about it is "Now then". Me and my friends use it all the time
I lived in UK for 9 years and my favorite greeting is "ey ya c*** ya alright" 😂
@@almishti So have you taken the hint yet ?
In the village in the North of England where I grew up, "How do?" was a common greeting
'Eyup' is quite common in Yorkshire.
“Yeah No.” is suddenly popular with younger Americans.
It annoys me.
Is it yes or no?
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Probably one of the best talks yet.
A controversial view but one I am growing more and more to believe is that what Shakespeare wrote in the 1590s to 1610s was NOT everyday speech of that time but was some sort of confected recollected speech from perhaps 50 years earlier and then corrupted by memory and grandeloquence.
I have a long text written by a very articulate man, John Mayer, Master of Sedbergh School in the 1590s. He was no fool, but a fellow of St. John's Cambridge. Like this gentleman he writes much more freely that Shakespeare makes his characters speak. The text was an answer to a Chancery Bill, but John Mayer was not a Lawyer and so he literally wrote to describe his everyday experience as articulately as he could, and he was articulate.
A lot of it was conscious and deliberate grandiloquence. Not even the 'nobs' would have gone around speaking in iambic, pentametric verse!
You might call it 'stagey'.
I think Shakespeare wrote in a register that was slightly above the everyday use of his time, but not so much that everyday people would not understand it.
Shakespeare wrote in blank verse, so it was already not a normal speech pattern. And sticking to the rules of the verse would have influenced word choices and and style.
Didn't he write plays set in the past?
I know people weren't as educated back then, but maybe it would've still sounded weird if those historical kings sounded "contemporary", same as if we made a WW2 movie where Churchill says things like "cringe", "yikes" or "rizz"
*Working with a crew of hillbillies in western North Carolina years ago.* The boss comes over the radio: "Hey, Buster, how much d'you lack on that job?" Buster, visibly frustrated, answers, "I don't lack none of it". The boss goes silent for a moment, gritting his teeth at the pun. "Damn it, Buster..."
Could you explain the pun? I’m curious but can’t parse it.
@@SupahTrunks7 Southern pronunciation of "like."
@@zeedub8560 Bill Bryson mentions a southern lady who asks him "How d'ya lack Miss Hippy?" and he is quite confused, not being acquainted with one Miss Hippy and certainly not experiencing any lack of her. Of course, she asked him what he thought of Mississippi.
@@DrWhom I was in class one day during my freshman year of h.s., only a year after moving from PA to TX. A girl asked, "Anyone have any type?" I thought, huh? My grandfather was a printer, so I though of printer's type. After a few seconds of confusion, I figured out she was asking for tape.
@@SupahTrunks7
In Western North Carolina, they pronounce the i sound in night, kite, bright, and etc very...widely. I'm from the Piedmont, and though we're very Southern it is something we don't do. It's jarring even to us. So, I take it that the long i sound made like and lack almost sound the same, so Buster is saying he doesn't like the work he is having to do and being a smart ass.
I don't know a lot about how Londoners spoke in 1586, but I do remember when I was a young child in NE England in the 1960s, that when counting money in shops, in phrases like 'two pence', 'three pence', 'six pence', people always used to stress the number and not the word 'pence'. So they said 'tuppence', 'threppence', 'sixpence' as if they were single words. The coins were known as 'tuppney, threpney and sixpenny' bits.
But when the UK currency was decimalised in 1971, people in shops started saying, instead, "That will be six new pence, please' stressing the fact that it was new pence and not old. After a few years, they stopped saying 'new pence'. But the word pence continued to hold its stress.
I never heard the word 'bit' used for coins any more after that. They became known as two-pence, five-pence and ten-pence pieces.
Does anyone else remember this?
being an American no, I don’t remember that, but I remember the word “bits” being used to indicate monetary value. There was a sports cheer in which the usage appeared for a long time, “two bits four bits, six bits, a dollar, all for the Tigers, stand up and holler!” I remember reasoning that if the progression was two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar, then a dollar must have been eight bits, so two bits was 12 1/2 cents! I asked my dad and he had no idea what I was talking about.
"8-bit coin" or "pieces of 8" was used for divisions of the Spanish dollar in colonial times in the Americas.
@@sluggo206 And Bitcoin itself, of course! How could I have missed that? 🙂
Yes, I remember but there was never a tuppney bit in old money.
@@dibblethwaite You're right, we spoke of "tuppence" but the 2d coin only existed in Maundy Money, which was worth far more than its face value. There was, however, the half penny coin, or "hA'penny bit." It had a galleon on the back: referenced by JK Rowling in the "Galleon," the largest coin in Wizarding Britain.
Something cheap or tawdry could be described as "tuppenny ha'penny" or worth 2.5d, which at one time was enough to send a postcard, or an unsealed Xmas card: what later became second class post. Now that costs 85p, or 17 shillings in old money: though inflation means the increase is nothing like as bad as it looks.
What's funny about English in this time (say, 1500-1640ish) is that when subtitles are included, as you've done here, it's really easy to understand. But if the subtitles were to go away (i.e. if I were that time traveler) then I could maybe pick up about half of the conversational speech I heard. What I love about your videos is the eerieness of Middle and Early Modern English, almost like you're listening to some buried ancestral memory. I keep looking for ways to include your inspiration in my fiction. Thanks so much for this rare window into the past, Simon. ❤
Being able to understand the words when text is included is just basic psychology, not anything to do with the era of the speech lol.
It’s archaic but I understood every word. It’s like listening to American hillbilly
as a speaker of new england english, i understood every word with neigh difficulty
Curious, what's your fiction going to be about?
@@Adonnus100 Nothing directly relevant to anything in this video 😅 It's literary historical fiction and time travel (1920s) but I have a real fixation for writing language exactly as it was - or as close as possible - whether that's Ohio in the 1920s or England in the 1400s. I end up writing a lot of fictional primary source material that's referenced in the story, and (in future books) there might be undead fragments of people left over from the Middle Ages - just as a vehicle to include this kind of spoken Middle English. I'm still playing with plot elements so there's a lot I don't know yet. The first book, "Mary, Everything" was published in 2020. 🙂 Thank you for asking! ❤
“How do?” was used as a greeting in Manchester where I lived in the 1960s and 70s.
Still is ;)
I think its a precursor to the southern "Howdy"
I still use "howdo" regularly (although it was sometimes frowned upon in formal situations) Lancashire.
Shropshire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire too.
you can absolutely translate that directly word by word into modern german and get a pretty acceptable casual greeting.
I read books from the 1500s, albeit printed in the early 1600s. Sometimes people look over my shoulder and ask me if it's Old English. "No," I tell them. "It's Early Modern English. Not too different from today, innit?" Cheers! Thanks. Lovely, this. Keep making these videos.
500 years is objectively old, even for a language, so the confusion of lay people (including myself) is understandable.
@@rikwisselink-bijker Old English is more than 1000 years old.
@@jsmithy643 I don't know how to respond, other than with 'ok'. The colosseum is about 2000 years old, but if your house was built in the 1800s I'm still going to call it an old building.
Perhaps a useful distinction would be 'old English' vs 'Old English'. The latter is a term of art, while the former is more of a personal opinion.
@@rikwisselink-bijker While Shakespeare's form of English IS old, he did not write in Old English.
@@jsmithy643 I don't believe we disagree, but it sounds to me like you think we do.
What a superb video and topic. Iċ þancie þē, mīn freond!
SALVE LVKE
I’m American how can I understand this?
I follow you Simon for years, since your early "on a chair" videos and untill now I find you my best discovery on YT. Not only the great knowledge and passion but the voice as well. Thank you for all you make and as always, best wishes from Poland :)
Seconded!
Thirded
Forthded 🤣
Veefed
Piąty kurwa ;) to put emphasis on Polish background :) the second Polish word is probably the only one every Brit knows ;)
'How are you going' is still used commonly in Ireland, which is probably how it arrived in Australian English.
In Australian it's eryagahn. Mark Twain: "The Australians consume nothing so much as syllables."
That haggling part is just, marvellous! Thank ye sir! For this gift of content!
Farewell then!
Interestingly, I'm starting to hear modern youth say, "Can I come with?" not, "Can I come with you?" Mitkommen is German, but in English this appears to be making a strange comeback.
"Come with", at least in American English, has been around for a long time I'm pretty sure! It was a Germanism (or maybe a Yiddish-ism?) originally, but spread from the language of German immigrants to colloquial speech more generally in some regions. Compare also "what gives?" from "was gibt's"?
Yeh I agree I've come with in England. Maybe in the North especially Yorkshire and the North East
Interesting….Growing up in the ‘80s in Northern Virginia in the U.S., I had a friend who always said “come with” without the “me,” and I always found it annoying somehow-like, “Just finish the sentence!!” But now I see there are historical reasons for that expression. I’m not sure where she got it from since no one else in our area seemed to say it that way, but it must have been something passed down in her family.
it’s exactly what they say in Danish: “kan jeg komme med ?” much closer than in German (also the ‘soft d’ in ‘med’ reminiscent to the ‘th’ in ‘with’)
A common mistake for german speakers learning english: Asking for the time. They don't ask "What is the time?" or even "Is it late?", but "How late is it?", implying that they are late at any given moment and just request an estimation of their relative lateness.
I can’t get enough of this kind of stuff. I was actually a little sad when the video was over.
its worth noting that a frenchmen might be more likely to notice/register contractions that are similar to frech, like th' corrisponding to l'
An astute observation
It's interesting that modern English has the opposite trend. The vowel in "the" strengthens before a word starting with a vowel rather than disappearing. "Thə man" but "thee opposite".
@@HweolRidda That was the case in classical British Received Pronunciation. But there's an even more modern trend of using Thə before a vowel.
That's because modern English diphthongises every tense vowel apart frombroad a, and at the end of the day this means they all get an optional final semiconsonant, preventing hiatus that English so hates
@Allan_son AS an Anerican I say “the opposite”. I don’t say “thee” unless it’s the actual word thee
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its remarkable that we could easily communicate in english with these people using current english, nearly 450 years later.
I like how you can vary the sound of your voice enough to make the two sides of the conversation sound different, but without either of them sounding cartoonish. I always do the audible equivalent of a double take, because it sounds like two different people with similar voices rather than one person playing two characters.
I was also surprised about how easy it was to understand 95%, the rest I would pass over. As a Brit thats been in the US for 40 years, I have the same problem today, I'm still acquiring UK English again, and many street talk I overhear is nearly incromprhensible to me.
"many street talk" ? you really have been away for a while...
I feel ya! I got back to Australia after 15 years in China, and the service staff in McDonald's were utterly unintelligible. I found myself thinking, "I speak English, German and Chinese, plus a smattering of Swedish. I've taught English for many years, and I have no idea what that kid just said!"
You’ll still hear ‘How goes it’ and ‘how do you’ in the US. Rural and southern
You can still hear these phrases in parts of the UK too. I even use them from time to time as well. 😅
"how do ye" became "howdy"
@@bootmii98 Very interesting, thank you! Regarding the use of 'ye' as a plural, I wonder if it was once more often used as an address to a group than to an individual. 'Howdy folks' will be familiar to anyone who's ever seen a Western.
'How goes it' was a standard greeting from a Rhodesian/Zimbabwean (White) friend of mine born in the 1960s. It sounded odd in 1980s England.
As an Australian born in the 1960s, I've both heard and used "How goes it?", "How's it going?", and "How's it hanging?" The first of those is more old fashioned, the middle one still current, and the last is both more casual and more ... crude or uncouth.
As far as the informal use of "thou" as distinct from the more polite "you" is concerned, Shakespeare (and presumably his audiences) was keenly aware of the social nuances involved in the choice. Sometimes a speaker will even shift from one to the other to emphasise a shift in attitude. If I were to suddenly address you as "thou" rather than "you", it would mean I was either trying to be rude or, alternatively, trying to get more familiar in other ways!
There’s an old English folksong (As I roved out one May morning) where a man meets a maid and begs her to stop a while with him. He begins by addressing her with ‘you’ but after they have lain together he addresses her with ‘thou’. One can only imagine why…
In Richard III, the two murderers switch between "you" and "thou" when talking to Clarence before killing him.
Sounds to me (French Canadian) like an exact parallel of the French use of 'Tu' - singular familiar - and vous - plural, or singular formal/respectful.
@@normandduern2413 Exactly so.
I've never watched a video of yours that I didn't love, and that didn't transport me to another time. Thank you for all you do, Simon.
I love these types of videos that describe how conversations actually went
I find this fascinating. As a school psychologist who is highly interested in dyslexia, this is a treasure trove of information about our use of language and the written symbols that allow us to reproduce the sounds of said language. The evolution of the language and the written words of it is itself fascinating.
Are you going to cure dyslexia? If so how far along are ye?
What the hell does your interest in dyslexia have to do with this? Nobody asked.
Really like the ‘time traveller’ insights in your videos.
I think you'd find the 1819 Burslem Dialogue quite interesting, its an account of two men from Stoke-on-Trent in the early 19th century, it's avaliable from Google books for free.
Thank you. Is it much different from today?
@@stephenryan7855 There are some differences, but it's hard to tell because the author wrote it phonetically, but not using a modern phonetic transcription. But when I've read it it doesn't sound too different from some of the oldest people I've met in the North of Stoke-on-Trent near to where the dialogue is supposed to have taken place.
Hello Simon. I have heard many of these sentences uttered by both rural dwellers and traveling people in Cumbria, so the language is still extant. The countryside is so conservative in nature and so steeped in heritage that some phrases are as enduring as the seasonal traditions, especially in this sometimes forgotten nook of furthest north-west England. I enjoy listening to your presentations and look forward to more of them.
Focusing the footage on the most ancient bug in existence is a nice touch.
I remember in 1967 my dear Wife and I visited her Sister who lived with her Yorkshire born Husband near Castleford in the West Riding, we came from Lewes East Sussex, and I remember we were surprised that on asking a wee Lad the way he answered us by using thou and thee in his Yorkshire Dialect.
Aye, 'tis the way.
It's still the case in Sheffield in informal speech.
Sentences like “Where live you?” sound to me like a Dutch kid learning English.
The Dutch never developed the need for do-support.
@@DrWhom guess they can ..... do without
German too!
My man, that was absolutely brilliant. And really educational on so many levels!
I learned more about 16th century speech. I learned one of the ways we know how people spoke. I got to hear a likely genuine conversation, from 400 years ago. And I leaned the etymology for goodbye. Do more of these!
Wow. What an unbelievably valuable document for linguists
The world is full of cunning linguists, apparently.
things like this make me so much more excited to study history in uni, yes all the language stuff is interesting, but the fact that we have records of what casual conversations might have been like? it's amazing! I love people just being people and going about their lives during different time periods
Fascinating. It occurred to me the lack of contractions may be to ensure non-native speakers aren't misunderstood, since accents can mess with pronunciation. But all the discussion about evolution of informal speech has made me want to listen to Fairport Convention's "Come All Ye". 😀
It is amazing how many of these patterns still survive in northern England. Even 'thee' is heard occasionally
They say it all the time in Barnsley.
"How do" is probably the second most common greeting in the north east after y'allreet.
I'm born and raised northern english and i've never heard anything like this
I'm from Lancashire, 60 years old now and people regularly used thee when I was a kid, pronounced 'the' or 'tha'. There was a joke we'd say, but only works in a Lancashire accent from that time.
Someone wants to throw some rubbish away, and asks:
"Where's the bin?"
In an old Lancashire accent we'd answer ...
"Nowhere. Where's you been?"
I used to hear it a lot in Sheffield being a child in the 90’s, such as “how’s tha doing”, “is tha coming to t’pub?”
A linguistic treasure! Brought to life by your awesome voice and reconstructed phonology!
Fascinating. Sometime in the late 70s or 80s, I was in Victoria Station using a public pay telephone (no cell). I finished my call, and having noticed that an older man using the next phone was having trouble making his call. Public phones at that that time were "A and B button" phones, not user-friendly. So I offered to help. He responded quickly and gratefully, but I was shocked. I remember thinking at the time that he might have stepped out of Chaucer, using archaisms besides which the speech in this video is quite modern. Anyway, he told me that this was the first time in his life that he had left his village, somewhere in the southwest. I helped him place his call and when he got an answer I went on my way. But to this day I remember this encounter with the frozen past and regret missing the opportunity to perhaps buy him a cup of tea for a chat.
Time traveller?!
That’s a truly fascinating exposition on London’s spoken English at the time of Shakespeare. I never knew such a valuable document, with its guide to pronunciation existed. Thank you for sharing.
I really enjoy the little scenes of what I assume is the garden.
You should visit the west of Ireland where some of these things are still common. One weird thing is that we use "ye" (pronounced "yee") strictly as a plural for "you". Most of the time, people who hear this don't realize it's a plural and assume it's just a weird way of pronouncing "you". One time on a work trip to the US someone asked why we sometimes say "you" and sometimes "yee". I realized then it's not obvious because a lot of English speakers don't make any singular/plural distinction for "you" at all.
My grandma spoke this way, she'd say ye three be quiet. But you if just one of us. She was from South West Ireland.
Here in Texas, "y'all" is definitely the normal standard plural form of "you".
Don't forget you & you'nz / yinz.
Actually many of us do have a plural for the you pronoun, but it isn't anything like "yee", in my area it "you guys" (regardless of gender), in some parts of North America is Y'all, (which is you+all).
Yous is common in Australia. And I mean common 😊
That haggling part was fascinating!
9:30 My god, I’ve just realized that the “o” in “o’clock” stands for “of”, so when we say something like “it’s 5 o’clock”, we’re actually saying “it’s 5 of (the) clock” 😮
You are slow, aren't you?
Yes!
I always assumed it was for on-the-clock.
I learned this in primary school, back in the 1960s!
I knew this as a kid. I'm aged 68 now.
The syntax of 'how do' is right out of my Yorkshire front door.
Fascinating! The old speech sounds so quaint and even cute to my 21st-century American ears. I wish people still talked like this!
They do. Thee is still common in South Yorkshire.
As in late-19th century New England.
Just found this channel, this is the coolest
Thank you for that moment of time travel
Okay but this is ridiculously helpful for people trying to learn an early modern English accent and don't want grandiose Shakespearean or lofty language as an example. It's nice to have examples from this period that's just two ordinary folks chatting.
This is insanely wonderful. Thank you so much for all of this!!
Interesting how this older syntax is closer to Scandinavian languages than current English is.
Im learning Dutch (in Belgium). The first time I went to see Shakespeare since starting, I had a similar surprise. My understanding was improved allot by learning another germanic language.
@@sirkalasnefzenlot That was how I maintained a grasp on Dutch grammar too when I was studying it. I was just sat there thinking "Wow, this feels a lot like archaic English"
Also closer to modern German. I'm curious about when the "do" forms became required rather than optional for questions and negations in English, as in "Where do you live?" rather than "Where live you?" and "I don't live in London" rather than "I live not in London."
This older syntax is closer to other germanic languages in general, not just scandinavian languages. The ‘do’ forms likely arose as a result of the Norman invasion. If I remember correctly, in most romance languages descended from Vulgar Latin, the primary way in which you ask a question is simply with rising intonation, not necessarily with subject/verb inversion like in germanic languages. As the Norman-French speaking upper classes gradually intermixed with the Anglo-Saxon lower classes over the centuries, the ‘do’ form probably arose as a sort of grammatical compromise that tried to reconcile the germanic requirement that a question begin with a verb with the romance tendency to maintain SVO word order.
@@geisaune793 “The ‘do’ forms likely arose as a result of the Norman invasion.”
One blog post, summarizing John McWhorter’s view in his book _his book Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue,_ says
“What specific elements of the English grammar can be said to be of Celtic origin? One well-studied example of a trait now thought to derive from Celtic is the so-called do-support. In English, a ‘dummy’ auxiliary _do_ must be used to form negative and interrogative sentences; hence, we say _John does not swim_ (instead of _*John swims not_ or _*John not swims)_ and _Does John swim?_ (instead of _*Swims John?)._ Other Germanic languages (German, Dutch, Norwegian, Afrikaans, etc.) do not have this construction (note that the English use of do-support is different from the so-called emphatic _do,_ as in _John does swim!,_ which is found in other Germanic languages). Nor do Romance or Slavic languages have anything resembling do-support. In fact, it’s a rather rare quirk, cross-linguistically.
“We now think that English picked it up from its Celtic neighbors. Unlike Germanic languages, Celtic languages like Cornish have had do-support since before English started using it. It is used in Celtic exactly as in English: to express tense and agreement in negative and interrogative sentences.”
It then gives several objections to this Celtic hypothesis.
I’m Australian & can easily spot differences between your modern phrasing & pronunciation to ours here. But we’re a young country with English brought over only 200-odd years ago.
What’s _really_ interesting to me - as I’ve been married to an Irishman & travelled a lot of Ireland in the past ten years (and always enjoyed their colourful, unique, almost theatrical dialogue) - is that in this video, I can hear a LOT of the current phrasing, vernacular, and style of Irish English in your 16th Century conversational English. And now, I have the uncanny sense that I’ve been hearing English preserved in a time capsule through my Irish family & friends! Particularly when outside of Dublin. Amazing.
and now imagine how much more uncanny it is when you know german. Half the sentences could be direct word-for-word translations and the rest use words that aren't typical in modern english, but have clear analogys in german.
Fascinating, thank you
This is fascinating and answers the exact question that's rattled around my brain for years now. Thank you for making it.
“Hello” existed for a very long time, as a combination of “hail” and “all”, as “hall-oo” or “calling out hallows” to friends in the woods. I’ve seen many references in 17th century writing about people who recorded their stories of the day.
i remember reading that Quakers in the mid to late 1600s got into a lot of trouble by speaking informally to nobility, as per our stance on radical equality, and that included them using "thou" instead of "you"
Native Quebec French speaker here.
I'll start off by saying that Quebec French has many archaic or unique features compared to Metropolitan French, and that's a whole Pandora's Box of its own, and Quebec French is closely related to older forms of French which had a lot of influence on Old English.
Now to the point I mean to make, old English seems to have many grammatical structures that are similar to French. Inverting the verb and subject in a question for example, without the need for an auxiliary "do" for it to make sense. It "feels" natural to a French speaker.
Also, I have some degree of knowledge of the Icelandic language, and an equivalent of "thou" is still used by the Icelanders. As a matter of fact, they still use it with the "original" letters "thorn" - Þú - when used in a more formally correct way, and with "eth" - ðu - when slipped into casual speech. The transition from þú to -ðu is similar to contractions using the apostrophe in the English language (you are not = you aren't, etc).
A simple Icelandic greeting: What say you? (that choice of words for a greeting already feels archaic by modern English perspective)
Formal - Hvað segir þú?
Casual - Hvað segirðu?
Considering Old English in the context of it historical linguistic ecosystem makes it all the more interesting, I find.
Considering how much of a thing linguistic purism is in France, it's realky surprising that quebec french is so much more resistant.
And for the icelandic example I can add two more from the germanc area: "wat zeg je?" and "was sagst du?" which make it pretty clear where english got it's roots.
@@HappyBeezerStudios In Québec we have the "Office Québécois de la Langue Française" which is an official independent office that governs what is and isn't appropriate french language in Québec.
It really helps keep it all structured and cohesive.
Iceland has a similar "office" that decides things regarding the Icelandic language, like when some new tech becomes important enough to warrant a native Icelandic word.
Most Germanic languages have some form of the word "computer"
Not Icelandic. They dug out an old word that wasn't used anymore and there you go, a computer is "tölvu".
Like a bullet to the head I’ve just realised that growing up in Rotherham I used to hear “How do” (as a greeting) all the time between grown ups. Fantastic vid as always mate.
Doesn't Bugs Bunny say it?
Wonderful! I applaud your erudition and the clarity of your explanations.
One of the most fascinating and interesting videos I've seen in recent times.
I found this phrase interesting: "Have you any good, broad cloth?" As "broadcloth" is a term used nowadays for any number of fulled plain-woven wool fabrics.
Hey Simon. There were love letters from king Henry the 8th to Anne boyelin. I thought: how about using that source and reading them as they were been read at the time? You would have a real cotemporary example from the early 1500s
I second this. I'd love to hear them read.
8:06 So glad he included a little isopod in this video! Although I got distracted watching him scuttle, haha
Finally I have new ways to reply to people on the Facebook Marketplace
Thank you for sharing your scholarship. English is so widely spoken around the world. Your voice is very pleasant, modulated, and easy to hear…
In those days local accent was very strong. You could travel to another county and not understand a word said
"how are you going " for "how are you doing" is the way we say it in German, but also in norwegian. Good example for how out languages were more similar the further you go back
In Norwegian it would most likely be "how is it going?" or, if directly translated, "how goes it?" (hvordan går det?) or "how is it going with you?", which directly translated is, "how goes it with you?" (hvordan går det med deg?).
Where I'm from in England you can say 'how's it going' which means the same as how are you doing.
In Australia, "How's it going?" is equivalent to "How are you?" - but more frequently used.
I say, "How's it going?" but you even here "how's it" shortened, as everyone understands the context. NW England here.
same in greek.
Very interesting. Would you please do a reading of William Caxton's Preface to Eneydos (1490), in the pronunciation of the time, where he discusses the difficulties of translating into English? Thank you very much!
What strikes me as interesting is all the ways in which speech had been made simpler or more casual, only to be reversed. At some point, people must have started saying the implied 'them' again
Very cool. More of this please. Hearing the dialogues is awesome
I might have misconstrued, but it may be worthwhile considering the the "y' " is not just a short form of ye, but the french pronunciation of 'y' - 'ee' (...mal y pense). I often had shouted at me as a boy "I'll give ee a thick ear if...".
Not just that - French's "y" as a particle, is related to Italian "ci" and galloitalic "ghe", meaning it was probably originally a consonant+vowel sequence; it could be that, at Bellot''s time, "y" was still pronounced [ji] or [i:] rather than [i] a in modern French
'how goes it?' is still used in the UK ironically (as many archaisms, such as 'little did he know...' etc.). Once in a pub the barman greeted a customer saying, 'hello James! How goes it?' and the guy, a bit taken aback replied, 'I'm good, how... goes you?' That made me laugh😅
A pint... of wine?
Hello Hilbert my good man, wine as well as most commonly consumed alcohol would have been of a lower alcohol content and considered to be a healthsome beverage. It was also made of fruits other than grapes. Depending on the quality of the wine and such like, it could have been drunken in more generous quantites than the modern equivalents.
@@Bellicosy Yes, we should perhaps think of watered down wine - the booze being used to make the water safer to drink.
The acohol in wine, let alone older styles of wine, isn't enough to prevent the growth of microorganism. At most, it can be safer in that you're allowing selected microorganisms to thrive in the hope that they monopolise the environment. But most likely, it was just people liking their sugary beverages, including to cover the taste of dirty water
Not only a fascinating and powerful presentation here, but a wonderful community of thoughtful enthusiastic commenters. What can all think and write proper, like . . . eh!
Tremendous! I love to hear this language. Thanks to Simon Roper and everyone!
Loved this, thank you for taking the time in to bring this together. This is of value now and potentially for eons to come.
It's weird to think that in one thousand years people will be able to know exactly how we talked now. They'll be able to watch videos of us, see exactly what we looked like and how we lived. It would be amazing if had videos of people form hundreds of years ago. I think in the future this time will regarded as highly significant in the same we regard the beginning of recorded history as significant. This is the time that history started to be recorded both visually and audibly.
Many say that our digital age and culture will vanish because of its reliance on specific mediums/software and hardware to access. If you found a heap of CDs in 100, let alone 1000 years, how could you read them? The internet and digital files will go even more completely up like smoke.
@@alexandrashaw314 strongly doubt it.
YOu can find the first video and audio ever recorded, right here on UA-cam and somehow I don't think when they recorded it in 1880 they intended for it to be uploaded to a global network of computers that didn't even exist at the time.
I wouldn't worry about it. Those willing to preserve our recordings will always find a way.
The 20th century will indeed be a watershed moment for recorded history, thousands of years from now, in the same way that clay tablets are today.
Would make some good voice lines for characters in a game based in Tudor England! Very interesting stuff, thanks.
A lot of this phrasing is still normal to speakers of Dublin English. You definitely need to cover it.
Gads, I love your channel!
Another incredible Simon Roper video. You're a blessing