What an amazing story! I am from East Yorkshire and I am very familiar with so many of these sounds. I’ve found dialects fascinating since the age of 10 as my mother spoke in the Yorkshire tongue and my father’s family spoke good clear Modern English
It was this documentary that got me interested in Linguistics. I am forever thankful to the producers. A very intriguing look at Historical Linguistics, how English got to be spoken as it is today. It's interesting, one could argue that English is a hybrid creole language of the old rooted Anglo Saxon tongue, and Norman French.
+Alex Zawodniak Back in 1066 the differences between the several North Sea Germanic languuages were very small. So before 1066 nothing got creolised. After 1066, lots of lots of French, Greek and Latin words entered the language, a thing which also happened in Dutch and German. I wouldn't call this creolisizing either, because the language remained to be Germanic. It just had different influences over the years. There's a straight line from the single language Frisians, Angels and Jutten really had around 2000 year ago, to the English we have now. All of these language only started growing apart after Frisian lost its status as the trade language of the entire North Sea area around 1350 years ago.
Lithuanian is very important among the Indo-European languages because of its conservatism.It is sometimes said that a Lithuanian can understand certain simple phrases in Sanskrit.Lithuanian preserves some very old features that have disappeared from practically all other languages of the family.For example there are some words that haven't changed a bit for 5 000 years.Those are both exactly the same in Sanskrit and in Lithuanian even today.Sunus-a son,Rasa-a dew,Avis-a sheep,Viras-a man,etc.
Very interesting to learn about this, I've moved from The Netherlands to the S.West of Britain. My mother was Frisian, right from the North of Friesland on the coast. To hear her talk Frisian reminded me of how close to English it sounds. I believe I'm returning to my roots ;) Oh, yes, I meant to inquire about the music in this video. Can anyone tell me what it is? Thank you.
Hi Widukind: The "Germanic" tribes, which consists today of Germany (and German speaking countries), The Netherlands, Scandinavia, and England were related peoples, speaking, at one point in time a similar language. Over time, dialects developed as the people moved into different areas. The Saxons and the Anglii, along with the Jutes, who all spoke basically the same language are the ones, from Schlewig/Holstein, and Jutland who invaded Britain
He had given a series of sentences in English and French that were mutually intelligeble in both languages to try and make the point that English evolved from French, and I was making the point that the reason both are mutually intelligeble, is because alot of the French connecting words are well known in English but the equivalent English words did not come from French, but both came from the Indo-European root. Like 'le' and 'the' for instance.
I'm pretty sure 'be' is a cognate with German 'bin' and Dutch 'ben'. In Swedish, you don't really say it but you can say 'sig själv', which is 'him/her/themself'. English syntax is very close to Swedish, and we still use expressions that reflect the way English used to use verb second in the way Swedish and other Germanic languages do today.
Here it is one proverb in Lithuanian that sounds very much the same to Sanskrit. -Dievas dave dantis,Dievas duos ir duonas. In Sanskrit-Devas adat datas,Devas dasyati dhanas.In English- God gave us teeth,God will give us bread .Some more similar words to you Dumas-a smoke,Padas-a sole,Vilkas-a wolf,Antras-the second one,Durti-to stab,Duris-a door,Buti-to be,Visur-everywhere,Virsus-above,Degti-to burn,Ratha-wheels,Abi-both,Baltha-white,Sena-long ago,Kas-who,Kada-when,Banga-a wave,Dievas-God,etc.
Then there's even Norwegian (practically a mutual dialect with Swedish) 'deg'. Danish is also spelt 'dig', and Icelandic 'þig'. You can really see the history between them all. I wanna learn Dutch, but I'm torn 'cause I'm more likely to use German.
Excellent - thank you ;-) It really brings things into perspective and makes the points that I have "subconcisously" known all along, ever since I first started to learn English and began to wonder why this language is so strangely familiar & similar in its basic vocabulary & grammatical structure - and mostly fairly easy for us to learn as Danes, as if we already know half of it from the start and don't have to think very much ;-)
Most historians in the past have failed to explain why the Old English syntax and grammar is at odds with all the Germanic languages( even with its closest relatives like Frisian and Dutch/Flemish). The most apparent is the verb form to be, the use of self (himself herself etc), lack of external possesor(unlike other Germanic languages) and the use "Do" as affirmative or questions.
That's exactly right. Mig, dig, sig - Mich, dich, sich. You only really use själv and a reflexive together to say things like 'Jag lär mig själv' - 'I teach myself' as opposed to 'Jag lär mig' which is 'I learn' even though it's like literally saying 'I learn me'.
@JohnMatrix89 yes! we have norse words like, window, husband, mistake, arabic words, like alcohol,sugar, matress,, hindu words, thug, bungalow, loot, greek words, agony, centre,cost,stomach, future, planet, electric, ocean, french words , beauty, butcher, button,abbatoir,vermin. beef, entrance, mutton,and germanic words like hand,foot, green, silver,gold, broken, speak, modern english is a mixed language, via english history, roman celtic, norse, saxon,french, and the english in india/persia
It is fascinating to think about how English words were replaced by French words in the years and decades after the Norman Conquest. Let me take, for example, our word, "peace," which is from the Latin through the French. How in the world did a common English word like, "Frith" get replaced by, "Peace?" We shall most likely never know for sure, but I would be thrilled to hear ideas about this from others, especially from linguists and language enthusiasts. 17 August 2015
+Fersomling yeah, but there is actually more of a deeper meaning to frith, it also meant something like "a peaceful bond, especially between related people" , so that, "breaking frith" was something very serious.
+Nack Jicholson "In terms of Anglo-Saxon and post-Anglo-Saxon culture, the term has a considerably broader scope and meaning. Frith has a great deal to do not only with the state of peace but also with the nature of social relationships conducive to peace. Moreover, it has strong associations with stability and security." from wikipedia "frith", but I also learned this from other more personal sources which shall go un-named for now, out of respect, for privacy's sake.
+Nack Jicholson French in fact was the upperclass language after the kings from Normandy took over on Great Britain. The law was written in French, after 1066 with the Normandy king pushing the Anglo Saxon king aside. After some time, English became to be the main language again, but the language changed from the clear North Sea Germanic language it was before 1066, into the slippery piece of ale it is now. Politicians LOVE this language.
This leaves you with the words in between which are common in both languages and which represent the heavy French and Latin influence. These Latin words are usually adjectives or nouns, and there is almost always an equivalent word or way to say it using words of Germanic origin in modern English(Not in the case of 'cousin'). It is well established and well known that the English language has received many words from Latin, you are suprising no one with that news.
I know OE plurals were more complex. The simplifications were not influenced by Latin, it was already taking place before the Normans. Did you watch part 4 at all? Prof. Tom Shippey explains why English adopted S for plural. English dropped the endings when Old English and Old Norse came into contact through the settlements of England. They have many words in common but the grammar would frustrate their communication as they mixed, so they ended up dropping much of the complications.
@TheWidukind The Anglian tribe is said to have lived in South of the Jutland, around the peninsule which still bears their name - "Angeln", just South of the present day Danish-German border in the Sourthern part of the dutchy Slesvig / Schleswig, which was fully part of Denmark until 1864. The northern part returned to DK after a referendum in 1920 (after WWI.)
some english words used in sentence construction are of norse origin, they, them, their/s are norse words, also some vocublary sky/skull/ window/husband/ sea/gull/ lad/get/heathen/mistake/ root/run/ scare/seem/skin/stagger/thrust/troll/ ugly/until/ window/wing /wrong/fog /die/ dregs /dirt/ cake/cast/call/both/ beserk/hell/kid / knot/ loose/ muck/outlaw/ likely/ are all norse terms. but in general it`s influence is very limited, also some accents in the north are said to be norse influenced
but in general there was the addition of of the EN and UN in anglo saxon, for example ox, as in the beast, was oxen, now it is oxes. there are very few saxon transcripts where the singular to plural is an addition of the letter S, germanic languages usually finish with an N in the plural, such as DORF and the DORFEN which is village/villages, one other theory is the S addition was intoduced by Latin terms that the saxons later borrowed, the saxons in england absorbed alot of latin pre 1066 war
I gonna give you another, since I think this is a pretty badass example of how ferocious Native American Tribes could be. An Iroquoin speaking tribe called "The Neutrals" by the French, who were the first to encounter them, and noted that they were neutral in the hostility between the Iroquois and the Hurons and exported flint to both of them.The French heard a tale of how this Nuetral Tribe had, several summers earlier, defeated an enemy tribe and cut the eyes out of all the remaining members.
@Bjowolf2 So to us learning English often feels more like expanding our own language than learning a completely new one. Oh, if only all languages were as easy as that ... ;-)
@Bjowolf2 There are so many similar words - some are just disguised a bit by the odd spelling or various, but rather systematic consonant shifts ( v ~ w, -g ~ k, -b ~-p, sk ~ sh ( D vs. E. ) .. ) - and the basic grammars are remarkably similar too - even down to the irregular verbs.
I didn't know about 'one' I wasn't sure what the Englisc word for it was.Since alot of the other germanic words for 'one' were more like 'ein' I assumed that the Englisc word was something like 'ein' aswell.'one' in modern English,does sound closer to 'une' than 'ein' does (& since I didn't know the Englisc word for it was 'ohne'),I admitted that 'one' MAY have come from 'une'.But you have proven that the modern word for 'one' DID come from Englisc,which only supports the argument I was making.
Check out The Story of English episode 2 - The Mother Tongue - Part 4 / 7 @4:00. He explains how OE grammar was simplified when Anglo-Saxons met the Norse. Adding the "s" on the end for the plural made it easier to speak between the two similar tongues.
you said that the latin influence in english has been germanised, actually it has stayed near intact, examine germanic expressions in english they now have the addition from singular to plural with the letter s, for example the english word "dog" is originated from the anglo saxon word docga, in modern english dog, and then "dogs", so there is latin influence on germanic english expressions. my point is that modern english is a mix with germanic/french/latin/greek/norse and some celtic words
Yes there are areas in the North where someone might use the word "spade" instead of "shovel" ('spade' being or norse origin, 'shovel' being of old english origin) as an example. Atleast I read that somewhere.
Latin was obviously a common language during Roman times and as a result of trade and other cultural infusions,some Latin words have made it into almost every European language.By the way,I looked up the origin of the word "one" and the fact that it is similar in all these Indo-European languages is because all thier versions of the word are based off an original Indo-European form.The modern English form of "one" may still have been borrowed from Norman French though, I can't prove otherwise.
English is not the only exception. German has been using the S for plural since around the 17 century. Check out the article "The -s plural marker is not a foreign import into the German language" by Dr. Damaris Nübling. All you have to do is look up the suffix -S in the dictionary and it gives the origin. It was not borrowed from Latin.
Norman French certainly helped transform English, mainly by adding a great deal more words to it than before. The structure of the language was cetainly warped from it's original (In other words, had the invasion of 1066 never happened, English people might be talking like the Dutch do today) but ultimately, you can still trace modern English all the way back to Englisc, and still see how modern English evolved from it. English is not now closer to French than it is to Englisc by any means.
Interesting, thanks. 'Jag lär mig' in Swedish? Ich lehre mich auf Deutsch, ja? I speak only a little German but it goes far - I don't know Dutch at all - but if I read it aloud I can pick the Deutsch out of it and sometimes get a sense of what is being said. It's a lot of fun (and maybe I've missed my calling? lol). Mig/mich/me (because the bothersome ending falls off). Dig/dich/thee (because the hard D devolves into the softer T) Don't know about the other.
@1DerekRubin1 Ah, thank you very much - you are very kind ;-) So now we just have to something seriously about our goofy accents - LOL and the worst "word by word" translations that are so very tempting to us, because are so alike, but don't always make any sense in E. But the results can be quite hilarious though ;-) Subtranslations into the purest nonsense is a much liked "sport" here : ie. UNDER-sæt(telser) instead of OVER-sæt(telser) ( = translations or "oversettings" ).
northern germanic/norse languages do not finish with S, for example bottles is flasker in norway, flaskor in sweden. there is no letter S, bottles in spanish is botellas, can you explain why English is the absolute exception to rule in the germanic catergory of languages?
spade is supposedly from the saxon word "spadu" but the problem is that the anglo saxons in england absorbed norse and roman latin words into the saxon language, so it is very difficult in pin pointing exact origins of english, my point is that it is a very mixed language and should be viewed as such, same with place and surnames in england, all very mixed, and alot of place names in england are roman, many surnames in the south are of french origin, and many a complete mix
Can you find any papers or books from a linguist or expert in Old English that can lend weight to your theory? All I am seeing is a lot of guess work, with no references being noted.
latin words ended in s, for example cofinus, = coffins, pavementos= pavements, actus= acts, this is an established fact, french and spanish also use this rule, in spanish, botellas = bottles. in french they also add the s village/ villages, in portuguese they also add the s, from singular to plural . the greeks also used the s for plural this is a common fact,
What (if any) experts claim that -S is descended from Latin? I haven't found one that would argue that, not even the cranks that argue for Celtic grammar in English. The simplification was taking place already before the Norman conquest. Also, English is not a hybrid language as I have spoken about with others below. If we consider English a creole, then Spanish and French are too. All west European languages borrowed heavily from each other.
From excavations and ancient writings we know in the Netherlands that the Frisians were navigators long before the Vikings. The language of the Anglo Frisians proves that the English language came from the Anglo Frisians. The Frisians once had to flee because the entire coast of the Netherlands was flooded. They then got into their boats and fled to the other side. There they took over the country. This evidence is also in the current DNA of both countries. The Vikings came 150 years later.
i have never once claimed that English grammar is derived from Latin, because it is derived from old English and Norse, English grammar is totally Germanic, I pointed out that it`s vocabulary is massively influenced by Latin, and this includes every day expressions, also there are common words that we use from celtic, norse, and Greek,, so everyday language is a mixture of influences, English vocabulary is nearly 70 percent non Germanic
@seamuspowers Yes, I know - I hope, I haven't said otherwise here LOL As I mentioned the similarities are many and deep, and even today it's as if we "mysteriously" know half of English already from the start - and that we don't have to think very much ;-) - always a good thing LOL
@TheWidukind It's "just" a legend (afawk) based on a real historic background (two related neighbouring peoples). The two brothers Dan and Angul, sons of Humle founded the tribes of the Danes and the Angles, which later migrated to England. It's desbribed in Saxo Grammaticus' "Gesta Danorum" ´( Deeds of the Danes).
@74stigma All languages borrow vocabulary from each other. Just look for a list of common words of German or English origin in Spanish or French. I am not sure of the point you are trying to make? Are you saying English is a mixed language?
spanish is mixed, i have studied it, around 30 percent semetic/arabic especially in the south, such as Cadiz it`s around 70 percent latin. but it has arabic influence on it`s vocal sounds also, so yes it is mixed, Maltese is another one, mixture of arabic with Latin, but it is top heavy with arabic influenced words and sounds, in fact English has more Latin influence than Maltese
some of these experts have different theories, and frequently disagree, i have examined a number of anglo saxon documents and i cannot see any words ending in S, if they used the S as a rule, then why did they not document it? the S was used in middle english which was a hybrid language of norman french and old English, germanic words like man change to men, woman to women that`s the germanic change to singular to plural the EN
Some Latvian now which is very close to Lithuanian.-Agra-early,Esmu-I am,Asinis-blood,Asaru-tears of the eye,Esti-to eat,Avuota-a source,spring water,Bedathi-to worry,Darga-expensive,Duosim-we will give,Guovs-a cow,Griva-firth,Grab-to grab,Ganisana-shepherding,Kirmi-a worm,Kliba-lame,Kuti-a shed,Kataras-each,Medu-honey,Naba-a navel,Oekas-buildings,Patis-self,Pludi-a flood,Patikama-nice,Raud-to cry,weep,Sunis-a dog,Skab-unhappy,Strava-stream,Svara-weight,Vardi-words,Uden-water,Varuoni-heroes,etc
Ouch, my mother would not be happy with me if she knew I made such an ugly grammatical error. You are quite right. It IS 'must have' and not 'must of'.
Of the 100 most commonly used words in modern English, only 3 are of Latin/French origin ("sound", "number" and "people"). Of the 500 most commony used words, only about 10% are of Latin/French origin. Shakepeare used less than 20,000 different words, of which about 50-60% were of Latin/French origin.
@Chumandoo3 I'm afraid there isn't conclusive proof of the urmheit of the proto-indo-european culture, in fact, the consensus amongst most research is that the homeland was most likely somewhere in the steppe of present day Ukraine, with no evidence present that it was in India. Likewise for the base ten number system; several ancient cultures are known to have used base ten, not soley an Indian break-through.
The remaining members included all the elderly and women and children(those which they did not take as captives for ritual sacrifice, and possibly as slaves). They left behind a crippled tribe of blind old men, women and children. This would have served as a warning to other tribes who were potential threats or enemies of the Neutrals. This did not stop the Iroquois from destroying the tribe of the Neutrals entirely in the 17th-18th century Beaver Wars.
The Iroquois and Huron, who were mortal enemies in the Great Lakes region and often practiced this kind of ritual sacrifice of a captured enemy. This is one small example. You said at the end 'Most tribes, I'm sure, would not do such a thing.' What are you living in a dream world? Like all of them did this type of thing. And honestly, it's hard to believe someone who claims to know alot about Native American culture, wouldn't know about this.
wow thanks! those are just more words that have been swallowed up by the english language. the english language is a germanic tongue which has borrowed many latin words and used them to fit into it's own language. yes they may have originated from latin, but now they are english, and used under the rules of english. so even if there are now more words in the english language that are from latin than germanic, that doesn't mean english is latin..if thats what ur trying to say.
I am not sure if 1234weyman is serious or a troll, either way he is wrong. Whilst it is true that English borrowed lots of words from other tongues, so has every other language. French is based in Latin but borrowed heavily from Germanic. Is French a mixed language too? 75-90% of the words commonly used are Germanic. Most of the borrowed words from Latin are unused and sit in a dictionary, with most people not even aware of them.
@1234weyman I never said England was purely Germanic in all parts. I just said they were the predominant group. While it maybe true that no population is 100% pure, most people still date within their own ethnicity or race.
@Bjowolf2 "have to DO something about our goofy accents. ", that is - since we already speak some weird sort of pseudo-English, I mean ;-) I am sure you are or would fairly easily be able to read many simple sentences in "Scandinavian".
Some verb conjugation comes from latin, or it could be germanic, i am not very familiar with the early germanic grammatical system. Conjugation like, sing, sang, sung.
No I disagree with your last statement. To revise it, I would say that English is a Germanic language with strong influence from those other languages you mentioned. I would say that English is perhaps the most un-Germanic of the Germanic languages...but it is still Germanic at it's core.
Yeah, I know, but it is best not to get involved in a slanging match that you can never win. Not because he is right, but just because he not listening to or understanding your point of view. Back to the language: what was your point about the modern form of "one" ? was it about the pronunciation ("wun")? It used to be "ohne" or "ahne" in Middle Eng and is still pronounced that way in "alone", "only" and "atone"
must be a coincindence then, that spanish french, portuguese, also use the s, germanic languages do not use the s, apart from english, the germans normally use an EN for the plural.
But anyhow, I completely agree with your statements about the English language by the way, and that was simply the point I was trying to make with this fella, but I had to explain a great deal so he could understand, because his ideas about the origins of the English language and of the state of England today were both completely out to lunch. I believe he is the racist, not me.
Either that or the root Indo-European word for 'one' was very common to all of these examples. Which is what I am inclined to believe. Still, while you will go and try and use the best possible example to prove your point(which is wrong), I can take a rather shitty example and still manage to prove my point(which is right) beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Honestly, I'm not racist. That guy 1234weyman was pissing me off alot though, he had some very ignorant and uneducated comments and I couldn't help but to completely go off on him. I realise how annoying it is when the comments section is flood with an argument between two people but I just had to bombard him with the facts that point out how wrong he was. He must of realised this because he stopped commenting.
i never said english was a latin language, i stated that modern english is different from old english in the sense that it has had massive amounts of latin poured into its vocublary, i am totally aware that basic expressions such as "they" "was" could should went etc are not latin! i sent you list to point out that a majority of latin words in english are still similar to original roman latin, and now you are calling me an idiot? english does follow one rule of latin, the adding of the "s"
12 років тому
But not borrowed after direct contact with Greek native speakers, that is what I said in my previous post. Most of those Greek words were adopted by academics in universities, when not simply invented by combining Greek a couple of words as in "thermometer". Or you really believe that the ancient Greek already used thermometers and the English borrowed their word?
Latin had a more complex grammatical system just like all the other IE languages did/do. I still see no evidence to show that English borrowed -S from Latin. What is your source for this theory, or is it just a guess on your part?
Look at all your examples here, let me pick one "Ma cousine est une personne timide." Look at all the connecting words. We both know what they mean, right? Ma=my, est=is, une=a or one. Yes the French sentence is understandable but that is because we understand the connecting words. But you and I both know that the origins in these words are from different paths. The ones used in the French sentence are from the Romance and Latin direction, while the ones in the English sentence are Germanic.
What an amazing story! I am from East Yorkshire and I am very familiar with so many of these sounds. I’ve found dialects fascinating since the age of 10 as my mother spoke in the Yorkshire tongue and my father’s family spoke good clear Modern English
It was this documentary that got me interested in Linguistics. I am forever thankful to the producers. A very intriguing look at Historical Linguistics, how English got to be spoken as it is today. It's interesting, one could argue that English is a hybrid creole language of the old rooted Anglo Saxon tongue, and Norman French.
+Alex Zawodniak Back in 1066 the differences between the several North Sea Germanic languuages were very small. So before 1066 nothing got creolised. After 1066, lots of lots of French, Greek and Latin words entered the language, a thing which also happened in Dutch and German. I wouldn't call this creolisizing either, because the language remained to be Germanic. It just had different influences over the years. There's a straight line from the single language Frisians, Angels and Jutten really had around 2000 year ago, to the English we have now. All of these language only started growing apart after Frisian lost its status as the trade language of the entire North Sea area around 1350 years ago.
The differences between all West Germanic languages were rather small.
Lithuanian is very important among the Indo-European languages because of its conservatism.It is sometimes said that a Lithuanian can understand certain simple phrases in Sanskrit.Lithuanian preserves some very old features that have disappeared from practically all other languages of the family.For example there are some words that haven't changed a bit for 5 000 years.Those are both exactly the same in Sanskrit and in Lithuanian even today.Sunus-a son,Rasa-a dew,Avis-a sheep,Viras-a man,etc.
Very interesting to learn about this, I've moved from The Netherlands to the S.West of Britain. My mother was Frisian, right from the North of Friesland on the coast. To hear her talk Frisian reminded me of how close to English it sounds. I believe I'm returning to my roots ;)
Oh, yes, I meant to inquire about the music in this video. Can anyone tell me what it is? Thank you.
Hi Widukind: The "Germanic" tribes, which consists today of Germany (and German speaking countries), The Netherlands, Scandinavia, and England were related peoples, speaking, at one point in time a similar language. Over time, dialects developed as the people moved into different areas. The Saxons and the Anglii, along with the Jutes, who all spoke basically the same language are the ones, from Schlewig/Holstein, and Jutland who invaded Britain
Thanks for uploading this tremendous video series.
He had given a series of sentences in English and French that were mutually intelligeble in both languages to try and make the point that English evolved from French, and I was making the point that the reason both are mutually intelligeble, is because alot of the French connecting words are well known in English but the equivalent English words did not come from French, but both came from the Indo-European root. Like 'le' and 'the' for instance.
I'm pretty sure 'be' is a cognate with German 'bin' and Dutch 'ben'. In Swedish, you don't really say it but you can say 'sig själv', which is 'him/her/themself'. English syntax is very close to Swedish, and we still use expressions that reflect the way English used to use verb second in the way Swedish and other Germanic languages do today.
Here it is one proverb in Lithuanian that sounds very much the same to Sanskrit. -Dievas dave dantis,Dievas duos ir duonas. In Sanskrit-Devas adat datas,Devas dasyati dhanas.In English- God gave us teeth,God will give us bread .Some more similar words to you Dumas-a smoke,Padas-a sole,Vilkas-a wolf,Antras-the second one,Durti-to stab,Duris-a door,Buti-to be,Visur-everywhere,Virsus-above,Degti-to burn,Ratha-wheels,Abi-both,Baltha-white,Sena-long ago,Kas-who,Kada-when,Banga-a wave,Dievas-God,etc.
Then there's even Norwegian (practically a mutual dialect with Swedish) 'deg'. Danish is also spelt 'dig', and Icelandic 'þig'. You can really see the history between them all. I wanna learn Dutch, but I'm torn 'cause I'm more likely to use German.
Those early snyths in the backround are iconic
I'm reading the companion book. It's great!! Fascinating.
Excellent - thank you ;-)
It really brings things into perspective and makes the points that I have "subconcisously" known all along, ever since I first started to learn English
and began to wonder why this language is so strangely familiar & similar in its basic vocabulary & grammatical structure - and mostly fairly easy for us to learn as Danes, as if we already know half of it from the start and don't have to think very much ;-)
Most historians in the past have failed to explain why the Old English syntax and grammar is at odds with all the Germanic languages( even with its closest relatives like Frisian and Dutch/Flemish). The most apparent is the verb form to be, the use of self (himself herself etc), lack of external possesor(unlike other Germanic languages) and the use "Do" as affirmative or questions.
That's exactly right. Mig, dig, sig - Mich, dich, sich. You only really use själv and a reflexive together to say things like 'Jag lär mig själv' - 'I teach myself' as opposed to 'Jag lär mig' which is 'I learn' even though it's like literally saying 'I learn me'.
@JohnMatrix89 yes! we have norse words like, window, husband, mistake, arabic words, like alcohol,sugar, matress,, hindu words, thug, bungalow, loot, greek words, agony, centre,cost,stomach, future, planet, electric, ocean, french words , beauty, butcher, button,abbatoir,vermin. beef, entrance, mutton,and germanic words like hand,foot, green, silver,gold, broken, speak, modern english is a mixed language, via english history, roman celtic, norse, saxon,french, and the english in india/persia
Beautiful theme music.
It is fascinating to think about how English words were replaced by French words in the years and decades after the Norman Conquest.
Let me take, for example, our word, "peace," which is from the Latin through the French.
How in the world did a common English word like, "Frith" get replaced by, "Peace?"
We shall most likely never know for sure, but I would be thrilled to hear ideas about this from others, especially from linguists and language enthusiasts.
17 August 2015
Fersomling well french was seen as a higher class language and people started using and slightly changing its words.
+Fersomling yeah, but there is actually more of a deeper meaning to frith, it also meant something like "a peaceful bond, especially between related people" , so that, "breaking frith" was something very serious.
Lance Fallin
How do you know that?
+Nack Jicholson "In terms of Anglo-Saxon and post-Anglo-Saxon culture, the term has a considerably broader scope and meaning. Frith has a great deal to do not only with the state of peace but also with the nature of social relationships conducive to peace. Moreover, it has strong associations with stability and security." from wikipedia "frith", but I also learned this from other more personal sources which shall go un-named for now, out of respect, for privacy's sake.
+Nack Jicholson French in fact was the upperclass language after the kings from Normandy took over on Great Britain. The law was written in French, after 1066 with the Normandy king pushing the Anglo Saxon king aside. After some time, English became to be the main language again, but the language changed from the clear North Sea Germanic language it was before 1066, into the slippery piece of ale it is now. Politicians LOVE this language.
This leaves you with the words in between which are common in both languages and which represent the heavy French and Latin influence. These Latin words are usually adjectives or nouns, and there is almost always an equivalent word or way to say it using words of Germanic origin in modern English(Not in the case of 'cousin'). It is well established and well known that the English language has received many words from Latin, you are suprising no one with that news.
I know OE plurals were more complex. The simplifications were not influenced by Latin, it was already taking place before the Normans. Did you watch part 4 at all? Prof. Tom Shippey explains why English adopted S for plural. English dropped the endings when Old English and Old Norse came into contact through the settlements of England. They have many words in common but the grammar would frustrate their communication as they mixed, so they ended up dropping much of the complications.
Is there still comtemporary proficient speakers of Normand (Norman French)?.
@TheWidukind
The Anglian tribe is said to have lived in South of the Jutland, around the
peninsule which still bears their name - "Angeln", just South of the present day
Danish-German border in the Sourthern part of the dutchy Slesvig / Schleswig,
which was fully part of Denmark until 1864. The northern part returned to DK after a referendum in 1920 (after WWI.)
some english words used in sentence construction are of norse origin, they, them, their/s are norse words, also some vocublary sky/skull/ window/husband/ sea/gull/ lad/get/heathen/mistake/ root/run/ scare/seem/skin/stagger/thrust/troll/ ugly/until/ window/wing /wrong/fog /die/ dregs /dirt/ cake/cast/call/both/ beserk/hell/kid / knot/ loose/ muck/outlaw/ likely/ are all norse terms. but in general it`s influence is very limited, also some accents in the north are said to be norse influenced
but in general there was the addition of of the EN and UN in anglo saxon, for example ox, as in the beast, was oxen, now it is oxes. there are very few saxon transcripts where the singular to plural is an addition of the letter S, germanic languages usually finish with an N in the plural, such as DORF and the DORFEN which is village/villages, one other theory is the S addition was intoduced by Latin terms that the saxons later borrowed, the saxons in england absorbed alot of latin pre 1066 war
I gonna give you another, since I think this is a pretty badass example of how ferocious Native American Tribes could be. An Iroquoin speaking tribe called "The Neutrals" by the French, who were the first to encounter them, and noted that they were neutral in the hostility between the Iroquois and the Hurons and exported flint to both of them.The French heard a tale of how this Nuetral Tribe had, several summers earlier, defeated an enemy tribe and cut the eyes out of all the remaining members.
@Bjowolf2
So to us learning English often feels more like expanding our own language than learning a completely new one. Oh, if only all languages were as easy as that ... ;-)
can somebody please produce a list of words in anglo saxon English, with the transformation from singular to plural
@Bjowolf2
There are so many similar words - some are just disguised a bit by the odd spelling or various, but rather systematic consonant shifts ( v ~ w, -g ~ k, -b ~-p, sk ~ sh ( D vs. E. ) .. ) - and the basic grammars are remarkably similar too - even down to the irregular verbs.
I didn't know about 'one' I wasn't sure what the Englisc word for it was.Since alot of the other germanic words for 'one' were more like 'ein' I assumed that the Englisc word was something like 'ein' aswell.'one' in modern English,does sound closer to 'une' than 'ein' does (& since I didn't know the Englisc word for it was 'ohne'),I admitted that 'one' MAY have come from 'une'.But you have proven that the modern word for 'one' DID come from Englisc,which only supports the argument I was making.
Check out The Story of English episode 2 - The Mother Tongue - Part 4 / 7 @4:00. He explains how OE grammar was simplified when Anglo-Saxons met the Norse. Adding the "s" on the end for the plural made it easier to speak between the two similar tongues.
you said that the latin influence in english has been germanised, actually it has stayed near intact, examine germanic expressions in english they now have the addition from singular to plural with the letter s, for example the english word "dog" is originated from the anglo saxon word docga, in modern english dog, and then "dogs", so there is latin influence on germanic english expressions. my point is that modern english is a mix with germanic/french/latin/greek/norse and some celtic words
It's Old English (aka Anglo-Saxon) -- from the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, read by Chris Page, the academic interviewed around this point on the video.
@annakwan78 Where can we watch it at?
Yes there are areas in the North where someone might use the word "spade" instead of "shovel" ('spade' being or norse origin, 'shovel' being of old english origin) as an example. Atleast I read that somewhere.
Latin was obviously a common language during Roman times and as a result of trade and other cultural infusions,some Latin words have made it into almost every European language.By the way,I looked up the origin of the word "one" and the fact that it is similar in all these Indo-European languages is because all thier versions of the word are based off an original Indo-European form.The modern English form of "one" may still have been borrowed from Norman French though, I can't prove otherwise.
Kind of ironic that the Anglo-Saxon invaders would refer to the Britons who had lived there for centuries "the foreigners".
English is not the only exception. German has been using the S for plural since around the 17 century. Check out the article "The -s plural marker is not a foreign import into the German language" by Dr. Damaris Nübling. All you have to do is look up the suffix -S in the dictionary and it gives the origin. It was not borrowed from Latin.
Norman French certainly helped transform English, mainly by adding a great deal more words to it than before. The structure of the language was cetainly warped from it's original (In other words, had the invasion of 1066 never happened, English people might be talking like the Dutch do today) but ultimately, you can still trace modern English all the way back to Englisc, and still see how modern English evolved from it. English is not now closer to French than it is to Englisc by any means.
Does anyone know what language is being spoken at 6:40? I'm guessing Swedish?
Old English--the language of Beowulf
Interesting, thanks. 'Jag lär mig' in Swedish? Ich lehre mich auf Deutsch, ja? I speak only a little German but it goes far - I don't know Dutch at all - but if I read it aloud I can pick the Deutsch out of it and sometimes get a sense of what is being said. It's a lot of fun (and maybe I've missed my calling? lol).
Mig/mich/me (because the bothersome ending falls off). Dig/dich/thee (because the hard D devolves into the softer T)
Don't know about the other.
@1DerekRubin1
Ah, thank you very much - you are very kind ;-)
So now we just have to something seriously about our goofy accents - LOL
and the worst "word by word" translations that are so very tempting to us, because are so alike, but don't always make any sense in E.
But the results can be quite hilarious though ;-)
Subtranslations into the purest nonsense is a much liked "sport" here :
ie. UNDER-sæt(telser) instead of OVER-sæt(telser) ( = translations or "oversettings" ).
northern germanic/norse languages do not finish with S, for example bottles is flasker in norway, flaskor in sweden. there is no letter S, bottles in spanish is botellas, can you explain why English is the absolute exception to rule in the germanic catergory of languages?
@KatlynViers There is a book by the same name from this series if that helps?
spade is supposedly from the saxon word "spadu" but the problem is that the anglo saxons in england absorbed norse and roman latin words into the saxon language, so it is very difficult in pin pointing exact origins of english, my point is that it is a very mixed language and should be viewed as such, same with place and surnames in england, all very mixed, and alot of place names in england are roman, many surnames in the south are of french origin, and many a complete mix
Can you find any papers or books from a linguist or expert in Old English that can lend weight to your theory? All I am seeing is a lot of guess work, with no references being noted.
latin words ended in s, for example cofinus, = coffins, pavementos= pavements, actus= acts, this is an established fact, french and spanish also use this rule, in spanish, botellas = bottles. in french they also add the s village/ villages, in portuguese they also add the s, from singular to plural . the greeks also used the s for plural this is a common fact,
What (if any) experts claim that -S is descended from Latin? I haven't found one that would argue that, not even the cranks that argue for Celtic grammar in English. The simplification was taking place already before the Norman conquest. Also, English is not a hybrid language as I have spoken about with others below. If we consider English a creole, then Spanish and French are too. All west European languages borrowed heavily from each other.
From excavations and ancient writings we know in the Netherlands that the Frisians were navigators long before the Vikings. The language of the Anglo Frisians proves that the English language came from the Anglo Frisians. The Frisians once had to flee because the entire coast of the Netherlands was flooded. They then got into their boats and fled to the other side. There they took over the country. This evidence is also in the current DNA of both countries. The Vikings came 150 years later.
i have never once claimed that English grammar is derived from Latin, because it is derived from old English and Norse, English grammar is totally Germanic, I pointed out that it`s vocabulary is massively influenced by Latin, and this includes every day expressions, also there are common words that we use from celtic, norse, and Greek,, so everyday language is a mixture of influences, English vocabulary is nearly 70 percent non Germanic
@ThePengie24
Spanish, french and italian origin from latin which was italic language. English origins along with german from proto-germanic language
In what way would they disagree with me?
@seamuspowers
Yes, I know - I hope, I haven't said otherwise here LOL
As I mentioned the similarities are many and deep, and even today it's as if we "mysteriously" know half of English already from the start - and that we don't have to think very much ;-) - always a good thing LOL
@TheWidukind
It's "just" a legend (afawk) based on a real historic background (two related neighbouring peoples). The two brothers Dan and Angul, sons of Humle
founded the tribes of the Danes and the Angles, which later migrated to England.
It's desbribed in Saxo Grammaticus' "Gesta Danorum" ´( Deeds of the Danes).
Englands history is fascinating
It's Anglo-Saxon and I'm guessing it's from the Beowulf poem which is related to Videslev (Sealand and its islands) and Skåne/Scania (Geatland).
@74stigma All languages borrow vocabulary from each other. Just look for a list of common words of German or English origin in Spanish or French. I am not sure of the point you are trying to make? Are you saying English is a mixed language?
spanish is mixed, i have studied it, around 30 percent semetic/arabic especially in the south, such as Cadiz it`s around 70 percent latin. but it has arabic influence on it`s vocal sounds also, so yes it is mixed, Maltese is another one, mixture of arabic with Latin, but it is top heavy with arabic influenced words and sounds, in fact English has more Latin influence than Maltese
Modern English: I'll sell you the horse that drags my wagon Englisc: Ick sell thee that horsa that drageth mine waegon
English is not considered a mixed language by linguists. Although the grammar was influenced by Norse, Latin had no input to English grammar.
some of these experts have different theories, and frequently disagree, i have examined a number of anglo saxon documents and i cannot see any words ending in S, if they used the S as a rule, then why did they not document it? the S was used in middle english which was a hybrid language of norman french and old English, germanic words like man change to men, woman to women that`s the germanic change to singular to plural the EN
The language being spoken is Old English (Anglo- Saxon).
@winningtrolls i'm extremely envious :D
Thx for this
Some Latvian now which is very close to Lithuanian.-Agra-early,Esmu-I am,Asinis-blood,Asaru-tears of the eye,Esti-to eat,Avuota-a source,spring water,Bedathi-to worry,Darga-expensive,Duosim-we will give,Guovs-a cow,Griva-firth,Grab-to grab,Ganisana-shepherding,Kirmi-a worm,Kliba-lame,Kuti-a shed,Kataras-each,Medu-honey,Naba-a navel,Oekas-buildings,Patis-self,Pludi-a flood,Patikama-nice,Raud-to cry,weep,Sunis-a dog,Skab-unhappy,Strava-stream,Svara-weight,Vardi-words,Uden-water,Varuoni-heroes,etc
Ouch, my mother would not be happy with me if she knew I made such an ugly grammatical error. You are quite right. It IS 'must have' and not 'must of'.
Of the 100 most commonly used words in modern English, only 3 are of Latin/French origin ("sound", "number" and "people").
Of the 500 most commony used words, only about 10% are of Latin/French origin.
Shakepeare used less than 20,000 different words, of which about 50-60% were of Latin/French origin.
@JohnMatrix89 actually spanish, french, and italian along with english origin in german
@Chumandoo3
I'm afraid there isn't conclusive proof of the urmheit of the proto-indo-european culture, in fact, the consensus amongst most research is that the homeland was most likely somewhere in the steppe of present day Ukraine, with no evidence present that it was in India. Likewise for the base ten number system; several ancient cultures are known to have used base ten, not soley an Indian break-through.
The remaining members included all the elderly and women and children(those which they did not take as captives for ritual sacrifice, and possibly as slaves). They left behind a crippled tribe of blind old men, women and children. This would have served as a warning to other tribes who were potential threats or enemies of the Neutrals. This did not stop the Iroquois from destroying the tribe of the Neutrals entirely in the 17th-18th century Beaver Wars.
The Iroquois and Huron, who were mortal enemies in the Great Lakes region and often practiced this kind of ritual sacrifice of a captured enemy. This is one small example. You said at the end 'Most tribes, I'm sure, would not do such a thing.' What are you living in a dream world? Like all of them did this type of thing. And honestly, it's hard to believe someone who claims to know alot about Native American culture, wouldn't know about this.
wow thanks! those are just more words that have been swallowed up by the english language. the english language is a germanic tongue which has borrowed many latin words and used them to fit into it's own language. yes they may have originated from latin, but now they are english, and used under the rules of english. so even if there are now more words in the english language that are from latin than germanic, that doesn't mean english is latin..if thats what ur trying to say.
@Bjowolf2
"because THE WORDS are so alike" , that is -
I can't type today, it seems ;-(
Not that I know anything, but "sig sjalv" seems like the German him or her self referential "sich" and "själv" seems like "self" in English.
sig själv
sich selbst (German)
sik sülvst (Low Saxon)
@psviking1 and German?
Maybe I ought to study Danish and Dutch to see how similar the languages are to English.
I am not sure if 1234weyman is serious or a troll, either way he is wrong. Whilst it is true that English borrowed lots of words from other tongues, so has every other language. French is based in Latin but borrowed heavily from Germanic. Is French a mixed language too? 75-90% of the words commonly used are Germanic. Most of the borrowed words from Latin are unused and sit in a dictionary, with most people not even aware of them.
@1234weyman I never said England was purely Germanic in all parts. I just said they were the predominant group. While it maybe true that no population is 100% pure, most people still date within their own ethnicity or race.
@Bjowolf2
"have to DO something about our goofy accents. ", that is -
since we already speak some weird sort of pseudo-English, I mean ;-)
I am sure you are or would fairly easily be able to read many simple sentences in "Scandinavian".
Some verb conjugation comes from latin, or it could be germanic, i am not very familiar with the early germanic grammatical system. Conjugation like, sing, sang, sung.
No I disagree with your last statement. To revise it, I would say that English is a Germanic language with strong influence from those other languages you mentioned. I would say that English is perhaps the most un-Germanic of the Germanic languages...but it is still Germanic at it's core.
@Chumandoo3
what are you talking about?
@JohnMatrix89 actually spanish, french, and italian origin in german
that paragraph calls into question your command of english.
Not really. The grammar is 100% Germanic. The English lexicon does include very many Latin loan words, most of which are from Norman-French.
@psviking1
GERMAN: Unter der kleinen Birke ist ein Grashüpfer in dem langen Gras.
Yeah, I know, but it is best not to get involved in a slanging match that you can never win. Not because he is right, but just because he not listening to or understanding your point of view.
Back to the language: what was your point about the modern form of "one" ? was it about the pronunciation ("wun")? It used to be "ohne" or "ahne" in Middle Eng and is still pronounced that way in "alone", "only" and "atone"
must be a coincindence then, that spanish french, portuguese, also use the s, germanic languages do not use the s, apart from english, the germans normally use an EN for the plural.
@JohnMatrix89 But none borrow any where near the huge number of words English has assimilated from other languages.
But anyhow, I completely agree with your statements about the English language by the way, and that was simply the point I was trying to make with this fella, but I had to explain a great deal so he could understand, because his ideas about the origins of the English language and of the state of England today were both completely out to lunch. I believe he is the racist, not me.
Either that or the root Indo-European word for 'one' was very common to all of these examples. Which is what I am inclined to believe. Still, while you will go and try and use the best possible example to prove your point(which is wrong), I can take a rather shitty example and still manage to prove my point(which is right) beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Honestly, I'm not racist. That guy 1234weyman was pissing me off alot though, he had some very ignorant and uneducated comments and I couldn't help but to completely go off on him. I realise how annoying it is when the comments section is flood with an argument between two people but I just had to bombard him with the facts that point out how wrong he was. He must of realised this because he stopped commenting.
@sonydogman Please clarify what you mean.
i never said english was a latin language, i stated that modern english is different from old english in the sense that it has had massive amounts of latin poured into its vocublary, i am totally aware that basic expressions such as "they" "was" could should went etc are not latin! i sent you list to point out that a majority of latin words in english are still similar to original roman latin, and now you are calling me an idiot? english does follow one rule of latin, the adding of the "s"
But not borrowed after direct contact with Greek native speakers, that is what I said in my previous post. Most of those Greek words were adopted by academics in universities, when not simply invented by combining Greek a couple of words as in "thermometer". Or you really believe that the ancient Greek already used thermometers and the English borrowed their word?
Latin had a more complex grammatical system just like all the other IE languages did/do. I still see no evidence to show that English borrowed -S from Latin. What is your source for this theory, or is it just a guess on your part?
Would be funny if the guys from India in the begining were shouting: Who are you! Who are you !
middle english was a hybrid language of old english and norman it`s a fact
@Fladoodle11 He's Bréton, I don't think they like being called French.
i found that many russian and germanic words are simmilar since very old times
Look at all your examples here, let me pick one "Ma cousine est une personne timide." Look at all the connecting words. We both know what they mean, right? Ma=my, est=is, une=a or one. Yes the French sentence is understandable but that is because we understand the connecting words. But you and I both know that the origins in these words are from different paths. The ones used in the French sentence are from the Romance and Latin direction, while the ones in the English sentence are Germanic.