A commentor has just pointed out - my little speculative segment should be set in 2124, not 3024! I'm sure things will have progressed far further in 1000 years' time.
When I saw the date I was immediately expecting some sort of trans-galactic-machine-assisted language. Ha ha, I bought the hype to quickly. I wouldn't mind hearing your attempt at cyborg.
I've been following this channel long enough to remember when Simon referred to his pronunciation, linguistics, and dialect work as a "hobby", rather than a life pursuit. I'm glad to hear that it has developed into at least a formulating hint of a future successful career!
The Middle English phonology book I referenced at the end has a few good notes on spelling developments and how they gradually seep over from French! It is fun how it seems to evolve as its own system only loosely connected to the phonology.
I personally would have spelt it *heofenan* or *heouenæn* and I'd pronounce it [ˈhœvənɐn] - much like someone from Winchester or Worcester would have around 1124. I simply adore the West Saxon dialect, be it Early, Late, or post-Conquest.
I just realized that this is a good way for English speakers to experience a dialect continuum, except instead of a continuum in the spatial dimensions, it's in the time dimension.
@@TreinbouwerThe US has lost a lot of dialect variation. You probably woulld have to really concentrate be able to understand my great grandmother, but kids growing up in the Southern US now only have a slight accent.
simon, i’ve been saying this to myself for like the past two years, but i’m finally going to comment it now. you’ve been VERY NOTICEABLY improving with your content each time i’ve watched a new video you’ve come out with. the audio quality is better, so are the slides, the “pronunciation segments???” i don’t know what to call it, but i’m sure you know what i’m talking about. your content just keeps getting and better. it’s like opium! you’re literally my favorite youtuber.
Thanks Simon for sharing your knowledge/passion with all of us in UA-cam land. I think that your particular branch of archaeology is sadly under rated, so I'm so very glad to hear of your success. I hear you mentioned and recommended on several other YT channels. Happy Yuletide.
Another wonderful video - absolutely fascinating. I'm very happy to hear your talents have been recognised by the film industry, and heartening to hear that historical authenticity is taken seriously - good luck with this, and your coaching projects, Simon.
I've watched your videos for some time now and come away paying much more attention to the sound of words when people speak. I wish I'd taken more linguistics classes.
In case anyone wondered here's that part of the Lord's Prayer in the current German version: Vater unser im Himmel geheiligt werde dein Name. Dein Reich komme. Dein Wille geschehe, wie im Himmel, so auf Erden. Older German versions read the first Line as "Vater unser, der du bist im Himmel..."
Rubbish. Rhoticism does not define American accents, it is just one feature of (some of) them. There are plenty of English dialects in the British Isles that are still rhotic too.
@@harrynewiss4630I wouldn’t say it’s rubbish, those accents sounded the MOST American because of the rhoticity (though they also sounded a bit West Country or maybe Irish). Obviously it’s not a full on Yank accent.
Holy hell you weren't kidding about the celebrities you got to work with being major. Congrats man! I will make sure to watch that film via some non-swashbuckling method.
Thank you for this lovely Christmas surprise. I have been following your channel for a long time and I am always fascinated by your posts. I find it particularly interesting that Middle English and Middle High German apparently sounded similar in pronunciation. Frohe Weihnachten from Germany❣️⭐️💫🎄
From the 1524, onwards, it sounded like normal English to me. Prior to that, I needed to listen a little while longer. Lovely video, this! Cool serger, too. Thanks!!
As an American English speaker, the 1424 pronunciation sounded like a jump. The introduction of retroflex(?) rhotic consonants brought the sound much closer to my own. (That, and the disappearance of inflectional endings.) Anything you can elucidate about the timing of the rhotic changes? I'm also curious why the change isn't universal. Was the change initially just before another consonant? Thanks for the wonderful video and merry Christmas!
I notice that the 2024 version replaces the th sounds by f's and v's. At first I thought this was a bit extreme for southeastern English outside the London area, but on second thoughts I realize that this change is becoming pretty common. There are even a number of educated UA-cam presenters who replace their dentals by labials. I spose vhis will become vhe norm.
Amazing video, thank you so much Simon! I have a question for you. Would you ever consider making a video on the Traditional English Pronunciation of Latin? It’s a topic that interests me greatly and is adjacent to the work you do on this channel.
Luke Ranieri ('Polymathy' on UA-cam) has some fantastic videos on the differences between Classical and more recent Ecclesiastical pronunciation systems for Latin! Off the top of my head I don't know whether he's gone much into Anglophone pronunciation of Latin, but I think there are at least a couple of period sources - I think Robert Robinson (c. 1617) night have written out a passage of Latin in his own English phonetic alphabet.
@ yes, I know of the Robinson transcription but haven’t been able to track it down for myself, though I haven’t looked terribly hard. I thought it would be worth asking since info on the internet is generally scarce! Looks like I’ll have to do some more digging, thank you again!
An interesting historical english speaker pronunciation of latin is the cardinal of Boston speech at JFKs funeral. Its very distinct. ua-cam.com/video/ZiU1wljMx2o/v-deo.htmlsi=Bapv25NizDf0oq_I
How was the text to the 1124 segment produced? Was the lord’s prayer ‘standardized’ by the Church then as it is now? I notice a great deal of lexical shift between it and the 1224 text, which is much more recognizable. While of course this makes sense and corresponds with the shift from old to middle english, is there a particular historical story with the lord’s prayer? I would imagine something used so commonly and regularly in church service would be more immune to lexical shift than normal. Or could my framing of the question be very anachronistic - did the lord’s prayer function very differently in medieval England compared to its current use in Anglican and Catholic traditions?
Yes I do notice the big shift just from 1124 to 1224. It wasn't until 1424 that it sounded like recognizable English. I'm not sure about when the Lord's prayer became standardized but it has definitely been part of the English language for centuries.
There are various versions of the Lord's Prayer throughout the Old and Middle English period. They probably were translated from a Latin exemplar (typically the Vulgate) to instruct the new monks and nuns. I know that there is a version of the prayer in at least two very late Old English manuscripts, Bodley MS 343, and Hatton MS 38 (both in the Bodleian Library, Oxford). In the first manuscript, the prayer is dissected and explained, the second (a translation of the gospels) just gives the translation into Old English that was copied around 1200. Edit: There's a version of the Lord's Prayer from around the same time as the Hatton Gospels that is more up to date with its language: British Library Cotton MS Vitellius A xii, folio 184v (accessible again on the British Library website)
My home county of Lancashire is still rhotic for the most part. It is quite striking now that I am living there again after 40 years away. Do you know why this should be when most most of the rest of northern England is non-rhotic? Thanks.
I actually lived in Preston for a bit and heard a few rhotic accents around - I'm not sure why it's held strong in that area! On the occasions I do hear rhoticity in other parts of the north, it's usually with something like an alveolar tap rather than the approximant that I think is used in Lancashire, so it sounds even more unique combined with the more widespread northern dialect features.
It’s very difficult to answer why a particular feature or characteristic is being retained, while it’s easier to speculate on why things change along with other accents. Conservatism in accent can be a regional thing where close knit communities retain speech patterns. It can also be retain in traditional professions, such as craft and farming especially among men, where there is an in-group prestige to the traditional way of speaking. Just a few ideas….
Fantastic, well done with gaining that experience and keep us posted with where it leads over the new year and beyond (unless you go and get all famous, in which case I'll say thank you now). I've really enjoyed you sharing all this learning with us. Wanted to sound clever by asking for your opinion about something interesting, but I can't think of anything. So, just wishing you well.
Oh wow! That quickly became comprehensible! Tho, I was primed for it. Maybe if I wasn't expecting what to hear. 🤔 Linguistics is one of my favorite topics! 🧡
I think 'th-fronting' usually only describes the change of interdentals to labiodentals. Most of the speakers I know with this change retain [ð] word-initially, but front it to [v] in other positions. There is a separate sound change where [ð] becomes [d], but in the southeast I think it's more limited in what dialects and sociolects it affects.
This is such an interesting video. Thankyou Simon. On the weakening of final vowels in Old English, it might be something we still do now in some cases e.g. the way we pronounce "Cheltenham", whereas US English will put just as much stress on the "ham" as it does on the "Chelt" and "en".
Yeah, I might say I am stopping by the "libe" or the "library" but I am not sure I am ready for "libry" in my (U.S.) English. But I say orange as "ornj" and garage as "grah-dj" so I may be on the monosyllabic end of things. I do say "prolly" and "probly" as informal alternatives to "probably," but they coexist instead of replacing the three syllables with strong-light-moderate stresses.
As an American, the English of 1724 (and of 1706 in one of your earlier English-through-the-centuries video) sounds so natural and "comforting", if I can say that. If there were ever a movement to use one form of standard English worldwide -- as a lingua franca for a multicultural team exploring another planet, say -- I'd love to see early-1700s English be that standard.
I love these lessons about our language. Fabulous Xmas gift. 🤗 As a speaker of a well-known and often mistaken for Scottish (by Southerners) regional accent, it fascinates me to recognise historical carryovers in my dialect. 😉 Merry Christmas to everyone, especially Simon. 🎄⛄👍💕
1624 sounded like the older people (born around 1900) I heard growing up in my corner of Somerset. The rest of the locals were more 1724 though lacking some regionalism.
As I mentioned in a note in the video, the future-projection was totally speculative and in no way a scientific prediction, and is very likely to be wrong - I just included it for fun. I basically took the most advanced form of a currently-occurring shift in southeastern English vowel qualities, and pushed it a little bit further than it's currently gone.
@@simonroper9218Thank you, Simon. I must have missed that. You mention at 5:04 that English phoneticians have been describing this own speech since at least the sixteenth century. I wonder if any of them also made accent projections and how accurate those proved to be. I’m sure you’re sick of receiving video recommendations, but I feel an in-depth video exploring the many possible paths the English language could take within the next few centuries would be extremely popular and worthwhile. And then also performing an extended reading in that which you deem most likely. Just an idea.
While I'm a worshipper of Woden, I still really appreciate this. I love how English sounds in all of those eras, but the late Anglo-Saxon one is the best. Great work, Simon ❤
I'm curious about the word "hallowed." Between 1424 and 1524 the "ed" on the end gets shortened from 3 syllables to 2. That makes sense. But what I want to understand is why when I was learning the Lord's Prayer in a Lutheran church in central Ohio in the 1980s it was pronounced with 3 syllables. It seems that the archaism that I experienced might have been an intentional attempt to make things sound formal by using the older form, rather than a legitimate artifact. I guess wonky things happen when immigrants from Germany and Scandinavia learn English in America but try to keep the gravitas of their original traditions.
Was it maybe that 3 syllables fitted the almost-metrical-poetry of the translation? The song version uses 3 syllables. Or for emphasis? Like in Taggart: "There's been a mur-der." (With the e sounded much more clearly than usual).
I had another thought about what might be happening with the hallowed. I don’t know what if any experience Simon has of the liturgical use of the Lord’s Prayer. I also confess ignorance of how hallowed is pronounced in the Church of England tradition. What if the three syllable pronunciation has been maintained in the liturgy, but otherwise the word hallowed has indeed changed to two syllables.
I would expect that the sound of English one hundred years in future would contain more of the rhoticity as found in current-day American English. Americanisation of English in general has been a phenomenon with us since the advent of television programmes and theatrical films going back to the mid-20th century. It would seem that with the American-dominated internet increasingly making the world so small as we advance into the future, US speech patterns will predominate.
Except that if that was going to happen you would expect that it would have happened over the 70 years or so that American TV and film has dominated the world, and while it has to a certain extent with vocabulary, the specificity of different accents remains. Rhoticity really hasn’t made a significant comeback in any of the dialects of English in which it had been lost apart from some of the American ones. It’s actually the reverse that has happened: rhoticity has further disappeared in Britain as the sprawling influence of London has all but erased it from the regions where it survived into the twentieth century, meanwhile the global audience for English-speaking media, including American audiences, is exposed to non-American dialects of English, especially British ones, to a far greater degree than it has ever been before.
i couldnt make out the words on the early ones - it would be helpful to put the modern words underneath. I see from a comment that "rice" meant "kingdom" and is similar to the german "reich" - i know challenging but conveying all this under what youre reading would be great in the next example you do - yes i think you should do more of these they are fascinating - thanks and merry xmas
I've long been fascinated by "swa swa / swo swo" and just… how _that_ came to be. 🥴 Granted, I recall a "doubling" of words still occurs from time-to-time (I'm sure I've used "that that" before).
@joshadams8761 I've also seen recently an example of swa swa in an old frankish video, which is the ancestor to modern dutch. Maybe it was old franconian I'm not totally sure.
I've grown to rather like that. I believe it is pretty much a formalised informality, which itself speaks to it being a rather old turn of speech for it to pop up in high status writings (at least I'd guess so). Word for word it means "so so" ("swa" became "so".) It's pretty much "and so on", "etc etc" - pretty much "you get what I mean" lol
A suggestion. Do it in the opposite direction: 2024 to 1124. It might be easier to follow divergence from modern English than gradual convergence. Maybe do both forward and backward.
It would be fun for you to be on the new Time Team and to bring the characters they literally dig up to life by using their version of English, similar to how Victor Ambus would bring them to life with his drawings.
The one from 1124 is freakishly similar to the Icelandic version. You can hear it in the pronunciation more than reading it I feel like. Faðir vor, þú sem ert á himnum. Helgist þitt nafn, til komi þitt ríki, verði þinn vilji, svo á jörðu sem á himni.
I've heard before that grammatical endings were gradually dropped in Old English because of the stress on the first syllable. But the first syllable is stressed in most words in many languages, especially Germanic ones, and yet they retain their endings.
I would love to see you cover - at your leisure, of course, should you be so inclined - the use of (if I'm getting this right because I'm *really* rusty at linguistics) the past continuous tense in British English, such as 'I was sat' or 'We were stood' as compared to US English usage, e.g. 'I was sitting' or 'We were standing.' I've been hyper-aware of that lately and wonder how far back that goes, or if it's purely a regional thing. Also the dropping of the NG diphthong. I watched an old (1970s) BBC clip of an interview with a woman who was a child during the Victorian era and noticed several times that she said 'lenth' and 'strenth', which is something I hear quite a lot of in British pronunciation even today. Always fascinating seeing your work!
In England “I was/were sat” is a northernism, that has spread to a certain extent. It’s still somewhat “colloquial”. A more, how should I put it…, standard, or elevated speech would still prefer “I was sitting”… but interesting observation!
Hey Simon, quick question, in a number of your other videos you reconstruct the "r" sound as a tap into the 1600s, but here you have it shifting to the retroflex approximant as early as the 1400s. What made you change your mind about this?
The jump just from 1124-1224 is insane. It goes from sounding like a completely unknown language with little familiar or recognizable, to suddenly just sounding like a very archaic or warped version of the Lord's prayer. I wonder why...the linguistic effects of the Norman Conquest ~50 years earlier trickling down into the common language?
Unfortunately I think this may be my fault - in that period I was interpolating between a translation from the 900s and the Wycliffe translation from the 1380s, which use quite different wording (the Wycliffe version is much more similar to the wording we're all familiar with now). There were real significant changes in word order and word choice in that period, but maybe I should have staggered them over a couple of centuries rather than changing them all at once!
A commentor has just pointed out - my little speculative segment should be set in 2124, not 3024! I'm sure things will have progressed far further in 1000 years' time.
Ha ha, let's not count our chickens...! :D
When I saw the date I was immediately expecting some sort of trans-galactic-machine-assisted language. Ha ha, I bought the hype to quickly. I wouldn't mind hearing your attempt at cyborg.
Judging by the amount of incorrect-predictive-text malapropising I hear in UA-cam videos, by 3024 pronunciation will be the least of it!
Þ will endure in spaceship Texas, which will have by then seceded from Earth (Aff) and be halfway across the universe divide.
Justin B Rye's Futurese is a pretty cool projection of American English out to 3000ish.
I've been following this channel long enough to remember when Simon referred to his pronunciation, linguistics, and dialect work as a "hobby", rather than a life pursuit. I'm glad to hear that it has developed into at least a formulating hint of a future successful career!
I was also pleasantly surprised
"Heuenen" is a vibe. I love not only hearing the differences in the speech, but also the spelling
The Middle English phonology book I referenced at the end has a few good notes on spelling developments and how they gradually seep over from French! It is fun how it seems to evolve as its own system only loosely connected to the phonology.
@@simonroper9218 you forgot to replace random words in the 3024 prayer with ‘vibe’, leaving us to guess wtf you were talking about 🤣
I personally would have spelt it *heofenan* or *heouenæn* and I'd pronounce it [ˈhœvənɐn] - much like someone from Winchester or Worcester would have around 1124.
I simply adore the West Saxon dialect, be it Early, Late, or post-Conquest.
I just realized that this is a good way for English speakers to experience a dialect continuum, except instead of a continuum in the spatial dimensions, it's in the time dimension.
Or you drive through the UK and Ireland and take samples every once in a while...
(The US has little dialectal variation.)
@@TreinbouwerThe US has lost a lot of dialect variation. You probably woulld have to really concentrate be able to understand my great grandmother, but kids growing up in the Southern US now only have a slight accent.
“i would probably have to ask for a fee” of course you would! using your expertise is something you should be paid for!
I love how 1624 sounds like an embryonic American accent and then it begins to diverge at 1724.
on point
It’s funny, I noticed the same thing, but for me it sounds the most American in 1724
@@modalmixture Not surprising as there was still plenty of migration to the American colonies going on in the early 18th century
Yeah it's cool. Feel like the 1724 was the closest sounding to American English, but by the Victorian it definitely sounds 'English'.
1624 and 1724 were the accents I heard growing up in rural south west England. They're a bit behind the times around here. 😁
The switch from 1200s to 1500s is insane, and then it's recognisable.
What a Christmas gift! Thanks Simon!
simon, i’ve been saying this to myself for like the past two years, but i’m finally going to comment it now. you’ve been VERY NOTICEABLY improving with your content each time i’ve watched a new video you’ve come out with. the audio quality is better, so are the slides, the “pronunciation segments???” i don’t know what to call it, but i’m sure you know what i’m talking about. your content just keeps getting and better. it’s like opium! you’re literally my favorite youtuber.
This is an amazing Christmas Gift! Hearing something that is so familiar helps me understand the language change so much more.
Yes, excellent choice of a culturally prevalent sample.
Congrats on getting some film consulting work, Simon! Blessed holidays and have a great 2025!
What a beautiful Christmas gift for us! Hearing how this prayer would have sounded to my ancestors makes me tear up. Thank you and Merry Christmas!
Oh I didn't know the slient 'e' came at around 1400. Thanks for your video, congratulations on your new coaching role and happy Christmas, Simon.
There is evidence in Geoffrey Chaucer's works that you can omit an ‘e’ when the next word begins with a vowel, and the metre would be unaffected.
@Leofwine Thanks!
Thanks Simon for sharing your knowledge/passion with all of us in UA-cam land.
I think that your particular branch of archaeology is sadly under rated, so I'm so very glad to hear of your success.
I hear you mentioned and recommended on several other YT channels.
Happy Yuletide.
It may be partly because I’m already familiar with a lot of earlier Englishes, but I find it remarkable how early on it’s already understandable.
It's crazy how much more similar 1424 English is to 2024 English than to 1124
The only logical assumption is that aliens came down and made us do it at phaser-point
Another wonderful video - absolutely fascinating. I'm very happy to hear your talents have been recognised by the film industry, and heartening to hear that historical authenticity is taken seriously - good luck with this, and your coaching projects, Simon.
I've watched your videos for some time now and come away paying much more attention to the sound of words when people speak. I wish I'd taken more linguistics classes.
Thank you, Simon, for revealing many secrets of the language throughout the year. I'm going to keep following you in the next year. Amen.
In case anyone wondered here's that part of the Lord's Prayer in the current German version:
Vater unser im Himmel
geheiligt werde dein Name.
Dein Reich komme.
Dein Wille geschehe,
wie im Himmel,
so auf Erden.
Older German versions read the first Line as "Vater unser, der du bist im Himmel..."
I learned it growing up as the Old way!
The 1600s and 1700s sound the most American, so it is understandable why we have the accent we do. Excellent video!
Rubbish. Rhoticism does not define American accents, it is just one feature of (some of) them. There are plenty of English dialects in the British Isles that are still rhotic too.
@@harrynewiss4630I wouldn’t say it’s rubbish, those accents sounded the MOST American because of the rhoticity (though they also sounded a bit West Country or maybe Irish). Obviously it’s not a full on Yank accent.
country accent
@@harrynewiss4630 1624 and 1724 had some clear features that are still present in many American accents, not just rhoticity.
@@Me-yq1fl Please give details and explain how those features are not present in British accents
May I wish you Simon and your family a very Merry Christmas and peaceful season. Thanks for all your work.
Merry Xmas you magnificent lad
Holy hell you weren't kidding about the celebrities you got to work with being major. Congrats man! I will make sure to watch that film via some non-swashbuckling method.
All the best with coaching and projects!
Thanks, Simon! Always interesting videos. Hope your side-gig pays off
Magnificent as usual! Loved the future version.
Lovely. One of the best channels on here.
Thank you for this lovely Christmas surprise. I have been following your channel for a long time and I am always fascinated by your posts. I find it particularly interesting that Middle English and Middle High German apparently sounded similar in pronunciation. Frohe Weihnachten from Germany❣️⭐️💫🎄
Brilliant. Thank u so much, Simon
Thank you for this. Merry Christmas.
Fascinating to hear the sounds change! Thanks
Simon, your great ability to turn research into these watchable packets of knowledge, is with this video perfectly expressed. Merry Christmas
Simon is so aggressively modest. 😅
Thanks Simon, I love to see the evolution of language! What a nice Christmas present. 😊
great video simon! my accent is most similar to your 1724 one, lol
And another super video from Simon…. keep’em coming!
Thank You very much for this new video ! 😊
Thank you Simon; once again, cooler than you know. 👍
Next time I plan a time traveling adventure I'll be sure to invite you along Simon.
Brilliant, a great festive vid. Best wishes for your film and recording work in 2025; and beyond
The earliest examples sounded much more germanic than the later examples. I've also noticed the vowel shift, especially about the 1500s.
FASCINATING! Thank you so much for this. 🙂
From the 1524, onwards, it sounded like normal English to me. Prior to that, I needed to listen a little while longer. Lovely video, this! Cool serger, too. Thanks!!
Great! Thank you! Merry Christmas!
Very interesting! Also, great new haircut! Very handsome
As an American English speaker, the 1424 pronunciation sounded like a jump. The introduction of retroflex(?) rhotic consonants brought the sound much closer to my own. (That, and the disappearance of inflectional endings.) Anything you can elucidate about the timing of the rhotic changes? I'm also curious why the change isn't universal. Was the change initially just before another consonant? Thanks for the wonderful video and merry Christmas!
Thank you for this!
I notice that the 2024 version replaces the th sounds by f's and v's. At first I thought this was a bit extreme for southeastern English outside the London area, but on second thoughts I realize that this change is becoming pretty common. There are even a number of educated UA-cam presenters who replace their dentals by labials. I spose vhis will become vhe norm.
Amazing video, thank you so much Simon! I have a question for you. Would you ever consider making a video on the Traditional English Pronunciation of Latin? It’s a topic that interests me greatly and is adjacent to the work you do on this channel.
Luke Ranieri ('Polymathy' on UA-cam) has some fantastic videos on the differences between Classical and more recent Ecclesiastical pronunciation systems for Latin! Off the top of my head I don't know whether he's gone much into Anglophone pronunciation of Latin, but I think there are at least a couple of period sources - I think Robert Robinson (c. 1617) night have written out a passage of Latin in his own English phonetic alphabet.
@ yes, I know of the Robinson transcription but haven’t been able to track it down for myself, though I haven’t looked terribly hard. I thought it would be worth asking since info on the internet is generally scarce! Looks like I’ll have to do some more digging, thank you again!
An interesting historical english speaker pronunciation of latin is the cardinal of Boston speech at JFKs funeral. Its very distinct.
ua-cam.com/video/ZiU1wljMx2o/v-deo.htmlsi=Bapv25NizDf0oq_I
Congratulations on your consulting gigs. Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.
How was the text to the 1124 segment produced? Was the lord’s prayer ‘standardized’ by the Church then as it is now? I notice a great deal of lexical shift between it and the 1224 text, which is much more recognizable. While of course this makes sense and corresponds with the shift from old to middle english, is there a particular historical story with the lord’s prayer? I would imagine something used so commonly and regularly in church service would be more immune to lexical shift than normal.
Or could my framing of the question be very anachronistic - did the lord’s prayer function very differently in medieval England compared to its current use in Anglican and Catholic traditions?
Yes I do notice the big shift just from 1124 to 1224. It wasn't until 1424 that it sounded like recognizable English.
I'm not sure about when the Lord's prayer became standardized but it has definitely been part of the English language for centuries.
@@lilafeldman8630 I am puzzled that his version goes from "that" to "who", whereas the "traditional language" version has "which".
There are various versions of the Lord's Prayer throughout the Old and Middle English period.
They probably were translated from a Latin exemplar (typically the Vulgate) to instruct the new monks and nuns.
I know that there is a version of the prayer in at least two very late Old English manuscripts, Bodley MS 343, and Hatton MS 38 (both in the Bodleian Library, Oxford).
In the first manuscript, the prayer is dissected and explained, the second (a translation of the gospels) just gives the translation into Old English that was copied around 1200.
Edit: There's a version of the Lord's Prayer from around the same time as the Hatton Gospels that is more up to date with its language: British Library Cotton MS Vitellius A xii, folio 184v (accessible again on the British Library website)
My home county of Lancashire is still rhotic for the most part. It is quite striking now that I am living there again after 40 years away. Do you know why this should be when most most of the rest of northern England is non-rhotic? Thanks.
I actually lived in Preston for a bit and heard a few rhotic accents around - I'm not sure why it's held strong in that area! On the occasions I do hear rhoticity in other parts of the north, it's usually with something like an alveolar tap rather than the approximant that I think is used in Lancashire, so it sounds even more unique combined with the more widespread northern dialect features.
It’s very difficult to answer why a particular feature or characteristic is being retained, while it’s easier to speculate on why things change along with other accents. Conservatism in accent can be a regional thing where close knit communities retain speech patterns. It can also be retain in traditional professions, such as craft and farming especially among men, where there is an in-group prestige to the traditional way of speaking. Just a few ideas….
I would be "up the creek without a paddle" before 1424. THANK YOU for posting this interesting video.
Fantastic, well done with gaining that experience and keep us posted with where it leads over the new year and beyond (unless you go and get all famous, in which case I'll say thank you now). I've really enjoyed you sharing all this learning with us. Wanted to sound clever by asking for your opinion about something interesting, but I can't think of anything. So, just wishing you well.
Merry Christmas!!!
Oh wow! That quickly became comprehensible! Tho, I was primed for it. Maybe if I wasn't expecting what to hear. 🤔
Linguistics is one of my favorite topics! 🧡
Wonderful
Merry Christmas ✝️❤️
Delightful!
I love the way Middle English establishes the split phrasal verb from Old English “… tōbecume þīn rīce” to “thi kingdom come to” …
Is it “to become in reach?” Or is that just their word for kingdom? (Ree-cha)
@@jahrn692 Believe it's the old English word for kingdom, similar to "reich" in German. But I may be wrong, I'm not a linguist.
2:30 th-fronting generally replaces the /ð/ phoneme with /d/ at the beginning of a word, so thy would be /dɑj/
I think 'th-fronting' usually only describes the change of interdentals to labiodentals. Most of the speakers I know with this change retain [ð] word-initially, but front it to [v] in other positions. There is a separate sound change where [ð] becomes [d], but in the southeast I think it's more limited in what dialects and sociolects it affects.
I liked the 100 years forward bit. That was really cool
If it was 100 years, then it makes sense, but he put 3024AD which means 1000 years ahead and I don't think that's sufficiently different
@tymmiara5967 yes he pinned a comment saying the date is wrong
This is such an interesting video. Thankyou Simon. On the weakening of final vowels in Old English, it might be something we still do now in some cases e.g. the way we pronounce "Cheltenham", whereas US English will put just as much stress on the "ham" as it does on the "Chelt" and "en".
It's definitely an ongoing pattern! I think words with three or more syllables are particularly sensitive to it (c.f. 'libry' for 'library')
Yeah, I might say I am stopping by the "libe" or the "library" but I am not sure I am ready for "libry" in my (U.S.) English. But I say orange as "ornj" and garage as "grah-dj" so I may be on the monosyllabic end of things. I do say "prolly" and "probly" as informal alternatives to "probably," but they coexist instead of replacing the three syllables with strong-light-moderate stresses.
Very good!
As an American, the English of 1724 (and of 1706 in one of your earlier English-through-the-centuries video) sounds so natural and "comforting", if I can say that. If there were ever a movement to use one form of standard English worldwide -- as a lingua franca for a multicultural team exploring another planet, say -- I'd love to see early-1700s English be that standard.
I love these lessons about our language. Fabulous Xmas gift. 🤗
As a speaker of a well-known and often mistaken for Scottish (by Southerners) regional accent, it fascinates me to recognise historical carryovers in my dialect. 😉
Merry Christmas to everyone, especially Simon. 🎄⛄👍💕
Thank you! Merry Christmas to you, too :)
Happy Christmas and congratulations on your film coaching! Interesting as ever.
1624 sounded like the older people (born around 1900) I heard growing up in my corner of Somerset. The rest of the locals were more 1724 though lacking some regionalism.
merry christmas!
I would be grateful for an explanation as to how we can predict what speech will sound like in the future.
As I mentioned in a note in the video, the future-projection was totally speculative and in no way a scientific prediction, and is very likely to be wrong - I just included it for fun. I basically took the most advanced form of a currently-occurring shift in southeastern English vowel qualities, and pushed it a little bit further than it's currently gone.
@@simonroper9218Thank you, Simon. I must have missed that. You mention at 5:04 that English phoneticians have been describing this own speech since at least the sixteenth century. I wonder if any of them also made accent projections and how accurate those proved to be. I’m sure you’re sick of receiving video recommendations, but I feel an in-depth video exploring the many possible paths the English language could take within the next few centuries would be extremely popular and worthwhile. And then also performing an extended reading in that which you deem most likely. Just an idea.
Beautiful.
Overlock machine? Kit Harrington?
Season's greetings!
It‘s interesting to hear where the American accent came from in 1624, then hear where the accent from England diverged in the last 200 or so years.
While I'm a worshipper of Woden, I still really appreciate this. I love how English sounds in all of those eras, but the late Anglo-Saxon one is the best. Great work, Simon ❤
kinda crazy how it becomes so intelligeble in the 1400s. that's so long ago
I'm curious about the word "hallowed." Between 1424 and 1524 the "ed" on the end gets shortened from 3 syllables to 2. That makes sense. But what I want to understand is why when I was learning the Lord's Prayer in a Lutheran church in central Ohio in the 1980s it was pronounced with 3 syllables. It seems that the archaism that I experienced might have been an intentional attempt to make things sound formal by using the older form, rather than a legitimate artifact. I guess wonky things happen when immigrants from Germany and Scandinavia learn English in America but try to keep the gravitas of their original traditions.
Was it maybe that 3 syllables fitted the almost-metrical-poetry of the translation? The song version uses 3 syllables. Or for emphasis? Like in Taggart: "There's been a mur-der." (With the e sounded much more clearly than usual).
I had another thought about what might be happening with the hallowed. I don’t know what if any experience Simon has of the liturgical use of the Lord’s Prayer. I also confess ignorance of how hallowed is pronounced in the Church of England tradition. What if the three syllable pronunciation has been maintained in the liturgy, but otherwise the word hallowed has indeed changed to two syllables.
I would expect that the sound of English one hundred years in future would contain more of the rhoticity as found in current-day American English. Americanisation of English in general has been a phenomenon with us since the advent of television programmes and theatrical films going back to the mid-20th century. It would seem that with the American-dominated internet increasingly making the world so small as we advance into the future, US speech patterns will predominate.
Except that if that was going to happen you would expect that it would have happened over the 70 years or so that American TV and film has dominated the world, and while it has to a certain extent with vocabulary, the specificity of different accents remains.
Rhoticity really hasn’t made a significant comeback in any of the dialects of English in which it had been lost apart from some of the American ones. It’s actually the reverse that has happened: rhoticity has further disappeared in Britain as the sprawling influence of London has all but erased it from the regions where it survived into the twentieth century, meanwhile the global audience for English-speaking media, including American audiences, is exposed to non-American dialects of English, especially British ones, to a far greater degree than it has ever been before.
That's a pretty wild theory to say the least
Can I borrow your serger?
i couldnt make out the words on the early ones - it would be helpful to put the modern words underneath. I see from a comment that "rice" meant "kingdom" and is similar to the german "reich" - i know challenging but conveying all this under what youre reading would be great in the next example you do - yes i think you should do more of these they are fascinating - thanks and merry xmas
Simon's Time Machine.
Thanks for this wonderful walk through the centuries, Simon! Can you recommend good resources for learning IPA notation, online or otherwise?
that 3024 extrapolation seems really conservative :D though I realize the Internet has changed the equation significantly
if brainrot has shown anything, is that the internet adds a lot of entropy to the equation haha
he meant 2124 :)
Fascinating
I've long been fascinated by "swa swa / swo swo" and just… how _that_ came to be. 🥴 Granted, I recall a "doubling" of words still occurs from time-to-time (I'm sure I've used "that that" before).
Gothic used “swe” for “as”.
@joshadams8761 I've also seen recently an example of swa swa in an old frankish video, which is the ancestor to modern dutch. Maybe it was old franconian I'm not totally sure.
I've grown to rather like that. I believe it is pretty much a formalised informality, which itself speaks to it being a rather old turn of speech for it to pop up in high status writings (at least I'd guess so). Word for word it means "so so" ("swa" became "so".) It's pretty much "and so on", "etc etc" - pretty much "you get what I mean" lol
I like how older English/Scots/Anglo Saxon had a lot of 'w' and 'wh'. WHere Would We be Without them?!
@ I proud that, like Latin and Very Ancient Greek, English preserved the /w/ phoneme.
I like the new background color!
Wonderful content as always Simon and merry Christmas to you! 🎄 Could’ve dropped a few aitches here though!
A suggestion. Do it in the opposite direction: 2024 to 1124. It might be easier to follow divergence from modern English than gradual convergence. Maybe do both forward and backward.
Ohhh we got scotts, jamacian and ulster in some of those. That was fun!
It would be fun for you to be on the new Time Team and to bring the characters they literally dig up to life by using their version of English, similar to how Victor Ambus would bring them to life with his drawings.
The one from 1124 is freakishly similar to the Icelandic version. You can hear it in the pronunciation more than reading it I feel like.
Faðir vor,
þú sem ert á himnum.
Helgist þitt nafn,
til komi þitt ríki,
verði þinn vilji,
svo á jörðu sem á himni.
It would absolutely make sense considering Old English and Old Norse were likely mutually intelligble to a significant degree
I've heard before that grammatical endings were gradually dropped in Old English because of the stress on the first syllable. But the first syllable is stressed in most words in many languages, especially Germanic ones, and yet they retain their endings.
If it wasn't the old pronunciation of Earth as erðe i wouldn't have made the Albanian connection for Earth ðe. Merry Christmas! 🇦🇱🏴
I would love to see you cover - at your leisure, of course, should you be so inclined - the use of (if I'm getting this right because I'm *really* rusty at linguistics) the past continuous tense in British English, such as 'I was sat' or 'We were stood' as compared to US English usage, e.g. 'I was sitting' or 'We were standing.' I've been hyper-aware of that lately and wonder how far back that goes, or if it's purely a regional thing. Also the dropping of the NG diphthong. I watched an old (1970s) BBC clip of an interview with a woman who was a child during the Victorian era and noticed several times that she said 'lenth' and 'strenth', which is something I hear quite a lot of in British pronunciation even today. Always fascinating seeing your work!
In England “I was/were sat” is a northernism, that has spread to a certain extent. It’s still somewhat “colloquial”. A more, how should I put it…, standard, or elevated speech would still prefer “I was sitting”… but interesting observation!
I was wondered as I was sat as I was listened to Simon as he was taught me: he was read these phrases or he was remembered them?
Interesting thanks
For anyone wondering, the movie mentioned is likely "The Dreadful" w/ Sophie Turner and Kit Harington
Given how alien Old English sounds to us 1000 years ago, I imagine 3024 english would sound as equally strange
Hey Simon, quick question, in a number of your other videos you reconstruct the "r" sound as a tap into the 1600s, but here you have it shifting to the retroflex approximant as early as the 1400s. What made you change your mind about this?
The jump just from 1124-1224 is insane. It goes from sounding like a completely unknown language with little familiar or recognizable, to suddenly just sounding like a very archaic or warped version of the Lord's prayer. I wonder why...the linguistic effects of the Norman Conquest ~50 years earlier trickling down into the common language?
Unfortunately I think this may be my fault - in that period I was interpolating between a translation from the 900s and the Wycliffe translation from the 1380s, which use quite different wording (the Wycliffe version is much more similar to the wording we're all familiar with now). There were real significant changes in word order and word choice in that period, but maybe I should have staggered them over a couple of centuries rather than changing them all at once!
Had not appreciated that word initial stress was a key factor in the simplification of English morphology - v interesting insight.