As a Serb, I’m watching this at 1 am, slowly falling asleep and hearing you say “jastuk” and “serbian” gave me a little heart attack I’ve never opened my eyes faster in my entire life.
@@tedarcher9120 I know gorillas and chimpanzees and such have been taught to use sign language, but are there any animals besides them that have developed language independently and for their own use?
@@pawel198812 Many mammals have a limited form of language, with a few dozen words, but humans are the only ones with anything like the level of complexity that is evinced in human language, barring any breakthroughs in animal language research. Many animals, though, from insects through amphibians to mammals, use vocalisation or sound to communicate; it really depends on your definition of language.
@@tycarne7850 Obviously not every form of communication is language. Pheromones convey a vast array of information, but they can't be consciously manipulated, so that doesn't count. Music is often compared to language, in that it has a discernible structure that can be analised on multiple levels (in a way, music does have a phonology, morphology, syntax etc.). Many would even argue that one can have a musical conversation with someone (e.g. in the context of improvisation, Adam Neely had a TEDx talk about it, I believe). However, music does not have a meaning per se. Now, social animals (is that the correct term?) like whales, birds etc. do produce long and structured utterances, but these don't seem to communicate meaning or intent either (at least as far as I know, and my level of expertise is comparable to Jon Snow's).
@@pawel198812 Obviously not every form of communication is language; well, yes, obviously not, but it's where to draw the line - meerkats, to use a famous example, have dozens of sounds that can each produce a different reaction in the listener (that being other meerkats), but that can often sound identical to the human ear - they seem to have different 'words' for snake or eagle, for example, causing different behaviours in meerkats that hear the call. Is that a language? It doesn't seem to have any grammar, but it certainly conveys meaning - I'd perhaps call it a proto-language. Whale and dolphin languages are certainly able to convey at least that level of meaning, but have a much wider range of sounds, which may or may not indicate an increased complexity; it's such an immature field of study that it's hard to draw many conclusions. I know naff all about birdsong, so can't really comment on that.
How did language start? Well, one day two early humans were sitting by a pond One said to the other, "What if we had a way to communicate ideas to one another, using sounds that we make with our mouths?" The other replied, "You know, I think you may be onto something there"
@@robogamer2023 Of course they would have firstly had to sort out the copyright and intellectual property issues before they could really get this going.
The most logical explanation is, that this is all a test - a world created by the 2nd world creator that is in The Outside that he made as an exact opposite of what the perfect world would be to study different variables / outcomes, and he slowly influenced hum’ns throughout centuries, and separated hum’ns into different countries etc speaking different languages, and observing the languages barrier and how many hum’ns can go past it etc...
The original language that the world creator is speaking is most likely a mix of OId English / OId Germanic languages and Modern English etc and Latin languages, and most words must have been created by him in The Outside - he then made hum’ns that can follow patterns etc, and made certain words pop up in their mind, and then he observed how they would create other words following those patterns! Technically, all hum’ns can make the same types of sounds, so the letters would sound almost the same in every language, for the most part, and some have certain letters or sounds that other languages don’t, but hum’ns of any language could also made those sounds that aren’t in their language!
Maybe he was trying to find out if every particle is self-aware and conscious... But observations also indicate that there is another world that is the first timeless domain, and that the first world creator that made The Outside appeared due to movement of certain chemicals that came into contact that led to the forming of the first self-aware moving being, that had all the time to study things and play with chemicals, so he created The Outside (because the original world is probably completely different, but hum’ns can’t imagine how that world would be) and he created time by programming The Outside with a timeline, because time probably does not exist at all in the first world... I have an unique way of thinking, which is multidimensional and unlimited, so I can imagine how the first world would be to some extent, but I can’t really explain it... And he included small animaIs like insects here in this world, and an animaI that is biologically immortaI, because he wanted hum’ns to observe that time contracts for smaller beings and that it is possible to be biologically immortaI! So time works differently in The Outside - a century in this world is probably only one year or one month in The Outside...
The words van and mik / mike and ren cannot be in names, and all unsuitable names must be changed - such words only reflect me, as do all nature / love / royalty etc terms, and the name Mik(e) only reflects my pure protectors aka the alphas, while van / vann means water in Swedish / Norwegian etc, and nature / elements of nature / flower related terms cannot be in names or yt names at all, and nan also cannot be misused because it is too similar to some type of food (naan bread or something like that) and cannot be misused when referring to hum’ns!
First word of God was 2 tell in Genesis. This was the word - the Logos. It is part God and of God cos it is the word. If ure telling its mankeys in trees u will burn 4 ever in hell. So never tell it.
Bo Zo horses have sexes that are knowable. Gender is different. Simon said “sibling,” so unless you have more information than I do, you should assume Simon’s sibling is non-binary.
I'd like to hear the words for different ethnonyms in Old English- besides Angle, Saxon, etc., it would be cool to hear Dane, Irishman, Welshman, Pict, and words referring to other neighboring ethnic groups!
There weren't names just for neighbours (Wealas, Dene, etc), but until at least around the C8 for individual Anglo-Saxon groups (Pecsaeyna, Elmetsaetna, Mierce, Cantware, for the peoples of the Peak, Elmet, Mercia and Kent, plus several names we don't yet have peoples for): even giving practical unity to "Angle" or "Saxon" took centuries! :) .
Ever notice how Simon makes his die-stamped suburban neighbourhood seem like the most mystical place on earth? Like it's on the outskirts of Narnia or something? Also, I'm calling people "sibling" from now on.
i've never been very interested in linguistics (i really should be because i'm trying to learn arabic at university and suck at it but that's not important right now) but i love your videos as i find them really grounding and thoughtful, and i really like you as a person. and the b-roll never disappoints! (though you could probably film a leaking drain pipe for twelve minutes and i'd still watch it)
Also (and I confess I haven't yet bothered to look it up), I'd be interested to know if any progress has been made in figuring out a proto Australian Aboriginal language. There are (or were) hundreds of indigenous Australian languages which are all related to a greater or lesser extent and they have had 70,000 years or so to disperse, develop and diverge.
I'm Serbian and I was so amazed when I heard the word "jastuk"! Your pronunciation is good, tho it did sound like you were a bit angry with the poor jastuk! PS: I love your videos, if you ever need something related to serbian or slovene, don't hesitate to ask!
My guess is that language began with frustration and complex emotion. I remember before I could read or talk life was extraordinarily frustrating. I did not know what to expect at any given moment, and could not express grievance aside from crying. The only things that provided expectation was the suns position, and the weather. Nouns were the first to develop, verbs second. In modern humans, grunts, shouting and pointing, and the like are universal in nature. It is not to much of a stretch to assume that language began from that point. Considering that these things can be understood cross species, it makes sense.
That is certainly a *motivation* to use language, but if you have ever owned pets (or watched shows like “My Cat From Hell,” where many of the problems arise specifically because a cat is chronically frustrated or scared and is unable to use language the humans can understand), you will know that mere motivation is insufficient to generate language where language isn’t going to be able to be generated. In evolutionary theory, we’d call this fallacy “teleology” - the useful end that the thing serves somehow *causes* the evolution of the thing, attributing intentionality to a process that is by its nature not subject to intention. I might find having the genetic ability to eat lots of cake and not get fat easily, which *is* already a variation present in the human species, to be really useful, but the frustration of not having that ability does not make me more likely to get it. Similarly, my cat might be very frustrated that I do not always keep her water available precisely the way she likes it (two cups just like the ones we humans use, one on each table we typically eat at, filled almost completely to the brim), but it would have been a lot easier for her to explain that to me had she possessed a wider vocabulary and the ability to use symbolic language to talk about objects that were *not* present and to explain hypotheticals. Instead, she had to resort to the more usual behavioral strategy (which I’m sure Simon will discuss in a later video) of persistently meowing in a tone I find aversive (cats do have some vocabulary, and I have learned to recognize her “needy” sound) and looking at things until I happen to try something that is the right answer, and removing the aversive stimulus, which (probably unintentionally but effectively) serves to reinforce my correct behavior. But even that success in communicating frustration the way a human infant would does not turn frustration into language per se. Even in humans who *do* have the genetic capacity to learn language, frustration may be an important motivator towards attempting to communicate, but in fact high levels of emotion typically *reduce* the effective use of language, and psychologists like myself often must do quite a lot of explicit instruction and guided practice for family members where frustration is interfering with the use of already-existing language skills and with the development of more effective language skills, even in the folks who are old enough to be expected to know how to speak competently and who very often can speak very highly competently in less-emotionally-fraught situations.
Aimee Yermish Hey thanks for that great response. When I was writing the comment, I hoped someone from your field would chime in on it. What you wrote makes a lot of sense.
Lol, this sounds like a paraphrase of Augustine of Hippo on language, as cited by Wittgenstein when criticizing his notion of ostensive learning of language! But although it might just be a just-so story I am partial to, I think verbs could easily have evolved first with deictics (like here, there, yonder) and demonstratives (this, that, those) and pronouns and maybe proper names. Nouns may have arisen only when the use of action verbs in clauses became more sophisticated, and there was a need to distinguish situations where the speakers-listeners weren't actually looking at the relevant participants in the situation under discussion.
I've also learned to make cordage from sapling bark without speaking. Was much more effective than anyone trying to teach me using a bunch of words. Now I only show people non-verbally, and most of them have picked it up within the first demonstration.
My theory - music. I believe that we sang to each other long before we spoke to each other. The mechanisms for speech would be advantageously built on musical abilities, which could be an adaptive offshoot of mimicry skills, useful for hyper-social primates.
Short video, but I learned a lot and will watch it over again. I like the fact that you are so careful in laying out the uncertainties of the field--that you aspire to objectivity but know that you cannot possibly attain it. Still, since you are so clear-headed, I am interested in your judgments. You certainly know how to reduce convoluted academic arguments to their most cogent points.
hey Simon, great video as always. I would be interested to hear the names of supernatural and/or pagan concepts as they may have existed in OE; things like "ghost"/"spirit," "troll," "gnome," "curse," "spell"
'My man Si R spitting lines 'bout lingoes born from grunts' would be a clickbaity title, 'How did language start?' is more of a nerd-magnet title. Thanks for doing it Simon, great as ever.
Thanks Simon. I'm so glad that I stumbled across your channel on youtube and then subscribed I've always been fascinated by language, both our own and our European neighbours. Please keep going. Look forward to the next video !!
tfw you sit down to eat your lunch and drink your coffee and find no good new videos in your sub feed, but then get a notification that simon has uploaded. Good timing mate!
Fascinating, totally fascinating. I’m going to forward this to my aunt, who teaches singing and vocal technique, and to the Director at the local Zoo, who is a primatologist and anthropologist. My dad’s parents were both profoundly deaf from childhood and couldn’t speak, nevertheless my dad learned to speak, as well as to use sign language at an early age. Evidently, we are hard-wired for language, both conceptually and physically. The question is, who decided which sounds would denote which objects?? More mysteriously still, how did our ancestors develop the ability to talk about abstract nouns and concepts such as the Future Perfect Tense ??? I’m really looking forward to your next presentation, you are one of the most interesting and intelligent speakers on UA-cam. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Hey simon. Im a bilingual afrikaans(african dutch) and English speaking south African. What fascinates me is the split between the Germanic people (the clets right?) from the borders of the Netherlands and England. Could you say: Come inside the house. (Aftikaans: Kom in die huis.) My dog ran away. (Afrikaans: My hond het weg gehardloop.) Get your shit together. (Afrikaans: Kry jou kak agtermekaar.) I baked a bread in the oven. (Ek het n brood gebak in die oond.) I would like to here your thoughts on what had to happen for these factions to occur?
Ooooookay, here is my totally personal take on this! As an artist I think that speech, art/our creativity, learning ability and abstraction all is the same thing, or has its roots in the same thing and that this thing is what makes us human and is the thing that defines us COMPLETELY: Our minds/brains are transformers/processors. We take one thing and make it into another thing. We take a stick and make it into a "tool". We take pigments from flowers and minerals and make them into a painting. We take a piece of bone and make it into a flute. We take sounds and make them into a language. I know this seems too basic at this point, but think it through for a bit and you realize how fundamental this is. Most species take their surroundings as a given, while we not only see the transformative nature of everything, we actively use this and manipulate EVERYTHING around us. We don't just ask "What is this?" we also ask "What does it do?", "Can it be used for something else?" and more importantly "Can it be transformed into something different which then can be used for another purpose?" You scratch that topic by mentioning symbolism, that we can learn that one thing can mean another, but we also know that one thing can become another and serve a huge number of purposes. This understanding of transformation is also present in our grasp of time. It explains why we were able to use fire. Using a stick as a tool is quite obvious, that's why we see apes do it... but using fire is on another level. You have to understand that one thing is changing into another. While using a stick is just "object A interacts with object B and gives a positive result" If you take this kind of thinking into account speech becomes the logical next step right after symbolism or associating certain sounds with certain things. Because then you realize that you can take those sounds that represent certain things and TRANSFORM them by the means of order, volume, harshness etc. and create an unlimited amount of meanings. And I think you see how important this "transformative thinking" in our speech is when you compare us to other mammal species that use sounds as a tool of communication. Apes use certain sounds to convey certain messages, whales and dolphins do too... and they all know how to use a stick or rock as a tool to get food... so these abilities themselves don't seem to be that special, there is a good number of examples of species that can do that, but looking beyond the obvious and transforming things in your mind is unique to us humans. That is why we don't just take a stick, we take a thick stick, a sharp rock plus an animal's tendons and create an axe. That is why we don't just use sound A to mean thing A, but we take this sound and combine it with ten others to make a sentence.
@Ismayil Imanli I guess it depends on what your native language is, but for me as a native English speaker, it was very difficult, I didn't get very far!
@Ismayil Imanli Polish and Russian are bit more closely related to each other than to Lithuanian. If you are really fluent in Russian then Polish would be bit easier. On the other hand more people in Lithuania speak Russian, especially the older ones, because of the Soviet Union, and some Russian words were borrowed into Lithuanian. The actual question you need to ask yourself is why do you want to learn either. Learning for the sake of learning is fun, but only to a point. If you don't have friends speaking those languages, and you're not planning to migrate to either country, than you will probably lose interest after getting through the basics - the grammar tables alone are daunting. All the verb tenses, noun cases, gendered adjectives, etc.
In Croatian we also use the world jastuk (the "a" is the pressed sound). In Dalmatia (coastal part of Croatia) people for jastuk say "kušin". Kušin is a romance word, a word of romance origin, in English it came through Norman language I presume.
The word for cushion in Dalmatia might have come from the original Dalmatian language which was in the romance family, or from the later influence of trade with Venice.
@@jordanpurser2097 Yes I knew that. I am a teacher of Croatian, but I did not say it because I thought it might be confusing for outsiders. Glad to see that people know about it.
@@ovadansal6750 I know that also. We have many Turkish loan words, "boja" for color, non-standard "komsija" for neighbour, "caj" for tea... Altough I think that "caj" is a loan word itself in Turkish, from Hindi.
I read something once along the lines of 'when you ask someone their name, what you're really asking them is what sound you should make to get their attention' - it's so true!
I really appreciate this post. I feel that you have done an excellent explaination of trying to state where you stand. I feel that it was well thought out and without added bias. You gave superb, ( given the situation/time circumstance of which many should consider.) Someone stated you have a superpower for clarity or something similar, I do not know exactly how it was worded. I whole heartedly aggree. I think given all these considerations it was something of legend !!! You are already standing among the greats in my opinion ; Sir, You would have already fallen upon the most lofty mountain, but you are reaching the stars without seeking it. The only way I know how to express this feeling is by referencing the Maori proverb aim for the clouds for if you fall you will land upon the tallest mountains. I do not know the exact wording I am sorry if I worded it incorrectly. Thank You for making this post I know You did not have too, but it is genuine and of great value. I want to clarify I am not trans, but I have friends that are. Thank You again for this post.
I'd like some descriptive locations in Old English. Things like Forest, grotto, alcove, bay, pasture. that sort of thing. I assume there were some commonly used ones we don't use today
I would love to hear more basic sentences with words/structure similar enough to what we use today that you can almost hear how it evolved. Simple stuff like "She took the book off the shelf" or what have you.
Even dogs have 'handedness'. I am a dog trainer and they definitely have a preference for turning one way over the other. (My sport is dog agility, and teaching spins in both directions and also teaching them to turn tightly around objects in both directions is part of what I teach. )
One thing I‘m curious about that you’ll probably get to. Many languages from different families have a word similar to ma or mama for mother: Chinese, Hebrew, Estonian, Arabic, Vietnamese, Swahili, numerous Indo-European languages from France to Bengal, etc. And I’ve read that some linguists propose that this is one of the most ancient words from the ancestor of all those languages. You’ve heard the Just-So Story for it, too. Human babies naturally babble as they learn to vocalize, and "ma" is one of the first syllables they learn to make, since it’s what you get with your tongue and lips in a relaxed position. But does that make it more likely, or less likely, to be an ancestral word, since it means the word could have been coined from babytalk many independent times? Interestingly, in many Aboriginal languages, mama means father and papa means mother.
Your videos about linguistics are so engaging! You’ve sparked my interest in a topic I never thought much about previously. I wish everyone in academia had your curious and modest attitude.
Me, has a degree in linguistics (and started then dropped out of a Masters):Oo yes definitely watching this! And this literally just reminded me that I never finished reading the Unfolding of Language
1. God (or equivalent) 2. Rain 3. Sword 4. Sun 5. Moon 6. Right (right to live, right to bear arms) 7. Kill/ to kill 8. Sir (yes sir, no sir) 9. Clouds 10. Sand 11. Stars 12. Pain/ to hurt 13. Principles, or beliefs 14. Intelligent 15. Ant/beetles/butterfly Just a list if you needed some more words to fill in the video. Tried to include some complicated ones that may not be literally represented in Old English
You have inspired me to learn language more thoroughly and equip myself with more knowledge. I don't know enough about cases and the terminology around it, moods, grammar, and I will be learning the IPA. Thoroughly enjoying your videos! I have studied Japanese and German but only in my own time. I have goals to learn Norwegian, Welsh, Yiddish, and Finnish. Any tips or resources are welcomed!
I need a flowering and superflupus greeting in Old English now; something that harkens to the effect of, "The sun smiles upon our greeting," or, "The stars shine upon our chance encounter," or whatever else have you.
Again, incredible content. These kind of educational channels are very rare on yt. Most ed channels focus on popsci, trival topics with often very sensational undertone.
Epic video as always! In your upcoming video, I think it would be neat if you showed us some of the words they would use to describe something interesting. For example, we have “cool” or “neat” or “dope”. I assume these types of words existed, but we often only see the formal side of old languages. Thanks!
A fascinating intro. I wondered many years ago when first learning of Neanderthals whether they could “talk” and wondered what it might have sounded like. I never did buy in to the popular representation of Neanderthal just grunting like a pig. I’d like to hear the old word for fire and for dangerous (the concept) Thanks so much for all your work.
In Vedic and Buddhist philosophy there is a Goddess for speech and language (and music). Her name is Vac, and she later became known as Saraswati. Also, there are two words for knowledge, differentiating that which is heard and that which is remembered. The former is "Shruti" and the latter is "Smriti". There are many interesting links between Sanskrit and English.
Your discussion of animals, spoken language, and hunting in packs is super interesting to me. We know wolves are able to hunt in packs without spoken language. Also, dogs do tend to express preferences for right-“hand”edness/ left-handedness. You can observe this by watching a dog run out to retrieve a toy. Some dogs (like my own) will strongly prefer to turn in one direction (my dog always turns right, although I have taught him to turn the other direction on command as well). It’s fascinating to me that you can teach an animal right from left at all! Sled dogs, for example, will take vocal commands to turn right or left, and you can communicate a hard turn vs pulling over to the side of the trail.
Those are domesticated animals, they could have easily been selectively bred for those traits. If those traits show up in wild populations on their own, that's more convincing.
Great videos - you explain things really well and genuinely develop enthusiasm for learning about language. If we ever need to bring back lost linguistic concepts (such as ye, thee thou etc) I expect to see your good self at the forefront!
Re Neanderthals I think the link with the need to teach is a potential prod. At least for the equivalent of ' no its better like this'. I know that as a young child I learned to cook, iron, sew, knit etc by sitting near my mum as she worked and being shown what to do. I cant recall anything she said but can still see her hands in my minds eye as she showed me how to do running stitches. Likewise I learnt woodwork, digging a veg garden etc from helping my dad.
I'm so glad that you included the possibility of sign language. It's so often ignored, thought of as a modern invention, a concept we developed only recently. I personally find the hypothesis where sign language came first compelling, though that is likely at least in part due to my biases making me skeptical that language could evolve as quickly as some linguists _cough_ Chomsky _cough_ would like to think.
Modern people without speaking apparatus (due to disease or developmental factors) usually learn language, including production of language using alternate body structures, signs and/or technological support. This argues against the importance of the mechanical apparatus in the evolution of speech versus the brain, thought, or other factors including development and environment.
Georgios Andreou yep. Same goes for everything else that has to do with bed. For mattress we say “dushek” which comes from Serbian “dušek”, also meaning mattress. For bed, we say either “shtrat” or “krevat”. My family says shtrat mainly, and krevat comes from “krevet” in Serbian, which also means the same thing. Albanian language has lost originality in random stuff, and most of the time other South Slavic languages lost the same original word. In Albanian “peshir” and Serbian “peškir” both mean towel and come from Turkish, but I think the Turks got it from Arabic. Much of old Balkan idiom was lost and replaced with Turkish loanwords, but it’s literally the most random stuff that was replaced and nothing too influential
Many basic animal names may be interpreted as being onomatopoetic - mimicking their sounds (cow, wolf, bear, chicken, goose, etc.). Humans have the ability to mimick many animal sounds as well as other natural sounds, so that will definitely have been one of the starting points of naming things.
As a very new fan (maybe 3 weeks?) This appealed to me as soon as I saw it more then any other videos you have put out in the meantime, might just be me but the feedback might help you out and to clarify I think it was the broad, open title that stood out to me.
11:18 Pavlov did not condition dogs to associate a bell with the concept of food, he made them associate it with "come and eat, there is food here". The problem with a scenario in which /fu:d/ is associated with the concept of "food" is double, starting from an animal communications point: * how do you get from "come and eat, there is food here" to the abstract concept of "food"? * how do you get from a unitary signal, gestural or vocal, for "come and eat, there is food here" to a signal composed by /f/ /u:/ /d/ in that order and without interruption, so /fu:d/ rather than /fufufu/ in typical monkey or /fu:d/ rather than /fu:ld/ with a very different meaning?
Not sure if this is similar but Itaught music in inner city schools for many years. Many of the young people had arrived as refugees with no English. In one school 93% had English as a second language. My teaching was very much through demonstration which didn't seem to hold anyone back. The whole business of learning music by ear is itself interesting and imo it's more authentic. It can carry far more social context as well.
I would love to be a fly on the (cave) wall and observe our ancestors lives at a point in time when language was just starting. To see the stories of their lives, probably as full of drama, love, politics etc. as modern humans and to see them communicate with something that resembles language but not quite as we know it. Sad to think their stories are lost to the universe forever. Very interesting video. Thank you.
Regarding "evolving" from signs/signals to words -- I have always kept chickens, and on rare occasions have seen some intriguing word-like behaviours. They have between 30 and 60 meaningful vocalizations, such as different alerts for different kinds of danger. One would assume, in these simple animals, that the use of these sounds is locked to specific situations, but I have seen them use a sound creatively, flexibly, in a way I associate with real words. For example: They make a low rolling growl-trill in the evening when settling on the roost, and it means "settle down, be quiet" to the youngsters jostling for position, etc. Sometimes if I was carpentering near them near dark, they would use the sound on me. I never heard them make that sound any other time -- except once. One winter I happened to have only one old hen, kept alone in a pen. I found a rooster for her, so we could hatch eggs. He was a big young guy, very inexperienced and randy. In daytime, not evening, I put him in with her, and he was overexcited and rough with her, and she got exasperated with him and growl-trilled "settle down, be quiet !" She had to hold the meaning within her in some abstract way in order to use it in a new way. When does a meaningful sound become a word ?
This is the first video I've seen from this channel. As a linguist by academic training and professional application, I am quite impressed. I have liked and subscribed. I shall now go on to watch more videos from this channel (until, of course, I find something that does not confirm my biases, upon which occasion I shall throw a hissey-fit and click the "unlike" and "unsubscribe" buttons.)
"Bare lists of words are found suggestive, to an imaginative and excited mind; as it is related of Lord Chatham, that he was accustomed to read in Bailey’s Dictionary, when he was preparing to speak in Parliament. The poorest experience is rich enough for all the purposes of expressing thought. Why covet a knowledge of new facts? Day and night, house and garden, a few books, a few actions, serve us as well as would all trades and all spectacles. We are far from having exhausted the significance of the few symbols we use. We can come to use them yet with a terrible simplicity. It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem. Every new relation is a new word." Emerson
Really glad to see this! As someone who has a fairly broad understanding of the topic, there were still a few things that I learned or hadn't considered quite as granularly before, so thanks. Also, just going to say that, as I suspect you'll agree, language is an incredibly complex constellation of interconnected and interrelated functions, not just one thing, and the truth is likely that no one argument or biological/neurological innovation was actually responsible for its development, because lots of animals have bits and pieces of the whole, but probably only humans have all of them in the way we have them. Definitely looking forward to future videos on this topic. :D
Siblings exist in the SCU (Simon Cinematic Universe)
🤣
The Roperverse
and fathers :)
This video is precious. I love that Simon thinks "How Did Language Start?" is a clickbait-y title.
He was probably planning to use a more clickbaity title when he was recording but changed his mind later.
@@spinnis One Weird Trick to Start YOUR OWN Language!
More evidence that he is sending these videos from an alternative dimension (e.g. the peculiar light at the beginning of this one).
LANGUAGE IS NEVER FROM STOOPID MANKEYS. IT'S FROM GOD COS GOD IS THE WORD. U DONT NO NOTHING ABOUT NOTHING.
@@RedwingBB LANGUAGE ORIGIN GONE SEXY, VIOLENT, FIGHTING WILD!!!
As a Serb, I’m watching this at 1 am, slowly falling asleep and hearing you say “jastuk” and “serbian” gave me a little heart attack I’ve never opened my eyes faster in my entire life.
If you are Serb, return Vojvodina to Hungary!
A ne bi se setila da najaviš spoiler alert, huh? :D
Aaaahhhh sweet old Yugoslavic paranoia! 😆😅
Lol. Funny to imagine
@@dejanmarkovic3040 but she didn't reveal it.
there is hardly anything that has ever fascinated me as much as the mysterious origin of language
I think culture is more interesting because many animals have language but only humans have culture
@@tedarcher9120 I know gorillas and chimpanzees and such have been taught to use sign language, but are there any animals besides them that have developed language independently and for their own use?
@@pawel198812 Many mammals have a limited form of language, with a few dozen words, but humans are the only ones with anything like the level of complexity that is evinced in human language, barring any breakthroughs in animal language research. Many animals, though, from insects through amphibians to mammals, use vocalisation or sound to communicate; it really depends on your definition of language.
@@tycarne7850 Obviously not every form of communication is language. Pheromones convey a vast array of information, but they can't be consciously manipulated, so that doesn't count.
Music is often compared to language, in that it has a discernible structure that can be analised on multiple levels (in a way, music does have a phonology, morphology, syntax etc.). Many would even argue that one can have a musical conversation with someone (e.g. in the context of improvisation, Adam Neely had a TEDx talk about it, I believe). However, music does not have a meaning per se.
Now, social animals (is that the correct term?) like whales, birds etc. do produce long and structured utterances, but these don't seem to communicate meaning or intent either (at least as far as I know, and my level of expertise is comparable to Jon Snow's).
@@pawel198812 Obviously not every form of communication is language; well, yes, obviously not, but it's where to draw the line - meerkats, to use a famous example, have dozens of sounds that can each produce a different reaction in the listener (that being other meerkats), but that can often sound identical to the human ear - they seem to have different 'words' for snake or eagle, for example, causing different behaviours in meerkats that hear the call. Is that a language? It doesn't seem to have any grammar, but it certainly conveys meaning - I'd perhaps call it a proto-language. Whale and dolphin languages are certainly able to convey at least that level of meaning, but have a much wider range of sounds, which may or may not indicate an increased complexity; it's such an immature field of study that it's hard to draw many conclusions. I know naff all about birdsong, so can't really comment on that.
the only consistency in life is that paisley shirt
i had the same shirt in 1967
@@MrMother11 you have taste
@@Drabkikker not vomit, just a nice sandy colour 😊
@@Drabkikker Don't let Lindybeige hear you!
Dirk Bakker Chartreuse
How did language start?
Well, one day two early humans were sitting by a pond
One said to the other,
"What if we had a way to communicate ideas to one another, using sounds that we make with our mouths?"
The other replied,
"You know, I think you may be onto something there"
😂😂😂😂😂
@@robogamer2023 Of course they would have firstly had to sort out the copyright and intellectual property issues before they could really get this going.
Gneurshk
People started talking...
Eventually they started talking shit.
It took a while.
It didn't take that long I imagine 😆
@@jamesgreenldn
A short while....
Wiping my ... eyes.
They were talking shite before they were talking sense, now the world is back to talking shite.
And it will continue,til the course of our evolution will have us where our heads are completely in our asses.
My Nan and I typically watch your content over dinner after work - it’s so comfy and wholesome! 😊 keep it up
That's really lovely to hear! :) Say hi to her from me!
The most logical explanation is, that this is all a test - a world created by the 2nd world creator that is in The Outside that he made as an exact opposite of what the perfect world would be to study different variables / outcomes, and he slowly influenced hum’ns throughout centuries, and separated hum’ns into different countries etc speaking different languages, and observing the languages barrier and how many hum’ns can go past it etc...
The original language that the world creator is speaking is most likely a mix of OId English / OId Germanic languages and Modern English etc and Latin languages, and most words must have been created by him in The Outside - he then made hum’ns that can follow patterns etc, and made certain words pop up in their mind, and then he observed how they would create other words following those patterns! Technically, all hum’ns can make the same types of sounds, so the letters would sound almost the same in every language, for the most part, and some have certain letters or sounds that other languages don’t, but hum’ns of any language could also made those sounds that aren’t in their language!
Maybe he was trying to find out if every particle is self-aware and conscious... But observations also indicate that there is another world that is the first timeless domain, and that the first world creator that made The Outside appeared due to movement of certain chemicals that came into contact that led to the forming of the first self-aware moving being, that had all the time to study things and play with chemicals, so he created The Outside (because the original world is probably completely different, but hum’ns can’t imagine how that world would be) and he created time by programming The Outside with a timeline, because time probably does not exist at all in the first world... I have an unique way of thinking, which is multidimensional and unlimited, so I can imagine how the first world would be to some extent, but I can’t really explain it... And he included small animaIs like insects here in this world, and an animaI that is biologically immortaI, because he wanted hum’ns to observe that time contracts for smaller beings and that it is possible to be biologically immortaI! So time works differently in The Outside - a century in this world is probably only one year or one month in The Outside...
The words van and mik / mike and ren cannot be in names, and all unsuitable names must be changed - such words only reflect me, as do all nature / love / royalty etc terms, and the name Mik(e) only reflects my pure protectors aka the alphas, while van / vann means water in Swedish / Norwegian etc, and nature / elements of nature / flower related terms cannot be in names or yt names at all, and nan also cannot be misused because it is too similar to some type of food (naan bread or something like that) and cannot be misused when referring to hum’ns!
The first word was “Ffffffffffaaaaaarrrrrrrkkkk” and occurred when the first Human accidentally whacked their thumb with a flint axe.
It was an alternative form of fffffuuuuuthhhaaaarrrrrrkkk.....
No, it was gneurshk.
Nope. It was Fwooooooooaaaaar!
neoqueto gneurshk!
First word of God was 2 tell in Genesis. This was the word - the Logos. It is part God and of God cos it is the word. If ure telling its mankeys in trees u will burn 4 ever in hell. So never tell it.
What do you have to say for yourself sibling
Aurora Peace person. Can’t assume girl. Simon identified them as a sibling, not sister.
My favourite part
@@TeamSlow Would you say the same thing about horses? Their gender is unknowable?
Bo Zo horses have sexes that are knowable. Gender is different. Simon said “sibling,” so unless you have more information than I do, you should assume Simon’s sibling is non-binary.
@@TeamSlow Maybe she thinks she's a horse?
Ah yes, another session of unintended guided meditation with Simon ❤️
I know your brain shuts off when it’s time to learn things.
@@leahcimolrac1477 hm? meditation is associated with awareness
Behold:
s i b l i n g
I'd like to hear the words for different ethnonyms in Old English- besides Angle, Saxon, etc., it would be cool to hear Dane, Irishman, Welshman, Pict, and words referring to other neighboring ethnic groups!
There weren't names just for neighbours (Wealas, Dene, etc), but until at least around the C8 for individual Anglo-Saxon groups (Pecsaeyna, Elmetsaetna, Mierce, Cantware, for the peoples of the Peak, Elmet, Mercia and Kent, plus several names we don't yet have peoples for): even giving practical unity to "Angle" or "Saxon" took centuries! :) .
Ohnuma et. al., 1997 is the article you were looking for, that demonstrates that people can be taught how to produce Levallois tools in silence.
It's sad we will never fully grasp the history of us because only so much evidence survives
Make an advanced enough AI that can basically deduct everything and boom, you got it
if you think theres a long line of scientists waiting to use the Hubble, wait until that sign up sheet forms for the first time machine...
@@IRex-wm9pd Is there a reason why we can't just put the time machine in the time machine and send it back as often as needed?
Ever notice how Simon makes his die-stamped suburban neighbourhood seem like the most mystical place on earth? Like it's on the outskirts of Narnia or something? Also, I'm calling people "sibling" from now on.
I call my siblings "brother" or "sister" but may change it up now.
My 15yo calls me "superior hu-man".
@@lawnerddownunder3461 Count your blessings. Teenaged children have come up with worse.
@@RobMacKendrick yeh I don't mind it at all. I mean, he's acknowledging my superiority so that's a win right there 😄
Is your father an anglosaxon god
Either that or random homeless guy
No, his father is God in heaven but he is two stoopid 2 understand
@@Haru23a stop spamming dude
@@Haru23a "two stoopid 2 understand" 😐
@@t4ky0n "to stoopid 2 understand," I meant. Idiot.
Fascinating video!
Some word requests:
1. Beautiful
2. Violent
3. Love
I feel a beautiful violent love for those three words, y'know?
@@jacobscrackers98 I love this, it's beautiful (add violent somewhere)
i've never been very interested in linguistics (i really should be because i'm trying to learn arabic at university and suck at it but that's not important right now) but i love your videos as i find them really grounding and thoughtful, and i really like you as a person. and the b-roll never disappoints! (though you could probably film a leaking drain pipe for twelve minutes and i'd still watch it)
Arabi is easy. All the verbs are three consanants.
@@Haru23a What language is hard by your standards?
@@spaghettiking653English, clearly. Some verbs in English contain 4+ consonants!
@@pooroldnostradamus The unthinkable!
What an absolutely sensational channel this is. Wonderful. I love your clarity. Thank you for taking the time.
Hey Simon, hope you're well.
I'd like a video on Proto-Afroasiatic eventually, as a major proto-language I don't feel like it's talked about enough.
And proto-nostratic
Well those people should do some research then. He's doing his part already
@@Arjunarjunskiy I've actually never heard of proto nostratic, what languages did that evolve into
Kinan Radaideh, it's a speculative proto-language which gave rise to Proto-Indo-European, Uralic and Altaic.
Also (and I confess I haven't yet bothered to look it up), I'd be interested to know if any progress has been made in figuring out a proto Australian Aboriginal language. There are (or were) hundreds of indigenous Australian languages which are all related to a greater or lesser extent and they have had 70,000 years or so to disperse, develop and diverge.
Always nice to hear from such a serious intellect, thanks Simon.
Thank you for the interest! :)
I'm Serbian and I was so amazed when I heard the word "jastuk"! Your pronunciation is good, tho it did sound like you were a bit angry with the poor jastuk!
PS: I love your videos, if you ever need something related to serbian or slovene, don't hesitate to ask!
My guess is that language began with frustration and complex emotion. I remember before I could read or talk life was extraordinarily frustrating. I did not know what to expect at any given moment, and could not express grievance aside from crying. The only things that provided expectation was the suns position, and the weather. Nouns were the first to develop, verbs second. In modern humans, grunts, shouting and pointing, and the like are universal in nature. It is not to much of a stretch to assume that language began from that point. Considering that these things can be understood cross species, it makes sense.
That is certainly a *motivation* to use language, but if you have ever owned pets (or watched shows like “My Cat From Hell,” where many of the problems arise specifically because a cat is chronically frustrated or scared and is unable to use language the humans can understand), you will know that mere motivation is insufficient to generate language where language isn’t going to be able to be generated. In evolutionary theory, we’d call this fallacy “teleology” - the useful end that the thing serves somehow *causes* the evolution of the thing, attributing intentionality to a process that is by its nature not subject to intention.
I might find having the genetic ability to eat lots of cake and not get fat easily, which *is* already a variation present in the human species, to be really useful, but the frustration of not having that ability does not make me more likely to get it. Similarly, my cat might be very frustrated that I do not always keep her water available precisely the way she likes it (two cups just like the ones we humans use, one on each table we typically eat at, filled almost completely to the brim), but it would have been a lot easier for her to explain that to me had she possessed a wider vocabulary and the ability to use symbolic language to talk about objects that were *not* present and to explain hypotheticals. Instead, she had to resort to the more usual behavioral strategy (which I’m sure Simon will discuss in a later video) of persistently meowing in a tone I find aversive (cats do have some vocabulary, and I have learned to recognize her “needy” sound) and looking at things until I happen to try something that is the right answer, and removing the aversive stimulus, which (probably unintentionally but effectively) serves to reinforce my correct behavior. But even that success in communicating frustration the way a human infant would does not turn frustration into language per se.
Even in humans who *do* have the genetic capacity to learn language, frustration may be an important motivator towards attempting to communicate, but in fact high levels of emotion typically *reduce* the effective use of language, and psychologists like myself often must do quite a lot of explicit instruction and guided practice for family members where frustration is interfering with the use of already-existing language skills and with the development of more effective language skills, even in the folks who are old enough to be expected to know how to speak competently and who very often can speak very highly competently in less-emotionally-fraught situations.
Aimee Yermish Hey thanks for that great response. When I was writing the comment, I hoped someone from your field would chime in on it. What you wrote makes a lot of sense.
You remember before you could talk? That's impressive.
Lol, this sounds like a paraphrase of Augustine of Hippo on language, as cited by Wittgenstein when criticizing his notion of ostensive learning of language! But although it might just be a just-so story I am partial to, I think verbs could easily have evolved first with deictics (like here, there, yonder) and demonstratives (this, that, those) and pronouns and maybe proper names. Nouns may have arisen only when the use of action verbs in clauses became more sophisticated, and there was a need to distinguish situations where the speakers-listeners weren't actually looking at the relevant participants in the situation under discussion.
I just found your chanel and it gives me hope for humanity that you have over 100000 subscribers ❤️
Please pronounce this in old English:
“Unexpected item in the bagging area.”
Unweened thing in the pocking sned - Anglish
Unwēned þing in þām codda stede.
I've also learned to make cordage from sapling bark without speaking. Was much more effective than anyone trying to teach me using a bunch of words. Now I only show people non-verbally, and most of them have picked it up within the first demonstration.
"When I submit to somone, I go and groom them."
Me too, pal. Me too.
My theory - music. I believe that we sang to each other long before we spoke to each other. The mechanisms for speech would be advantageously built on musical abilities, which could be an adaptive offshoot of mimicry skills, useful for hyper-social primates.
Short video, but I learned a lot and will watch it over again. I like the fact that you are so careful in laying out the uncertainties of the field--that you aspire to objectivity but know that you cannot possibly attain it. Still, since you are so clear-headed, I am interested in your judgments. You certainly know how to reduce convoluted academic arguments to their most cogent points.
hey Simon, great video as always. I would be interested to hear the names of supernatural and/or pagan concepts as they may have existed in OE; things like "ghost"/"spirit," "troll," "gnome," "curse," "spell"
Looking forward to the rest of this series!
'My man Si R spitting lines 'bout lingoes born from grunts' would be a clickbaity title, 'How did language start?' is more of a nerd-magnet title. Thanks for doing it Simon, great as ever.
KING HAS UPLOADED
Thanks Simon. I'm so glad that I stumbled across your channel on youtube and then subscribed I've always been fascinated by language, both our own and our European neighbours. Please keep going. Look forward to the next video !!
tfw you sit down to eat your lunch and drink your coffee and find no good new videos in your sub feed, but then get a notification that simon has uploaded. Good timing mate!
I wish I could, like, extra-subscribe to your channel.
Fascinating, totally fascinating. I’m going to forward this to my aunt, who teaches singing and vocal technique, and to the Director at the local Zoo, who is a primatologist and anthropologist. My dad’s parents were both profoundly deaf from childhood and couldn’t speak, nevertheless my dad learned to speak, as well as to use sign language at an early age. Evidently, we are hard-wired for language, both conceptually and physically. The question is, who decided which sounds would denote which objects?? More mysteriously still, how did our ancestors develop the ability to talk about abstract nouns and concepts such as the Future Perfect Tense ??? I’m really looking forward to your next presentation, you are one of the most interesting and intelligent speakers on UA-cam. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Ya. Like there was a first time, somewhere, somehow, that a word for TRUTH was spoken. How were the great abstract words born ?
Hey simon. Im a bilingual afrikaans(african dutch) and English speaking south African.
What fascinates me is the split between the Germanic people (the clets right?) from the borders of the Netherlands and England.
Could you say:
Come inside the house. (Aftikaans: Kom in die huis.)
My dog ran away. (Afrikaans: My hond het weg gehardloop.)
Get your shit together. (Afrikaans: Kry jou kak agtermekaar.)
I baked a bread in the oven. (Ek het n brood gebak in die oond.)
I would like to here your thoughts on what had to happen for these factions to occur?
Ooooookay, here is my totally personal take on this!
As an artist I think that speech, art/our creativity, learning ability and abstraction all is the same thing, or has its roots in the same thing and that this thing is what makes us human and is the thing that defines us COMPLETELY:
Our minds/brains are transformers/processors.
We take one thing and make it into another thing. We take a stick and make it into a "tool". We take pigments from flowers and minerals and make them into a painting. We take a piece of bone and make it into a flute. We take sounds and make them into a language.
I know this seems too basic at this point, but think it through for a bit and you realize how fundamental this is. Most species take their surroundings as a given, while we not only see the transformative nature of everything, we actively use this and manipulate EVERYTHING around us.
We don't just ask "What is this?" we also ask "What does it do?", "Can it be used for something else?" and more importantly "Can it be transformed into something different which then can be used for another purpose?"
You scratch that topic by mentioning symbolism, that we can learn that one thing can mean another, but we also know that one thing can become another and serve a huge number of purposes.
This understanding of transformation is also present in our grasp of time. It explains why we were able to use fire. Using a stick as a tool is quite obvious, that's why we see apes do it... but using fire is on another level. You have to understand that one thing is changing into another. While using a stick is just "object A interacts with object B and gives a positive result"
If you take this kind of thinking into account speech becomes the logical next step right after symbolism or associating certain sounds with certain things. Because then you realize that you can take those sounds that represent certain things and TRANSFORM them by the means of order, volume, harshness etc. and create an unlimited amount of meanings.
And I think you see how important this "transformative thinking" in our speech is when you compare us to other mammal species that use sounds as a tool of communication.
Apes use certain sounds to convey certain messages, whales and dolphins do too... and they all know how to use a stick or rock as a tool to get food... so these abilities themselves don't seem to be that special, there is a good number of examples of species that can do that, but looking beyond the obvious and transforming things in your mind is unique to us humans.
That is why we don't just take a stick, we take a thick stick, a sharp rock plus an animal's tendons and create an axe.
That is why we don't just use sound A to mean thing A, but we take this sound and combine it with ten others to make a sentence.
Rad sibling and dad you've got
"Wait... Lithuanian came from the same branch as Posh?"
[ looks a bit more closely ]
"Oops."
I'm a lithuanian native
@Ismayil Imanli I guess it depends on what your native language is, but for me as a native English speaker, it was very difficult, I didn't get very far!
@Ismayil Imanli Polish and Russian are bit more closely related to each other than to Lithuanian. If you are really fluent in Russian then Polish would be bit easier. On the other hand more people in Lithuania speak Russian, especially the older ones, because of the Soviet Union, and some Russian words were borrowed into Lithuanian.
The actual question you need to ask yourself is why do you want to learn either. Learning for the sake of learning is fun, but only to a point. If you don't have friends speaking those languages, and you're not planning to migrate to either country, than you will probably lose interest after getting through the basics - the grammar tables alone are daunting. All the verb tenses, noun cases, gendered adjectives, etc.
In Croatian we also use the world jastuk (the "a" is the pressed sound).
In Dalmatia (coastal part of Croatia) people for jastuk say "kušin".
Kušin is a romance word, a word of romance origin, in English it came through Norman language I presume.
Jastuk comes from Turkish yastık (pillow) [old Turkish & Uighur yastuk, "flattened"]
The word for cushion in Dalmatia might have come from the original Dalmatian language which was in the romance family, or from the later influence of trade with Venice.
@@jordanpurser2097 Yes I knew that.
I am a teacher of Croatian, but I did not say it because I thought it might be confusing for outsiders.
Glad to see that people know about it.
@@ovadansal6750 I know that also.
We have many Turkish loan words, "boja" for color, non-standard "komsija" for neighbour, "caj" for tea...
Altough I think that "caj" is a loan word itself in Turkish, from Hindi.
Reason being Serbian tended to borrow words from Turkish whereas Croatian borrowed from French due to their differences in overlords.
I read something once along the lines of 'when you ask someone their name, what you're really asking them is what sound you should make to get their attention' - it's so true!
I really appreciate this post. I feel that you have done an excellent explaination of trying to state where you stand. I feel that it was well thought out and without added bias. You gave superb, ( given the situation/time circumstance of which many should consider.) Someone stated you have a superpower for clarity or something similar, I do not know exactly how it was worded. I whole heartedly aggree. I think given all these considerations it was something of legend !!! You are already standing among the greats in my opinion ; Sir, You would have already fallen upon the most lofty mountain, but you are reaching the stars without seeking it. The only way I know how to express this feeling is by referencing the Maori proverb aim for the clouds for if you fall you will land upon the tallest mountains. I do not know the exact wording I am sorry if I worded it incorrectly. Thank You for making this post I know You did not have too, but it is genuine and of great value. I want to clarify I am not trans, but I have friends that are. Thank You again for this post.
I'd like some descriptive locations in Old English. Things like Forest, grotto, alcove, bay, pasture. that sort of thing. I assume there were some commonly used ones we don't use today
This will be a FANTASTIC series.
Keep up the great work.
Well Done !
I would love to hear more basic sentences with words/structure similar enough to what we use today that you can almost hear how it evolved. Simple stuff like "She took the book off the shelf" or what have you.
Even dogs have 'handedness'. I am a dog trainer and they definitely have a preference for turning one way over the other. (My sport is dog agility, and teaching spins in both directions and also teaching them to turn tightly around objects in both directions is part of what I teach. )
Been waiting on this one :D
One thing I‘m curious about that you’ll probably get to. Many languages from different families have a word similar to ma or mama for mother: Chinese, Hebrew, Estonian, Arabic, Vietnamese, Swahili, numerous Indo-European languages from France to Bengal, etc. And I’ve read that some linguists propose that this is one of the most ancient words from the ancestor of all those languages.
You’ve heard the Just-So Story for it, too. Human babies naturally babble as they learn to vocalize, and "ma" is one of the first syllables they learn to make, since it’s what you get with your tongue and lips in a relaxed position. But does that make it more likely, or less likely, to be an ancestral word, since it means the word could have been coined from babytalk many independent times?
Interestingly, in many Aboriginal languages, mama means father and papa means mother.
Actively looking forward to more of these videos
Simon, your videos are never long enough for me. Thank You!
He's a one man Radio 4 programme. Pure class.
Your videos about linguistics are so engaging! You’ve sparked my interest in a topic I never thought much about previously. I wish everyone in academia had your curious and modest attitude.
I love how deeply you understand all of this!
It was a pleasure to meet more of the Roper family, while also learning about something so interesting.
I happen to speak serbian and your pronounciation of jastuk wasnt perfect but it was good enough that I understood it. Amyway very interesting series!
Me, has a degree in linguistics (and started then dropped out of a Masters):Oo yes definitely watching this!
And this literally just reminded me that I never finished reading the Unfolding of Language
love to watch your vidoes, simon! especially the b-roll. keen for future videos
1. God (or equivalent)
2. Rain
3. Sword
4. Sun
5. Moon
6. Right (right to live, right to bear arms)
7. Kill/ to kill
8. Sir (yes sir, no sir)
9. Clouds
10. Sand
11. Stars
12. Pain/ to hurt
13. Principles, or beliefs
14. Intelligent
15. Ant/beetles/butterfly
Just a list if you needed some more words to fill in the video. Tried to include some complicated ones that may not be literally represented in Old English
You have inspired me to learn language more thoroughly and equip myself with more knowledge. I don't know enough about cases and the terminology around it, moods, grammar, and I will be learning the IPA. Thoroughly enjoying your videos! I have studied Japanese and German but only in my own time. I have goals to learn Norwegian, Welsh, Yiddish, and Finnish.
Any tips or resources are welcomed!
yo this sort of videos on ur channel actually made me feel in peace and calmed my mind on several occasions. ta
I need a flowering and superflupus greeting in Old English now; something that harkens to the effect of, "The sun smiles upon our greeting," or, "The stars shine upon our chance encounter," or whatever else have you.
Again, incredible content. These kind of educational channels are very rare on yt. Most ed channels focus on popsci, trival topics with often very sensational undertone.
Epic video as always! In your upcoming video, I think it would be neat if you showed us some of the words they would use to describe something interesting. For example, we have “cool” or “neat” or “dope”. I assume these types of words existed, but we often only see the formal side of old languages. Thanks!
If you are here for worldbuilding and you love it clap your hands 👏🏼
A fascinating intro. I wondered many years ago when first learning of Neanderthals whether they could “talk” and wondered what it might have sounded like. I never did buy in to the popular representation of Neanderthal just grunting like a pig. I’d like to hear the old word for fire and for dangerous (the concept) Thanks so much for all your work.
In Vedic and Buddhist philosophy there is a Goddess for speech and language (and music). Her name is Vac, and she later became known as Saraswati. Also, there are two words for knowledge, differentiating that which is heard and that which is remembered. The former is "Shruti" and the latter is "Smriti".
There are many interesting links between Sanskrit and English.
Pavlov's dogs couldn't explain to other dogs that the sound means food
Your discussion of animals, spoken language, and hunting in packs is super interesting to me. We know wolves are able to hunt in packs without spoken language. Also, dogs do tend to express preferences for right-“hand”edness/ left-handedness. You can observe this by watching a dog run out to retrieve a toy. Some dogs (like my own) will strongly prefer to turn in one direction (my dog always turns right, although I have taught him to turn the other direction on command as well). It’s fascinating to me that you can teach an animal right from left at all! Sled dogs, for example, will take vocal commands to turn right or left, and you can communicate a hard turn vs pulling over to the side of the trail.
Right/left commands for mules traditionally : Gee/Haw .. izzat Old English, Simon ?
Those are domesticated animals, they could have easily been selectively bred for those traits. If those traits show up in wild populations on their own, that's more convincing.
@@ANTSEMUT1 . . I just posted a reply to you but it appeared above, independently.
Absolutely fascinating. I can't wait for subsequent videos. Bravo!
Great videos - you explain things really well and genuinely develop enthusiasm for learning about language.
If we ever need to bring back lost linguistic concepts (such as ye, thee thou etc) I expect to see your good self at the forefront!
Re Neanderthals I think the link with the need to teach is a potential prod. At least for the equivalent of ' no its better like this'. I know that as a young child I learned to cook, iron, sew, knit etc by sitting near my mum as she worked and being shown what to do. I cant recall anything she said but can still see her hands in my minds eye as she showed me how to do running stitches. Likewise I learnt woodwork, digging a veg garden etc from helping my dad.
I'm so glad that you included the possibility of sign language. It's so often ignored, thought of as a modern invention, a concept we developed only recently. I personally find the hypothesis where sign language came first compelling, though that is likely at least in part due to my biases making me skeptical that language could evolve as quickly as some linguists _cough_ Chomsky _cough_ would like to think.
Looking forward to more about this topic. Thank you for shedding some insight.
That opening like would be what found footage horror films would look likeif they were making them in the '60s.
Modern people without speaking apparatus (due to disease or developmental factors) usually learn language, including production of language using alternate body structures, signs and/or technological support. This argues against the importance of the mechanical apparatus in the evolution of speech versus the brain, thought, or other factors including development and environment.
I have seen a documentary on dolphins and they said teenage dolphins hang in groups and they teach each other games.
Very, very excited for this series! Thank you so much!
Note : The word "jastuk" is of Turkic origin, borrowed into Serbo-Croatian from Ottoman Turkish.
and before that from proto-turkish which may have been spoken in or around Mongolia.
In Albanian we say “jastek”
@@Dukagjina Once you had your own word probably, now forgotten.
Georgios Andreou yep. Same goes for everything else that has to do with bed. For mattress we say “dushek” which comes from Serbian “dušek”, also meaning mattress. For bed, we say either “shtrat” or “krevat”. My family says shtrat mainly, and krevat comes from “krevet” in Serbian, which also means the same thing. Albanian language has lost originality in random stuff, and most of the time other South Slavic languages lost the same original word. In Albanian “peshir” and Serbian “peškir” both mean towel and come from Turkish, but I think the Turks got it from Arabic.
Much of old Balkan idiom was lost and replaced with Turkish loanwords, but it’s literally the most random stuff that was replaced and nothing too influential
from ''yastık'', another similar turkish word in balkan languages is ''döşek''
Excellent introduction Simon.
Many basic animal names may be interpreted as being onomatopoetic - mimicking their sounds (cow, wolf, bear, chicken, goose, etc.). Humans have the ability to mimick many animal sounds as well as other natural sounds, so that will definitely have been one of the starting points of naming things.
This was so dope to watch. Thank you for making it!
love what you're doing... It makes me look at language ( and my love for it ) in new perspectives. Thanks!
Thank you for these videos! They're food for thought
Yep, thanks for this. I enjoy listening about the origins of language. Looking forward to the next episode.
As a very new fan (maybe 3 weeks?) This appealed to me as soon as I saw it more then any other videos you have put out in the meantime, might just be me but the feedback might help you out and to clarify I think it was the broad, open title that stood out to me.
The subject rather then the title but the title is what informed me to the subject lol
Love your videos, Simon. Yours is my favorite UA-cam channel. This is great stuff!
word request: "wolverine", "sparrow", "willow", and "heather" : )
The last 3 are pretty much similar in Old English. Being good down-to-Earth English words.
"Cushion" is the sound a cushion makes when you punch it.
11:18 Pavlov did not condition dogs to associate a bell with the concept of food, he made them associate it with "come and eat, there is food here".
The problem with a scenario in which /fu:d/ is associated with the concept of "food" is double, starting from an animal communications point:
* how do you get from "come and eat, there is food here" to the abstract concept of "food"?
* how do you get from a unitary signal, gestural or vocal, for "come and eat, there is food here" to a signal composed by /f/ /u:/ /d/ in that order and without interruption, so /fu:d/ rather than /fufufu/ in typical monkey or /fu:d/ rather than /fu:ld/ with a very different meaning?
Not sure if this is similar but Itaught music in inner city schools for many years. Many of the young people had arrived as refugees with no English. In one school 93% had English as a second language. My teaching was very much through demonstration which didn't seem to hold anyone back. The whole business of learning music by ear is itself interesting and imo it's more authentic. It can carry far more social context as well.
I would love to be a fly on the (cave) wall and observe our ancestors lives at a point in time when language was just starting. To see the stories of their lives, probably as full of drama, love, politics etc. as modern humans and to see them communicate with something that resembles language but not quite as we know it. Sad to think their stories are lost to the universe forever.
Very interesting video. Thank you.
Magnificent video.
Regarding "evolving" from signs/signals to words -- I have always kept chickens, and on rare occasions have seen some intriguing word-like behaviours. They have between 30 and 60 meaningful vocalizations, such as different alerts for different kinds of danger. One would assume, in these simple animals, that the use of these sounds is locked to specific situations, but I have seen them use a sound creatively, flexibly, in a way I associate with real words.
For example: They make a low rolling growl-trill in the evening when settling on the roost, and it means "settle down, be quiet" to the youngsters jostling for position, etc. Sometimes if I was carpentering near them near dark, they would use the sound on me. I never heard them make that sound any other time -- except once. One winter I happened to have only one old hen, kept alone in a pen. I found a rooster for her, so we could hatch eggs. He was a big young guy, very inexperienced and randy. In daytime, not evening, I put him in with her, and he was overexcited and rough with her, and she got exasperated with him and growl-trilled "settle down, be quiet !"
She had to hold the meaning within her in some abstract way in order to use it in a new way. When does a meaningful sound become a word ?
This is the first video I've seen from this channel. As a linguist by academic training and professional application, I am quite impressed. I have liked and subscribed. I shall now go on to watch more videos from this channel (until, of course, I find something that does not confirm my biases, upon which occasion I shall throw a hissey-fit and click the "unlike" and "unsubscribe" buttons.)
"Bare lists of words are found suggestive, to an imaginative and excited mind; as it is related of Lord Chatham, that he was accustomed to read in Bailey’s Dictionary, when he was preparing to speak in Parliament. The poorest experience is rich enough for all the purposes of expressing thought. Why covet a knowledge of new facts? Day and night, house and garden, a few books, a few actions, serve us as well as would all trades and all spectacles. We are far from having exhausted the significance of the few symbols we use. We can come to use them yet with a terrible simplicity. It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem. Every new relation is a new word."
Emerson
Really glad to see this! As someone who has a fairly broad understanding of the topic, there were still a few things that I learned or hadn't considered quite as granularly before, so thanks.
Also, just going to say that, as I suspect you'll agree, language is an incredibly complex constellation of interconnected and interrelated functions, not just one thing, and the truth is likely that no one argument or biological/neurological innovation was actually responsible for its development, because lots of animals have bits and pieces of the whole, but probably only humans have all of them in the way we have them.
Definitely looking forward to future videos on this topic. :D
Can you pronounce some iconic kings from the anglo Saxon period in old English? Like Edward the confessor and aethelred the unready or something