What if England Never Became French?
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- Опубліковано 6 лют 2025
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Heritage is weird and few Brits today would like to admit how much of theirs stems from the Conquest and Rebranding of William the Bastard. Tapestries sown from blood and thread took an Anglo-Saxon kingdom and Fancified every aspect of culture. But what if that never happened? What if a random arrow rewrote the history of England and as a result, the world?
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What a Segway
What if Richard Nixon Won 1960?
It's a scam
Good video but there's a mistake by mentioning Beowulf, as many literary analysts have shown Beowulf has a lot of christian influence, specially from the books of the old testament, like the books of Exodus, Genesis and Daniel.
Cody, this is a bad idea.
That's right Jimmy, you're animated now
The Jimmy is for Jimmy Donaldson who "owns" MrBeast.
Jimmy but now with RTX 😂
I don't think I like the animation, it makes it look too...I don't know, Cyanide and Happiness like to me
@@jaybirdjargon Feels less authentic.
@@WolfPack505-m1s Jimmy is a reoccurring character in Alternate History Hub videos too
The animation is generally quite nice, although I think the 'idle animation' of the figures just pulsing up and down in place feels a bit odd. It works when the figures are moving though.
agreed. feels a bit overanimated
Bro they're like the plants from plants vs zombies
@@InspirationalShed-xp7zb plant and zombies
Yeah, it gets really distracting really quick and makes it hard to actually WATCH the video.
Agreed, it got distracting quickly.
What’s with the tenfold production value, Cody
You seen the Transformers video?
16 times the detail
Paid promotions I guess
Personally, I hope that he goes back to what he had, but this is OK, too.
He went futher beyond he became an Ascended Alternate History Hub
Ive watched Alternate History hub for a Decade and its crazy how much the Animation has changed over that course of time. This channel has grown with all of us
I guess there's a little bit of AlternateHistoryHub in all of us.
Norway and Iceland are interesting case studies for what would happen without a Norman influence.
The French litterature would arrive, but it would also give a greater rise to old Germanic stories and Sagas. When you look at Norway, we lacked a lot of the Roman and Latin influences for centuries.
However, with Christianity and a wider contact to Europe we were influenced. Odin was reimagined from being an ancient god of a Pantheon to a hero from Troy who founded the Swedish and Norwegian dynasty. French litterature was read but also gave greater motivation to write down old Sagas.
Iceland was especially isolated yet connected which is why the majority of the Sagas are from Iceland but some are from Norway.
Tales of noble knights are not just French, but German, which was influenced by French. Tales of Sigurd the Dragon slayer reached Iceland and Norway and inspired us to write down the version we knew and the old Kvads that contained the stories.
Politically, Norway was one of the first to adopt agnatic primogenitor as a succession form. This was due to the experience with civil war due to the gravelkind succession earlier.
Both Norway and Iceland were influenced by the Latin and French world, but they also inspired a focus on unique cultural manifestation. Snorri Sturrlason tried to preserve the Skaldic poem as an art form, but it ran out of favour.
In the case of a Germanic Anglo-Saxon England being preserved, England might look to Iceland as a place were they could get court poets like Norway and sometimes Denmark and Sweden did.
Old English and Old Norse were understandable to each other. Its not impossible that they’d ask Icelanders to be their poets, but to do them in Old English.
Alternatively, England might have preserved an older form of pre-Skaldic poesy like we find in Beowulf. Even an English rememberance of Sigurd the Dragonslayer which was known during Beowulf’s author’s time but lost with the Normans.
The biggest potential is the survival of the Germanic culture to a greater extent. Today, the Germanic culture is either associated with Nordic Vikings or with neo-Pagans and neo-Nazis. It is not seen as civilisational like the Grecco-Roman culture. It does not enjoy the same status of greatness or respect as the lives of Roman Caesars.
Overall, we’d still have Castles, knights, French litterature and Christianity, but we’d see an England that looked towards the North Sea, with Iceland, Norway and Denmark as it’s biggest influencers, partners and rivals. I believe they definetly still would become a sea-power
I think we’d love that. To be more Nordic and less meeeh
Well said! The only influence I would add would be the pagan conglomerate of the British isles. With influence from Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and the mostly still Nordic regions of Jorvik and Cumberland, the sagas may have been better preserved (instead of being dismissed as blasphemy or heresy until Snorri wrote them in Christian context). Many more of the old Nordic traditions could have survived along with their Celtic, Gaelic, and Brithonic cousins.
In general, I personally believe modern English would sound a bit more like Scots with a Germanic inflection than it currently does. The stories might be a bit more brutal but would still rival Franconian storytelling.
@
I don’t know what you mean by ‘’Sagas’’. It was the Eddas, the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda, that Snorri preserved which contain most of what we know about the Norse gods.
The Sagas are stories about human beings, like the King’s Sagas that Snorri wrote, Heimskringla, family Sagas, like Njål’s Saga and the ancient sagas, like the Volsungs Saga.
I don’t think the Sagas were ever considered blasphemous. Some of the first Sagas before Snorri were written by clergymen. Snorri just wrote the most comprehensive one.
But if you are thinking of the stories about the pagan gods, then maybe, it is possible stories of the Pagans gods would survive until the 13th century and then written down.
In Denmark, Saxo Grammaticus also wrote about the pagans gods, but in Latin, and he might even have been a clergyman. However, the stories he writes have been euhemerised.
It is possible that a separate Anglo-Saxon mythology could have been written down. Authors like Bede certainly knew more than they were letting on. But I don’t know how likely it would have been.
Who turned up the graphics setting?
It was me
Turn it down im desyncing ....come on man im an hour behind @Green_Stache_Productions
William the Conquered it
The financial support by James Bissonette... No wait, wrong channel. 🙊
My PC couldn't handle this shi, man
It’s worth mentioning that while it’s true that a majority of English vocab comes from non-germanic places, the most commonly used one or two thousand words in English are overwhelmingly Germanic. Words used to simply build sentences like articles, prepositions, conjunctions, and pronouns are exclusively germanic. And as for nouns, verbs, and adjectives, again the most commonly used of those, the first of those that you ever learn, are overwhelmingly germanic. To give you an idea, it’s pretty easy to construct a sentence in English using only Germanic words. It’s nearly impossible to do the same with words from Romance languages.
But this just helps illustrate who had the power in post Norman England. Words used to talk about the Church, government, legal matters, school and so on are much more likely to come from old French, Latin, or sometimes Greek.
Also worth mentioning that there's more to a language than just a dictionary, and I'd say the grammar and (especially) sounds of English are decidedly Germanic, though not without a good heaping of French influence. Cody is also overemphasized the "simplification" of English during this period; there's some truth to it, like the dissolving of the case and gender systems is connected to the Normans, but I wonder how often this made the language 'simple' vs how often it made it more 'difficult' by adding ambiguity. Middle English feels simpler mainly because it is by definition more similar to Modern English than Old English, which always "feels" simpler.
"Lōca hu þā hig forðslōg mīnne cniht."
@@jared_bowden It should also be noted that it's more granular than that. Orrm's early middle english is nearly undecipherable.
no the most commonly used one or two thousand words in English are overwhelmingly FRENCH
@@ommsterlitz1805That's not true.
9:22 "My King, a second army has landed in England."
"Mīn Cyning, an ōþer here upgangas on Ænglaland..."
@@halo7oo *ġeswungen ansīen*
Mīn God...
@@halo7oo
Is that "Old English?"
@frenzalrhomb6919 Yes, though the accent marks are a modern pronunciation guide, and would not be written in original text. "Here" means army, & "Upgangas" means "Up-going" and in this context means to disembark ships upon land. "Here" is present in the di-thematic name "Harold" which used to be "Hereƿeald", literally "Army-Wielder". (ƿ "Wynn" was the equivalent of "w")
31:29 Correction, the earliest Arthur legend is Christian, not pagan. The Welsh were partially Romanized and mostly Christian at that point, and you see things like him having the Madonna and Child painted on his shield and killing 900 saxons while shouting the names of Jesus and Mary. So... not pagan.
Not your conception of Christian. Christianity in North & Central Europe was much closer to paganism than monotheism.
@@Wyatt-ub6hnthat’s simply not true.
The Patron Saint would still be St Cuthbert - an actual English saint, rather than the Anatolian St George.
Aside from that detail, it's worth noting that Anglo Saxon England was very wealthy by the standards of the day - largely due to effective government and trade.
If England was freed from the expense of building castles, cathedrals - plus expensive wars with France and crusades - this wealth could have spurred considerable economic growth.
Added to this would be a Viking heritage of shipbuilding.
I see the alternate history English as sailors and traders - much as they were in our timeline - but starting a few centuries earlier.
To add onto your second paragraph, it's often repeated (even in this video) that England was a 'backwater' but that was never really true. The entire reason why everyone wanted a piece of England was _because_ of its wealth. Allegedly the wealth of the anglo-saxon kings was comparable to that of the emperors of the byzantine empire, solely because of the effectiveness of their tax system.
Nice update on the visuals! Might recommend toning down the "bopping" up and down of the characters. They seem a little...over-animated?
Agreed
Agreed
He's gotta attract the new generation somehow!
And the after effects too, a bit too much blurring and stuff
Agreed. They should be saved for when a character is moving. Movement might be okay when standing, but not as much and/or fast.
I would love a inverse sequel to this video called “What if England conquered France?”
We kinda did though, but before the crowns could be united Henry v died 😢
Hundred Years' War video next plox Cody
I'm guessing the French would resent it and rally behind a peasant girl, maybe one from somewhere in the northeast.
I'll imagine they'll be a much earlier "Great Game" between the Angevin empire, the Hasburgs and the Iberian dynasties for influence in western to central Europe, keeping the Ottamans at bay and the eventual exploration of the New World.
The union between the two probably wouldn't last long and eventually they'd split back into England and France again.
If anyone’s interested in getting an idea of what the English language might have looked like if the Normans hadn’t conquered England, there is a thing called “Anglish” practiced by language enthusiasts on the Internet. It’s nothing official, just kind of a hobby or thought experiment, but it is pretty cool. They usually either resurrect old English words that are no longer used, put together two native English words to make a new word, or take the German word for a thing and just translate it literally into English.
For example: instead of “workplace” you get “workstead.” Instead of “umbrella” you get “rainshield.” Instead of “hydrogen” you get “waterstuff.”
'Rainshield' and 'waterstuff' sound like words you'd find in an 80s sci-fi novel.
@@joshwenn989 Until you get the "Waterstuff Bomb", then it sounds menacingly silly. Or would it be a Waterson Bomb? Eh, dunno.
Was waiting for someone to mention this. Even Minecraft added it as a language option and I gotta say, "ravenglass" is so much cooler than "obsidian"
@@themaskedmysadaean8885 I mean "Waterstuffbomb" just sounds germanic to me
but to be fair, it is "Wasserstoffbombe" in german, which means the same
Fun coincidence: there's a village in northern England called Ravenglass, which is known for having the ruins of a Roman bathhouse.
As a quick thing I#'d just like to thank you for referring to the Harrying of the north as a genocide. I'm from this part of the UK and the effects from it are still here even after almost 1000 years and it is upsetting how many people I talk to or watch don't see it as such or even as a big deal. It's just refreshing to see someone address it for what it was.
Most people probably just don’t have the ability to be that deeply affected by something that happened 1000 years ago. If you take that broad of a look at history and let it affect you then you’d never be able to function normally due to the sheer amount of events that we can still “see the effects of today” literally every aspect of our lives is somehow effected by something that happened centuries ago which in turn was affected by something that happened millennia before. I liken it to the butterfly effect, imagine being mad or saddened by a butterfly flapping its wings and causing the hurricane that wiped out your city 90 years ago. Sure it’s a tragedy but that’s just how life is sometimes.
how can you be affected by something after one thousand years?
It's been 1000 years. Let it go ❤
@@sparks6177still felt today because its arguably the start of the north south divide in England which sees massive social and economic disparity between the North and South. Also the castle in my city was built to prevent rebellion post harrowing. You can literally see the history
As a native of the ancient kingdom of Wessex I do not recognise your claims of genocide knave!
I really like that this vid it doesn't feel rushed, the true history and alternate history is clearly separated to make it easy to follow and understand...good job keep it up
HOLY CRAP LOIS, he's friggin animated now😲
Holy fuck Lois I'm cu...
Maybe a little too much now. I like the bobbing when a character is moving, but it is uncanny how they go up and down so much and/or so fast.
@@alexanderrobins7497you’ll get use to it after a few videos 🤷♂️
@@alexanderrobins7497balanced animation will be better, not over animate it
Boingy, boingy, boingy...
“Did my ancestors commit war crimes-“
Almost guaranteed. Though they just called it war
To be fair people throughout history have been able to distinguish between multiple groups of armed combatants clashing versus sacking a non-resisting town or village and committing atrocities. And they could also realise the latter could be seen as a bad thing, whether for spiritual/moralistic reasons or because it lowers trust and encourages similar retaliatory violence.
That said plenty also didn't care because the fighters were hopped up on drugs and adrenaline and their leaders felt distant enough.
Ghengis Khan has entered the chat.
What's codys real name?
@@chakraborty1989 wilson iirc
Interesting point: William the Conquerer’s “Domesday Book,”-one of the precursors to the way we do modern land surveying, census data, and even modernized sewage systems in England and France-wouldn’t be ordered and thus the trajectory of the then burgeoning field of data collection and science might be altered. After all, it was the Domesday Book which partially inspired the father of Demography, John Graunt’s, “Natural and Political Observations Made Upon the Bills of Mortality” which even contributed to the way Napoleon III went about redesigning the Paris sewer systems!
Yoo wait why are you here lmao 😂
Yes, radically. The England of this timeline is far less centralised, far less concerned with Arts and the Sciences and far more dominated by localism.
@@Longshanks1690Im sorry but since when does modern UK arts money ever leave London? Or infrascructure money even? A more localised UK would see a culture boom.
Just look at Cardiff and Edinburgh, once they had local powers you got things like Dr Who and The Fringe Festival both international successes.
Meanwhile most of everything else is sucked into London's Westend then hung out to dry
@@Rynewulf You are citing things from the 20th century and trying to compare it to the social, cultural and artistic landscape of the 10th.
I trust I don’t have to explain to you why that’s insane.
@@Longshanks1690 Oh so when you say 1000 years of arts and science would be gone because by the modern day it would be more localist, thats rational.
But I say I think it would lead to the opposite and why, thats insane.
Youre just a dickhead
Love the new animation style and especially how you utilize lighting and 3d effects. Keep up the great work, Cody!
Your early British history section is just flat out wrong. The Celts are not the original people who lived here. They invaded and conquered before the Romans. The Anglo-Saxons did not defeat the Romans. The Romans left before the Anglo-Saxons even got here.
France: the BBC never told you what happened to your father.
England: they told me enough. They told me you killed him.
France: no England. I am your father.
England: NOOOOOOOOOO
That’s not even remotely correct.
@@ChrisCrossClash that's literally is the truth the average modern english is 75% French by DNA
Lol
@@ommsterlitz1805then why are they so much uglier
@ommsterlitz1805 this is the most absurd thing I've ever heard. Normans (who themselves were Nordic minority assimilated by French) settled in suuuuper low numbers, mostly nobility and rich families.
The average English has almost non-existent amount of DNA related to French, average English is Germano-Celtic, with one side being more prominent depending on the region.
One correction, while the majority of all words in modern english come from french, if you look at the most commonly used words they are predominantly germanic. So everyday spoken english has a much stronger germanic influence than statistics about words in general would make you think.
Exactly - the French bits are the fancy knobs and flourishes that obscure the robust Germanic foundations and scaffold.
Forsacaþ Normanas, tō Englisċe ġeċierraþ!
Paradoxically, some of these Germanic words actually come from French. It's not mutually exclusive. Let's not forget that out of all Romance languages, French is the one with most Germanic influences (Frankish was a Germanic language that eventually merged with Vulgar Latin).
@@JVPierre142yeah it’s hard to draw a hard word for word linguistical line between French and German influence because half of French is old German and a lot of German words are germanized latin words
That's a funny lie constantly told
This would be JRR Tolkiens favourite timeline.
Honestly yeah.
Needs more elves...
The loss of anglo-saxon myths and history was according to Tolkien an important part of why he established his «Legendarium» which lead to the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings! So ironically in this timeline, Lord of the Rings might not have any basis of existence 😅
@@ShadowoftheWolf123no way, in the alt timeline we would be living in LOTR.
@@awesomehpt8938 Aside from the pathway that leads to a “Northern Church,” which would enrage him as a devoted Catholic.
The animation is so good Bro, keep on going
Anglish strives to answer the question of what English would look like if the Normans failed, and the answer is pretty different to what modern English looks like. Here's an example.
English: The North Wind and the Sun were fliting which was the stronger, when a wayfarer came along wrapped in a warm shroud. They settled that the one who first overcame in making the wayfarer take his shroud off should be thought stronger than the other. Then the North Wind blew as hard as he could, but the more he blew, the more tightly did the wayfarer fold his shroud about him; and at last the North Wind gave up the bid. Then the Sun shone out warmly, and at once the wayfarer took off his shroud. And so the North Wind was bound to acknowledge that the Sun was the stronger of the two.
Anglish (if the Anglo-Saxons won): Þe Norð Ƿind and þe Sun ƿere fliting hƿic ƿas þe stronger, hƿen a ƿagfarer came along ƿrapped in a ƿarm scrude. Þeg settelled þat þe one hƿo first ofercame in making þe ƿagfarer take his scrude off sculd be þougt stronger þan þe oðer. Þen þe Norð Ƿind bleƿ as hard as he culd, but þe more he bleƿ, þe more tigtlie did þe ƿagfarer fold his scrude abute him; and at last þe Norð Ƿind gafe up þe bid. Þen þe Sun scone ute ƿarmlie, and at ones þe ƿagfarer took off his scrude. And so þe Norð Ƿind ƿas bund to acknoƿledg þat þe Sun ƿas þe stronger of þe tƿo.
You can find a lot more on the Anglish wiki. (THE MIRAHEZE NOT THE FANDOM!!)
I like the fact that this episode is animated
I kind of do as well, but the bobbing it a little too much, especially when used literally everywhere by everyone.
I think it's weird.
it feels like a Gametheory episode in all the worst ways tbh
The corpse flies are amazing
@@alexanderrobins7497I like the bobbing
"William is such a bastard" ~ some guy before william was no longer a bastard
he was born a bastard because his parents never married.
Nice to see the Harrying of the North be mentioned, it's rare to see it be aknowledged just as much as it should these days.
@@Embur Which is strange because it’s still the reason why there’s such a social and economic discrepancy between the north and south of England to this day, the north never recovered from the conquest.
@Longshanks1690
Kind of. But in the Victorian era the north of England was seen as being very modern and industrialised. Only realy became like today after deindustrialisation
@@danieldelaney1377 To an extent. Even though the North became industrialised, there was still this huge wealth gap between the two regions which continued that cultural divide.
Yo it's the England in Beta, Occitania, and Norwegian girl!
@@Longshanks1690 to be honest since Roman times the Southeast of England has always been more prosperous than the north ans west, with the exception of the Industrial revolution. Similar to Flanders always being richer than Wallonia since the Middle ages, except during the Industrial age.
Totally digging the crisp animation. I also adore the bouncy aspect. Good work.
Biggest criticism I can give is the new style tends to begin an animation before you say the corresponding words, it makes it feel almost out of sync to watch. Besides that and the idle animation, pretty nice Cody
I disagree with saying that Celtic Christianity was essentially pagan. It had a lot of ties to Eastern Rites while the Latin Rite had gone through reforms and changed after being disconnected from the Roman Empire. All of what we know about Celtic and Germanic paganism is due to Christian monks writing about it, so it is far more likely that what we know about those forms of paganism are Christianized. The Anglo-Saxons had been fully Christianized for sometime by 1066 with any pagans there being Danes who were then converted by the Anglo-Saxons.
On language, Old English and Old Frisian are practically the same language since the two groups were closely related. It is likely the language would have sounded like modern West Frisian with some more Norse influences but would still be a Low Germanic Language.
Can you provide a source that supports the idea that Celtic/Anglo-Saxon Christianity had ties to Eastern rites? I’ve seen this claim be made before but have never found conclusive evidence for it. Perhaps you know something that I don’t.
@ Sure, I will provide what I can. As you will see, there even was divide between Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Christianity due to Celtic Christianity predating the arrival of Anglo-Saxons who would later be converted by missionaries of Rome.
One of the first that people will normally point to is the calculation of Easter. The Celtic Rite calculated Easter/Pascha according to the original method that came from the East. Even before the Anglo-Saxons were divided with Rome, this was a point of contention between the Anglo-Saxons and those still following the Celtic Rite. St. Bede actually covers a lot of this and how the Anglo-Saxons had done more of their reforms to be more inline with Rome than the Celtic Rite had been.
penelope.uchicago.edu/encyclopaedia_romana/britannia/anglo-saxon/earlychurch/paschal.html
Another point people will often point to is the types of monasticism and architecture. Western monasticism was much more centered around service and practicality than on mysticism while the Celtic Rite focused more on mysticism and asceticism. This is more in line with the spirituality of the Desert Fathers from Egypt than what later developed in Western Europe. Most trace this through the Eastern Christians who moved to Gaul prior to the fall of the Western Roman Empire and had also gone to the British Isles before the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons.
www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2010/03/celtic-christianity-rooted-in-ancient.html
orthodoxinfo.com/general/celtic.aspx
www.academia.edu/33174759/AN_INVESTIGATION_INTO_THE_NATURE_BELIEFS_AND_PRACTICES_OF_THE_CELTIC_CHURCH
The iconography is another point of similarity if you look at the Book of Kells and then Coptic and Syriac iconography.
www.theguardian.com/books/gallery/2012/dec/14/book-kells-pictures
As for the Anglo-Saxons, they ended up between the Celtic Rite and the Latin Rite as they were Christianized by Rome after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire but then retained their own traditions that were not in line with the Gregorian Reforms of the 11th-12th century. The Anglo-Saxons were heavily involved with evangelizing to the Frisians, the Danes, and the Saxons of Saxony under the patronage of the Frankish kingdom. After the Anglo-Saxons braced Christianity, they became an important resource that went throughout Europe to help elsewhere up until the Norse invasions that disrupted Anglo-Saxon life and destroyed many monasteries. By that point they seemed to become a bit more isolated and had kings like Cnut the Great who would use their influence to force Rome to give concessions to Anglo-Saxon pilgrims and recognition. The Norse period led to the British Isles losing its influence in Western Christendom, especially as the Great Schism took place and the Papacy was reforming to exert greater control over Western Europe. The papacy blessing the Norman kings to subjugate both England and Ireland to bring them into compliance with the rest of the Latin church just highlights this very stark contrast between the last holdouts and the Papacy’s expanded control over mainland Europe Christianity. It is a bit ironic that the Irish resisted and suffered under the English Norman kings for holding to their Celtic Christianity and then later suffered under the English kings for holding to their Latin Catholicism.
English today is still a Low German language. The influence of the Normans on English is overstated. We don’t use very many Latin words in our everyday speak. 98% of the most common English words come from Old English.
@@Lingist081 in origin yes, but English still heavily changed from Old English. There is a video out there of a guy "buying" a cow from a Frisian man using only Old English. It was more of a different dialect than a different language. Really fascinating stuff and makes you wonder what English would have evolved into if the Latin influences were greatly reduced.
@@NewHorizonsBeats Source? How about starting with "Saint-George slaying the Dragon" himself? His real name is Bellerophon (famous for slaying the Chimera, that was Anubis's pet for those who know about those things) and got orthodoxised into Saint-George before being englishised into a national symbol, just the same way the British anthem got much later englishised into God "save the King" after having been written and composed in France to celebrate Louis XIV's back healing.... But that's an other story, having not much o do with Ireland (land of Wrath, in Frankish): there you have it. Did you know 'Ire' is a French word?
Suffice to say, nothing in England is historically original, even Gog and Magog representations carved on churches in the British Isles are from somewhere else. Also did you know the actual World Franchise was derived for France? "Honni Soit Qui Mal Y Pense" There you have it. Or let King Edward III son of France be damned, as far as Anglo-Saxons are concerned. (Hence the famous Hundred Years war of succession, basically)
The Mount and Blade gameplay is appreciated
Peak Bannerlord 🙌
One thing about English being a Germanic tongue is that while most of our vocabulary is romance-based, all the key words we say the most often and our grammar are Germanic. You can smoothly write something in English using only Germanic vocabulary, but writing with only Romance vocabulary is difficult. This whole comment is fully written with Germanic words. Also, Anglo-Norman is the Romance dialect spoken by the Norman lords before they started speaking English, not the same as Middle English.
By the way, the new editing looks wonderful.
Edit: obviously “Germanic” and “Romance” aren’t Germanic. That being said I did make some mistakes like vocabulary and dialect. I used a website that’s supposed to distinguish what words are Germanic and what words aren’t but I guess it missed a few. Either way, the point still stands.
Probably the biggest evidence for English being a Germanic language at its core is that we compound words to form new ones and Romance languages simply don't (or do it in a clunky manner, see chocolate cake).
We make fun of the Germans and Scandinavians for doing it, but English does it too (we just hide it with spelling conventions).
Eh…. Mostly. Not fully. But you do bring up a good example about how most everyday English is pretty damn Germanic.
Also, I would add that in some parts of England, for example the Black Country (near Birmingham), the dialect is still relatively unchanged from the pre-conquest Old English.
Yeah and theres a lot of evidence that by the early 1000's in the days of Canute let alone Edward the Confessor, most of the shifts towards Middle English had already begun.
Reading Old English literature from the 800s is noticeably different to the 1000s.
Ultimately I reckon the only change is just less Romance words, not anything actually drastic
@@Rynewulf Your point seems like it is the common sense assumption to make. The mixture of Norse into Old English would of been the catalyst for change. Old English simply moved to be more intelligible with Norse. You'd assume as we see more Danes settle and place names change to match the new settlers that is when we'd see the change in the English Language to middle English.
Norse was the most radical influence on changing the language, people for some reason overlook Norse. French mostly altered our spelling of words and over time expanded our vocabulary but the quick deep structural impact that saw the language shift was Norse.
I like the dynamic animation! Really adds more life to the video ❤
It took a few minutes to adjust to, but I like it 😊
28:24 Yeah but when you compare words that are actually used, words with a germanic origin are used far more often than ones with romance origins. English has a lot of words with Roman/Greek/French influence because a lot of scientific and artistic fields use those languages for technical terms, but the average person uses many germanic words in everyday speech. Not to mention that vocabulary isn't the only thing in a language. English's syntax, morphology, phonology is more Germanic. Attributing reducing inflections, removal of grammatical gender, and removal of 'unique letters' to the knock on effects of William's invasion of England is a bit much. It's likely that much of that would have still happened regardless. Grammatical Gender is present in the minority of languages outside of Europe and it makes sense for it to be dropped as languages commonly lose features that are deemed less than necessary by speakers. While yes, old english is nigh incomprehensible to modern english speakers today, it's really to be expected. A native french speaker cannot just open a text in old french and expect to understand it well with no training. An english speaker would have similar difficulties. Once they learn the old letters, words, and some basic grammatical shifts, it wouldn't be all too difficult.
was just about to say the same thing
You just have to count how many words in your texte is from french origin to see thats not really true ^^,
Many english dont even know wich word come from french since its so much rooted in theire language, its not an attack tho , french forget also how many word come from other language too in theire own, we use daily word without knowing theire real origine.
@@bdk55 Before commenting on linguistics, Learn to write.
@mustanaamiotto3812 sorry for not beeing english dimba$$
@@bdk55 I'm not english either.
"April 14 1066" isn't when the Battle of Hastings took place. It happened October 14 1066 9:50
Thank you. I thought something was off. Like William had a time machine fleet or something
Or, as we say in England, the 14th October 1066 !!
(Day, month, year: a logical sequence)
Wow, this is perhaps one of the first alternate history questoins I've ever genuinely asked to myself, when I was 12 years old and actually began studying international history as a subject at school for the first time. Really glad to see an actual scenario about it, let alone from the legend of the Althist community that is you.
Excellent video. It covered many things that people would wonder in an alternate history scenario of “What if Harold II won the battle of Hastings?”
Also, the little animations were captivating and cute. It was like watching a mini theater. You really put a lot of work into it.
Thank you for this amazing video!👏
The presentation of this video was amazing! Really well done!
This might be my favourite video on the channel.
Not just because of the animation quality - which is very nice - but the historical overview, points of divergence, explanation of the difference in cultures and in depth analysis of how this would shape the politics, religion and literature of England was truly remarkable.
There’s a couple points I’d quibble on (The Normans’ feigned retreat was more important than Harold’s death in the Anglo-Saxon defeat, imo, for example) but overall, this was stellar, top notch work.
Hoping to see more videos of this quality in the future!! 😁
As a Yorkshireman, it’s incredible how far you can trace back the North-South divide, if you believe in it. It was the southern kingdom of Wessex that went on to found England, the North where the Vikings first landed and pillaged, ruled, and are descended from, although many southerners are too, it’s a small island. The South that fortified and centralised William’s rule, at the expense of the North many times as he cracked down on them. You can take this theme and run with it all the way to today, Thatcher closing the coal mines, cancelling the northern leg of HS2 but keeping the southern one, and countless other political, social and economic divides that still to this day lead to unique ‘cultures’, attitudes and views excising on each side of a border, which no one can agree where it lies. All on a land mass that fits into Texas several times over. It’s topics like this video that make me love history and my county more generally, along with the people who live here. I met a man in Uni years ago who believed in Northern English independence, but it’s weird to think that maybe in this timeline his crazy idea might have actually come true.
Northern independence would be great except for one problem: deciding the new capital. Yorkshire wouldn't accept Manchester being their new capital, for example.
If the Anglo-Saxons had been able to invade Gaul instead of the gloomy island of Britain they would have beaten and chased the Franks and the Gauls towards Spain and Italy. And the whole country from Friesland to the Pyrenees would now be called England and their descendants would speak pure Germanic Anglo-Saxon without a single word of French. Great! As for the Danes they would have conquered Britain which would now be called Denmark and the language of the land would be Danish. The Danes would later have also conquered North America. Thanks to their powerful fleet of longships they would have conquered India, Australia and New Zealand (New Denmark) as well. Danish would be the first international language for entertainment, science, politics... Anglo-Saxon would only be spoken in the territory occupied today by France and some remote African countries. In a different dystopia we can also imagine the warrior Celts of Britain invading Northern Europe and that today a language close to Welsh is spoken everywhere in Scandinavia and Germany. Great fun! Last but not least if the Frank Charles Martel had not stopped the Arabs in 732 in Poitiers, all of Europe, including Britain, would have been Islamized and Arabized. Nigel Farage would not even have existed. No Brexit! We would be faithful muslims and five times a day the muezzin would make the call for prayer in New Baghdad (London). Inch Allah! إِنْ شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ
@@WingedAsarath The capital should and would be York, it's only natural, bugger that lot on the wrong side of the Pennines haha
@@WingedAsarathwhy would Manchester be the capital? If the point of northern independence is to remove the influence of parasitic London then replacing it with an equally parasitic large city will not solve anything.
@liammoffat7277 that's my point - folks wouldn't be happy if Manchester asserted itself as the new capital. Which sadly I think would be a likely scenario to occur.
Fun fact, there is a video you can find on UA-cam, of a dude speaking old english to a frisian farmer, and for the most part they can understand one another, showing how close old english was to the germanic languages of the north
Production got a MASSIVE upgrade, holy shit!! Awesome video!!
Really good video, I like the new animation and the way it's presented. Looking forward to seeing more as usual I always enjoy your videos
28:12 That just isn't true and is a very big and wrong assumption you have made. English is a Germanic language because a vast majority the words spoken every day are of Germanic origin. We are only majority romance on paper because of all the scientific terms and naming systems we took from Latin and French. "No matter what study you use, or how you compute it the German elements of English are a minority." Is just wrong and proves itself wrong, like within that sentence only 4 words are romance in origin with the rest being Germanic.
It's not due to the amount of words commonly used being mostly Germanic but due to the structure of the language being of Germanic origin, it simply means that it's a germanic language that borrowed french words and not a germanic language that became a latin language.
And btw don't forget French is the latin language with the most germanic and celtic influence and has changed a lot over time with many germanic words being latinized or abandoned, so there are many words the average person wouldn't even know are of old french origin.
ie: "wait" and "use" one of the 2 is of latin origin, the other germanic, yet both are of old french origin but neither are in modern french.
Furthermore it's not due to the scientific words that so many are of french or rather latin in origin.
French being the language of the Elite has resulted in an influence especially prominent in areas such as law, art, literature, and government.
The majority of the population of England continued to use their Anglo-Saxon language, but it was influenced by the language of the ruling elite, resulting in pairs of words, the french side usually being the "posh" not commonly used one.
Foods, especially meat has often different names in the plate and in the farm.
Plus, words of French origin often refer to more abstract or elaborate notions than their Anglo-Saxon equivalents (e.g. liberty/freedom, justice/fairness, source/spring, vision/sight), and are therefore of less frequent use in everyday language.
If the Anglo-Saxons had been able to invade Gaul instead of the gloomy island of Britain they would have beaten and chased the Franks and the Gauls towards Spain and Italy. And the whole country from Friesland to the Pyrenees would now be called England and their descendants would speak pure Germanic Anglo-Saxon without a single word of French. Great! As for the Danes they would have conquered Britain which would now be called Denmark and the language of the land would be Danish. The Danes would later have also conquered North America. Thanks to their powerful fleet of longships they would have conquered India, Australia and New Zealand (New Denmark) as well. Danish would be the first international language for entertainment, science, politics... Anglo-Saxon would only be spoken in the territory occupied today by France and some remote African countries. In a different dystopia we can also imagine the warrior Celts of Britain invading Northern Europe and that today a language close to Welsh is spoken everywhere in Scandinavia and Germany. Great fun! Last but not least if the Frank Charles Martel had not stopped the Arabs in 732 in Poitiers, all of Europe, including Britain, would have been Islamized and Arabized. Nigel Farage would not even have existed. No Brexit! We would be faithful muslims and five times a day the muezzin would make the call for prayer in New Baghdad (London). Inch Allah! إِنْ شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ
A new Possible History AND a new Cody video? Amazing!
Lmfao I just came from the Possible History one too
@@Idontknowyou05Me too!
I just learned we have been conditioned through out the decades of pop-culture that 92 beats per minute, is comfortable to us, and we tend to enjoy the content. Also retention beats. I love this channel. It is in my top five. So while a am a broke college student, I subscribe and interact(when relevant(san now)) but I do every I can to support you !!
As a Brit, this is a scenario that has fascinated me for years, so it's great to see a video like this being made to discuss it :)
31:27 Arthur wasn't a pagan. Britain was very thoroughly Christian at that point. He was fighting _against_ the pagan Anglo-Saxon invaders.
Yea he was definitely a Christian.
He's still dead though. And he didn't rule anything beyond the West Midlands so he was probably just a Roman military governor. Not a king.
He may not even of existed.
I tend to say yes myself he existed.
But he was just a nobody governor who won a battle in the West Midlands.
Very small detail, but when you showed the Anglo Saxons invading Britain, it was a really nice touch to show that Cumbria was still Celtic. After all, Cumbric was the closest language to Welsh and only died out in the 1200s or so
Something else to add about the influence of the Normans, many people can trace back their family to the arrival of the Normans and the later Domesday Book. Even me, genetically almost entirely Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian and Celtic (courtesy of MyHeritage), my oldest ancestor is a Norman landowner recorded in the Domesday Book.
Also can sympathise with the war crimes ancestor part, 20.1% Scandinavian with one side of my family originating from Yorkshire with no Scandinavians in the last 500 years so uhhh, almost certainly 1/5 Viking…lotsa war crimes there
I think that would be in part, probably a large one, because the only people recorded by name in the Domesday book are those with significant wealth/power, i.e. leading clergy,nobles/landowners and the like, plus say some merchants or owners of facilities like mills and by this time virtually all of those were in Norman hands. Possibly only about 7,000 men were in William's initial invasion force but a lot of others came in following years. Both more mercenaries to help control the country and also clergy, traders and the like and they were given the plum positions. Hence it would be virtually impossible to trace Anglo-Saxon ancestors from that period because while they existed they just weren't mentioned by name in the book.
Love the higher quality of this video!
solid production value increase, nice video
English is structurally Germanic, which is why it's considered a language from that family. It's vocabulary is very French and pseudo-latin but how the words are arranged and how they interact to form compound ideas is arranged more like a German language.
English is not gendered and that's a big mark against it being a romance language. It doesn't teach an implied understanding of how to gender objects in casual conversation whereas French and Spanish absolutely do.
How verbs are tensed is also a pretty big factor. German has like 7 irregular verbs because their rules try to simplify comparative descriptive wording. Good, better, and best partially exemplifies those rules with the exception that 'good' breaks the pattern. That is also irregular in German and in almost exactly the same way. Romance languages don't have that sort of structure in that part of their languages. It's a notable difference and one that can help you to identify from which family and language descends and how it modifies the rules it inherited from that parent system.
But many other Germanic languages are gendered and that’s a feature inherited from Proto-Germanic, which was from Proto-Indo-European. English just lost it. West Frisian and Dutch, mostly, lost grammatical gender as well.
If the Anglo-Saxons had been able to invade Gaul instead of the gloomy island of Britain they would have beaten and chased the Franks and the Gauls towards Spain and Italy. And the whole country from Friesland to the Pyrenees would now be called England and their descendants would speak pure Germanic Anglo-Saxon without a single word of French. Great! As for the Danes they would have conquered Britain which would now be called Denmark and the language of the land would be Danish. The Danes would later have also conquered North America. Thanks to their powerful fleet of longships they would have conquered India, Australia and New Zealand (New Denmark) as well. Danish would be the first international language for entertainment, science, politics... Anglo-Saxon would only be spoken in the territory occupied today by France and some remote African countries. In a different dystopia we can also imagine the warrior Celts of Britain invading Northern Europe and that today a language close to Welsh is spoken everywhere in Scandinavia and Germany. Great fun! Last but not least if the Frank Charles Martel had not stopped the Arabs in 732 in Poitiers, all of Europe, including Britain, would have been Islamized and Arabized. Nigel Farage would not even have existed. No Brexit! We would be faithful muslims and five times a day the muezzin would make the call for prayer in New Baghdad (London). Inch Allah! إِنْ شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ
Damn the new animation slaps
😂😂😂
It's fine to think that but i disagree.
well tolkien would like this consider he hated the Normans legacy and was a anglo saxon fan
@@or_gluzman561Peace_IL_PS Apart from the “Northern Church,” which he’d hate as a devoted Catholic.
@@Longshanks1690 yes
@@Longshanks1690 but hay you gain some cool mythology with that you win some you lose some
@@or_gluzman561Peace_IL_PS LOL!
Too bad the Anglo Saxons all became Anglo Norman by then.
Wow the art style here has really improved!
Love the new production!!!😊
More important alternate history scenario: World in where it’s not England after the Anglo part of Anglo Saxons, but Sexland after the Saxon part.
And sex is called angle instead
english people would be sexish(or sexist) people, instead of anglophone, we would have saxophone(or even, sexophone)
We would all be Sexists.
@@stephencrompton4352don't worry, I already am
@@waldothewalrus294 based
The new graphics and use of bannerlord (the game that shows battles , on steam if your wondering)ect was really well done and really improves the viewing experience
Can you please do a what if Britain became a republic in 1649? Great work on this but there just aren't many Britain centric alt histories, mostly just how Britain responds to things
My favorite type of republic: hereditary and with the title of "Lord"
@@koperekhabsburdzki43 I mean without Cromwell
Well say good bye to Christmas
@@koperekhabsburdzki43Yeah? That’s most of the Italian republics in a nutshell, certainly the Roman one too.
@loco4locoBah humbug!
For a moment I thought I may have just not seen one of these videos in so long that I had missed a lot of developments in the animation department. Glad the rest of y’all are as impressed as I. Super cool shit, one of my fav channels since I started being a regular on history UA-cam has just gotten even better! I’m so immersed!
This is my favourite of your videos of all time (as a medieval reenactor whose time period ends with the Norman invasion, it really fascinated me)
I think I like it more when it's more still and less, bouncy
Makes it feel weirdly paced
“What if the October Revolution failed” is a scenario I really want someone to cover because it’s just fascinating to me.
By “someone” I mean Cody, obviously.
Wellll he already has a ''what if the Soviet Union never formed'' video.
@ Really? I musta missed that one.
I still think it would be cool to see a video on the scenario I pitched but I’ll see if I can find the video you mentioned.
My personal what-if scenario right now is "What if Napoleon went for Saint-Petersburg instead of Moscow in 1812."
8:32 Notably, Godwinson collected his troops as he marched North, most didn't march the full distance to Yorkshire.
Also, he could have collected even more troops before he fought at Hastings. If he'd taken a few more days to gather them he would have had numerical superiority. His successful surprise attack at Stamford Bridge made him want to try it again but William had found out where the muster point was and forced a battle before Harold was ready.
And rested his army after the battle of Stamford bridge, before making the slow march down south.
@@PhoenicksUKI cover this in my matilda series. People also forget that williams troops didn't sleep that night, in case Harold tried a repeat of Stamford bridge.
I dig the new animation style man, really works with your graphics.
This is a part of history that holds a special place in my heart. Back in primary school when I grew up in Argentina we had two history classes, one in Spanish with Argentinian history and one in English with English history and later world history. This was the first subject of the first year we had English history. I learned it when I was 9 and still 17 years later I remember everything
animations are amazing Cody. keep up the good work dude
One important factor that was not specified was the man responsible for this problem: Edward the Confessor.
During the Viking invasions of England, where the King of Norway was made King of England as well, Edward found him forced to exile. Where else would they settle except in northern France, hence how William was able to stake a claim to the throne. By the time the Norse king lineage died out, Edward was eventually allowed to return to England and become king. From him did the Frankish influence stem into England, including inviting Norman advisors.
While they were indeed unpopular at the time, it was through Edward's slight integration that helped induce French influence in the court and in policy.
No joke, this is one of the "what ifs" I've thought about the most; that, and "What if William Adelin survived the White Ship Disaster?" ⛵
If the Anglo-Saxons had been able to invade Gaul instead of the gloomy island of Britain they would have beaten and chased the Franks and the Gauls towards Spain and Italy. And the whole country from Friesland to the Pyrenees would now be called England and their descendants would speak pure Germanic Anglo-Saxon without a single word of French. Great! As for the Danes they would have conquered Britain which would now be called Denmark and the language of the land would be Danish. The Danes would later have also conquered North America. Thanks to their powerful fleet of longships they would have conquered India, Australia and New Zealand (New Denmark) as well. Danish would be the first international language for entertainment, science, politics... Anglo-Saxon would only be spoken in the territory occupied today by France and some remote African countries. In a different dystopia we can also imagine the warrior Celts of Britain invading Northern Europe and that today a language close to Welsh is spoken everywhere in Scandinavia and Germany. Great fun! Last but not least if the Frank Charles Martel had not stopped the Arabs in 732 in Poitiers, all of Europe, including Britain, would have been Islamized and Arabized. Nigel Farage would not even have existed. No Brexit! We would be faithful muslims and five times a day the muezzin would make the call for prayer in New Baghdad (London). Inch Allah! إِنْ شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ
Research "Anglish".
There's a minor movement of people who are trying to de-francify the English language.
It seems pretty cool.
Thanks for finally making this video Cody. 👍🏻
Love the new style, great job! 👏🏻
I like the style, I really do. On the condition that it’s not too much extra work, mainly because I like the frequent release schedule and don’t want you having a hernia to keep it.
20:53 *Shoutout to William and Harald, who, despite being dead, both happily bounce in their spots on the podium!*
5:50
"Well I didn't vote for you!"
"You don't vote for kings!"
“Didn’t know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective”
If I went around claiming I was an emperor because some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!
28:23 that’s not very fair. The French element is mostly in more eloquent and fancy words. The common vocabulary is primarily Germanic. This is because the Anglo saxons are a Germanic people that had significant influence from France in the aristocracy. In fact the same is true of the other Germanic languages. Swedish has an incredible amount of French loan words. This is why it’s very easy to learn for English speakers as it have very similar histories and makeup
Absolutely love the new visuals and animation. Upgrades people, upgrades
This is so cool that you're dabbling into animation, though imo the idle bobbing of characters is a bit distracting, the animations in general are cool, but your narration is always interesting and the bobbing kind of fights for the spotlight over it if you get what I mean, especially with how they all bob independently in desynch. I may be alone on this, or not, but I personally prefer the still character cut outs, for still characters that is, the bobbing armies look cool and work imo
Harold looks so cutesy happy with his big mustache :]
Just made my brandy old fashion and now, see a new alternate history video to Go with it doesn't get better then that
This is one of the best altermate histoy materials I have ever seen in the last years ❤!
Maybe in the future you can make a new one with Harald Hardrada defeating Harold and confronting William afterwards.
I feel like the pulsating figures work fine when things are moving, but statically I find it distracting. Great video, just wanted to offer feedback on the new animation.
Dude. It's pronounced cav-al-ry. Cav for short. Calvary is a place in a Bible study video.
@23:13
Thats... not Ulster. That's Munster.
19:02 Car-what sorry? 😂
It’s Carlisle (pronounced kar-LYLE). Not the worst mangling of a British place name (that has to go to Glou-kester-shire), but up there
Yeah I mean I was mildly thrown by West-Minister but at least I immediately knew what was meant 🙈
When a typo in a source is left uncorrected...
I like how you focus on the slightly wrong but passable pronunciation of Carlisle while he called Edinburgh Edin-bro next.
@@KaiHinLkh in fairness I think I completely missed that
Maybe it's just my interests, but I think this is the most fascinating video you've made honestly
This is the greatest work you've done on the channel to date. It's so well animated! Thank you so much for this Cody!
Yoooooooooo I love these videos! Awesome work, dude!
> aliens got scared of the cuisine.
And I took that personally.
This is excellent work however, best video yet!
The aliens in War of the Worlds didn’t die of the common cold, they just ate British food.
Also some notes on English pronunciation for next time:
- Witan: "wit-an"
- Carlisle: "Car-lie-ul"
- Edinburgh: "Edin-bur-ugh"
But once again, loved the video! (And I noticed you pronounced cavalry properly this time!)
@KaiHung-wv3ulhey, we do very good beige comfort food that just goes in an air fryer.
Don't knock a potato smiley until you've tried one 😅
The animations really elevated the channel from slides videos to animation.
Amazing animation!
Liked how you used the outline of Napoleon's horse.
Hey! I suggested this one! glad to see it.
me too!
7:15
Cav-al-ry. Cal-va-ry is the hill where they crucified Jesus. Surprisingly, William WASN'T expecting a fucking hill to sprout legs and rush over to help him out.
Personally, I’d say that much like the “elections” over in west Francia/france, the witon would eventually become only a formality and then go away completely afterwards.
@@forsociopoliticalstuff2629 Certainly very possible that some AS King gets fed up with it and moves to a more absolutist primogeniture system of inheritance.
But the Witan was more important for the Anglo-Saxons than for the West Frankish elections which were a lot less concrete in their procedure and seem very informal, from what I understand. The Witan had a lot more ritualistic importance to it which would make overturning it a lot harder.
But again, not impossible - especially if that’s the trend in the rest of Europe.
that is indeed the irony. in overthrowing the most democratic nation in western Europe, William may have sowed the seeds of modern constitutional liberal democracy. the norman yoke doomed tyranny itself.
It was a peaceful way of settling the succession, but only the most powerful families were in contention, the most powerful being the House of Godwin. Earl Godwin being Harold's dad.
There is an alternate spelling, Godwine, but you can see from my name why I use the spelling I do.
I'd recommend toning down the idle animations speed, overall neat upgrade
I love this new/improved artstyle
Maybe if the anglo-saxons get their north sea empire wish, we could see a faster colonization of north america? Entirely possible that greenland would not have been as easilly wiped out with anglo-saxon support, and possibly even a vinland colony after the spanish find the caribbean?
Any time I hear about Stamford Bridge, I can't help but think of the football stadium, not the historical event.