Languages of the British Isles
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 ม.ค. 2024
- Languages of the British Isles, Neolithic substrate, Bell Beaker substrate, Atlantic substrate, Proto-Celtic, Proto-Germanic, Celtic-Q, Celtic-P, Brythonic, Goidelic, Pictish, Latin, British Romance, North Sea Germanic, Welch, Cornish, Cumbric, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, English, Scots, Norn
Music:
All I've Ever Felt All At Once - Late Night Feeler
Second Coming - no percussion - Kevin MacLeod
"Second Coming - no percussion" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
You know this is going to be good when the history starts with one substrate overtaking another.
What even is a substrate?
When one language moves into the area another language occupies without killing all of the occupants, some remnants of the indigenous language can get implanted into the new one as old speakers learn it. This is most notable in the names of places (especially rivers) but can also manifest itself in specific words, sounds, or grammar.
Fortunately, English has many examples of this - the fact that English uses "do" in some questions *could* have been a result of Brythonic speakers applying their language's grammar rules to Old English when learning to speak it, for example.
@@randomguy-tg7okWhat about the Atlantic Substrate that came before Brythonic?
Dunno. I'm not a linguist. Couldn't tell ya.
@@randomguy-tg7ok Do is Saxon-Germanic I believe, and not Celtic.
A little correction, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, and Irish were still the same language in the Middle Ages, Old Irish and Middle Irish precisely. Given that you differentiated between Old, Middle, and Modern stages for French, English, Dutch, and Frisian, I think it would've been better if you did the same for Gaelic.
*Edit:* I forgot to mention Primitive Irish and Classical Gaelic were also a thing.
Thank you for the interesting feedback
@@CostasMelas Please make Caucasus again or armenian
His feedback sucked you portrayed that in the video@@CostasMelas
Don't think Latin/Romance ever became a majority language in Britain. Even it took western France 8-9 centuries to get overwhelmingly Romance speaking. And Britain is further than that, so what can one expect except lesser dominance of Romance/Latin there.
There were numerous legions in Britain. Something similar to the Danube border where Anatolian Romance and later Romanian came from
British Romance was definitely a thing.
@@CostasMelas did legions teach/instill Latin languages to the peasants and other indigenous population of England that Latin could dominate? If there were just Roman legions, only some stripes of Latin would be seen on the map, not entire land Latin.
@@elvenrights2428the legions were not simply militar outposts. They built colonies in those former territories, where latin was spoken
@@CostasMelas Romanian didnt develop from anatolian romance. It developed from latin dialects spoken and originating in the balkans. I have never heard about "anatolian romance" and im quite sceptical it ever existed, atleast not as a standalone dialect distinguishable from other romance dialects.
Surprised to see this start so far into prehistory. What is the rationale behind starting just as the Bell Beaker culture is arriving, are there any linguistic features that can be confidently attributed to the British Neolithic Substrate instead of the later Bell Beaker?
Unfortunately, no. This cultural change can only be observed archaeologically
I'm interested in that part, they built Stonehenge
I see. Bit odd to call it a "substrate" if it didn't leave actual traces no?@@CostasMelas
There is also no sure evidence that it was ONE substrate and not more than one...
I am very grateful that there is such a uniwue mapper like you, Costas. Amazing video!
Thank you
Fascinating. I am glad you started it so far into prehistory, as most charts of this kind start later.
Thank you
Why was Welsh able to survive much longer time of English domination while Irish didn't?
I hope what people with more sophisticated knowledge would correct me, but one of the reasons is what Wales is, maybe, the poorest region of British islands. When the southern part is the center of coal-mining, which attracted much of English-speaking workers, the northern was mountainous and agricultural, and, in result, non-attractive for immigration.
@@user-do4dn6fs4x Ireland's state was much more bad in comparison with Wales.
Everyone wanted to escape from this island in 19 century.
Wales didn't suffer an absentee-landlord-enabled government-coopted mass famine combined with horrendous amounts of active racism and assimilation efforts in the 19th century.
I'd imagine that the general lack of armed conflict between England and Wales after the 15th Century generally helped in this regard.
It’s all about how people were taught, the Catholic Church really did a number on people speaking Irish whereas the traditionally Protestant dissident Wales had plenty of churches that taught Welsh.
@@randomguy-tg7ok Ah the old "government backed famine" myth.
Its sad that languages die i am happy that some of the celtic languages survived or got revived
Germanic brothers❤🇬🇧🇳🇱
oooh i did not know that irish became official in northern ireland quite recently last 2022
Perfect work, Costas!
Thank you
Great work as always.
Thank you
great video as always, love this!
Thank you
you're welcome@@CostasMelas
A very informative and detailed video. for me the most interesting was seeing the spread the decline of english in ireland.
Thank you
Another great video man
Thank you
Love it. I just don't particulary fancy when the upper class or "official" languages take all of the territory, it gets messy a lot. Maybe better to concentrate it on cities (for example here middle french)
Thank you. Maybe I could make the stripes thinner
What about such major traditional ancient British languages, as Hindustani and Swahili? They definitely have more speakers in the UK than some dialects of the extinct Gaelic.
It's amazing!
Thank you
Even English is not the native language of Great Britain ☺
Great video, excellent documentation of the language families as they evolve over the millennia. 👌🏻
Thank you
Impressed by how the Anglo-Saxon invaders wiped out and genocided the Celtic languages, and even Latin.
I read somewhere about a theory explaining their victory that while the Celts were busy fighting a civil war for hegemony after driving out the Romans and was caught off guard by strange intruders speaking a silly and incomprehensible language from the east coast, the Anglo-Saxons took full advantage of the opportunity to raid and capture their fertile fields and huge stores of food, causing the proud Celtic warriors who once terrified the Roman legions gradually starved to death and became completely extinct like rare animals.
Although often believed to be a folk legend, I believe that perhaps the person known as "King Arthur" once existed and was actually some Celtic ruler who tried his best to unite the tribes and kick the barbaric Anglos's butts out of the Britannia, just like they did with the Romans. But he apparently failed miserably and the remnants of his followers had to flee to the West and North and live there cowering for the next 1500 years.
I wonder if 2000 years before that time, the nomadic Vedic Aryan invaders would have done the same with the ancestors of the Dravidian people of the Indus valley and other indigenous people of North India. But after all, no one can know what happened during those dark and deadly times.
What a horrifying moment filled with blood and tears in British history!
There's also the boring variant, which is surprisingly well supported by genetics, which is that populations did have invasions, but these were limited to elites who could control the "prestige" language, and if they were too scarce, then the majority language would take over.
I personally believe the UK is the single best example of failed prestige language footholds - once Latin, then Old French, with Celtic failing to maintains it's usefulness relative to English. By normal statistical expectations, it should be a Romance country, but it appears that the Latin/Romance got limited to the elites and the clergy, as evidenced by the extent of Latin all over about a thousand years ago and before a certain Mr Gutenberg.
@@josephkolodziejski6882Could you explain more about genetic evidence?
Really wonder that how language brought by immigrants from today Northern Germany replace the Celtic languages in England.It seems that the real descendants of Anglo-Saxons only account for a small portion of British people.Why Old English remained while Latin,Old Norse,Danish,Norman French finally became extinct.
Not to burst your bubble, but probably none of that is true. There’s clear evidence of Celtic speakers, referred to in medieval documents as Britons, still existing well past the Germanic invasions. They were low class because old English was the prestige language (that of the elites. You had to speak it to get anywhere in society. The Britons that held on to their language stayed isolated and low class until the last of them abandoned their language).
Seems more likely that the Celtic languages in England died out due to cultural blending rather than genocide. Another commenter mentioned the genetic evidence, pretty much everyone in English had significant Celtic ancestry, indicating that the Anglo-saxons intermarried with the Britons. Even some Anglo-Saxon kings took on Celtic names.
It would be awesome if King Arthur existed, but even in the oldest mention of him, all the way in the 600s, he seems to have already become a folk figure. A Celtic king who won a battle against a Germanic army was said to be “no Arthur”.
So no Anglo-Saxon bloody genocide of celts. You’re gonna have to wait until 1846 to see that
there was no genocide. Celts adopted english and mixed with the anglo saxons
Hey! Just wanted to say I love your videos so much :)
Also was wondering if you ever intend on doing a tutorial for your videos? If not, May I ask how you make them and with what program/s?
Thank you very much. Maybe I'll upload a tutorial in the future.
@@CostasMelas What software do you use to make these? I want to try to make a fantasy rendition of this for a personal project.
Fantastic video. I would have included Dutch in Norfolk shortly after 1565, when an influx of Protestant refugees from the Spanish Netherlands invited by Elizabeth I meant that, in a short period of time, around a third of inhabitants in the area ended up being Dutch-speaking.
Thank you
Nice job. Thanks. 🇨🇱
Thank you
Great video
Thank you
You should do a video on the Algonquian Langauges
Cant wait for a full world map of all these languages in one big video! 😁
Good work! Do we have evidence of the Bell Beaker substrate remaining in Scotland as late as the 4th century BC?
Thank you. It probably played a role in the formation of the Pictish language.
I would love to see a video about the pama-nyungen language family
Cornish was revied in 20th century
Cornish was basically mostly revived in 1995.
Good. However, I think that attributing the so-called "North-Western Blo(c)k" (roughly, modern Benelux plus modern East Frisia plus NW part of Lower Saxony) to Proto-Germanic is debatable.
I really wish you could show me the process of making this, I really wish. I hope you continue to work hard in the future. from Korea
Thank you. I use Blender and Paintnet along with a GIS program. I would love to make a tutorial in the future
Great video! One minor criticism about the region I'm from, Flanders. You made it look like Dutch and French have equal status there, but in reality, Dutch is very much the dominant language like is the case in the Netherlands. Just wanted to point that out
Thank you
I thought Manx went extinct in in 1974 and there was also a dialect of Norn or Old Norse spoken on Caithness that went extinct by the 15th century.
What's the rationale behind having the Bell Beaker Substrate change color to Atlantic Substrate after 2000 BC? Is there reason to believe the Bell Beaker culture gave way to a tangibly different substrate in other parts of their range?
I agree with you distinction between P-Celtic and Q-Celtic languages (which I’d rather call “Gallo-Brythonic” and “Ibero-Goidelic” respectively). The traditional division between “Continental” and “Insular” Celtic languages doesn’t make much sense to me.
Can you make the episode about languages of Taiwan throughout its own history please?
Interesting
@@CostasMelas thanks
Next time, make a video on languages of the Italian peninsula?
Yes soon :)
All right
I doubt whether proto-Celtic was ever spoken this far north in the Netherlands. The coast must have already been Germanic. The rivers were a natural border. Romans already described that Germans lived on their border.
odd, you have the Celts arriving from 1500 BC, but other sources i read say that Celts did not arrive until about 500 BC?
There were probably two waves of Celtic migration as I show in the video
Today in UK: arab and hindu with a little english
Are the Bell beakers another group of old europeans or they are earliest indo europeans in the British isles?
old europeans
BellBeakers were a IndoEuropean speaking people derived from Western Corded Ware. They were the first Indo-European in the British Isles.
Generally the consensus is Early Bell Beakers are Old European and later Bell Beakers are the transition to IE. We dont know if it was gradual, or sudden.
They were the first wave of Indo-European speakers in Western Europe.
Amazing video! May I ask how come Ireland's English after 1920s became weaker? I don't think English in Ireland became less popular and instead should be the opposite.
Irish was proclaimed as national language of Ireland, so it serves all government functions along with English. Map shows the change of official status, even sacrificing of reflecting decline of everyday use.
Thank you very much. Irish became the official language of the newly formed Irish State
Pls Do History of Oto Manguean languages
Did these substrates left at least some traces on the Celtic languages of Britain?
Some words maybe?
Some believe that he left some toponyms, mainly of rivers
@@CostasMelas Can you give me one example of a river that is supposedly was named by the speakers of these "substrates" and not celts?
@@CostasMelas And so?
Can someone give me a placename in Britain that is certainly not celtic or english?
Or can someone give me an example of a word in celtic languages that is supposedly from these substrates?
Or the speakers of these "substrates" didn't have many words or didn't have enough creativity on naming something?
Hydronymies with prefix alm- or sal-. There are some in Britain
@@CostasMelas But what exact river?
i wonder if Old English could've been split to Old Anglian and Old Saxon as well before merging or subsuming each other into Old English
Old English was pretty much already a dialect continuum, stretching from West Saxon in the south to Anglo-Frisian in the north. Anglo Frisian became English and Scots, while West Saxon became Yola, Fingallian and a substrate to modern dialects in Southwest England.
@@argentphoenix11 was the West Saxon dialect descended from Old Saxon or the Anglic branch of Anglo-Frisian? If it is the latter, were they basically the descendants of Anglians that used to live in Lower Saxony? kinda like the speakers of East Frisian today but under the Frisian branch
It's unsure where Old Saxon and Old Frisian and Old English sit in relation to each other, but the dialects of the south west feature some grammar that bears similarity to Old Saxon more than Old Frisian, namely using "Be" in place of "Is", as well as some vocabulary, like "Ek/Ik" rather than "I". It was likely a Saxon-Anglian hybrid language, forming due to the fact that the two languages were already so similar, sort of how Northumbrian is very highly influenced by Old Norse. I should know, a Westsaxon bis ek!@@xXxSkyViperxXx
@@argentphoenix11 i recently read up a little on it. did the alfredian early west saxon get replaced or diluted by the winchester standard? that must've been more anglian? and then later the east midlands english that gave way to middle english to present was of the mercian descent?
Essentially. Unsure about Alfredian vs Winchester, but Middle English was unrelated to West Saxon beyond Old English.
Interestingly, there are a few words in English Proper that can be seen as loans from West Saxon, for example the word "Horse". West Saxon has a tendency to make it so that any rhotic R preceeding a vowel is switched, so the rhotic R is always syllable final. This happened to old English "Hross", becoming "Horse" or "Orse" in West Saxon, and replacing Anglian "Hross/Ross".@@xXxSkyViperxXx
Why is flevoland in the map since 2500 BC?
It was difficult to change the coastline in map over time
I see, don't worry about it
@@CostasMelas you put frisian in noord oost polder, but they always spoke dutch or dutch low saxon
Does that last bit of the Atlantic Substrate in Scotland have a name?
It probably has a role in differentiating of the Pictish from the rest of the Brythonic languages
@CostasMelas yeah, I can definitely see that. I just found it very similar to Eteocretan from your Greece video and though it had some cool eteo- name
Do we have samples of those substrates?
Yes
An Idea for a video: Communist States worlwide: Every Year (strictly marxist-leninist one-party states)
What happened in the last few seconds when Irish expanded into Northern Ireland ? Did I miss something in the news?
Irish became co-official in Northern Ireland in 2022
I would suggest that the 2024 map greatly underestimates the place of English in Ireland, Wales and Scotland. Overwhelmingly all three speak closely related dialects of English that are fully mutually comprehensible, while there is not a single monolingual speaker of any of the Celtic languages left.
That is problem of the concept of linguistic mapping at all. As it seems to me, of course. Map works with borders and limits of spreading, but it is much harder to show differences of prestigious and unprestigious functions of languages in the same area. Also, there is relatively easy to demonstrate changes of limits of language areal in pace of centuries, but actual changes (I mean, in recent decades) can be shown in percents and statistical regions, but it rarely in "traditional" for mapping manner.
Bruh, Pictish were created before our era, not in 200 AD
Cornish disappeared totally?! I heard there are still communities that talk that language
Evidentemente muchos ingleses y británicos no son capaces de entender que el latín tuvo una amplia influencia en su lenguaje.
En los comentarios se refleja eso.
Buen trabajo CostaMelas.
Can you do a video about Jewish languages every year? (Hebrew, Judeo-Aramaic, Kayla, Qwara, Yiddish, Ladino, Bukharian, and other Jewish dialects of different languages).
Hey can you make a video about Iranic languages in EUROPE! I know that you have made such a video, but can you make it in European continent? In Europe there were a lot of Iranic languages, such as: Cimmerian, Pontic Scythian, Sarmatian, Alanian, Ossetian, Ibero-Alanian, Jasz, Jazyg, British Sarmatian(8000 Sarmatian soldiers who were sent by Roman Empire) and etc.
1100 likes and 0 dislikes.
"The Atlantic languages of Semitic or "Semitidic" (para-Semitic) origin are a disputed concept in historical linguistics put forward by Theo Vennemann. He proposed that Semitic-language-speakers occupied regions in Europe thousands of years ago and influenced the later European languages that are not part of the Semitic family. The theory has found no notable acceptance among linguists or other relevant scholars and is criticised as being based on sparse and often-misinterpreted data."
Actually, a very good video with great dates (except for Pictish), but also with a it wrond modern era languages. Like, we can't see Scottish Gaelic good in Hybrid Isles, but we should, and also the complete lack of Cornish. But still, this video helped me in my Pictish language article)
Thank you
Why did you use the coastlines of modern day britain in times where it was different. (Im talking about Doggerland)
The same for the Dutch coast. It was difficult to change the coastline over time
Okay i understand, i guess it's not super important, except for the spread of languages in the beginning. The video was very good for the rest tho.@@CostasMelas
A sad story😢
Good to see a reconstruction that divides P from Q rather than the nonsense Insular/Continental model. Also good to see an early entry of Proto-Celtic, since we know at least the Halstadt culture, and so probably the Urnfield culture too, must have spoken Proto-Celtic or at least a predecessor Indo-European language--yet many models consider Celtic to have entered Britain a century or two before Caesar (nonsense!)
Love this Video! Please we need Indigenous language from America
Thank you
Normandy rush England in 1066 🗿🍷
(Insert comment about modern land shape here)
All this beautiful Celtic in the British isles because of a bunch of chads on reed boats in the English Channel in 1639 BC
do please languages in Morocco
sad story
Proud to descend from the English
We expected nothing less from a descendant of plundering pirates 🏴☠
@@vichyvilar technically my ancestors were priests, slavers, cowboys or soldiers in my genealogy, not pirates.
Unless we meant the Vikings
Good, be proud of your heritage
@@vichyvilar If you're not descended from plunderers you're descended from murderers or some other assortment of thievery
Thank you for this.
This video certainly does match a lot of the existing narrative of the development of various languages in Britain + Ireland from the very early Bronze Age whereby many linguists would agree.
However it is far too simplistic with there being other pieces of evidence from linguistic, dna + archaeological evidence which points to other lost linguistic connections between Britain + Ireland to the Iberian Peninsula, the Mediterranean + Scandinavia from the Bronze Age.
Also Irish + Welsh Mythology, Folklore + its Literature Traditions for so long have been ignored, but they too also scream out to again point to other lost influences again from the Iberian Peninsula, the Mediterranean + Scandinavia from the Bronze Age.
There is more + more evidence that in Bronze Age, there was a unique + Coastal trade right along Europes coasts from the Baltic, to Scandinavia, to Britain + Ireland, to the Iberian Peninsula, to the Mediterranean + right up to the East Mediterranean, to the trade of Amber, Copper + Bronze, with a huge Collapse then in approx 1200BCE (“Bronze Age Collapse”). To me, this era would have had several linguistic influences on Britain + Ireland, which the current linguistic model doesnt account for.
I do think eventually a day will come, when there is enough evidence to show that the Celtic languages of Britain + Ireland are much older than the Iron Age + whereby they were also well established from the Bronze Age, having linguistic links in the Bronze Age with the Iberian Peninsula + Scandinavia.
Yes Scandinavia. That in the Bronze Age, Scandinavia had pockets of Celtic Speaking peoples. There is literature and accounts which speak of Celtic languages once being spoken in parts of Scandinavia.
The theory that the first real Scandinavian peoples to come to Britain + Ireland, were the Vikings of the 900s + Anglo-Saxon-Jutes to Eastern England just before that, just doesnt make sense, when there is lotsa evidence of Scandinavians having being trading with Britain + Ireland + the Mediterranean, in the Bronze Age, with several archaeological finds of Amber in exchange for Copper + Tin to then be brought back to Scandinavia for the Nordic Bronze Age.
Regarding Scotland, I personally think it is highly unlikely that any form of P-Celtic (Pictish / Brythonic etc) was ever spoken in Western Scotland, with that area always having spoke a Q-Celtic form, from when Celtic languages first arrived (in the Bronze Age). The Romans for one did write of Western Caledonia having spoken a different harsher language form
Thank you for the additional information and the very interesting text
Gen 11:1 11-7 Zep 3:9
Flemish Dutch under Francophone occupation. You know more than most Flemish. There is some truth to it lol.
I’m sorry, british neolithic?
I'm English speaker
So am I
Rest in peace, Latin of Britania ☠️💀
Imagine what history would be like if the United Kingdom were part of the Roman brothers and this nation also continued to be catholic (🇵🇹🇪🇦🇫🇷🇧🇪🇮🇹🇸🇲🇲🇹🇷🇴🇻🇦✝️⛪)
If only people made the right decisions.
Ireland is Catholic too 🇮🇪
@@RobairtO-Dhoilingta-n16420 Yess Bro, LOVE Catholic Ireland from Spain!!! Ireland (or better called Hibernia 😉) is an awesome and beautiful nation!!!! 🇪🇦✝️♥️🇮🇪✝️🇻🇦
Celtic Isles
🇬🇧🏴🏴🏴🇮🇪
Decline about Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh.....
Da luan, Da mort, Da luan, Da mort, Da luan, Da mort, agus Da Cadine.
(Monday, Tuesday, Monday, Tuesday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.)
dé lúan dé mairt dé chéadaoin dé deardaoin agus dé haoine
Scotland looks like plaid
There is no evidence to suggest that the language spoken by the Bell-Beakers was a non-Celtic one, and that Celtic was later introduced. Due to the lack of European substrate loan words in British Celtic languages, and the presence of pre-European language substrates, the most logical explanation is that the Bell Beaker one was a Celtic language itself. This is further reinforced by a lack of shift in the archaeological record coinciding with the supposed later arrival date of the Celts. Furthermore, the split between Insular (British and Irish) and continental (Gallic) Celtic is too grand to have occurred in such a small time frame as proposed by the later arrival date of Celtic in the Isles; the earlier arrival date of the Bell Beakers is again, a more parsimonious explanation.
The arrival of Bell Beaker in Britain seems much earlier than the spread of Indo-European so far west. It is therefore likely to be related to a non-Indo-European language
@@CostasMelas I have never seen a theory that states that the Bell-Beakers are non-IE. I find that very confusing, and to be in blatant contradiction with the genetic and archaeological evidence showing Bell Beakers to be the Western off-shoot of Corded Ware culture. Could you tell me what sources led you to this conclusion?
@@CostasMelasnonsense. bell beakers were indo europeans. Where do you get your strange fringe theories from??
1201 is the saddest year in history
the death of cumbric language 😭😭😭
Why did you change "CUMbric" on "cumbric"?
Can it be revived like Cornish?
@@hieratics No written legacy. All we have are placenames, so no.
Latin isn't romance, it's italic.
Alas! English minimised territories of Celtic languages.
Second
Coastlines are not entirely accurate for their respective time periods
Wait would the coastlines be larger or smaller back then?
Depends on the time period the North sea coastline has changed alot of the years@@based4560
There aren't " British Isles ". There's Britannia and Hibernia, it was simple enough for the Romans, ought to be comprehensible for everyone else too.
The 'English'...the last of the British settlers.
The Celts are the original British.
I thought that modern Ireland speaks almost only english
It does
No Arabic in London?
InshaAllah in 2050
Same video in 2054 - English is replaced by Arabic and Urdu
Its so sad to see how those Germanic invaders destroyed the Celtic languages
Free Celtistan
It's glorious
And now all of them are being replaced by groupes of people who aren't even from Europe.
Eve more sad is AngloSaxons being replaced by them darn Normans anddestroying the old english language
its the celts that chose to adopt not only the germanic language but even germanic pagan religion lol
I bet Arabic is the leading language very very soon…
Well Muslims don't speak Arabic only arabs
We need the "Languages of Russia, Central and North Asia" video. 🙏
first!!!
2025 AD : Arabic
what a boring joke
We get it Muslims scare you there’s no need to say it all the time
marmalade men and the shahreya law
*Urdu