The French guy in the movie says k-niggets, but the ‘gh’ sound was never pronounced like that, it would have been pronounced the way Metatron does it at 2:40, like the ‘ch’ in German ‘Licht’.
It's always so funny to me as an Austrian to see how close English used to be to german (Ik English is a Germanic language) and its fascinating to learn about the development of English as someone who speaks German as first language, English as 2nd and also knows a bit of French/latin
@goransekulic3671 They speak German in Austria. It's a form of High German that can be hard to understand for people only accustomed to Standard German (though not as much as Swiss German), but they still consider it a form of German.
I’d give that a shot. I’m far from fluent in Old English, but I know the West Saxon dialect decently. Thing is I don’t have a following, so it’d probably be better if someone like Simon Roper were to do it.
@@christopherellis2663That’s true. Now that I actually think about it😂 we have many diphthongs, among other aspects, that just wouldn’t work in Old English. There’s really no way to pronounce a word like “good” using Old English.
Yeah. I am writing time travel stories, so I have to ask this question (anthropologist who is bilingual in English and Mexican Spanish, so how quickly do they learn to speak Ceasar's Latin)
@ Noblebird02 Nobis facilius est. Studebam Latina classical ab XI ad XIX annos mean vitae. Nunc, Mihi sunt XxxII annos dum studio linguam isoanicam mexicaniam. Iam ego scio maioritas grammatica et plus verbarum. Tam facile, ut quam illiquid iam scitus sit mihi.
I'm 61, and I can already hear differences in how the younger generations, especially in power centers of the U.S., like New York and Washington DC, pronounce words. Words like mountain and button, for example, are sometimes pronounced "mowden" and "budden". It drives me crazy, but I do know, since my undergraduate degree was in linguistics, that this is how language changes over time. Since I can tell that in my own lifetime American English has started to change intergenerationally, I have no doubt that it will be a lot different a thousand years from now.
You know what grinds my gears as a layperson? It is when I hear people say "hating on", how the heck do I hate onto something? Do all languages get dumber, or more simple as they evolve?
that's mostly a cultural thing, to describe it in one word "niggerification". The way shit is rn the lowest common denominater get's the cultural say, that's why this blight stikes first and hardest in the hoods and ghettos.
There is a video on youtube where the English/British queens Elizabeth I and Elizabeth II speak with their accent from their respective times and make fun of each others accent. Also, interestingly, German had a similar vowel shift like English, but Germans still decided to write everything phonetically (at least much more than the English). And I would love to see more of those videos to get an impression how it would feel if our languages changed
Ben Crystal’s video :). There are interesting videos in which he presents so called “original pronunciation” or what Shakespeare’s English probably sounded like. really enjoyable to listen.
More fascinating to that, to me is that High German (but not Low German) also went through a great consonant shift, and that, almost as a mirror to English, it is now the consonants in modern High German which seem to be spelt less phonetically, not vowels (as is in English).
@@MatPete I love sound of it. More than anything though, the way it sounds is definitely most similar to West Country English (which I love the sound of even more), basically proving what was already suspected, that West Country English is the most conservative form of English known (with some debate, if we count Scots as English). Even pronunciation aside, it is noticable that West Country English is also a lot more conservative in terms of grammar and vocabulary too, often using archiac constructions, and in some varieties, even actively retaining archaic pronouns, such as thou/thee and ye/you etc.
@@MM62442 I am wondering if it’s possible. English spelling is weird but we are used to it, aren’t we? Btw English dialects evolved phonetically in different ways, I think current orthography in spite of seeming outdated remains functional in all versions of the language regardless of quite significant differences in pronunciation.
So English sounded exactly how it was written. And when I learned it my "wrong" slavic pronunciation of the words was actually right for medieval times. That's funny.
All languages are written how they sound, but it's easy to police how a language is written but difficult to police how people talk. So they change and within a few hundred years it's hard to read. An even better example would be French. This is why pictographic languages are better. Like Chinese
I wonder how much recorded sound has flattened the difference between different accents, and stabilized pronunciation. It has been a bit over 130 years.
@@cahallo5964 I've noticed. The US in particular, as compared to other English-speaking countries, seems to have lost A LOT of regional variation over time, to the point that now, with the exception of a few standouts (mostly in the east and southeast, where the language began in the area), basically everyone sounds nearly, if not completely identical, stripped of nearly all regional features. I think it's a little sad, actually... To me, the southeastern and eastern accents sound much more melodic and interesting than what most in the country sound like now, with the "generic yank" accent, sounding like something I can't describe as anything but really boring.
Of course, there are still some sound shifts happening (eg, the Northern Cities Vowel Shift), and there are plenty of dialects despite mass media. Basically, it can be attributed to kids speaking more like their peers at school than their parents a lot of the time.
@@oyoo3323There is still distinct accents in the US. You’re just used to hearing many of them through modern media and such so you don’t notice them as much. Side by side, you can easily tell who’s from New Jersey and who’s from California, though
@@maxonite that's just it. It takes the distance from one place to the whole opposite side of the continent to make a difference equally perceptable to most to that of two cities of few dozen km apart in Scotland or Ireland for example. Also, it is a factual truth that almost universally throughout the country regional accents are dying out, in some places faster than others, in others already long gone.
@@blueprairiedog The meaning of Knecht in Dutch and German is more like modern English farmworker. The modern English meaning of servant has a higher social status than Knecht has in Dutch and German.
Yes, this topic has always been one I've found fascinating. As an English speaker, I speak a little Spanish and German. I've always wondered what it must be like to speak a language with a very close sibling language. Spanish-Portuguese obviously cones to mind, but really all the Romance languages that aren't French or Romanian sound similar to my ear. I feel the same with Dutch and German, but apparently, German speakers think the same but in reverse, that Dutch sounds more like English than German. And what a Latin speaker would think of Romance languages is very interesting to. I will eagerly look forward to your breakdowns on the subjects.
Dutch sounds like English being spoke by a crazy man with wet socks in his mouth to me. Like I can almost detect sense but there's too many vowels. I think that's the closest English can get if you don't include esoteric and distant accents
@@smallhelmonabigship3524 I've been watching the "Friesan Horses" channel for years. A word or two, every once in awhile a string of words. Even if it "sounds like they're speaking English", if you can't understand it, it's not really the same as Romance speakers communicating.
@@Unpainted_Huffhines I never said Frisian was a sister language to English. However, many linguists will say that Frisian is perhaps the closest foreign language to English. The closest thing English might have like the relationships in the Romance languages would be some of the more obscure dialects of English. They can be exceedingly difficult to understand at first, until one gets used to the way words are pronounced. Even then, they can be a challenge.
@@smallhelmonabigship3524 it _is_ a sister language, and is very similar to Old English. It's definitely the closest related extant language to Modern English. But English has undergone drastic changes since the days Old English, in grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation, to the point where it's _mostly_ unintelligible to its closest relative. Had the Normans never invaded, and English had been left to itself and continued to evolve on its own, it would probably be mutually intelligible with Frisian and Dutch, to a similar extent as Romance languages.
This was very interesting. I once heard a demonstration of how the Lord's Prayer would sound 600 years ago in English and I could hardly understand anything. This explains a lot
I had to read Beowulf” at university. It’s wild! Just as you’re saying! Barely recognizable as English many times. I believe there is one of two existing original copies of Beowulf in the British Museum. Given the age of this story it was incredible to see it. 🇺🇸
That’s cause Beowulf is pure Old English, before the Norman Conquest and the ensuing Frenchization of English. I.e. the diff is not due to an evolutionary process but due to a revolutionary, violent linguistic change. Middle English is much closer to modern
This scenario reminds me of a French film from 1993 called The Visitors. A medieval knight and his servant are transported to modern France. They are described as speaking a mixture of Latin and medieval French. I don't think the /k/ would drop from kitchen. The initial cluster in knight was probably a substantial factor in that change.
@@stalfithrildi5366 It would probably change to "srong" and "srait". I've heard drunk people pronounce it that way because for some reason, they couldn't pronounce the "t" sound, so it's possible that "lazy talkers" would eventually drop the hard sound.
One of your most interesting videos! I daresay the evolution of English is one of my favorite topics. For all watching, I recommend going to A.Z. Foreman's channel for not only excellent recitations in Medieval and Early Modern English, but in other languages as well. He is an excellent linguist with an ear for phonological accuracy and historical phonetics at that.
Absolutely brilliant, Raff - fascinating stuff. I just can't help but imagine that if someone from Chaucer's time did appear in a pub in 2023, there'd be a lot of hilarity as they tried to make sense of a guy's dialect that probably sounds like he came from somewhere in the deepest darkest west Midlands or Norfolk!!
Man, it's already changing. People have pointed out that some vowels are changing ("caught" and "cot"), and there's terms like "LOL" being verbally spoken rather than just written that remind me of the evolution of "Okay." I'm not especially old, but once some linguistics have pointed out how language is changing, I can't unsee it. I'd love to see a video on a hypothetical evolution of English
Interesting concept, and nice video. I would be curious to see the same principal with others languages. That part of a medieval knight being sent into the present, and his reaction of the language change(and possibly other things as well), reminds me of the French comedy movie, "Les visiteurs"(1993), starring Jean Reno and Christian Clavier, where a medieval Knight is sent by mistake into the early 90's. Fun movie, I recommend it, and who knows, maybe it could inspire you to make video on it. Anyway, thank you this video, and also for your others videos on your different channels. Have a good day, and bless you. And the same to those who take the time to read this.
This video is the PERFECT reference and exactly what I needed! I'm writing something where a Middle English speaker needs to learn Modern English, and the intricacies you described in this video covered EXACTLY what I needed to know! Thanks so much for making this video!
I remember I read some medieval Portuguese "trovadores" in literature classes and it was pretty alien to me, especially when I think about how would be the pronunciation.
As a fan of studying languages, especially English. I thank you for this video. I'm still upset about The Great Vowel Shift. A perfectly fine English became vulgar, but today's Modern English can be just as beautiful, if one takes the time to pronounce it and use it correctly.
Amazing video! Frankly an ingenious idea to do this comparison (idk if you came up w it yourself, to me you did either way) would love to see more videos using this analogy
Metatron, I would love to see you do a video on how Ecclesiastical Latin sounded to an Old Latin speaker, and may I make a suggestion? I think it would be better and more enjoyable and get more views if you co-produced the vid with Luke from Polymathy, here on TH-cam. Thanks! 😊😊😊
Someone from the medieval period would think we are speaking a totally different language. I imagine they would react to hearing it in a similar way to how a modern person reacts to hearing middle period or old English. In both cases you have to be told that it's English. It's the same degree of difference.
Middle English and Old English are very different. An educated modern English speaker can read middle English to a considerable extent, but will understand little of Old English.
Yes I would love more videos on this topic, the Latin one would be cool! And some lessons on Old English would be awesome. I took one course on it at University, and it was really interesting. Unfortunately, I did not have a lot of time to dedicate to that class and didn't really get to learn much so it would be great to delve into it some more!
8:04 - that is literally how some Australian and South African accents say it! (I'm British, love accents..) a couple of your other "future" pronunciations sounded a bit Birmingham or Liverpool (those accents are pretty radical when strong!)
The most curious thing is that the words spelling didn't change along with the pronunciation and this makes things even more tricky for people that want to learn English (especially us Italians that tend to read the words as we write them :D)
I like to describe written Modern English as just written Middle English and that actually written Modern English doesn't actually exist. The closest we have to written Modern English honestly might genuinely be _internet slang._ Of course learning English is hard, because you're basically learning two separate languages; one for writing and one for speaking.
Huh... very interesting. I was reading some letters written in English from the 16th century and what I found very interesting was that I could tell just by looking at the spelling how they would pronounce words and why they would have sounded like drunk Scottish-French pirates. Spelling wasn't standardized. In the same letter the word "cousin" was spelling "cowsigne" and "cosyn". It also was closer to French, you could tell in words like "ambition", which would have sounded less like "ambee-shn" and more like "ambee-see-ohn", which would give it a more French sounding ending.
Great video! But my quibble (that would be an interesting word to see how it evolves!) with the k sound for "cat" and "connect" is that this causes the evolved word to start with a vowel sound, while "knight" (as well as "knife," and others) still begin with a consonant sound following the drop of the k. Given modern English's aversion to combining two consonant sounds, I think the connect example works for the ct at the end, but not for the initial k sound in the "conn" portion. What do you think?
Great video, I would love a full in depth video on the great vowel shift. I often hear linguists talk about it, but it seems to be mentioned in passing more so for many edutainment channels.
I think it would be much weirder if the French didn't have conquered England and didn't had added French words to English. It would be totally different language. It could be hard because English used to have cases. My language, Portuguese, doesn't have cases.
This makes me think of the word been. Here in the southern US we pronounce it as bin but in Canada they pronounce it like bean. Due to it’s spelling, ee, the Canadian model seems more accurate to me & I would like to see it evolves as such.
I think that /i/ and /ɪ/ are actually equivalent in this context and both are valid pronunciations, with some accents maybe favoring one over the other. I'm fairly certain that I hear and maybe even use both on a regular basis depending on context and how much emphasis is put on the word.
Fascinating topic indeed, I too always wondered such things. If you feel like having a challenge, please try to compare how the Hungarian language changed. There were quite a few changes in the past 500 years - many of which were a result of a country-wide effort to modernise and standardise the language.
So interesting that english used to be more like some of our languages in europe where you mostly say it as you write it. Fascinating how it evolves over time especially the big move of many people to america, and seeing the cultural shifts as well.
Love you using the example of "knight" as in Dutch we have the word "knecht" still in use (so the middle pronunciation of your example). It refers to either a young boy or someone who is an aid to someone else (so the old meaning of knight)
@@Philipp.of.Swabia cool, we don't have those others as far as I'm aware. But I don't think they are used often anymore? "Knecht" is still used a lot in certain dialects around here, both meanings.
@@wolfcryerke no, they are only used in a „Medieval“ context. Knecht is still used, in several forms, now at days mostly as an insult though. We like to say „Du Knecht“ to men/Boys if they act like absolute Muppets. But the word itself in a normal use is quite an old one and not that often used in a serious context.
@@Philipp.of.Swabia Knight is a relatively 'new' english word. In old English they used the word 'ridere' or 'rider' which is more or less the same as the Dutch word 'ridder' and the German word 'ritter'.
@@lauradekeyzer1945 I think that one might come from the Scandinavians though, as in Sweden they say Riddare and in Norway and Denmark Ridder, very similar to Swabian German too though, where the German word of Ritter is pronounced (and if written as pronounced) „Ridder“ as well.
enjoyed this video, as someone with a H dropping accent i heard Hats and Dogs. i know that this probably wasnt your intention but you are talking about the evolution of language GVS in particular as if it has a clear goal to reach the final prestigious finish when its more like sound changes happen and some sounds change more easily into one other particular sounds. iv spoke about GVS in the same way but as a northerner its annoying being thought of a some half evolved scot who is in turn speaking an ancient dialect. Everyone's English is similarly evolved
Pronunciation shifts have been significant since the middle ages, especially in vowels which would make understanding tricky though not impossible with some effort especially as we are used to vowel sound variations in different accents. I suspect it would be a lot easier for us to understand them than the other way around, initially
The Word “knight”, Expressed in the medieval form of pronouncation, sounds exactly like the danish Word “knægt”. It is interesting, because the english Langage to great lenghts derives from danish. And the word “knight” translates directly to the word “knægt”. Thank you for the video.
It would be really cool to hear your analysis of modern and some older form of Japanese. I think even comparing the differences between now and pre meiji era Japanese could be interesting.
I was watching another video from you when you were talking in ancient Roman all the way. I think that was an amazing way of representing this old language. A question came to my mind though. Can you resurrect the many accents of ancient Rome on the marginal areas where the different ethnic groups used to live together with the Romans at various times? I'm a Hungarian. My first thought was how Attila the Hun, who was raised by the Romans spoke their language, but I know the language of the Huns is something still to be discovered, but do we know about the other accents of Roman language? The Greeks, the Celts or the Goths, perhaps the Slavs when they spoke Latin their way. How it compares to the Latin of Julius Caesar, or Nero? How Spartacus may sounded like. Maybe it is something impossible to ask for, but It would be very interesting to know.
A super interesting take on this topic that I haven't seen before! What I take from it is that me and the knight would roughly be able to understand each other but would think that the way each other is speaking is all messed up and would probably laugh at the way each other is pronouncing things(hopefully this knight has a sense of humor).
This reminds me of a scene in the movie "Snatch". Roughly paraphrased: "Is this your dag?" "What?" "That dag! Is it yours?" "Oh, that dog you mean... " "Yes, that dag! Dont you speak English? " 😂
Could you make a video comparing the pitch accents of different languages, for example Swedish, japanese, and turkish? Also maybe contrasting them with true tonal languages like thai or mandarin.
Fantastic!!!!! David and his son Ben Crystal introduced me to how Shakespeare would have sounded. This was mod. English ... but the difference between OP and RP was amazing for me to hear!!!! How you resurrect these old pronunciations is magical to me (also I grew up in Boston: You can't pahk ya cah in Hahvad yahd ... the guahd won't let ya in without a parkin pass so pahk in the squaha, put some quatahs in the metah and come up to my apahament. (Another interesting note, I'm dyslexic so I will see words as I hear them!!! Wensday, Febuary, Lincon, etc. -- once I know how they are spelled, I see them as they really are spelled.)
For me, being dutch, is the old pronunciation of knight far more understandable. It is quiet similar to the dutch word : knecht (servant). We pronounce the 'k' and the 'n' seperately, than the 'e' (like the 'e' in Meg) , the 'ch' like the gh in knight medieval pronunciation and the 't' remained the same. To make a long story short... our pronunciation is the same as medieval english except the 'i' is an 'e' . By the way, knight in dutch is ridder. Strange word? No way. Ridder = rider, someone who rides a horse... Greetings from Holland.
@@niekgrandiek4584 Yes, that's true many basic words are quite similar, "Kom hier/ Kom her", "Mijn huis/Mit hus", "Een bruine koe/En brun ko"etc. I'm from east Jutland and I've actually mistaken spoken Dutch for Danish a couple of times abroad on holidays until I realize it's not. You know, if you've heard an "alien" language for several days and suddenly you hear a language similar to your own.
It's very interesting to read old songs and poems, and see how a lot of them no longer work with a modern pronunciation of their respective languages. Forms of writing that rely on rhyme and rhythm tend to be both the first victims of changing standards, but also the best means of reverse-engineering how people in the past used to speak. Hmm... But I wonder how language will continue to evolve now that we have ubiquitous technology that allows us to preserve not just writing, but also sound. Will this change how pronunciation changes? Will it slow down or completely derail the process? Any time-travellers in chat, please let me know, I'm really curious.
Knekt in Swedish is a very old word for soldier. It is still in the dictionary, but very rarely used - unless you speak of olden days. The word was in fairly common use up until the early to mid 1700s, where knekt had, practically, been replaced by the word "soldat", which is what we still use in modern Swedish to refer to a soldier.
If you want an idea of how drastically English might change in pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary, listen to someone speaking Jamaican Patois. I'm not saying standard English will be like Jamaican Patois in 500 or 1,000 years, I'm saying that Jamaican Patois gives us a hint about how different English will be as it evolves in ways we can't predict now.
Literally just watched a video by Simon Roper who said the word 'nightingale' as it was pronounced at specific points between about 1200 and the present. By about 1750, it was recognisable - before then, if you didn't know the context of a sentence, most people wouldn't understand it.
Fascinating. I love your video. I want time travel so bad. I would give anything to go back in time and see the world from back then. I’m obsessed with history.
Thats why Dutch speakers have less problems understanding old english than the english do. It does give me some more insight in the etymology of 'knight'. Akin to dutch word 'knecht' ("hired hand", "helper")
Keen for the GVS and the experiential video. And for Latin too. Just make videos, basically 🙂 What I'd love most (from this video anyway) is to hear your rendition of what medieval English would have sounded like - as an example short paragraph.
Oh, please do. Make that video. I struggle with some students who are Spanish natives, and they try to pronounce certain words in English. I understand how difficult it can be to change the pronunciation of a letter from Spanish to English, especially given some vowel combination can be really tricky. And it's sometimes troubling to explain that. Thank you for this video!!
This was very informative. I've wondered how difficult it would be to somehow be too communicate with English speakers of a few centuries or more ago. Getting there would be the hard part. But I have a thought regarding the future, tho someone might have already suggested this idea already. You mentioned that pronunciation would change in the future in ways that we could only predict, as it has in the past. But there's one MAJOR difference between the past & present vs the present & future, and it is this - movies and recordings. The future English speakers will be influenced by the many recordings that we will pass on to them, something that just didn't exist before the modern age. And while of course there will be new pronunciations and expressions in the future, I still would think that because of recordings, movies, songs, especially the major movies, the top songs, that will continue to be familiar to most people, to a larger extent there would have to be a greater retention of current pronunciation that past generations had no way of passing on to us. I'd bet that if there had been movies or recordings made hundreds of years ago then Shakespeare's plays would retain that ancient way of saying things.
What a great mini lecture! Thank you. And I really appreciate comprehensive description below. Would you consider doing a video about an American accent? Is it similar to anything in an old English? Our is it something completely new? Where did it come from?
Hi Metatron, lovely video! I believe we *need* the GVS video, as well as the Latin ones. A thought... maybe combine the two: start with how does it feel, then go into the mechanics. Finally, could you explore the transition from Old English to Middle English? I read a story once where a Celtic person who knows Old English travels forward in time and get annoyed that she has to learn English twice!
I loved this video. It's so interesting to consider how much language has and will change. I really enjoyed hearing actual examples in succession to best hear the difference. I would love if in future, similar videos, the words could be phonetically or otherwise displayed on the screen for a visual processing component to the information!
Excellent video concept! You should really develop it, not only with some generalities about the shifts in pronounciation, and some example words, but with some classical text read in both the old fashion and the future fashion. That would be astoundingly untertaining and bewildering.
For me, as a German teacher of English... very interesting! Thank you! You have the gift of being able to explain things really understandably! Excellent Job! Thank you from Dresden, Germany
Twenty years ago I worked in Trinidad in the West Indies and initially had a hard time with their English. A phrase like "I want to swim" would be in Trini, "I feel to bade". "Bade" being how 'bathe' is pronounced. Or, "Is your dog tied up?" would be "De dog tie?". And the preface of 'is it' as in "Is it here?" is gone. Now it's just "It here?". The loss of the final 'd' to signify an action in the past is common. Even prestigious businesses will have a sign on the door on Sunday saying 'Close'. "Just now" means "Not now" and there's a lot of other singular expressions, but the linguistic evolution in process is fun to observe. Also the amount of 'over-correction' that Trinis fall into, when trying not to use Trini pronunciation. I remember a government minister telling me he and his wife loved 'thigh' food. Not 'Thai', but 'thigh'.
Love that you are so knowledgeable! Yes please, anything on comparisons, developments and change . Never really understood the GVS. I love knowing how languages work. I am fluent in English and some grasp of French and German and wish I know Italian and Latin.
I'm still reclaiming my native language Cymraeg and find it interesting that in our alphabet ,which is easiest learned once one understands the phonetic sound of all the letters ,that our i and u both have the 'ee' sound. Also interesting that like England where northern peoples speak of Brass for money in the Gogledd we have Press but in De Cymru / South Wales it is Arian / silver. I have been interested in the English vowel shift after watching Simon Ropers excellent videos. I like to see as many viewpoints as I can. Up to the early 1900s many peoples on the English side of the border were bilingual and carried over the gendering of nouns we use when speaking English/Saesnaeg. Presumably we borrowed words from our Viking visitors , though not so many from the Norman invaders as they being elite did not mix much. We don't have distinctions between meats and the animals they come from that English absorbed from the French. Many of the Welsh words donated to the planet are confused with Latin as our ancestral languages branched from the same line of Indo European .Many English like to claim the Latin origin rather than accept that they absorbed many local words when they occupied part of Britain as we are one of their remaining colonies and now seen as a playground for their leisure full of handy mountains and cleaner beaches
I heard the surname Knyvett came about from Norman French speakers who had trouble with pronunciation of the "c/k" sound the Ænglisc word for knight had in the 2nd (or 3rd)syllable.
Thanks for the video. I've experienced some of that with extreme southern accents. I grew up in eastern Tennessee in the USA, but my parents pushed me very hard to have no accent. As a result, I sometimes noticed big differences between the way I said things and the way people around me said things.
Paired consonants often turn into single consonants (as how often is pronounced "offen") but the K on its own has a history of turning into a new consonant rather than disappearing entirely -- that's the basis of the centum/satem split in Indo-European languages, and one of the hallmarks of the Germanic consonant shift (K -> kh -> h... centum / hundred ), or the k --> ch --> sh consonant shift in French with the middle stage preserved in the French loan words that entered medieval english like "chapel" and "chief."
So the French guy from, 'The Holy Grail', was actually saying it right.
First thing I thought 😄
And the Knights Who Say Ni were merely standing their ground phonetically.
The French guy in the movie says k-niggets, but the ‘gh’ sound was never pronounced like that, it would have been pronounced the way Metatron does it at 2:40, like the ‘ch’ in German ‘Licht’.
Ni ni ni
your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries!
It's always so funny to me as an Austrian to see how close English used to be to german (Ik English is a Germanic language) and its fascinating to learn about the development of English as someone who speaks German as first language, English as 2nd and also knows a bit of French/latin
How about Austrian and German? ;)
@@goransekulic3671 what about them? I like learning about them too but that's not the topic so what is your question
@goransekulic3671 They speak German in Austria. It's a form of High German that can be hard to understand for people only accustomed to Standard German (though not as much as Swiss German), but they still consider it a form of German.
Modern English is about 50% Romance.
@@hueyiroquois3839 yeah no shit, what are you trying to tell me?
Would be fun to hear modern written English read aloud by someone who speaks Old English, and pronounces to suit.
I’d give that a shot. I’m far from fluent in Old English, but I know the West Saxon dialect decently. Thing is I don’t have a following, so it’d probably be better if someone like Simon Roper were to do it.
They wouldn't have a clue. It's a totally different Orthography æ ð þ ā ē ī ō ū
Middle English would be possible
@@christopherellis2663That’s true. Now that I actually think about it😂 we have many diphthongs, among other aspects, that just wouldn’t work in Old English. There’s really no way to pronounce a word like “good” using Old English.
@@Wighafoc That might be part of the fun -- discovering all the ways it fails.
It's a knight (old pronounciation)
- English man = so weird
- German man = of course I know, keep going.
This is such a cool video. I'd be awesome to see the same concept applied to romance languages and Latin.
Same. His perspective as a native Italian speaker would add a lot.
I would REALLY love seeing him making this connection between Ancient Latin - Italian - Old and Actual Brazilian Portuguese.
Yeah. I am writing time travel stories, so I have to ask this question (anthropologist who is bilingual in English and Mexican Spanish, so how quickly do they learn to speak Ceasar's Latin)
Yes if you could would becgreat
@ Noblebird02
Nobis facilius est. Studebam Latina classical ab XI ad XIX annos mean vitae. Nunc, Mihi sunt XxxII annos dum studio linguam isoanicam mexicaniam. Iam ego scio maioritas grammatica et plus verbarum. Tam facile, ut quam illiquid iam scitus sit mihi.
I'm 61, and I can already hear differences in how the younger generations, especially in power centers of the U.S., like New York and Washington DC, pronounce words. Words like mountain and button, for example, are sometimes pronounced "mowden" and "budden". It drives me crazy, but I do know, since my undergraduate degree was in linguistics, that this is how language changes over time. Since I can tell that in my own lifetime American English has started to change intergenerationally, I have no doubt that it will be a lot different a thousand years from now.
Going back to the roots, eh?
I say mountin or mow’in
And bu’in
You know what grinds my gears as a layperson? It is when I hear people say "hating on", how the heck do I hate onto something? Do all languages get dumber, or more simple as they evolve?
'murican here
Mountain for me is largely the same except the t is a strange "nasal glottal stop".
that's mostly a cultural thing, to describe it in one word "niggerification".
The way shit is rn the lowest common denominater get's the cultural say, that's why this blight stikes first and hardest in the hoods and ghettos.
There is a video on youtube where the English/British queens Elizabeth I and Elizabeth II speak with their accent from their respective times and make fun of each others accent.
Also, interestingly, German had a similar vowel shift like English, but Germans still decided to write everything phonetically (at least much more than the English).
And I would love to see more of those videos to get an impression how it would feel if our languages changed
Ben Crystal’s video :). There are interesting videos in which he presents so called “original pronunciation” or what Shakespeare’s English probably sounded like. really enjoyable to listen.
More fascinating to that, to me is that High German (but not Low German) also went through a great consonant shift, and that, almost as a mirror to English, it is now the consonants in modern High German which seem to be spelt less phonetically, not vowels (as is in English).
@@MatPete I love sound of it. More than anything though, the way it sounds is definitely most similar to West Country English (which I love the sound of even more), basically proving what was already suspected, that West Country English is the most conservative form of English known (with some debate, if we count Scots as English). Even pronunciation aside, it is noticable that West Country English is also a lot more conservative in terms of grammar and vocabulary too, often using archiac constructions, and in some varieties, even actively retaining archaic pronouns, such as thou/thee and ye/you etc.
I really wish they would have updated the spelling, so mostly everything is spelled how it sounds. Would be nice lol.
@@MM62442 I am wondering if it’s possible. English spelling is weird but we are used to it, aren’t we? Btw English dialects evolved phonetically in different ways, I think current orthography in spite of seeming outdated remains functional in all versions of the language regardless of quite significant differences in pronunciation.
So English sounded exactly how it was written. And when I learned it my "wrong" slavic pronunciation of the words was actually right for medieval times. That's funny.
Basically. The great vowel shift basically ruined the English language for anyone trying to learn it.
All languages are written how they sound, but it's easy to police how a language is written but difficult to police how people talk. So they change and within a few hundred years it's hard to read. An even better example would be French. This is why pictographic languages are better. Like Chinese
I wonder how much recorded sound has flattened the difference between different accents, and stabilized pronunciation. It has been a bit over 130 years.
A looooot particularly in the US
@@cahallo5964 I've noticed. The US in particular, as compared to other English-speaking countries, seems to have lost A LOT of regional variation over time, to the point that now, with the exception of a few standouts (mostly in the east and southeast, where the language began in the area), basically everyone sounds nearly, if not completely identical, stripped of nearly all regional features.
I think it's a little sad, actually... To me, the southeastern and eastern accents sound much more melodic and interesting than what most in the country sound like now, with the "generic yank" accent, sounding like something I can't describe as anything but really boring.
Of course, there are still some sound shifts happening (eg, the Northern Cities Vowel Shift), and there are plenty of dialects despite mass media. Basically, it can be attributed to kids speaking more like their peers at school than their parents a lot of the time.
@@oyoo3323There is still distinct accents in the US. You’re just used to hearing many of them through modern media and such so you don’t notice them as much. Side by side, you can easily tell who’s from New Jersey and who’s from California, though
@@maxonite that's just it. It takes the distance from one place to the whole opposite side of the continent to make a difference equally perceptable to most to that of two cities of few dozen km apart in Scotland or Ireland for example.
Also, it is a factual truth that almost universally throughout the country regional accents are dying out, in some places faster than others, in others already long gone.
Knecht means servant in Dutch and I think German as well. It's weird that it means something very different in English.
Yes, in German, too.
Knights did serve the lord and lady.
@@blueprairiedog The meaning of Knecht in Dutch and German is more like modern English farmworker. The modern English meaning of servant has a higher social status than Knecht has in Dutch and German.
It actually doesn't, in a way. The words obviously have similar origins. Knights were considered armed servants of their lord or king.
We were also sharing alot of ideas and words too. As we still do
Yes, this topic has always been one I've found fascinating. As an English speaker, I speak a little Spanish and German.
I've always wondered what it must be like to speak a language with a very close sibling language. Spanish-Portuguese obviously cones to mind, but really all the Romance languages that aren't French or Romanian sound similar to my ear.
I feel the same with Dutch and German, but apparently, German speakers think the same but in reverse, that Dutch sounds more like English than German.
And what a Latin speaker would think of Romance languages is very interesting to. I will eagerly look forward to your breakdowns on the subjects.
Dutch sounds like English being spoke by a crazy man with wet socks in his mouth to me. Like I can almost detect sense but there's too many vowels. I think that's the closest English can get if you don't include esoteric and distant accents
Find a video to watch of a person speaking Frisian. It sounds like they are speaking English only you can't understand what they are saying.
@@smallhelmonabigship3524 I've been watching the "Friesan Horses" channel for years. A word or two, every once in awhile a string of words.
Even if it "sounds like they're speaking English", if you can't understand it, it's not really the same as Romance speakers communicating.
@@Unpainted_Huffhines I never said Frisian was a sister language to English. However, many linguists will say that Frisian is perhaps the closest foreign language to English.
The closest thing English might have like the relationships in the Romance languages would be some of the more obscure dialects of English. They can be exceedingly difficult to understand at first, until one gets used to the way words are pronounced. Even then, they can be a challenge.
@@smallhelmonabigship3524 it _is_ a sister language, and is very similar to Old English. It's definitely the closest related extant language to Modern English.
But English has undergone drastic changes since the days Old English, in grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation, to the point where it's _mostly_ unintelligible to its closest relative.
Had the Normans never invaded, and English had been left to itself and continued to evolve on its own, it would probably be mutually intelligible with Frisian and Dutch, to a similar extent as Romance languages.
0:40 imagine a medieval person hear some zoomer go “no cap frfr 100%” & just stand there in utter confusion.
I imagine he would be like Professor Farnsworth from Futurama: "I don't want to live on this planet anymore😠"
Hwi beon haton Zoomers?
Don nawhit drincan Haterade.
For triewe For triewe. Nay cap!
An hundred word sayeth triewe😎
This was very interesting. I once heard a demonstration of how the Lord's Prayer would sound 600 years ago in English and I could hardly understand anything. This explains a lot
I had to read Beowulf” at university. It’s wild! Just as you’re saying! Barely recognizable as English many times. I believe there is one of two existing original copies of Beowulf in the British Museum. Given the age of this story it was incredible to see it. 🇺🇸
That’s cause Beowulf is pure Old English, before the Norman Conquest and the ensuing Frenchization of English. I.e. the diff is not due to an evolutionary process but due to a revolutionary, violent linguistic change. Middle English is much closer to modern
I'd love to hear a skit enacting this. Or an example dialogue like your 5 minute speech in classical latin.
This scenario reminds me of a French film from 1993 called The Visitors. A medieval knight and his servant are transported to modern France. They are described as speaking a mixture of Latin and medieval French.
I don't think the /k/ would drop from kitchen. The initial cluster in knight was probably a substantial factor in that change.
A better consonant combination that would change would be "str" like in 'strong' and 'straight'
@@stalfithrildi5366 It would probably change to "srong" and "srait". I've heard drunk people pronounce it that way because for some reason, they couldn't pronounce the "t" sound, so it's possible that "lazy talkers" would eventually drop the hard sound.
Yep, I am a big fun of this comedy film💯👍
Knight in Medieval English sounds like German "Knecht". So I would understand an English guy from the Middle Ages in this case.
Only that modern German "Knecht" means "farm hand" and not "knight". So you think you would've understood him when you actually didn't.
@@unvergebeneidWas ich verstanden habe oder nicht, das überlasse doch bitte mir 😉
@@Santeria78 second account?
@@unvergebeneid Jup, sorry!
One of your most interesting videos! I daresay the evolution of English is one of my favorite topics. For all watching, I recommend going to A.Z. Foreman's channel for not only excellent recitations in Medieval and Early Modern English, but in other languages as well. He is an excellent linguist with an ear for phonological accuracy and historical phonetics at that.
Thanks for the recommendation!
I would like to see a longer video on the Great Vowel Shift. I only know a little about it.
simon roper did a video on it. it's pretty thorough, if you like his style. his videos are often slide-heavy
I really like your content. I also appreciate the balanced and reasonable approach you bring to the topics you cover.
Absolutely brilliant, Raff - fascinating stuff. I just can't help but imagine that if someone from Chaucer's time did appear in a pub in 2023, there'd be a lot of hilarity as they tried to make sense of a guy's dialect that probably sounds like he came from somewhere in the deepest darkest west Midlands or Norfolk!!
Yes definitely would like a deep dive video on the vowel shifts. Thanks for this one :)
Would love to see a video comparison of ecclesiastical Latin and classical Latin, throwing in the Italian as well.
Just a small addendum: The word "knecht" is still a Dutch/Flemish word meaning servant.
Man, it's already changing. People have pointed out that some vowels are changing ("caught" and "cot"), and there's terms like "LOL" being verbally spoken rather than just written that remind me of the evolution of "Okay." I'm not especially old, but once some linguistics have pointed out how language is changing, I can't unsee it.
I'd love to see a video on a hypothetical evolution of English
when ever I think about this stuff my mind always goes to the way "Alright" seems to becoming shortened to "Ight" or "Hello" to "E'oh".
Great video. It was fascinating how German medieval English sounded. I'm definitely using that as a discriptor.
Interesting concept, and nice video. I would be curious to see the same principal with others languages.
That part of a medieval knight being sent into the present, and his reaction of the language change(and possibly other things as well), reminds me of the French comedy movie, "Les visiteurs"(1993), starring Jean Reno and Christian Clavier, where a medieval Knight is sent by mistake into the early 90's. Fun movie, I recommend it, and who knows, maybe it could inspire you to make video on it.
Anyway, thank you this video, and also for your others videos on your different channels. Have a good day, and bless you. And the same to those who take the time to read this.
This video is the PERFECT reference and exactly what I needed! I'm writing something where a Middle English speaker needs to learn Modern English, and the intricacies you described in this video covered EXACTLY what I needed to know! Thanks so much for making this video!
I would LOVE to read whatever you're writing.
I remember I read some medieval Portuguese "trovadores" in literature classes and it was pretty alien to me, especially when I think about how would be the pronunciation.
As a fan of studying languages, especially English. I thank you for this video. I'm still upset about The Great Vowel Shift. A perfectly fine English became vulgar, but today's Modern English can be just as beautiful, if one takes the time to pronounce it and use it correctly.
Amazing video! Frankly an ingenious idea to do this comparison (idk if you came up w it yourself, to me you did either way) would love to see more videos using this analogy
Thanks and yes it was my idea :)
Metatron, I would love to see you do a video on how Ecclesiastical Latin sounded to an Old Latin speaker, and may I make a suggestion? I think it would be better and more enjoyable and get more views if you co-produced the vid with Luke from Polymathy, here on TH-cam. Thanks! 😊😊😊
Definitely interested in the Latin to Italian concept
Someone from the medieval period would think we are speaking a totally different language. I imagine they would react to hearing it in a similar way to how a modern person reacts to hearing middle period or old English. In both cases you have to be told that it's English. It's the same degree of difference.
They are two different languages after all
Middle English and Old English are very different. An educated modern English speaker can read middle English to a considerable extent, but will understand little of Old English.
No they are stages of the same language@@emilstorgaard9642
Yes I would love more videos on this topic, the Latin one would be cool! And some lessons on Old English would be awesome. I took one course on it at University, and it was really interesting. Unfortunately, I did not have a lot of time to dedicate to that class and didn't really get to learn much so it would be great to delve into it some more!
8:04 - that is literally how some Australian and South African accents say it!
(I'm British, love accents..)
a couple of your other "future" pronunciations sounded a bit Birmingham or Liverpool (those accents are pretty radical when strong!)
The most curious thing is that the words spelling didn't change along with the pronunciation and this makes things even more tricky for people that want to learn English (especially us Italians that tend to read the words as we write them :D)
I like to describe written Modern English as just written Middle English and that actually written Modern English doesn't actually exist. The closest we have to written Modern English honestly might genuinely be _internet slang._
Of course learning English is hard, because you're basically learning two separate languages; one for writing and one for speaking.
@@angeldude101 if they actually decided to conform the spelling with the pronunciation a lot of people would be very confused for a while 😂
Please: A similar video for both Latin AND Greek, si tempus spatiumque conceditur (if time and space allow/yield).
Huh... very interesting. I was reading some letters written in English from the 16th century and what I found very interesting was that I could tell just by looking at the spelling how they would pronounce words and why they would have sounded like drunk Scottish-French pirates. Spelling wasn't standardized. In the same letter the word "cousin" was spelling "cowsigne" and "cosyn". It also was closer to French, you could tell in words like "ambition", which would have sounded less like "ambee-shn" and more like "ambee-see-ohn", which would give it a more French sounding ending.
Great video! But my quibble (that would be an interesting word to see how it evolves!) with the k sound for "cat" and "connect" is that this causes the evolved word to start with a vowel sound, while "knight" (as well as "knife," and others) still begin with a consonant sound following the drop of the k. Given modern English's aversion to combining two consonant sounds, I think the connect example works for the ct at the end, but not for the initial k sound in the "conn" portion. What do you think?
Thats really interesting! Knight pronounced like "Knicht" sounds like German "Knecht" which means servant :) I love languages.
Great video, I would love a full in depth video on the great vowel shift. I often hear linguists talk about it, but it seems to be mentioned in passing more so for many edutainment channels.
I admit, not all of the videos from this channel draw me, but this one was an instant click.
I think it would be much weirder if the French didn't have conquered England and didn't had added French words to English. It would be totally different language.
It could be hard because English used to have cases. My language, Portuguese, doesn't have cases.
I anticipate future English to be as drastically different from modern English, as old English was from middle English. No cap.
😂
This makes me think of the word been. Here in the southern US we pronounce it as bin but in Canada they pronounce it like bean. Due to it’s spelling, ee, the Canadian model seems more accurate to me & I would like to see it evolves as such.
Pen (what you write with) in English is pin in New Zealand. A pin (that you fix fabric with) in English is a pun/pen in New Zealand
I think that /i/ and /ɪ/ are actually equivalent in this context and both are valid pronunciations, with some accents maybe favoring one over the other.
I'm fairly certain that I hear and maybe even use both on a regular basis depending on context and how much emphasis is put on the word.
Where are you from originally, Metatron ?
You are certainly a master of your trade
Fascinating topic indeed, I too always wondered such things.
If you feel like having a challenge, please try to compare how the Hungarian language changed. There were quite a few changes in the past 500 years - many of which were a result of a country-wide effort to modernise and standardise the language.
So interesting that english used to be more like some of our languages in europe where you mostly say it as you write it. Fascinating how it evolves over time especially the big move of many people to america, and seeing the cultural shifts as well.
This is fascinating and you’ve explained it so well!
Love you using the example of "knight" as in Dutch we have the word "knecht" still in use (so the middle pronunciation of your example). It refers to either a young boy or someone who is an aid to someone else (so the old meaning of knight)
Same in Germany, Knecht means „Servant“, we also have words like „Edelknecht“ which means Noble servant or „Kriegsknecht“ meaning War Servant.
@@Philipp.of.Swabia cool, we don't have those others as far as I'm aware. But I don't think they are used often anymore? "Knecht" is still used a lot in certain dialects around here, both meanings.
@@wolfcryerke no, they are only used in a „Medieval“ context. Knecht is still used, in several forms, now at days mostly as an insult though. We like to say „Du Knecht“ to men/Boys if they act like absolute Muppets.
But the word itself in a normal use is quite an old one and not that often used in a serious context.
@@Philipp.of.Swabia Knight is a relatively 'new' english word. In old English they used the word 'ridere' or 'rider' which is more or less the same as the Dutch word 'ridder' and the German word 'ritter'.
@@lauradekeyzer1945 I think that one might come from the Scandinavians though, as in Sweden they say Riddare and in Norway and Denmark Ridder, very similar to Swabian German too though, where the German word of Ritter is pronounced (and if written as pronounced) „Ridder“ as well.
enjoyed this video, as someone with a H dropping accent i heard Hats and Dogs.
i know that this probably wasnt your intention but you are talking about the evolution of language GVS in particular as if it has a clear goal to reach the final prestigious finish when its more like sound changes happen and some sounds change more easily into one other particular sounds.
iv spoke about GVS in the same way but as a northerner its annoying being thought of a some half evolved scot who is in turn speaking an ancient dialect. Everyone's English is similarly evolved
Pronunciation shifts have been significant since the middle ages, especially in vowels which would make understanding tricky though not impossible with some effort especially as we are used to vowel sound variations in different accents. I suspect it would be a lot easier for us to understand them than the other way around, initially
The Word “knight”, Expressed in the medieval form of pronouncation, sounds exactly like the danish Word “knægt”. It is interesting, because the english Langage to great lenghts derives from danish. And the word “knight” translates directly to the word “knægt”. Thank you for the video.
It would be really cool to hear your analysis of modern and some older form of Japanese.
I think even comparing the differences between now and pre meiji era Japanese could be interesting.
I was watching another video from you when you were talking in ancient Roman all the way. I think that was an amazing way of representing this old language. A question came to my mind though. Can you resurrect the many accents of ancient Rome on the marginal areas where the different ethnic groups used to live together with the Romans at various times? I'm a Hungarian. My first thought was how Attila the Hun, who was raised by the Romans spoke their language, but I know the language of the Huns is something still to be discovered, but do we know about the other accents of Roman language? The Greeks, the Celts or the Goths, perhaps the Slavs when they spoke Latin their way. How it compares to the Latin of Julius Caesar, or Nero? How Spartacus may sounded like. Maybe it is something impossible to ask for, but It would be very interesting to know.
A super interesting take on this topic that I haven't seen before! What I take from it is that me and the knight would roughly be able to understand each other but would think that the way each other is speaking is all messed up and would probably laugh at the way each other is pronouncing things(hopefully this knight has a sense of humor).
This reminds me of a scene in the movie "Snatch". Roughly paraphrased:
"Is this your dag?"
"What?"
"That dag! Is it yours?"
"Oh, that dog you mean... "
"Yes, that dag! Dont you speak English? "
😂
Could you make a video comparing the pitch accents of different languages, for example Swedish, japanese, and turkish? Also maybe contrasting them with true tonal languages like thai or mandarin.
Fantastic!!!!! David and his son Ben Crystal introduced me to how Shakespeare would have sounded. This was mod. English ... but the difference between OP and RP was amazing for me to hear!!!! How you resurrect these old pronunciations is magical to me (also I grew up in Boston: You can't pahk ya cah in Hahvad yahd ... the guahd won't let ya in without a parkin pass so pahk in the squaha, put some quatahs in the metah and come up to my apahament. (Another interesting note, I'm dyslexic so I will see words as I hear them!!! Wensday, Febuary, Lincon, etc. -- once I know how they are spelled, I see them as they really are spelled.)
I'm all for comparison videos. I don't care which language, I just find the concept fascinating.
For me, being dutch, is the old pronunciation of knight far more understandable. It is quiet similar to the dutch word : knecht (servant). We pronounce the 'k' and the 'n' seperately, than the 'e' (like the 'e' in Meg) , the 'ch' like the gh in knight medieval pronunciation and the 't' remained the same. To make a long story short... our pronunciation is the same as medieval english except the 'i' is an 'e' .
By the way, knight in dutch is ridder. Strange word? No way. Ridder = rider, someone who rides a horse...
Greetings from Holland.
We also have both in Danish, "Ridder" and "Knægt".
@@ole7146 yepp, there are many words in scandinavian languages who are simular to dutch words. Especially written.
@@niekgrandiek4584 Yes, that's true many basic words are quite similar, "Kom hier/
Kom her", "Mijn huis/Mit hus", "Een bruine koe/En brun ko"etc.
I'm from east Jutland and I've actually mistaken spoken Dutch for Danish a couple of times abroad on holidays until I realize it's not. You know, if you've heard an "alien" language for several days and suddenly you hear a language similar to your own.
It's very interesting to read old songs and poems, and see how a lot of them no longer work with a modern pronunciation of their respective languages. Forms of writing that rely on rhyme and rhythm tend to be both the first victims of changing standards, but also the best means of reverse-engineering how people in the past used to speak.
Hmm... But I wonder how language will continue to evolve now that we have ubiquitous technology that allows us to preserve not just writing, but also sound. Will this change how pronunciation changes? Will it slow down or completely derail the process? Any time-travellers in chat, please let me know, I'm really curious.
Knekt in Swedish is a very old word for soldier. It is still in the dictionary, but very rarely used - unless you speak of olden days. The word was in fairly common use up until the early to mid 1700s, where knekt had, practically, been replaced by the word "soldat", which is what we still use in modern Swedish to refer to a soldier.
It would be great to do same video but for Ancient Greek and modern Greek 😊
Would love to see (or rather hear) that for Classical Latin versus Ecclesiastical Latin or Romance languages.
My first video from this channel. It did not disappoint! Intriguing topic, Compellingly presented. Looking forward to checking out your other vids. 😊
If you want an idea of how drastically English might change in pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary, listen to someone speaking Jamaican Patois. I'm not saying standard English will be like Jamaican Patois in 500 or 1,000 years, I'm saying that Jamaican Patois gives us a hint about how different English will be as it evolves in ways we can't predict now.
Great work Metatron! I love all that I have learned from you. Keep up the great work!😊
Literally just watched a video by Simon Roper who said the word 'nightingale' as it was pronounced at specific points between about 1200 and the present. By about 1750, it was recognisable - before then, if you didn't know the context of a sentence, most people wouldn't understand it.
Fascinating. I love your video. I want time travel so bad. I would give anything to go back in time and see the world from back then. I’m obsessed with history.
Brilliant. I knew about the GVS but I couldn't imagine how you would simulate it in reverse from this hypothetical medieval person.
5:23 knight(knet) sounds like I’m just saying קנה
קנה סוכר
Thats why Dutch speakers have less problems understanding old english than the english do.
It does give me some more insight in the etymology of 'knight'. Akin to dutch word 'knecht' ("hired hand", "helper")
I’d love a deep dive into this topic. Thanks.
Keen for the GVS and the experiential video. And for Latin too. Just make videos, basically 🙂
What I'd love most (from this video anyway) is to hear your rendition of what medieval English would have sounded like - as an example short paragraph.
Oh, please do. Make that video. I struggle with some students who are Spanish natives, and they try to pronounce certain words in English. I understand how difficult it can be to change the pronunciation of a letter from Spanish to English, especially given some vowel combination can be really tricky. And it's sometimes troubling to explain that. Thank you for this video!!
This was very informative. I've wondered how difficult it would be to somehow be too communicate with English speakers of a few centuries or more ago. Getting there would be the hard part.
But I have a thought regarding the future, tho someone might have already suggested this idea already. You mentioned that pronunciation would change in the future in ways that we could only predict, as it has in the past. But there's one MAJOR difference between the past & present vs the present & future, and it is this - movies and recordings. The future English speakers will be influenced by the many recordings that we will pass on to them, something that just didn't exist before the modern age. And while of course there will be new pronunciations and expressions in the future, I still would think that because of recordings, movies, songs, especially the major movies, the top songs, that will continue to be familiar to most people, to a larger extent there would have to be a greater retention of current pronunciation that past generations had no way of passing on to us. I'd bet that if there had been movies or recordings made hundreds of years ago then Shakespeare's plays would retain that ancient way of saying things.
Great vid. I'd love to see a comparison between modern Spanish and medieval Spanish.
What a great mini lecture! Thank you. And I really appreciate comprehensive description below.
Would you consider doing a video about an American accent? Is it similar to anything in an old English? Our is it something completely new? Where did it come from?
Hi Metatron, lovely video! I believe we *need* the GVS video, as well as the Latin ones. A thought... maybe combine the two: start with how does it feel, then go into the mechanics. Finally, could you explore the transition from Old English to Middle English? I read a story once where a Celtic person who knows Old English travels forward in time and get annoyed that she has to learn English twice!
Wow, this is a great video. Thank you so much for your detailed explanations. Languages and the evolution of languages is a fascinating subject.
I loved this video. It's so interesting to consider how much language has and will change. I really enjoyed hearing actual examples in succession to best hear the difference. I would love if in future, similar videos, the words could be phonetically or otherwise displayed on the screen for a visual processing component to the information!
Excellent video concept! You should really develop it, not only with some generalities about the shifts in pronounciation, and some example words, but with some classical text read in both the old fashion and the future fashion. That would be astoundingly untertaining and bewildering.
For me, as a German teacher of English... very interesting! Thank you! You have the gift of being able to explain things really understandably! Excellent Job! Thank you from Dresden, Germany
Twenty years ago I worked in Trinidad in the West Indies and initially had a hard time with their English. A phrase like "I want to swim" would be in Trini, "I feel to bade". "Bade" being how 'bathe' is pronounced. Or, "Is your dog tied up?" would be "De dog tie?". And the preface of 'is it' as in "Is it here?" is gone. Now it's just "It here?". The loss of the final 'd' to signify an action in the past is common. Even prestigious businesses will have a sign on the door on Sunday saying 'Close'. "Just now" means "Not now" and there's a lot of other singular expressions, but the linguistic evolution in process is fun to observe. Also the amount of 'over-correction' that Trinis fall into, when trying not to use Trini pronunciation. I remember a government minister telling me he and his wife loved 'thigh' food. Not 'Thai', but 'thigh'.
Love that you are so knowledgeable! Yes please, anything on comparisons, developments and change . Never really understood the GVS. I love knowing how languages work. I am fluent in English and some grasp of French and German and wish I know Italian and Latin.
Bru just casually invented future english in ten minutes
This video is awesome!!! Never knew those changes details, really impressive!!
Yes, please make the comparison between classical Latin and modern version. That would be great
I'm still reclaiming my native language Cymraeg and find it interesting that in our alphabet ,which is easiest learned once one understands the phonetic sound of all the letters ,that our i and u both have the 'ee' sound. Also interesting that like England where northern peoples speak of Brass for money in the Gogledd we have Press but in De Cymru / South Wales it is Arian / silver.
I have been interested in the English vowel shift after watching Simon Ropers excellent videos. I like to see as many viewpoints as I can.
Up to the early 1900s many peoples on the English side of the border were bilingual and carried over the gendering of nouns we use when speaking English/Saesnaeg. Presumably we borrowed words from our Viking visitors , though not so many from the Norman invaders as they being elite did not mix much. We don't have distinctions between meats and the animals they come from that English absorbed from the French. Many of the Welsh words donated to the planet are confused with Latin as our ancestral languages branched from the same line of Indo European .Many English like to claim the Latin origin rather than accept that they absorbed many local words when they occupied part of Britain as we are one of their remaining colonies and now seen as a playground for their leisure full of handy mountains and cleaner beaches
Those things you said at the end are all great ideas and you should definitely do them if you haven't already (I know I am a couple months late).
I think the existence of sound and video recordings will slow down or even prevent the changes predicted in this video.
I heard the surname Knyvett came about from Norman French speakers who had trouble with pronunciation of the "c/k" sound the Ænglisc word for knight had in the 2nd (or 3rd)syllable.
Thanks for the video.
I've experienced some of that with extreme southern accents. I grew up in eastern Tennessee in the USA, but my parents pushed me very hard to have no accent. As a result, I sometimes noticed big differences between the way I said things and the way people around me said things.
In 0:57 you've shown the photo of the stronghold in Kamieniec Podolski, which is medieval indeed, but is located faaar away from England :D
Paired consonants often turn into single consonants (as how often is pronounced "offen") but the K on its own has a history of turning into a new consonant rather than disappearing entirely -- that's the basis of the centum/satem split in Indo-European languages, and one of the hallmarks of the Germanic consonant shift (K -> kh -> h... centum / hundred ), or the k --> ch --> sh consonant shift in French with the middle stage preserved in the French loan words that entered medieval english like "chapel" and "chief."
I think a deep dive into Chinook Jargon would be pretty cool!
Not a lot of people have ever heard of the skookum wawa!
Yes to all of your suggestions for future videos!
@2:50, knecht is still used in dutch language,meaning servant. Fascinating!