A commentor has just pointed out - my little speculative segment should be set in 2124, not 3024! I'm sure things will have progressed far further in 1000 years' time.
When I saw the date I was immediately expecting some sort of trans-galactic-machine-assisted language. Ha ha, I bought the hype to quickly. I wouldn't mind hearing your attempt at cyborg.
I just realized that this is a good way for English speakers to experience a dialect continuum, except instead of a continuum in the spatial dimensions, it's in the time dimension.
@@TreinbouwerThe US has lost a lot of dialect variation. You probably woulld have to really concentrate be able to understand my great grandmother, but kids growing up in the Southern US now only have a slight accent.
I've been following this channel long enough to remember when Simon referred to his pronunciation, linguistics, and dialect work as a "hobby", rather than a life pursuit. I'm glad to hear that it has developed into at least a formulating hint of a future successful career!
Same here! I haven't watched this channel in a few years, and am so pleased to see that Simon is still at it and has made a career from this. His dedication is a joy to see.
The Middle English phonology book I referenced at the end has a few good notes on spelling developments and how they gradually seep over from French! It is fun how it seems to evolve as its own system only loosely connected to the phonology.
I personally would have spelt it *heofenan* or *heouenæn* and I'd pronounce it [ˈhœvənɐn] - much like someone from Winchester or Worcester would have around 1124. I simply adore the West Saxon dialect, be it Early, Late, or post-Conquest.
It may be that changes over time are fairly linear but there is a kind of "logarithmic effect" in listening to them - as the accent moves further away from 2024 even small differences seem greater because the sounds get less easy to recognise. You're going from "Yes, I can _just_ understand that" to "No, didn't get that at all".
@@TonyWhitley There's a much simpler explanation, which is the "frenchification" of English that occurred after the Norman conquest. That's the real reason why Chaucer is recognisably English but Beowulf just isn't -- spoken or written, doesn't even matter.
This is mind blowing! I hear my native Irish accent (specifically how us Irish pronounce the English language in certain dialects) in c. 1400-1500 and then a quasi American intonation thereafter, it’s all connected!
In case anyone wondered here's that part of the Lord's Prayer in the current German version: Vater unser im Himmel geheiligt werde dein Name. Dein Reich komme. Dein Wille geschehe, wie im Himmel, so auf Erden. Older German versions read the first Line as "Vater unser, der du bist im Himmel..."
simon, i’ve been saying this to myself for like the past two years, but i’m finally going to comment it now. you’ve been VERY NOTICEABLY improving with your content each time i’ve watched a new video you’ve come out with. the audio quality is better, so are the slides, the “pronunciation segments???” i don’t know what to call it, but i’m sure you know what i’m talking about. your content just keeps getting and better. it’s like opium! you’re literally my favorite youtuber.
As a German native, it is interesting to me that the 12th century word order is "fader ure" as this is preserved in the German version to this day. In fact the lord's prayer is just called "Vater unser", despite this having been ungrammatical in regular speech for quite a while.
This was pretty normal in vocative use in Old English. When you were talking to someone, the possessive pronoun would often follow. I wonder if that was the same for Old High German. Would German now require the pronoun before, or would you replace it with a preposition, like other situations where the genitive case used to be used more?
1424 sounded a bit East Indies. That was fascinating. I’m a Catholic and found it surprisingly moving to hear the sound of the prayer through the ages. Especially the Irish (to my ears) sound, hearing the movement and connections I presume between the Celts and Anglo Saxons ( no idea if this is correct, but it’s a sense of the long connections between us inhabitants of the British Isles. What a treasure to have come across out of the blue. Thank you!
I really appreciate these videos because you don't need to be a linguist or phonetician to understand them, so I'm able to share them with performers who may or may not have a language or history background. Thank you so much for your work.
I looked up the film he worked on. He wasn't kidding when he said he worked with high-profile actors! Incredible! I'm so glad you have had this opportunity, Mr. Roper! You've more than earned it! I still want to see a film about the Hundred Years' War in the same English and French spoken at the time, especially the Battle of Agincourt. Maybe a TV show or mini series would be better.
I remember well when I was in kindergarten 70 years ago, my teacher, Mrs. Richards, brought in an old recording of someone reading the Canterbury Tales in Middle English. I was so astonished that I eventually majored in English in college where I took 7 credit hours in Chaucer learning the language, nearly all of which I have now forgotten. Thanks very much for this video. It brings back some interesting memories.
Another wonderful video - absolutely fascinating. I'm very happy to hear your talents have been recognised by the film industry, and heartening to hear that historical authenticity is taken seriously - good luck with this, and your coaching projects, Simon.
Thanks Simon for sharing your knowledge/passion with all of us in TH-cam land. I think that your particular branch of archaeology is sadly under rated, so I'm so very glad to hear of your success. I hear you mentioned and recommended on several other YT channels. Happy Yuletide.
I've watched your videos for some time now and come away paying much more attention to the sound of words when people speak. I wish I'd taken more linguistics classes.
Holy hell you weren't kidding about the celebrities you got to work with being major. Congrats man! I will make sure to watch that film via some non-swashbuckling method.
1624 sounded like the older people (born around 1900) I heard growing up in my corner of Somerset. The rest of the locals were more 1724 though lacking some regionalism.
Fascinating! I once went to an event with David Crystal and he did a similar thing, but using a poem. I love hearing anglo-saxon and middle English; I tried to learn a bit...so I take my hat off to you!!
It's my Christmas! Another video from Simon! And text that I even know! How neat is that! What great gifts! (Simon's gift of his interest and knowledge in language through the ages and his gift of the video for us!) And I'm so thrilled that he has got some exciting coaching work! Work that will have a lasting cultural impact! All the best to you Simon, Rob in Switzerland
Thank you for this lovely Christmas surprise. I have been following your channel for a long time and I am always fascinated by your posts. I find it particularly interesting that Middle English and Middle High German apparently sounded similar in pronunciation. Frohe Weihnachten from Germany❣️⭐️💫🎄
Great work, thank you, Simon! One of my favourite books of all time is W.B.Lockwood's "Languages of the British Isles, past and present" (André Deutsch 1975). Highly recommended. Lockwood, as you probably know, also very sensibly used The Lord's Prayer as the thorough-going example text; as it exists, and is uniquely easy to find, in writings over the past 2000 years.
Very interesting and it does make you think about how our language and accents formed. I was lucky enough to have heard Neville Coghill talk about just such language developments at Oxford in the mid 1970s and heard him read Piers Ploughman.
I think 'th-fronting' usually only describes the change of interdentals to labiodentals. Most of the speakers I know with this change retain [ð] word-initially, but front it to [v] in other positions. There is a separate sound change where [ð] becomes [d], but in the southeast I think it's more limited in what dialects and sociolects it affects.
I notice that the 2024 version replaces the th sounds by f's and v's. At first I thought this was a bit extreme for southeastern English outside the London area, but on second thoughts I realize that this change is becoming pretty common. There are even a number of educated TH-cam presenters who replace their dentals by labials. I spose vhis will become vhe norm.
Not just London nowadays. Most of England working classes have th-fronting. Especially amongst the 'yuff'. It's very common in my native Manchester. I would say it took hold here in about the 80s/90s when I was a teenager.
From the 1524, onwards, it sounded like normal English to me. Prior to that, I needed to listen a little while longer. Lovely video, this! Cool serger, too. Thanks!!
As an American English speaker, the 1424 pronunciation sounded like a jump. The introduction of retroflex(?) rhotic consonants brought the sound much closer to my own. (That, and the disappearance of inflectional endings.) Anything you can elucidate about the timing of the rhotic changes? I'm also curious why the change isn't universal. Was the change initially just before another consonant? Thanks for the wonderful video and merry Christmas!
I wasn’t one of the people requesting this but this was actually incredibly interesting to hear. A really different way to experience linguistic history. 😊
I actually thought you were Irish from the 1500s until you hit the 1900s lol. I never knew the English sounded how the Irish now sound, or that the modern English accent with such soft Rs was such a recent change.
your work really interests me. I'm essentially monolingual, but living in Sweden and being exposed to Danish and Norwegian was fascinating. I do engage with language, but for me listening to Norwegian, Danish and then Swedish, was like turning the dial on an old radiogram. Swedish was super clear. It's all to do where one is in time and place.. Thankyou
Very interesting. I’ve always had an interest in accents and how people speak. I studied speech and drama for several years while I was school student, and - I suppose - I gained my ‘modern RP’ way of speaking as a result of that. I’m currently trying to learn Welsh: my tutor has mentioned that most Welsh letters retain one way of pronunciation: not as in English. Welsh also has mutations, where words change depending on where they are in a word group (so the Welsh for Wales can be spelt ’Cymru’ or ‘Gymru’, for example) - the beginning of the word alters.
I wonder why the change from rice to something approximating kingdom so early on. Danish still has the word rig and German Reich. Although in Danish 'kong' means 'king'
The 1424 one sounds like many modern Northerners, particularly “thi will be dun” - very Yorkshire. it’s fascinating how early you can actually understand it, although i dare say it’s easier when you know what it’s supposed to be 😊
I'm curious about the word "hallowed." Between 1424 and 1524 the "ed" on the end gets shortened from 3 syllables to 2. That makes sense. But what I want to understand is why when I was learning the Lord's Prayer in a Lutheran church in central Ohio in the 1980s it was pronounced with 3 syllables. It seems that the archaism that I experienced might have been an intentional attempt to make things sound formal by using the older form, rather than a legitimate artifact. I guess wonky things happen when immigrants from Germany and Scandinavia learn English in America but try to keep the gravitas of their original traditions.
Was it maybe that 3 syllables fitted the almost-metrical-poetry of the translation? The song version uses 3 syllables. Or for emphasis? Like in Taggart: "There's been a mur-der." (With the e sounded much more clearly than usual).
I had another thought about what might be happening with the hallowed. I don’t know what if any experience Simon has of the liturgical use of the Lord’s Prayer. I also confess ignorance of how hallowed is pronounced in the Church of England tradition. What if the three syllable pronunciation has been maintained in the liturgy, but otherwise the word hallowed has indeed changed to two syllables.
This is such an interesting video. Thankyou Simon. On the weakening of final vowels in Old English, it might be something we still do now in some cases e.g. the way we pronounce "Cheltenham", whereas US English will put just as much stress on the "ham" as it does on the "Chelt" and "en".
Yeah, I might say I am stopping by the "libe" or the "library" but I am not sure I am ready for "libry" in my (U.S.) English. But I say orange as "ornj" and garage as "grah-dj" so I may be on the monosyllabic end of things. I do say "prolly" and "probly" as informal alternatives to "probably," but they coexist instead of replacing the three syllables with strong-light-moderate stresses.
I've never said prolly out loud! But certainly used it online in the early 'oughts. I am amused by the rendering of library as lye-berry in some US accents. I'm British and it sounds funny to me.
@@Amtcboy French was derived mostly from Latin, as it is a romance language. Latin is related to germanic languages as they are both in the indo-european family, but it is much less so than english which is a full germanic langauge (though with a lot of latin/french vocabulary)
Hiya Simon, love all your hard work, been with you a long time, Lancashire born and bred, if you ever need a local accent get in touch. Happy new year to you, Andrew.
As I mentioned in a note in the video, the future-projection was totally speculative and in no way a scientific prediction, and is very likely to be wrong - I just included it for fun. I basically took the most advanced form of a currently-occurring shift in southeastern English vowel qualities, and pushed it a little bit further than it's currently gone.
@@simonroper9218Thank you, Simon. I must have missed that. You mention at 5:04 that English phoneticians have been describing this own speech since at least the sixteenth century. I wonder if any of them also made accent projections and how accurate those proved to be. I’m sure you’re sick of receiving video recommendations, but I feel an in-depth video exploring the many possible paths the English language could take within the next few centuries would be extremely popular and worthwhile. And then also performing an extended reading in that which you deem most likely. Just an idea.
My home county of Lancashire is still rhotic for the most part. It is quite striking now that I am living there again after 40 years away. Do you know why this should be when most most of the rest of northern England is non-rhotic? Thanks.
I actually lived in Preston for a bit and heard a few rhotic accents around - I'm not sure why it's held strong in that area! On the occasions I do hear rhoticity in other parts of the north, it's usually with something like an alveolar tap rather than the approximant that I think is used in Lancashire, so it sounds even more unique combined with the more widespread northern dialect features.
It’s very difficult to answer why a particular feature or characteristic is being retained, while it’s easier to speculate on why things change along with other accents. Conservatism in accent can be a regional thing where close knit communities retain speech patterns. It can also be retain in traditional professions, such as craft and farming especially among men, where there is an in-group prestige to the traditional way of speaking. Just a few ideas….
@@simonroper9218 I know you studied at UCLAN. My family all come from Bolton, whereas I grew up on the Fylde coast. The difference in rhoticity is really noticeable between the two accents. You were in the middle between the two.
Oh wow! That quickly became comprehensible! Tho, I was primed for it. Maybe if I wasn't expecting what to hear. 🤔 Linguistics is one of my favorite topics! 🧡
A commentor has just pointed out - my little speculative segment should be set in 2124, not 3024! I'm sure things will have progressed far further in 1000 years' time.
Ha ha, let's not count our chickens...! :D
When I saw the date I was immediately expecting some sort of trans-galactic-machine-assisted language. Ha ha, I bought the hype to quickly. I wouldn't mind hearing your attempt at cyborg.
Judging by the amount of incorrect-predictive-text malapropising I hear in TH-cam videos, by 3024 pronunciation will be the least of it!
Þ will endure in spaceship Texas, which will have by then seceded from Earth (Aff) and be halfway across the universe divide.
Justin B Rye's Futurese is a pretty cool projection of American English out to 3000ish.
I love how 1624 sounds like an embryonic American accent and then it begins to diverge at 1724.
on point
It’s funny, I noticed the same thing, but for me it sounds the most American in 1724
@@modalmixture Not surprising as there was still plenty of migration to the American colonies going on in the early 18th century
Yeah it's cool. Feel like the 1724 was the closest sounding to American English, but by the Victorian it definitely sounds 'English'.
1624 and 1724 were the accents I heard growing up in rural south west England. They're a bit behind the times around here. 😁
The switch from 1200s to 1500s is insane, and then it's recognisable.
I've noticed that lots of European languages go through a drastic change following the Black Death.
The main changes In the english language followed the most important times england got conquered
I just realized that this is a good way for English speakers to experience a dialect continuum, except instead of a continuum in the spatial dimensions, it's in the time dimension.
Or you drive through the UK and Ireland and take samples every once in a while...
(The US has little dialectal variation.)
@@TreinbouwerThe US has lost a lot of dialect variation. You probably woulld have to really concentrate be able to understand my great grandmother, but kids growing up in the Southern US now only have a slight accent.
I've been following this channel long enough to remember when Simon referred to his pronunciation, linguistics, and dialect work as a "hobby", rather than a life pursuit. I'm glad to hear that it has developed into at least a formulating hint of a future successful career!
I was also pleasantly surprised
Same here! I haven't watched this channel in a few years, and am so pleased to see that Simon is still at it and has made a career from this. His dedication is a joy to see.
I'm beyond thrilled for him. I used to mentally argue with him when he called himself an amateur.
Same! I’m strangely proud of him!
I know, right? It's great to watch him develop.
"Heuenen" is a vibe. I love not only hearing the differences in the speech, but also the spelling
The Middle English phonology book I referenced at the end has a few good notes on spelling developments and how they gradually seep over from French! It is fun how it seems to evolve as its own system only loosely connected to the phonology.
@@simonroper9218 you forgot to replace random words in the 3024 prayer with ‘vibe’, leaving us to guess wtf you were talking about 🤣
I personally would have spelt it *heofenan* or *heouenæn* and I'd pronounce it [ˈhœvənɐn] - much like someone from Winchester or Worcester would have around 1124.
I simply adore the West Saxon dialect, be it Early, Late, or post-Conquest.
nice
@@simonroper9218... + our Silent B from Flemish print-shop hirelings
as in DouBt
“i would probably have to ask for a fee” of course you would! using your expertise is something you should be paid for!
Sometimes people do things pro-bono or gratis for a variety of reason, which is why he didn't say 'of course' he would charge a fee.
I just realised my age: I saw 1924 and thought "thats our era". And then it went to 2024...
Amazing work, thank you.
It is interesting to think that multiple of these coexist at the same time, effecting each other and melting together
@@dougthedonkey1805 indeed.
It's crazy how much more similar 1424 English is to 2024 English than to 1124
The only logical assumption is that aliens came down and made us do it at phaser-point
It may be that changes over time are fairly linear but there is a kind of "logarithmic effect" in listening to them - as the accent moves further away from 2024 even small differences seem greater because the sounds get less easy to recognise. You're going from "Yes, I can _just_ understand that" to "No, didn't get that at all".
The vowel shift of the 15th century
@@TonyWhitley There's a much simpler explanation, which is the "frenchification" of English that occurred after the Norman conquest. That's the real reason why Chaucer is recognisably English but Beowulf just isn't -- spoken or written, doesn't even matter.
This is mind blowing! I hear my native Irish accent (specifically how us Irish pronounce the English language in certain dialects) in c. 1400-1500 and then a quasi American intonation thereafter, it’s all connected!
In case anyone wondered here's that part of the Lord's Prayer in the current German version:
Vater unser im Himmel
geheiligt werde dein Name.
Dein Reich komme.
Dein Wille geschehe,
wie im Himmel,
so auf Erden.
Older German versions read the first Line as "Vater unser, der du bist im Himmel..."
I learned it growing up as the Old way!
ISTR the Gothic version beginning with "Atta Unsa"
simon, i’ve been saying this to myself for like the past two years, but i’m finally going to comment it now. you’ve been VERY NOTICEABLY improving with your content each time i’ve watched a new video you’ve come out with. the audio quality is better, so are the slides, the “pronunciation segments???” i don’t know what to call it, but i’m sure you know what i’m talking about. your content just keeps getting and better. it’s like opium! you’re literally my favorite youtuber.
As a German native, it is interesting to me that the 12th century word order is "fader ure" as this is preserved in the German version to this day. In fact the lord's prayer is just called "Vater unser", despite this having been ungrammatical in regular speech for quite a while.
I learnt this from Rammstein... 😅
Why is it ungrammatical?
This was pretty normal in vocative use in Old English. When you were talking to someone, the possessive pronoun would often follow. I wonder if that was the same for Old High German.
Would German now require the pronoun before, or would you replace it with a preposition, like other situations where the genitive case used to be used more?
@@nicholassinnett2958 you literally just swap the word order. "Unser Vater" is how you would say "our father" in a religious or mundane context.
@@MeanBeanComedy I don't understand the question. Why is "father our is coming home late today" ungrammatical in English?
It may be partly because I’m already familiar with a lot of earlier Englishes, but I find it remarkable how early on it’s already understandable.
This is an amazing Christmas Gift! Hearing something that is so familiar helps me understand the language change so much more.
Yes, excellent choice of a culturally prevalent sample.
What a Christmas gift! Thanks Simon!
1424 sounded a bit East Indies. That was fascinating. I’m a Catholic and found it surprisingly moving to hear the sound of the prayer through the ages. Especially the Irish (to my ears) sound, hearing the movement and connections I presume between the Celts and Anglo Saxons ( no idea if this is correct, but it’s a sense of the long connections between us inhabitants of the British Isles. What a treasure to have come across out of the blue. Thank you!
All of these are well after the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, so whatever you’re hearing is something else. :)
@lady_sir_knight3713 thank you ,😄
Congrats on getting some film consulting work, Simon! Blessed holidays and have a great 2025!
Oh I didn't know the slient 'e' came at around 1400. Thanks for your video, congratulations on your new coaching role and happy Christmas, Simon.
There is evidence in Geoffrey Chaucer's works that you can omit an ‘e’ when the next word begins with a vowel, and the metre would be unaffected.
@Leofwine Thanks!
I really appreciate these videos because you don't need to be a linguist or phonetician to understand them, so I'm able to share them with performers who may or may not have a language or history background. Thank you so much for your work.
I looked up the film he worked on. He wasn't kidding when he said he worked with high-profile actors! Incredible! I'm so glad you have had this opportunity, Mr. Roper! You've more than earned it! I still want to see a film about the Hundred Years' War in the same English and French spoken at the time, especially the Battle of Agincourt. Maybe a TV show or mini series would be better.
What a beautiful Christmas gift for us! Hearing how this prayer would have sounded to my ancestors makes me tear up. Thank you and Merry Christmas!
Simon is so aggressively modest. 😅
I remember well when I was in kindergarten 70 years ago, my teacher, Mrs. Richards, brought in an old recording of someone reading the Canterbury Tales in Middle English. I was so astonished that I eventually majored in English in college where I took 7 credit hours in Chaucer learning the language, nearly all of which I have now forgotten. Thanks very much for this video. It brings back some interesting memories.
Another wonderful video - absolutely fascinating. I'm very happy to hear your talents have been recognised by the film industry, and heartening to hear that historical authenticity is taken seriously - good luck with this, and your coaching projects, Simon.
Thanks Simon for sharing your knowledge/passion with all of us in TH-cam land.
I think that your particular branch of archaeology is sadly under rated, so I'm so very glad to hear of your success.
I hear you mentioned and recommended on several other YT channels.
Happy Yuletide.
Fantastic work! Loving this as an archaeology major minoring in medieval studies :)
I’m happy you made it into the way of dialectic coaching for films - as a long time viewer I’m proud of you, man.
I've watched your videos for some time now and come away paying much more attention to the sound of words when people speak. I wish I'd taken more linguistics classes.
So excited for you and your dialect coaching work!
May I wish you Simon and your family a very Merry Christmas and peaceful season. Thanks for all your work.
All the best with coaching and projects!
Thank you, Simon, for revealing many secrets of the language throughout the year. I'm going to keep following you in the next year. Amen.
Congratulations on getting into language coaching!
This is fascinating stuff and I love it.
Thanks, Simon! Always interesting videos. Hope your side-gig pays off
Sacred things, done well. Words precious to my soul, and countless others. Thank ye. Praise Hiim.
Merry Xmas you magnificent lad
It's amazing how much bigger a difference there seems to be between Old English and Middle English than between Middle English and Modern English!
Brilliant. Thank u so much, Simon
This was a blast. Thank you.
That is really cool. It's nice to see your confidence in this subject increase. :)
Holy hell you weren't kidding about the celebrities you got to work with being major. Congrats man! I will make sure to watch that film via some non-swashbuckling method.
Lovely. One of the best channels on here.
Fascinating to hear the sounds change! Thanks
Magnificent as usual! Loved the future version.
Thanks for this Simon! Hope that you've had a lovely Christmas, and wishing you all the best for 2025.
1624 sounded like the older people (born around 1900) I heard growing up in my corner of Somerset. The rest of the locals were more 1724 though lacking some regionalism.
Oh so good. When you got to 2024 I was getting ready to move on, but then came the voice from the future. Really super.
Fascinating! I once went to an event with David Crystal and he did a similar thing, but using a poem. I love hearing anglo-saxon and middle English; I tried to learn a bit...so I take my hat off to you!!
It's my Christmas! Another video from Simon! And text that I even know! How neat is that! What great gifts! (Simon's gift of his interest and knowledge in language through the ages and his gift of the video for us!) And I'm so thrilled that he has got some exciting coaching work! Work that will have a lasting cultural impact!
All the best to you Simon, Rob in Switzerland
Thank you Rob, I hope you're having a good Christmas :)
Simon, your great ability to turn research into these watchable packets of knowledge, is with this video perfectly expressed. Merry Christmas
FASCINATING! Thank you so much for this. 🙂
Thank You very much for this new video ! 😊
Thanks Simon, I love to see the evolution of language! What a nice Christmas present. 😊
Ha! I have often thought I’d like you to contribute to the accuracy (“best guesses”) of film and tv. Glad you are.
Congratulations on your consulting gigs. Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.
Thank you for this lovely Christmas surprise. I have been following your channel for a long time and I am always fascinated by your posts. I find it particularly interesting that Middle English and Middle High German apparently sounded similar in pronunciation. Frohe Weihnachten from Germany❣️⭐️💫🎄
Absolutely amazing. I’m not a linguist but WOW. So cool and talented to reconstruct these.
Very glad you’re able to do this professionally
And another super video from Simon…. keep’em coming!
Thank you for this!
Thank you 🙂!
Great work, thank you, Simon!
One of my favourite books of all time is W.B.Lockwood's
"Languages of the British Isles, past and present" (André Deutsch 1975). Highly recommended.
Lockwood, as you probably know, also very sensibly used The Lord's Prayer as the thorough-going example text; as it exists, and is uniquely easy to find, in writings over the past 2000 years.
Wonderful
great video simon! my accent is most similar to your 1724 one, lol
Thank you for this. Merry Christmas.
Next time I plan a time traveling adventure I'll be sure to invite you along Simon.
Very interesting and it does make you think about how our language and accents formed. I was lucky enough to have heard Neville Coghill talk about just such language developments at Oxford in the mid 1970s and heard him read Piers Ploughman.
Simon's Time Machine.
2:30 th-fronting generally replaces the /ð/ phoneme with /d/ at the beginning of a word, so thy would be /dɑj/
I think 'th-fronting' usually only describes the change of interdentals to labiodentals. Most of the speakers I know with this change retain [ð] word-initially, but front it to [v] in other positions. There is a separate sound change where [ð] becomes [d], but in the southeast I think it's more limited in what dialects and sociolects it affects.
I notice that the 2024 version replaces the th sounds by f's and v's. At first I thought this was a bit extreme for southeastern English outside the London area, but on second thoughts I realize that this change is becoming pretty common. There are even a number of educated TH-cam presenters who replace their dentals by labials. I spose vhis will become vhe norm.
Not just London nowadays. Most of England working classes have th-fronting. Especially amongst the 'yuff'. It's very common in my native Manchester. I would say it took hold here in about the 80s/90s when I was a teenager.
Great! Thank you! Merry Christmas!
If it wasn't the old pronunciation of Earth as erðe i wouldn't have made the Albanian connection for Earth ðe. Merry Christmas! 🇦🇱🏴
From the 1524, onwards, it sounded like normal English to me. Prior to that, I needed to listen a little while longer. Lovely video, this! Cool serger, too. Thanks!!
As an American English speaker, the 1424 pronunciation sounded like a jump. The introduction of retroflex(?) rhotic consonants brought the sound much closer to my own. (That, and the disappearance of inflectional endings.) Anything you can elucidate about the timing of the rhotic changes? I'm also curious why the change isn't universal. Was the change initially just before another consonant? Thanks for the wonderful video and merry Christmas!
I wasn’t one of the people requesting this but this was actually incredibly interesting to hear. A really different way to experience linguistic history. 😊
Fabulous, Simon!
I actually thought you were Irish from the 1500s until you hit the 1900s lol. I never knew the English sounded how the Irish now sound, or that the modern English accent with such soft Rs was such a recent change.
I would be "up the creek without a paddle" before 1424. THANK YOU for posting this interesting video.
your work really interests me. I'm essentially monolingual, but living in Sweden and being exposed to Danish and Norwegian was fascinating. I do engage with language, but for me listening to Norwegian, Danish and then Swedish, was like turning the dial on an old radiogram. Swedish was super clear. It's all to do where one is in time and place.. Thankyou
You’re a talented fellow; cheers!
that 3024 extrapolation seems really conservative :D though I realize the Internet has changed the equation significantly
if brainrot has shown anything, is that the internet adds a lot of entropy to the equation haha
he meant 2124 :)
I have just found your channel. Absolutely fascinating! Congratulations on your coaching work--of course you should be paid for your expertise!
Brilliant, a great festive vid. Best wishes for your film and recording work in 2025; and beyond
Very interesting. I’ve always had an interest in accents and how people speak. I studied speech and drama for several years while I was school student, and - I suppose - I gained my ‘modern RP’ way of speaking as a result of that. I’m currently trying to learn Welsh: my tutor has mentioned that most Welsh letters retain one way of pronunciation: not as in English. Welsh also has mutations, where words change depending on where they are in a word group (so the Welsh for Wales can be spelt ’Cymru’ or ‘Gymru’, for example) - the beginning of the word alters.
Thank you. Do more. Please❤
This was pretty cool to listen too. Thank you.
1424 was were I was able to pick up on what was being said.
Delightful!
I wonder why the change from rice to something approximating kingdom so early on. Danish still has the word rig and German Reich. Although in Danish 'kong' means 'king'
The 1424 one sounds like many modern Northerners, particularly “thi will be dun” - very Yorkshire. it’s fascinating how early you can actually understand it, although i dare say it’s easier when you know what it’s supposed to be 😊
I'm curious about the word "hallowed." Between 1424 and 1524 the "ed" on the end gets shortened from 3 syllables to 2. That makes sense. But what I want to understand is why when I was learning the Lord's Prayer in a Lutheran church in central Ohio in the 1980s it was pronounced with 3 syllables. It seems that the archaism that I experienced might have been an intentional attempt to make things sound formal by using the older form, rather than a legitimate artifact. I guess wonky things happen when immigrants from Germany and Scandinavia learn English in America but try to keep the gravitas of their original traditions.
Was it maybe that 3 syllables fitted the almost-metrical-poetry of the translation? The song version uses 3 syllables. Or for emphasis? Like in Taggart: "There's been a mur-der." (With the e sounded much more clearly than usual).
I had another thought about what might be happening with the hallowed. I don’t know what if any experience Simon has of the liturgical use of the Lord’s Prayer. I also confess ignorance of how hallowed is pronounced in the Church of England tradition. What if the three syllable pronunciation has been maintained in the liturgy, but otherwise the word hallowed has indeed changed to two syllables.
This is such an interesting video. Thankyou Simon. On the weakening of final vowels in Old English, it might be something we still do now in some cases e.g. the way we pronounce "Cheltenham", whereas US English will put just as much stress on the "ham" as it does on the "Chelt" and "en".
It's definitely an ongoing pattern! I think words with three or more syllables are particularly sensitive to it (c.f. 'libry' for 'library')
Yeah, I might say I am stopping by the "libe" or the "library" but I am not sure I am ready for "libry" in my (U.S.) English. But I say orange as "ornj" and garage as "grah-dj" so I may be on the monosyllabic end of things. I do say "prolly" and "probly" as informal alternatives to "probably," but they coexist instead of replacing the three syllables with strong-light-moderate stresses.
I've never said prolly out loud! But certainly used it online in the early 'oughts. I am amused by the rendering of library as lye-berry in some US accents. I'm British and it sounds funny to me.
Happy Christmas and congratulations on your film coaching! Interesting as ever.
The earliest examples sounded much more germanic than the later examples. I've also noticed the vowel shift, especially about the 1500s.
Coz it was derived or developed from Germanic people, as was French and other 40 or so languages.
@@Amtcboy French was derived mostly from Latin, as it is a romance language. Latin is related to germanic languages as they are both in the indo-european family, but it is much less so than english which is a full germanic langauge (though with a lot of latin/french vocabulary)
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You’re absolutely right.
Hiya Simon, love all your hard work, been with you a long time, Lancashire born and bred, if you ever need a local accent get in touch.
Happy new year to you,
Andrew.
Very interesting! Also, great new haircut! Very handsome
Very good!
I would be grateful for an explanation as to how we can predict what speech will sound like in the future.
As I mentioned in a note in the video, the future-projection was totally speculative and in no way a scientific prediction, and is very likely to be wrong - I just included it for fun. I basically took the most advanced form of a currently-occurring shift in southeastern English vowel qualities, and pushed it a little bit further than it's currently gone.
@@simonroper9218Thank you, Simon. I must have missed that. You mention at 5:04 that English phoneticians have been describing this own speech since at least the sixteenth century. I wonder if any of them also made accent projections and how accurate those proved to be. I’m sure you’re sick of receiving video recommendations, but I feel an in-depth video exploring the many possible paths the English language could take within the next few centuries would be extremely popular and worthwhile. And then also performing an extended reading in that which you deem most likely. Just an idea.
My home county of Lancashire is still rhotic for the most part. It is quite striking now that I am living there again after 40 years away. Do you know why this should be when most most of the rest of northern England is non-rhotic? Thanks.
I actually lived in Preston for a bit and heard a few rhotic accents around - I'm not sure why it's held strong in that area! On the occasions I do hear rhoticity in other parts of the north, it's usually with something like an alveolar tap rather than the approximant that I think is used in Lancashire, so it sounds even more unique combined with the more widespread northern dialect features.
It’s very difficult to answer why a particular feature or characteristic is being retained, while it’s easier to speculate on why things change along with other accents. Conservatism in accent can be a regional thing where close knit communities retain speech patterns. It can also be retain in traditional professions, such as craft and farming especially among men, where there is an in-group prestige to the traditional way of speaking. Just a few ideas….
@@simonroper9218 I know you studied at UCLAN. My family all come from Bolton, whereas I grew up on the Fylde coast. The difference in rhoticity is really noticeable between the two accents. You were in the middle between the two.
Oh wow! That quickly became comprehensible! Tho, I was primed for it. Maybe if I wasn't expecting what to hear. 🤔
Linguistics is one of my favorite topics! 🧡
Really enjoyed this