I was looking at the word havering and it is in the Proclaimers song " I would walk 500 miles". I wonder if its connected. It means to babble. Goat and Oats is very interesting.
@@finolaomurchu8217 : Wiktionary says that ‘haver’ in the Proclaimers' sense (also spelt ‘haiver’) is of unknown etymology. But there's also a (presumably) separate word ‘haver’ in Scots and Northern English, meaning oats (and more consistently spelt), and that's definitely descended from the proto-Germanic root discussed here.
And I quote: Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey A kiddley divey too, wouldn't you? Yes! Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey A kiddley divey too, wouldn't you? If the words sound queer and funny to your ear, a little bit jumbled and jivey Sing "Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy"
The American use of corn to mean maize did have an intermediary phase where the term was Indian Corn, but as we started to grow more and more corn, we just dropped the modifier.
I still hear the term “Indian Corn” used to describe multicolored decorative corn that’s used as a fall decoration. I have no idea whether or not that term is problematic, since I don’t know enough about the history of corn (maize) to know where the term came from.
Maybe, just speculating, if you leave the later e out then you got hwaz. Which sounds close to the english word horse. Wich is also sounds close to the german word Roß.
@@sirwolly The *-az in *ehw-az is a weak nominative ending like in Latin _equ-us,_ and most languages later lost it, eg _weevil_ from *wibilaz. That makes it unlikely the first vowel would've been chopped off since it was the root, but there is a clearer connection between _horse_ and Latin _currus_ "chariot", through Germanic *hursą or *hrussą (some words show the first form and some like _Ross_ show the second.) The original *ehwaz survived with poetic Old English _eoh,_ Old Norse _jór_ for horse, which makes the two root theory even more likely. [Sorry, I think my same reply from before Troels' deleted when I tried to add a Wiktionary link to PIE *krsós. You can look the page up yourself for the information-shame because a few people'd already given me free internet points.]
@@troelspeterroland6998 German Ross and English horse are related though. The "r" was kind of switched around a lot between "hross" and "horse" in different dialects/languages/time periods. It stuck with (h)ross in German and horse in English.
etymonline gives corn and kernel the same PIE root, but different forms in PG: *kurnam and *kurnilo- respectively. Wiktionary has *kurnil as a diminuitive of *kurną, which is still different but less so.
@@caboose202ful DWDS says German "Korn" and "Kern" have the same IE root *g̑er(ə)- (ripen, ageing or to grind or ground up). Etymonline says the PIE root is "gre-no-" (grain) which seems more straightforward...
In Dutch there is the saying "het kaf van het koren scheiden", which means "to seperate the good from the bad" (in a general sense). This seems to be related to 'kafa' and 'kurna', very cool to see those words almost intact in our modern language!
This exists in English as well, as “separate the wheat from the chaff”. The immediate origin of this is likely its existence in the Bible (e.g. Luke 3:17) and later its translations.
In German there is "Buchweizen" too. (Buck - weit / buckwheat) although it is more a gras plant. But it looks similiar and therefore they use weit/ Weizen / wheat in it. Haha I wonder in 200-400 years they sit somewhere and discuss why we mix up buckweit and weit (wheat). 🤣
As someone with a casual interest in linguistics, the narrative arc of your explanation here was simply fantastic and made it very easy to follow. Thanks for sharing your work!
Just a note on "corn" in NA English: it's not just that it means "maize" by default; it *only* means maize. Corn being a general word is historical trivia or maybe some technical jargon if you're an agriculturalist, for us. I didn't learn corn was used in the non-maize sense in the UK until my late teens.
That lead to some confusion when after WWII the Americans asked Germans what they most urgently needed for food supplies and they said "corn". And the Americans sent lots of maize.
Seeing that the early English speakers in North America would originally have used the word 'corn' to denote any non-specific grain, I assume they would have originally called this new cereal (that the Spanish called 'maize' from an Amerindian word) 'SWEET corn', before dumping the 'sweet' wherever there was no ambiguity. In other parts of the English-speaking world, it is still known as either 'maize' or 'sweet corn'.
When I lived in Spain I once found my bag of bomba rice infested with weevils. I'd never encountered them before and I was obviously a bit freaked out! They are funny looking little blighters with a trumpet-like snout (no idea what you call it) and very active. I subsequently learnt they love grains and the powder found from our processing of them. It seems they have accompanied us on our journey through human agricultural innovation: they were a real pest to our ancestors. And the weevil empire struck back that one time in my cupboard!
Threshing was also done by having an ox or a horse walk over the grain on the threshing floor. I heard about this from people born in the 1920s or so, who remembered seeing it done as children. There was a pole in the centre and the ox was tied to it - as it walked around, the rope was wrapping around the pole and getting shorter and shorter (or longer and longer - when the ox walked back). Then they'd toss the grain up repeatedly with shovels so that the wind blows the chaff away. Smaller bits could also be removed by sifting later on. This was more than 2000 years after the Proto-Germanic period, but I suppose some things changed slowly in certain places, the Industrial revolution notwithstanding :)
I remember seeing a Time Team Episode where they showed how threshing was done with a beam. If I remember correctly they used manpower instead of an oxen.
It’s also weird that it’s not Haber in German. Usually in German the proto b stayed a b, in contrast to English. Examples would be have-haben, live-leben, weave-weben… So why isn’t it haver-Haber?
@@troelspeterroland6998 DWDS says that low German "Hafer" became standard only in the 18th century, replacing High German "Haber". Swiss German stood its ground as a High German Alemanic dialect because they wouldn't let themselves influence as much by German norms. Because they see their dialect as a seperate language and as a thing of national identity.
This was really excellent, thank you! I never thought of the sheep-oats connection, but this made me realise that in Polish, a single sheep is *owca*, while oats are *owies*. Cheers!
Great video, thanks Possible cognates in German hraukaz --> Haufen habro --> Hafer lina --> Leinen (Lein is only used in in compound word where it's shortened from Leinen) --> Leine wibilaz --> Wiebel (only in rural areas a common word for a specific type of beetle)
Proto-Germanic Farming Terminology is just such a randomly specific title and I love it. I want to go to a library and find the "proto-germanic farming terminology" section next to 1980's nicaraguan car manufacturing scandals and blueberry flavored dairy product history
Havercake was a thin oat cake made on a griddle. Almost unknown now but the modern` British` equivalent is the chapati. I suppose that havercake was carried in a haversack by farm workers. The word at 4:07 suggests winnowing which was simply tossing the threshed grain in the air on a breezy day. The wind then separates the wheat from the chaff.
Thin oatcakes made on a griddle are still produced as a specialty food in Staffordshire, both in traditional oatcake shops and on a larger scale by commercial bakers. Other regions may have something similar.
Is that what Anne Widdecombe made such a mess of when she was playing a 19th c. worker in one of those historical reconstitutions of real life in the olden days you Brits are so good at doing? She'd got sacked from her role as a potter in a factory with no pay and had to figure out how to survive the day. Some women making (oatcakes?) to sell took pity and gave her a 'starter kit'. She made a hopeless mess of those as well, but at least she could eat them herself, having nothing else. Such a horrible politician but she was quite itneresting in that series, although it didn't seem to influence her politics for the better.
I love this kind of video! On beetles vs weevils: in modern taxonomy, weevils are a subset of beetles. It would be interesting to look at the attested germanic languages and see where the descendant words of wibilaz are used exclusively for weevils or include any other types of beetles, which would indicate something about how those societies' taxonomies worked.
In Swedish, vivel is a beetle in the Curculionidae family. (I did look that up, I know vivel is a kind of beetle, but how to explain which? 🤷🏻♀️) Edit: I looked it up further - this is the group weevils belong.
The german word for linen (the fabric) is "Leinen". "Lein" is just another word for Flachs (flax), but unusual. At least I did not know it until I looked it up for this comment. The word "Leine" btw. means a rope of medium size (e. g. Hundeleine = dog lead or Wäscheleine = clotheline rope) which was originally made out of flax.
Great video, Simon! This is exactly what I'm interested in, speculative or not, just a curiosity for the past of our languages in order to better understand the ones we speak today. Thanks for uploading!
In the US "corn" by itself only refers to what you call maize. When Europeans were first introduced to it the Taino called it "mays" or similar, while colonists living in North America started calling it "Indian corn".
Very good video. Even though agriculture and ranching/herding have evolved in the last two thousand years, that part of life is still recognizable to us today. It's like a proxy for language. Proto-Germanic has also evolved...into English, German, Dutch, Swedish, etc. But many of these words are still recognizable to modern day Germanic language speakers. Another thing I've been fascinated in since watching Jackson Crawford's Ecolinguist video with the Scandinavians understanding Old Norse, and your Old English/Old Norse video also with Jackson Crawford was the various words in the Germanic languages relating to forestry and trees. Old Norse has "Skoginum" and Old English had "wealde," but modern English has "forest" and "woods." Old English had "treo," Modern English has "tree," Danish has "træ," but Modern Dutch has "boom" and Modern German has "baum."
Yes, but American English re-purposed the word for maize. Corn in all its forms on the European continent means grain or more generally kernel. For example a kernel of maize in German is called "Maiskorn", but if you just say "Korn" you mean grain.
Rugiz is interesting to me because the Finnish word for "rye" is "ruis" but there's also "rukiinen" which is an adjective for something containing rye. We also borrowed the word for "king" as "kuningas" (AFAIK from kuningaz) which I find interesting because other languages seem to drop the "az"
The Finnish language wouldn’t drop the “az” suffix in “kuningaz” the suffix isn’t present in Finnish, thus there would be no wider language shift that would effect that suffix. Hope that made sense lol.
Words for animals and farming are usually the most "original" words in a language because they have always been used by a majority of people without foreign influences. No farmer would usually start using fancy Latin or French loan words for something in his daily life.
Interesting how these reconstruted words are still understandable in swedish. Oat is "havre" Wheat is "vete" old spelling is hvete Barley is korn, but any kernel can be called korn. Kappa means cape/cover Tröska is the word for thresh/thrash. Probably forgot something. Most animals are more or less the "same" still. Biggest exception is horse, häst in swedish.
Sometime between Proto-Germanic and later Germanic, the common word for horse switched from *ehwas (cognate to Latin equus) to *hrussą (cognate to English horse). Separately the Latin languages switched to “caballus”. So that’s why most modern Germanic languages have “horse” cognates while Romance have cheval, caballo, cavallo etc. but both language families have equine, etc. which were later borrowings from academic Latin.
Excellent video! I always love to hear the old languages spoken once more and it's so fascinating to see them in context. Your pronunciation for all the languages I'm familiar with is impeccable, though your PGmc [x] and [ɣ] sound a little uvular, rather than velar to my ears, but this may be intentional. Very good work!
A small correction: In modern Swedish "korn" does not mean grain, it means specifically barley (the meaning shifted in Late Old Swedish, as barley was the dominant grain grown in Scandinavia up until the 15th century [when it was overtaken by rye, which then dominated until the 19th century when it was overtaken in turn by wheat]). The Swedish word for grain is "säd", which is related to English seed (grain is after all just the seeds of grass). The Swedish word for seed is in turn "frö", which is etymologically related to English "fry" (the noun, as in "small fry"; not the verb, as in "fry the eggs")...
Thank you. I've always wondered about where "korn" for barley comes from. Today it seems weird to have the most generic word as the name for the least popular of the four grains... Now, do you have any idea of why barely would have been the dominant grain for so long? Is it particularly hardy (or rather where medieval varieties comparatively hardy)? Did people just like it the most? I don't know that I have ever made or eaten bread baked with only or predominantly barley (outside of school - we actually did that for the four main grains at around age 10!), but it's very nice as porridge, stays moist even if you cook the hell out of it and then forget it. Rye on the other hand... not a nice porridge, whatever the fanatics say. Maybe people preferred porridge to bread up until around 1450 or so? ;-)
Came to say this. Additionally, korn, like in the other northern germanic langauges, also means the seed of a grain, or, by extension, a small grain of something, like sandkorn (grain of sand), which seems to have also happened in English with grain.
Oh wow... Some words sound pretty related to modern day Slovene Rugiz-rž-rye Liina-lan-flax Threskana-treskati-to bash Mus-miš-mouse Kuz~koza-goat Swina-svinja-pig Wullo-volna-wool awiz-ovca-sheep Meluks-mleko-milk Kukkaz-kokoš-chicken Gans-gos-goose
"Kurną" does in Swedish and in some Norweigan dialects refer to barley and not grains. If someone says the word "korn" we don't mean grain, it refers to barley specifically. However we do use the word "korn" as grain when we add a word infront for example: "majskorn" and "vetekorn" The reason for this is that barley was the most common grain back then.
My German etymology leads Hafer (oats) back to Old English haefer, from which we now presumably have "heifer". It confirms the root germanic word as meaning "goat" and suggests the semantic transfer as having arisen via the intermediate "Hafergras" or "Haferkorn" (my interpolated suggestions), meaning "Ziegenkraut".
Also, doesn't German (or Dutch) use the word haversack for a backpack? We, English, borrowed that word from German (or Dutch) for a backpack (about the 18c. I think) but I believe it originally had military connotations first, namely, the sack for carrying one's food rations (presumably including oats).
@@leod-sigefast 'Haverzak' is a word in Dutch but it's not a backpack but a bag of oats that can be tied to a horses' head for feeding it. The Dutch word for backpack is 'Rugzak'.
@@leod-sigefast I don't know about the Dutch/Flemish, but "habersack" is in German fully obsolete - nobody could make anything out of it (apart from etymologists of course). Apparently, it did once exist with the meaning "rations bag", but people would now just draw a blank. "Haversack" or "Hafersack" would be the low German equivalent, but I cannot even find it in my dictionaries. Simon points out in his (as usual, excellent) review that "hafer" (for oats) is an English dialect word and still in use in 18 c. Cumbria, so there is just as great a foundation for "haversack" being of original English coinage.
Your pronunciation of the Proto-Germanic forms and all of the historical and modern forms cited in the video is perfect! Great job, looking forward to seeing more videos
Fascinating how words that apply to very old things tend to be kept in languages. Glad to see that you now also incorporate Dutch in your video. I am a fan of your channel, keep up the good work Simon!
and koe, gerst, os, zeis, muis, rat, melk, wol, gans, kuiken... surprising how similar those words still are! Then again weevil = snuitkever (had to look that one up!) 🙂
This reminds me of an expression in Dutch 'het kaf van het koren scheiden' (= separate the chaff from the wheat) which means something like separating the valuable from the worthless, or good from evil.
Great video idea! Would be fun if you could move backwards in time, so to speak. Perhaps look at words relating to nuts/seeds, hunting, types of game etc. Looking into blacksmithing or crafting in general would also be interesting.
@DoubtingThomas Don't forget that the Celts used to live in what is now Southern Germany and Austria and they were known for their good metallurgy. I heard the Romans were extremely surprised when they expected wild barbarians with wooden spears but instead found out the hard way that Celtic swords were way better than their own. Germanic tribes only moved into these areas later and displaced the Celts, but you'd expect some exchange going on there.
.Threshing is tröska, tröskning, in Swedish, The tool used is also called tröska. This whole project is, in my opinion of an immense value, making us realise how interconnected we are. Hans Strömberg, Stockholm, Sweden
In Norwegian Kveite(dialect), Rug, Havre, very interesting to see that they haven't changed that much. And we still treske the korn. Simon when I found your channel, you made me aware that linguistics is a very interesting topic. 👍🏼
Vete, råg, havre in Swedish - but what do you have for barley in Norwegian? In Swedish it is just korn, which is also a generic for kernel, small thing (sandkorn etc).
Low Saxon / Niedersächsisch / Platt: 1:46 baraz = Gatse/Gassen Gaste/Gassen 2:35 Sicht/Seßel 2:39 Weten (pronounced with [εɪ]) Roggen, Raai, rei, rogge, rôg, rog Haver 2:55 Flass, Lien 3:08 Koorn Not found:-kafa (Kapp?) 3:17 döschen 4:07 Not found:-winthijana 4:33 Muus Rott Kävers, Severs, Tieken (in German, Käfer originally meant only Heuschrecke, but it took over as the name for all sorts of "wibil" and then the Käfer got a new name which is Heuschrecke) 4:47 Koh, Kauh Swien (Bigge, Farken) Schaap Peerd, Hest, Hies, Hors 7:30 Wull Not found:-awiz (Zeeg?) Melk 7:35 Oss 8:04 Hohn (Küken = little Hohn) Goos, Göös, Gant(er) 8:15 Ei Yeah it might be that the english choose "Oat" over "haver" because it rhymes with "goat".
Brilliant and charming as usual. Here in Austria, most of the cognates with PIE are closer than in English. But fascinating how much of this ancient language is still recognizable in our daily life. cheers from icy Vienna, Scott
We had "Wibele" in German until the middle ages (and maybe later in dialects). It survived until today as a Swabian baked good (little cookies that kind of look like beetles)
We had a bag of corn and grain bought from Menards for squirrel feeding, and one year we had a bunch of weevils that I tracked back to the bag. Once we threw the bag away the weevils did too
Btw Korn means "grain" in standard High German, but some dialects it means or used to mean "rye", (because rye was what could be grown in climatically less favourable regions).
The modern swedish word for barley is 'korn' which can be really confusing since it can also mean grain in general. I guess because barley was /the/ grain cultivated and eaten here for a long time.
Loanwords from Indo-European origin that exist in Finnish language today (words related to the video): ruis = *rugis (rye) kaura = *habro (oat) kauris = *hafraz (meaning has changed to deer in Finnish) liina = *lina (meaning has changed to cloth in Finnish) rotta = *rattaz (rat) kukko = *kukkaz (rooster/cock) hanhi = *gans (goose) roukkio = *hraukaz (stack, heap) akana = *agano (another proto-germanic word for chaff) porsas = *porcas (another proto-germanic word for pork, swine) lammas = *lambaz (another proto-germanic word for sheep) Possible loanwords: hevos = *ehwaz (horse), also hepo, heppa = *hippo- (Hellenic word for horse) villa = *wullo (wool), also *wilna (proto-Balto-Savic word for wool) maito (milk), could be derived from the word *mete, a proto-Finno-Ugric word for honey, which in turn could be borrowed from proto-Indo-European *medu (mead).
What's amazing about Indo-European loanwords in Finnish is that they preserve an extremely early borrowing almost unchanged. Finnish, a non-Indo-European language, preserves a very archaic form of Indo-European words better than any other actual Indo-European language. I think it is due to the agglutinative nature of Finnish, where the need to keep the root of the word morphologicallg intact is far more important than in other languages which aren't agglutinative. *In almost unchanged I mean the morphological structure of the word, disregarding sound changes or the need to fit into the phonetic values of Finnish.
Great video! As a Slavic language speaker I was not so much suprosed with similarities between proto-germanic reconstructions for domesticated animals and plants. Aside from germanic and slavic both steming from IE, animals and plants were all products that could be traded with, hence there is perhaps an incentive to stick to the familiar terms. However, i was suprised by words for farming techniques, as in Serbian, 'treskanje' - meaning to bash against, or trash aggressively, and 'vitlanje' - process of tossing and, as you said, airing out of the wheat, are still in use.
Proto-Germanic was presumably the language of the Nordic bronze age. The language of the Nordic iron age was Proto-Norse. Proto-Norse is much more attested than Proto-Germanic, as we have several runic inscriptions in the language.
@@MixerRenegade95 Proto-Germanic predates Proto-Norse by a milennia. The languages are very close, almost identical. However, by the time Proto-Norse was spoken, West Germanic and East Germanic languages had divereged considerably from Proto-Germanic. Proto-Norse had not diverged. Proto-Norse is considered a language in its own right as it no longer can be considered the common ancestor of all Germanic languages, due to the digergence of the East and West Germanic branches.
Threshing is also done on a flat piece of ground that’s called _Tenne_ in German. The English cognate is _den_. After the harvest and the threshing, you’d dance on the „den.“ Go figure.
"Oat" in english is similar to "goat" but in polish "oat" is "owies" (read like ovies) and a SHEEP is "owca" (read like ovtsa) and sheep in PIE is OVIS. And goat is just koza so it is more similar to proto germanic cow.
A more recent way of separating the grain kernel from the chaff, used in Scandinavia at least till well into the 1800s, is throwing the mix with a big wooden paddle. A challenging and demanding task requireing a decent amount of experience, as it would take a lot of time and each throw had to be of quite consistent force. This way, the biggest and best grain would fly the longest and end up along the wall, while grain of poorer quality would end up closer to the thrower, between the wall and the pile with bits of chaff. The good quality grain would be used for next year's sowing-crop, and it was also otherwise prefered for ale-brewing. The cuts with smaller grain-size were prefered for food.
Scandinavian have idioms describing oats as goat food. One example is «bukken som passar havresekken» (the billy that guards the sack of oats), meaning that something is open for corruption or embezzlement.
This is a significant subject. Well, I think meals, epitaphs, epopees, and maybe lifestyles that belong to the İron Age or old ages like İron Age would be interesting subjects about the terminology,too.
I love how similar "goat" and "oat" are when you consider their meaning.
I was looking at the word havering and it is in the Proclaimers song " I would walk 500 miles". I wonder if its connected. It means to babble. Goat and Oats is very interesting.
@@finolaomurchu8217 : Wiktionary says that ‘haver’ in the Proclaimers' sense (also spelt ‘haiver’) is of unknown etymology. But there's also a (presumably) separate word ‘haver’ in Scots and Northern English, meaning oats (and more consistently spelt), and that's definitely descended from the proto-Germanic root discussed here.
Reminds me of hear and ear! I don't know their origin, but they differ by a single letter in many languages.
@@HereIsMySpout : That seems to go back to the Indo-European roots! (*ous and *kous).
And I quote:
Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
A kiddley divey too, wouldn't you?
Yes! Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
A kiddley divey too, wouldn't you?
If the words sound queer and funny to your ear, a little bit jumbled and jivey
Sing "Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy"
I love how Simon has no trouble pronouncing prehistoric languages, but trips up over Tyrberg.
It's different when everyone who can authoritatively correct you has been dead for centuries.
Well, I'd be very suprised if a native Proto-Germanic speaker came to correct him.
The person who is the unimpeachable authority on the pronunciation of Tyrberg is Tyrberg.
@@ibalrogor even millennia😂
The American use of corn to mean maize did have an intermediary phase where the term was Indian Corn, but as we started to grow more and more corn, we just dropped the modifier.
I still hear the term “Indian Corn” used to describe multicolored decorative corn that’s used as a fall decoration. I have no idea whether or not that term is problematic, since I don’t know enough about the history of corn (maize) to know where the term came from.
@@scout8145 it just literally means that it's the corn of the Indians, since it was the natives that were growing corn in the first place
7:52 I like that after thousands of years, the Dutch word for goose is still 'Gans' (pronounced the same too)
The obvious similarities between *ehwaz, and the later latin *equus are nice.
And *gans is still Gans, here in germany.
Maybe, just speculating, if you leave the later e out then you got hwaz. Which sounds close to the english word horse. Wich is also sounds close to the german word Roß.
@@sirwolly They are unrelated, though.
@@sirwolly The *-az in *ehw-az is a weak nominative ending like in Latin _equ-us,_ and most languages later lost it, eg _weevil_ from *wibilaz. That makes it unlikely the first vowel would've been chopped off since it was the root, but there is a clearer connection between _horse_ and Latin _currus_ "chariot", through Germanic *hursą or *hrussą (some words show the first form and some like _Ross_ show the second.) The original *ehwaz survived with poetic Old English _eoh,_ Old Norse _jór_ for horse, which makes the two root theory even more likely.
[Sorry, I think my same reply from before Troels' deleted when I tried to add a Wiktionary link to PIE *krsós. You can look the page up yourself for the information-shame because a few people'd already given me free internet points.]
@@robbadob9929 Very interesting. Thx. Like I mentioned it was jus speculating. Cheers
@@troelspeterroland6998 German Ross and English horse are related though. The "r" was kind of switched around a lot between "hross" and "horse" in different dialects/languages/time periods. It stuck with (h)ross in German and horse in English.
I assume (without evidence) that "kurna" is also the historical root for "kernel".
Thanks for putting this together. Great work as always.
@Escapo that’s what I thought as well.
I’m not sure. German at least also distinguishes between Korn and Kern (meaning kernel or core).
etymonline gives corn and kernel the same PIE root, but different forms in PG: *kurnam and *kurnilo- respectively. Wiktionary has *kurnil as a diminuitive of *kurną, which is still different but less so.
@@caboose202ful DWDS says German "Korn" and "Kern" have the same IE root *g̑er(ə)- (ripen, ageing or to grind or ground up). Etymonline says the PIE root is "gre-no-" (grain) which seems more straightforward...
no it is the root of the word corn
In Dutch there is the saying "het kaf van het koren scheiden", which means "to seperate the good from the bad" (in a general sense). This seems to be related to 'kafa' and 'kurna', very cool to see those words almost intact in our modern language!
This exists in English as well, as “separate the wheat from the chaff”. The immediate origin of this is likely its existence in the Bible (e.g. Luke 3:17) and later its translations.
The Dutch word for oat is "haver".
"Weit" isn't completely archaic in Dutch, it can be found in the Dutch word for buckwheat: "boekweit".
And also Hafer in german is oat too :)
I discovered I had to look for havervlokken/haferflocken whenever I wanted oats for porridge in Holland/Germany, so it made sense to me.
But would you put your buckwheat in a haversack, or is that poor form?
@@abandoninplace2751 🤣🤣🤣👍. It this not how languages stay alive and develop??
In German there is "Buchweizen" too. (Buck - weit / buckwheat) although it is more a gras plant. But it looks similiar and therefore they use weit/ Weizen / wheat in it.
Haha I wonder in 200-400 years they sit somewhere and discuss why we mix up buckweit and weit (wheat). 🤣
As someone with a casual interest in linguistics, the narrative arc of your explanation here was simply fantastic and made it very easy to follow. Thanks for sharing your work!
Just a note on "corn" in NA English: it's not just that it means "maize" by default; it *only* means maize. Corn being a general word is historical trivia or maybe some technical jargon if you're an agriculturalist, for us. I didn't learn corn was used in the non-maize sense in the UK until my late teens.
“Maize” is never used in North American English, unless in a scientific sense.
@@5roundsrapid263 Maybe artsy tortilla brands, but yeah.
That lead to some confusion when after WWII the Americans asked Germans what they most urgently needed for food supplies and they said "corn". And the Americans sent lots of maize.
Seeing that the early English speakers in North America would originally have used the word 'corn' to denote any non-specific grain, I assume they would have originally called this new cereal (that the Spanish called 'maize' from an Amerindian word) 'SWEET corn', before dumping the 'sweet' wherever there was no ambiguity. In other parts of the English-speaking world, it is still known as either 'maize' or 'sweet corn'.
@@philroberts7238 Etymonline says it was called "Indian Corn" in the 17th century but then the "Indian" was dropped at some point.
When I lived in Spain I once found my bag of bomba rice infested with weevils. I'd never encountered them before and I was obviously a bit freaked out! They are funny looking little blighters with a trumpet-like snout (no idea what you call it) and very active. I subsequently learnt they love grains and the powder found from our processing of them. It seems they have accompanied us on our journey through human agricultural innovation: they were a real pest to our ancestors. And the weevil empire struck back that one time in my cupboard!
one of the reasons why you need to wash the rice
Threshing was also done by having an ox or a horse walk over the grain on the threshing floor. I heard about this from people born in the 1920s or so, who remembered seeing it done as children. There was a pole in the centre and the ox was tied to it - as it walked around, the rope was wrapping around the pole and getting shorter and shorter (or longer and longer - when the ox walked back). Then they'd toss the grain up repeatedly with shovels so that the wind blows the chaff away. Smaller bits could also be removed by sifting later on. This was more than 2000 years after the Proto-Germanic period, but I suppose some things changed slowly in certain places, the Industrial revolution notwithstanding :)
excellent!
I remember seeing a Time Team Episode where they showed how threshing was done with a beam. If I remember correctly they used manpower instead of an oxen.
They are called treadmills. Which makes so much more sense as the root for the exercise equipment.
I think the horse or ox would have been dragging a beam of wood behind them to help with the threshing. At least, I've seen depictions of this.
@@gary_rumain_you_peons That would make sense too. Although they might well have had different ways of doing in different places...
In Dutch there is a word 'riek' meaning an instrument to make heaps of hay: hayricks... We also have the word 'dorsen' for thresh.
4:00 wywianie, wywiewać
4:30 mysz
4:47 koza, świnia, szkapa
7:54 kogut, gęś
8:15 jajo
11:50 len, lina (z lnu)
12:35 kurna, kukurydza (jedzenie kur) kukuryku (odgłos koguta)
These are interesting but some are wrong: Proto-Germanic kūz is "cow" and skēpą is "sheep"
@@Muzprom Quite obviously Piotr gave supposed cognates, not translations.
Koza is not a cognate of *kuz. What you're looking for is the gov- of several Slavic words for "beef" (Russian говядина and Serbocroatian govedina).
And 3:12 In polish the inedible parts are called kąkol
I was surprised that you didn't mention modern German 'Hafer' as a cognate of habrô.
I think he has.
habro - hafraz - Hafer
Could be I´m wrong.
It’s also weird that it’s not Haber in German. Usually in German the proto b stayed a b, in contrast to English. Examples would be have-haben, live-leben, weave-weben…
So why isn’t it haver-Haber?
@@onurbschrednei4569 I believe the f is a Low German development. As Reto Häner writes above, it is indeed Haber in Swiss German.
@@troelspeterroland6998 DWDS says that low German "Hafer" became standard only in the 18th century, replacing High German "Haber". Swiss German stood its ground as a High German Alemanic dialect because they wouldn't let themselves influence as much by German norms. Because they see their dialect as a seperate language and as a thing of national identity.
@@onurbschrednei4569In Bavarian Hafer is pronounced as Haber or Hoba.
This was really excellent, thank you! I never thought of the sheep-oats connection, but this made me realise that in Polish, a single sheep is *owca*, while oats are *owies*. Cheers!
Rauk is a gotlandic word for limestone stacks, sounds like it could be derived from hraukr
Great video, thanks
Possible cognates in German
hraukaz --> Haufen
habro --> Hafer
lina --> Leinen (Lein is only used in in compound word where it's shortened from Leinen)
--> Leine
wibilaz --> Wiebel (only in rural areas a common word for a specific type of beetle)
þreskana --> dreschen
Although none of these cognates are surprising. I would not even call them cognates, just inherited words.
"Haufen" is not really related - totally losing the R and morphing K into F are not changes you would expect.
In Switzerland we even say Haber for oats
*hraukaz, if it survived into modern German, would now be "roch".
@@ruawhitepaw I would rather go with "Röche"
Proto-Germanic Farming Terminology is just such a randomly specific title and I love it. I want to go to a library and find the "proto-germanic farming terminology" section next to 1980's nicaraguan car manufacturing scandals and blueberry flavored dairy product history
It's so great how academically acurate your videos are! Actually listing sources is so rare on TH-cam.
Havercake was a thin oat cake made on a griddle. Almost unknown now but the modern` British` equivalent is the chapati. I suppose that havercake was carried in a haversack by farm workers. The word at 4:07 suggests winnowing which was simply tossing the threshed grain in the air on a breezy day. The wind then separates the wheat from the chaff.
Thin oatcakes made on a griddle are still produced as a specialty food in Staffordshire, both in traditional oatcake shops and on a larger scale by commercial bakers. Other regions may have something similar.
Is that what Anne Widdecombe made such a mess of when she was playing a 19th c. worker in one of those historical reconstitutions of real life in the olden days you Brits are so good at doing? She'd got sacked from her role as a potter in a factory with no pay and had to figure out how to survive the day. Some women making (oatcakes?) to sell took pity and gave her a 'starter kit'. She made a hopeless mess of those as well, but at least she could eat them herself, having nothing else. Such a horrible politician but she was quite itneresting in that series, although it didn't seem to influence her politics for the better.
Haversack comes from the German Hafersack, literally meaning haver/oat sack.
Nah, it's the McVitie's Hobnob
I love this kind of video! On beetles vs weevils: in modern taxonomy, weevils are a subset of beetles.
It would be interesting to look at the attested germanic languages and see where the descendant words of wibilaz are used exclusively for weevils or include any other types of beetles, which would indicate something about how those societies' taxonomies worked.
In Swedish, vivel is a beetle in the Curculionidae family. (I did look that up, I know vivel is a kind of beetle, but how to explain which? 🤷🏻♀️)
Edit: I looked it up further - this is the group weevils belong.
The german word for linen (the fabric) is "Leinen". "Lein" is just another word for Flachs (flax), but unusual. At least I did not know it until I looked it up for this comment. The word "Leine" btw. means a rope of medium size (e. g. Hundeleine = dog lead or Wäscheleine = clotheline rope) which was originally made out of flax.
The word Linnen for the fabric is also used.
Great video, Simon! This is exactly what I'm interested in, speculative or not, just a curiosity for the past of our languages in order to better understand the ones we speak today. Thanks for uploading!
In the US "corn" by itself only refers to what you call maize. When Europeans were first introduced to it the Taino called it "mays" or similar, while colonists living in North America started calling it "Indian corn".
Babe, wake up! New Simon Roper video just dropped.
Very good video. Even though agriculture and ranching/herding have evolved in the last two thousand years, that part of life is still recognizable to us today. It's like a proxy for language. Proto-Germanic has also evolved...into English, German, Dutch, Swedish, etc. But many of these words are still recognizable to modern day Germanic language speakers.
Another thing I've been fascinated in since watching Jackson Crawford's Ecolinguist video with the Scandinavians understanding Old Norse, and your Old English/Old Norse video also with Jackson Crawford was the various words in the Germanic languages relating to forestry and trees. Old Norse has "Skoginum" and Old English had "wealde," but modern English has "forest" and "woods." Old English had "treo," Modern English has "tree," Danish has "træ," but Modern Dutch has "boom" and Modern German has "baum."
Corn is definitely a specific plant (maize) in North America. Corn on the cob is a tasty summer treat.
Yes, but American English re-purposed the word for maize. Corn in all its forms on the European continent means grain or more generally kernel. For example a kernel of maize in German is called "Maiskorn", but if you just say "Korn" you mean grain.
Rugiz is interesting to me because the Finnish word for "rye" is "ruis" but there's also "rukiinen" which is an adjective for something containing rye.
We also borrowed the word for "king" as "kuningas" (AFAIK from kuningaz) which I find interesting because other languages seem to drop the "az"
Rugys in lithuanian, virtually the same! We also borrowed kunigas, but it means priest :D
The Finnish language wouldn’t drop the “az” suffix in “kuningaz” the suffix isn’t present in Finnish, thus there would be no wider language shift that would effect that suffix. Hope that made sense lol.
As a German, I am pretty surprised at how many words, especially of animals, are so similar to modern German.
Words for animals and farming are usually the most "original" words in a language because they have always been used by a majority of people without foreign influences. No farmer would usually start using fancy Latin or French loan words for something in his daily life.
Dutch is also similar often.
And English too, almost all these words survive in modern English, albeit certain words like Oxen and Swine aren't used as much anymore
@@iceomistar4302 I use swine a lot. But only when I am cut up by another driver on the motorway or on a roundabout.
Interesting how these reconstruted words are still understandable in swedish.
Oat is "havre"
Wheat is "vete" old spelling is hvete
Barley is korn, but any kernel can be called korn.
Kappa means cape/cover
Tröska is the word for thresh/thrash. Probably forgot something.
Most animals are more or less the "same" still. Biggest exception is horse, häst in swedish.
Sometime between Proto-Germanic and later Germanic, the common word for horse switched from *ehwas (cognate to Latin equus) to *hrussą (cognate to English horse). Separately the Latin languages switched to “caballus”. So that’s why most modern Germanic languages have “horse” cognates while Romance have cheval, caballo, cavallo etc. but both language families have equine, etc. which were later borrowings from academic Latin.
Excellent video! I always love to hear the old languages spoken once more and it's so fascinating to see them in context. Your pronunciation for all the languages I'm familiar with is impeccable, though your PGmc [x] and [ɣ] sound a little uvular, rather than velar to my ears, but this may be intentional. Very good work!
I don't always have time to watch your videos but when I do I am never disappointed. Thank you.
A small correction: In modern Swedish "korn" does not mean grain, it means specifically barley (the meaning shifted in Late Old Swedish, as barley was the dominant grain grown in Scandinavia up until the 15th century [when it was overtaken by rye, which then dominated until the 19th century when it was overtaken in turn by wheat]).
The Swedish word for grain is "säd", which is related to English seed (grain is after all just the seeds of grass). The Swedish word for seed is in turn "frö", which is etymologically related to English "fry" (the noun, as in "small fry"; not the verb, as in "fry the eggs")...
Thank you. I've always wondered about where "korn" for barley comes from. Today it seems weird to have the most generic word as the name for the least popular of the four grains...
Now, do you have any idea of why barely would have been the dominant grain for so long?
Is it particularly hardy (or rather where medieval varieties comparatively hardy)? Did people just like it the most?
I don't know that I have ever made or eaten bread baked with only or predominantly barley (outside of school - we actually did that for the four main grains at around age 10!), but it's very nice as porridge, stays moist even if you cook the hell out of it and then forget it. Rye on the other hand... not a nice porridge, whatever the fanatics say.
Maybe people preferred porridge to bread up until around 1450 or so? ;-)
Came to say this. Additionally, korn, like in the other northern germanic langauges, also means the seed of a grain, or, by extension, a small grain of something, like sandkorn (grain of sand), which seems to have also happened in English with grain.
@@Asptuber Barley is suited for bread. In colder climate it had some advantages.
Oh wow... Some words sound pretty related to modern day Slovene
Rugiz-rž-rye
Liina-lan-flax
Threskana-treskati-to bash
Mus-miš-mouse
Kuz~koza-goat
Swina-svinja-pig
Wullo-volna-wool
awiz-ovca-sheep
Meluks-mleko-milk
Kukkaz-kokoš-chicken
Gans-gos-goose
Fascinating as always. Thank you for putting these together.
"Kurną" does in Swedish and in some Norweigan dialects refer to barley and not grains. If someone says the word "korn" we don't mean grain, it refers to barley specifically. However we do use the word "korn" as grain when we add a word infront for example: "majskorn" and "vetekorn"
The reason for this is that barley was the most common grain back then.
My German etymology leads Hafer (oats) back to Old English haefer, from which we now presumably have "heifer". It confirms the root germanic word as meaning "goat" and suggests the semantic transfer as having arisen via the intermediate "Hafergras" or "Haferkorn" (my interpolated suggestions), meaning "Ziegenkraut".
Also, doesn't German (or Dutch) use the word haversack for a backpack? We, English, borrowed that word from German (or Dutch) for a backpack (about the 18c. I think) but I believe it originally had military connotations first, namely, the sack for carrying one's food rations (presumably including oats).
@@leod-sigefast 'Haverzak' is a word in Dutch but it's not a backpack but a bag of oats that can be tied to a horses' head for feeding it. The Dutch word for backpack is 'Rugzak'.
@@leod-sigefast I don't know about the Dutch/Flemish, but "habersack" is in German fully obsolete - nobody could make anything out of it (apart from etymologists of course). Apparently, it did once exist with the meaning "rations bag", but people would now just draw a blank. "Haversack" or "Hafersack" would be the low German equivalent, but I cannot even find it in my dictionaries. Simon points out in his (as usual, excellent) review that "hafer" (for oats) is an English dialect word and still in use in 18 c. Cumbria, so there is just as great a foundation for "haversack" being of original English coinage.
Do you mean heifer? I don't see how that's related
@@Sprecherfuchs I did mean that yes, sorry about the typo. There are other examples of semantic transfer, here, "goat" becoming a (goatlike?) calf.
I really enjoyed this video. Thanks so much Simon 😊
This was beautiful, Simon. I would watch a whole series on this, especially with your beautifully pronounced Proto-Germanic forms!
Your pronunciation of the Proto-Germanic forms and all of the historical and modern forms cited in the video is perfect! Great job, looking forward to seeing more videos
Fascinating how words that apply to very old things tend to be kept in languages. Glad to see that you now also incorporate Dutch in your video. I am a fan of your channel, keep up the good work Simon!
In Dutch we have haver, kaf, koren, vlas, linnen, zwijn, schaap... Should be easy enough to communicate in PG 😄
and koe, gerst, os, zeis, muis, rat, melk, wol, gans, kuiken... surprising how similar those words still are! Then again weevil = snuitkever (had to look that one up!) 🙂
and the swina is stil pronounces as "zwien" in dutch dialects
@@hansdorst3005 We could always decide to bring back the old word for the insect, wevel :)
@@ruawhitepaw Hah I didn't know that we used to use that word
This reminds me of an expression in Dutch 'het kaf van het koren scheiden' (= separate the chaff from the wheat) which means something like separating the valuable from the worthless, or good from evil.
We have it in English too. It comes from the Bible as a metaphor for the last judgement.
@@simong9067 Nice, I didn't know that
that's the threskana (to thresh) right? Dorsen in dutch
@@timoloef Yep, to thresh is dorsen.
Gorgeous material
Great video idea!
Would be fun if you could move backwards in time, so to speak. Perhaps look at words relating to nuts/seeds, hunting, types of game etc. Looking into blacksmithing or crafting in general would also be interesting.
@DoubtingThomas Very interesting, I didn't know that. "íarn" in Old Irish and "järn" in modern Swedish. Even the pronunciation seems close.
@DoubtingThomas Don't forget that the Celts used to live in what is now Southern Germany and Austria and they were known for their good metallurgy. I heard the Romans were extremely surprised when they expected wild barbarians with wooden spears but instead found out the hard way that Celtic swords were way better than their own.
Germanic tribes only moved into these areas later and displaced the Celts, but you'd expect some exchange going on there.
.Threshing is tröska, tröskning, in Swedish, The tool used is also called tröska. This whole project is, in my opinion of an immense value, making us realise how interconnected we are.
Hans Strömberg, Stockholm, Sweden
It was a bit speculative but sometimes we need to look around and explore. Great video! This is a topic I love and you did it great.
“swinnã” is really close to the Russian word свинья (svinja)
In German, a "Küken" is a chick (*kukkaz) and a goose is called "Gans" (*gans).
Great video Simon, keep it up x
So fun. Thanks, Simon!
In Norwegian Kveite(dialect), Rug, Havre, very interesting to see that they haven't changed that much. And we still treske the korn. Simon when I found your channel, you made me aware that linguistics is a very interesting topic. 👍🏼
Vete, råg, havre in Swedish - but what do you have for barley in Norwegian?
In Swedish it is just korn, which is also a generic for kernel, small thing (sandkorn etc).
Low Saxon / Niedersächsisch / Platt:
1:46
baraz = Gatse/Gassen
Gaste/Gassen
2:35
Sicht/Seßel
2:39
Weten (pronounced with [εɪ])
Roggen, Raai, rei, rogge, rôg, rog
Haver
2:55
Flass, Lien
3:08
Koorn
Not found:-kafa (Kapp?)
3:17
döschen
4:07
Not found:-winthijana
4:33
Muus
Rott
Kävers, Severs, Tieken (in German, Käfer originally meant only Heuschrecke, but it took over as the name for all sorts of "wibil" and then the Käfer got a new name which is Heuschrecke)
4:47
Koh, Kauh
Swien (Bigge, Farken)
Schaap
Peerd, Hest, Hies, Hors
7:30
Wull
Not found:-awiz (Zeeg?)
Melk
7:35
Oss
8:04
Hohn (Küken = little Hohn)
Goos, Göös, Gant(er)
8:15
Ei
Yeah it might be that the english choose "Oat" over "haver" because it rhymes with "goat".
thank you for the video.
When the video opens with some static and some scuffing then a throat clear, you know it's gonna be good
really enjoyed this!
Brilliant and charming as usual. Here in Austria, most of the cognates with PIE are closer than in English. But fascinating how much of this ancient language is still recognizable in our daily life.
cheers from icy Vienna, Scott
I would very much be interested in a video specifically about anglo saxon vocabulary of this type, or particularly animals
You forgot to include winnowing at the end.
This was awesome, thank you.
In Dutch, we still have the word 'weit' for wheat, but only in the word for buckwheat, namely 'boekweit', as far as I'm aware.
It's also still used in some (Low Saxon) dialects. E.g. 'waait/waaite' in Gronings to refer to wheat.
@@MaicoWeites cool, as a Belgian Dutchman I didn't know what 'weit' in 'boekweit' meant till now. Always fascinating to discover cognates heehee
Unsurprisingly it's "Buchweizen" in German
At about 11:20 I started singing "Mares eat oats, and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy. A kid will eat ivy too, wouldn't you..."
its amazing that we still use almost all of these words today, even though they don't always sound similar.
Wibilaz survived into modern Swedish as vivel, a kind of beetle
We had "Wibele" in German until the middle ages (and maybe later in dialects). It survived until today as a Swabian baked good (little cookies that kind of look like beetles)
If Simon was sent back in time to the Iron Age, perhaps he would be able to communicate a little with the Proto-Germanics.
And then be killed and sacrificed to Wodanaz, these people were Barbarians that the Romans couldn't conquer
@@iceomistar4302 while i love a good bogbody as much as anyone.... I think you might have drunk too much roman copium
@@iceomistar4302 No! not Wodnaz, anything but that!
We had a bag of corn and grain bought from Menards for squirrel feeding, and one year we had a bunch of weevils that I tracked back to the bag. Once we threw the bag away the weevils did too
I like it when people attempt to pronounce Danish :) it's very sweet
I like that some old words sound like awe (not here) and some sound naive. Swina just cracks me up.
Btw Korn means "grain" in standard High German, but some dialects it means or used to mean "rye", (because rye was what could be grown in climatically less favourable regions).
Really interesting, thank you. Love the pigeon 👌
The modern swedish word for barley is 'korn' which can be really confusing since it can also mean grain in general. I guess because barley was /the/ grain cultivated and eaten here for a long time.
Very interesting video as always, Simon. 👍👍Maize (korn) = maïs in Dutch.
I can gear echoes of many of these in Slavic languages. Goes on to show how important agriculture was.
Loanwords from Indo-European origin that exist in Finnish language today (words related to the video):
ruis = *rugis (rye)
kaura = *habro (oat)
kauris = *hafraz (meaning has changed to deer in Finnish)
liina = *lina (meaning has changed to cloth in Finnish)
rotta = *rattaz (rat)
kukko = *kukkaz (rooster/cock)
hanhi = *gans (goose)
roukkio = *hraukaz (stack, heap)
akana = *agano (another proto-germanic word for chaff)
porsas = *porcas (another proto-germanic word for pork, swine)
lammas = *lambaz (another proto-germanic word for sheep)
Possible loanwords:
hevos = *ehwaz (horse), also hepo, heppa = *hippo- (Hellenic word for horse)
villa = *wullo (wool), also *wilna (proto-Balto-Savic word for wool)
maito (milk), could be derived from the word *mete, a proto-Finno-Ugric word for honey, which in turn could be borrowed from proto-Indo-European *medu (mead).
Very insightful
What's amazing about Indo-European loanwords in Finnish is that they preserve an extremely early borrowing almost unchanged. Finnish, a non-Indo-European language, preserves a very archaic form of Indo-European words better than any other actual Indo-European language. I think it is due to the agglutinative nature of Finnish, where the need to keep the root of the word morphologicallg intact is far more important than in other languages which aren't agglutinative.
*In almost unchanged I mean the morphological structure of the word, disregarding sound changes or the need to fit into the phonetic values of Finnish.
Thank you .
Great video! As a Slavic language speaker I was not so much suprosed with similarities between proto-germanic reconstructions for domesticated animals and plants. Aside from germanic and slavic both steming from IE, animals and plants were all products that could be traded with, hence there is perhaps an incentive to stick to the familiar terms. However, i was suprised by words for farming techniques, as in Serbian, 'treskanje' - meaning to bash against, or trash aggressively, and 'vitlanje' - process of tossing and, as you said, airing out of the wheat, are still in use.
I'm too sick to have anything to contribute. I'm just here to feed the algorithm.
Fun to see old words and reconize them.
Proto-Germanic was presumably the language of the Nordic bronze age. The language of the Nordic iron age was Proto-Norse. Proto-Norse is much more attested than Proto-Germanic, as we have several runic inscriptions in the language.
But P. Germanic and P. Norse, how would they be different? to me they seem samey.
@@MixerRenegade95 Proto-Germanic predates Proto-Norse by a milennia. The languages are very close, almost identical. However, by the time Proto-Norse was spoken, West Germanic and East Germanic languages had divereged considerably from Proto-Germanic. Proto-Norse had not diverged. Proto-Norse is considered a language in its own right as it no longer can be considered the common ancestor of all Germanic languages, due to the digergence of the East and West Germanic branches.
@@sturlamolden Alright got it, thanks!
oddly enough haversack comes from habrô as it was originally a kind of a nosebag used to feed horses.
10:57 indeed, havermout is the Dutch word for rolled oats - the thing you have for breakfast
In High German, we have "Habermus" meaning "muesli", but it is not often used.
Great vid
Yay new video 😄
Threshing is also done on a flat piece of ground that’s called _Tenne_ in German. The English cognate is _den_. After the harvest and the threshing, you’d dance on the „den.“ Go figure.
FUCK YES
I was just reading about 3000 Dutch farms being forced to shut down because reasons and then this crops up. Funny old world.
Dumb reasons, bogus ones. Look into Bill Gates' et al. plans to take over agriculture in the whole world. Sound crazy? It is, but the attempt is real.
"Oat" in english is similar to "goat" but in polish "oat" is "owies" (read like ovies) and a SHEEP is "owca" (read like ovtsa) and sheep in PIE is OVIS.
And goat is just koza so it is more similar to proto germanic cow.
Fascinating stuff. I always wondered why the plural of coo is kye.
Amazing
Very interesting
Fascinating stuff! May I recommend "Geat and Maethild", a recent upload on the Northworthy Sagas and Stories channel here on TH-cam.
A more recent way of separating the grain kernel from the chaff, used in Scandinavia at least till well into the 1800s, is throwing the mix with a big wooden paddle. A challenging and demanding task requireing a decent amount of experience, as it would take a lot of time and each throw had to be of quite consistent force. This way, the biggest and best grain would fly the longest and end up along the wall, while grain of poorer quality would end up closer to the thrower, between the wall and the pile with bits of chaff.
The good quality grain would be used for next year's sowing-crop, and it was also otherwise prefered for ale-brewing. The cuts with smaller grain-size were prefered for food.
Quite interesting!
omg... I'm stunned how much of these words are related to germanic words still today (especially dutch)
Scandinavian have idioms describing oats as goat food. One example is «bukken som passar havresekken» (the billy that guards the sack of oats), meaning that something is open for corruption or embezzlement.
This is a significant subject. Well, I think meals, epitaphs, epopees, and maybe lifestyles that belong to the İron Age or old ages like İron Age would be interesting subjects about the terminology,too.
Interesting with the connection between barr and barley.
And yes the scandinavian "y" is known to be very difficult for native english speakers.
Its fun to hear norwegian in this proto germanic, like treske for what you described as threahing
BTW Grabowski means 'hornbeam man'.