5 Fascinating Language Isolates.

I have finally returned after months in order to speak about 5 interesting and marginalized language isolates, languages that are not related to any other known languages. These languages are from different continents and the only thing that links them is that they are not linked with any other languages. Yalla!
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Sections:
00:00 - Intro
01:00 - שפה א
03:20 - שפה ב
07:48 - שפה ג
14:05 - שפה ד
15:36 - שפה ה
19:24 - Outro
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Links:
Ket and Dene-Yeniseian - • The Siberian cousins o...
The famous Tocharian video - • The Tocharian Languages
Burushaski word list - en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Append...
Sandawe language - • Sandawe Language 1
Shorter video on Sandawe - • Sandawe Language
Warao profile - • Warao: A Curious and I...
Mini-documentary on the Puroik people and their language - • Puroik- The Rangbang M...
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Credits:
Production - me
Graphics - Microsoft PowerPoint
Recording - OBS Software
Editing - Microsoft ClipChamp
Samples - Wikipedia, Omniglot, Language Museum
Voiceover - me
Music - bensound.com
Disclaimer - All content is researched, written, produced and voiced by me. I and only myself own the rights to this video.

[@CheLanguages]

Welcome back everyone. What was your favorite language on this list?

[@AvrahamYairStern]

Burushaski is super interesting

[@AvrahamYairStern]

But I think I prefer P'urhépecha

[@CheLanguages]

I agree with you on both there, they're all interesting! @@AvrahamYairStern

[@grzegorzbrzeczyszczykiewicz991]

I'd love to know more about Sandawe

[@CheLanguages]

@@grzegorzbrzeczyszczykiewicz991 awesome

[@Kamarovsky_KCM]

As a Polish person, whenever I hear "Burushaski" I get this sort of weird uncanny feeling, because it sounds and looks like a Polish adjective describing the language of some Burush people, like Angielski, Francuski, or Chiński, but instead it's a word from that language. So anyways, Burushaski is Slavic confirmed.

[@CheLanguages]

Ah I see what you meant, nie mówię po Burushaski 😂

[@wifil532]

As a native, I can confirm there was a bit of research by polish scholars who visited us as they were fascinated by the name and came here to know more, but later they realized it was probably a coincidence.

[@wifil532]

This is because Burushaski is comprised of two words, buru- short for Burusho, and shaski is the word for tongue or language. Like For English language, we have the word FarangShaski, or the European's tongue. The ski in itself doesn't have any meaning

[@ylliriaalbania326]

​@@wifil532Burush in Albanian means man, ( Burrash ) For example, when we make a promise we say, " Fjalë burrash ", I give you the man's word ) .It is said that Alexander spoke Burusho when he held meetings with his soldiers (men) is this true? Even your language has many Albanian words 🤔

[@wifil532]

@@ylliriaalbania326 this common word is very interesting, because our tradition also says that Burusho was name of the earliest 'men' in these lands, who spoke this language. But other than that, when I used Google translation, I didn't find any more common words. (Though the other word for man, njeri, is quite similar to the Burushaski word 'huri' means men) as for Alexander, many people here, especially the rulers of Hunza valley claimed descent from him, though later genetic studies negated this theory.

[@satohime]

i love hearing you pronounce all the non-english terms as faithfully as you can, it's not only refreshing to hear someone actually try, but also much more valuable to hear the natural pronunciation of what's being talked about

[@CheLanguages]

Thank you, I've always done it as long as I can remember despite people asking me why I say things "weird". I've always maintained to pronounce things accurately, it's respectful to the culture of that language. I also apologize whenever I come across something I definitely cannot pronounce.

[@satohime]

@@CheLanguages mad respect for this, i find it crazy that people would call you weird for pronouncing things properly when they themselves probably pronounce "Xhosa" like "showsha". but the effort is definitely appreciated, it means a lot all around!

[@CheLanguages]

thank you! There is no way I pronounced Xhosa correctly, but I try my best@@satohime

[@pas-giaw6055]

8:52 The Hungarian is actually /ɟ/, not /ɖ/. /ɖ/ is found in many Indic languages as ḍ, so probably areal

[@weepingscorpion8739]

I came here to say the same thing. And yes, many retroflex consonants is definitely an areal feature of South Asia.

[@CheLanguages]

Yeah my bad it was just a mistake

[@CheLanguages]

@@weepingscorpion8739 they're quite widespread in that region yes, Burushaski likely has them because of language contact as someone else pointed out

[@isaacelliott6115]

Thanks! I was looking for this comment!

[@weepingscorpion8739]

The distinction between and is also found in Quechuan languages. Also, I do not think that the voiceless L is all that rare. Sure, in Europe, it's essentially only Faroese, Icelandic, Welsh and some Sami languages that use it but it's pretty common in both Semitic languages and many languages of the Americas, Navajo being a prime example.

[@CheLanguages]

Yeah I looked into it, not massively rare, I'm just not used to it as it's not in any languages I've ever studied or seen. Someone else told me that distinction between q and qh is found in Georgian I think

[@heartsofiron4ever]

He's alive!

[@CheLanguages]

Only just

[@Svensk7119]

​​@@CheLanguages Oh, Lord! I pray for that..... region. The Lord bless you, and Keep you, the Lord make his Face shine on you and be gracious unto you, may He lift His countenance upon you, and give you His Peace. Amen. I don't know how to put it in Hebrew.

[@Deimoes]

finally you're back! i've missed your educational videos about languages. Thank you for educating me when it comes to languages, i've become fluent in german since i started watching you

[@CheLanguages]

That's amazing to hear! Congratulations on the Deutsch, keep going!

[@grzegorzbrzeczyszczykiewicz991]

Learn Polish

[@AvrahamYairStern]

@@grzegorzbrzeczyszczykiewicz991 nie

[@CheLanguages]

@@grzegorzbrzeczyszczykiewicz991 I'm pretty sure German is the opposite LOL

[@IkkezzUsedEmber]

​@@grzegorzbrzeczyszczykiewicz991your username is the most uninviting reason to learn Polish ever

[@adbenkunkus]

I am so glad that you are back, I love your content. Btw, /qʰ/also exists in other languages like Southern Quechua and Aymara.

[@CheLanguages]

Thank you, there's plenty more to come. I've just never noticed it before, I'm sure it does exist in other languages as it's not such a difficult sound to make. Thank you for letting me know

[@AvrahamYairStern]

Surely some Arabic "dialects" have it too, a lot of them end up losing q but some must strengthen it surely?

[@CheLanguages]

@@AvrahamYairStern it's possible but I wouldn't know about it, I just know about 'dialects' losing the q to a glottal stop

[@AvrahamYairStern]

@@CheLanguages yeah Israeli Arabic does that

[@CheLanguages]

@@AvrahamYairStern exactly, same in Levanon

[@wifil532]

As Burusho native, I learned a lot of new things about my language especially those theories about my languages origin. also we have a phenomenon called 'relative nouns',- the subjects name changes according to the obj, like ja alchimo....... Means.... My eyes Go (your) gulchimo....means....your (go) eyes. Inmo(her) mulchimo....means...her eyes. Notice that the word for 'eyes' changes with relation to their owner. Is this phenomenon present in any other language, I wonder? Do you know. It is not found in languages that are in our neighborhood. Edit. We also have the Welsh 'l' sound that you spoke of towards the end.

[@CheLanguages]

Basically you're saying that the word itself is 'chimo', everything else conjugates for the pronoun. I'm guessing you can just say 'gulchimo' without the 'go' and people would understand, making it pro-drop. Other languages do this, like Turkish for example: Kedi (cat) (Benim) Kedim (my cat) (Senin) Kedin (your cat) (Bizim) Kedimiz (our cat) The pronouns are not necessary because the inflection at the end already allows you to know who the possessor is. Burushaski seems to work like this given your example.

[@CheLanguages]

Please do correct me if I'm wrong. Also, that's awesome that you speak Burushaski!

[@wifil532]

@@CheLanguages thank you. well you are right about the purpose of the difference there, but the word is not chimo for eyes. Chimo is not a word for eyes, you can't separate the noun from ownership, so gulchimo, alchimo and mulchimo etc these are words for eyes, but chimo in itself isn't a word like kedi in Turkish for cat. Similarly, there is no single name for 'face'. It is all related to to whose face it belongs to. For my face, we use askil, for your face guskil, etc, but there is no separate word for face. I hope I have explained it well enough.

[@f34rbeast32]

Burushaski seems weird as my understanding is that before Indo-Iranian migrations, Burushaski covered a larger area from Pamir Mountain Ranges far North to Potohar Plateu far South

[@f34rbeast32]

But after Indo-Iranian migrations, Burusho people intermixed with Pamiris and Dardic people. There are also some others who intermixed with Burusho people such as few Tajik groups and Hindkowans and Potohari people also intermingling with the Burusho people

[@t_time5053]

I love that I discovered such a niche part of the internet. A lot of passionate people and a lot of interesting topics. Glad you are back!

[@CheLanguages]

Thank you! I'm glad you like my videos, I've got another cominy very soon!

[@sethfrisbie3957]

Which language family do you plan to cover next? Maybe an expansion on Celtic languages or perhaps Germanic,Finno-Uralic,Semitic,Hellenic,Romance languages or something else?

[@CheLanguages]

I always keep that a surprize, but I've covered all of those before, except Celtic in any detail

[@whydama]

Puroik looks like it had a history with Khasi. Not a khasi speaker myself, but it is a very unique Northeastern Language

[@CheLanguages]

I'll check it out, I didn't see any mentions of any possible connections though

[@grzegorzbrzeczyszczykiewicz991]

I'm so glad you're back, I missed your content

[@CheLanguages]

Dziękuje, I'm back

[@HoosacValleyAhavah]

I have figured out Sumerian and proved the Tower of Babel as a historical event in my 4 part blog series

[@CheLanguages]

Fascinating. I believe the Tower of Bavel was a real event, just not as it was taught. There is evidence that the Tower of Bavel might have actually been the Ziggurat of Eridu

[@CheLanguages]

@@ljerojce2111 what, a lot of these stories had basis in real events

[@BryanLu0]

​@@ljerojce2111Lots of ancient texts that appear to be just a story happen to have a bit of truth, too. It was way more common to mix fact with fiction back then

[@miles8456]

I waited so long for this!! Worth the wait :)

[@CheLanguages]

I hope you enjoy!

[@brillitheworldbuilder]

4:45 Another actually: The "l" you found is actually an r turned upside down and having a retroflex hook. It's called the "retroflex approximant" and exists in English as well, being a way to pronounce the phoneme /r/. The other sounds are retroflex sounds as well (the d with hook is NOT the Hungarian sound you mean which is a voiced palatal stop, written "ɟ" in the IPA) and they are very common across the Indian subcontinent with almost all languages there having retroflex sounds. It's what languages like Sanskrit, Hindi or Tamil are famous for, so I guess Burushaski having them as well is due to language contact, like with Santali, which it is Austroasiatic and thus related to languages like Khmer and Vietnamese which completely lack retroflex phonemes.

[@CheLanguages]

Yeah that was a mistake and confusion on my part, sorry

[@CheLanguages]

It could be down to language contact yeah

[@niku..]

The Burushaski phoneme /ɻ/ isn't articulated like the English /r/ in any dialect I know. It's actually more or less the same as the Chinese phoneme /ɻ/ (Pinyin ) and lies somewhere between [ɻ] and [ʐ] with some degree of palatalization apparently but it has multiple allophonic variants

[@brillitheworldbuilder]

@@niku.. There are people pronouncing English /r/ like this

[@CheLanguages]

I am aware that some dialects use it, but it's rare. The Mandarin comparison is better@@niku..

[@andreman86]

Welcome back!! I love Language Isolates and this is the perfect video for you to make as you came back!

[@CheLanguages]

Thank you! Which language here is your favorite? I too have been interested in language isolates for quite some time

[@andreman86]

@@CheLanguages I found Burushaski interesting because of the case system, I haven't seen such cases before and it kinda blew me away, as well as the consonant inventory was pretty unique compared to the vowels. Lastly I found some of the modified Arabic letters to be pretty interesting as I haven't seen them before

[@CheLanguages]

@@andreman86 same, the case system baffled me just like it has many linguists because I've never seen anything like it in that area, it's definitely not Indo-European, but it's not Yeniseian

[@CheLanguages]

@@andreman86 oh yeah the script was unique too, I've seen a few modified Perso-Arabic scripts now, kike for Kurdish and Turkic languages, but I'm pretty sure I've not seen some of those characters that are used there. It's all really unique

[@wifil532]

@@andreman86 Burusho native here, the modified letters represent sounds that are unique to the langiage and not found in Arabic, also we have a phenomenon called 'relative nouns',- the subjects name changes according to the obj, like ja alchimo....... Means.... My eyes Go (your) gulchimo....means....your (go) eyes. Inmo(her) mulchimo....means...her eyes. Notice that the word for 'eyes' changes with relation to their owner. Is this phenomenon present in any other language, I wonder? Do you know.

[@NinjaAptxParaElPueblo]

My native Language is purépecha and When I visit the Mueso Nacional de Antripologia it said that might be a connection with the proposed quechua-aymara languages and Zuni, also the rh sound young people tend to pronounced as l and in my dialect (western purépecha) the á is pronounced as a ə sound and I hope to see you make more Mesoamerican languages videos.

[@CheLanguages]

I'll definitely be making more videos on it, how cool to have a native speaker here! It blows my mind how many indigenous languages not only survive but thrive in México, some other countries could definitely use México as a model on how to preserve their minority languages. I'd be interested to see the hypothesis on how it could be related to Quechua and Aymara

[@bunk_foss]

Beautiful that Mexico is preserving their languages. Also wonderful video, not sure how it has so few views.

[@CheLanguages]

Compared to my other videos, it is low, but this is the most viral video I've had in over 6 months and I'm happy with it. I'm glad you liked the video. Eres de México?

[@bunk_foss]

@@CheLanguagesI'm from Mexico's Northern neighbor! Didn't realize it was your most viral recently. This entire channel needs more views lmao.

[@CheLanguages]

thank you so much, be sure to share this channel and maybe it might help me. Thank you for the support!@@bunk_foss

[@francisnopantses1108]

Re Taino, archeologically it's well established that people migrated from the north coast of South American to the Caribbean in prehistory.

[@CheLanguages]

I didn't know that, thank you for letting me know

[@Kuliambo]

Just found this channel, amazing video and love your attempts to pronounce everything as accuratly as possible!

[@CheLanguages]

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed my video(s)!

[@CheLanguages]

I'll always try and be respectful to use correct pronunciations, within bounds of what I can actually pronounce at least

[@Adam_Shvartsmann]

Good to see the legend back 💪

[@CheLanguages]

Thank you! I'm glad to be back

[@Rabid_Nationalist]

Damn. Its been so long. Glad you're back! ‍

[@CheLanguages]

Thank you! I'm glad to be back too

[@Language_Guru]

I just found this channel. This is a fascinating video. Thank you!

[@CheLanguages]

You're welcome, I hope you enjoy all my other videos too!

[@nullexpessions6565]

Fascinating video! Ty for your work.

[@CheLanguages]

You're welcome, I'm glad you liked the video. Which language did you find the most fascinating?

[@becalee33]

Shalom! We love you! I'm so happy you are back!

[@CheLanguages]

Thank you for the support! It makes me happy to be back

[@johnlastname8752]

Welcome back! Just a quick thought on the Burushaski-Yeniseian connection: could it be possible that a tribe of Huns spoke a closely related language to the Yeniseian languages when they moved from the Mongolian plateau down to India?

[@CheLanguages]

That's a good question. Sadly, I am grossly uneducated about the Huns, all I know about them is their relation to the end of the Western Roman Empire, thus I thought they were Germanic? I've not done my reading on them at all

[@johnlastname8752]

​@@CheLanguagesit's widely accepted in academia that the Huns were originally from the Mongolian Plateau (probably the Xiongnu in Chinese sources) and that the Hunnic elite spoke some kind of Turkic language that might be the ancestor of the Chuvash language. In North-Western India there were invasions by the White Huns and the Red Huns. The Huns that the Romans had to deal with had a Germanic majority as their population and army, but the elite was probably still Turkic speaking. There's a lot of speculation about the Huns in general because they didn't write anything themselves.

[@CheLanguages]

I've just done some reading on them. Wow, I never knew how many hypotheses there were, I might have to make a video on this. They could have possibly been Iranic, Germanic, Yeniseian, Mongolic, Turkic, Uralic, Caucasian or Paleo-European. That's too many different theories there and I hope someday their true identity could be found out. I find it hard to believe the Xiongnu theory, or that they were Turkic/Mongolic/Yeniseian, it's simply too far away for the time and for populations that were known to exist. Uralic, Caucasian, Proto-Slavic, Germanic or Iranic seem the most likely to me, but that's still a lot of options wow@@johnlastname8752

[@johnlastname8752]

@@CheLanguages something that should be remembered about the steppe area is that it's basically a giant highway, especially for nomadic people that ride on horses and are almost always on the move. The Huns reaching Germania in that time frame is kinda the standard in the history of nomadic steppe people. Happy to know that you thought it was interesting!

[@CheLanguages]

@@johnlastname8752 I guess so. These migrations happened later in recorded history, so there's no reason why they might not have also happened before that

[@xolang]

תודה and welcum back! My friend and I talked about the Object-Subject-Verb word oder, which is very rare among the world's languages, but in my father tongue (an Austronesian language), and especially in my parents' dialect which I also occasionally speak, OSV is not that unusual at all. We don't have case endings btw, so there's no special marker for the subject and/or the object. I'd say that at least in my parents' dialect, OSV is almost as common as SVO.

[@CheLanguages]

Shalom, thank you! What's the language your parents speak? Word order can be flexible in many languages, but what makes Warao special is that it's fixed in OSV position

[@Artur_M.]

It's great to see you back!

[@CheLanguages]

Dziękuje Artur!

[@AidanSim]

Another amazing video!

[@CheLanguages]

Thank you! What was your favorite language?

[@joaoribeiro5938]

the Similarities between the Asiatic and American Indian Languages is a very fascinating topic.

[@CheLanguages]

Do you believe in Dené-Caucasian?

[@joaoribeiro5938]

@@CheLanguages I don't know to much about this theory. But I know that some antropologists found similarities between Ainu and Guarani.

[@CheLanguages]

@@joaoribeiro5938 did they? I've not heard about that

[@joaoribeiro5938]

​@@CheLanguagesthey found similarities with the language from the northern tribes from Brazil with the main japanese language.

[@CheLanguages]

that's awesome, can you send me a link or something?@@joaoribeiro5938

[@seanhoctor6122]

5:28-5:34 That distinction (or very similar) also exists in Chinese. The phonemic distinction (tenuis vs aspirate) for unvoiced affricates is rendered in the Latin alphabet as Z vs C, Zh vs Ch, and J vs Q.

[@CheLanguages]

Ah good to know, Pinyin orthographie always confuses me

[@just1frosty516]

great video, language isolates are always interesting

[@CheLanguages]

There's sooo fascinating, I can't get my head over Burushaski, no wonder why there's so many crazy theories about it

[@barbaraoztas3686]

Thanks so much. Excellent explanation and so intriguing

[@CheLanguages]

I'm glad you found the video interesting

[@Cm0978]

Nice to see you back and finally talking about Native American languages!

[@CheLanguages]

I'm glad too, I never knew about P'urhépecha before this, their civilization is so underrated

[@brillitheworldbuilder]

5:24 Actually this distinction does also exist in Northern America iirc, for example in the Na-Dené language family. Correct me if I'm wrong

[@CheLanguages]

Yeah it's not impossible, just rare

[@chrisamies2141]

Very interesting. I'd literally only even heard of one of these (Burushaski).

[@CheLanguages]

I'm glad to hear you learnt something new!

[@blu9700]

Could you do a video on the Ket langauge/Yeneseian languages?

[@CheLanguages]

I'd love to, I'll get there

[@nicodarsh]

I love your videos and have for a while. I sincerely hope you don't support the state of Israel. That being said, shalom aleichem ✌️ Free Palestine 🇵🇸 Insallah.

[@CheLanguages]

@@nicodarsh you can enjoy my videos without bringing politics in it, and I will talk with you about languages all day no problems, but my country is my country and I would die for Israel if it meant I could guarantee the return of the innocent hostages. Free palestine from the world map, Am Yisrael Khai 🇮🇱

[@brobb00]

I'm glad you're back and I hope you and your loved ones are safe, akhí. 8:50 also that's retroflex, not palatal

[@CheLanguages]

I'm back and safe, I still have people in Israel I care about but they are also safe. And yes, that was my mistake, a few people corrected it already

[@QuandaleDingleGoofyAhh123]

Great video, welcome back

[@CheLanguages]

Thank you! What was your favorite language?

[@QuandaleDingleGoofyAhh123]

@@CheLanguages Warao

[@CheLanguages]

@@QuandaleDingleGoofyAhh123 awesome

[@DesirousCrown84]

Welcome Back!

[@CheLanguages]

Thank you!

[@revinhatol]

GOOD TO HAVE OURSELVES BACK!

[@CheLanguages]

Definitely, I'm glad to be back

[@NeivGabay]

Quick correction: the leh and kargil valleys are part of ladakh, which was separated from Jammu Kashmir in 2019 to become uts own state

[@CheLanguages]

Ah thank you, that's good to know!

[@gazoontight]

Welcome back.

[@CheLanguages]

Thank you as always Gazoontight!

[@annepoitrineau5650]

Thank you, I had never heard of the Purepecha.

[@CheLanguages]

I'm glad you learnt something new!

[@tobybartels8426]

When you first said ‘Dené-Caucasian language family’, I thought ‹Oh, it can't be _that_ Dené› … but it is! Anyway, I hope that you and yours in Israel are safe there.

[@CheLanguages]

Everyone's safe yes thank you. Dené-Caucasian definitely is crazy

[@nicholasayers3326]

Great vid! If you do this again, do you think you could include a clip of someone speaking the language at the end of each segment?

[@CheLanguages]

I've tried that before but they're often copyrighted, I inserted links below to videos of the languages if you are interested

[@CanaanMoment]

Have you ever heard of the monstrosity called the Borean Language hypothesis? If not sorry for informing you of it

[@Titancameraman64]

Oh dude this gonna be good

[@CheLanguages]

I searched it up, I want something to cleanse my eyes now

[@CheLanguages]

Your apology for making me aware of it is accepted

[@CheLanguages]

It's not good!! It's horrifying

[@CanaanMoment]

​@@CheLanguagesit is indeed horrific, no language family should include both Welsh and Manchu

[@loadingbmode7617]

Will you be covering more forgotten languages?

[@CheLanguages]

Check out my channel, it's full of them! I'll be making many more too

[@DaveHuxtableLanguages]

Sandawe /ɟ͜ʎ̝/ isn't that hard! It's a Hungarian plus an Italian [gl] with friction. I'm also intrigued as to why you say all the Spanish place and country names in a Spanish accent but pronounce Israel [ˈɪzɹeiɫ] and not [jisʁaˈʔel]. As for Africa with a rolled [r] ...

[@CheLanguages]

Hello. Many people commented about the Hungarian phoneme, that was an honest mistake and I don't know why I didn't check like I normally would. Your other question is more of an ideolectal one. I am a fluent speaker of Hebrew, and I studied Spanish in the past but have since lost my ability in it down to more than a few phrases. Notice I retain the name of a country or place, I don't say 'España' but rather 'Spain', but if I say [mɛhiːko] for Mexico, I'm sure people (epsecially American viewers) will understand me. As for Israel, when speaking Hebrew I obviously use the name Yisrael, but in English, I use the name people understand as many people don't tend to make the connection. That being said, my pronunciation of Israel is usually closer to the Hebrew than most English speakers would pronounce, being something along the lines of [ɪsraɪɫ] with an "ay" diphthong instead of an "ey", and with a soft s not a z, though if I'm speaking fast I may just pronounce it like everyone else. There might not appear to be too much logic to this, but I just pronounce things how I like and I've always done that and people have always told me "you say x funny" and I usually tell them "I want to be more accurate" though it's not always the case. Finally, I just noticed who you are, I'm a big fan of your channel and have watched your videos for a while now. Your tutorial on French accents helped me improve mine massively to the point I impressed my friend from France. Great channel!

[@DaveHuxtableLanguages]

@@CheLanguages Thanks for the reply and I’m so glad you enjoy my content. I’m all for idiosyncrasy and lack of logic so it was a bit anal of me to call you out on it. I love your passion for languages.

[@CheLanguages]

thank you, keep making great content!@@DaveHuxtableLanguages

[@galileor.cuevas9739]

Your pronunciation of Spanish is spot on. Saludos desde México.

[@CheLanguages]

Muchas gracias, dos o tres años que pasados, estudié español, pero hoy olvidaré mucho de la lengua

[@bearwoodian8607]

Fascinating video! One thing I personally have found puzzling about Burushaski is that it's never discussed as a candidate for the Indus Valley civilisation given its location. The Ket connection looks promising though I hope progress is made on that. I'd love to see you do some analysis on the proposed Uralo-Siberian macro family too.

[@CheLanguages]

Did I not mention it myself? I might have been too busy mentioning all the other theories. I actually saw nothing about it in my research but I wanted to say how there could be a possible link. If so, that would be awesome

[@CheLanguages]

Uralo-Siberian I know not enough about, and Altaïc I also think is far-fetched, but for a while now I've been intrigued by the possibility of a Uralo-Turkic Language Family, for me it could be plausible

[@bearwoodian8607]

@@CheLanguages yes, re Burushaski and IVC, I've never seen anyone suggest them as a possible source for the IVC language despite the fact that the Gilgit district, one of the areas in which B is spoken is only 330 km from the NE edge of IVC sites (roughly where Islamabad is) while B is also spoken in Hari Parbat near Srinagar which is only 170 km away, so very puzzling.

[@bearwoodian8607]

@@CheLanguages re Uralo-Siberian, Wikipedia presents some linguistic evidence and indeed genetic (e.g. the distribution of haplogroup N) and archeological evidence would possibly provide support. The problem with potential cognates is distinguishing a genetic relationship and borrowing, for instance, one of the proposed cognates is the set including Proto Uralic *aja- 'drive, chase' however this set could easily be borrowed from Indo-Iranian *Hájati. I've also read some of Bomhard's articles on the wider Eurasiatic family but found his methodology unconvincing.

[@f34rbeast32]

Indus Valley Civilization likely had multiple languages with Dravidian in the Sindh-Gujarat region, Para-Munda in Punjab Region (Jammu, Haryana, Both Pakistani and Indian Punjab, and Western Himachal), and Burushaski in the Hazara, Potohar, and Gilgit Regions of Pakistan. So it very likely was one of many languages in Indus Valley

[@lainecolley1414]

Also keep in mind how vernacular shapes our voice. Some of this intrigue could be about proximity to basalt.

[@CheLanguages]

Proximity to basalt? What do you mean exactly? And yes, vernacular can be huge in forming differences

[@lainecolley1414]

@@CheLanguages being cheeky, but also acoustics. Like when you can tell they've had to learn to talk over an old Chevy engine, it shows. The amount and types of vegetation etc drives emphasis.. ses... Vernacular as noise.

[@lainecolley1414]

@@CheLanguages consider the PIE words krut (musical learning) and perd (fart) sound like the acts. Indigenous language is based on the environment.

[@AS-jo8qh]

Hi. Van you do a video on retroflex sounds? They are present in Indo Aryan languages of India. The Gha sound, the dha sound, the Dhha sound and the Thha sound. I want to know if these sounds are there in any other languages of the world

[@CheLanguages]

I won't make an entire video dedicated to phonology but I can tell you other languages do have them yes, gh is actually quite common outside of Indo-European languages

[@soyokou.2810]

2:00 > means greater than if we're reading from left to right, not less than Cool vid!

[@CheLanguages]

Sorry, I always forget which way round it is!

[@Luuuma7]

Shout out to the amazing name Tzintzuntzan, the place of hummingbirds.

[@CheLanguages]

It rolls off the tongue so nicely, I love it

[@user-wu3ir7lu1f]

Good video

[@CheLanguages]

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[@josephwest124]

With regard to the "marginalized" comment about P'urhepécha, bear in mind that Mexico has approximately 130 million people but the language is only spoken by about 140,000 people. That's only about 0.1% of the population. That sounds pretty "marginalized" (even within just Michoacán state, the number of speakers accounts for only about 3% of the state's population).

[@CheLanguages]

Yes but it's getting protection from the government and the language is being taught in schools and used by younger people, it's growing not declining thus I wouldn't say it's marginalized in comparison to most of the world's language isolates

[@CheLanguages]

Thank you for your perspective however

[@gerardsotxoa]

Is not marginalized. Many speakers outside of Michoacan don't make the census because they live abroad. Also what do you expect if there's like 60 languages in Mexico?? 100,000+ is a good number for any non nahuatl or mayan language in Mexico

[@CheLanguages]

I guess so. 100,000 is amazing indeed, I have always found Mexico's diversity of languages inspiring, especially how they managed to survive after everything that has happened. The US or Canada cannot really say the same about their languages@@gerardsotxoa

[@rogercroitor4962]

Distinguishing between ts and tsh is in hungarian also represented with (c) and (cs) letters

[@CheLanguages]

Awesome

[@deleted-something]

The east russian isolates are pretty interesting

[@CheLanguages]

Yeah, I'll definitely be talking about at least one of them next time

[@Mjnerua]

עם ישראל חי happy youre back

[@CheLanguages]

עם ישראל חי, גם אני שמח להיות פה תודה

[@bumpty9830]

The "Welsh L" isn't a common sound, but it is not as rare as I used to think. The Nguni languages in Southern Africa (including Zulu and Xhosa which you mentioned) feature this sound spelling it "hl", as does the Dine/Navajo language of North America which spells it "ł".

[@Carlston9723]

Hi, can you include the ainu language in a future video?

[@CheLanguages]

I already did, it's in my video on Language Revitalization Movements

[@user-ze7sj4qy6q]

Glad youre back and more glad you're safe

[@CheLanguages]

Thank you and thank you, I hope you enjoyed the video!

[@AvrahamYairStern]

השיבת מלכנו 🇮🇱

[@CheLanguages]

חזק 💪🏼🇮🇱

[@HoosacValleyAhavah]

I deal with the issue of proto proto Indo European in my proof of Babel theory

[@CheLanguages]

Awesome, I'm going to check it out

[@CheLanguages]

Where can I find it?

[@HoosacValleyAhavah]

@@CheLanguages I keep trying to give it to you but I keep getting deleted

[@HoosacValleyAhavah]

@@CheLanguages I found you on IG your all set,hope you enjoy

[@CheLanguages]

@@HoosacValleyAhavah YT does that sometimes if you try sending certain links, email me it or send me it on Che Languages Instagram

[@angsilaw]

Genocide supporter jumpscare

[@CheLanguages]

Like how Armenia genocided Azeris when they occupied in the 1990s?

[@MinusMOD98]

That qh-sound in Buruhaski sounds rather Arabic. I think that's the sound you're supposed to use for the letter q when pronouncing "Qatar", unless I'm wrong.

[@CheLanguages]

It's similar, except qh is the aspirated version. Q without aspiration is the one in Arabic (though I've been told in dialects aspirated Q appears)

[@regularpersonLIVE]

We also can form OSV sentences in Kazakh because the language has enough cases to do so

[@CheLanguages]

It's possible in many languages yes, but not natural, it may only be used poetically or to sound archaic. The meaning of a language like Warao being OSV means that it's THE ONLY way to form a sentence

[@regularpersonLIVE]

@@CheLanguages For example: Тышқанды(O) мысық(S) жеді(V) (translation: The cat ate the mouse.) Notice that the agglutination -ды means that it indicates that the noun is an object

[@CheLanguages]

@@regularpersonLIVE like -ı -i -u endings in Turkish?

[@regularpersonLIVE]

yeah, maybe@@CheLanguages

[@CheLanguages]

that's the accusative marker@@regularpersonLIVE

[@davidc5191]

Is Basque also a language isolate?

[@CheLanguages]

It is yeah. There used to be another language called Aquitanian that I've spoken about before, but it's not extinct and thus Basque is the only remaining Vasconian language

[@annepoitrineau5650]

So is burushaski related to KET? Has the DNA of the Burushaski been tested?

[@CheLanguages]

I'm not sure, but DNA doesn't always line up with languages as mixint over time can affect the results

[@annepoitrineau5650]

@@CheLanguagesYou are 100%correct, languages and DNA do not need to correlate 1 to 1, but it is still an interesting data point. You might also, for instance, find an X admixture in Ket DNA, which is also found in the Burukashi, while there is no Ket/Burukashi mix. I am personally also in favour of looking at the populations living between the two targets. But as DNA testing is still a bit new, all these things will take place in the future. Fascinating times :)

[@CheLanguages]

@@annepoitrineau5650 I've not found anything on it, of course it can still suggest some sort of link yeah

[@SunniLeBoeuf]

How was Israel?

[@CheLanguages]

Incredible, I had one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I definitely recommend visiting sometime

[@SunniLeBoeuf]

@@CheLanguages I’m glad you enjoyed it! Youre always welcome back. Hopefully in less interesting times. I don’t need to visit as I am from there hahaha. Although I must say you didn’t exactly come at the most opportune moment…

[@CheLanguages]

אה סליחה אחי, לא ידעתי שאתה צבר! כן, אני מתכונן לחזור השנה, יש לי משפחה בארץ ואני מת על המקום, כל האוכל, הטבע, התרבות. בפעם הבאה שאני אבקר בישראל אני מקווה לראות עוד אתרים היסטוריים ולחזור לעיר דוד שוב (ירושלים בהחלט העיר האהובה עליי בעולם עכשיו). מאיפה אתה בא?@@SunniLeBoeuf

[@qpdb840]

We had a language here on this island called Beothick but it died out and it was very different from the other Canadian native languages because it had contact with old Norse in 13 something and it sounded European somehow and slightly like Turkish at the same time with a lot of ö and not a lot of k t d like the other Canadian native languages but unfortunately Beothick is dead

[@CheLanguages]

I'll have to do some research because I am skeptical that the Norse language would have influenced then that much given the Vikings didn't stay in North America for longer than 2 years, but it would be really cool. There is a language isolate spoken on an island in Western Canada however that I came across during my research, it's still alive today!

[@qpdb840]

@@CheLanguages no it’s dead it died out in 18 something it was a lone language on that Island here

[@qpdb840]

@@CheLanguages a potential living one is Malakshai ilami feylî where I do know/ related to those who speak it but it is controversial if it an isolate because it is considered a Kurdish dialects but it has very low congnates only in words that are complex in nature are Farsi or Arabic but the basic family vocabulary which happens to be very close to each language of their family but dada mean mom and bo mean dad o is water like French and unfortunately no one writes it it is only spoken but I can try my best to write it down I have a poem and it I have said it to the other Kurds and they say what did you say. It also has nazil consonants like the word I mn no vowel n

[@unilajamuha91]

It is theorised that beothick has a connection to Dorset culture, as that is where they possibly migrated according to Innuit folklore

[@CheLanguages]

@@qpdb840 yeah I figured that part, you said it's extinct. Still, I was just saying that there's another language isolate spoken on an island in Canada, which is an off coincidence

[@003mohamud]

What town is that at 3:22?

[@CheLanguages]

La Isla de Janitzio, which is P'urhépecha for «maize flower». The inhabitants are mostly of P'urhépecha descent and the language is purportedly strongly in use there.

[@Fefe1209]

yay

[@CheLanguages]

Yay indeed. What was your favorite language here?

[@Fefe1209]

burushaski was pretty cool@@CheLanguages

[@CheLanguages]

@@Fefe1209 awesome!

[@geo24793]

Would love a vid on the propose dené-caucasian family!

[@CheLanguages]

I might talk about it soon!

[@andriusgimbutas3723]

Pure insanity

[@andriusgimbutas3723]

I'd much enjoy something more grounded, like a Yenisean-Dene video

[@CheLanguages]

@@andriusgimbutas3723 then imshawngetoffmylawn's video sounds perfect for you

[@CheLanguages]

@@andriusgimbutas3723 indeed it is insanity

[@anowarjibbali]

5:33 Bengali also distinguishes between aspirated and unaspirated /tʃ/, though it doesn't have /ts/

[@CheLanguages]

That's awesome to know, thank you!

[@Goophyass]

12:39 the way that I started cry-laughing when i saw this map was crazy

[@CheLanguages]

Yeah LOL it's insane

[@CanaanMoment]

Hey, at least it isnt the unholy creature that is Borean.

[@CheLanguages]

@@CanaanMoment at least that

[@Annathroy]

But Slavic languages have "free" word order I think which isn't fascinating to me since I am Croatian but it is to others

[@CheLanguages]

That's true, because Slavic languages are highly inflectional with lots of cases

[@LearnRunes]

@14:28 Interesting choice of flag to show the Indian border dispute with China there.

[@CheLanguages]

Yeah, the Chinese flag 🇹🇼

[@brewersfan9322]

​@CheLanguages Not a betting man but I think the PRC has better chance of surviving the next century than israel, a state which is run top to bottom by ethnofascists and child molesters.

[@jonahs92]

​@@CheLanguagesBased af

[@CheLanguages]

@@jonahs92 thank you

[@gavinisdie]

I noticed alot of comments her arguing about Israel and Palestine, im just gonna say both states have the right to exist

[@CheLanguages]

Peace for all innocent civilians on both sides. But if people come here telling me Israel should be destroyed, they can happily unsubscribe

[@southepirote7676]

Albanian words for Burusho 10:06 kalash+Kala =castle Hunza+Hund=nose pamir+pamemi =good sight burosho+Burrnon =MAN These tribes have Albanian roots

[@YouTubdotCub]

Speaking of Sumerian, what do you think about the theory that Sumerian branched off from Proto-Tibeto-Burman and is a sort of isolate "sister" of the Tibeto-Burman language group that's not exactly within the group?

[@CheLanguages]

It sounds absurd, but with thousands of years of separation you never know. I might have to read up on this

[@YouTubdotCub]

@@CheLanguages it's a relatively new-ish theory, 2010s some time I believe, so there's only a handful of papers on it but it's pretty interesting!

[@CheLanguages]

@@YouTubdotCub hmm I might have to give it a read. I'm very skeptical to such a theory myself

[@YouTubdotCub]

@@CheLanguages yeah, not sure what I think of it as it is relatively new scholarship and the evidence isn't particularly strong as of yet, but it is interesting that there is strong evidence of trade links between Sumer and the Harappan civilization, and Sumerians suddenly appearing in the late Ubaid period with a seeming language isolate seems like it had to be from somewhere relatively closeby and easy to migrate from, which those trade linkages show would probably not have been overly difficult from a region just north of there to Sumer

[@CheLanguages]

@@YouTubdotCub Interesting. However, it's important to note that we don't know if Harappan and Burushaski are related at all

[@yasagarwal859]

at 9:00 id say its not a gy rther a retroflex which is a feature of languages of indian sub continent(and found in many languages) then ts' and ch' are quite common

[@CheLanguages]

It was a mistake on my part, many people corrected me already so yeah you're right

[@AvrahamYairStern]

P'urhépecha

[@CheLanguages]

P'urhépecha

[@grzegorzbrzeczyszczykiewicz991]

P'urhépecha

[@QuandaleDingleGoofyAhh123]

P'urhépecha

[@Schody_lol]

P'urhépecha

[@wasnt.here.3853]

Love the subtle ROC flag at 14:20 haha

[@CheLanguages]

The real China 💪🏼🇹🇼

[@fariesz6786]

i'm honestly baffled you say you've only ever seen the contrast of unaspirated vs. aspirated alveolar fricatives (/ts/ vs. /tsʰ/) in Georgian. for one, the unaspirate fricative in Georgian is ejective (although admittedly the realisation is so smooth that it almost sounds like pulmonal unaspirate) and the language also contrasts fully voiced /dz/. that is, however, a feature common throughout the Caucasus! _and_ also a feature of Mayan languages. apart from that it's the typical fortis-tenuis differentiation in Mandarin and many other Chinese languages though. and (albeit not with /ts/ and only marginally with /tʃ/) in Upper German varieties (Bavarian and Alemannic) also i second the concerns other had about your reasoning on /ɖ/ - for one is not the same as Hungarian /ɟ/ and secondly are neither of them particularly unusual sounds (at least not areally, where South Asia has an abundance of retroflex sounds contrasting with dentals~alveolars) lastly, Puroik's phonemes don't seem too unusual. sure the /ɬ/ is slightly uncommon but not massively so. otherwise i would say what makes it stand out is that it looks rather tame for the area, with no strikingly strong influences from neighbouring Indian or Sino-Tibetan languages.

[@CheLanguages]

Well, when I said Georgian, I was referring collectively to all the Kartvelian languages. I have studied Mayan languages before and can't say I've noticed the distinction, but it was a long time ago. Thank you for the information though, the stuff about Bavarian and Alemannic dialects is good to know!

[@CheLanguages]

Yes, a few others corrected me about the Hungarian gy, it was an honest mistake on my part. I thought I recognized the phoneme and didn't bother to check. As for the Welsh LL, I can think of other languages that contain it, but again, it's still relatively rare and an amazing thing to see in a language isolate in India

[@ChuJungyin]

14:22 The ROC flag on a map of the modern border between India and China. Interesting choice.

[@CheLanguages]

I chose the flag of China 🇹🇼

[@ChuJungyin]

@@CheLanguages I'd prefer a Ming Dynasty flag. /JK

[@CheLanguages]

@@ChuJungyin Based

[@senecavermeulen8110]

i tried to write a series where the main character was a warao in early-1800’s key west

[@CheLanguages]

Interesting, what was the premise of it?

[@senecavermeulen8110]

@@CheLanguages almost all his spanish-speaking crewmates are killed in a shipwreck off of key west and he investigates the cause

[@CheLanguages]

@@senecavermeulen8110 that sounds cool, why didn't you continue it?

[@AvrahamYairStern]

The return of the Melekh

[@CheLanguages]

Yair haMelekh lashonim

[@jonahs92]

​@@CheLanguages מלך הלשונות* 😉

[@CheLanguages]

@@jonahs92 באמת? תודה, פעם לא ראיתי את צורת הרבים למילה הזאת

[@jonahs92]

@@CheLanguages כן, זה כמו מלון-מלונות או חלון-חלונות. ברוב המקרים כשמילה מסתיימת ב"-ון", צורת הרבים שלה תסתיים ב"-ות", למרות שמין המילה זכר.

[@jonahs92]

@@CheLanguages את האמת שאנשים בקושי משתמשים במילה "לשון" למשמעות "language". הרבה יותר נהוג להגיד פשוט "שפה". אבל "לשון" נשמע יותר פורמלי, אז אני מניח שהשתמשת בזה בכוונה.

[@mr-vet]

When discussing Puroik, I saw that you used the Republic of China (Taiwan) flag, vice the People’s Republic of China….. I love it! The Taiwan (Republic of China) is the legitimate government of all of China.

[@CheLanguages]

What other flag would I use? It's China, there's only one China, the Republic of China 🇹🇼

[@theunholyburger9338]

Ok good you didn't get called up or killed

[@CheLanguages]

Um...thank you? Well either way I agree

[@Frahamen]

Well all in South America or in a Galaxy far far away....

[@CheLanguages]

South America might well as be a different galaxy with their crazy crazy languages with OSV order and so forth, super fascinating

[@claudiochanganaqui2048]

Aquitanian language?

[@CheLanguages]

No longer exists, if you mean Basque and Aquitanian, I talked about it already in my video on Iberian Languages

[@claudiochanganaqui2048]

@@CheLanguages😄🥛🫔🫔🫔🫔🫔

[@theaviatroy]

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

[@CheLanguages]

Thank you

[@Trolligi]

I love ket I have a small discord server with loads of ket resources if anyone is interested

[@CheLanguages]

I don't think the phrase "I love Ket" is the smartest thing to say out loud, but I'd certainly be interested in that server!

[@andycockrum1212]

Is it possible for a group of people to be so isolated for so long that their language would appear to be a language isolate? As in it was once related to other languages, but due to isolation, the language became a dialect, then a separate language, then continues to morph its pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, that it would appear to be totally unrelated to its former linguistic cousins?

[@CheLanguages]

It is definitely possible, this is why theories such as Dené-Caucasian exist. It's possible proto-Basque and Aquitanian (the other Vasconic language that went extinct) might have once been related to languages like Minoan (another isolate), Etruscan or even the Caucasian languages. The thing is, it's so far removed that's it's impossible to make a connection and we'll probably never know, unless some Divine evidence emerges. This is possibly what happened with Caucasian languages, the three families may have once been related but split apart, but it's not proven. Burushaski may have indeed been related to Yeniseian, and I've actually seen a pretty good argument that Japanese and Korean were likely related around 5000 years ago, but many modern linguists state they're separate language families

[@andycockrum1212]

@@CheLanguages Dené-Caucasian as in Dené, the endonym for the Navajo people? I’ve never heard of this proposed family. I may have to read up on why they think it may be theoretically possible. Proto-Koreanic being a language family has always confused me too.

[@CheLanguages]

that's precisely the theory, links were found between the Yeniseian languages and Dene, which originally lead to the Dene-Yeniseian theory. This has evolved into the Dene-Caucasian language family theory which includes soooo many more languages and is much more far-fetched.@@andycockrum1212

[@cristixav]

Samles of Sandawe: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hHOoZ5x7gN2Wmpo kzbin.info/www/bejne/gn-XcoZ9a7Wffa8

[@CheLanguages]

Thank you

[@utahraptor4729874]

What a time to be in Israel...

[@CheLanguages]

Sadly, at least I got out in time

[@marioksoresalhillick299]

I feel like the short answer might explain the long answer lmao

[@CheLanguages]

What do you mean particularly?

[@marioksoresalhillick299]

@@CheLanguages You were in Israel

[@CheLanguages]

well yes I was@@marioksoresalhillick299