A Conversation with Simon Roper

Just two guys talking about languages. In many ways a sequel to this conversation Simon had with Luke Ranieri: • A Chat with Luke Ranieri

[@craighughes536]

The 3 of you should create a podcast on ancient languages/languages in general...Raniero, Roper and Crawford... Epic

[@Ciiran]

Was just going to suggest this.

[@williamvanessen1604]

I completely agree!

[@craighughes536]

With Richard Simcott as a special guest, then various polygots every so often...(I've not thought about this much 😄 ..

[@Kovu2004]

I really want the three of them to make a podcast. They should call it the linguistic triumvirate.

[@Ciiran]

@@Kovu2004 The Triumorate

[@davidlericain]

This is litterally my favorite thing to watch on all of KZbin. No joke. Simon and Jackson talking.

[@jangtheconqueror]

Wait so Simon Roper joins in Jackson Crawford's family game nights? That's awesome haha

[@weepingscorpion8739]

Just as a native Faroese with a BA in the language to compliment on Jackson's explanation of the Faroese reflexes of Old Norse þ and ð. Faroese has NO dental fricatives, period. Þ becomes t initially except in some pronouns so þat /θat/ becomes tað /tʰɛa:/ but þessi /θes:i/ becomes hesin /he:sɪn/ in the masculine. Now, Faroese also has no velar fricatives either, so both ð and g dissappear both finally and intervocalically, so in order to avoid gaps, Faroese adds an approximant to fill this gap and it's this one that depends on the surrounding vowels, so we either add nothing a [j] or a [v]/[w] or the preceding vowel is coloured somehow. Wikipedia explains it pretty well but essentially if the preceding vowel is a front vowel or a diphthong ending in a front vowel we add [j] or if back vowel it's [v]/[w]. If the vowel is mid or low, the 2nd vowel decides and if both are mid or low some other shenanigans happen. So, biður (asks) has a [j] while hugur (mood) has a [v], maður has [v] but faðir has [j]. The same thing happens if no consonant was there, so the forms Ria and Riu (from Maria) have [j], and the name Búi has an inserted [v]. Óðin is [ɔuwɪn] (or more like [œuwɪn] in my dialect). Now, as for low and mid: let's take fáa (to get) and dagar (days), fáa is /fɔɑ:a/ and dagar is /tɛa:aɹ/, in my dialect we monophthongise this to something like [fɔ:a] and [tɛ:aɹ] while many people raise these vowels to, so we now get an approximation insertion again to something like [fu:wa] and [di:jaɹ]. So this shows, that this is probably one of the more difficult things to learn in Faroese. :)

[@LFSDK]

[ɣ] fanst/finst í Vágum og Sandoy, men tað er ringt at siga um tað var varðveitt ella bara ein serligur framburður í hesum samanhangum. Eg haldi eisini at Hammershaimv nevnir [ð] varðveitt onkustaðni í Færøsk Anthologi, men tað er alt helst deytt nú.

[@matthew-qu2mn]

I am curious. Where does one get a BA in Faroese? Føroyar? Denmark?

[@weepingscorpion8739]

@@matthew-qu2mn Only in the Faroes to the best of my knowledge. og @LFalch ein av lærarunum hjá mær er vágamaður og pápi mín er suðuroyingur, og har eru eingi velar trongaljóð. So hatta er alt horvið.

[@hoathanatos6179]

Does the Th to H have any connection to Scottish Gaelic since it and preaspiration occurs in both languages in the same ways?

[@weepingscorpion8739]

@@hoathanatos6179 I don't know. I've had that thought myself but I don't think so.

[@lewis9159]

You can tell Jackson had a lot of fun with this one lol

[@jon...5324]

You guys are really cool, and the fact you're genuinely friends makes me happy

[@InRegardsToMetal]

You guys should do a video podcast. Maybe do episodes focused on particular regional accents and invite on native speakers of those accents.

[@TEKRific]

Regarding the buzzy Swedish sound it's an upper class i sound. Some speculate that it's from the dialect and people of Bohuslän and the rich people picked up that i-sound from them during their summer holidays in that area and brought it back home. So it's an affected way of speaking that's gained prestige among young ppl especially women. It used to be a class marker for people from Östermalm and Lidingö (Parts of Stockholm) and as Jackson it has spread like wildfire. But the sound can be found naturally in Bohuslän where that i-sound is native to the place and has been there for a really long time.

[@tyreesetranh4074]

Are you sure they didn't originally acquire it from Alvin and the Chipmunks?

[@TEKRific]

@@tyreesetranh4074 Hahaha, It's easy to see why you'd think so and who knows with these things. Disney's influence is everywhere.... ;)

[@weepingscorpion8739]

@@tyreesetranh4074 I dunno... when I heard it I immediately thought of another video of Jackson Crawford's where he imitates Sméagol. I just can't remember which video that was.

[@rbnlenin]

I have it natively in my north Bohuslän dialect, which I have been teased endlessly for 🤷

[@jansundvall2082]

This is also common in the dialects in the Indalsälven area in Medelpad.

[@Glassandcandy]

I want an avengers type super movie where Simon, Jack, and Luke have to band together in an unlikely companionship to revive colloquial proto-indo-European.

[@nicholaslemosdecarvalho5328]

So basically, Swedes are starting to sound like Stitch, from Lilo&Stitch?

[@blakewinter1657]

I don't know whom you are describing, but 'whom' is still a perfectly cromulent word! No seriously, for me the use of whom is very natural feeling. But I think I started doing it because I was learning German and I was trying to remind myself of subject/object distinctions. And over time I kind of naturalized it. The 'I should not have gone there' example, though, took me several seconds to even figure out what it meant... 'Should' is a synonym for 'ought' in my particular dialect! Although I also sometimes say 'I have to' with 'have' pronounced with the voiced v, as an alternative to 'ought.' But then I also say 'haf to.'

[@grout6924]

always interesting how learning a language can teach you about your own

[@alisonjane7068]

i'm from northeast texas, and i think i use "winter" and "winner" interchangeably to refer to the season, but my great-grandparents lived in a tiny town in west texas called winters, that is absolutely pronounced as "winners". their school mascot is the blizzards. lol.

[@letthetunesflow]

Laughing pretty damn hard about the “buzzy” Swedish sounds! I never noticed it in a technical way before, but it’s so true! I don’t speak Swedish but hang around with some Swedish friends because of my love of metal, but now I’m not going to be able to stop noticing it! I don’t seem to hear as much of it from my friends from Gothenburg, but maybe it’s just the people I hang out with. Going to have to hold on to that description for the next time I get teased for my Canadian accent. That elf description had me crying with laughter! 😂 I’m alway shocked when people don’t notice they have an accent. I’m always keenly aware of my western Canadian accent, especially when I’m with my rural Alberta friends and my “Wanna go for a rip” accent goes full Canadian stereotype. I know most people think Canadians have one accent, but due to the size of Canada we actually have some pretty diverse accents. There is a pretty big rural/city divide along with the standard provincial differences. I’m not sure how common in other countries the rural/city accent differences are, but in Canada I’ve noticed a very big difference between them. The larger cities seem to be becoming more and more like the “generic North American accent”, while the rural areas seem to be retaining their regional accents even within the younger generations. Is there a mechanism or reason for large cities within a country like Canada becoming similar even though they are separated by thousands of kilometres, yet rural accents seem to be becoming even more regionally diverse? It’s just something I’ve noticed anecdotally. One little thing I’ve noticed is places like Vancouver are sounding more and more like the standard Pacific NW accent, while the interior of British Columbia seems to be hanging on to it’s uniqueness.

[@TEKRific]

Ask your friends from Gothenburg to mimic the i-sound of people from Bohuslän. It's very distinctive and buzzy.

[@letthetunesflow]

@@TEKRific Will do! Thanks for the idea! Always in need of some linguistic ammo to defend myself from the easy Canadian accent jokes! 😝

[@felixlublasser1660]

People living in big cities will much more often be in close contact with people from elsewhere, when compared to people in rural areas. When a bunch of people with different accents come to live together, this phenomenon is called accent levelling. Historically it has happened for example during colonization events, such as when English speakers colonized North America. Nowadays, the effect even transcends its previously geographically limited nature, due to increased ease of transportation, telephony and the power of the internet connecting people across greater distances than ever before.

[@letthetunesflow]

@@felixlublasser1660 Thanks for the answer! Really appreciate it! What I don’t know and I’d love to understand is how with the internet and ease of communication some rural people lose their rural local accent, yet other rural people, who interact just as much online, and with others not local, some how still have their rural/local accent intensify? Is this just because of how tight knit these communities are, and some people are just more affected by their local peer group than others? I just find it fascinating that two people in a rural community, with equal interaction online, and with a wide range of people, are affected so differently. I know people in families just like Jackson Crawford, where siblings and relatives have accents that are almost the polar opposite to one another. What’s the mechanism behind this affect? I’ve even seen an affect where a person who grows up in a rural community has their local accent even intensity. Is this possibly cause by the amount subconsciously a (edit: person) identifies with their local friends and community? Thanks again for the answer! I’m just starting to learn about linguistics, and things like this are just absolutely fascinating to me!

[@robthetraveler1099]

I agree with everything @Felix Lublasser said, plus I would add as a "mechanism": tertiary education.

[@patriciaadams3010]

This is the bromance that Linguistics KZbin (and maybe non-linguistics KZbin) is here for 100%.

[@DaneJarl]

I really appreciate these kinds of off the cuff discussions. For a lot of us passionate about the subject, this is a rare chance to sit in on a casual conversation about it. There is a lot of formal training, and informal education aids available to us, but what is often missing is just geeking out with other enthusiasts. When Simon mentioned he had a green book with golden/yellow binding, I knew exactly what book he was talking about, and when Jackson said, "Old English and Its Closest Relatives", I turned my head just to glance at the copy on my shelf. A book no one has ever mentioned in my normal, or even academic life, casually name dropped in this discussion. It's just really nice. Thanks (I also know Jackson doesn't read these comments, but oh well, still felt like saying it.)

[@snowcrow599]

22:39 I'm a Swede from Gothenburg and that weird nasal vowel sounds silly to me too

[@VieiraFi]

Kinda late, but yes, in Brazil we tend to pronounce "ti" and "di" as "tchi" and "dji", you're correct. People from the northeast don't do that, but most brazilians do.

[@williamvanessen1604]

I absolutely love the talks with Simon, got super excited when I saw this notification in my feed!

[@justin.booth.]

I mean to be fair the whole swedish language comes across as faintly ridiculous because of the whole pitch accent thing. To me it always sounds like that singsong tone you use when reprimanding a very cute cat for doing something bad

[@ryanwani216]

Jackson Crawford has a more conservative form of the yod sound than Simon. Even though RP retains the yod sound better than american English, there are still place where it has lost it, for example after ch such as 'chew' and after 'l' such as 'solution', and after some 's' words 'suit'. Some regional American accents in the south never lost their yod, thus explaining jacksons accent. In his case his yod is more conservative in that it is preserved in words such as 'chew'. Another example of an accent being conservative with yod is that a lot of indians still pronounce the yod after words such as 'solution'.

[@Art-uj9jv]

20:30 As a Swede I honestly can't blame you for thinking that the sound is weird because I hate how it sunds, it just grosses me out

[@HelmuthVMoltke]

The "Viby i" is an interesting phenomenon and has always stuck out to me as a Norwegian

[@evaberglund8144]

You are imitating the Lidingö "I" ... that is particularly defining an upper-class sociolect in the Stockholm region :)

[@FERDINANDVSLVCIVS]

Brazilian bloke speaking here. We do pronounce the preposition "de" similarly to how you pronounce the interjection "gee". The only difference is the vowel is short, same quality, but short. All "ti"s and "di"s are affricated as well as most unstressed "te"s and "de"s, in which the "e" is reduced.

[@FERDINANDVSLVCIVS]

BTW your pronunciation of "noite" was flawless!

[@HarryH256]

Great to see Jackson's sense of humour at the fore in this interview.

[@robthetraveler1099]

8:54 Thus also displaying the pin-pen merger. 😉 I would pronounce the consonants in "sinner and "center" the same, but the vowels are different.

[@Ciiran]

The ”vi” sound in Swedish is quite exagerated by Jackson. I usually call it the ”vitt vin” sound. It’s more of an aspirational sociolect than anything else imo. Its bot that common and it’s unlikely you will pick it up from your parents. It’s rather something you affect to present yourself as high income. Imo.

[@soton4010]

That buzzing is from long vowel breaking where [iː] → [iʝ̩] which is similar to some enɡlish dialects which had [iː] → [ɪi]

[@katarinawikholm5873]

That buzzy iii in Swedish is a class marker that is spreading from the pretentious parts of Stockholm. Think Queen’s English. (I’m Swedish, speaking an East Swedish/uppland dialect, born in the 1960s) But in my lifetime the rolled R of East Swedish has changed/merged into a zh buzz. At the same time the sj (sh) has shifted into (old Slavic student) shch-in-Russian or h (to avoid sh merging w ch) and the tj/ch/h is becoming the very weak shch. It’s been 35 years since I studied phonetics so can’t put it better terms. Just reporting from the trenches of phonetic change.

[@alexlarsen6413]

From your description, it sounds like a soft pronunciation of that russian soup - borsch

[@rbnlenin]

As a Bohuslän native, I have to point out that the buzzy i is used in the northern Bohuslän dialects. Especially Tjörn.

[@Aurora-oe2qp]

@@rbnlenin Tjörn isn't north, is it?

[@rbnlenin]

@@Aurora-oe2qp That's true. I guess let's just amend that to "from Stenungsund and northwards".

[@henrik2518]

No hate from Sweden as anything regarding Stockholm should be mocked religiously.

[@YolayOle]

Hahaha! The intro is hilarious. Question - are the 5 others using the same wheelchair?

[@VermisTerrae]

I came to this video directly after watching the talk with Simon posted on April 30th, 2021. It really warms my heart to go from hearing, "We've only known each other for two weeks," to "We need to get you back for our family game night." You never know when you're going to meet another great friend. :)

[@dorteweber3682]

There is something like that in the Danish spoken by younger people, It occurs on soft "d" at the ends of middle of words, and it sounds like retching to me. The 'd' is somehow articulated very far back on the tongue. I am a native speaker of Danish, but haven't lived there for so many years that these 'new' features really stand out for me.

[@rellsw02]

Friends having a riveting conversation spanning from the intricacies of English linguistics to an incredible musem in an area that it wouldn't be thought to exist.

[@everettdalton8941]

Wifi didn´t have time to even load the thumbnail, but once I saw your channel and the name Simon Roper together I knew I had to click. Cheers from Aragón Spain!

[@Jackejakobsson]

Norrland here: Stockholmska is the worst really. Thanks for sharing. :P

[@sortingoutmyclothes8131]

39:00 The rule I use for German is that, unless the word has an ending with a specific plural (like -tät, -schaft, -ung, -er, etc) and unless it is "irregular," (which is really way too many words for it to be called irregular, but whatever), what usually works for me is 1) if it ends in a consonant, add an -e, and 2) if it ends in an -e, add an -n. But that's only if you're not sure and you have to think of something on the go, otherwise learn it by heart.

[@weirdlanguageguy]

I've been thinking about have/have to minimal pairs, and I think I have a good one: the stuff I have to eat. With [hæv] it means "things available for me to eat", with [hæf] it means "things I am compelled to eat."

[@seamussc]

I would say in terms of Carolina accents, South Carolina has more in common with Georgia and North Carolina with Virginia than they do with each other, unless you're right on the NC border in a town like Rock Hill. This is especially the case on the coast with GA/SC accents, unless they are an old Charlestonian speaking with that old fashioned aristocratic accent or something.

[@OmegaTaishu]

Very nice conversation... Thanks for posting! Also, at 52:10, the preposition "de" is pronounced /dʒi/. I think this applies mostly to the Carioca accent, but basically, "ti" and unstressed "te" are pronounced /tʃi/, while "di" and unstressed "de" are pronounced /dʒi/. "night" is "noite" /'noitʃi/, but in some regions /'noite/ can be heard.

[@jacobandrews2663]

I think in Japanese this t/d/ch thing is also reflected in the syllabary itself where for the consonant "t" they go "た (ta)", "ち (chi)", "つ (tsu)", "て (te)", "と (to)"

[@HK-cq6yf]

I also hear the "buzzy" /i/ in French too sometimes, not to the same extreme

[@grout6924]

i think you're talking about a voiceless palatal fricatives after /i/ at ends of words, like /mɛʁsiːç/

[@GSteel-rh9iu]

23:10 Crawford: Santa's helper accent; see prev. discussion on Swedish shifting vowel "buzzy-ness"

[@dixgun]

What about the English speakers who pronounce music as ‘moo-zik’ instead of ‘mew-zik’? It reminds me of ‘day-boo’ for debute. I’ve heard both American and English people pronounce these words in various ways so I’m now confused as to which is correct.

[@Matt_The_Hugenot]

I voice the v in have to, so do my brothers (born in Surrey, England in the 1960s, moved to South West England in 1970). I think my parents did the same, they came from London suburbs. You don't know how happy it makes me that two of my favourite KZbinrs are genuine friends.

[@nephuraito]

I've noticed you have the "conservative" pronunciation of english wh, you really are the Proto-Germanic guy in every possible way.

[@kaisy5826]

My favorite example of the post high vowel affrication of plosives is that the Japonic languages underwent it twice separately and for different plosives, because Okinawan 'utiyun corresponds to Japanese ochiru and Okinawan unaji corresponds to Japanese unagi

[@grahamh.4230]

On the topic of the glide in “new” (post-/n/ yod), I think there’s some idiolectal/familectal variation. I’m 17 from Chicago and don’t use it, but I’ve noticed it in the speech of a friend and a teacher (both also fairly young Chicagoans). My mom uses one in “avenue” but not “new” or “news.”

[@masebass2585]

Have to: "I have to kill a mockingbird" - pronouncing it "haff" implies that the killing of a mockingbird is an action you have to carry out, pronouncing it "hav" implies that you own the book To Kill A Mockingbird

[@stevenklinden]

Interesting discussion of "wh". I also have a distinction between "w" and "wh". For a long time I thought that neither of my parents had the distinction, and was quite confused as to where I picked it up, but listening carefully to my mom recently, I realized that she does have a subtle but consistent distinction between them. I go back and forth on whether I think that it's an "h" phoneme followed by a "w" phoneme, or a single phoneme of its own. The discussion of "have" surprised me, because I'm pretty sure I always pronounce it voiced. The unvoiced version sounds perfectly natural to me, and I agree that the unvoiced version is exclusively used for the auxiliary verb, but I'm also quite sure that I voice the "v" when I say, e.g., "I have to go." Now I'm going to be listening carefully to how everyone I speak with says this.

[@burnblast2774]

With the nation the t had gone to /s/ even in the later forms latin. /ti/ is not preserved in any romance language. Note how most of the actual romance languages spell their equivalent suffix -cion. The t was added into English spelling as an etymological spelling to make words more visibly related to their Latin roots, and (allegedly) to make English orthographicly more distinct from French.

[@mesechabe]

i’m glad Simon pointed out Luke Ranieri‘s pronunciation of Latin, as if it were a double T in Italian. I am not sure, but I don’t think he pronounced it that way a couple of years ago when I first started listening to him. I should look up the timestamp and see if there’s a point at which begins doing that. As if I have that kind of time. But I don’t think anybody says it that way in America unless it’s a regional or academic pronunciation.

[@melissamybubbles6139]

Two of my favorite linguistics people talking? Count me in!

[@BlakeBarrett]

TIL: the Hormone Monster, Rick, from Big Mouth has a Swedish accent.

[@morvil73]

Útlendingur sem talar íslensku! … That’s what I always got in Iceland…

[@aiaiaaooe]

"I hæf tə fish!" and "I hæv tu fish!" 🎣🤔🐟🐟 or "I have to fish!" and "I have two fish." Sometimes, depending on emphasis, I do hear "I hæf-tu" and "I hæv-tə," too!

[@SirDeathDark]

A number of things in this video stood out to me that I wanted to comment on or add to. For context, I'm from the Lowlands of South Carolina, which plays first into Crawford pointing out different regional accents--difference between Texas and Georgia and Carolina. I know what he means in regards to Texas vs Carolina in general, but my experience is that I can't tell the difference between the average South Carolinian and the average Georgian. It's a lot easier to notice what we call the Plantation accent or Charleston accent (think Foghorn Leghorn) and the Appalachian accent than it is to notice others. In regards to the slide in words like "new", I've noticed that I'll say "that is new" without a slide, but "I knew that" with a slide. Of course, I haven't been observing myself for that quirk, so I can't say how consistent that is or what other trends it follows. In regards to "hafta", I do actually pronounce it closer to "havta" with a tap instead of a full t, but also I would almost never choose to phrase it like that. If I need to retrieve the mail that's just been delivered, I'd say, "I gotta go get the mail." Great talk as always, look forward to more in the future!

[@scottnance2200]

Hey, I say "wheel" (hweel) too. That's why it's wh, and not just h.

[@Sindraug25]

And in Old English all the 'wh' words were spelt 'hw'. Not sure why they got switched.

[@Anderssea69]

Oh at 20:40 the Infamous Lidingö I (Lidingö is an island in the vicinity of Stockholm)

[@AutoReport1]

Shellfish, crayfish, starfish, whalefish .... Semantic restriction goes so far academics can't even think that a piscatorix is a fishwife, but is rather a female fish seller (or can't use the w- word?)

[@burnblast2774]

I notice with the hw phoneme there's an almost whistly quality to it. Noticing that has finally helped my understand how to say it with what you were saying about it being more forward.

[@koomaj]

Can someone share link to example sound bite of that new swedish language phenomenon. Jackson made it sound so ridiculous that it has to be heard straight from the source =)

[@Bjowolf2]

Wow, who would have known that about Simon Roper and Luke Ranieri? 😂

[@AutoReport1]

If you accept that Gothic/ Burgundian came out of the Baltic, then presumably gender changes happened after East German languages moved South.

[@dorteweber3682]

who says you can't know a book by its cover? If it's about Old English, evidently you can LOL!

[@MrPeterKJ]

I wonder when you speak Danish, Jackson, do you pronounce the H in: hvad, hvor, hvordan ?

[@dorteweber3682]

wouldn't you have to pronounce the v as a w?

[@rasmusn.e.m1064]

@@dorteweber3682 There are still some old people in Northwestern Jutland that do that. Some of them even pronounce the h before the v too.

[@dorteweber3682]

@@rasmusn.e.m1064 yes, but it is sort of a Jutland thing that v's become w's, at least in the west and north, isn't it?

[@rasmusn.e.m1064]

@@dorteweber3682 yes, and is your point then that the institutions that were likely to influence Crawford in his pronunciation of Danish are not likely to have presented him with conversative Vendelbomål rather than Rigsdansk? Because that would be a good point. Personally, I would love if he had somehow gotten hold of a conservative Southern Funen dialect like my great uncle, who nasalises and sings his way through Danish with no heed to soft d's or stød. Oh, and don't forget the three genders. He still says "katti" instead of "katten" if you ask him nicely.

[@dorteweber3682]

@@rasmusn.e.m1064 That's where my dad's family is from as well. My grandmother was one of the last speakers who knew exactly what gender all nouns were. And why is it that the denizens of that lovely isle choose to call their children names like Frode and Frede which they cannot pronounce - it is either Froo' or Frodde. I don't think Crawford would have patterned his Danish on vestjysk eller vendelbomaal, as it would be a bit tough to find someone to teach it. Actually, I doubt he pronounces the h in hvad, hvem, etc.

[@mindyschaper]

Interesting. NYer here. Center and sinner are different both for the vowel and the t sound.

[@TheBlimpFruit]

Both of you fellas are my favourite

[@wulfgreyhame6857]

The "iu" glide is missing in some parts of England. Norfolk, especially in older people, has an American type "noo". But they also don't glide in positions where Americans generally do: "Beauty" is something like "Booty". Or possibly more like "Boo:'y.

[@kesgreen4639]

I don't know your age or nationality, but in the UK about thirty (?) years ago, we used to have TV commercials for a Norfolk turkey brand (Bernard Matthews). The tagline (as spoken by Bernard himself, in his Norfolk jacket) was something like "beautiful, really beautiful" but pronounced "bootiful" (apologies for not writing it in IPA, but I don't know it well enough).

[@morvil73]

Das Buch ‘the book’ is neuter in German, but ‘die Buche’ ‘the beech tree’ is feminine…

[@benkolya]

From my limited knowledge, Jackson is spot on with the Portuguese

[@tmann986]

Wow! You have an amazing voice acting voice! 😮

[@davetoepfer]

One thing I love being repeatedly reminded of on KZbin is that every content creator you subscribe to is not always aware of every other one you subscribe to just because you subscribe to them both. I subscribe for example to Mary Spender, a British singer songwriter. She for a long time had a series she did titled “Tuesday Talks” that she, I assumed because she was a northerner [edit: she is in fact a southerner, from Salisbury], famously pronounced “Chewsday Talks”. It was a long running gag and I think she even did t-shirts and other such merch. So it was funny to hear both of you talk about the ch for t and how novel it is when by now I have felt it was rather commonplace.

[@rasmusn.e.m1064]

Hello, fellow subscriber of hers. I think she's actually southern, but I'm fairly certain that the greater London area also has this merger in a lot of its sociolects.

[@matthewwilliams8475]

Doesn't the following show that we regard the voiced and unvoiced versions as the same word: "Do I haffto watch this video?", "Well you don't HAVE to"

[@TheRedleg69]

Funny thing is that I would say the second sentence as haff also. Only pronouncing have when meaning possession

[@matthewwilliams8475]

@@TheRedleg69 Actually, I think I might too, unless I was placing excessive stress on the word HAVE.

[@melissahdawn]

I love these conversations, I find myself commenting outloud or nodding... but, that is not what I wanted to say, I hadn't worded it yet, but it was along the lines of who is the REAL Henry Higgins?

[@melissahdawn]

OK, later in the video, I thought, along with Simon that I can understand high German nouns fine (when spoken), but if you need me to pick an article out of the blue for a word I have to make little rules and sometimes they don't even work... i.e. food is usually neuter, then I think oh I know! It is a food so das, but then I find lots of "foods" like Kaffee that is masculine, and I think, uh oh, they got that one wrong, better tell all textbook writers and German speakers, it doesn't follow the rule, then I realize there isn't a rule, I made it up!

[@Sandalwoodrk]

1:05:00 another example of that is "used to"

[@letthetunesflow]

Can’t wait to watch this! So excited for a follow up to your last conversation. You two have such a great chemistry and ease when discussing such heady topics. Can’t wait for round three and I haven’t even seen all of round two yet!

[@eggplant4367]

y'all should start a podcast

[@fartsofdoom6491]

"tsch, the most aggresive way you could possibly show the affricate in writing." You didn't have to do German like that.

[@ericraymond3734]

Pronouncing "when" as /hwen/ is more common here on the East Cost where I live than it seems to be in your reported experience. Especially north of me in New England, but here in Philly where I live you can hear it sometimes. It's a bit of class marker, more common in the educated and upper SESes. In my own idiolect, which isn't Philadelphis but has similar features, that initial aspiration is light but present. It's what you call the velarized version.

[@jackjohnson2309]

on the topic of people being aware of their own accents, I got a really nice mix of accent features from Texas, Michigan, and some exposure to British/Canadian via my mom, and later exposure influence from Louisiana and Utah. They’ve all coalesced into probably the laziest fast accent, basically Great Lakes accent softened with a souther “drawl”.

[@anjorawareness3151]

A good example of this is the popular KZbinr "Trogly's Guitar Show". He puts a strong emphasis on the T's in words like WaTer, beTTer, or buTTer. Almost like he over-stresses the consonant. It stands out as very unique to my Canadian English ears. I believe he's from somewhere like Ohio or Pennsylvania... that region.

[@vk1pe]

The emergence of that Swedish vowel thing seems to be kind of like how New Zealand English has 'departed' from sounding much like Australian English over the last 30ish years. There are some sounds that now make it obviously different, at least to us Aussies. It probably comes from the incorporation of Maori names and idioms into common use.

[@ryanwashburn211]

The ingressive "yes" or "yeah" is very common in Nova Scotia, specifically in Cape Breton. I've always wondered if it were related to the pre-aspirated quality of certain mid-word consonants in Gàidhlig, like the letter p.

[@sortingoutmyclothes8131]

My theory about the buzzing Swedish "eee" sound is that it is very closed, a very high vowel, and very fronted, to the point where it almost produces frication, which is what makes it sound like that. This is what Wikipedia says: _"One of the varieties of /iː/ is made with a constriction that is more forward than is usual. Peter Ladefoged and Ian Maddieson describe this vowel as being pronounced "by slightly lowering the body of the tongue while simultaneously raising the blade of the tongue (...) Acoustically this pronunciation is characterized by having a very high F3, and an F2 which is lower than that in /eː/." They suggest that this may be the usual Stockholm pronunciation of /iː/."_

[@sortingoutmyclothes8131]

52:00 In Brazilian Portuguese, "de" and "te" are pronounced "dʒi" and "tʃi" respectively in, as far as I know, pretty much all contexts. And those are consonants that do not exist in Portuguese otherwise (except for loanwords), so they don't contrast with anything.

[@gruu]

Another swede here to explain what mr Crawford is talking about, as previously mentioned it´s an upper class way of speaking whether its' conciously being used or not. The people who speak like that are seriously frowned upon by other swedes. I am from Stockholm and I rarely hear people who speak like that, you might see them on TV or overhear them in the upper class part of Lidingö & Östermalm though. EDIT: forgot to say thanks for the episode, you two are my favorite language youtubers I follow you both :]

[@evaberglund8144]

The word "haft" is very much alive in Swedish. eg. "Jag har haft covid". Maybe your speakers have been influenced by Swedish?

[@riptidemonzarc3103]

Some German plural patterns for the nominative case are roughly as follows: Feminine nouns almost always take -n or -en as the plural; e.g., Schnecke/Schnecken, Liste/Listen, Ecke/Ecken, Maske/Masken, all the -ion words take -ionen Certain masculine nouns, especially those of professions, are unchanged except in the article which reliably distinguishes them; e.g., der Arbeiter/die Arbeiter, der Lehrer/die Lehrer. Note that conscious politically-motivated changes to the way younger people speak is altering this, as Germans tend to think referring to professions exclusively with masculine nouns implies only male people are suitable to those professions; at present professions are usually given a masculine and feminine form in all official communication, with the old rule applying to the masculine form and the -(e)n rule to the feminine Masculine and neuter nouns with umlauts or certain endings are often unchanged; e.g., das Gebäude/die Gebäude, those ending in -en or -lein (including all diminutives), etc Masculine and potentially neuter nouns which can function as verbs often take umlauts as plurals, as adding -n or -en would be indistinguishable from the name of the verb; e.g., der Hammer/die Hämmer, where the verb name is das Hämmern Loan words young enough to still be considered foreign take the root language's plural, usually -s, though this can be a bit deceptive; die Chance is a French loan but is old enough to have been regularised Luckily, all the irregularity exists in the nominative case. For plurals in the genitive and dative, take the nominative plural and add -(e)n. I'm not sure the accusative ever takes a plural, but if so, it is identical to the nominative

[@flannerypedley840]

I'm with you Jackson, as a writer of fiction, I work around using "whom". It just sounds too "look at me I know how to use grammar!" But I have to object... I love "I shall..." At least I recognise I just love the softness of the sound.

[@Nikelaos_Khristianos]

I swear every time I listen to you guys, I notice something that I hadn't noticed before in my own speech or that of my parents. I think this time, it was the ingressive (?) "yes", which I'd sort of noticed, but I also realise my Dad has always done it. Especially when he's expressing finality or disappointment? It's a really curious thing. I am also really glad that the way I say "dude" has the same quality as I would say "bru", not like that Californian "dewd". 😂😂😂

[@davetoepfer]

Not to pile on, Prof. Crawford, but on your new glide, did you grow up very literate? I ask because I wonder if such pronunciations by you and your near ancestors were influenced by how much I suspect you read from an early age, with your pronunciation being informed more by spelling than many in the same way that ESL speakers have subtle pronunciation differences that are informed by learning English so much through reading. Because the commonality with new and chew, as you noted you also glide, is -ew.

[@holdyerblobsaloft]

I'm a Swedish-speaking Finn, and to me, that Stockholm i is one of the most annoying and ridiculous features of Sweden-Swedish. Also, we have a distinctive ingressive yes in Finland-Swedish which also exists in some dialects in Sweden.

[@Knightonagreyhorse]

I am familiar with that sound in swedish but I have never thought about it. Could it be something 'borrowed' from the Skåne dialect? Just a guess.

[@CJLloyd]

East Anglian English has plentiful speakers who don't have the glide in "tune", but in reversal of your observations in the US, younger speakers who have learned a more standard RP-like English have the glide now. Interesting chat, fellows! Thoroughly loved listening to it.

[@zak3744]

I was interested hearing the talk about the loss of the glide in words like "new" and also "t" + "yoo" becoming "choo". Because while Simon mentions hearing some British youngsters moving to "noo" from "nyoo", my anecdotal experience with particular reference to fenland speakers would be of the opposite direction of travel. The use of the glide in that context I think of as a move away from the historic accent, an outcompeting or overpowering of it by privileged accents coming out of London. "nyoo" sounds more modern, more cutting-edge than "noo". And interestingly I can't really picture "tyoo" being used as readily as "choo". So within the context of fenland speech, for the words 'tune' or 'Tuesday' for instance, "toon" and "Toosdy" sound most traditional to my ear, and "choon" and "Choosdy" sound fairly unremarkable, but "tyoon" and "Tyoosdy" sound much less traditional than either of them, and interlopers (if common ones) from RP. Perhaps that's just my possibly faulty perception, but it intuitively seems to me like the "choo" is an import fully-formed all of it's own that hasn't come via a prior import of "tyoo" that then morphed to "choo".

[@bendthebow]

There is a lot of ingressive yes-yes and in Gaelic in the Hebrides. Mostly as a filler or affirmative response. Interesting Cumbrians do it? Only connection to the Hebrides is the Norse

[@gustavf.6067]

Yes, Mr. Crawford, in Brazilian Portuguese T, D get affricated before final E. Not in all dialects though. And E tends to turn into I, again, not always. When you said 'noite' you said it perfectly. Great to hear you both, I could hear you for five more hours!

[@phildavison319]

In law in the UK whales are "royal fish" although the difference between England & Wales and Scotland appears to be that in Scotland the whale has to be more than 25 feet long so those people calling whales fish are sort of right!

[@winstonsmith2539]

i think the buzzy swedish is related to how nobility and the upper class tries to sound posh, but is is spreading like wildfire. Today there is a movement among young people to be "stekare" and they speak like this. They are trying to imitate the culture around stureplan in stockholm where rich kids spend their time partying and being silly. And i think today some online influencers are the main vector for the spread. Nobility speaking this way have been around forever, and most people think they sound like idiots. I had a friend who is learning swedish ask me about it after she watched our kings new years speech and asked why he had some weird dialect when he had lived all his life in stockholm.