American Reacts Languages of the British Isles

[@historywithhilbert]

Thank you for the reactions and for adding the original in the description - I always appreciate that. Glad you're enjoying my videos! All the best.

[@brettevill9055]

The difference between a dialect and an accent is that dialects have different vocabulary (and sometimes bits of grammar), whereas accents have different pronunciation, but the same vocabulary. (It’s a spectrum, of course.)

[@PiersDJackson]

For basics New York or Joisey are accents of what could be the American English dialect, or the New England accent vs the Californian. The British Isles change accents every 20 miles and dialects every 100, or so it seems. The English spoken in Essex is different to Devon or Yorkshire, let alone Newcastle or Liverpool.

[@brian0902]

Yes though accents can form then into dialect then into languages if left alone enough

[@stevefoulston]

Native American tribes have lived and thrived upon the North American landscape for thousands of years-since long before there was a United States. Historically, about 500 distinct Native languages were spoken in North America. All Code Talkers were fluent speakers of their tribes' languages. Peace out.

[@TeamGB-Diving]

I didn’t realise there were so many, I hope majority of these are still with us. It would be such a shame to lose these from the rich history of North America. WOW! You learn something everyday. 👍🏻👌🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻🫶🏻

[@TeamGB-Diving]

@Se He I wouldn’t call it ignorance, more of a case of unaware of the real facts. They probably teach about the native Indians in American schools (not sure so please don’t quote me), but leave out some of the facts. 👍🏻👍🏻 Still that is a big chunk of history.

[@felicitydavies3227]

Fun fact is that welsh is one of the oldest living languages in Europe. The fact that a version of it can be dated to before the Romans conquered britain and it hasn't changed much as if you know welsh you can read a welsh literature piece from the 8th century and can mostly still recognise it to the modern form that is now spoken today is amazing.

[@mikeh020011]

Hi If you want to see more of the Welsh culture then check out the National Eisteddfod of Wales which is a cultural celebration of the Welsh culture which is held every year. If you want to hear more songs in the Irish language then try the Irish group Clannad.

[@jeffknight904]

The guy in the Kelly's ad was switching between English and Cornish. This was not a good example for anyone wanting to hear Cornish being spoken properly. Great ice cream, though. I'm originally from Bodmin in Cornwall and, exactly forty years ago, Kelly's was my first employer.

[@misschieflolz1301]

The issue with Welsh is because the language is because it's so old, we simply don't have words for these things. Some things can be spoken within the native pronounciation, however there's things that simply don't translate. Also despite having more letters than english, we don't have a certain number of letters from the english alphabet. In recent times, J has become accepted into the language; we also do not use the letters K, Q, V, X or Z.; W and Y are vowels, not consonants too. It sounds a bit more strange with the switch between welsh and what is considered english-sounding names and stuff - that's just because that's a vlog channel. I know it's a weird concept but it happens.

[@johnadey9464]

The song from "Zulu" is called "Men of Harlech" or "Rhyfelgyrch Gwŷr Harlech" in Wesh. Harlech and its castle are on the Welsh coast -the song refers to a siege of the castle during the wars of the roses.

[@iamtheusualguy2611]

To your language question: Yes languages indeed undergo evolution. Languages slowly change over time and branch and merge. There is a famous joke that a language is just a dialect with an army and a navy. Linguistically, there is often no clear cut boundary when something is a language vs a dialect. Dialects that diverge significantly over time often form their own branch. You can see this in the Germanic language branch, which all had a common ancestral proto-language which then diverged. Even more noticable in the Romance language branch: Latin once united them all but over time, they diverged as the empire fell apart and what used to be accents and dialects of Latin resulted in Spanish, Romanian, Italian and French.

[@ac1455]

Also might diverge when a new technology not present in the ancestor language needs a new word

[@Wazkaty]

and Romanian !

[@xotan]

@@ac1455 Television is a prime example of this. It's tele (Greek) vision (Latin).. And English Galore from Irish Go Leor/Scots Gaelic Gu leòr. ( a lot of) ​

[@johnwilletts3984]

I’m from Yorkshire and speak Yorkshire dialect. Ive recently discovered that every ‘Yorkshire’ word I can think of, is in fact old Norse and dates to 866 when Danish Vikings arrived and the region became Danelaw. Example:- The friendly Yorkshire greeting that also means Look Out = Eh Yup. In Norse this is Say Yup.

[@SeanSenior-f8b]

Aye up mi chaver mush how's yer. Doing. Meaning hello friend are you OK. A mix of old noise, romami, saxon, and modern English. Or just Holmewood Bradford England speak.

[@AnneDowson-vp8lg]

That's fascinating. I'm a proud Yorkshire woman, but had no idea 'eh up' came from Norse. I once travelled on a Swedish boat to Amsterdam, and could read the notices. 'Barnens Lekrum' was Children's Playroom. In Yorkshire dialect, barn means child, laik means play. It would be really good if someone could do a video on Yorkshire dialect and its relationship to Norse, and also any Celtic words, after all, we have Pen-y-ghent and the Pennines, pen meaning hill, and Celtic counting was done by Wharfedale shepherds until recently. I believe these are survivors of Cumbric. The old Celtic kingdom of Elmet was in West Yorkshire until 616AD.

[@kumasenlac5504]

One of the reasons there are so many languages and dialects in the British Isles is that, historically, it was prime real estate. So everyone and their granny invaded, found a nice spot to settle and invited their family and friends to the party. Apart from the flat dull bit in the bottom right corner the countryside was lumpy, stony, marshy and had lots of rivers and lakes - so travel and a resultant blending of dialects didn't happen much.

[@ardglassvikings1996]

Yes Connor I know what you mean. it would make sense that the Irish Language remains a more purer sound as it is divided by the Irish Sea from the United Kingdom where they were more free to regularly travel and integrate the various languages and dialects into the more modern versions heard today.

[@h-Qalziel]

Interestingly, Scottish Gaelic is much closer to the original Old Irish than Irish, so one would expect it to be the opposite.

[@qwertyTRiG]

Language contact can also affect the phonology of a language. Bear in mind, too, that almost all the speakers heard here are bilingual and also speak English.

[@ardglassvikings1996]

Agreed but with an Irish dialect, of which there are many.

[@williamharwood6139]

I think you forgot about Northern Ireland there...

[@ardglassvikings1996]

No, I didn't, I mentioned dialects.

[@jonathangoll2918]

The language situation of the Channel Isles wasn't mentioned. They are not part of the UK, but I think we look after their defence and foreign policy. The connection is personal, because our King is Duke of Normandy. I think they still have English and French as their official languages. A few people in Jersey, Guernsey, and particularly Sark speak strange forms of French which may be separate languages. I believe the people of Orkney and Shetland are trying to revive Norn, which hasn't long been extinct, and is a Scandinavian, North Germanic, language. My parents had a long retirement on the Isle of Mull off western Scotland, and for a while I had a house there, until I sold up. The islands off western Scotland are staggeringly beautiful. Getting round is not simple! Skye now has a bridge, but most of the others don't, and one has to either use ferries - which have to be substantial, because of the weather - or flights. You commented on the rock of the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland ; there are similar formations on Mull and the nearby island of Staffa. Under certain circumstances, ancient basalt lava flows cooled into hexagonal prisms, and the effect is extraordinary.

[@jerry2357]

Gaelic is not closely related to either English nor the Scandinavian languages. English is primarily a Germanic language, and the Scandinavian languages form a northern branch of the Germanic languages.

[@FrithonaHrududu02127]

No but "SCOTS" is a Germanic language that essentially split from old english alongside middle English

[@Nortic111]

A Scott here, no offence taken in the least! :) I think it's wonderful that you're trying to match the pronunciations.

[@pedromacd]

To get to Lewis, Harris etc, you can get ferries from various points, depending on where on the islands called the Outer Hebrides you want to get to. The Inner Hebrides islands are the ones that are closer to the mainland. There is a bridge connecting the Isle of Skye to the mainland. There's also a wee bridge connecting the Island of Seil to the mainland as well, just south of Oban. All other islands ( i think) require a boat, ferry, swim, or fly, like to Barra which is a main airport, but you land on a beach.

[@claudiavictoria3929]

A dialect is a language spoken in a limited part of a country, usually passed on orally. An accent is a local phonetic deviation from a standard pronunciation.

[@HotelPapa100]

Not a deviation from standard. The standard is also an accent, just the standard accent. An accent is the phonology a certain speaker or group of speakers use to pronounce their language.

[@Twiska]

A good rule of thumb is an accent is how a word is pronounced. Whereas a dialect is an entirely different word. Take the Scottish. Wee means little. So that is part of the Scottish dialect (arguably language) of Scots. But how an Englishman pronounces wee will be subtly different from how a Scotsman pronounces wee. That's an accent.

[@kumasenlac5504]

The meaning of wee in Scots bears no relation to the meaning of wee in English.

[@Twiska]

@@kumasenlac5504 , I know. The word means little in Scots and urination in English. I'm just saying that the word wee is subtly pronounced differently in Scottish and English accents.

[@AquarianAgeApostle]

How would an Englishman pronounce "awa an bile yer heid, ya bowfin bawbag ye"

[@stewedfishproductions7959]

So funny watching Connor attempting to repeat those Irish names, like Siobhan and not realising the presenter was 'taking the piss' - LOL! (By the way, it's pronounced Shiv-awn). EDIT: I wrote this comment at the point Connor was trying to repeat the voice-over guys 'wind-up' pronunciations and didn't know he then actually said them properly; Sorry, I should have watched the whole thing before writing - DUH! I'm bad...

[@kimwilson3863]

Oh I so do that lol, I'm too quick for my own good. Glad I'm not the only one.😄

[@Varksterable]

Well this _is_ a McJibbin reaction. It's almost compulsory to jump the gun, as the host so ably and frequently demonstrates...

[@Ionlytellthetruth]

Funny that Conor is an Irish name from Conchobhar.

[@historywithhilbert]

I can only apologise for my infantile sense of humour in pronouncing them all incorrectly first...

[@t.a.k.palfrey3882]

No, you're correct. The stat quoted by the commentator must refer only to mother tongues, or first languages. In terms of languages spoken overall globally, English ranks first, followed by Spanish. Putonghwa (Chinese), Portuguese, and Arabic are the others in the Top Five. BTW, none of the Celtic languages has any relationship to any Nordic or other Germanic language. The two language families are as distinct as, say, Italian (an Italic language) is from Icelandic (a Germanic language) or even Hindi (an Indo-Iranian language). All originate from the broader Indo-European group of languages.

[@jameshumphreys9715]

Shwmae is pronounce shoo-my If you remove, K, Q, V, X and Z from the English alphabet and add Ch, Dd, Ff, Ng, Ph, Th, Rh, Ll apart from Ng, which comes after G, the other come after the first letter in alphabet, so th comes after t in the alphabet and dictionary, so if have something with tw comes before th.

[@Kevc00]

Fluent Irish speakers can mostly understand Scots Gaelic and Manx, there are differences in grammar and pronunciation but for the most part they are mutually intelligible. Welsh, Cornish or Breton on the other hand, cannot understand any of it.

[@enemde3025]

I'm from Peterhead in North East Scotland and we speak DORIC. We have LOONS and QUINES ( BOYS and GIRLS) not lads and lasses. Someone with an ACCENT speaks the same language as everyone else but with a different regional tongue. Whereas a LANGUAGE is a totally different way of speaking. Such as the difference between SPANISH and ENGLISH or GERMAN and POLISH.

[@vaudevillian7]

You have Native American languages too and there used to be more… You have Cajun French speakers too who essentially came from Acadia - now the Maritimes of Canada and Maine - they were Acadians which became ‘Cadian/Cajun. Then there’s tiny pockets of those that speak dialects like Texas German or Pennsylvania Dutch (which of course is German not Dutch) - but yes they are spread apart

[@Jonsson474]

Those are immigrant languages. The original North American languages are those of the native Americans.

[@Mercure250]

Yeah, the United States have many, many more languages than the British Isles; there are just so many Native American languages. All kinds of families and isolates too, unlike the languages of the British Isles which are all Celtic or Germanic (which are both Indo-European). Don't get me wrong, I love the Celtic and Germanic languages, but we need to also acknowledge the extremely rich linguistic diversity of the Americas.

[@ronaldobrien6870]

Irish, Scots Gaelic and Manx sound very similar to each other. Welsh and Cornish are very different (from a different branch of the Celtic languages) and sound nothing like the first three.

[@steveaga4683]

Your point at 30 mins is correct, as there are many words that are used in the modern era that have no real Welsh equivalent. Such as tacsi (taxi) ambiwlans (ambulance).

[@nieldooley2906]

The isle of Mann is a beautiful island about 70 miles north-west from the port of Liverpool.

[@jgg59]

I think what you’re referring to is When words become Anglicized. Your name is anglicized your name an Irish Would be Mac Giobúin. In Irish the letter C makes a hard K sounds. So when you see a name with the letter K it would actually be in the Irish language written with a C and make a K sound Irish does not contain ⟨j, k, q, v, w, x, y, z⟩, although they are used in modern loanwords.

[@TheZad101]

There is a good video by Simon Roper A London accent from the 14th to the 21st centuries.just thought you might like this because of your love of history

[@tonybaker55]

My paternal Grandmother spoke Jèrriais, which is a form of Norman French language. This was spoken by many in Jersey at one time, but sadly numbers must be a handful by now. It was colloquially known as Jersey French. Someone from Normandy who spoke the original Norman dialect would be able to understand Jèrriais. The Channel Islands are all part of the British Isles, but not Great Britain or the UK. The Brittonic languages did originate from Europe, but you have to remember that there was a land bridge to Europe at one time (broke through about 180,000 years ago though). A race called the Beaker People came from Brittany and the Breton language is similar to Cornish and Welsh.

[@ardglassvikings1996]

Very astute Connor, the salt water lake on the east coast of Northern Ireland is Strangford Lough (from Old Norse Strangr Fjörðr, meaning strong sea-inlet) and does contain a lot of yachts and pleasure craft.

[@ardglassvikings1996]

Isle of Man has it's own Manx Gaelic (Taught in schools).Though the majority speak English influenced by English dialect

[@squirepraggerstope3591]

BTW, as Manx and Scottish Gaelic are both 'Q' Celtic tongues, you might expect them to most obviously resemble Irish, from which they were originally derived.

[@briankinsey3339]

Regarding the difference between a dialect and an accent, I'm hardly an expert, but I'd go with a dialect having some substitute words, where an accent shares the lexicon of the "mother" language, but just varied pronunciation.

[@planekrazy1795]

Ah yes Póg Mo thôin aka Pogue Mahone is Kiss My Arse. The totally brilliant band "The Pogues" (the kisses) have an Album called this. They have many great songs some traditional some of their own, it's worth checking them out.

[@Mercure250]

Yeah, you are right, languages evolve through time when people use slang and make "mistakes". There is a famous text from Latin, called the Appendix Probi, that is basically a bunch of corrections that someone wrote, and it's basically a bunch of "Say this word this way, not that way", and what's very interesting is that those "mispronunciations" would become the ancestors of the words in modern Romance languages. For instance, he wrote "masculus non masclus", so "masculus, not masclus", but then "masclus" became "masle" in Old French, and eventually became "mâle" in French (and "male" in English). He also wrote stuff like "hostiae non ostiae" which shows that during his time, people stopped pronouncing the Latin "h" sound, and sure enough, no Romance language today pronounces the Latin "h" anymore, to the point many of them don't even write it anymore.

[@qwertyTRiG]

Manx is very close to Irish, but is written very differently. Basically, it borrows its orthography from English. So the spelling might be more intuitive to an English-speaker, but it suits the language less.

[@bblair2627]

I always told my kids when they moaned about learning Gaelic at school that most geographical features in Scotland are from the Gaelic so its important to learn.

[@internetual7350]

Are you in Glasgow or the Highlands or what? Because unfortunately not all Scottish schools teach your beautiful Gaelic tongue.

[@sidplays77]

You murdered the word Glasgow lol…..it’s not glass gow, it’s glaz go

[@onlyonewhyphy]

No, it's not though 😂 It's Glezga, my man!

[@georgecarlinismytribe]

35:57 You're correct. The word is 'onomatopoeia'.

[@donaldb1]

A dialect is much more than an accent. It includes different words, and often different grammatical structures, where an accent just means different ways of saying words.

[@Spr1ggan87]

It's not that the tribes on the Island weren't very powerful compared mainland tribes, it's that the Roman Empire happened. The Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Scots, and Norwegians more or less dogpiled the island during the period where Rome was withdrawing from Britannia, which left most of the populace undefended.

[@stevelknievel4183]

There is a bridge from Great Britain to Skye at a place called Kyle of Lochalsh. As far as I'm aware though all the other Western Isles require you to fly from Glasgow or Edinburgh or take one or more ferries in order to get to them.

[@kumasenlac5504]

Portsmouth is also linked to mainland Britain by bridges but no-one bothers to mention it... (o:

[@charlesfrancis6894]

Ferry is the usual method of travel between the Islands of Scotland though i did once use a twin engine from the Isle of Barra to the next Island which i believe is still the only take off and landing by a commercial aircraft from a tidal beach in the world.

[@philipocallaghan]

You must remember that all of these languages are being spoken with a modern English accent.....except Irish...which has still been effected slightly.......none of them sound original anymore and a modern speaker would be confused by an original speaker. We carry out English affections and tones when speaking other languages, so an original Irish speaker would not understand a modern Irish speaker even though the words are spelled the same. It's like what you said about "spangalish" , the influences are everywhere.

[@alisonscott1469]

Hi Conner, I hope your well? Anyway greetings from Scotland in the UK. New Subscriber . To reach the islands in Scotland you can go by car ferry. My aunt lives in Islay and is learning gaelic. She just moved there from the west of Scotland. Really enjoying your reactions. Take care. I’m from the west of Scotland the Glasgow side. Stay safe and i’ll catch you on the next one. 😘🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇺🇸

[@Payne2view]

I'm Welsh and yes we are mad, so no trying to invade us ok. 😃 It is my opionion that many of the languages of the UK are ones of cultural choice and most, if not all, can speak English. I always found the Kelley's ice cream advert irritating because it keeps dropping in & out of Cornish. The modern use of Welsh is a bit funny too because every so often an English word or phrase will be used where the speaker doesn't know the Welsh for something or nobody has thought of a Welsh equivalent. Yes some languages develope due to slang or dialects or just people not bothering to pronounce things right. For instance, I'm sure Cardiff (wish may seem a Welsh word) is derived from an English ruling class not being willing/able to say Caerdydd. They prounced it like it sounded to them or near enough. Interestingly, on maps or roadsigns in South East Wales, you may see the Roman equivallent names of towns included in brackets. The Romans got into South Wales but just the flatter bits with river access.

[@MichaelJohnsonAzgard]

There are several groups working to bring back Cumbric, a lost Brithonic language from North West England.

[@marymellor7214]

Hi Connor, irn bru is the most popular soda drink in Scotland. The advert tag line is brewed in Scotland from girders. You know steel beams.

[@johnloony68]

Other native British languages which were not mentioned in this video are Romany (which has lots of different dialects in many countries) and BSL (British Sign Language).

[@anglosaxon4571]

I'm not sure I would class Romany as native.

[@James-gc5if]

Also the Channel Islands dialects of Norman.

[@qwertyTRiG]

Yes, Jèrriais, BSL, ISL, and NISL should have been mentioned.

[@marielouise9126]

Haha, the Irish names was funny. My Paternal Grandparent’s were Irish so I knew how to pronounce them. I’m turning 50 the end of this month and want to get a tattoo on my wrist, I’ve never had one before and I want to get Misneach which kind of means courage in English.

[@charlesfrancis6894]

Language does change over time sometimes a short time. When i was at school the Britain who fought the Romans was called Boudica in phonetic terms we would say Boda-seea now it is said Bodika.

[@ftumschk]

Indeed, although Boudicca/Boadicea is only the Latinisation of a Celtic name, which may have been pronounced something like BEE-thig (with the "th" as in "the/then/them"), and the Welsh version of her name (Buddug) sounds just like that. Some Welsh women are still named after Buddug, whose name has passed into Welsh as the words for "victorious/victory" (buddugol/buddugoliaeth).

[@ausieedwards2633]

I'm proud of the narrator, he got the majority of pronunciations right

[@ausieedwards2633]

I just got to the irish names and want to kill myself

[@James-gc5if]

I don't know about the other languages, but he butchered the Welsh.

[@hannahkat9722]

don't know about the gaelic itself but he fucked up the pronunciation of uist and islay

[@DocRobAC]

Liguistics is a complex field. Essentially because people are a bit lazy the same kinds of things happen to sounds over time. But you’re right phrases and slang enter regional languages, and over time they diverge, and often develop weird complexities. English is off because old English had all these complexities, but with the Vikings arriving, because the two groups spoke different languages the used what is called a pigin to communicate with each other, their descendants were bilingual and switched between the languages and used structures and words from each other fusing the two, but in doing so a lot of the complexity was lost, things like gendered nouns.

[@columbannon9134]

Be careful what you call the British isles, since 2005 the Irish had stopped it to be used as Ireland as a part of it, for the Irish never claimed to be part of it , this was from England. Plus there is no such group today in Ireland as Scots Irish there was however an old Irish tribe called Scots, that went to Scotland (this is where Scotland got it name from) when the Scotland had sent protestant settlers to help England to gain land many years later were a mixed group As for the language, the Irish brought the language in the times of early Irish monks, the word Gaelic means Old Irish which the Irish had brought also to the Isle of man.

[@miarosie]

Isle of Skye has a bridge, Lewis etc fly or boat. Re ‘men of Harlech’ & Zulu, yes. Well spotted.

[@qwertyTRiG]

The name of Llanfair PG was actually adopted to encourage tourism. Tom Scott has a video on that, too.

[@HotelPapa100]

Yeah, made me grin when he thought that picked up only with the weatherman video. Young Connor is a bit green behind the ears on some subjects. Nothing wrong with that, but it made me chuckle a few times.

[@polecatgander8282]

Right now there are efforts to revive the Norn language in the Orkney isles. It's apparently going well, they're just trying to remove any historic influence from old Scots. If successful they'll refer to the language as Nynorn (meaning New Norn).

[@alicemilne1444]

They do have records of the written language and they can always consult with the Faroese, as that is the closest to what Norn was like in terms of pronunciation.

[@jordanb1955]

usually small planes do regular flights to the orkney islands.

[@LaurenticAspie]

Dialects vary in vocabulary, accents vary in pronunciation. Languages do evolve, roughly speaking, like living organisms with more horizontal transfer. Although keep in mind, that former empires did and still tend to strongly regulate widespread enough languages to keep them from diverging too much and maintain intelligibility.

[@johnloony68]

The narrator was messing about (trying, it failing, to be funny) when he was talking about “Niamh”, “Roisin” and “Aoife”. They are pronounced “Neev”, “Rosheen” and “Eefy”

[@alicemilne1444]

He also mispronounced the names of several of the Scottish islands after trying to be funny about them too, and his pronunciation of the Scottish Gaelic was fairly off the mark.

[@dawnrussell7887]

The East Coast of Scotland has a dialect/language called Doric. This is often called Scots, Loons and quines are boys and girls in Doric.

[@neildiamondo6445]

Fit???

[@STLoon]

Doric is more the north-eastern, around Aberdeen. Ayrshire Scots is somewhat different.. I'm from Ayrshire and even I can barely understand some Aberdonians lol.

[@neildiamondo6445]

@@STLoon East coaster here. I joined army in 1992. The west coasters genuinely thought Ken was some guy we all talked about? 😆

[@dawnrussell7887]

I grew up in Morayshire on the North Coast in a small fishing village so the accents were pretty thick

[@dawnrussell7887]

@@neildiamondo6445 I ken fit ya mean

[@annedunne4526]

Actually for us in Ireland Scots Gaelic is not too difficult to understand because Irish and Scots Gaelic are related. Welsh is very different and none of those three have any relationship to English which is a Germanic language. Scots is closer to English but also to Dutch, as I discovered when i started learning Dutch and recognised some of the words. The British isles have been populated for hundreds of thousands of years and their languages evolved naturally taking in influences from the Vikings and the Norman French and the German tribes.

[@colinowen7730]

Welsh 👍

[@galleon1968]

😂

[@marsh2741]

With the islands in Scotland, you most likely would drive to Skye, there is a bridge from the mainland. Then from Skye you can get a ferry to Harris or Uist. There is also a ferry from the mainland to Lewis. And another option would be you can get a plane (very small one) to Lewis from Glasgow or Edinburgh

[@SavageIntent]

I live in Edinburgh and went to Lewis so I can tell you how one gets there. Train from Edinburgh to Inverness, bus from Inverness to Ullapool, and a ferry from Ullapool to Stornaway (the capital of Lewis). Lovely ferry with dolphins and sometimes whales to be spotted.

[@SgtSteel1]

24:15 You really made me laugh man. Thanks for this!

[@vanburger]

Just after the ice age, there was a landbridge called doggerlands between the UK and Northern Europe towards Holland. So people lived in the UK before the saxons arrived. Like the man said earlier. Old and Middle English existed before the romance and germanic languages influenced the existing languages on the islands. The UK has both a stone and bronze age history. So when you said English is just a mix of Northern European languages. It isn't like that. Celtic Gaelic and old English developed independently and were influenced and changed by other European languages.

[@Derry_Aire]

He's right. The English you speak is just a mix of European languages.

[@Spr1ggan87]

@@Derry_Aire Modern English yes as it's mainly a mix of German, Dutch, Celtic, Norse, French, Latin, and Greek. Not old English though.

[@James-gc5if]

Old English is a Germanic language with its roots in the European continent. After the Romans left, various Germanic tribes came over to Britain and settled in the southern and eastern part of the island that became England. These included the Angles and Saxons from modern Germany, the Jutes from modern Denmark, and in much smaller numbers the Frisians from the modern Netherlands and the Franks from modern France. Collectively, these people were known as Anglo-Saxons, after the two largest groups, and it was the merger of their languages that created Old English.

[@Spr1ggan87]

@@James-gc5if All of those were Germanic peoples though mixing Germanic languages into another Germanic language. While modern English on the other hand contains a lot of non Germanic.

[@James-gc5if]

@@Spr1ggan87 Most of the non-Germanic English vocabulary is from Norman French, which came in post-1066. At its base, English is a Germanic language.

[@robheyes6470]

You clearly have a very good ear for languages, I'm impressed.

[@PassportToPimlico]

Historically the languages of the British Isles were English, Welsh, Scots Gallic, Irish Gaelic, Manx, Cornish, Romany and Latin. You may wish to include Polari too. Now the videos on that might be an interesting reaction.

[@kumasenlac5504]

Scots was (and is) also the tongue of the Lowland Scots - it might be technically regarded as a jargon but it has a distinct vocabulary and pronunciation. Broadly speaking, its roots lie with British Welsh and Northumbrian English with borrowings from the Low Countries and Scandinavia.

[@PassportToPimlico]

Connor, you could react to a video on Polari.

[@williamharwood6139]

@@kumasenlac5504 A large chunk of the area that now speaks Scots used to speak Norn (Caithness, Sutherland, Orkney and Shetland) and Galloway spoke Gaidhlig until the 1800s

[@jamestitterton1627]

I appreciate your view on how far you can travel with everyone speaking English. Though you have missed out all the Native American languages including different Eskimo tribes. New Orleans speak Creole too. Sorry for any spelling errors.

[@DazHotep6EQUJ5]

Worth knowing about Irish language- In schools its taught from the start but after primary school when you go into secondary some schools have an option to have all lessons be taught in Irish. In my school most didn't but the ones that did were sort of ostracized. Strange indeed. The language is sadly becoming less common as students have little to no interest in learning it. Funny that one of the areas the guy mentioned in the video is Dingle which is like 10km from where I live and a very common thing from the Dingle boys is that during GAA football matches they always discuss and communicate in Irish to gain an advantage over their opponents who don't understand a lick of it XD.

[@archiebald4717]

Most travel to and between islands is by ferry. In a few cases, there are small aircraft.

[@whawkins88]

Years ago my wife and I had a holiday in West Wales where the Welsh language was predominantly spoken. We took a bus to the next town and the locals were clearly discussing us but, of course, we couldn't understand a word. Speaking a language other than English obviously has its benefits!!

[@WalesTheTrueBritons]

Oh Paranoia! Wink wink! You want the language gone.

[@seanbarker4610]

Living in Wales I am familiar with Welsh, which is a very interesting and difficult language to learn.

[@WalesTheTrueBritons]

But it isn’t! It’s far more phonetic than English. People struggle with it due to its mutations and Flow from one word to another. It’s very poetic and English speakers literally can’t grasp it. A Spaniard would find it Super easy to learn.

[@seanbarker4610]

@@WalesTheTrueBritons let's not forget the many dialects, for example within 10 miles of my village the same word can be pronounced 3 different ways

[@allano937]

When the narrator said Slainte Mhath he just said it is a toast with out saying the actual meaning "Slainte" on it's own means "cheers " while "Slainte mhath " means "good health". On the question on how to get to the islands from the main land. Skye has a bridge. You can get to all the others by plane or ferry.

[@gabbymcclymont3563]

Got to give the Welsh for microwave is POP TE PING it's how a microwave sounds.

[@James-gc5if]

The spelling is 'popty ping' ('popty' means 'oven').

[@gabbymcclymont3563]

@@James-gc5if thanks I knew I would have a problem being dyslexic I'm proud I give it a go. Lifetime of people correcting me,water off a fucus back.

[@James-gc5if]

@@gabbymcclymont3563 I wasn't criticising you. I thought you'd find it interesting that it meant "ping oven'.

[@gabbymcclymont3563]

@@James-gc5if I didn't take it as criticism its that as being a early dyslexic discovery it's a lifetime of blah and people thinking I'm thick yeh no 164IQ not thick just can't spell. I'm not saying you think I'm thick and ping oven is obviously sensible.

[@petersteer8992]

Your understanding of the history of Britain is getting much better but something you said in summing up makes me wonder if it is complete. Neither you nor the video mentioned the Romans who although occupying & controlling Britain for around 400 years left very little lasting impact on the languages of Britain. They controlled most of England but not Wales, Scotland or Ireland. Prior to their arrival the entire British Isles spoke a form of Celtic (either Brythonic or Goidelic) as described in the video. When they left around 410 AD the vacuum was slowly filled by the Saxons, Angles, Jutes & Frisians all of whom spoke mutually comprehensible languages which virtually replaced the Romano-British which had been previously spoken - leaving almost no trace. 400 years later the Vikings arrived speaking a sister language to Anglo-Saxon & the two languages melded together over the next two hundred years until the Norman Conquest in 1066. The Normans spoke Franco-Norse not pure French. It is important to understand that each of these Conquests (Roman, Anglo-Saxon & Viking) was cultural not genocidal as each invader in turn was absorbed into the original population.

[@AnneDowson-vp8lg]

Welsh does have some words taken from Latin, left over from when the Romans were here. 😅

[@wallywombat164]

If you told someone you were going to go to that place in Wales, it would be too late to go.

[@nicola1175]

Walk 500 miles

[@TeamGB-Diving]

But would you walk 500 more?

[@SgtSteel1]

27:28 No, Britain used to be joined to mainland Europe until the Northern ice caps started to melt about 15,000 years ago. But, you're not wrong in the sense that we have been invaded a good few times and that definitely changed things.

[@donaldb1]

There are ferries to the Scottish isles, car ferries, and also a bridge from the mainland to Skye.

[@JustChrisNow]

Threw my phone away when instructed. Missed the rest of the video 🤷🏼‍♂️

[@mrd4785]

The man with the chest hair is from the novel Poldark that has been made into a tv series more than once. The most recent BBC iteration is really good, particularly if you are into historical stuff. To be honest, the actor chosen isn't Cornish and his looks don't exactly match most people from the area as far as I know. Its much better than all the other junk on tv at the moment anyway. My grandfather's side of the family emigrated from Cornwall to South West Australia, where they cleared much of the land and there are relatives spread far and wide now. Cornwall is famous for a few things including pirates, warmer weather, pasties, mining, agriculture, the coast line and being an alright place for a holiday. I might be wrong but I think the land prices have been bid up unfortunately because it is one of the more popular places to be in the UK. I understand it wasn't so trendy when my ancestors left. There are distinct family names from the region, so that's one way of determining if you have any Cornish heritage.

[@timflatus]

English is the fashionable new language here. Ferry or light aircraft. Don't get confused by the accents (i.e the sounds used), the Scottish accent is affected by its proximity to Iceland and Norway, but Gaelic is very different, although it borrows many words from Old Norse just like English does, it's not the same family. Norse and English are both Germanic languages, Irish and Welsh are Celtic, the main difference being the Germanic languages split just over a thousand years ago, the Celtic languages split into two sub families well over 2000 years ago so Welsh and Irish are very different now. Welsh, Cornish and Breton also have really different accents to each other, but many similar words and structures. Dialect is just a scientific term for language; Scots used to be considered a dialect of English, now it's a separate language. Latin slang was called vulgar Latin and yeah that's where the Romance languages come from, different family again. Basalt does that hexagonal thing naturally. Yup Manx is related to Irish and Scottish Gaelic. The reason these languages all sound the way they do is a really complex topic, even for experienced linguists. It's not easy to find the right words to talk about words sometimes! Welsh and Cornish frequently code-switch, purists hate it, but it's how people genuinely speak. So consider Scottish Gaelic and Scots are both spoken with a Scottish accent. Manx, North Welsh and Scouse English have a similar accent, Cornish is close to Westcountry English and Breton sounds like French to our ears. Irish also has three main accent / dialect regions. I just seriously oversimplified things. Accents can literally change from town to town but look up the translations for "cheers" / "good health" in each language and you'll see how the languages relate.

[@nieldooley2906]

About Scots Gaelic sounding a bit Nordic ,I've never made the connection before, but now that you've mentioned it I can hear what you mean. I also I found Irish Gaelic not as pleasing to the ear as Scots Gaelic. An accent is how your voice sounds relevant to your country/locality; whereas a dialect specific words and phrases used by a specific area of a country that would confuse someone from another part of the country. For example if someone if someone Presented a lecture wholly in a Yorkshire, they would not be understood by non Yorkshire dialect speakers, although people have picked one or two dialect words from dramas etc. However it is more practical if a ecture presented in English m

[@maximus1868]

Simon roper channel is really good for old English, interview with an Anglo Saxon is a great video

[@alicemilne1444]

I'm never that convinced by Simon Roper. He's not a linguist and what he does is mostly fiction.

[@imwelshjesus]

I suspect the reason you are picking up on the English sounds being made in various recordings, but not the Irish, is simply because English is their first language, whilst the samples of Irish I suspect are from remote fishing communities, where in the past few would have been regularly exposed to English. Although, like Welsh many Irish are now learning and speaking Gaelic as a second language. No doubt over time many English terms will be absorbed and yet another form of Gaelic is created. That is, if we don't all end up speaking Mandarin, Cantonese, or whateverese!

[@ianbrook7793]

it's quite funny when me and my wife visit family because she is Fijian and when they went to school they had every think taught in English while at home every thing was Fijian. So they now may start in English but it usually goes on between the two.

[@taylorpower3862]

There were people living on the British isle before any other country came to populate it there’s a documentary I think talking about a sunken area called digger land which is how they think the original population of the isle got there

[@mairiconnell6282]

My nephews and nieces speak English as a second language. To get to the Isles there is one bridge but usually it’s by ferry.

[@adrianhughes8143]

My late dad could speak Irish Gaelic as he was taught it at school in his country of the Republic of Ireland. You could walk to the Isle of Harris if you was Jesus and you could walk on water but Norma people, either fly to the islands or take a ferry there. It's great that we have so many different languages here in the UK and the Republic of Ireland as it would be boring just speaking English. For one thing those who speak there Native tongue can talk about tourists close by taking the piss out of them without them knowing. 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇮🇪😊😊

[@DocRobAC]

The Isle of Man speak Manx, and English. They’re not part of the UK, but are a crown dependency and have their own government and Parliament which is older than the UK one

[@dirtystarlight]

Back years ago when BBC iplayer was watched on pc vs smart TV now... I once loaded it and somehow it thought it'd open in Welsh. Pure confusion.

[@thomasgruseck7971]

Yes, languages evolve imperceptibly over time. I used to like to ask my Spanish students, "When did people in Spain stop speaking Latin and start speaking Spanish?" It is a trick question. They never did. Spanish is simply modern Latin. Or, if you prefer, Latin is ancient Spanish. In fact, there was an intermediate stage in the middle ages, in which people spoke Spanish, but wrote what they were saying in Latin. The Latin was still "how it was spelled."

[@djedmundegorrigan]

Bora da, enjoying your channel... Diolch yn fawr iawn.

[@mango2005]

Manx to me looks like Irish but with English consonant sounds (which would make it easier for English speakers to pronounce correctly) but there are probably some Norse words too as they used to control the island.

[@timglennon6814]

Just to let you know that BBC doesn’t stand for, Big Broadcasting Channel. BBC stands for, British Broadcasting Corporation.

[@TeamGB-Diving]

You beat me to it. 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣

[@thomasgruseck7971]

I love how you could tell from her tone that the Irish Gaelic newscaster was absolutely a newscaster without understanding a single word she said. Lol.

[@taylorpower3862]

Welsh is the oldest language still spoken in the uk I spent 8 years learning it in school and I can still barely speak it sadly can hold a basic convo but not fluent

[@hannahkat9722]

this video is useful, but it tends to ascribe everything to kings and their kingdoms, when it's much more accepted amongst historians that scots replaced gaelic largely bc the systems of burghs (towns) and the influx of foreign nobility made english the language of trade, gradually becoming more useful. dalriata's gaelic is also often cited as being caused by a high level of shared culture and migration both ways, in part caused by geographical features making ireland more accessible than the rest of scotland. there's also various other languages and dialects in scotland, many dead - eg pictish which only survives in place names across mainland scotland (the closest living relative being welsh), or norn which would have been more related to norse and was spoken in orkney and shetland (which were owned by norway for a long time) until about the 19th century. one dialect thats still about is doric, a type of scots spoken around aberdeenshire. sorry for the infodump but im a scottish history student and one of my favourite things is seeing the various languages that have existed in scotland through place names or family names - a lot are hybrids such as the place Lochaber (gaelic loch plus pictish aber) or the family name MacIver in the western Isles (gaelic Mac plus norse Iver) - it really shows how scotland is and has always been a country with multiple cultures and languages, which I just think is neat