English Spelling USED to Make Sense! [Long Short]

[@LD-dt1sk]

Ive never heard a person pronounce "heil" silently

[@whhitryjekugitihg]

💀💀

[@Natibe_]

Trump does in every speech!

[@Kerguelen.Mapping]

HEIL DIR IM SIEGERKRANZ

[@StanbyMode]

@@Natibe_sure buddy

[@jakobmaximilianriedl1013]

It means "whole, not damaged". It used to be a greeting with which to wish the greeted health and good fortune and things like that. Then the Nazis took it and ruined it for everyone...

[@okey7281]

The last example was so interesting that my grandpa raised his arm to ask a question. Love from Argentina 🇦🇷

[@NLite486]

underrated joke

[@glitch84-]

But the word you are thinking is "hail", not "heil". So... it doenst make sense

[@generalgongthehawkeye557]

​@@glitch84- heil in German means whole, Heil in German means something like "Hail!". Heil is sometimes associated with the chants of the Nazi Party during WW2, such as "Heil Hitler!" and "Sieg Heil!". A large population of Nazis immigrated to Argentina to escape prosecution after the war.

[@notwithouttext]

@@glitch84- but hail in german is Heil, which in spelling is only distinguished from heil (whole) by the capital H

[@glitch84-]

@@notwithouttext oh, sorry then, i didnt know.

[@PB_pancake]

You scared me for a second, with that last German word

[@efi5750]

Dude, your channel is the coolest thing I've discovered lately! As a fellow language fiend, I can't even explain how captivating your videos are. Like I went on a mini-marathon the other day, watching all you'd posted. I was having a shitty day and they lifted me up. Keep 'em coming, you're doing an amazing job!!

[@humanteneleven]

Wow, thanks man that really means a lot!!!

[@StanbyMode]

Fr, this dude answers all the small questions everyone wonders about at one point but never looks up/gets the answer to

[@Saber23]

This is what’s cool to you? Bruh find a better resource 🤣

[@yoballz]

@@Saber23ofc you had to say something

[@Saber23]

@@yoballz and you said something right back

[@Zethlynn]

We also have to add pointless letters being added because they thought a similar word had it at one point like "debt" which was pronounced more like /Det/ but was thought to be related to the latin word "Debutum"

[@DimaMuskind]

Added "s" to "island" because they thought it was related to latin "insula" (it is, in fact, germanic word)

[@boghund]

​@@DimaMuskind aka isle and island are etymologically unrelated

[@boghund]

*debitum, and yes, it was actually spelled "dette" or "dett"

[@notwithouttext]

@@DimaMuskind same with the "reign" in sovereign and foreign

[@DimaMuskind]

@@notwithouttext Oh, I didn't know that, cool

[@Alborzhakimi7010]

The way you pronounced the proto germanic word for daughter, sounded exactly like دختر in Persian. I always knew they were cognates and hence similar but never thought they would be nearly identical!

[@StanbyMode]

Is that actually a cognate or just a coincidence? If thats a cognate thats cool af

[@user-bs4qu7tb2g]

​@@StanbyMode While Persian uses the Perso-Arabic script, it is actually an Indoeuropean language, unlike Arabic dialects, which are Afro-Asiatic.

[@fariesz6786]

that fact that it's nearly identical is a bit of a coincidence but not the fact that they are similar. there are other words that ended up sounding very different in the Germanic and Indo-Iranian branches.

[@Alborzhakimi7010]

@@fariesz6786 of course there is some luck at hand here, hence why I was surprised. There are many cognates that sound completely different, and many false cognates that sound identical to one another.

[@Osama-Anwar]

In classical urdu we also use dukhter. I also thought they sound same. It doesn't look like a coincidence.

[@txikitofandango]

Debt was never pronounced with a b sound. The b was added by grammarians who wanted to relatinize English after the French word dette had been borrowed into English. Also the t in often was added, and subsequently the pronunciation changed

[@crusatyr1452]

I'm fairly certain it's the same with the L in salmon

[@dunkleosteusterrelli]

yeah there's alot of etymological mishaps in English too some of them are just overcorrections too, infamously “Island” who's s at the _very most_ should be y if not there at all then you also have fridge, a clipping of refrigerator, a Latin word, that's spelled similar to English words like bridge, ridge, midge(t)... etc.

[@swedneck]

@@dunkleosteusterrelli at least fridge is now actually spelled as most people say it As for island, i propose dropping the word entirely and just saying "isle" which is much cooler anyways

[@angreagach]

Many people still do not pronounce the t in often.

[@txikitofandango]

@@angreagach I try not to!

[@Stonmann]

Some silent Ts can still be pronounced in certain dialects. It’s very common in certain regions of English to pronounce “often” with a t.

[@SilverHandel]

I felt especially odd that he chose “folks” and “salmon” as examples of silent l’s considering many people around here still pronounce them.

[@DinoBryce]

HEY I PRONOUNCE OFTEN WITH A T!

[@StanbyMode]

Yeah im from Canada and say ofTen and sofTen

[@fariesz6786]

most of the modern pronunciations that do enunciate the letters are spelling pronunciations though. that is, it's not that those speakers' speech _retains_ the sound, it's just that the speakers (or their parents, or grandparents, or peers..) read those words and inserted the respective sound back in. never heard anyone pronounce the 'l' in "salmon" though, apart from L2 speakers (of which i am one myself)

[@bloodleader5]

​@@SilverHandelI've never heard anyone older than 30 say "folks" with no L. That's an obviously wrong pronunciation which only became popular due to social media. And yeah, I've always said the T in "often".

[@dorthusiast]

Indict is different from the rest here. Obviously in latin the c would've been pronounced but English borrowed it as "indite"/"endite" from Old French. The spelling with the c was actually brought back through a modification around 1600. So sometimes these issues can be caused by overcorrection from scholars as well. Another example is "debt" which actually initially came as "dette", a more phonetic spelling of the word. Edit: had a minor inaccuracy - the word was first attested in English as "dette" not "dete"

[@leventeborbely7120]

i mean, it's not really more phonetic, it has the same amount of silent letters.

[@dorthusiast]

@@leventeborbely7120 Well we don't know how exactly they pronounced "dette" but we certainly know they didn't pronounce it with a "b". The "e" at the end could've been a schwa, and it certainly was a schwa in Old French. In any case it's a common paradigm for both English and French to pronounce "e" as a schwa or skip final "e" which makes it simpler to predict the outcome of "dette" than "debt".

[@acupofcoffee.please]

There's a lot more examples like this. My fav is the river Thames, spelt with "th" only because people mistook the word for having a Greek origin.

[@aircraftmen_]

i know a certain dictator which people said heil before his name

[@humanteneleven]

That’s with a capital H 😅

[@jonas9]

Heil is still a common greeting in Western Austria.

[@rockysandman5489]

​@@jonas9*urge to lift right arm straight forward intensifies*

[@Runic182]

This guys great he needs more subscribers

[@humanteneleven]

Thanks man 🥹

[@LightningLion500]

Knight looks like the Dutch word "knecht", but in Dutch "knecht" means servant. At least I use it that way the most.

[@cfv7461]

isn't that because knights are "servants" of their liege?

[@LightningLion500]

​@@cfv7461 I wouldn't know that for sure, but it seems correlated indeed. The Dutch word "Ridder" means knight btw

[@EdKolis]

I wonder if ridder is related to rider? Since they ride horses... Reminds me of how cowboy's origins have nothing to do with cows or young men, but instead cowboy comes from the Spanish caballero, which means horse rider!

[@Havolli]

Yes, it is actually that! German has Knecht meaning servant and Ritter (rider) meaning knight.​@@cfv7461

[@ProfX501]

Interestingly, it means ‘servant’ in Dutch but ‘soldier’ in Czech and Polish.

[@malwinakajszczak7699]

Could you do a special video for valentines day talking about etymology of pet names/weird sexual innuendos and other stuff like that? No pressure of course, love your work

[@andriinaum1411]

I was today years old when I learned that “folk” has silent L

[@endersquid1132]

I'm from the south and you sure do pronounce it down here

[@Xnoob545]

It depends on dialect Quite often people say "fowk" though

[@cerebrummaximus3762]

I feel like I am to blame for this video 😅

[@humanteneleven]

Hahaha to be fair I had recorded this video a while ago for TikTok and never realized I hadn’t posted it to KZbin 😅

[@cerebrummaximus3762]

@@humanteneleven Haha, fair enough. Just posted awkwardly close after my comment about French and English spelling 😂

[@JubileeBloom]

I still pronounce the t in soften lol

[@chonkeboi]

Old knight sounds very cool

[@thedragonofcanada6659]

One of the few english words to have its spelling changed in many regions is hiccough turning to hiccup, though there are some loyalists

[@benjaminmorris4962]

Part of why the spelling hasn't been updated is that many of the words have at least one dialect somewhere that still pronounces it that way it's spelled

[@chillmystery_]

i love your stuff i always learn something new when comming here

[@kxbelsalat6390]

I have been binging your videos, so awesome keep going.

[@mathiasseljebotnerdal8700]

Daughter in Norwegian is also "Datter", in the more popular written language (Bokmål). "Dotter" is correct in Nynorsk tho.

[@AsianAnticsOfficial]

But you also forgot some scholars sometimes added random letters in.

[@eilivulv]

I'm so happy that you went with _dotter_ for the Norwegian cognate. A big part of the language (which includes _dotter_ ) is often overlooked because it's not part of the Danish-derived standard most prevalent today. People outside Norway may not even be aware that Norwegian is actually not that similar to Danish, but often closer to more western languages like Faroese, because the spelling most often seen is literally not based on our own language. (To clarify, we have two language standards in Norway: Bokmål (“Book Language”), which is a somewhat Norwegianised version of Danish, and Nynorsk (“Modern/New Norwegian”) that was independently formed based on the Norwegian spoken language, and previous written traditions that died out during Danish rule.)

[@xolang]

İ've started learning Persian and it's amazing how basic words such as duxtar, bad, barodar, even am as in İ am is almost identical to English. They are both İndoeuropean after all.

[@brauljo]

.rob.words has a video where certain letters like "b" in words that came from .french like "debt", where in .french they had no "b" and didnt when .english adopted them. .these silent letters were artificially inserted into these words to reflect their .latin origin, to everyone else's demise.

[@jruales]

The “L” in “salmon” was never pronounced. It was added to the word so that it would look more Latin, but people kept the old, French pronunciation without the L

[@cherylchui4510]

German changed the /x/ sound into the /χ/ sound

[@DilutedH2SO4]

I love English sometimes

[@its_lucky252]

never heard anyone say "folk" without the l

[@sophroniel]

English does change rapidly sometimes! Think of "today", "cooperate" and "tomorrow"! They used to be "to-day", "co-operate" and "to-morroe" only 40 years ago. Even the convention of putting a full stop after titles like "Dr.", "Mrs." and "Mr." has changed to "Dr" "Mrs" and "Mr". Even "Miss" and even "Mrs" is going away in many places, replaced with "Ms", which used to indicated an older woman who wasn't married back when I learned about writing letters in primary school in the early 2000's. Even letter writing conventions such as "Dear Bob," with putting a comma after the greeting and "Yours sincerely," have all but disappeared thanks to emails! Microsoft even corrects you from doing the stop after a shortened title and a comma after a greeting/send-off, saying both are "incorrect grammar". It's wild how many changes I have seen in my 30 years of life! Another pet peeve of mine is where people say "gooder"/ "do good" or "casted", instead of the correct past tense of "cast"... which is "cast", NOT "casted". I'm not a grammar nazi by any means, but I do worry about the worrying proportion of younger folks being (very nearly) completely illiterate... Another issue that I've always been irked by is how people misuse "fewer" or "less". They fail to understand how (with few select exceptions) "less" should only be used for things that cannot be counted, and "fewer" for those that can be. (For example, you wouldn't say "There were less people in my class today". Rather, you would say "there were fewer people in my class today"). This is VERY nitpicky but small things like this do hold up the coherency of the language, and when even native english speakers can barely understand or use correct grammar and spelling it's far more upsetting than those admirable folk who take the language on as a second language (and who therefore deserve our praise and support because english is a b*stard language that is a b*tch to learn 😆)

[@ledkicker2392]

Is it correct to use "fun" as an adjective, or is it a noun from which "funny" is an adjective?

[@MrxstGrssmnstMttckstPhlNelThot]

If a larger proportion of the people using the language have started doing so in a way different to you, its not them who's speaking it wrong anymore, it's you.

[@teletek1776]

this isn’t exactly true, “tomorrow” had been used for centuries prior to the 20th century

[@craftah]

and what's wrong with saying casted? it's better to have the past tense

[@rockysandman5489]

​@craftah he's saying that the past tense of "cast" is "cast", not "casted".

[@emryswilliams9190]

It also really depends on accents. Some accents will pronounce the l and others will pronounce the h in what,. where, etc. (yes it's before the w but still)

[@mouseyender]

Jokes on you, the b in debt, the c in indict, the s in isle, the p in receipt, and the w in whole were never pronounced. These letters were just added by scholars to make the spellings more similar to their Latin root words, or in the case of whole, to differentiate it from a similar sounding word (hole)

[@notwithouttext]

i don't think "whole" had a "w" in it pronounced ever, it's just that saying /hw/ and /h/ for vowels like "u" and "o" sound very similar, like "who" sounds like "hoo". then the word "hole" got its w because "whole" has the same pronunciation as "hole" and also distinguishes it from the other "hole"

[@Kokurorokuko]

"The spelling system never chanes" * Shows Germanic words that are spelt more phonetically than their and English common ancestor words *

[@davelife3324]

It said [necessarily] in brackets my guy

[@DooblerFlooper]

Daughter in Norwegian is spelled datter not dotter (btw dotter means dots)

[@bernardi5413]

The W in Sword.

[@3THREEIII]

Whole Austrian Painter

[@dude-hs8hw8me2p]

all this time, I had no idea "L" in "folk" is silent lmao

[@fariesz6786]

i heard (i think it was in one of Simon Roper's videos) that the sound signified by ‹gh› existed for was longer than is commonly thought at least in certain dialects of British English, even way into the 19th century.. seems to have by that been considered unfashionable though. also Scotts still preserves it, and through that influence it seems to sometimes appear in Scottish English dialects like Glaswegian but don't quote me on this.

[@hweiktomeyto]

Knight was actually /kniçt/ in Middle English and most if all dialects of modern english. To hear /knixt/ youll have to go a little back.

[@deleted-something]

Keyword “probably”

[@B_A-tr]

The relation between knight and knecht seems weird as knecht means servant

[@JevHaagus]

I Dutch we do (still) pronounche the G in “daughter “ doCHter

[@byronwilliams7977]

Great video. How is it that they determine the original pronunciation of say a dead language. Actual latin vs. ecclesiastic latin.

[@lilamdan]

Did you travel areas with different dialects of English?

[@lucas_lipp]

I was like "Ooh, German is gonna be a great example for daughter as the ch in Tochter is still being pronounced, here. Oh well, I guess the Scandinavian terms are pretty interesting, too." Then I was excited to see an example I know, but quickly felt slightly uncomfortable, when I saw which it was. And yes, it is a regular word that is used in everyday conversations, but it kinda takes on a different meaning, with a wildly different connotation, when it's not used in a sentence, like when talking about how the glass you just dropped is still whole, even though you'd probably say it's "ganz", instead of "heil", most of the time.

[@imanepink]

I’m wondering whether the English language (Especially British English) is the least phonetic language in the world. It would be interesting to know what the most and least phonetic (mainstream) languages in the world are.

[@sophroniel]

If you have never understood "knight" think about "Knute". We don't pronounce it as "nut", we say "Kuh-noot" (or thereabouts? I don't understand the phonetic alphabet, sorry). So "knight" used to be "kuh-neet"? Idk. But swedish pronounciation makes way more sense than english 😂

[@fariesz6786]

it probably wasn't ever _kuh-neet_ bc back when the 'k' was pronounced, people were able to seemlessly link it to the 'n' much like it's still done in Dutch or German, or for than matter other languages that have that consonant cluster.

[@22lostservice]

What about a spelling convention we *did* change. Thorn was a lettee and we replaces it with "th" so Ye old Shoppe is really the old shop. Are there other letters we lost due to printing like Thorn?

[@wintershreve2056]

Wynn

[@austinsontv]

I came for the linguistics. I stayed for the hot teacher 🥵

[@qpdb840]

Wow the Persian word for daughter is almost the same as the Proto Germanic word داختَر

[@siyacer]

because you are indo european

[@qpdb840]

@@siyacer I know

[@farhadd2933]

That Germanic daughter pronunciation is exactly how we call daughter in Persian. why?

[@myspleenisbursting4825]

Persian is Indo-European.

[@siyacer]

indo European connection

[@fungmonger3000]

Alr i gotta update english rq

[@citychris3215]

If we wanted to ask you a linguistics question, is there an email we can contact you by?

[@sophroniel]

Can you please do a video on how Swedish is the only true tonal language in europe???

[@la_lavanda]

There are no "true tonal languages" in Europe, there are only pitch-accent languages. Swedish isn't even a purely pitch-accented language, it mostly a stress accent, but it uses pitch patterns to distinguish otherwise homophonous words. Norwegian is the exact same. There are other pitch-accent languages in Europe, like Latvian, Lithuanian, Limburgish, Slovene, most varieties of Serbo-Croatian, and the western dialects of Basque. I would actually say that Serbo-Croatian is the best example of a European pitch-accent language.

[@coyotemars5130]

my parents tried to correct my pronunciation of salmon (s’all mun) vs (saa mun) but now instead of sahmon like they wanted i say sailman i don’t mean to i just can’t unmix the two in my head i don’t know why it changed to man either hoping to start a trend (fingers crossed)

[@isaiahvanmourik5651]

Netherlands mentoid!!!

[@nfglegos]

Folk has a silent L? NOT!!!!

[@FOGGYlama123]

How do you not pronounce the l in folk

[@littlepiggy200]

Daughter in Norwegian is the same as danish, datter. Great vid though.

[@thelibyanplzcomeback]

Who doesn't pronounce the L in folk?

[@amazingfireboy1848]

Duolingo says "daughter" was "tochter" but maybe they're wrong, as always?

[@Ayte69]

For Dutch knecht it's /χ/ instead of /x/

[@FrumiousBandersnatch42]

We do pronounce the L in "folk" though...

[@lilamdan]

Uad aar ju toqee nabawt

[@lilamdan]

Written language is different from the spoken

[@DukeDukeGo]

Wait, folk and salmon do not have a silent L, you don't say what the folk

[@aktuellyattee8265]

the L in folk isn't silent; it's dark

[@Mirsab]

Wait, the L in salmon is silent??

[@cjaoun23240]

How do you say your username? Is it human one zero one one, human ten eleven or human one thousand eleven.

[@glitch84-]

Do u.s. americans behave differently? I remember often seeing "tonite" for tonight. Idk if it's going to become the official spelling one day

[@timothyomotojeah2830]

We say datter in norway, not dotter

[@McSeal]

Since when is the L in folk and salmon silent? I definitely pronounce it with L and ive heard others, it is just slightly weak.

[@talhaimran9368]

"Daughter" is actually Persian and is pronounced similar to german except for the "d" sound

[@RanmaruRei]

It's not. It's proto-indo-european word.

[@0ickey255]

Bro is lost in the world and the words

[@Muslim16572]

Arabic is thr only language that has not changed

[@myspleenisbursting4825]

It sure has. Ever heard of old Arabic? Even the prophet spoke in Old Hejazi, which changed from Fusha You see this letter? ى ? It used to be pronounced ē like an imalah vowel but changed into ā in Fusha. The dialect of the Prophet had it tho

[@Gigagamerrays]

Do other people Not pronounce folk how it’s written???

[@LucyInTheSkyWithDiamonds69]

Whole

[@ees4.]

reupload?

[@humanteneleven]

From my TikTok yeah

[@ees4.]

@@humanteneleven But I've seen it on KZbin on your channel page...

[@obamabinladen4109]

0:23 The German empoji doesn't belong there. "I" in German isn't pronounced /i/, "ie" is. The German i is pronounced like the English i in words like "in" and "shit"

[@almazu2770]

t in listen was never pronounced

[@jonathankaiel9123]

Shouldn’t “whole” be pronounced /ʍoʊl/

[@cherylchui4510]

Niht

[@siyacer]

Heil?!

[@bloodleader5]

The L in "folk" is not silent. Calling people "fokes" is a gen Z thing and is the result of yuppie urbanites stealing a traditional word (folks) into their vocabulary in an attempt to make themselves look more relatable and in touch with cultural groups they have no real rapport with. This isn't a linguistic change but rather an intentional corruption. Here in the south, we say "folks" and "folk" music, with the L. You can also hear the (muted) L in "salmon", too.

[@HeadsFullOfEyeballs]

The l in "folk" absolutely is silent in standard British and American English. "Folk" rhymes with "yoke" (and "yolk"). There are some American dialects where the l is pronounced (like yours, apparently), but that isn't the standard. You're the one saying it "weird", not Kids These Days. Sorry.

[@bloodleader5]

@@HeadsFullOfEyeballs "Yoke" and "yolk" are not pronounced the same. Almost everyone I've met who was born before the 2000s pronounces the L in both these examples, although in a lot of people the L is reduced. Maybe you can't hear it because you aren't attentive enough, or you have an urbanite accent that doesn't enunciate. Here's a test for you: throughout the majority of America, "merry", "Mary", and "marry" have three different vowel sounds, and "marry" has different stressing. Do these sound the same to you? If so, that narrows you to a few very specific geographical areas, and would explain why you can't pronounce "folk" and "yolk" right either.

[@Henri11111]

sorry but that "knecht" was horrible

[@wintershreve2056]

Not very good examples

[@MiguelX413]

⟨wh⟩ represented /ʍ/ originally tho