Britain's Celtic languages explained

Time to explore the Celtic languages! Also, get your personalized 1-on-1 language lessons with native teachers on italki Buy $10 get $5 for free for your first lesson using my code ROBWORDS5. Book your lesson now go.italki.com/robwordsapr24
The Celtic languages have been in Britain since long before the English language even existed. In this video I speak to speakers of 5 different Celtic languages: Cornish, Welsh, Manx, Scottish Gaelic and Irish (because it would be silly to leave Irish out).
Learn all about the fascinating quirks of the Celtic languages, find out which words English has borrowed from them, and discover a useful phrase or two!
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==CHAPTERS==
0:00 Introduction
0:34 The Celtic languages
1:42 Celtic language tree
4:05 Understanding eachother
5:15 italki
6:50 No “yes” or “no”
7:43 Crazy counting
8:30 Sound changes
10:20 Place names
12:04 Words we borrowed
12:58 Influence on English
14:05 Extinction
16:14 How are they doing?
19:25 Handy phrases

[@RobWords]

Hit me with your Celtic facts! And get personalized 1-on-1 language lessons with native teachers on italki Buy $10 get $5 for free for your first lesson using my code ROBWORDS5. Book your lesson now go.italki.com/robwordsapr24

[@uauausuuahshauaiausuuaususu]

You're one of my favourite youtubers!

[@cyberherbalist]

As for the so-called "useless" English "do," whether it comes from Celtic or not, it's not useless. It actually serves a function. It is a "marker" for a yes/no question. When did it start being used in this way? Heck, I don't know, I'm not a linguist (and I might be completely wrong, who knows?). When creating Esperanto, Zamenhoff recognized that such a marker was quite useful, and he coined a question word for just that purpose. It's "Ĉu," which is pronounced "chew." It signifies that the question is to be answered with a "yes" or "no". As in the question "Ĉu vi parolas Esperanton?" which is "Do you speak Esperanto?" This use of "do" as a closed question marker may not be related to the verb "do," however. In "What do you do?" the "do" is probably from the same Germanic root as German "tun," which means "to do". For example, "Was tun Sie?" which is "What are you doing?" The "t" slides over to "d".

[@jukeseyable]

No a fact, but an opinion regarding the welsh language. It rejuvination is an oderious gift from the English state to enable our continued subjegation. it serves to inhibit the independence debate, that we should be greatfull that our language is so supported by London. I know of not one single independence movement that has succesfully made a native language the centerpiece of its cause. crumbs from the masters table are certainly not a table of our own. It divides wales into speakers and non speakers, with those that speak it seeing themselves no necessarily superiour to non speakers, but in that non speakers are less Welsh than they are

[@niamhomahony7794]

The Donegal dialect of Irish is very similar to Scots Gaelic in terms of pronunciation due their geographic and cultural proximity. People often confuse the accents of English speakers in Ulster and Scotland too

[@tinfoilhomer909]

@@jukeseyable If you think Welsh is divisive, look up Tasmania's palawa language. I'm older and more native than the people who designed it and I'll always be annoyed with them. It was built to divide us.

[@randalmayeux8880]

When I was a kid in central Louisiana I remember my great grandparents speaking in a language I couldn't understand. I knew it wasn't French because my dad and all of my relatives on his side of the family were from south Louisiana, and spoke 1720s French. I found out they were speaking Irish. They had come from County Offaly years before the Potato Famine along with several other Irish families and settled near Natchitoches. They learned English, but continued speaking Irish among themselves.

[@garethaethwy]

I gather there are still a few 'native' Welsh speakers in Pennsylvania's Welsh towns, with a resurgence due to people of Welsh descent learning the language. I also discovered recently that there was a sizable Welsh community in Louisiana, not sure how many (if any) have kept the language. But let us not forget possibly the most well-known Welsh-speaking community not in the British Isles, and that's in Patagonia, in the Chubut Valley around Trelew and Puerto Madryn where I'm told Welsh can still be heard...

[@tomjcarty]

Any idea where in Offaly they came from? I grew up in Banagher (we moved there from North Longford in the 1970's) and would love to know about this, as its was a LONG LONG time ago since Irish was spoken there.

[@kelliatlarge]

​@@garethaethwy Re: Welsh descendants in Louisiana, my dad's side of the family are some of them, but I don't know of anyone who speaks the language, unfortunately. I think all we really have left are the family names.

[@YeshuaKingMessiah]

Dat 1720s French Is it the Patois spoken now, some?

[@randalmayeux8880]

@@YeshuaKingMessiah Yes. I first noticed this when I began studying French in college. The first year we were just studying the current Parisian French, but later when I began to get into French literature it became apparent. You see, when I tried speaking modern French to my father, he would correct me. I assumed that he was speaking a degraded French, however I later realized that he was using the "literary" verbs and conjunctions. The nouns for the most part were the same as modern French. The French that was then spoken in south Louisiana was nowhere near as far removed from real French as the Creole patois spoken in, say Haiti or other parts of the Caribbean where "French" is spoken.

[@Niinsa62]

I had a classmate a long time ago here in Sweden, who was from Brittany in France. And she could speak Breton, as her grandparents, but her parents couldn't. But she wanted to preserve the language, so she picked it up from her grandparents. She was cool. Way to go, Brianne! Hope you are well, wherever you are!

[@alessandrorossi1294]

Nice! We are doing something similar with our daughter here in Italy. I don't know the local dialect, my wife speaks it poorly, but her parents speak it well and they speak it with our daughter (their granddaughter) often!

[@eddiel7635]

Celtic name as well

[@GmailCom-hh6yq]

In my youth, and after high school, I went to Brittany as au-pair❤ as I love French, and I learned a "lot" of "breton"...but never went to any evening class. My family was a mix...dad was Argentinian-French and mum was Italian-French and ...Well, she was the reason why I only stayed 4 months.🤨 Many signs were in both French and Breton... I only remember KER (house) and MER (sea)...I hope😂 But yes, I miss France

[@SophiaMorgan339]

Hallelujah!!! I’m the favorite, $60,000 every week! Now I can afford anything and also support the work of God and the church.

[@JacksonMitchell792]

Oh really? Tell me more! Always interested in hearing stories of successes.

[@SophiaMorgan339]

This is what Ana Graciela Blackwelder does, she has changed my life.

[@SophiaMorgan339]

After raising up to 60k trading with her, I bought a new house and car here in the US and also paid for my son’s (Oscar) surgery. Glory to God.shalom.

[@EvelynJohnson-qf8ih]

I know Ana Graciela Blackwelder, and I have also had success...

[@EvelynJohnson-qf8ih]

@@SophiaMorgan339Absolutely! I have heard stories of people who started with little or no knowledge but managed to emerge victorious thanks to Ana Graciela Blackwelder.

[@brianmsahin]

As an Irish man I'm not offended ! I would have been if you left Irish out !😂 I'm not living in Ireland for more than 20 years now, but I am hearing that Irish is beginning to make a significant comeback over the past number of years. I hope it continues. Go raibh maith agat for the excellent video!

[@dafyddlloyd868]

south african here....and we indeed have shebeens. in fact, hooligans galore frequently drink to smithereens in our plentiful shebeens! i may, or may not, have been one myself at a long ago time. i think its usage is fading, though....the word, not the establishments.

[@philroberts7238]

"The Back of the Moon.....Top shebeen in Jo'burg is The Back of the Moon". (King Kong)

[@rogink]

I'm not really surprised Rob didn't recognise the word. In English we put the stress on the second syllable - more like sha-been. Not exactly a common word, and I suppose it would only be used in the context of an informal Irish pub.

[@YeshuaKingMessiah]

Never heard it I love languages too

[@markelton2345]

You also have a very large hospital in Soweto called Baragwanath, which is Cornish for wheat bread. Named after a Cornishman who used to have refereshment station on the site. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Military_Hospital,_Baragwanath

[@WYKAHYPE]

Sláinte Mo Chara!

[@MrFearDubh]

In Irish, go leor (from which we get galore) changes meaning depending on where it's place with respect to the noun it's modifying. "X go leor" means "enough X" whereas "go leor X" means "an abundance of X." But it came into the English language where "X galore" means "an abundance of X."

[@IosuamacaMhadaidh]

In Gàidhlig (Scots Gaelic) it's gu leor and mean "enough of" something.

[@Pengalen]

Her name is Allota.

[@gcanaday1]

gu leòr and gu leir are two different things.

[@steelmagnum]

So of course English immediately gets the meaning backwards

[@Ithirahad]

The way I've heard it used in English, it's a mixture of both. It means an abundance, but usually, specifically too much or at least more than necessary.

[@MenelionFR]

Dear speakers of Celtic languages! Please, please, please protect your languages, teach them, speak them, promote them, cherish them! They are so beautiful and it would be a horrible disaster if we as the Human race, lost them. Thank you so much, Rob!

[@stephend9968]

You are so right, but the problem in Ireland is that there are few opportunities to use and practice the language. I not only learnt Irish at school, but I was taught through the medium of Irish, so I would have been fairly fluent - at that time - and there's the rub, as they say. Now, at 73 years of age, I wouldn't be able to remember enough to carry on a conversation because I never got (or took) the opportunity to use it enough. I recently read a book (in English) about the plight of the Irish language and efforts to encourage its use (or 'revive' it). It has made me think about joining a conversation group to help me become more fluent again.

[@derekmills5394]

@@stephend9968 Do it! If not for yourself, for others to practise with. You'll be amazed how quickly you pick it up again.

[@mannosan]

Wales is doing fairly well I think, but it’s really hard when 99% of media is English, and (I’ve only noticed this recently) there’s a lot of pushback from non Welsh speakers cropping up

[@stephend9968]

@@derekmills5394 Thanks for the encouragement. I have to say, as well, that I'm pleasantly surprised at the number of posters on here who appear to have a 'grá' (love) for the Irish language (or one or more of the related languages).

[@derekmills5394]

@@mannosan I see a lot of parallels here with the renaisance of the Maori language in New Zealand. It started way back in the 70's and has moved through a regular news program where those interviewed would struggle to now where many Maori words are included in everyday speech, particularly words related to family, relationships and the land. Yes there has been some pushback but that is relegated now to political posturing by certain parties. It is now so mainstream so that vocal artists will re-write their songs and release them in both English and Maori. I don't have any links but there is a lot of online content that you or others may find useful towards charting a successful outcome.

[@Vegplot]

I've lived in North Wales for 29 years and am a (slow) Welsh learner. My German wife and a German neighbour are both fluent Welsh speakers (their professional working daily life involves speaking Welsh as part of their work). It's often said, here at least, that when a language dies a culture dies with it. I now consider myself to be Welsh in mind at least.

[@saracomerford1753]

My secondary school Irish teacher once told us that the word "smashing" comes from the Irish "is maith é sin", (iss mah ay shin) which literally means "that is good". It blew my mind! Love the video, really interesting! ❤️🇮🇪

[@jimmyryan5880]

Phony comes from fáinne (ring). There was a very common ring scam in the US when it was coined. Dig (slang) comes from Tuig (the understand or appreciate)

[@shastasilverchairsg]

Smashing!

[@derekmills5394]

@@shastasilverchairsg iss may ay shin sounds like something you'd shout during a hurling match

[@philroberts7238]

A lot of London cockney comes from other languages, especially Yiddish, but 'gob' certainly comes from the west. I wonder if there are others that people know of?

[@aduantas]

this is a false etymology

[@coolbrotherf127]

11:54 I could not say "I want to go to the Brown Willy" with a straight face. Rob's face says it all.

[@derekmills5394]

Now imagine you're a reporter from the BBC

[@coolbrotherf127]

@@derekmills5394 "Hello, I'm Dan Smith from the BBC here at the big Brown Willy."

[@urquizabr]

Never heard before, not sure if I should ask what it is.

[@LeReubzRic]

DW it's safe to look up :> ​@@urquizabr

[@LimeyRedneck]

I'm still reeling that the original meaning is The Hill of Swallows given what it has become?!?

[@KrisHughes]

I've learned a few language, including Gàidhlig, but I have never encountered a language with such consistent orthography as Welsh. It might look intimidating, but once you understand the relationship between letters and sounds, its extremely dependable.

[@saraj1955]

I'm a Welsh speaker and educated bilingualy. I've tried explaining this and a non Welsh speaker disagreed that no language was that consistent. I can only think of three exceptions and typically only one now and that is Llywellyn, the second double ll is usually pronounced as a single. So much easier to say than type!

[@rateeightx]

Welsh pronunciation is very consistent, although the spelling isn't as much, because there are sometimes multiple ways to spell the same sound, for example 'ae' and 'au' are (sometimes) pronounced the same, I'd argue Italian is somewhat more consistent, where the only words you can't tell the spelling of from the pronunciation would be ones that sound the same as other words ("O" and "Ho" are pronounced the same, for example), Or unmodified loan words, everything else if you're listening closely you should be able to tell.

[@rateeightx]

@@saraj1955 To be fair I've usually seen it spelled "Llywelyn", I thought Llywellyn was just an Anglicised spelling, Since they're often pronounced as just a single l in English (Much to my chagrin) That said, I feel like Welsh isn't quite so consistent, For example 'R' is sometimes doubled and sometimes not despite always being pronounced the same. I've seen the word for Curry spelled as both "Cyri" and "Cyrri".

[@jamessloanofficial]

I’m an American who has developed a great fondness for the Isle of Man. Visiting for the TT over the years and coming to know the people has been a joy. I’m trying to pick up a few words in Manx and listen almost daily to the Manx language version of the local news on Manx Radio.

[@alicequayle4625]

That's very kind. Gura mie mooar ayd (if I got that right).

[@martifingers]

They have a fine music tradition as well that is perhaps not as well known as that of the other Celtic nations.

[@alicequayle4625]

@@martifingers some excellent musicians eg Tom Callister and Isla Callister, Ruth Keggin, and Mera Royle the harpist who won the BBC young folk music award.

[@samlangdon82]

S'mae o Gymru! On the similarities, I'm fluent Welsh, and my friend from uni is Cornish. He showed me a kids book in Cornish and I could read it perfectly! Was really powerful realising how closely linked our histories are

[@gerardjlaw]

You're basically the same. As the Germanic invaders pushed the Celtic influence westwards, the people they called the "Wealas" (essentially the Anglo-Saxon for "dirty foreigner") were split by the Bristol Channel into the Norþ Wealas and the Cornwealas.

[@alicemilne1444]

​@@gerardjlawWealas didn't originally mean "dirty foreigner". That's a derogatory modern interpretation. The word originally meant a Romanised tribe and you can find it in the name Walachia (in Romania), Valais in Switzerland, Wallonia (in modern Belgium) and in Southwestern Britain (Wales and Cornwall).

[@LimeyRedneck]

@@alicemilne1444 etymonline could help you unpick your tangle 🙂

[@alicemilne1444]

@@LimeyRedneck I am sure that source serves your needs amply.

[@LimeyRedneck]

@@alicemilne1444 It's reputable, uses a very wide range of sources and is cited by academics amongst others. Yes, it does X

[@RichardDCook]

At 10:22 a fascinating thing in Scotland is the existence of hybrid place names, generally with the first element P-Celtic (Brythonic) and the second element Q-Celtic (Goidelic) said to be a legacy of the merging of Pictish and Gaelic peoples. At 11:20 note that Aber- also appears in Scottish place names.

[@philiptaylor7902]

Would it be true to say that Aber place names come from the Brythonic Pictish language, as opposed to Inbhir (Inver) from Goidelic Gaelic?

[@DarthSanguine]

@@philiptaylor7902 Yes.

[@alexjradcliffe]

@@philiptaylor7902 Yeah, Aber in Aberdeen, Aberfeldy, Aberfoyle are all thought to come from Pictish "aber" meaning river mouth too.

[@bradwilliams7198]

Aber- also occurs in place names in Cornish. Plymouth in Cornish is Aberplymm; Falmouth is Aberfal

[@douglasfell4199]

Regional variation of the same language.

[@Arnica_Burdock]

The name James is an excellent representation of lenition in Scottish Gaelic. James - English name Seumas - Gàidhlig Sheumais - Gàidhlig, lenited Pronunciation guide: Vowels dictate the sounds of consonants as broad or slender. Usually when there are two vowels together, only one supplies its own sound, the other being there only for determining the consonant sound next to it. Slender: e i Broad: a o u The letter S has two sounds: slender /ʃ/ broad /s/ Seumas /ʃeːməs/ Se = ʃeː (slender) umas = məs (broad) Lenited, it becomes: Sheumais /heːmɪʃ/ She = heː (slender) uma = m (broad) is = ɪʃ (slender)

[@garethaethwy]

I can't say I've ever really encountered Scottish Gaelic, not knowingly at least. And possibly in part because I have spent less than 12 hours in Scotland. Ever. [That was supposed to be rectified last year but holiday had to be cancelled because family, rescheduled for this November or January...] Irish however I encounter reasonably often, on day (or longer) trips over to Dublin, mostly on the Luas which I make sure I take at least one journey through Abbey Street on, because I LOVE the Irish name of the street, and therefore the Luas stop! Sad I know, but hey...

[@belstar1128]

horrible

[@wyattstevens8574]

TL;DR: "Seamus" is (more or less) Scots-Gaelic for James!

[@JD-zt2bl]

Thank you! Vowels changing the sound of the letters around them is something I'd picked up from the basics I learned as a kid, but I couldn't put words around it and I didn't realise there were actual rules for it.

[@user-om2ti8jj1f]

It's cool that you like learning languages and that you know IPA. Most English speakers think that IPA symbols are just pointless squiggles, but I think the International Phonetic Alphabet can be a helpful instrument in learning foreign language's pronunciation similarly to how musical notation helps musicians learn how to play musical pieces.

[@peglor]

One of the most interesting phrases that looks likely to have come from Irish is 'an dtuigeann tú?' which means, 'do you understand?', which became 'you dig?' when Irish emigrants and blues musicians started collaborating in the US.

[@Zelmel]

While an interesting theory, doing some quick looking it seems like this is highly debated and (to me at least) feels less likely than the other main theories that it derived directly from English "dig" but in a metaphorical sense or was from a West African Wolof language word that meant "to understand or appreciate"

[@Fledhyris]

@@Zelmel It wouldn't surprise me at all if, given the ethnic/cultural makeup of the time and place, BOTH languages came into play here. The similarity of the word would surely have helped it to spread among both Irish and West African communities. Whoever first came up with it, the others could still 'dig' the word. It makes so much more sense for it to have come from a word with its literal meaning, than to have any link to the English 'excavate a hole'.

[@Zelmel]

@@Fledhyris Definitely a reasonable hypothesis. Apparently the "excavate a hole" idea is the metaphorical meaning of it like to "dig for knowledge" or similarly "dig into" a subject or whatever.

[@CCc-sb9oj]

@@Zelmel There are a lot of fake Irish etymologies thanks to an Irish American quack 'linguist' (he never actually graduated university) named Daniel Cassidy, who did not know any Irish but figured he could make up Irish origins for hundreds of words in English based on what he felt they sounded like or looked like. So while there are words that did (galore, smithereens) come from Irish, and plenty of words that could potentially have, the water is very muddied among non-linguists because of the sheer volume of etymologies without any real basis being shared on the internet.

[@MrFearDubh]

Historically, Irish counting was based on 20s and the word for 40 (daichead) comes from a contracted form of dhá fhichead (two twenties). In Scottish Gaelic it's more apparent with 40 being dà fhichead, still broken into the two words for two twenties. In Manx, 40 is an even more compressed version of two twenties: daeed.

[@arthur_p_dent]

Since you say "Historically" - the odd thing is that the counting in base 20 did not yet exist in Old Irish, it only started being used in middle Irish. The same is true for many non-Celtic European languages that to some extent use base 20 constructions (most notably Danish and French - neither Latin nor Gaulish nor Old Norse had a vigesimal system) - the base 20 counting seems to be a medieval invention.

[@MrFearDubh]

@@arthur_p_dent Interesting.

[@easybee5778]

Even in English, “score” was used as a base twenty counting system. I’m sure I’ve read books from even the last century still referring to ages like “four-score and one” (81)

[@alicemilne1444]

​@arthur_p_dent I don't think vigesimal can be mediaeval at all. It's found in all sorts of languages like Basque, Santali, Yoruba, Inuit, Mayan, Muisca, Ainu -- so right across Eurasia to the Far East, in Africa and in the Americas.

[@arthur_p_dent]

@@alicemilne1444 linguists have examined this at length. It is true that vigesimal number systems have existed earlier in other languages. But there is no reason to assume that it can have been developed only once, or everywhere at the same time. So the fact that vigesimal existed in Asia or even the Americas doesn't prove anything. I mean, decimal and vigesimal are both somewhat natural for humans with 10 fingers and 20 fingers+toes, so why wouldn't different languages come up with similar concepts independently from one another? At any rate, It has also been theorized that Basque somehow proves a pre Indo-European origin of vigesimal. but these theories have all been rejected by linguists. The vigesimal structures in the European languages, with the exception of Basque, clearly did not yet exist in antiquity and started later. This is true for Celtic languages, as well as French and Danish. It is what it is.

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

The traditional counting system used in the Yorkshire Dales and parts of Lincolnshire and County Durham is a base 20 system based on the Brythonic Celtic language.

[@meretes.lintrup4684]

Danish counting is based on 20 as well. The other scandinavian languages base their counting on 10. So, in Danish, eg 60 is "three times twenty". 70 is 3,5 times twenty, but said "half-four times twenty". As I understood in the video, welsh says "3 20s and 10" for 70. Would be interesting to know if this way of counting based on 20 has developed independently in Danish and the Gaelic/Celtic languages og Britain, or if one language developed it and inspired the others

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

@@meretes.lintrup4684 in Europe I wouldn't be surprised if the vigesimal or Base-20 counting systems all come from the same pre-Celtic Indo-European language but such systems also evolved independently in Africa (with the Yoruba), with the Mayans and Aztecs in Mesoamerica, and with New Zealand's Māoris. Even English has a Base-20 history. The Gettysburg Address starts off with "four score and seven years ago". But I'm not certain if that isn't due to the Norman Conquest of 1066.

[@alexjradcliffe]

This counting system is often called Yan tan tethera, and is traditionally used a lot by shepherds to count sheep. It's very cool! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yan_tan_tethera

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

@@alexjradcliffe also the subject of a Jake Thackeray song.

[@meadow-maker]

@@neiloflongbeck5705 In Britain we still use the word 'score' to mean 20 however the word is the same as score a piece of wood, it's Germanic and probably came in with Old Norse but, since it is still the same word as to 'score' wood and 'score' in a game it's not likely to be good evidence of English being Vigesimal. English, however does have 'dozen' and our old coins were in dozens, 12 pennies made a shilling so 'score' isn't good evidence for a vigesimal system in English. You really only need to look at how we count. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, then thir-teen, four-teen, fif-teen up to twenty, thirty, fourty..... No, 'score' is little more than scoring a notch on a post to count sheep which leads you back to Brythonic where in living history in England Brythonic was still used for counting sheep in the North, and South West. See Yan_tan_tethera on Wikipedia.

[@The_Old_Wolf]

"Vel ny partanyn snaue, Joe?" - After having studied Gaeilge for years, I came across some recordings of Manx, and was astonished at how much I could understand, even without the translation available. I love the Celtic languages. Thanks for a great video!

[@seankayll9017]

From what I can gather, Manx is very similar indeed to Ulster Irish.

[@lidiaadobato7822]

I'm not even a native speaker of Englias and I really enjoyed it. Thanks a lot, from Argentina, with Italian ancestors.

[@philroberts7238]

Lots of Welsh ancestry in Patagonia, as I'm sure you know!

[@lidiaadobato7822]

@@philroberts7238 I do know. And the Welsh villages are just beautiful, they have those names like Dolavon, Gaiman, Trelew... which are so musical. My next door neighbour was of Welsh ancentry and she even wrote a book about their arrival in Patagonia.

[@teleplayer605]

​@@lidiaadobato7822 In Welsh "dol" means a meadow, and "afon" is a river.

[@lidiaadobato7822]

@@teleplayer605 Thanks!! I love to know these things.

[@TAP7a]

​@@teleplayer605ah, the good ol' River River naming phenomenon

[@PLuMUK54]

Dydd da Rob, I must say that I was impressed by your saying LlanfairPG (as it is often written). The Welsh part of my family lived in a very isolated part of Wales. Some of the older members, when I was a child, spoke little or no English. What they had learned at school was forgotten as they never went anywhere that they needed it. When the next generations did not want to take over the farm, it was sold, and the family moved to LlanfairPG, closer to facilities that become more important with age, but still an area with a strong tradition of using the language. My Welsh was good enough to follow Pobol y Cwm, but now it has virtually disappeared. Until I retired, I was a history teacher. As part of their GCSE, my classes studied castles, and without meaning to, I used to cause confusion. I would say the names of castles in Wales automatically the Welsh way, and my classes could never find them on the maps or identify photographs. Eventually, they got used to asking, "What's that in English?" Recently, on an Uber journey, the driver was telling me about his holiday in Wales. He commented that he was surprised by how many foreigners he met. 😁 He hadn't realised that there was a Welsh language. I managed to gather enough from my memory to say something to him in Welsh, which pleased me.

[@garethaethwy]

Wasn't it Farage who kicked off a few years back hearing people on the bus not speaking English, because they were in Wales and speaking Welsh?

[@uingaeoc3905]

@@garethaethwy No - another myth-lie about Farage.

[@garethaethwy]

@@uingaeoc3905 That's as may be, but I have definitely had people think I was foreign when talking in Welsh in England. Best was family holiday, on the transfer bus from airport, (English) reps sat in front of us were playing a game of guess the nationality on us, their final guess was Bulgarian. I have also seen first hand people from England move to Wales and kick off that signs, publications, etc are bilingual: we all understand English so why bother is the general assertion.

[@uingaeoc3905]

@@garethaethwy I am from Liverpool and used to hearing Welsh. But I g have known some people in England think that Glaswegians are speaking a foreign language too. Your point is?

[@garethaethwy]

@@uingaeoc3905 obviously lost on you... Love to the family x

[@dpcnreactions7062]

If you go to the island of Cape Breton in Nova Scotia, you will find people who Gaelic. Back in the 90's there was also a movement there to revive Gaelic.

[@garethaethwy]

Gaelic in a place named after Brittany?

[@Fetherko]

& 🎼🎻🎶The Rankins

[@philroberts7238]

@@garethaethwy Not at all surprising. Lots of French and Scottish influences all over the Maritimes.

[@cacamilis8477]

@@philroberts7238 And Irish in Eastern Newfoundland, too. I remember visiting and I was incredibly surprised to find many older fishermen speaking English with what seemed to me like a very strong West Cork accent!

[@juliansmith4295]

@@garethaethwy To be fair, the place named after Brittany of which you speak is in a province named after Scotland.

[@anglend]

One area that I've been to that has a strong Gaelic culture and some native speakers is Nova Scotia, Canada especially Cape Breton Island where every town sign is in both English and Gaelic

[@YeshuaKingMessiah]

Which Gaelic lol

[@necroseus]

​​​​@@YeshuaKingMessiahLmao, it's Scottish Gàidhlig "Nova Scotia" means "New Scotland." In Gàidhlig the place is called "Alba Nuadh" (pronounced: al-buh new-wug) where "Alba" means "Scotland" and "Nuadh" means "New." Slàinte! :)

[@mcswordfish]

I went on a school-exchange trip from Skye, Scotland to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia back in late '01 (an interesting time to be flying to North America). We met a few old folk (in their 80s and 90s) who had been brought up speaking Gàidhlig, though a lifetime of English Hegemony meant it was only a distant memory for them. It was also fascinating to see the graves of people who were born in the areas we lived, but had crossed the Atlantic in the 19th Century. A couple of years prior, the most significant and important band in Gàidhlig music had recruited their new frontman from Cape-Breton too (Bruce Guthro replaced Donnie Munro in Runrig)

[@Cailean_MacCoinnich]

@@YeshuaKingMessiah eejit. If you watched the video you'd know.

[@bobnelsonfr]

Fifty years ago, my wife - a French-nationality physics teacher born in Brittany but not a Breton-speaker - had a colleague exchange teacher from Cornwall. This woman said she could understand the Bretons of Finisterre (way out at the tip of the Breton peninsula).

[@draoi99]

I read in a newspaper once that Breton farmers used to travel to Wales and cycle around the country selling onions, and they could understand Welsh quite well.

[@paulhaynes8045]

​@@draoi99I've never really believed the 'French onion seller'thing. It just doesn't make sense. Firstly, onions grow easily all over Britain, and can easily be dried to last all year. And secondly, it doesn't make sense financially - how many (relatively cheap) onions would you have to carry on your bike to make any sort of decent income?!

[@paulhaynes8045]

I once heard a radio programme about Cornish boules players (it was radio 4!), who played in a Breton league. And, when they went to away games in France, they said the older players could understand much of the local language.

[@marclozachmeur3629]

@@paulhaynes8045 For a century, the johnnies criss-crossed the roads of Great Britain, lugging their braids of Roscoff onions. A unique commercial epic.

[@meadow-maker]

@@paulhaynes8045 no, they did, there's lots of photos of them. It did happen.

[@wolfpacksix]

I'm not Celtic, but this is fascinating. Great to see some attention given to these languages!

[@jcortese3300]

I will never stop finding Welsh to be the most beautiful, musical language in the world. I fell in love with it in 2003 and got extremely good at it; I can still get a lot out of it even though it's extremely difficult to maintain fluency in the US. One of the worst days I ever had not involving death was when S4C implemented geoblocking. Llond ceg o ryddemau, yn wir.

[@bensmith6554]

Couldn't you use a VPN?

[@jcortese3300]

@@bensmith6554 I'm a little wary of them from a security point of view, otherwise I'd definitely use one.

[@cbuzz2371]

Yeah use a vpn, Rob sometimes promotes one on this channel

[@belstar1128]

S4C implemented geo-blocking typical welsh mindset

[@klaxoncow]

@@belstar1128 You are aware that pretty much every single country on Earth has broadcasters that implement geo-blocking? It's usually to do with licensing rights, in fact. Money and contracts. (Which is why Rob can get regular sponsorships from those selling VPNs, which are great for by-passing the geo-blocking that MOST CHANNELS ON PLANET EARTH do, and which isn't remotely peculiar to S4C alone and, therefore, supposedly typical of a "Welsh mindset", whatever the feck that means.) But, please, don't let facts or logic get in the way of a unhealthy dose of irrational racism, by all means.

[@jamesdecross1035]

Surely, there are remnants of counting in base-20 in English, too, perhaps derived from these Celtic languages. Think of the lyric "Four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie." where you add four to twenty get to 24, or "fourscore and ten", where "score" means twenty, so the total is 90.

[@jamesinorlando3454]

I think "four and twenty blackbirds. . ." is an example of English poetically showing its Germanic roots. Twenty-four in Dutch is "vierentwintig" (vier en twintig), and in German it's "vierundzwanzig" (vier und zwanzig).

[@meadow-maker]

a score is literally a score on and object. If it were evidence of vigessimal system it would have its roots much deeper than Old Norse for score on wood when you're counting. I get you've counted to twenty before putting the score but it's not really evidence. Not in the way a separate word for eleven and twelve is more evidence of base 12. I don't know it's just doesn't add up to me. No pun intended.

There are in fact many vestigial remnants of Celtic in English, particularly in place names and the names of rivers. Avon for example.

[@stewartmcardle8149]

When I was a lad in Yorkshire, we used to tell the time in this style....."it's five and twenty to.....etc....."

[@stephencrompton4352]

English would have been base 12 I reckon. Hence the separate words for "eleven" and "twelve" as opposed to "oneteen" or "twoteen".

[@davereynard]

Absolutely fascinating. Another great video with excellent interviewees. Thanks for posting!

[@cool_guy87]

This was great! Probably one of the best videos on your channel recently, which is already a high bar!

[@hoangkimviet8545]

Thanks to Julius Caesar, from much of continental Europe, Celtic languages are only spoken in the British Isles.

[@iolo1920]

And Brittany

[@Twittler1]

And Brittany, and Galicia (NW Spain).

[@yagoperez8171]

I'm afraid Galician is a romance language. A few celtic words have survived but that's all.​@@Twittler1

[@Kerguelen.Mapping]

basically the only ones that are still here are welsh and breton because the others are either too anglicized and have too little speakers (Irish, Gaelic) or have just recently been revived (Manx, Cornish) Edit: Scrap that Irish and Gaelic have more speakers than I thoughts

[@TheMastermind729]

Except Gaulish was spoken in Roman Gaul for centuries after Caesar, so you can’t blame him for that, people still spoke Gaulish.

[@Kodron_Pendragon]

Interesting video! I'd like to add a note about English vowels. In written form, English uses just five vowels (A, E, I, O, U), and sometimes Y is considered a vowel too. However, when it comes to spoken English, it's a bit more complex. There are around 18 distinct vowel sounds, known as phonemes. These sounds vary not just from one word to another but also change across different regional dialects.

[@lowri.williams]

It always makes me giggle whenever a Welsh place name goes viral online and commenters are like "Why are there no vowels in Wales? 😂😂😂" Guys.... You started that sentence with "why"!

[@Kodron_Pendragon]

@@lowri.williams ?

[@lowri.williams]

@@Kodron_Pendragon Just illustrating your point: we've several common words in English that could be considered "vowel-less" because, when written, they consist entirely of letters we would normally categorise as consonants, e.g. why, fly, by. People manage to use these every day without issue but at least once a year something will go viral about an "unpronounceable Welsh place name" or "why don't the Welsh use vowels?". It baffles me because if they can use words like "why", surely - even without going into the phonetics of it - their imagination can stretch far enough to consider that maybe it's that simple in Welsh (and many other languages) too.

[@frankhooper7871]

I was taught that the English vowels were: A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y and W

[@Kodron_Pendragon]

@frankhooper7871 Yes, but those are the only written vowels. When it comes to actual vowel sounds, English has 18.

[@teedoification]

Think we need an episode on the Breton language now! Would be great to link it to some of the common words between Cornish and Welsh too!

[@brunoliddle]

I came to make that same comment - it feels mean to leave out Breton as the only remaining Celtic language mentioned but not covered.

[@lexplorasophe4963]

For Breton, we actually have more ways than English to yes and no : it depends if the question is affirmative or negative : - Are you working ? -> Yes = Ya -> No = Ket or Pas (or you can as other celtic languages use the verb, "I'm not" : N'on ket) - You aren't working ? -> Yes I am = Geo or Eo or Bo -> No I'm not = Nann

[@RobWords]

Thanks for this! Hopefully I'll dedicate a full video to Breton at some point.

[@stefansauvageonwhat-a-twis1369]

No im not is so useful

[@malteseowl]

Sounds somewhat like Russian, as they allow a double negative to be correct as negative.

[@HotelPapa100]

Interesting. German has the rebuke of a negative statement as well: "Doch!" That's quite difficult to explain to English speakers, especially because the word does double duty, also meaning "yet".

[@boghund]

​@@malteseowl could you give an example?

[@thomassharmer7127]

The Welsh word "llan" meaning a church enclosure or churchyard was adopted into English as "lawn", a domestic enclosure of neatly tended grass.

[@aldalab]

lawn comes from the French Lande, which probably has the same origin as Llan

[@thomassharmer7127]

@@aldalab Thanks for the correction 🙂

[@soupdragon151]

In cornwall/cornish you find the equivalent Lan- as a placename element i.e. Lanhydrock "the church of st. hydrock"" Welsh "Llan" also occurs in placenames in england proper along the welsh borders where bilingualism was common for centuries

[@jennie_dunceol]

Lòn in Gàidhlig also means a field/meadow or also can mean a pond

[@LessAiredvanU]

A Celtic Cornish word that has crossed into English is "parc" meaning field - but specifically a field that belongs to something or someone. Parc Eglos means church field, literally 'field of the church'. Therefore a Royal Park, which became the word park in its current use, was Parc Kynng - the Kings Field.

[@philiptaylor7902]

Parc may be a word that passed into Cornish directly from Latin “parcum”, similar to words like eglwys and pont/bont into Welsh.

[@MixerRenegade95]

@@philiptaylor7902 Or from Celticos senos/Celthic sen: ''Parricos/Parrich'' meaning ''meadow and park''?

[@meadow-maker]

@@philiptaylor7902 and ffenestr, llyvr, (not sure about llyvr, could be a cognate, cf English leaf, but ffenestr for sure came from the Romans.)

[@meadow-maker]

English 'Park' is from Old French parc "enclosed wood or heath land used as a game preserve" (12c.), probably ultimately from West Germanic *parruk "enclosed tract of land" (source also of Old English pearruc, root of paddock (n.2), Old High German pfarrih "fencing about, enclosure," German pferch "fold for sheep," Dutch park). etymonline. You have to be sure a word isn't a cognate rather than a borrowing. It's not as easy when all the languages are Indo-European.

[@DavidB5501]

Highly unlikely. 'Parc' is the standard word in French, and 'Park' in German. The OED gives French as the immediate source of the English word, and 'Germanic' as the ultimate source.

[@andrewjohnfillery5954]

Steven is my Gaelic teacher! I've been using Italki for the last year or so, making good progress and having fun learning. If you're thinking about it - do it!

[@rosehipowl]

I've been learning Irish and Welsh and it's been really fun! Confusing, but fun. I'm really glad you profiled these languages and shared them with more people. There needs to be fewer arguments about whether they're worth keeping or what form is the "proper" version and more importance placed on just learning and using them at any level. They will disappear in all varieties if that doesn't happen, and collectively, that's something none of us want.

[@Arnica_Burdock]

Glè mhath! (Very good!) I'm an American who's been studying Scottish Gaelic via Duolingo for more than a year. I love your videos. So glad to see these endangered languages getting some attention.

[@uingaeoc3905]

yes, I am sure you will get a lot of use out of it in Glasgow and Edinburgh..... NOT!

[@Wee_Langside]

​@@uingaeoc3905he doesn't have to cross the Atlantic. There are a few thousand speakers in Nova Scotia descended from the displaced of the Highland Clearances.

[@uingaeoc3905]

@@Wee_Langside Is this like the alleged 'Welsh in Patagonia ? ie - true 150 years ago but NOT NOW.

[@gcanaday1]

​@@uingaeoc3905Useless comment.

[@charliethomas7782]

​@@uingaeoc3905you can very much still hear Welsh in Patagonia

[@blizzmcwaggs2091]

I recently started learning Gàidhlig and Celtic language history 3 months ago, so I’m enthralled that you decided to give these language groups the attention they desperately need to stay revived. Glè mhath!

[@necroseus]

Tha mi cuideachd! Slàinte mhath, mo chàiraid :)!

[@jamesfetherston1190]

There is a base 20 tradition of counting in the North of England, (often called Yan Tan Tethera) traditionally used in counting sheep and knitting. It is a highly rhythmic pattern, making it very useful for counting quickly and repeatedly (after 20 it starts over, but a stone is placed in a pocket to keep track). Some of the variations have similarities to Celtic numbers.

[@draoi99]

This is great Rob, so glad you took an interest in Celtic languages. I live in London but I listen to Irish language radio every day, to keep my skills sharp. I don't understand why other Irish people get irrationally weird when Americans or English call it Gaelic, it seems perfectly correct to me. One notable feature of Irish is that linguists classify it as a Verb-Subject-Object language (VSO) whereas most other Indo-European languages are SVO... so in English where you would say "John kicked the ball", in Irish you would say "kicked John the ball." Some other Goidelic words in common usage in English: whisky/whiskey, trousers and of course, whenever anyone orders a Big Mac they are using the Goidelic word for "son."

[@romanr.301]

VSO languages are quite uncommon! As far as I know, it’s mainly Semitic languages like Arabic, and Austronesian languages like Tagalog. Most of the most common languages are either SOV or SVO.

[@number6photo]

@draoi99, I agree with not understanding why Irish people "get weird" if someone refers to the Irish language as Gaelic. My parents were born, raised, and educated in Ireland (80-100 years ago), they both spoke Irish, and they both referred to it as Gaelic when speaking English. I suspect it's a recent cultural thing now that Irish is apparently "cool" to speak, and the people trying to resurrect it are pointing out it shouldn't be called Gaelic (anymore).

[@ftumschk]

Welsh is VSO, too, for example "Eisteddodd y dyn ar y gadair" = "Sat the man on the chair" :)

[@gawkthimm6030]

​@@number6photo wasn't "gaelic" more scottish, while Irish celtic was different from it, and since northern Ireland was colonized by loyalist from scotland it might be connected to that?

[@number6photo]

@@gawkthimm6030my point was simply that the current crop of Irish speakers apparently prefer to make it clear that Gaelic is not the correct name for the Irish language, whereas 80-100 years ago, it was tolerated and even used by Irish people referring to their native language.

[@thewarriorbunny]

Shebeen is commonly used in South Africa - and illegal pub

[@user-vl8qw8hp1g]

Great episode! I'm originally from North Carolina, USA. My ancestry is Scottish, Irish, English and Welsh. Family legend has it that the family on my mother's side was from the island of Jura, Scotland, and that they could speak both English and Gaelic. This deep dive into the Celtic languages was quite fascinating!!! Cheers from across the pond!!!

[@HellStepFilms]

Love your videos so much!! Thanks for making

[@viviendomisabatico1587]

Thank you, Rob! What a delight to listen to your interesting videos

[@StamfordBridge]

And this one is wonderful!

[@niamhomahony7794]

I plan on studying Irish and French in uni next year, so this video was really interesting to watch. Lovely to see the similarities and differences within the Celtic language family

[@MickBization]

Indeed. The Irish word shebeen or shabene (pronounced sha-been) is used regularly in South Africa to describe mostly drinking establishments that are unlicensed but also perfectly legal bars etc too. When I say regularly, I mean with the same frequency in some communities as the word 'bar'.

[@J_Gamble]

Love this episode. Thank you!

[@iammacnathan5350]

Another great video! I am a history buff and learning about the language is just important as learning about the history of culture. Looking forward to the next installment.

[@fiftytwentythree]

I've always loved the sound of the town "Aberystwyth." It sounds like the setting of a fairy tale or something like that. It sounds very mystical.

[@nestoreleuteriopaivabendo5415]

Also that one is in a Map Men video as well!

[@pierreabbat6157]

How about "Ysbyty Ystwyth"?

[@richardsmith5249]

I had my appendix removed in Aberystwyth.

[@klaxoncow]

Ah, the place where the river Ystwyth meets the sea. Like, quite literally. That's what the name "Aberystwyth" actually means.

[@jonesnori]

It's also the name of a popular hymn tune.

[@richkroberts]

Fascinating! I really enjoyed this lesson. Thank you for sharing.

[@LimeyRedneck]

Thanks Rob, another great video!! 🤠💜

[@Paulinkwell]

Thank for exploring the these languages. I've been learning Gàidhlig (Scottish Gaelic) for a couple of years now. Thank you for promoting language learning. Tapadh Leibh, 's mìle taing

[@user-ex4wx1rj7s]

Thanks for another enjoyable and instructive video. I could be wrong on this, but I believe that the example given by Kensa of the French counting in 20s after 60 (70 = soixante-dix, 80 = quatre-vingts, 90 = quatre-vingt-dix) is one of the rare remnants in modern French of pre-Roman, Gaulish language characteristics.

[@i.b.640]

Yes, and I think the Belgium and Swiss French speakers dropped it and say septant and huitant.

[@user-ex4wx1rj7s]

@@i.b.640 That's right. The Belgians say septante and also nonante (for 90) but not, I believe, huitante, which is used in some parts of Switzerland (and has largely replaced octante).

[@PedrSion]

@@user-ex4wx1rj7s I believe that septante and nonante are also used by French Canadians

[@user-ex4wx1rj7s]

@@PedrSion I'm not too sure of that. I have a feeling it could be a regional thing. From memory, I've only heard "soixante-dix" and "quatre-vingts", but it's not every day I bump into Canadians who say 70 and 80 in French... and even then, they could change their habits when speaking to Europeans.

[@i.b.640]

@@user-ex4wx1rj7s ha, yes of course, huitante! thank you for putting me right :)

[@KirkKiyosadaTome]

Beautiful episode. Thanks, Rob!

[@JD_Anthro]

Thank you for this video, Rob!

[@duaneerwin3617]

Interesting that Welsh has seven vowels. As a child growing up in Oklahoma I was taught that vowels were A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y & W.

[@jessicat2519]

Thank you so much for this one! The Basque , also strong fishing culture, also bases their counting on lots of 20 : 75: 3x20 &15 . Name change depending on cases - mind blown

[@RobWords]

I didn't know that about Basque!

[@jessicat2519]

@@RobWords I wrote the number wrong first 65 not 75... I am still not great at the numbers... 😆

[@dessertstorm7476]

What does fishing have to do with it though? Confused

[@jessicat2519]

@@dessertstorm7476 at 7:50 the Cornish woman mentions that the counting is based on counting fingers and toes when counting fish coming off the boats.

[@dessertstorm7476]

@@jessicat2519 yeah i heard that but I still don't get the relevance. Everyone needs to count stuff, not just fishermen. And why would fisherman use base 20 when others use 10.

[@SoItGoesCAL34]

Thanks! Loved this episode. Looking forward to listening to your podcast!

[@kd0407]

As always, what a wonderful video. I love to learn about language and you've brought a very intriguing, insightful, and interesting topic to light here. Keep it up! Words will never cease to whisper wonders in our ears.

[@hans-peterstiegler4576]

This is by far the best language channel I know, enjoining it very much 👍👍👍

[@CarinaEilis]

He dodged all the land mines! Wonderful stuff.

[@judih.8754]

Rob, this is why I love your channel. Thank you so much for broadening my knowledge of language.

[@althejazzman]

This was a brilliant documentary with very thoughtful interviews. I enjoyed this even more than your other videos.

[@annecarter5181]

So interesting; fun & informative. Thanks to all….

[@annikathewitch3950]

It's worth noting that all the languages shown here are specifically insular celtic languages. Historically, there was also a continental branch that was extremely widespread, including languages in modern-day France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Austria, Slovenia, and Turkey, but all continental celtic languages have since gone extinct.

[@dianekassmann8821]

This was fascinating, thank you!

[@mchagawa1615]

Thank you so much for this! So interesting.

[@richardsmith5249]

When there were a lot of guys interned in Long Kesh during the Troubles, one of the things they did to pass the time was to learn Irish. As they were from all over the country, they had a lot of variants of the language, and so rather than a pure dialect, they evolved their own hybrid. This was known as "the jailtalk".

[@noelleggett3727]

... and the Irish-speaking community in Long Kesh was known as "the Jailtacht". ('Gaeltacht' being the Irish word for for the Irish-speaking districts.)

[@JDR134]

Great video. I wish it lasted longer i wanted more and more ...🎉

[@ArniPara]

LOVED this one, Rob, thank you so much!

[@inamortz2372]

Great stuff. It's clear you'd a lot of fun with this one!

[@snarky_user]

"Over-enthusiastic in dismissing it" was such a beautiful line. Meanwhile, Marian has a beautiful sadness in her eyes, balanced by such a playful smile.

[@WalkingCWild]

On that last sentence, welcome to Wales pal 😂

[@hedydd2]

I spent a weekend at Portmeirion resort village, famous for the Prisoner series in the late 1960’s, the other week and it was heartening to observe that about 90% of the hundreds of staff were first language Welsh speakers. Welsh is very well used as a first language over large swathes of Wales and is even fashionable in the south east, especially Cardiff these days. I would say that 90% of farmers, for instance, as well as their service providers, are Welsh first language over three quarters of the Welsh principality with pockets that are very English, such as the ‘down below’s’ of Pembrokeshire below the Landsker Line [look it up] who are looked down upon by proper Welsh folk but who themselves used to think themselves superior to Welsh speakers.

[@soupdragon151]

I spent holidays as a child in north wales and welsh was spoken as an everyday language by almost everyone only the tourists spoke english its the only language of those mentioned here I've actually heard spoken IRL Pembroke was known as "the little england beyond wales" as it was settled historically by english speakers when the Normans conquered the area the native welsh were forever revolting so they brought in settlers who weren't hostile. Even as late as the mid 20thC you could have only english speakers on one end of a lane and at the other end over the border were almost entirely welsh speakers who didn't learn english until they were practically in high school

[@aj.j5833]

I went to school in S. Korea with a native Welsh speaker as result I been fascinated by it since I been a kid.

[@peacecitizen1]

Thank you for making this video. I really appreciated the clarification on the differences in the languages as well as a bit of the history and pronunciation. Very fascinating.

[@IosuamacaMhadaidh]

Love the tartan on his shirt! Slàinte mhath mo charaidean!

[@erisculpepper8867]

Chwarae teg i chdi! Well done! I speak north Walean. Irish is one that I would love to learn. Some say that Welsh doesn't have enough vowels. For me, Irish has too many consonants. lol But it makes learning the languages all the more fun :) Also, I find that the "mutations" in Welsh makes for easier pronunciation. Using the word "brawd" (brother) for example: it's easier to say "fy mrawd" than "fy brawd" (my brother).

[@dantherrien341]

Thank you. There is so much information in every episode, i have to watch them twice. You break my brain, and I like it.

[@antpasqu]

Thank you for this. These are all beautiful languages.

[@AmeliusDex]

A fun fact about Welsh (fluent speaker here) - glas is the Welsh word for blue, yet you'll find places called things such as Cae Glas - translated literally that would mean "blue fields", but historically Glas has also been used for the word green and the word blue.

[@Dreyno]

Glas is the Irish word for green. Gorm is blue.

[@b.a.erlebacher1139]

There are several unrelated languages that use or used the same word for blue and green. Japanese is one of them. Often after there are both words, the original word gets fossilized in names or expressions used before the split. For example, suppose there's some vegetable that comes in two colours, like we have red cabbage and green cabbage. After the split, green cabbage might retain the original adjective that meant both, but now means blue.

[@AmeliusDex]

@@b.a.erlebacher1139 I'm actually learning Japanese at the moment and that was an interesting distinction that I ran into! I was quite surprised since I thought that it was just a weird quirk of old Welsh.

[@IngieKerr]

In Manx I we can use glass for what I'd call "any natural colour seen through a mist" - from green to blue via greys as well. But we do also have gorrym for blue when we want to be specifically blue, and geayney for specifically green

[@b.a.erlebacher1139]

@@AmeliusDex The example I used was actually from shiso, not cabbage. There's aka shiso, the red form used to color ginger, etc, pink, and ao shiso, the green/blue form. There's a theory, which may be obsolete, that languages tend to acquire color words in a particular order. They all start out with black/white, or more likely dark/light. They next get red, which is also used for orange, yellow, gold, brown, etc. Then a word used for blues and greens. There are traces fossilized into English of this: fire and foxes are called red, but they aren't really, in the present usage of red.

[@anenglishmanplusamerican7107]

As a fellow Englishman, I will say this: Though I love my language and am proud of what we have achieved as peoples, I do acknowledge and am working towards learning Welsh, Cornish, Gaelic, and other endangered languages. Mind you, I speak Indian languages since my parents were born in India, thus speaking Hindi, Gujarati, and Spanish besides my own. Though the last century saw an acceleration of the degradation of other languages of Great Britain, let us make this century an acceleration of increasing and making other languages besides English more prominent and widely spoken, while also preserving them.

[@xtramail4909]

❤

[@leod-sigefast]

I wholeheartedly agree. A worthy venture to keep ALL languages alive. I gave Welsh a try and learnt a bit...the soft mutation thing was too tricky though! I also try to learn Old English as I think our original Germanic Anglo-Saxon tongue has been diluted so much now by French and Latin words that it bears very little resemblance to its roots. I almost consider English to not exist anymore and is now what the great Victorian writer and Anglo-Saxonist William Barnes said: modern English is in fact a language called Englandish - English having begun its slow death from 1066 onwards. The "hobby language" Anglish is the nearest effort akin to language revival for English.

[@anenglishmanplusamerican7107]

@@leod-sigefast I completely agree, even our own tung is in danger. It has indeed degraded and the current generation is ruining it.

[@scientistforscience]

Had a 30ish friend, working guy, from Wales, stay at my house in the U.S. Each week he would call his mom on his laptop for an hour and they spoke Welsh. He told me he often had people speak Welsh around him in London, not knowing he could understand them.

[@AdamDadeby]

Very interesting video Rob. More like this!

[@Zerbey]

My Physics teacher in school was Welsh, and would sometimes teach us words in Welsh as part of lessons. So happy to see these "old" languages are still being spoken and taught.

[@leod-sigefast]

I am from Greater Manchester and my A-level physics teacher was a Welsh guy (Cardiff). He was one of the best teachers I ever had: great at explaining physics and mathematics and a great laugh to boot! Then when I went to University to study Physics my lab partner was from Wales (Mold) and then when I went to do a PhD in Atmospheric Physics my supervisor was Welsh too (NW Wales originally). A proper first-language Welsh speaker. He would often throw Welsh into the conversation just for a laugh or to confuse us uncouth English! Yeah, I seem to have had a close affinity to Welsh people. Very down to Earth. I like 'em...and they seem to like Physics too! I have also tried to pick up a bit of Welsh too. I would hate to see these wonderful languages go into decline or extinct. They are a cultural treasure trove.

[@soupdragon151]

Heh I had a lecturer at college very welsh and a speaker and very proud of it too

[@simonpayne7994]

Intriguingly interesting. My first foreign language was at school - French - at which I failed dismally. One term I succeeded in coming in as last of the class. Then I learnt Esperanto which is dead easy. This gave me the courage to give "proper" languages another try. Today I am fluent in my native English, fluent in Esperanto, fluent in German and I can get by quite well in French. Among other languages, I have poked my nose into the Celtic and Gaelic language groups. Rob's video is right up my alley. As a child in Bristol I once saw a student on the upper deck of a bus carrying an enormous tome about four inches thick. The title was "Basic Welsh Grammar" or similar. It would seem that Welsh, for example, is rather complicated. 😁 Thanks, Rob. A really good video. One of your best!

[@tinfoilhomer909]

Esperanto makes me nauseous, I'll always have a phobia of it. Tasmania's govt-approved native people use a conlang to justify their land claims against the English speaking naitives, it was knowledge of Esperanto that gave Sainty her idea and propelled her family to the mountaintops of nepotism. In the process a lot of real native history was "consolidated" by that family (ie: destroyed). Can't really forgive them. Wouldn't serve a customer if I heard them speaking Esperanto. In my mind it's a subjugation, it replaces in the brain where a real language with a history might want to sit. Conlangs are fun and all but they are a private hobby, making them a state language is totally abusive, destructive, dangerous. I don't like it.

[@elizabethclark394]

Intriguingly, there was a really strong and large Scots representation in Bristol for the aircraft industries around Filton and Patchway, with the Scots church being based in Henleaze area (bombed out on WW2 from the Broadmead area) we had a fair few regional accents, plus Scots and some Gaelic speakers in the mix. I don't know if this is still the case as I've been home for over 35 years now, and the dynamic in the aero industries has changed.

[@simonpayne7994]

@@tinfoilhomer909 Rubbish! Apparently you are ranting about Palawa kani, not Esperanto. And I do not see any reason why a conlang should not be used for anything. Esperanto works very well and would be an extremely suitable lingua franca for the EU.

[@simonpayne7994]

@@elizabethclark394 I grew up in Henleaze. But now I am in Germany and in the face of Brexit have even acquired a German second nationality. This way I am still in the EU. 😁

[@tinfoilhomer909]

@@simonpayne7994 It's cultural replacement. It's a neutered form of linguistic expression. A language is a dialect with an army and a navy, I do not want to fight for OR against an Esperanto speaking army. Esperanto is globalism on steroids.

[@leonwilkinson8124]

How marvelous, Rob! Smashing. I had a friend who acquainted me with the G and B languages, as he characterized them. So wonderful to hear some of these languages spoken. It feels somewhat like finding out you have cousins whose names you'd barely heard.

[@moragkerr9577]

Italki? Don't start me. I wanted a Gaelic lesson, to build on my Duolingo. There was ONE teacher on offer, and when I looked at the available lessons there was one single half-hour slot available, quite late at night as I recall. That was it. So I booked it. Within half an hour, I had my reply. My request for a lesson had been rejected. I was almost in tears. (This followed on from another online teacher failing to get back to me, and a Zoom meeting with a Duolingo group suddenly going radio silent before sending me the link.) I was given my money back but no apology. I wouldn't go near them.

[@seantlewis376]

I lived in North Wales for a while, and attempted to learn Welsh. I learned enough to understand road signs, and some common conversational words or phrases. My girlfriend had a team of contractors working on her house who spoke Manx, and even when they were speaking English, I had trouble understanding them. I told my girlfriend about this, she laughed, and invited over a friend from Isle of Man to come over for dinner the following week. In the time I was there I learned more about my own Celtic heritage than I ever expected. It might have been a different experience if I had been in Cardiff instead of Wrecsam.

[@ulfhettstedt5606]

My impression is that the way of using "Do" in English is very similar to the way people in Northern Germany are using "Tu" when speaking colloqially.

[@robertklose2140]

Always enjoyable to watch Rob´s videos. So well done, and I always learn something. The playful tone is just right.

[@greenstair]

Thank you once again for a fascinating episode. You do great stuff: I love it.

[@caseyhamm4292]

so glad you put in the bit about irish people not using the term gaelic. stuff like that is such an easy thing to avoid and i wondered about it immediately once you called it a gaelic language

[@peteymax]

I actually don’t mind Gaelic as it connects us with other Gaelic languages

[@marcasdebarun6879]

It's not even true though. Some actual native speakers will prefer calling it Gaelic because the word is so similar to the native name(s) for the Irish. Monolingual English-speaking Irish people don't really know that and will insist that calling it Gaelic is incorrect, but that's not really the case.

[@caseyhamm4292]

@@marcasdebarun6879 yeah as an english-descended american though i have learned when someone tells me about their culture, i tend to believe them and honor their wishes. call me crazy for literally just wanting to make people comfortable

[@marcasdebarun6879]

@@caseyhamm4292 Well as an Irish person I'm telling you you have free reign to call it Gaelic because native speakers do, and they're the ones that are the authority on the language, not English speakers.

[@caseyhamm4292]

@@marcasdebarun6879 the phrase is ‘free rein’ and i will continue to probably just meet individuals where they were at instead of saying ‘oh i can say it mark from youtube told me i could’

[@peteymax]

In Irish Séamus is James, but Shéamus is dear James (in Irish it is pronounced Hamish). Place names are SO IMPORTANT. They record history. Do is really important as Gaeilge, I do be doing whatever is about habitual behaviour. Manx is a beautiful language. It sounds like Dubliners speaking Irish. Wonder if it is related to Leinster Irish???

[@stephend9968]

With respect, there are a couple of things about your comment that, in my view, are incorrect. When addressing someone called Séamus in Irish, one should use the vocative case, which I'm fairly confident changes the name in two ways. Firstly, the initial letter becomes aspirated, which in modern Irish is represented by a 'h' after it, but used to be in the form of a dot over the letter. Either way, the pronunciation of the aspirated letter is as an English 'H'. Secondly, the last letter has an 'i' placed before it, which has the effect of changing the 's' sound to an English 'sh' sound. Hence, we get what sounds like Hamish. On top of that, I know of no valid use of the vocative case without it being preceded with the word 'A', so we get 'A Shéamuis'. I can't translate the word 'A', but it doesn’t mean 'dear', although I will accept that 'A Shéamuis' is the equivalent of 'Dear James', as the normal form of address, say, in a written communication. I contend that the two words together simply mean that the writer is addressing Séamus/James and it would be the same as starting the communication in English by just writing the person's name. It is no different for a verbal communication, such as for example, when a teacher wants to ask a pupil called Séamus to answer a question, in Irish he would address the said Séamus by saying 'A Shéamuis'. However, that is definitely not the same as saying 'Dear James'! I do not recognise 'I do be doing' as a valid grammatical construction, either in Irish or English. Yes, it is said by some, but I would maintain that it is not proper English and that, contrary to your statement, does not exist in Irish either. Perhaps you might give me examples of what you consider to be where it is validly used in Irish. P.S. I have never heard of a dialect of Irish that could be called 'Leinster Irish', only Munster, Connaught or Ulster.

[@peteymax]

@@stephend9968 GRMA Stephen, I am used to hearing a Shéamus as my parents have always used it for my brother. I don’t know the grammar of it. I do know that Séamus and Hamish are different forms of the same name across the Gaelic continuum.

[@noelleggett3727]

@@stephend9968 In standard Modern Irish (although is hardly matters), Séamas, and its vocative form, 'a Shéamais', are the preferred spellings of the name. In Irish, the letter A is more commonly used to indicate that a following consonant is broad. In Scottish Gaelic (Gàighlig), the letter U is preferred for the same purpose. So, Sèamus and 'a Shèamuis' are the more common spelling in Scotland.

[@stephend9968]

@@noelleggett3727 Firstly, I have never come across anyone who spelt their name as Séamas, but a few who spelt theirs as Seamus or Séamus (the latter being somewhat more difficult, when using a standard keyboard), so I would be very interested to know what source you have for the claim that spelling the name with an ‘a’ is the “preferred spelling”. In an effort to conduct some research, I consulted the website of the oireachtas (the Irish Parliament), where the names of current and former members can be searched. I found 20 matches for the name Seamus, which included 11 where the spelling was Séamus. However, I found no matches for the spelling Seamas, which (on the basis of the previous search) would have included any, where the spelling was Séamas. I think that this is reasonably good evidence to suggest that you are mistaken in your claim about the “preferred spelling”. Secondly, both letters ‘a’ and ‘u’ are considered to be broad (as is ‘o’), but I’m not really sure why this would determine which letter would be preferred, in this context. Finally, it seems to me to be a personal (or parental) choice as to how one spells one’s own name, though I do accept that there is a particular rule with regard to spelling, in general, that if applied to proper nouns, would mean that the ‘a’ in Séamus would have to be matched with another broad vowel, but either ‘a’, ‘u’ or ‘o’ would meet that requirement. I wonder if anyone ever suggested to Éamon de Valera (former President of Ireland) that he should change the spelling of his surname, as it breaks that rule not once, but twice!

[@davidgharrod8174]

Great video. Very nice to see examples of these languages spoken by native speakers.

[@rollinwithunclepete824]

Very interesting, Rob. Thank you to all your guests - all are rightly proud of their linguistic heritage.

[@SpiritmanProductions]

Great video, but how did you miss "shenanigans" in the Irish portion? 😉

[@RobWords]

Good spot!

[@SusanaXpeace2u]

Oh wow, thank you in Cornish is amost the same as it in in Irish. Good video!

[@peteymax]

Go raibh maith agat

[@galesconmarian]

Thanks for a great video! Really enjoyed chatting with you. Nice too see all the other speakers too. Diolch Rob! 😊 Marian