Indo-European Languages: An Intro. (37 Min.)

An up-to-date introduction to the Indo-European language family with a little bit of everything: how we know these languages are connected, the history of different branches, and some questions for the future. Created by Dr. Jackson Crawford (a historical linguist specializing in Old Norse and the Scandinavian languages) with input from scholars specializing in other branches of the language tree.
Jackson Crawford, Ph.D.: Sharing real expertise in Norse language and myth with people hungry to learn, free of both ivory tower elitism and the agendas of self-appointed gurus. Visit jacksonwcrawford.com/ (includes bio and linked list of all videos).
Jackson Crawford’s Patreon page: / norsebysw
Visit Grimfrost at www.grimfrost.com?aff=183
Latest FAQs: vimeo.com/375149287 (updated Nov. 2019).
Jackson Crawford’s translation of Hávamál, with complete Old Norse text: www.hackettpublishing.com/the...
Jackson Crawford’s translation of The Poetic Edda: www.hackettpublishing.com/the...
Audiobook: www.audible.com/pd/The-Poetic...
Jackson Crawford’s translation of The Saga of the Volsungs: www.hackettpublishing.com/the...
Audiobook: www.audible.com/pd/The-Saga-o...
Music © I See Hawks in L.A., courtesy of the artist. Visit www.iseehawks.com/
Logos by Elizabeth Porter (snowbringer at gmail).

[@mrjones2721]

Cowboy linguist ASMR.

[@dariuszb.9778]

... with the old fashioned soothing "wh".

[@andrewgould6689]

@@dariuszb.9778 cowboy linguist says 'hwæt!'

[@dariuszb.9778]

@@andrewgould6689 Yeah, that old fashioned English (learnt from his grandma AFAIR) sounds really cool, doesn't it?

[@airiewhyte2371]

MrJones innit though!?!

[@ShamanKish]

Definitely Henglish!

[@hefeibao]

I feel better knowing there are 4000 other people out there that find this information fascinating enough to watch the whole thing through.

[@leahcimolrac1477]

84,000 as of the time I’m watching it

[@l.3ok]

A lot more I believe, the online community of linguistics is huuuge.

[@Bjowolf2]

Don't forget to watch the three part video called "Verner's Law", if you would like a hilarious, yet educational take on this fascinating topic and our deep mutual linguistic roots 😉 Hav en god dag [daygh], min frænd(e) 😊

[@kungszigfrids1482]

Make that 180 000

[@gemmafeltovich6130]

200,000 as of 8/22 haha

[@pablolloyd1450]

“The past is as complex as the present or the future.” - Jackson Crawford

[@kungszigfrids1482]

Tho it pains me to say it modern latvian is different than the lavian of our folksongs. (I actually speak something closer to the older kind, when I say modern I mean the language of the capitol not my own very conservative dialect.) modern - old - written english akmens - akmenis - stone mēness - mēnesis - moon akmens - akmeņa - [on] stone halāts - rīta svārki - (I dont know) armija - pulks - army (By the gods! I just realized pulks is a cognate of folk! Pulks in its base meaning means many, does that mean folk also used to mean many? An army is made up of many men, a nation is made up of many people...) un - i - and bēbis - zīdainis - baby kara rati - kariete - chariot kariete - kungu rati - coach dēliņi - bāliņi - sons [deminutive] suns - sunis - dog Also folksongs have much grater variation since they where composed when people couldnt easily comunicate over long distrances and coulnt read or write so dialects where much more pronounced for example the song I just sifted trough for differences from modern capitol language uses the phraze "zobens grieza baltu smilti" which is incorrect according to the literary language as it should be "zobens grieza baltas smiltis" and here the literary language saying smiltis is always plural is more conservative where as my grandfather usually says smilts singular, but there is also a chance this isnt a dialect thing and the conjugation eludes to the fact that it is flesh not sand that is being cut by the sword. Anyways most of the language is still identical even in the capitol I just picked out differences for you.

[@RafaelSCalsaverini]

The scenery, the accent, the hat, the learning... That's glorious.

[@RichardDCook]

It's where a listener is from I suppose. To me he doesn't have a region-specific accent. Interestingly he pronounces the "H" in words like "when" ("hwen") which strikes me as an old feature.

[@erentoraman2663]

The word for mom in Turkish is "Anne", but we do have the word "mama" which means baby food. I assume when baby's cried out "ma, ma!" people assumed they were crying for food.

[@ahmetkaraaslan8429]

Ana Apa Ata bana da eski Türkçedeki bu 3 kelime çok garip geliyordu. Aynılar sadece sessiz harf değişmiş, belki bunun açıklaması da benzerdir

[@amitavabanerjea1]

😀

[@andywarrier489]

Makes sense since Mothers provide food by breast feeding the baby

[@rijutruthwarrior1128]

Turkish is not indo european family.

[@triforceadm7345]

@@rijutruthwarrior1128 They’re not saying it is, they’re just talking about their own language in a way that is relevant to the video.

[@wyattwahlgren8883]

There's an interesting exception to what you were talking about with "mama" being the word for "mother" in so many languages. In Georgian "მამა" (mama) is father and "დედა" (deda) is mother.

[@enki7952]

I mean it's a fifty fifty chance what ancient Georgians assigned to the sounds their babies babbled, quite amusing actually lol

[@enki7952]

Ah, btw i just now realised in Kurdish mother is "dê" lol

[@Bjowolf2]

How very modern 😂

[@kevorkkochkarian6265]

Yes, might be, but we must not exclude the Influence of neighbouring languages like armenian or other neighbouring indo-european languages

[@indrajitgupta3280]

Deda, OK, Deeda is used in India for grannie in Bengali; it's a variation of Dadi (Hindi), and Dada (Hindi - Gramps).

[@hussaindaud1260]

Last time I was this early the horse was not yet domesticated

[@Tina06019]

Good one!

[@ronaldderooij1774]

Wow, you were very early!

[@Kalvinism]

big brain yamnaya joke

[@liamgoldbeck]

This video deserves a million views

[@YamishiMizuandDracus]

Professor Crawford, the work you do is seriously underappreciated.

[@akumayoxiruma]

I came for the attractive man and stayed for the education.

[@nunyoubusyness6345]

Hahaha 💙

[@SSs-ch4ey]

@Himanshu Bhatt or because he's clearly above average looking. Why are you so insecure about not being "white"?

[@Qsdd0]

@Himanshu Bhatt I think you and Jackson Crawford are both very attractive if that helps.

[@oceanyoung4514]

he's fine as hell

[@e.d.m3076]

Mood

[@veni5344]

The amount of facts we can find out about the native speakers of Proto-Indo-European language just from words present in it is mind blowing! Thank you for the video.

[@NotSpockToo]

I'm not sure how youtube recommended this channel, but it's one of the best channels I've seen. I chose science over linguistics for a career path, but have never lost my fascination with languages. I love your matter of fact explanations and the many references provided. I just got your audible books of The Poetic Edda and the Saga of the Volsungs and am happily listening to them.

[@cryptic_daemon_]

Im learning electrical engineering, but I really like linguistics, its always an amazing subject

[@fugithegreat]

You have the best classroom, Dr. Crawford!

[@Unknown-jt1jo]

This was an exceptionally informative video. Thanks for the sophisticated analysis, Dr. Crawford!

[@sameash3153]

I can't imagine how anybody would react upon opening this video I sent them and seeing a viking cowboy linguist

[@Lagolop]

Why would you say he is a "viking cowboy"?

[@Cyprian96]

@@Lagolop dresses like a Cowboy, is a old norse speaker and expert

[@Lagolop]

@@Cyprian96 Oh, he wears cowboy dresses? LOL.

[@brendawilliams8062]

Nope that’s a Nimrud

[@willo7734]

The relationships between languages has always been fascinating to me. You do a great job explaining these relationships and make for an interesting teacher. Glad yt recommended your channel.

[@farshadm.3882]

In Modern Persian (An Iranian language): Pedar - Father Mâdar - Mother Dokhtar - Daughter Barâdar - Brother Bad - Bad Na - No Now - New Band - Band Berenj - Bronze Kimia - Chemistry Dandân - Tooth (Dental) Pardis - Paradise Dar - Door Abroo - Eyebrow Famil - Family Gerân - Great Gorouh - Group Narang - Orange ... and many more

[@KRoshi-tu1qo]

You forget khuda, which is cognate with 'god'. Geran would rather be cognate with 'grand'? Band (music band) might rather be a modern import from English? (unless you mean band as in wristband, like Persian 'band' = closed).

[@aryyancarman705]

pardis and paradise are not cognates from pie directly tho,paradise was borrowed from old irsnian or avestan (or something)pardayjah

[@KRoshi-tu1qo]

@@aryyancarman705 Actually 'pairi daeza' = enclosed / fenced area

[@mauritsponnette]

The Indo-European language family and by extension the Germanic and/or Celtic language families are often talked about in relation to people's ancestry and although languages carry cultural heritage, it's interesting that you separate language from genetic ancestry. I feel like a lot of people often mix up these two. So thanks for sharing!

[@MuddafukhingdisKUST]

genetic lineage is highly superfluous, especially in the modern era with heavy immigration and globalization. language is determined by the environment and culture one grows up in, not genetic origin.

[@mauritsponnette]

@@MuddafukhingdisKUST hi, while I agree that languages are dependant on your environment and can change rapidly for groups of people, I don't agree on genetics being superfluous because of modern migration. I'm from the north of Belgium and most of my ancestors that I can trace back have been born in the same river valley for at least the past five to ten generations and the majority of the people here have that kind of ancestry. It's not that we don't want to intermarry with different people, but it just rarely happens, even today. So our genetic ancestry is very much its own subgroup, but the differences with other people from Europe and from around the world are very subtle and in that sense superfluous. The point about language still stands though 😉👍

[@norielgames4765]

Hungarians are pretty much genetically identical to other Europeans. Their culture has pretty much nothing to do at all with the culture of Uralic people. Of course there's similarities and influences but their culture is closer to German's than to other Uralic people from Siberia. It's ironic how Germanic people tried for centuries to revive the Roman empire, despite not even being descended from them. Germanic invaders conquered lots of roman provinces and named themselves kings and queens and started dinasties, but they all adopted the local variety of latin as their language and all adopted their Roman culture instead of trying to germanise places like Spain, France and Italy. Originally the people speaking Romanian in current day Romania were, as the name implies, descended from roman legionaries, but as the Slavs moved into those lands from the north they all adopted the latin language, which is why Romanians all look like any other Slavs, yet they speak a romance language, but their romance language is said to sound pretty much like a russian trying to speak a romance language. In fact I'm a native Romanian speaked, and a LOT of times I was walking down the street when I heard people having a conversation in what I assumed was Romanian, yet I was dumbfounded to find out that I didn't know a word of what they were talking, only for them to actually be Bulgarians, or Serbians. In fact all languages in the Balkan region exhibit a weird common characteristic, that being that regardless of whether they are a romance or a Slavic language, they all share a lot of common characteristics in their grammar. Which means that they have different words that sound nothing like each other, that are NOT cognates but they use their words in the same order and in the same way, and in a way that's different from any other Slavic or romance language. Like Slavic languages from the Balkan region, and Romanian, share grammar with each other, that they don't share with Russian or French or Spanish or Polish, which has lead many to believe that when Romans and Slavs moved into the area, they assimilated the people that were living there previously into their respective languages, but when those people learned latin/Slavic they learned it by mixing it with their own native grammar which sounded more natural to them, essentially forming a pigeon language. That means that the languages in the Balkan all share a common origin for their grammar but not for their words. All of this goes to tell you that this is a whole lot more complicated than genetics and language. Two related languages can be spoken by people.very genetically different from each other. Like Spanish spoken in the Philippines and on south America. Two languages can share a common "ancestor" language in their vocabulary but not in their grammar, or share common grammar but not vocabulary. When a language group moves to a new land, they don't genetically replace the other language, because the people that were already there, with their own genetic makeup can just adopt the language and culture if they like. Or the opposite can happen, where a new genetical group can move to a new area and since they're immigrants they can adopt their language and culture, maybe twist the language and culture a bit by mixing it with their own language. And like this, a whole lot of other things could happen. I love this.

[@j.langer5949]

@@MuddafukhingdisKUST what a load of nonsense you wrote. by ''modern migration'' you mean managed replacement of Whites in the lands of their ancestors?

[@MuddafukhingdisKUST]

@@norielgames4765 Insightful comment. Romanians are chill. I met one guy from Moldova but idk if they count as Romanians lol.

[@sheltr9735]

Not only is the topic fascinating, and the presentation and subsequent discussion at a satisfying intellectual level, but the presenter (Professor Crawford) is a hoot!! Kudos

[@stevenschilizzi4104]

Jackson, your videos are a treasure trove. Thanks a million for sharing all this fascinating knowledge with us. I chuckle sometimes at the mix of Old Norse and cowboy

[@no1uknow32]

Wow, this is a really good summary of this topic. Includes all of the main interesting points, but still concise!

[@nunyoubusyness6345]

Agree absolutely 💙

[@prototropo]

Thank you, Professor Crawford! Many people, myself in the lead, have long been confused about the incredible distances in time, and proximity of relationships, between the various branches of Indo-European languages. To our good luck, you manage to give us an overview that, by nature, has to be sweeping, but that you also make engaging. Then you clarify and add color to the mist of that very large picture with discursive detail. I love this mode of learning! The relevant facts and connections stick with me more than with any other approach. So thank you, very sincerely. This video also left me wishing you might pair up sometime with an anthropologist from a mesolithic perspective, so we might follow other markers of advancement, as anatomically modern peoples emerged into a post-glacial but pre-settled world. Their diets, clothing, migration, ungulate domestication, pottery, patterns of engagement (ill-advised hand signals, hey-there winks?), etc-all these phenomena must have been permitted by-perhaps even helped propel-the evolution of language. I’m hoping to flesh out what I call our Mirumbilon-the world when wonder was the primary vehicle of efflorescence for human cerebration. Much as iron drives populations of marine plankton and nitrogen generates vigor in terrestrial flora, I’m intrigued by the idea that our impulse of wonder is a truly somatic, phenotypically evolved and alarmingly potent agent of cognitive/behavioral bootstrapping, the gear-train of sentience & volition that in our wee hours potentiated what we now (very generously) call civilization.

[@NoMercy8008]

I really really love and enjoy learning about this! literally I sit here excited like a little kid learning something new and amazing :D Especially the part when you explain how you can deduce from the existence of words for "snow", "beaver" and so on that the language must have been spoken more in the north and not too far south, or how you can show from the lack of a word for "writing" that there was no writing. That is so unspoeakably fascinating to me ^-^ Kinda reminds me of how in archaeology you can tell a lot about the age of findings just by comparative stratification with other dating evidence. Or also how you can tell the comparative age of walls (or similar) by looking at joints and intersections. I love it! Thank you so much :)

[@buyersremorse7106]

Your content is infinitely valuable. Thanks Doc.

[@vorthora]

This brings me back 30 years ago to my favorite subjects (History of the English Language, Univ of Seville, Spain; and Historical Linguistics, Indiana Univ, Bloomington). I'm an ABD (due to horrible family illnesses, and me being the caretaker) in English Philology. I completed all my courses, worked on my dissertation, but couldn't finish it. My dad's very premature Alzheimers took care of achieving my dream. So I specialized in English Linguistics, nd teaching English as a foreign language is my job in lovely Seville, Spain. However, I was really into Old English and its literature, so when I heard you talk about the P and the F, I immediately knew you were going to talk about Grimm's Law. Such good times!!! But unless you've got a Ph.D, forget about teaching historical stuff outside the University...

[@paulm749]

Obviously, credentials are important for academic and professional reasons, but you still "know what you know". Anyway, we should all attempt to keep expanding our knowledge and understanding throughout our lives. This channel provides such an opportunity.

[@ProphTruth100]

That was strong of you to do what you did for your dad.

[@graniteminerman]

Will be referring back to that. Great overview.

[@nomansland5113]

The intro, badass. The knowledge, fascinating. The channel, indispensable

[@JasonLankinoBandara]

Dr. thank you so much for the video. Great content and presentation. You just answered what I was going to ask about the Mittani - Vedic connection, thanks! Keep up the great work.

[@danielsimeonov3504]

31:45 “Хуммингвнрд” would be “hummunvnrd”; maybe you meant “хуммингбирд” 🤓 Good point in that segment, though. @Jackson Crawford

[@rodlavery509]

Came here to say this - the mistakes make sense if you're coming mostly from familiarity with the Greek alphabet. I would transcribe it хамингбзрд to get the Cyrillic version even closer to pronunciation, though I guess it depends on your dialect of English.

[@Kosovar_Chicken]

Im currently in school for Linguistics and Anthropology and this man is living my dream

[@miniworld3d]

I am not in school, Linguistics or Anthropology and this man is also my living dream.

[@Deckdisz]

Its every kids dream to be a cowboy!

[@DoomShrm]

@@Deckdisz you either wanna be a cowboy or a viking and this guy is basically a cowboy-viking soothsayer.

[@profile2047]

Well if or when you get your PhD. Try not to fall into this guys absolutes. Knowledge grows and he states things as fact at a very high frequency. He may be right, but it’s not very scholarly, if I can use that word in that way, to state things as he does without support as often as he does.

[@joedee1863]

Really good coverage of the branches of PIE languages and all without notes or bullet points 👍 Well done. I found this really informative. Thank you

[@David-Gerard]

Great overview! Love this kind of stuff. Your presentation was clear and concise.

[@jellosapiens7261]

I personally love your "sunburst" model; it manages to capture important distinctions between varieties while also showing how much the dialects influence each other in a family where the "tree" model breaks down.

[@RobinBaggett]

Informative title, listing qualifications, and straight to the point. I'm already excited to watch!!

[@endthisnonsense7202]

Thanks, a great introduction, very clear, and a very pleasant narrating voice and pace to listen to!

[@Parso77]

Many thanks for sharing your knowledge. It’s much appreciated. A few fascinating nuggets there too!

[@John-xq3ke]

This is absolutely one of the best videos available on understanding related languages.

[@jnielson1121]

Jackson I can't tell you how happy I am to have found this! (Via the lovely Simon Roper's videos...) brief tangent but I'm an old school Doctor Who fan and "Grimm's Law" was discussed by the lead characters in The State of Decay (episode 2 at 10 min in) from 1980. I'd ALWAYS wanted to find out more about it but had no luck when I looked pre- and early internet days. This has made me very happy! :)

[@Matt_The_Hugenot]

Good stuff, I'm glad that you keep this information up to date.

[@MymilanitalyBlogspot]

Thanks for giving your credentials right up front. It's very helpful.

[@stephanosnormandusdelacroi8570]

Cowboy, snow, mountains, with a PhD I'm hooked you don't even need your lasso to r e i g n me in.

[@stephanosnormandusdelacroi8570]

@Martin Cregan my bad I am French after all.

[@Pokephosgene]

I wish someone did a detailed analysis of Uralic languages- I can only hope Mr. Crawford has friends in the community who are Uralic language enthusiasts. He did do a video once on why Finnish is separate from Nordic.

[@michabach274]

I found a video lecture here on KZbin that is a general introduction to the Uralic language family. The lecture is presented by Sampsa Holopainen from the University of Helsinki, so it is all based on academic research. Too bad, he is not as eloquent as Mr. Crawford in this video, but if you can excuse the slightly awkward manner of presentation, I am sure his lecture contains the kind of information you are looking for. I can't put a direct link to the video here, but you can find it if you search for the title "Holopainen - Introduction to Uralic languages".

[@sledgehog1]

@@michabach274 I watched a bit of it and I could cut his anxiety from the air with a knife. He seemed so very anxious and jumpy, was he held at gunpoint in that presentation?

[@ebthedoc4992]

I never dared the Finnic-Ugiric complex!

[@indrajitgupta3280]

@@ebthedoc4992 A month in Budapest? A dreamland holiday, and a bash at one of the languages.

[@jackjackson39]

Non indo European= don't care

[@cowboygeologist7772]

Wow, amazing video! Beautiful setting, too. Thank you for posting.

[@paulallen3557]

Just so incredibly interesting and well presented. Fascinating!

[@ThalassTKynn]

This is an endlessly fascinating subject.

[@StompingRabbits]

Boring!

[@irishakita]

@@StompingRabbits ok

[@neekonsaadat2532]

The whole f and p correspondence that he used as an example coincidentally characterizes all loanwords that transfered from Persian to Georgian. Fantastic discussion in this video, big thanks

[@MrWogle1]

Just got here. I'm very happy to see this kind of content.

[@twood1uis]

Fascinating! I want to see more of this series.

[@hussaindaud1260]

The video we've all been waiting for..

[@tuncaybal764]

I am kurdish and live in Germany, the first Time i learned German i was supersized how much vocabulary's sounds the similar to each other like "Warm" (warm;english) in kurdish is Gwarm or Nase(Nose;english) is "Pose" in kurdish. and much more words.

[@Lost7one]

There are many many words that you can find in Kurdish that is very close to Latin and germanic languages.

[@essee3984]

In Hindi/Sanskrit it's Nassa and Garam 😅 Infact, in German Mother is Mater, and in Hindi/Sanskrit it's Matr. There are many similar words.

[@yousafdaudzai3078]

In Pashto it is Poza or Peza

[@Bjowolf2]

Danish: varm ( & kold), næse, hår [hoar] = hair, øje [oy-e] = eye, øre [oer-e] = ear, tunge = tongue, hals / nakke = neck ( + OE heals !), skulder = shoulder, arm, albue = elbow, hånd = hand, finger, nejl [nighl] = nail ( OE nægel / nægl ! ), bryst = breast / chest, hjerte = heart ( Old E heorte !), lunge, lever, navle = navel, knæ = knee, læg [leg] (hindside of lower leg ) ~ leg, fod = foot, ankel = ankle, hæl = heel, tå [t'oa'] = toe ... And so on and on 😉

[@johnrogan9420]

Many German words in English...kranky...kaputt...gesuntide...sauer kraut...

[@matt.s9607]

This video was super interesting, great stuff Dr. !!

[@TheBackyardProfessor]

Well done video! Great explanation! I just finished yet again Colin Renfrew's book on The Indo European puzzle with language and archaeology. So while it was on my mind I looked it up and got here. A great catch on my part! Beautiful scenery, I do the same thing in my own videos!

[@indrajitgupta3280]

Renfrew makes me uneasy.

[@DianneWilderASMR]

South of Romania was part of the Roman Empire and the province had the name of Dacia Felix at a certain point. Dacia was conquered by emperor Traianus and the immortalisation of the conquer is on display in Rome as Traianus' Collumn.

[@bm8641]

True but that doesn't explain compact areas of Romanian spoken well in the north of Romania all the way to Ukraine. There is now in circulation a new theory saying that Rome founded by defeated Trojans is the source of vulgar Latin . Trojans were Thracians and Dacians were Thracians as well. Same language. BTW Emperor Trajan who conquered southern Dacia in 106 told his troops before crossing Danube " We are going home". Another thing , according to ancient Greek writers Dacians didn't need translation when dealing with the Romans.

[@airiewhyte2371]

My dreams of becoming a linguist are reborn! That was the most fascinating video on language that I’ve ever seen.

[@benw9949]

Great summary overview, thank you!

[@CyReVolt]

Thanks a lot for the decent overview and explanatory examples!

[@mu.co.5018]

Great intro into historical linguistics and the Indo-European languages! I have to give you extra credit for knowing all the languages of the IE family and the differences between them from half the world away - USA (I'm in SE Europe, native speaker of Serbo-Croatian). Also, great explainer at the end that genes and languages are different things. And finally, as a history (and language) buff, I love how you put it very simply: "the past is as complex as the present and the future". I envy you for being payed to do what I love. Keep it up!

[@brankamijicgjurasin4626]

There is no Serbo-Croatian language. They are two languages, similar, but different. Serbian and Croatian. Serbo-Croatian (or Croato-Serbian) is the product of Yugoslavian policy to form Yugoslav nation and it was a failure. The great and tragic failure.

[@adrianaEDC]

I love this on-location lecturing

[@bcvan9999]

Many thanks for this informative and scholarly presentation.

[@ryandaamen]

This is a great summary!! Thanks for this

[@nazin.s]

Спасибо, доктор. Очень интересно и информативно

[@drivers99]

You confirmed it at the end, but I was wondering if this was filmed during the freak snowstorm we had in September in Colorado, and it was.

[@avi2125]

Thanks Dr Crawford for such a sweeping - and reliable - overview of PIE. Good to see Caley Smith's name in there. Thanks for the reading references. I do want to check out Empires of the Word. Very intrigued by the shifts in language that occur over time and geography. The Linguist's notations for consonantal/vowel changes etc are another language altogether that I just do not get :). Will check out your video on Grimm's Laws.

[@jillybe1873]

Really well researched and logically presented. Top man. Great hat.

[@schleichface]

An actual historical linguist on KZbin? Yes, please! An actual historical linguist with his own KZbin channel? That's doubly cool! An actual historical linguist from UW? That's downright inspiring!

[@thegreatalyssa]

I like that I grew up speaking several languages.

[@brunooliveira2526]

thank you for sharing your knowledge, Dr.

[@iotwiki]

Super interesting, thank you for sharing!

[@Wulfwiga]

Is it already snowing there damn

[@slappy8941]

It was snowing two weeks ago when I was there.

[@Joey.R]

My brother said they had like a 60 degree drop or something like that a couple weeks ago.

[@mrjones2721]

Is he in the mountains? It snows earlier there than anywhere else.

[@Joey.R]

@@mrjones2721 yeah he's pretty high up there. well he's in Fort Collins, so pretty far north, but they had a random cold front blow through and it dumped snow on them. It worked out though, because it suppressed that Cameron peak fire a bit.

[@Dave_Sisson]

On the other side of the world in rural Victoria, Australia we were just getting into warmer spring weather and now we have a snow storm that has turned the hills white again. Winter is not quite finished here.

[@egocentral1]

I believe the word “woof” is onomatopoeic.

[@nunyoubusyness6345]

😆

[@tim40gabby25]

'How do you make a cat go "Woof"? Pour petrol over it and light it'. A bad playground joke - which do not change over generations, hence in the UK if we tire of playing chase games we say "Pax" and cross our fingers - it's Latin for 'peace', and our fingers simulate The Cross. Holy cow (if I can say that) :)

[@williamvaux7500]

This man is brilliant and I love his content

[@MegaSkinnybuddha]

Can you make your previous Q and As public with simply a note that they’re not the most up to date? A lot of them had good information to reference that is not outdated. Love the videos 👍

[@Clodaghbob]

Very interesting. Irish, Scots Gaelic and Manx are 'Q' Celtic languages because of the sound at the beginning of some words, e.g. Ceann (Irish for 'head') whereas Welsh, Cornish and Breton are 'P' Celtic languages, e.g. Pen (Welsh for 'head').

[@ivanjankovic8117]

One correction: the old Bulgarian that is still a liturgical language of the Orthodox Church is called Old Church Slavonic, not "Slavic".

[@cosettapessa6417]

Is it intelligible with the modern one?

[@ivanjankovic8117]

@@cosettapessa6417 It's partially intelligible to Serbian speakers and probably more so to Bulgarians.

[@ivanjankovic8117]

@@cosettapessa6417 it's funny, Old Church Slavonic which is the ancestor of Bulgarian, has 7 noun cases that are all retained in modern Serbian but completely lost in modern Bulgarian. :)

[@cosettapessa6417]

@@ivanjankovic8117 true

[@shood9717]

Both are correct "Old Church Slavonic" or, "Old Church Slavic". Collins English dictionary.

[@john2014]

Thanks for the video. I visited Roamnia a few years ago and was surprised when I recognized a few of the words.

[@krikeles]

Thanks. Enjoyed the topic. Also the insight at 30:23 that shared peculiarities indicate family relatedness. Works for humans as well as languages.

[@ErinWi]

Are there similar methods of establishing relationships among languages using grammatical structures as well as vocabulary? Specifically, are there grammatical features common to the Indo-European languages that aren't used in other families or that shift and descend in a way specific to the family?

[@soton4010]

the use of the subjective in indo-european languages tend to be very similar to each other but not so compared to others

[@DathTRUE]

Great content Mr. Crawford! Going to follow your channel. I have one curious question: Have you ever met personally prof. Jaan Puhvel? His works are one of greatest inspiration to me (including Dumezil, Eliade etc.). with regards PhD. candidate of etnology/history Stanislav

[@ksbrook1430]

Excellent overview. Thank you.

[@nicogutyfranco]

Best video on youtube ever, thank you

[@KRoshi-tu1qo]

Regarding the table Grimm's Law, 'heart': It's quite amazing how close PIE ḱḗr is to French cœr. It's almost as if thousands of years haven't happened.

[@Mercure250]

Can we talk about "six"? Like, hello? The word is written the same in English and French, and it's pronounced almost the same, despite the fact the word doesn't come from borrowing? Even crazier in Quebec French, because the "i" in this word is pronounced pretty much like in English. (also, cœur*, you missed a "u")

[@jotvingis5247]

I wonder how they reconstructed it as ker and not kerd/kert. English: Heart Latin: Cardis (C is a K sound) Greek: Kardio/Kardia Lithuanian: Širdis

[@550077]

@@jotvingis5247 The final consonant appears in other ide. cases, but not in nominative.

[@jotvingis5247]

@@550077 oh ok

[@infinite5795]

It is Hrdaya in Sanskrit.

[@veritateminquirendam2403]

Brilliant info. Just one thing I noticed at 18:35 is when you pronounced Manx it is like the 'a' in 'maul' or 'tall'. It should be pronounced like the 'a' is in 'Ate' or May' instead. I live close to the Isle of Man, in Northern Ireland, and a few days ago we were standing on the shore looking across the sea to Man. Beautiful place here and on the Isle. You should visit once travel restrictions are lifted.

[@veritateminquirendam2403]

@Klaupe Schnitzelinski Very good question. It is named after a sea-god in Irish mythology Manannán. (His full name Manannán mac Lir.) Also in Welsh mythology is known as Manawydan. (Manawydan fab Llŷr.) Shortened over the years to Mannen, to Mann, and now Man. I had a look on Wiki to make sure I got the spelling correct and it says that in 54BCE Julius Caesar referenced the island as Mona in Latin. Also in the 1st century CE, Pliny the Elder records it as Monapia or Monabia, and Ptolemy (2nd century) as Monœda (Mοναοιδα, Monaoida) or Mοναρινα (Monarina), in Koine Greek. It is found in the Sagas of Icelanders as Mön. Like most things, once you do a little research, it is fascinating what information you find.

[@argyrendehringterimksaccu174]

@@veritateminquirendam2403 Ive also found how grammatical genders works and changed on some websites indeed if u check extensively we'll find a lots of stuffs, tho the developments in chronological times and how it changes surely are a lots to understand as a whole. tho I would say numbers of contributors in a ratios of it and how many languages a language family has etc in other categories thus rankings are much more important or I should just reach out to the instutitions or scholars, hope I'll get into exchange or comparative studies later on my near last semesters...

[@billistefansson5309]

Thank you so much Dr. Crawford for an excellent video. An enormous subject, worthy of at least five programs to do it justice, yet you managed to pack in so much information. I would have been raising my hand and asking, "but what about Albanian?" but you covered even that (as well as Tocharian). I am not an Academic, but intrested in Language and Writing Systems, especially Runes. By the way, my name is Brynjolfur, and I am Icelandic. i whish you all the best and I look forward to seeing more from you.

[@mitchyoung93]

Thank you Dr. Mr. Cowboy Scholar PhD...very enlightening.

[@LichDemonInc]

Also please make more videos about PIE and the possible relationships with other language families like Uralic.

[@Rasytojas1980]

Finnish definitely has contact with Baltic and Slavic

[@giovannicolpani3345]

Tocharian is very important. Before its discovery, i.e. languages were split in the middle in two groups, "kentum" languages and "satem" languages (kentum, written centum is the word for "hundred" in latin and satem the corrisponding word in sanskrit). Some languages (like the indo-iranian) had [s] where the others (like latin, greek and germanic taking into account grimm's law) had [k], but it was not understood which of the two was the original. Tocharian languages, even though they are more eastward than indo-iranian, are kentum languages. Since tocharian speakers and proto-italic or greek speakers were unlikely to have come up with the same innovation at that distance, it is safe to assume [k] is the original realization and [s] an innovation.

[@stegotyranno4206]

Theres a lot of reasons why this can be refuted. It is likeleh the palatovelars were Palatl plosives, or at leasted palatalized velar stops. Secondly we can see different languages shift back(velar) and forward(palatl or postalveolar affricates) throughout history. Finally the most conservative languages Sanskrit Avestan and Lithuanian are all Satem. And /ķ/> [s] only occured in Persian, in Sanskrit it became /ś/, and in PIE /ķ/ was likley [c]

[@JoJeck]

A superb summary. Favourited

[@marnie4629]

I thank KZbin for recommending this to me. Great video, professor.

[@antonwallin7122]

20:53 "Harja" is the Finnish word for comb. It was probably something similar in the north germanic languages but over the years it has shortened down to just Hår. This is actually a common occurrence with germanic words in Finnish, Finnish is a very conservative language. Consider the word for "King" in Finnish, "Kuningas", in Swedish it is now "Kung". It was probably something like "Koningaz" in Proto-Germanic.

[@user-ge8yn4ql4i]

@@servantofaeie1569 both seem to work for the Dutch descendent of "koning".

[@vineshgujral686]

From what I can tell there aren't too many cases of a full language switch in a population without some gene flow, so I understand people getting confused with genetic heritage and linguistic heritage. Hopefully we can get a vid on the Indo-Iranian branch of the family someday!

[@indravrtrahaana763]

Of course there will be a gene flow.

[@ANTSEMUT1]

He is a linguist that specialises in Germanic languages so don't get your hopes up, unless it's how Indo-Iranian relates to Germanic languages.

[@christophersmith8316]

The stressing of that comes, I think, from a 19th/20th fetish for binding a "people" - language, customs, genetics as a bloc and assuming all change means replacement...as if every time these days someone in Asia learns English an American comes with a sword, kills him and moves into his house.

[@michaelsommers2356]

There's always some gene flow, but not often enough to, by itself, change the language of an area. The Romance languages are an example. Sure, some Italians moved to the provinces, but not enough to cause everyone in the empire to speak Latin. They did that because they were conquered by Latin speakers, and were ruled by Latin speakers.

[@linguisticanthropologist8112]

A good example of the complete separation of genetics and language is Garifuna, which is a Native American language spoken along the east coast of Central America. Its speakers, however, are genetically African. This resulted from the Native American inhabitants of the island of St. Vincent resisting European conquest, and accepting massive numbers of escaped slaves from neighbouring colonies. Because the slaves spoke many different African languages, they adopted the language of their hosts, married in, and became genetically dominant.

[@jorgeclaverie6752]

I am fascinated by your videos. Thanks for posting and sharing them!

[@ricois3]

That was so interesting, thanks!

[@dariuszb.9778]

Are you Sir a supporter of the Graeco-Armenian common linguistic origin hypothesis (maybe even a Balkan Indo-European subgroup of IE) or maybe you find it less likely?

[@hectorfox6484]

I ask this question as a PhD in evolutionary biology. Even though clearly no one has definitively shown that, say Uralic & IE languages are related, is there the assumption in historical linguistics that they _must_ be and we just don't have the evidence for it (e.g. like there is the paradigm in evolutionary biology that all life is ultimately related in some way)? Or is the possibility of language arising separately and independently in different human populations an option for historical linguists?

[@Mortyst]

I think most linguists don't make any particular assumption. Traditional comparative linguistics just falls apart when you try to go more than ~5ky back in time, and "proto-world", if it exists, could easily be 10 times that. In my opinion, it's a question that linguistics just can't answer. The answer might one day come from another field of study, though.

[@hectorfox6484]

@@Mortyst Gotcha. I can see the challenges there. It's interesting because there are certainly some folks on the more anthropology/ human evolution side who feel like we can make some statements about when language could have (probably was?) around in the course of human evolution. But, just assuming they are correct (which is by no means certain), there is still no way to really say much more than that about language from that point up until around the 5kya time period.

[@ericcagle1263]

Thanks for your time and Wisdom.

[@overratedprogrammer]

It's so easy to forget when talking about this subject the incredible number of generations of people and long distances between these different splits. Incomprehensible

[@akumayoxiruma]

As a Finnish linguist, I do not think that Proto Indo-European and Proto-Uralic are relatedbasic the basics of grammar and how the language system works are utterly distinct. I find more linguist connections between Finnish with Turkic and Coreo-Japonic languages than with Indo-European ones.

[@indrajitgupta3280]

...which you cunning people got HIM Akihito to say out loud during a visit to Hungary.

[@Tina06019]

When I went to Afghanistan, I studied Dari. I found that about 10 or 15% of the ordinary, daily use vocabulary was different from the same words in Farsi. So I wonder if linguists consider Dari a difference language from Farsi, or a dialect of Farsi.

[@indrajitgupta3280]

? I would like to wait for someone knowledgeable to answer you. AFAIK, Dari is a dialect of Farsi.

[@ardavan2550]

Dari is a dialect of farsi,without arabic word like tajiki

[@yarsaz4347]

It's a dialect of Persian.

[@gathanzo4751]

excellent intro love this channel

[@slimanelekbour7077]

Thank you! cowboy ,nature, snow, this is wonderful, thank you professor.