Intonation

citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/... Hopefully this link works - this article discusses two separate theories of tonogenesis in the North Germanic languages that have lexical pitch accent.
The Swedish pitch accent video: • Understanding the Swed...

[@postie10111]

"Sorry I look like a drowned rat - I'm back at home again... " Well, that clears that up!

[@d0nutwaffle]

Get this man a hat.

[@BluJean6692]

Ironically I misheard him and figured "drowned rack" was just an obscure British expression, it's silly but I pictured a coatrack burdened with soaking coats lmao

[@sarahpassell226]

Not LOL-ing but giggling because my thought exactly!

[@dale3404]

I thought the same. Huh?

[@dvv18]

@@BluJean6692 Them British glottal stops 😁

[@shmoobalizer]

You pointing out the US/UK intonation difference is incredible, that was something I had naturally picked up on when imitating British English, but not something I had ever given direct conscious thought before, amazing!

[@falstoffe]

@MichaelKingsfordGray Huh? I'm not sure what "anonymous coward" has to do with pitch changes in dialects.

[@sleepycalico]

Me, too! After a lifetime of listening, it's so surprising and delightful to have this difference suddenly come into focus!

[@littlesnowflakepunk855]

It's one of the things that makes some American attempts at mimicking British accents and vice versa "wrong" in a way that can't quite be described. I've noticed a lot of British actors playing American characters will use British-style intonation.

[@jerotoro2021]

Reminds me of the well known example sentence "I never said she stole my money", which can be taken 7 different ways depending on which word is stressed. Also, I notice that in American dialects, the question intonation pattern shifts to the British pattern when a person is getting upset or frustrated. A: "Do you have any apples?" B: "No, we're sold out." A: "Well, do you have any oranges?" An American would say those two questions with completely different intonation, with the second resembling the British.

[@talitek]

As a Norwegian speaker, pitch accent is extraordinarily useful for telling where in the country someone is from - it has 4 main regions of variation but varies significantly within these regions too! You can very easily hear the difference between people from Bergen, Tromsø, and Oslo, even without hearing the individual words.

[@Markle2k]

I was listening to a person from Bodø speaking to a businessman from Oslo, and despite the fact that they were speaking English, I could hear the different accents.

[@dixgun]

👍

[@Weebusaurus]

I wish you had not told us about the bee footage. Now I am devastated to not see it

[@lawnerddownunder3461]

The habit of intonation going up at the last word of every sentence, making it a sound like a question, is very common in Sydney Australia. We refer to it as the Sydney Boing.

[@funkyfranx]

I've heard it referred to as 'high rising terminal'. I'm not Australian, but I definitely associate it with Australia!

[@cosmic_jon]

Also very typical of the "Valley Girl Accent". Besides the technical term "high rising terminal", you might also hear it called "upspeak" or "uptalk".

[@KusacUK]

Which is why it’s known as AQI (Australian Question Intonation) in Britain. Blame it on Neighbours and Home and Away.

[@jenniferschmitzer299]

Did you just ask about ferals?

[@jenniferschmitzer299]

@Toothless that’s really shit you know?

[@sethdickfield2949]

Sometimes, at least in casual American speech, simple words or phrases can be conveyed solely through intonation. For example, you can give a definitive "yes" by going "mh-HM" or a definitive "no" with "MH-mh". You can also say something like "yes, continue" with "mh-hmmM". Lastly, you can say "i don't know" by simply using the intonation of the phrase and not the words themselves (see this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/h4m4dHxumtRsirs ). And all these sounds can be made with either an open or closed mouth -- both work.

[@sarahpassell226]

OK. You must be my reincarnated late brother Seth, or you would not know about "I don't know"!

[@Cypekeh]

You can communicate a lot with just "intonation" (I don't know if this is still in the scope of the definition of the word "intonation") Like if you had water in your mouth and someone said something surprising, you can still do the impression of a question or surprise or doubt or something like that. Even over the phone

[@ethanoux10]

I think what you're talking about also includes stress, as in what part of the sound is being stressed.

[@MissIndigo87]

We do this in the U.K. as well

[@LoKe1]

This was my main form of communication with my parents as a teenager 😁

[@crusatyr1452]

Simon Roper let's gooooo

[@cosmic_jon]

Great stuff! Now we need a video clarifying the differences between intonation, stress, and emphasis. These are easy to mix up. Example of intonation is asking a question, and raising the pitch at the end. Example of stress is the difference between "address" as a noun and "address" as a verb. Example of emphasis is when you say "Now THAT'S what I'm talking about!"

[@stephentrueman4843]

Dear Jon, Thank you.

[@compulsiverambler1352]

In British English, there's no stress difference between "address" the noun and "address" the verb. We do have a difference between "transfer" the noun and "transfer" the verb, which American English doesn't. I wonder when and how these things diverged.

[@cosmic_jon]

​@@compulsiverambler1352 Oh, interesting. I didn't know that! Some others I could think of (in American English) are: subject, object, reject, commune, conduct, convert. They are all of Latin origin. I tried to think of a Germanic one, but these verbs usually have a separable prefix. Hard to compare "outcast" with "cast out" for example.

[@MatthewMcVeagh]

@@cosmic_jon Yes all those latter ones you name are stressed the same in BrE as in AmE. First syllable for the nouns and second for the verbs.

[@GaryDunion]

That intonation of "Where are the potatoes?" sounded to me like it implied a very different meaning - it sounded like the situation where "Where are the potatoes" was a quote, so the implied question is actually "Are you asking me where the potatoes are?" Did it have that sound to anyone else?

[@zekleinhammer]

Where are the potatoes? You want tomatoes for that dish.

[@mistyminnie5922]

I'm autistic and I have high difficulty using tone and intonation in my own voice. I don't even want to count how many times that has caused misunderstandings because of that slight yet specific part of language.

[@lawnerddownunder3461]

Same here. It's kinda like having Resting Bitch Face, but with one's voice 😄

[@tairneanaich]

@@lawnerddownunder3461 that‘s such an excellent way to put it

[@LuluDumpling]

I listen to a lot of radio drama and audiobooks and sometimes their intonation drives me nuts because it's not how I heard it in my head reading the book 😂

[@paulreeves8251]

@Aurora Peace Or even quite a lot of you-tubers. :-(

[@christinewright110]

I live in Spain and find it amusing when my sat nav, which is tuned to a well- spoken Englishman, continually mis-pronounces Spanish road names and places. Many a time, have I missed a road because, my knowledge of the Spanish language, although rudimentary, is enough to understand phrasing, but I didn't understand what was being said. "He" speaks just as though an Englishman would, if he didn't know the language.

[@EFO841]

wow! I never noticed that british question intonation was different from my own, but when you pointed it out, I realized that I did subconsciously recognize the falling intonation to be More British Sounding

[@swagmund_freud6669]

Yeah. I'm Canadian but I've been told by British people that my attempt at a London accent is indistinguishable from a native speaker from South London. When he showed the UK example of the intonation difference, I realized I did it unconsciously when I do my London accent, but I knew exactly the thing he was talking about.

[@eechu2199]

Dang what a channel I've just discovered right now, I'm going to watch all your videos mate !

[@jovanblom7742]

Sometimes I sit and wonder; and sometimes I just sit.

[@rogerdines6244]

Fascinating the things you don't think of until they are pointed out: thank you. Just by way of an amusing sidenote, I once knew a clergyman who was tone deaf, and had been a missionary in China, where, because of the difficulty with pitch, he alleged, he was just as likely to say 'Our Father who art riding a bicycle' rather than 'Our Father, who art in heaven'-whether true or not, as I say, that was what he alleged!

[@artugert]

I don’t think that could possibly be true. The two phrases simply have no way of turning into each other with a mere change of tone. His pronunciation would have also needed to be extremely bad.

[@julianarocha9370]

ugh i love this channel. as a language major, everything you put out is absolutely fascinating.

[@ChristopherBonis]

What exactly is a language major? Linguistics?

[@julianarocha9370]

@@ChristopherBonis i study a mix of linguistics + french + portuguese + literature, so we just call it "language studies". neolatin languages, in my case.

[@markbr5898]

Yes, I agree that this channel is very impressive. Wanted to let you know that in English "ugh" usually denotes disgust!

[@julianarocha9370]

@@markbr5898 Yes, I'm aware but thank you!

[@jambutty2218]

Always enjoy your uploads. Don’t have to apologise about appearance or qualification to give the information in your videos. You know more than I do and your the only channel. I’ve found with this information. Fascinating stuff.

[@darraghchapman]

I interpreted the first intonation as a direct question, and the second as an 'it is, isn't it' question, seeking confirmation. I didn't think of the US/UK dichotomy, but the examples sounded natural and representative. My take on the made-up word intonations made me think of the various ways to use 'ne' in Japanese. A divertive little feature of the language.

[@philroberts7238]

Thank you for that, Simon. I have a few random observations on this topic and I apologise if I'm repeating points already made by others but I haven't had the time to read through them just yet. As an actor, I've always been fascinated by intonation and its importance in conveying meaning. Firstly, most accents (in English anyway) have their own specific tonal patterns and it is this 'musicality' which is often more important than the pronunciation of specific words, or even vowel sounds, in distinguishing one accent from another. Secondly, and more importantly, intonation is vital in expressing emotion. As written on the page, a script usually gives the reader clues via its punctuation: the commas, full stops, ellipses and dashes for the timing, and question marks and exclamation marks for, well, interrogations and ejaculations.. (Not to mention italics - I wanted to italicise the word emotion, for example, but I didn't know how to.) It occurs to me that a punctuation symbol is merely an older form of emoji, and seeing that Spanish has no change in word order to form questions, I wonder whether that is why its punctuation indicates questions and exclamations at the the beginning as well as at the end of sentences that would otherwise be merely statements. Those signs tell us that the sounds (in italics) are going to be different. I found your illustration of the difference between typical interrogative patterns in American and British English enlightening. It might explain why American questions tend to sound more assertive and British ones more tentative in normal circumstances. Finally, as an example perhaps of why intonation is so important in language development, one only has to listen to a small baby at the pre-verbal stage having a "conversation" - it is the tonal patterns that it is picking up, the semantics come later.

[@tairneanaich]

Excellent observation, and- to form italics (at least in youtube comments) you want to surround the word you want italicised with underscores like _ cat _ (without the spaces, _cat_ ). I hope this works once I‘ve posted the comment lol

[@philroberts7238]

@@tairneanaich _Thank you, Alba!_

[@andyarken7906]

@@philroberts7238 And don't make the mistake of putting punctuation _right next to an italicised word_.

[@mungmungie]

Both intonations of questions would be generally understood in Canada. The British intonation was still quite common in the 1960s, probably reinforced by the "mid-Atlantic" accent, which seems to be considered archaic today. I can't remember the last time I heard a non-British accent with a British question intonation, but for sure it has been the better part of half a century.

[@Richard-zm6pt]

American: I feel that the point where the voice rises in these questions is preceded by a slight lowering of the tone on the word. In the first and in the second . Up to that point, the syllables in the sentence are monotone, then the dip on the important syllable, then the rise through the rest of the sentence. I like your analysis.

[@johnnyarmas9094]

You are great man to teach each time to deeper the rise and fall of pitch in our voices.

[@poliver1980]

Although intonation patterns change from culture to culture, there is a natural music that can convey meaning and feeling across cultures. A rising tone communicates tension and a falling one resolution. Tension can communicate both 'I don't know' and 'I haven't finished'. Resolution can mean 'this is the answer' or 'this is disgusting'

[@laamonftiboren4236]

I've been learning mediaeval English (mainly early Middle English, but also Old and late Middle) for a few years now, and I've often wondered about this. Thanks for covering it!

[@moonostultus]

as an Australian, i find that i use the American question intonation when the question is integrated in conversation, but the British question intonation when it's a simple standalone inquiry. For example, if I walked into the kitchen and asked if we have any apples, I would use the British intonation. But if my friend was telling me about their exams, and I asked if they were confident about them, I would use the American intonation. This might be unique to me, as I have a Welsh mother and was raised off of American media, but I still find it interesting.

[@opentelemark]

Lovely! One of my favourite sentences for understanding the effect of intonation on meaning is "What do you expect to be paid?", which includes "What? Do you expect to be paid?" and "What do you *expect* to be paid". Thanks for hours of interesting rabbit holes to get lost in.

[@artugert]

That is an example of stress, not intonation.

[@vvvvaaaacccc]

a friend of mine who moved to Europe has subconsciously adopted UK-style question intonation. it feels so jarring when I hear him talk that way.

[@dannestrom]

I'm Swedish, and you got the intonation of "tomten" about right for the two different words, although you spoke with a very British accent.

[@VarsavaBo-Hibf]

Brilliant as always

[@PontusWelin]

Swede here. Your pronunciation of tomten was great. You got the pitches perfectly.

[@Correctrix]

I've just realised why some people don't think I'm English even though I was born in London: I don't do that rising-falling intonation in questions.

[@michael.bombadil9984]

Very interesting, and I think your idea of tv influence is exact.

[@Dayanto]

From what I've read, pitch accent was actually a feature of Old Norse which since has been lost in modern icelandic and danish.

[@fangsandfolklore8795]

Having lived in China for years and learned Mandarin, I noticed that their intonation system (not meaning the tones, but intonation as you mean its which also exists in Mandarin separate and apart from the tones) is very different from that of English.

[@benedyktjaworski9877]

“Why don’t we (…) encode that information using extra words?” - some languages definitely do. Goidelic languages require use of particle to mark yes-no questions - and the interrogative particle causes a change to the verbal form too, cf. Irish *tá* cat ar an mbord ‘there is a cat on the table’ vs *an bhfuil* cat ar an mbord? ‘is there a cat on the table?’ - the particle might be elided, but the verb form still makes it clear it’s a question: ‘*bhfuil* cat ar an mbord?’ There are also emphatic suffixes added to pronouns, verbs, and longer phrases to emphasize or contrast the person (mo thigh ‘my house’ vs mo thighse ‘my, and not your or their, house’). You also use fronting for topicalization and/or emphasis (is ar an mbord atá an cat ‘it is on the table that the cat is, the cat is *on the table*’). Not sure how much it affects intonation - there are some studies showing Scottish Gaelic and Donegal Irish use falling intonation for both statements and questions but then other studies on other Irish dialects showing raising contours in questions. And generally there isn’t much literature about intonation in those languages. Also AFAIK in modern Scottish Gaelic there is raising intonation in echo question (‘He was there.’ ‘He was?!’-type of thing) but I suspect this might be a modern English influence. I’d love to know what intonation contours were used in Goidelic a few centuries ago, when the dialects were strong, I wouldn’t be that surprised if they just used the same contours for all types of sentences since they did differentiate them clearly by words and syntax (maybe changing pitch for some emphasis though?).

[@tairneanaich]

Oh absolutely I think the modern Gàidhlig rising intonation is an English loan- and reading Irish just now squiggled my brain, as a Scottish Gàidhlig speaker! „Bha e an sin“ (he was there) followed by „Bha e??“ (He was??) Is common amongst people who speak it at my age (early twenties) but I think this mirrors English, bc one would expect „an robh e?“ (was he??). I think, anyway. „Tha cat air an bòrd“ „a cat is on the table“ becomes „a bheil cat air an bòrd?“ „is (there) a cat on the table?“ is the Scottish equivalent (please disregard my German punctuation).

[@tairneanaich]

Oh, and emphasis- „bha e an sin“ (he was there) vs. „Bha esan an sin“ ( _he_ was there) - also comes into play And do you say „mo thigh“? In Gàidhlig, to say „my house“ you really say „the house which is at me“ - „an taigh agam“. „Mo“ is reserved for body parts and relatives, things which are attached rather than possessions- eg. Mo fhalt (my hair) and mo mhàthair (my mother). Does this distinction not happen in Irish?

[@benedyktjaworski9877]

@@tairneanaich Dè do chor, a charaid. Tha beagan Gàidhlig Albannaich agus agamsa ach chan eil i ro-mhath. :) As for possession: not really (though I’m just a learner! so take my word with a little grain of salt). :) There is some - but different than in Scotland - alienable vs inalienable distinction in plural, eg. ‘mo shinsir’ ‘my ancestors’, ‘mo chosa’ ‘my legs’ vs ‘mo chuid leabhar’ ‘my books’ but lit. ‘my share of books’ - but it’s always the possessive pronouns ‘mo, do, a, ár’, etc. You can say stuff like ‘Séamas so againne’, lit. ‘this Séamas of ours’, but this construction is nowhere near as common as in Gàidhlig na h-Alba. And in Conamara they use ‘cuid’ for plural everything, body parts and family members included.

[@cigh7445]

A lot of neo-Irish speakers (and many younger 'native' speakers who have grown up in the progressively weakening Gaeltachts from 1970s on) use English stress and intonation patterns instead of the Irish -se, -ne stresses and word ordering. That could be a factor in some of those studies if they were carried out post 70s?

[@sheilam4964]

👍👍👍👍👍 Love the vid, subject and your observations.

[@DaKotaCole]

This is really fascinating. Great video!

[@yes_head]

Interesting. Your example of "You are in the shop."/"Are you in the shop?" can have the intonation stresses reversed and they would still make sense in the right context. I doubt most of us appreciate what a big part of layered meaning intonation gives to our spoken language.

[@dorteweber3682]

There is often, though not always, a spelling difference between the words in Swedish and Norwegian that are similar but have different pitch accent. In Danish, the pitch accent is replaced by the glottal stop, which isn't exactly glottal, now necessarily a stop, but, well.

[@pixelfrenzy]

FWIW I'm doing intensive study of intonation in Mandarin for 3 weeks in Kunming right now. There's definitely a falling intonation at the end of declarative statements, as well as a high vs low difference in contrastive statements. Yes/no questions usually have the "ma?" sentence-final particle which is theoretically neutral but in practice seems to go up a bit. So it all seems to be about pitch "contour" overall (since tones need to be preserved, albeit not at an absolute pitch). Very interesting, and quite challenging as a learner. It would also be interesting to hear about Japanese pitch accent, which I gather is quite different, but also it varies a lot between regional accents - which must surely cause mirth and/or misunderstandings. :)

[@aaroncorbett6352]

For the life of me I can't explain to anyone why I find this subject and your videos on it so interesting but I do.

[@marcusknutsson2118]

This is really cool! Haven’t seen anyone talk about it in such a concrete way before :DDD

[@koffski93]

This and/or pitch accent is very important in swedish, for one it distinguishes between meaning of words spelled and pronounced the same but also a huge part of different regional dialects. It is quite easy to guess where someone comes from in the country.

[@loval6909]

From what i've read and heard I find it most likely pitch accent was kind of a thing in old norse, in the way that all multiple syllable words had something similar to tone 2/grave accent and single syllables the normal tone 1/acute accent. This would then have been phonemisesed towards the late old norse period when svarabhaktivowels and true definite article appeared, but lost in Icelandic, Faroese and Finlandswedish as well as dialects in Uppland and Södermanland, The ones in Uppland only having tone 1 while the ones in Södermanland only having tone 2. In the later middleages the system was extended in Trøndelag, Jämtland and Väster-/Norrbotten through a system of apokopating the unprotected (ie that tid not have a consonant after) endvowels in word with heavy rootsyllable, but keeping the tone, creating the in scandinavian dialectology termed circumflex accent, as opposed to grave/tone 2 and acute/tone 1. Circumflex accent also happens regularly in Norrland in dialects that syncopate ð between short vowels where the first one is stressed, like ON lǫðu obl. "barn" becomes something like [lɵ˧˥˧˥ː] in Ångermanland, as opposed to inner Jämtland where it classicly'd be something like [lɵ᷈ðɵ̌]. Circumflexaccent through apocopation of the end vowel is also typical of dialects in Nordland, Northern Värmland, Öland and Småland, where the apocopation however is, unlike in the more northern dialects, not dependent on the (old) weight of the preceding root syllable. I have this study of old icelandic rhymes searching for evidence of tonality: notendur.hi.is/haukurth/Tonality_in_earlier_Icelandic.pdf And this lecture on scandinavian tonogenesis: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qXLbc2uufJZli5o Considering that barely any change since old norse is universal in all scandinavian dialects (except loss of true genitive case and perhaps loss of subjunctive mood and the initial dental fricative) its wierd that a feature like tone would pop up, spread, and be stable for such a long time if it wasnt already kind of a thing in the old language.

[@Cephlin]

I can tell you're home. Sen'ence is back in vogue again :D

[@wilhelmseleorningcniht9410]

The TV thing is actually pretty interesting to me, as when you're going over the American vs English question tone differences, mine is closer to the English one than the American one. Which is a bit odd since I live there in the USA. I watched a lot, like mainly, of English shows or at least shows with English actors, especially when I was younger. My family has always been pretty insular and my mom wasn't really the sort to curb eccentric speech, so I think a bit of this stuck around at least to a degree in intonation. Often I kinda get this half-way vibe, where I can tell the English accent is different but it still sounds closer than the American one.

[@cosmicmusicreynolds3266]

simon you sound like a linguist ! you certainly know alot about how language has developed. I take it you know even more about archaeology !

[@joelmattsson9353]

Your tomten vs tomten was excellent. I can't speak for all swedish and norwegian dialects, but at least in mine, and many of the more common ones i am familiar with, we still use these same intonation patterns, just layered overtop the pitch accent. In my dialect, our patterns in the examples given would be very similar to the british english and icelandic examples, just modified by adding peaks or valleys wherever pitch accent demands. Pitch accent is usually very subtle in unstressed words, though, so it doesn't alter the curve as much as one might think. At least from a south helsingian perspective, but i admit i hadn't really considered intonation patterns much before this video, so i haven't thought much about how they might differ in other dialects

[@joelmattsson9353]

@Prof. Spudd yeah, those are pronounced with a long e, and stress only on the -én syllable. Basically the reverse of the acute accent. Last names before a little over a hundred years ago were rare, and always more popular among the upper classes, and in cities. The -én names came into fashion in the 1700s, as it became popular for people who used latin last names to instead change them to sound more French. Wallenius to Wallén, for example. Edit: because i didn't make it clear, no, it's not the same as the second pronounciation of tomten, which is what is known as the grave accent. Tomtén would be a third, distinct pronounciation, with its own stress pattern, but also a different vowel, long e instead of short e, which, at least in my dialect, beyond being different lengths, also aren't exactly the same sounds. Very similar, but not the same

[@JackPoynter]

I just posted this video to our World History group, adding this comment "Simon discusses different intonation patterns in British English, and in American English. For those of you interested in colloquial spoken English, this may be interesting to you as something to fine tune your use of the language. Personally, I am struck by the way basic sentence spoken form does not change, but the sentence is 'warped' into the new pattern. I would think this demonstrates the underlying hierarchical organic construction / deconstruction of the sentence in the brain itself. As an ancient computer program designer / programmer, I can visualize very clearly how the algorithms to perform those actions would be programmed." Many of our members (there are 40,000+ of us) come to the group, from all over the world to improve their spoken / written English skills. Most of the others are interested in world history in general.

[@folke_hagall2946]

I speak Swedish as my native language, and i have noticed that many word pairs distinguished by pitch accent feature one loan word and one native word. In particular french/romance words. Pitch accent is also absent from finland swedish, which tends to more closely adhere to older swedish.

[@Markle2k]

One of the things I have trouble with in Swedish is the rising/falling things with words like "anden". It's either duck or spirit depending on whether the sing-song-y thing is done on the end, IIRC.

[@PaulWiele]

This made me notice something very odd about how I speak. For me (native speaker of something I'd characterize as some kind of hybrid of General American and New England), the tone contour for most questions is very close to what you demonstrated here for American, but when I'm on the phone, I tend to switch to the British tone contour, especially when talking in a formal context, like on behalf of an organization.

[@joaovictorcarvalho6339]

this video is amazing. loved it!!

[@NigelDowney-sh5yd]

If I’m not wrong, a further aspect is that there are also different intonation patterns related to gender, with women using greater range of pitch and intensity

[@sieasunder2871]

Essex girls must be on another level

[@tairneanaich]

Not a hard and fast rule, though, of course- I‘ve known many who do the opposite

[@felixhaggblom7562]

Your pronounciation of tomten/tomten was very good!

[@BluThundr]

Reccomended this after watching the theme some for Atomic Betty, no clue why but this is a fascinating video great work.

[@dracodistortion9447]

welcome back mate

[@paulfisker]

Hi Simon, I am Polish and speak English and Norwegian. I totally understand those intonation lines. These are really helpful to explain questions. My Norwegian teacher used them also to explain the accent. They help a lot. Norwegian (and Swedish) is A WAVE and those lines are really fucked up and look like a constant function. You have to connect the words too... There is a one sentence that explains why we have to wave intonation in Norwegian: ''Barna kan leke ute om vinterem også, men det er viktig - med varme klær!'' \__/¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨\/¨¨¨¨¨¨\_/¨¨¨¨¨¨\_/¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨\/¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨\/¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨ The goal is to be so smooth that foreigners wouldn't be able not split the words. :D

[@BramVanhooydonck]

As a Dutch speaker, I think we use both intonations for questions, depending on how much the person asking the question wants to know the answer.

[@seorsamaclately4294]

It's the same in German, the rising intonation expresses sometimes (more) astonishment.

[@loganfinn2728]

This is a great video. We're lucky to be getting this for free

[@malcolmwebber610]

Thanks for your videos - fascinating stuff! I've always considered intonation the overlay of emotion onto an otherwise stuructured language, without it you sound like a robot! I've taught English as a foreign language in the past and intonation was hard to teach and apparently hard to learn, but it is a very powerful communication skill.

[@andyarken7906]

Well, our teachers never even talked to us about intonation, so I guess just trying was already good. I think a mix of being aware that intonation is different from our mother tongue and hearing a lot of real natives speaking naturally should do the trick. At least in theory, anyway. I know I am very resistant to mimicking intonation, as it sounds like I'm mocking native speakers...

[@nvdawahyaify]

Im an American. Born and raised in California, but i use the British way of intonating my questions. It may be because i used to watch British tv shows as a kid, or it may just be my own ideolect.

[@RobbeSeolh]

Ripuarian, a West Central German variety (spoken in the Cologne-Bonn-Aix-la-Chapelle area) and Limburgish, a Low Franconian language (spoken in the southern Netherlands and westernmost Germany) also have lexical pitch.

[@pstinissen7286]

Very interesting video! I've been very fascinated with phonology and phonetics since the last decade, but only recently I started to develop an interest in intonation as well. I guess this video counts as a fun and yet thorough introduction! By the way, speaking of Swedish and Norwegian as examples of Germanic languages with lexical pitch accents, there's another one as well: Limburgish. Limburgish or Limburgs is sometimes called a dialect of Flemish or Dutch, but it's classified as a distinct language and not being particularly linked to either Flemish or Dutch (since the province in which these language varieties are spoken was divided in the 19th century, with Belgium basically getting the southwestern and central parts and the Netherlands basically getting the northern and eastern parts.) Although there is so much variety in this group of language and even in its use (in some regions, toddlers are being raised in the dialect as we speak, in other regions, especially in parts Flemish Limburg, it's becoming obsolete, and in lots of regions there is a very broad spectrum that goes from people speaking the proper dialect to people only speaking the standard language and everything in between, even new dialects emerging through language contact... you know how complex linguistic situations can be), continuing the sentence... that very often people from one town aren't able to understand the dialect of another town, despite sharing some common features that make both languages Limburgs. One of those common features is that all dialects in Limburg have undergone certain consonant shifts that also occurred in High German in early medieval times. This causes some words to sound the same, like oog (eye) and ook (too (cfr. eke)) are pronounced as /o:x/ or something similar, requiring something extra to distinguish the meanings. This particular tonality didn't disappear when people in Flanders (and eventually in Limburg) began raising their children increasingly in the standard language during the mid and late 20th century. That's why both in The Netherlands and in Flanders, Limburgers (and to some extent, even the neighbouring Kempenaars in the east of the province of Antwerp) are famous because of their singsonginess. Here you have a link to a fragment of a Flemish educational show "Man over woord" in which this is explained. You will see that the host speaks with a very polished Standard Flemish-Dutch accent (he's a singer, actor and presenter) and the professor speaks Standard Dutch with a very clear Limburgish accent (using the uvular fricative for an r) I'm sure you won't need subtitles to understand the majority of what is said, given your good knowledge of Old English and other Germanic Languages. Keep up the good work, it's very enjoyable and educational! kzbin.info/www/bejne/bqnci2B7oLV6d80 and a link to all the episodes: kzbin.info/www/bejne/h3fCYmejnt53ms0

[@kotaowens6978]

A video on intonation changes over the last 50 years would be really interesting

[@midtskogen]

Most dialects in Swedish and Norwegian have pitch accent (and in most of those, the pitch will only differ in the first syllable of words with multiple syllables), but it's worth noting that Danish has a guttural stop "stød" which to a large degree correspond to the system in Sweden and Danish, which could be a development from an earlier pitch accent in Danish lost several centuries ago. Since Icelandic doesn't have it, maybe the pitch accent was developed in the late middle ages. Or maybe the pitch accent was older and a feature of east Old Norse which got borrowed into Norwegian, or also old but lost in Icelandic. I guess this is difficult to reconstruct.

[@blackbass4u2c]

Intonation and cadence of communication is highly important to guide the understanding as harmony in conveying the idea and not only thing.

[@smuecke]

Out of curiosity: Do you write scripts for your episodes or do you improvise?

[@ellie698]

Interesting content as always 👍

[@eufalesio1146]

I'm totaly using the "ingautako" for conlangs.

[@iykury]

as an american, i initially heard the example at the beginning not as a question but as a sort of list, like "ingautako, ingautako!", or maybe similar to how i'd say a countdown like "three, two, one, go!"

[@jlewwis1995]

Yeah he said he was going to say 2 words so when he did the first one it didn't sound like a question to me, it just sounded like he was saying it in a way that you would say it when you're listing off words lol, then he did the british intonation one second and I was like "that sounds a lot like a question", I feel like the pitch difference was way more obvious on tbe british one compared to the US one too which made it even less obvious it was supposed to be a question until id head the second one

[@jlewwis1995]

Also countdowns typically tend to use a falling intonation pattern for every number, not a rising onw

[@joecarstairs2459]

Lovely video. It's good to be reminded that language isn't just about phonology and vocab. Sorry to hear about the bee footage x

[@MikeVerta]

Simon - what's to be made of the recent trend - in America at least - of every other word rising in pitch even when the speaker is not expressing a question at all? "There was a guy? His name was Matthew? And he was, like, a friend of a friend? And I thought he looked just like my brother? Which was totally crazy? 'Cause I always fought with my brother? So I sort of didn't like him at first? Anyway, whatever." I have doggedly kept this out of my son's inflection, but it's everywhere now.

[@rubbezahl3762]

Simon you should do a video asking for directions in old English just for the fun of it. seeing if people can understand you!

[@M.athematech]

I will now forever have the mental image of Swedish airlines being piloted by gnomes.

[@TheZenytram]

Japanese is infamous for their intonation that convey meaning to a word. For exemple: HAshi ga - chopstick haSHI ga - bridge HaSHI GA - edge

[@inferidamus]

The Swedish/ Norwegian pitch accent corresponds to Danish stød. It originated from secondary stress caused by heavy unstressed syllables. The pitch accent developed some time around the transition from proto-Norse to Old Norse. Icelandic and Faroese have lost it since..

[@weepingscorpion8739]

Has it been definitively shown that Old Norse had pitch accent? I always thought these were innovations in (Sweden) Swedish and Norwegian.

[@IanLeoden]

You might also be interested in Franconian tonal accent. For the Cologne variety, it has historically been called Schärfung. It’s at an interesting intersection of intonation and lexical stress.

[@capo3645]

can you explain a little on the difference between stress and pitch accent?

[@subplantant]

This is some of my absolute favourite shit I love this video

[@gedgar]

Yaaay love all ya vids

[@bennoben1653]

Spot on Marra 👍

[@jimmerd]

Limburgish (a Dutch regional language) also has pitch accent like Swedish and Norwegian

[@elissafanzo1124]

Do I smell another collab with the good Doc Crawford?

[@the-birbo]

i have never picked up on that difference. wow

[@willmcpherson2]

10:50 It's crazy how this subtle intonation sounds so Scandinavian

[@DY142]

My guess to the question of why some languages use intonation rather than extra words to convey meaning and focus: they make the language more soulful and colorful. It makes for better songs and poetry.

[@UngKristen]

First sounds like checking a box, second sounds a little more invested

[@la_lavanda]

As a mexican-american, i have realized that me and other mexican-americans use an american english rising tone to ask questions (e.g. "¿no tienes manZANAS?"), whereas a born and raised mexican uses a downstep akin to the japanese pitch accent (e.g. "¿NO TIENES MANZAnas?"). This is probably why my parents still confuse my questions and my statements.

[@bhami]

I'm a native American English speaker, and your first made-up word near the beginning totally sounded like a question. Does American English have the same question tones as Spanish? (Thinking about your Spanish example of statement vs. question distinguished only by tone.)

[@user-wq7rr8nl9t]

Tho begin with in spanish, to know intonation of any word syllable boundaries must be known. Like: -"Caida en picada" ([Ca-Í-da en pi-CA-da] not [kayd-ah ehn peek-adah]). -este, éste, esté are different words -manzana (Man-ZA-na) English speakers make it more loud. A- I like apples B- i LIKE apples C- i like APPLES To spanish speakers A,B,C sound the same (or C is a question or exclamation-Kinda unclear-[?]). Spanish lacks the DO helper (Do you like apples?) so... -Te gusta las manzanas. -¿Te gusta las manzanas? Is just by tone(pitch). PS The same to japanese. (but unlike spanish accent is not written) In the made up word, by pitch accented examplish speaker. * ING-a-u-ta-ko * ing-A-u-ta-ko * ing-a-U-ta-ko * ing-a-u-TA-ko * ing-a-u-ta-KO Could be different words...

[@deadgavin4218]

just because they have differences doesn't mean there arent universals, all of these pitch up and have the distinction one or both could be universals and they could be absolute or tone relative. the us uk differences seems a difference in tone management and where they place the distinction, carrying vs dropping vs level end after distinction could be very volatile other languageswouldhave to be compared. marked words like the Josh example may be subject to more traceable change

[@falstoffe]

Hypothetical: Your spouse / significant other is arguing with you. He/she says something completely mixed metaphor non sequitur that makes no contextual sense. You answer: "What is THAT supposed to mean?" Both the UK and the American would up-pitch "that", and start down pitch on "supposed to mean", which qualifies "that."

[@semproser19]

Hi Simon, I have a question that probably only you could answer: Has the word "O" ever had a more concrete or different meaning throughout time, and where did it come from? E.g. "O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?"

[@FeedsNoSliesMusic]

In case you haven't looked it up, I had a quick glance at etymonline: oh (interj.) interjection expressing various emotions (fear, surprise, pain, invocation, gladness, admiration, etc.), 1530s, from Middle English o, from Old French ô, oh or directly from Latin o, oh; a common Indo-European interjection (compare Greek ō; Old Church Slavonic and Lithuanian o; Irish och, Old Irish a; Sanskrit a). But it is not found in Old English (which had ea and translated Latin oh with la or eala) or the older Germanic languages except those that probably borrowed it from Greek or Latin. "The present tendency is to restrict oh to places where it has a certain independence, & prefer o where it is proclitic or leans forward upon what follows ...." [Fowler] Often extended for emphasis, as in Oh, baby, a stock saying from c. 1918; oh, boy (by 1917); oh, yeah (1924). Reduplicated form oh-oh as an expression of alarm or dismay is attested from 1944 (as uh-oh by 1935). Oh-so "so very" (often sarcastic or ironic) is by 1916. Oh yeah? "really? Is that so?" is attested from 1930.

[@Sargath666]

Greetings from Poland.

[@artilleryvoodoo]

I wonder how ancient Egyptian would have been spoken. I wonder how they would have said "Dont ask us. They were here when we got here."

[@seanfogerty6075]

love u

[@rogerwitte]

Speaking with Chinese speakers, they really only pay attention to the tone of the first syllable of a multisyllable word in decoding the meaning. And they frequently say the second and subsequent syllables too quickly to enunciate the tones correctly anyway.

[@AnnaKaunitz]

Swedish has 2 standard pitch accents and 5 regional pitch accents. Every word has to be spoken with the correct pitch or it does change the meaning of a word. The Swedish spoken in Finland has no pitch. It sounds more archaic.

[@cognomen9142]

Finland Swedish has lost the pitch accent (because of Finnish influence) so it's not an archaic trait to have none. The Swedish (and Norwegian) pitch accents have been around at least as long as the suffixed definite article has existed which is at least 1200 years or so (since Early Old Norse which dates to at latest c. 800AD). Finland Swedish is much younger than that so the Swedes that settled Finland certainly had a pitch accent with them when they moved there starting in the 1300's. Most likely also the first Icelanders and Faroese had a pitch accent in their language, but lost today. Evidence (see p. 369ff in Haukur Thorgeirsson's PhD thesis - notendur.hi.is/haukurth/Hljodkerfi_og_bragkerfi.pdf) suggests that Icelandic had some kind of pitch accent as late as the 1500's ("The theory discussed in this chapter is that a) pre-Reformation Icelandic had a tonal opposition and b) this tonal opposition had a role to play in poetry. Despite some debatable details and loose ends (sections 9.9-9.11) this theory has so much explanatory value that it can be considered strong."). My guess is that Faroese had it even later, maybe in to the 1600's or so (someone should look at the Faroese ballads to find out).

[@indetif839]

Here in the Toronto (Canada) area I hear an extreme amount of "uptalking" (A way of speaking that puts an upward inflection on the last word of a statement that makes it sound like a question when it's not) Anyone have an opinion on how could this affect the development of the language?

[@channingbartlett3334]

Mr Roper, enjoy your presentations very much, thank you. A professor told my class that we begin to learn intonation patterns before we are born; that is, while still inside our mom, we can hear them. Don't know how anyone determined that!