Language Change and Historical Linguistics: Crash Course Linguistics #13

Language is constantly changing. Today’s small changes could lead to entirely new dialects or languages in the future. We can’t predict how these changes will occur, but we can better understand the path a language has taken through historical linguistics. In this episode of Crash Course Linguistics, we’ll learn about how and why languages change, what happens when languages come into contact with each other, how linguists piece together the history of a language, and more!
Acknowledgment: Kirby Conrod
Want even more linguistics? Check out the Lingthusiasm podcast, hosted by the writers of Crash Course Linguistics: lingthusiasm.com/
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[@crashcourse]

CORRECTION: at 9:09 we say that "pod" is Latin but it's actually Greek - the Latin is "ped." Sorry about that! -NS

[@fbkintanar]

Hasn't the scholarly consensus shifted about "Khoesan" being a single family? I seem to have read about three unrelated families now proposed for that group of languages. Perhaps there could be a future video about areal features of languages that are geographically near but with more distant in terms of historical origins from a common language.

[@hamuelagulto796]

Why is "isolates" overlayed with a different audio

[@pepbobmc]

I don't know if it makes a lot of sense saying that two different languages are defined by mutual unintelligibility and then saying that Korean is a language isolate. Korean has at least one sister language, Jeju, with which it is not mutually intelligible

[@rafaelarevalo8047]

@@fbkintanar this would be very interesting, and maybe a cool opportunity to showcase subjects like the proposed Altaic family

[@LupinoArts]

My most favourite term from linguistic classes: Interintelligibility.

[@ihab2002ahmad]

How about: Asymmetric intelligibility

[@chris7263]

I've heard the ISN story many times now, but it never stops being impossibly cool. The kids *taught* it to *each other.* I wonder how aware they were of the process?

[@mattkuhn6634]

Most likely they were only partially aware of it. Think of it like the wug/wugs thing from the last episode - in the same way that English speakers have internalized the rules of pluralization, and can apply that to nonexistent words, these kids had probably already internalized a grammar from exposure. That means, to some extent, they would simply apply those "rules". However, they most certainly had agency in this process, and when there wasn't a rule, they either made one up by analogizing, or simply accepted something as irregular. That's why I think they were only partially aware of it. What would be interesting to see is whether that first generation of ISN was more or less regular than other languages. Given how well-studied ISN is, I wouldn't be surprised if someone's already done that, but a very cursory search of Google scholar didn't turn up anything obvious.

[@jols._.9835]

The same phenomenon happened in Trinidad and Tobago and I'm sure in a few other deaf schools. It's such a fascinating thing

[@casebeth]

I Love that you never fail to include the Deaf community. ❤️ Signed languages are languages too!

[@ramirozapata408]

All languages matter!! 😁

[@vubao5830]

I'm Vietnamese. The Vietnamese language has a very rich history and stuck with Vietnamese people for a long long time. Thanks Crash Course so much for reminding native Vietnamese speakers like me of one of its beauty

[@ericBorja520]

I love the intentional inclusion of non Indoeuropean languages throughout this series.

[@IONATVS]

And the intentional inclusion of signed languages is even more impressive, as many people don’t even realize they are full languages and not just a cipher for whatever the local spoken language is.

[@PatrickAllenNL]

Imagine crashcourse making seperate courses for all the linguistic fields.

[@autumnavalanche1097]

would lose my mind tbh that would be so cool ;;;;;

[@gbasek]

Please do that whole other video please please! I am a French immersion teacher trying to explain the difference between English where they is a pre existing available option, but in french there is not neutral they equivalent and why that is and why it matters. A video discussing neutral pronouns and neo pronouns in different languages would be sooooooo helpful please!!!!

[@israellai]

Where did our rabbit Gavagai run off to?!

[@jared_bowden]

Some Rather Pedantic Notes: 1.) the Khoisan languages are not believed to be a "family" anymore in that they share a common ancestor (as compared to the Bantu family, which ultimately descend from Proto-Bantu); rather, it is sort of a Sprachbund group of several languages families with similar features, namely click consonants. 2.) The Proto-Semtic family itself is part of a larger (and very old) language family known as Afro-Asiatic, which also includes the Cushitic languages, the Chadic languages, Amazigh, ancient Egyptian/Coptic, and others.

[@rafaelarevalo8047]

have there been attempts at reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic?

[@LandgraabIV]

9:09 Foot in Latin is "pēs, pedis" not pod...

[@marlenedietrich2468]

cognates just mean that the words have evolved fom the same original word, not necessarily that they still mean the exact same thing

[@calebschwarz6374]

Ita verum... I believe they meant Greek ?

[@FireRupee]

Yeah, "pod-" is of Greek origin, and is a cognate.

[@weirdlanguageguy]

She might have meant ancient greek where foot ist πούς, ποδός (pous, podos).

[@LandgraabIV]

@@marlenedietrich2468 I'm aware of that, but there is no Latin root "pod-" cognate with English "foot". They probably meant Greek "πούς, ποδός" as pointed out in the other comments, but she claims it to be Latin in the video 09:05.

[@ann-kd7cz]

well this would’ve been good to watch before i took my final yesterday

[@littlebitofeverything5859]

oh noo 😭💀

[@whimsicalhamster88]

This was so so good. I loved Linguistics in college and the relationships between different languages was one of my favorite things to learn about. Basque is so interesting because it really is just like an alien language deposited up around the Bay of Biscay. Love these videos! Thank you so much!

[@eircal6990]

Some ccorrections: 1) Chauser did not use singular they! It appears in the manuscript tradition, but is the result of a copying error (that did, however, take place already during the Middle Ages). The oldest manuscript uses the masculine pronoun instead, which also fits the context better (since the masculine pronoun is used two other times for the same referent on the same section). 2) As someone else already pointed out, there is no Khoesan language family. I'm not an expert of the topic though, so I can't unfortunately say whether they are currently classsified as two or three different families. 3) Ainu is not an isolate, it is a family consisting of three languages: Hokkaido Ainu, Sakhalin Ainu and Kuril Ainu, of which Sakhalin and Kuril Ainu are already extinct. Neither is Korean an isolate: the Koreanic family consists of two languages, Korean and Jeju. Technically also several other inaccuracies, but since this is a "lie to children" kind of video they don't matter as much.

[@casebeth]

Love me some PIE reconstruction.

[@Ristorisris]

Linguistics teachers in 2200: "in 2020s English language went through a random phase, phrases such as okurrrr; skrrrttt; and yeet was being inserted randomly into the language"

[@eamongilligan3262]

This has been another favourite episode for me, along with sociolinguistics. Really looking forward to the upcoming episode too.

[@paulcooper1046]

Great work guys!...Thank you for all of the knowledge...Have a happy and safe Christmas and New Year...

[@lillydinah3357]

Thank you Taylor for all these informative linguistics videos. I'm really enjoying it ❤

[@sudipabhattacharya13]

Wow! I'm so grateful for this course🐱

[@chowyee5049]

You should do a collaboration with Langfocus.

[@sergiosanchezpadilla6941]

Or Xidnaf. I miss that guy a lot.

[@Etudio]

Cuando me mudé de España a Borinquen, ahí un profesor me defendió mi acento pq "hay una diferencia entre casar y cazar e importa". ❤️

[@ericBorja520]

incluso hay acentos que distinguen entre 'll' e 'y', pero esos son menos comunes y, de lo que sepa, solo se habla en unas regiones pequeñas en españa.

[@albertoromero2670]

@@ericBorja520 lo mismo con la pronunciación diferente de B y V

[@katebuikema5240]

This is one of coolest concepts I’ve ever had the pleasure of learning about!!

[@oleksandrbyelyenko435]

Your English "r" in Icelandic and German, and well Dutch... for a linguist you have to pay attention to how "r" in all those words is pronounced differently. Am I wrong?

[@asfandtoor4374]

I still don't understand how I didn't find this channel earlier. The way you convey information is so good that a person won't get bored and easily comprehend the information being conveyed.

[@albertjackinson]

This got me thinking a lot more about this question: How will English change as the decades pass?

[@laurenmiller4824]

Right? I do wonder if there will come a point American English diverges enough to be unintelligible to British English and vice versa.

[@josucartegarcia2085]

My initial belief is that through the increasing globalisation it will tend to a certain homogeneity. However, because of the increase of social media platforms with less standardised forms of English and the incorporation of many English as a Second Language speakers to the Sprachbund, it is bound to change significantly.

[@gazibizi9504]

In different regions and countries differently

[@andresfelipevegaromero7172]

There is no difference in the pronunciation of s,c, and z in all American Spanish-speaking countries, from North America (Mexico) to South America (Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay). This phenomenon also happens in European Spanish, but it happens in specific population of Spain.

[@nepocrates]

I notice with the word iron in game where you gather resources like metals. Take IRON, many non-native English speakers say it as I - RON where I learned as I - ERN.

[@IONATVS]

I believe I-RON was the original pronunciation and is still used many British dialects, but yeah, I-ERN is always how I learned to pronounce it

[@VigneshVicky-ku8gr]

Irony

[@marksusskind1260]

I do know that Hebrew has the same letter, but different sounds. I was thinking that it was due to eventually realizing they could make sounds they hadn't practiced before, but they didn't want to drop the connection to their origins. Bet/Vet, Peh/Feh, Kaph/Khaph

[@sn0250]

I don't know why the only specific country you mentioned re Bantu languages with clicks was Zambia since there is, I think, only one Bantu language spoken there that has clicks (Mbukushu - and even that is mainly spoken in bordering countries). Most Bantu languages with clicks - especially the better known ones like Xhosa and Zulu - are spoken mainly in South Africa. Though there are also Bantu languages with clicks spoken in Lesotho, Eswatini, Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

[@talideon]

The situation with Nigaraguan sign language is a bit more complicated. It took at least _two_ generations of signers, originator and learners, before it became a fully fledged language. Similar things happen with spoken pidgins when they're given the opportunity to become creoles, which are true languages birthed out of pidgins.

[@maddymartin2240]

Just enrolled in a historical linguistics class for the spring semester and I’m so excited!!!

[@nirbusta]

Merci pour la vidéo bien informative mais ça serait bcp plus mieux s'il y avait des sous-titres français svp. 🥲

[@muskduh]

Thanks for the video

[@panorama85]

nice explanations.. Watching from 🇧🇩🇧🇩🇧🇩.

[@english0km410]

unbelievably superb........

[@lorenzg5912]

this takes me back to my time at University. THX :-)

[@TheQueerTailor]

Interinteligability is absolutely fascinating, Yiddish, though predating the word creole , has a lot of similarities to language we describe as creoles and is mutually intelligible with German with one important difference. A Yiddish speaker will understand more German than a German speaker will understand Yiddish because many of the most important words come from Hebrew, Aramaic, or various Slavic languages. Yiddish and German are also mutually intelligible (for the most part) but not mutually readable as Yiddish is written with Hebrew characters. Because of this, during the Holocaust many Jews could understand German and could therefore overhear the Nazis talking time each other, and could understand orders. However, because of the significant Hebrew influence fewer Germans could understand their Yiddish speaking prisoners, which may in some cases have helped survival.

[@OldMansWar]

It ultimately doesn’t matter because language is about communication, so as long as one can communicate effectively nothing is truly “wrong’... but Multilingual - Monolingual does kind of break a loose rule that I’d rather it didn’t lol It SHOULD be either Multilingual - Unilingual or Polylingual - Monolingual Less appealing options are Solilingual or Sololingual (single, Latin), Haplolingual (single, Greek), or Plurilingual (many, Latin)

[@rrrosecarbinela]

Love me some PIE! Thanks, Taylor.

[@hamuelagulto796]

Why is "isolates" overlayed with a different audio

[@josucartegarcia2085]

Yess! I've been looking forward to you mentioning basque since the first video hehe Basque isolate :D Also, ever considered the hypothesis of Middle English being a pidgin between anglosaxon and norman french?

[@HelenRosemarySmith]

Norman french came and completely shook up english didn't it - if I remember rightly so many huge changes in grammar happened as a result

[@NikolajLepka]

Wouldn't Planus be Plains in English?

[@jacobbernard1393]

This video is wonderful.

[@redingtonramos8791]

What's the difference; Piggin, Creole and Dialect?

[@StudyWaliClass]

good way of deliver MAM. awesome video cool .FIRST TIME WATCHING👍😀😊

[@shannonparkhill5557]

Thanks Taylor and the Crash Course Linguistics team. Excellent series :)

[@muhammadisaac07]

Language is awesome

[@Paradiso819]

LOVED it so much that my two subfields of study made in this video. I'm absolutely fascinated by creole and sign languages

[@mawkernewek]

0:02 "Language change is a constant" - is a pun intended?

[@jvjv8093]

I thought that there was only one sign language and that it was universal. After the videos, I realize that they really are like spoken languages. If I were to start learning one, what sign language should I start with?

[@israellai]

Yay my favourite field :D

[@mattybravo9234]

Will there be an episode about the cognitive linguistics? The hardest topic in my intro to linguistic course, which ended yesterday! Btw your vids really help me and my colleague s in that course.

[@EayuProuxm]

This video would have been perfect for an ad from Audible.

[@alicepow260]

I'd love to see that whole other video about the history of gender non conforming language!!

[@felipecrespo6197]

2:35 Indeed, there's an explanation for the 'seseo' in Latin America. It was (and still is) the variety spoken in Seville, the Port used to colonize America. Besides 'seseo' (casa and caza pronounced as casa) in Spain there's also 'ceceo' (casa and caza pronounced as caza) and 'distinción' (casa and caza pronounced with different phonemes). English also has 'distinción': sing and thing, sink and think, sank and thank. The Spanish 'z' is pronounced as the English 'th'

[@varana]

But that just pushes the matter back one step: There is no real reason why people in Seville would speak with seseo and those further north with distinción, i.e. why the older sibilants fell into one in one region and not in the other.

[@felipecrespo6197]

@@varana That's right, the explanation needs to continue several steps back: 1) Why the 6 silibant phonemes of old Castillian were reduced to 3 phonemes (and just one of them sibilant) in the XIV-XVII centuries? Why several related phonemes in a language change to be more different? 2) Why in Andalusia the reduction was a step further to just 2 phonemes? Could be contact with Arabic in al Andalus? 3) Why there is 'seseo' in the city of Seville, but 'ceceo' (not 'distinción') in the surrounding rural areas? Is there any sociolinguistic explanation? The problem with 'seseo', 'ceceo' and 'distinción' in Spain is not the lack a meaningful explanation, but the existence of different explanations for different linguistic phenomena.

[@Mercure250]

@@varana The reason is : It's simpler. We just need people to find a sound distinction not important enough to be maintained (usually unconsciously), and there you go, sounds merge. I find it odd that they said there was no reason, sound changes don't happen for no reason. They usually happen because it makes things easier for the speakers. We can describe language change as a never-ending simplification while never actually simplifying. It's the great paradox of language change : Every time you make something simpler, you make some other thing harder.

[@mercedesmartinezbruera9861]

@@varana just sat for my history of language exam, the reason for seseo in Seville comes from an influence of the Mozarabe language, a Romance language spoken during the Arab occupation in southern Spain. And it was maintained in Seville bc it was a simplification of different oppositions (c - s - z). When the Spaniards came to America, we kept the neutralized version (seseo) aswell

[@KC-lt1ns]

East of Europe? The Pontic Steppe is in Europe! =) Love your videos Guys! =)

[@qpSubZeroqp]

Cognates are amazing! In Romanian you have the word ”da” (yes) which is from Russian. Then you have ”dușman” and ”inamic” which both mean ”enemy” but the first word comes from arabic and the second from latin. Also, I'm not sure where this next Romanian word comes from but it's similar to Japanese: ”sat” which means village and in japanese it's (from what I hear) ”sato.”

[@sceptre1067]

so Darth Vader is Dark Lord Dad?

[@therongjr]

I keep forgetting that the identity of "Darth VADER" shouldn't have been such a surprise to speakers of Germanic languages. 🤦‍♂️

[@MakeMeThinkAgain]

I was hoping you were going to tell the story of how children created a new language in Hawaii curing it's colonial period. I think this also ties in with what you said before about how easy it is for younger kids to learn new languages. In this case they both learn and combine several languages into a new one.

[@user-xq5og9lt8p]

From now on I'll refer to French as "bad Latin" XD

[@PitiNasri]

Why did i cry when i heard about ISN

[@user-ze7sj4qy6q]

i thought tok pisin meant talk buisness, not talk pidgin ? not sure tho

[@laureenthelineau1299]

❤️

[@rundownthriftstore]

If Basque is one of the most unique languages in the world, just wait until you learn about Basque-Algonquin pidgin!

[@afzal6455]

She puts more effort while pronouncing the words like - फ, व

[@infinity3916void]

I this language is timte to time war

[@toushirokuro5323]

Isolates

[@laurenmiller4824]

Ah! Yes. In Korean the F sound is instead P in loan words.

[@SahabatKuliner720]

Where's English language come from

[@ramoneescalante3644]

Im learning a new language and you guys never cover it. Im learning python

[@polasamierwahsh421]

Go to crash course computer science or something along those lines

[@tristanhoward7208]

Same

[@hh-dr4db]

Take a compilers course.

[@varana]

They may not write but they obviously speak Parseltongue.

[@IngoKleiber]

While most linguists are interested in natural languages (which are covered in this CC) there is considerable research on formal languages (e.g., Python).

[@djb903]

What's up with isolates? You're tripping me out, am I the only one that noticed it seems to be dubbed in post? Did she mispronounce it originally or something? Weird.

[@IONATVS]

Yeah, I noticed that too. I’m guessing it was either wrong in the script or she mispronounced it originally and it had to be overdubbed when they caught the mistake.

[@allertonoff4]

" mutually unintelligible "

[@kuroazrem5376]

I've heard from actual Basque people that their language is related to ancient Berber (or Tamazight) language or to the Dogon language in Mali. Also, aren't Korean and Japanese related?

[@somedragontoslay2579]

On the Korean - Japanese relationship. They were said to belong to the Altaic languages. Altaic languages were a proposed language family that would cover most Central Asia: Mongol, Turkish, and of course Japanese and Korean. At first glance it seems solid: Most of these languages have Vowel Harmony or other pervasive euphonic processes, they are agglutinative languages and other strong resemblances. However, that evidence seems crumbles once you realize those features could be borrowed by geographical closeness. Real evidence of relatedness is lacking, if it ever existed. Because of that, the current consensus is that they are isolates. I recommend watching this NativLang video for more info on Altaic: kzbin.info/www/bejne/sGHdnHt-a7-Ce80

[@laprankster3264]

I don’t know about the 1st question, but the 2nd one is disputed. They have a lot of similar features grammatically, but some argue that the similarities are due more to centuries of contact between one another than the languages themselves actually originating from the same source, plus other than the Chinese vocabulary that they share, the words for each are very different. Japanese “haha” and Korean “eoma(ni)” both meaning mother orJapanese “ni” and Korean “du” each meaning 2.

[@felipecrespo6197]

There are several hypotheses about the connection of Basque with other languages. One of them is Basque with Iberian, and one sub-hypothesis is that Basque and Iberian are both related to the Hamitic languages (Berber). But there is not solid evidence for any hypotheses (and the Berber one is very weak).

[@josucartegarcia2085]

There are so many unproven hypotheses about the origin of Basque it's not even fun anymore... Attempts have been made to relate it to languages from regions so distant as the Caucasus, or East Asia. On the other hand there's the Pan-European Basque hypothesis... All of these hypotheses were very common in the past century, with a lot of published texts and still present in the common collective mind (especially amongst people of a middle age), but there is a lot of criticism as to whether they might have taken some coincidences too seriously. However, as I said, it is still quite easy to find people who will be familiar with the Basque-Berber theory, even though it was discarded years ago. In my opinion, trying to relate a language so old (some dating it back to the Stone Age) is a useless effort as our tools are still very limited nowadays (looking at modern data) and will never provide conclusive evidence. Just like Basque linguist Koldo Mitxelena said: "The mystery of the Basque language is not its origin, but its duration", which is the more relevant and more present problem. "Euskararen misterioa ez da jatorria, iraupena baizik" - Koldo Mitxelena Disclaimer: I'm not a linguist, I'm just a Basque speaker with a developed interest in our language.

[@Mercure250]

Speaking a language doesn't make you an expert of that language. Unless those Basque people are linguists and have actual proof of what they're saying, it's probably just a myth that circulates in their community.

[@Solbashio]

7000 languages. 7 Billion humans. Total average life span?... 70.

[@alsatusmd1A13]

Obviously you’re talking about real life, no one would believe this as a made up coincidence in a fictional world.

[@mmmmmmmmmmmmm]

"just like French isn't bad Latin for being descended from it" but it IS

[@oleksandrbyelyenko435]

Not bad Latin. Ot is a Vulgar Latin. I guess vulgar is worse than bad.

[@aaronhe6877]

hello first comment here

[@eldritchabomination0]

I'm sorry but napron made me think of napalm.

[@emiliechen]

Forth

[@aratheyt1213]

sixth*

[@LtNduati]

English is a creole of German/Dutch and French. *Change my mind*

[@camelstudios7237]

First

[@goatedvortex8297]

first

[@jaidacrystal761]

Hi Guys 😍💋 💝💖