Language Overview: English

[@dylanevans3237]

Something I noticed is that the pronunciation rule of "the" (/ðə/ before consonants and /ði/ before vowels) does not always apply. When the following word begins with a vowel, "the" may be prounced as /ðə/, as long as it is a stressed syllable. So "the initial" would always have /ði/, but "the apple" could have /ðə/. I heard you do this with "the end" at 16:07, though elsewhere you tended to use /ði/ as the rule predicts. I also have this same inconsistency with "the" before stressed vowel-initial syllables.

[@jasonlongsworth4036]

I think what I related to and may translate to you is that if I say ðe apple, I have to pause in between the words

[@dylanevans3237]

@@jasonlongsworth4036 I think for myself, there would typically be a glottal stop that gets inserted to separate the words to prevent hiatus, while for /ði/ there is a /j/ between words to prevent hiatus. I think Geoff Lindsey's video on "Why English phonetic symbols are all wrong" included an explanation of this.

[@fariesz6786]

​@@dylanevans3237 interestingly Geoff Lindsey just released a video on the usage of glottal stops at the start of words. i reckon words with an initial stress are more likely to have a hard onset bc the syllable is emphatic anyways.

[@dylanevans3237]

@@fariesz6786 Yes, I also saw that video. Hard attack before stressed syllables sounds very normal to me, but I would normally hear hard attack before an unstressed syllable if someone is trying to enunciate by pronouncing each word separately. In this case, I am not sure whether the hard attack is due to emphasis or due to the short pauses before every word.

[@heironic8547]

In my dialect of english I almost always use /the/ over /thi/ regardless of the next word. (sorry I don’t have ipa keyboard) I only use /thi/ for emphasis or enunciation. I have always wondered this and why I never did it, and I think people around me don’t follow this rule either.

[@vvvvaaaacccc]

12:41 as a great man once said, "I say 'smurves' and I say 'milves' because of 'wolves' and of 'elves'"

[@morriskaller3549]

You pronounce /p/ at the end of words as a glottal stop? I've never heard this

[@defenestrated23]

Reminds me of pithy english teacher sayings like "ain't ain't a word" and "you can't end a sentence with a preposition". Like, fucking *why?* If you can say it, and others can understand it, that's a valid syntax. Also, congrats on the algo!

[@randomguy-tg7ok]

Surely the second sentence should be "a preposition isn't something you can end a sentence with" to preserve the irony present in the first.

[@notme437]

@@randomguy-tg7okexactly..

[@LexieAssassin]

If a possessor ends in S, then the apostrophe S turns into just an apostrophe. It's a detail that many miss, and irks me since my name does end in an S. Also, at least in my dialect, I use double contractions like I'd've (I would have OR I did have - Pronounced like Ida or Iduv a lot of the time.)

[@alexxxO_O]

I use those contractions too!! I also have stuff like "that'd've" as "thad've".

[@rosiefay7283]

"If a possessor ends in S, then the apostrophe S turns into just an apostrophe." Wrong. There's nothing wrong with the boss's job, the lens's power, Chris's family.

[@MagicjavaGames]

@@rosiefay7283 I think with names you keep the ‘ so it’s “Chris’s family” but “the students’ score. So basically you drop the s when a plural noun ending in s needs to indicate possession.

[@kitcutting]

“‘Twouldn’t’ve” is archaically weird and deserves a mention. Also “y’all’d’ve,” which gets thrown around a lot in American English, especially in the South.

[@LisandroLorea]

You are right. It's related to the history of the possessive but basically for singular nouns ending in s you add 's (/iz/) and for plurals ending in s you just add ' (/∅/)

[@fariesz6786]

as a bird i can confirm that we indeed love to steal yellow socks

[@avyay9818]

God, as a native American english speaker, i'm just realizing how english is even more complicated than French.

[@jasonlongsworth4036]

As a native american who speaks english or as a native of American English? Lol

[@jmanig76]

As a speaker of both, French orthography and grammar are a nightmare, English pronunciation is a nightmare I was lucky enough to learn English as a very young age, but my heart has always gone out to those who have to learn it as an adult.

[@avyay9818]

@@jasonlongsworth4036 the second one

[@johnappleseed3428]

english grammar is easyyyy but the pronounciation is the worst lmao

[@haroldgarson4800]

I have found that when I have a plural possessive apostrophe, I do pronounce the unwritten s. For example, when I say Mullins' I usually say "Mullinses" which while not exactly up to par with grammar rules, I find easier to understand.

[@coolandhip_7596]

I believe this is a regional thing. I was looking into this when I was writing a paper in college (unrelated topic I just didn't want to look like an idiot) and it looked like in proper nouns it was a dialectal thing. I think in much of the the south and midwest "Mullinses" would be preferred and on the west coast and in much of the atlantic metro corridor "Mullins'" was prefered if I recall correctly.

[@sirBumpyCase]

I learned quite a bit in this video, even as an English speaker, but even even as an English speaker, most of it went over my head lol

[@kingding9542]

It's wild to me how I've spoken english since I knew how to talk but find it confusing when the way my own language works is explained to me

[@brromo]

In the section you showed that the difference between plough & plow is dialectal, I use both, plough is a noun, plow is a verb. "The plough plows the field"

[@dan74695]

[ɹ] exists in more languages than people think. Dialects in Norway have it, dialects in Sweden have it, dialects in Denmark have it, Faroese has it, Dutch has it, some Brazilian Portuguese dialects have it, and I've even heard that there are German dialects that have it. [ð] also exists in one or two dialects in western Norway, and in dialects in Dalarna in Sweden.

[@yeungcharlie7296]

Chinese also has this.

[@doepen6700]

@@yeungcharlie7296 isn't chinese ɻ

[@mertatakan7591]

@@doepen6700 It is so is my idiolect of English

[@rosiefay7283]

1:54 English doesn't have /e/ natively. [e] might occur in the accents of some in NE England.

[@mertatakan7591]

He meant /ɛj/

[@speedwagon1824]

16:30 This helps explain so much!! I was taught in school that the est vs most type distinction depends on the length of the word, but this didn't seem to be true. Now I know that it isn't true!

[@volpixrossi3589]

Its funny to me how French has more consistent spelling rules than English

[@Copyright_Infringement]

Hey, linguist here! You seem to consistently put /ø/ for the sound in "should", but it's generally agreed upon to be the back vowel /ʊ/. Additionally, there are a number of American dialects that preserve the caught/cot distinction, so I think it would've been smart to include /ɔ/ in the phoneme list Generally, though, good job on the video. It's always good to see people getting interested in language :)

[@CommonCommiestudios]

The catch is that he didn't put /ø/, instead he put [ø], which is not used as a phoneme but as a phone, which simply means that's how he realizes this sound in actual speech The /phoneme/ vs [phone] distinction in broad vs narrow transcription is a tricky and subjective question, but that's how I see it

[@Copyright_Infringement]

​@@CommonCommiestudios Technically true, but he uses that [ø] in all circumstances: lists, transcription, etc, all while his actual realization of the vowel during the video is consistently [ʊ] (eg. 10:30 "had you had a good life up to then?")

[@CommonCommiestudios]

@@Copyright_Infringement Also true, the fronting would probably be caused by the palatalization effects of the preceding /ʃ/ in should

[@Razor-gx2dq]

Minor note, triple contractions exist such as y'all'd've Meaning: you all would have.

[@jaycee330]

I can beat that with a quadruple: "''twould'n't've" (It would not have)

[@rosiefay7283]

And Americans poke fun at us for "fo'c's'le".

[@alegendsock2581]

y'all'dn't've

[@terben7339]

In your example "Do you know where a bank is" at 23:46, you say that the verb "is" goes at the end because the question function was already established in the first clause. Isn't it more likely that the word order is because of its Proto-West Germanic origin? Modern German retains this word order eg "Wissen Sie, wo eine Bank ist?" as does Dutch. "Weet je waar een bank is?"

[@aloedg3191]

I find it interesting that looking at Shakespeares writing there are a lot of cases of word order you would expect to see in german more than english

[@MedK001]

@@aloedg3191 Really? That's super interesting! Think you could show some examples?

[@janLikeli]

I know you probably won't reply to an older video but. I'm confused, when you gloss "good" and "should" with [ø], why do you do that? I feel like your realization of /ø/ sounds way too much like /ʊ/ for it to be [ø]: when I try and mimic the pronunciation in your gloss, it sounds nothing like your pronunciation, which sounds more like you're realising it as /ʊ/. Is this a personal vowel analysis, or does it come from another source? :0c

[@watchyourlanguage3870]

It is personal, and it doesn’t sound like [ʊ]- that’s the general British/Australian pronunciation, which is much closer to [u]. If we want to be super precise with the IPA character I’m using for that vowel, it would be [ø], but slightly less rounded- so [ø̜] (I have a more recent video about IPA where I explain all of this)

[@janLikeli]

@@watchyourlanguage3870 Ohhh I see, I'll have to check that out then :0c Sorry if I happened to come off as rude, and thank you for the explanation!

[@novaace2474]

Ok, I have a few questions about this. First off, where are you getting your symbols for English vowel phonemes? I’m not a native English speaker, but I have not seen them represented like that anywhere, and English most definitely uses [ej] where you write [e]. Also, where do you get all English plosives turn into glottal stops at the end of words? English speakers can most definitely distinguish plosives at the end of words (off the top of my head, rat and rap, loot and loop, etc), and even if they aren’t fully pronounced, since native speakers can tell them apart they should get different symbols. Overall though, pretty good video 👍

[@watchyourlanguage3870]

I’ll probably make a video about this in the future, but I don’t like the “standard” English IPA because it tries to compromise between American and British and represents neither of them, so I just try to write how I talk. In more recent videos I’ve started writing p̚ t̚ k̚ for the “articulated but not produced” plosives, I prefer it bc as you said, we can differentiate, but unfortunately when I was making this video, I didn’t know that system existed, so I was stuck with ʔ

[@angeldude101]

The standard compromise transcription often doesn't match either North American _nor_ British English because of misconceptions held when forming it. I can confirm that the letter a's name is pronounced like [ej] even if the standard transcription says /eɪ/ even when it really is a glide in most areas of both the UK and North America. At the least, it's definitely a diphthong rather than a monophthong. Sometimes its easier to just name the vowel sounds rather than use IPA, in which case it's FACE. Regarding word-final plosives, I'd say only the /t/ becomes a glottal stop. Everything else seems more like an ejective, or at least the unvoiced ones.

[@jasonlongsworth4036]

Oh that's why, I got so confused, I thought you meant they all ended with the same consonant

[@jasonlongsworth4036]

@@angeldude101 i like the naming the vowel idea much better for legibility anyways, but that's just as an anglophone

[@PoolOfPeas]

Yeah, at 14:39 there's the word "main", which is clearly not an [e] monophthong, but a closing diphthong like [ej].

[@rateeightx]

Your description of voiceless plosives changing intervocalically feels a bit inaccurate; Usually they maintain aspiration when at the start of the stressed syllable, Regardless where in the word they fall, For example the word "Implode", To me it feels unnatural to _not_ aspirate the /p/ there, Despite it being in the middle of a word. At least that's how I pronounce the sound, And that's how I've always heard other Americans speak as well. EDIT: Honestly most of the phonemes section here is inaccurate for my Idiolect, Although I suppose Virginians might speak funny, I haven't interacted with many. Pronouncing any consonant other than /t/ as a glottal stop feels weird, As do honestly most of the vowels, Most notably with /æ/ before nasal consonants, Since you actually said that one outright, For me it's pronounced the same before /m/ and /n/, Only before /ŋ/ does it change (It changes the same before /g/), To a sorta diphthong, Which I'd transcribe as [æĭ̯] (With the extra short diacritic because the closing part is shorter than in other diphthongs like /ai/ or /ei/.)

[@nolidev4926]

who decided this would be an international language

[@gg-sk6zq]

As a L2 speaker, who also learned other languages, I can confidently say, that English is quite easy compared to other languages. Except for the pronunciation part

[@TheGreenPig321]

I heard somewhere that in order to speak english, you have to speak very lazily and not try to be very specific with your vowels

[@coolandhip_7596]

Learning "An History" was a common Britishism in formal and now-archaic writing was a bit of a smack in the face when reading an academic book my freshman year of college.

[@norude]

I swear, I've seen a similar video by some other channel, but also the same style of video for german, which I desperately need

[@talideon]

8:27 - I vaguely recall this having to do with some word final devoicing that English mostly no longer has, though you still see it in pairs like "half" and "halves".

[@GalaxyFlunky2022]

in my opionion. the ' kind of changes the pronounciation of words. after all, guys vs guy's

[@heironic8547]

14:22 I’ve always rearticulated the s’ plural possessive. /kætses/ for cats’ (sorry I don’t have ipa keyboard) I do know it’s a bit harder to say and a lot of people don’t do that but I do it for clarity.

[@daveloomis]

p--v took me waaay to long to figure out....

[@johns123]

Nice to find a fellow NOVA resident on this sight 💪

[@djc4968]

I would say that fastly is a valid adverb although optional in its use and frowned upon formally. Mostly due to the word quickly which can be used in its place; fastly is like the cross section between quickly and fast. The sentences "Do it quickly.", "Do it fastly.", and "Do it fast." are all acceptable because they can be understood by the majority of English speakers and they do not make the sentences sound backwards or overtly strange.

[@MrHackTheGibson]

Bigly.

[@404Dannyboy]

Do it fastly sounds very strange but I would understand it.

[@jasonlongsworth4036]

Fastly is also the way you conjugate fast as in steadfast (steadfastly)

[@person_guy3505]

Damn, really well put-together video for how small this channel is. One thing I would recommend though is cutting out the places where you pause to take a breath.

[@weepingscorpion8739]

Actually, am can contract with not. Maybe not in your dialect but in certain Northern English and Scottish dialects the form amn't exists. As for would it's [wø]? That's very interesting.

[@argh523]

"bigly, tinily and fastly aren't words" Of course they are words. They're just not considered standard, because they're not used in prestigious dialects and sociolects. But they are words, obiously

[@LisandroLorea]

For me it makes more sense to say that english has only "the" and "an" with the strong forms /ði/ and /æn/. /ði/ weakens to /ðə/ when not accented, except in front of vowel sounds. /æn/ weakens to /ən/ when not accented, except in front of consonant sounds where it further weakens to /ə/ and is spelled "a". Maybe it's more complicated but I like that it reflects the history of the language and the actual processes involved.

[@Comradez]

Wh at the start of words is more and more being pronounced as if it were just a W, but there are still some English speakers, more often of older generations, who noticeably pronounce the h in wh words: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pJe5dqmdjMlnm80

[@yesid17]

dude what.... look up Middle English, what you describe at 7:50 literally did not happen like that, silent e used to be pronounced (as schwa) and the long vowels were literally longer like in other languages with long vowelsen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift

[@Rybos]

Highly underrated channel

[@bobmccarty2022]

"Shall"? No? Okay, probably best to leave out "shall", especially in an American English context.

[@AllYourMemeAreBelongToUs]

8:30 per_

[@theidioticbgilson1466]

i'm learning more about american english in this video than by native lect

[@SeFreaCweth]

wh- just sounds like the first letter? Who would say that?

[@StrangeMold]

People who have the Wine-Whine merger?

[@Mac_an_Mheiriceanaigh]

Clever!

[@mertatakan7591]

Cuz it does a lot of people have the wine-whine merger

[@fhbirsidha]

The life long list starting with 'abide by' has gone missing

[@Deckbark]

The hardest language on the planet change my mind

[@MrPillowStudios]

This language IS A WONDER.

[@hoi-polloi1863]

Another lovely video. Just one request, from having binged your inventory... will you *please* stop apologizing for Anglocentricity? We English speakers, we have our language, we love it, we're proud of its features and quirks, and are not sorry at all about it.

[@peorcyhen5062]

It's not about being proud or happy about the language, but everything being based on the language makes it biased against non-native speakers, that's what anglocentricity is

[@TurdFurgeson275]

@@peorcyhen5062 not sorry. Proud of it.

[@jasonlongsworth4036]

There's nothing to be proud of and nothing to be butthurt over. Just deal with not being the center which the study of languages revolves around and move on (because there isn't supposed to be a center) It's got nothing to do with quirks and features, since they are just as valuable as those of any other language (and as you say, quite nice)

[@jasonlongsworth4036]

Jfc if fewer wasp Americans were around we would be so much better off

[@efeh61]

look mom, the foreigner is making it about them again 👉

[@chloewolff8469]

I like your words funny man

[@junerdz]

LET'S GO NOVA REPRESENT!!!

[@Fummy007]

>English >Shows USA flag ?

[@shadow_wili2975]

They mean American English

[@StrangeMold]

based

[@urphakeandgey6308]

When Aussies say "yeah ey," it tends to sound more like "yeahr ey."

[@chuckyfoan]

dude reaaally impressive video. baller.

[@Garfield_Minecraft]

That's American not English English now i'm trying to turn off subtitle lol Realized that's not from KZbin CC I don't know why we add s for plural or 3rd person verb Nobody cares how many dogs i have? Right?

[@rosiefay7283]

2:07 That was unnecessary. Why not also do a video about Russian and mention the deaths of 22 million Russians due to Stalin's regime?

[@jacobdrenick]

Classic whataboutism

[@lucasqin7120]

why is /ɔɪ/ or something similar not a phoneme in American English? what vowel do you use in the word "void", for example? edit: might it be the case that you have a merger between the vowels of "boy" and "bye"? see here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_English_diphthongs#Line%E2%80%93loin_merger

[@watchyourlanguage3870]

this is mostly a cultural thing, but /æu̯/ and /ɑi̯/ both came from monophthongs in Middle English, while /oi̯/ didn’t. Also, since [o] is an allophone that occurs before liquids, and /j/ is a liquid, that’s how I see it. It’s totally open to interpretation tho

[@lucasqin7120]

@@watchyourlanguage3870 i see. thanks for the explanation. however, i am a bit doubtful that this interpretation is the most suitable one, because: 1. /j/ is not a liquid by the strict definition of "liquid", which only includes laterals and rhotics, so /l/ and /ɹ/ for english. see here: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_consonant 2. if [oj] is analyzed as diphonemic /ɞu/+/j/, it will be the only time /j/ is allowed at the end of a syllable (after the syllable's vowel), other than cases like monophonemic /ɑj/ which doesn't count because it's 1 phoneme. just like how /h/ is restricted to syllable onset and /ŋ/ to the coda in english, i would prefer to keep standalone /j/ (and /w/) restricted to the syllable onset in my analysis. otherwise we get a weird distribution rule like "/j/ is only allowed in the syllable onset and immediately after /ɞu/". so i would prefer to analyze /oj/ much the same way as /ɑj/, i.e. as a single phoneme. 3. do native english speakers in general intuitively "feel" that [oj] is 2 phonemes? as in, if you were asked to separate the word "boy" into individual "sounds" (assuming you know nothing about linguistics or phonetics at this point), would you be more inclined to do /b/+[o]+/j/ or /b/+/oj/? what about for [ɑj]? for me personally, i would definitely opt for the /oj/ as a single "sound" intuition. same as for /ɑj/. if your intuition for /oj/ is analogous to that of /ɑj/ as well, then maybe it really is just 1 phoneme after all. thanks for reading. i do not expect any changes on your part, as i see you have thought about your phonetic analysis for english very thoroughly and spent lots of effort perfecting and fine-tuning your system. however i hope that my explanation is able to get you to think about /oj/ more deeply and maybe lead you to reconsider your interpretation. thanks!

[@Liethen]

​@@lucasqin7120 In my dialect of american english I definitely would analyze it as b+oj. Diphthongs are treated same as monophthongs, not like a vowel + consonant. My dialect has i/ɪ/ɛ/ə/æ/ɑ/o/ʊ/u and eɪ̯/ɑɪ̯/oɪ̯/əʊ̯/æʊ̯ and m̩/n̩/l̩/ɹ̩. And while the cot-caught merger has limited the presence of o in my speech, it isn't limited to before r/l/and j. I also have it before n (on never ɑn) also as an allophone of l̩. I think the author should have specified which american dialect he is using as his model, as travelling around areas that are listed on map as "General American" the actually dialects will be a bit messy on which sound changes they have.

[@StrangeMold]

@@Liethen He did say at the beginning that it's based on dialect