Why Latin doesn't have a word for “THE” • Evolution of Grammatical Articles in Languages

Why doesn't Latin have any articles (words for THE, A, AN in English), but the Romance languages do? Why does Latin have a word for the grammatical article, articulus , yet the language lacks this part of speech? How do articles develop? Why? Are all articles from the same source, or do they develop independently? Are all languages getting simpler and less sophisticated over time?
Are there no articles in Latin? Are articles used in Latin? Why do some languages not have articles? When did Latin develop articles?
In this video I will discuss these topics, and more!
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Intro and outro music: Overture of Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) by Mozart
#Rome #Italy #Latin
00:00 Intro
01:05 Greek origins
02:45 Case systems
04:50 Why does the article develop?
09:43 Outtakes

[@dutchie265]

In school I learned that "il" in Italian and "le/la" in French came from the Latin demonstrative "ille/illa", meaning "that". Similar to what was mentioned in the video, that the ancient Greek articles also came from demonstratives.

[@Jonassoe]

Demonstratives seem linked to articles in a lot of languages. If you don't have articles in your languages, the demonstratives are obvious words to pick them from :D Scandinavian languages also use their demonstratives as articles, but only if there is an adjective in front of the noun.

[@tylersmith3139]

Il also means "he" and "it" in French.

[@DonPaliPalacios]

Demonstratives becoming articles seems to be the general trend, at least in European languages. It also happened in Germanic ("the" and "that" share the same root) and in Bulgarian (the articles, third-person pronouns and demonstratives have the same root, which also appears in demonstratives in other Slavic languages). By the way, the Greek, Germanic and Bulgarian articles and demonstratives all have a common origin in the Proto-Indo-European demonstrative, which for the singular nominative is: *so (masculine), *séh₂ (feminine), *tód (neuter).

[@GalaicoWarrior]

"ille" as an definite article also means 'the'. You can check-out my post here.

[@weirdlanguageguy]

@@JonassoeI think articles developed from demonstratives in most, if not all Germanic languages. Articles almost seem to be week demonstratives

[@PodcastItaliano]

I'm amazed at your ability to expose a topic like this without a script and very few cuts. How do you do this? 😅 Great video, Luke!

[@shelleyoxenhorn833]

He's brilliant.

[@Romanophonie]

Ma tu riesci a farlo anche, Davide :)

[@bakters]

"How do you do this?" He's a native English speaker exposed to real languages. His suffering is so real, he doesn't need a script! ;-)

[@Jordi_Llopis_i_Torregrosa96]

@@bakters what

[@bakters]

@@Jordi_Llopis_i_Torregrosa96 "what" I'll just c&p my other post: It seems to me that some languages trade their case system for articles, and it somehow means that all of them are equally sophisticated? Very different, on the most fundamental level, but somehow exactly, equally, sophisticated? The exact same level of entropy? Despite all the differences? Maybe God exists after all, for only him/her/zie/sie/ey/ve/tey/e could make sure such a miracle would occur! ;-)

[@lunarAureola]

Interestingly enough is that in Gothic, one of the earliest attested Germanic language (now extinct, but there's a growing community reviving the language!), also doesn't have articles. 𐍃𐌰 (sa), 𐍃𐍉 (so) and 𐌸𐌰𐍄𐌰 (þata) are only used as demonstratives (this, that etc.) and only when it's used as an article it's when Gothic tries to "calque" the Greek sentences.

[@Flozone1]

Old High German is in a similar situation as Gothic, although articles are recognisable in a sort of nascent state already. Interestingly Germanic languages already had a way to express definiteness before articles came around. The distinction between weak and strong adjectives in Germanic predates the existence of articles.

[@Stoirelius]

Same for proto-indo-european

[@frenchimp]

@@Flozone1 Russian also has two forms of the adjective, the so-called short form, which is the older one, and used to be declined like a noun, but now is no longer declinable, is used only as predicate and exists ony for some adjectives, and the long form, which originally was the short form to which a weak demonstrative was appended (a sort of enclitic article) and now is of general usage.

[@mihanich]

@@frenchimp you mean the analogy "hohes Haus > das Haus ist hoch" vs "высокий дом > дом высок"?

[@frenchimp]

@@mihanich Exactly but also you have ein Guter Mann/ der Gute Mann - though I would not go so far as to call it an analogy, because the two forms of the adjective are not used in the same way at all in germanic languages and in russian, but I find it interesting that both families developped two different declensions for the adjective, quite independently.

[@agatatymczyszyn6247]

Hi im Polish. Polish, as you have mentioned, has very similar gramatical structure to old indoeuropean languages like latin. My theory is that article emerges as a "phantom" while declension disappears, because declension gives space for flexible sentence structure and enables to achieve the defined article "effect" by putting the word at the beginnig of the sentence and accentuate it.

[@wodzisaww.5500]

Tak może się wydawać, ale tylko w tym sensie, że systemy innowacyjne w rzeczownikach są bardziej prawdopodobne że mają przedimków. A ponieważ stare języki indoeuropejskie nie mają przedimków, innowacja utraty przypadków pochodzi z rozwijających się przedimków w kontekście języków indoeuropejskich. Łacina przegrywała sprawy przed rozwojem przedimków. Przyimki są odpowiedzialne za utratę przypadków w łacinie

[@ogniankamenov481]

German has 4 declensions and definitive articles which carry declensions

[@Delibro]

@@ogniankamenov481 Yes, why then German has four cases AND articles? :)

[@Qvadratus.]

@@Delibro German has lame cases that are dying out.

[@valerietaylor9615]

The Germans are what we call in English “ belt and suspenders” people. They’re very thorough and don’t like to leave anything to chance.

[@oniricodosfatos8286]

I'm learning Russian, and it's impressive how many structural similarities it has with Latin... great video!

[@blinski1]

As do all slavic languages. There are more similarities in there with roman and germanic languages than people think, but mere pronunciation and technicalities ('slaving up' all the borrowed and shared since indo-european language times words) make people think they are terribly distant from other European languages they are familiar with.

[@chrisd.6291]

We got our alphabet from Greeks and faith (orthodox christianity) from Romans, so I assume their languages had an influence through that on Russian.

[@yxrdan]

@@chrisd.6291 it was the bulgarians that gave the slavs the Cyrillic

[@sahinoudiengo816]

I am native Russian speaker and now i am learning Latin. The same situation, how many structural similarities Latin has with Russian!😁

[@sahinoudiengo816]

By the way, I found one interesting fact. Latin doesn't have any real personal pronouns of 3d person. We can use demonstrative pronouns hic,haec,hoc/ille,illa,illud/is,ea,id as personal pronouns of 3d person. There was a similar situation in Ancient Russian. For example, онъ(он),она,оно were demonstrative pronouns for something far. In modern Russian we use these pronouns as personal.

[@WeyounSix]

I think the reason why I love this channel so much even though I don't have a huge interest in Latin specifically, is that I love etymology, and learning you explain things about Latin is really engaging, and you use modern etymological links to make your points, and I love that so much!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

I’m delighted

[@WeyounSix]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Just joined the channel subs! Keep up the good work Luke!

[@liuliuliu3747]

I was recently wondering about why Latin doesn't have articles while Spanish does so this was quite enlightening. Keep the good work Luke, I hope your channel helps make Latin "cool" again.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks! Very kind

[@RobertKaucher]

So, something to blow your mind... Just before the Roman empire started having issues in the West, none of the other Indo-European languages spoken contemporaneously in Western Europe had articles either. Proto-Germanic and the Celtic languages, for example. But by the start of the medieval period, all the descendent languages seem to have had them. Old English, Old Norse, Old Irish, Old Welsh... In Italy, for example, the Commodilla catacomb inscription uses ille as an article. It's like all throughout Western Europe, everyone got the same idea at the same time.

[@liuliuliu3747]

@@RobertKaucher A very interesting coincidence indeed. Don't tell History Channel about it though, or they'll make some theory about how Aliens created articles just like they did with the pyramids.

[@RobertsTravels]

@@RobertKaucher The education in many countries is very bad, people don't know, that more people speak IE languages outside of Europe (not counting the migrants to Americas). Who knows, that most languages in North India are IE? That Persian, Armenian, Kurdish, Balochi, Punjab are IE? That most people in Afghanistan speaks IE languages? Who knows about IE Medes empire (later transformed to Persia), who together with Babylonians capture Nineveh in 612 BC? Due to the lack of education, many people in the West think, they are the navel of the world. They don't see any difference between Hindu or Punjab and Arab men in turban. As a result, after 9/11 many IE men were attacked in the USA due similar dress. But how much the world will lost if tomorrow we will wake up without the German languages? Near nothing at all.

[@alonsoACR]

@@RobertsTravels Hey you were making a fair point but there was no need to diss the Germans like that

[@lothariobazaroff3333]

We don't have any articles in Polish and they are for us one of the most difficult aspects of learning foreign languages. Even after years of learning French, English, German and Italian I tend to make a basic mistake such as omitting an article or, more often, using an (the?) indefinite one instead of the definite one (and vice versa). And there are also differences between those languages, for instance you have to say in French: "Les enfants, venez ici !" (lit. *The* children, come here!"). I was very content to discover that there's only one (definite) article in Welsh: "y". It makes learning this interesting language much easier for me.

[@valerietaylor9615]

I’m a native English speaker, and I find the Slavic languages very difficult on account of the many noun cases. I’ve also studied German, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, and found them all quite easy.

[@desanipt]

It's actually interesting because in Portuguese it is not obligatory to put the article before a person's name. The thing is, when you do, you give this nuance that you know the person, she/he is right there, you interact with her often, or see/hear him/her often. So you'll see it being used in most daily conversations. When you don't, it makes it feel like you're distant to the person. So you'll probably see it more often without the article in newspapers, narrations in books...

[@cosettapessa6417]

In italian as well. It’s against the rules but sometimes in the north, milan, they always do it.

[@hone3134]

It does not work like that at all, though. If you say “I’ll call Pedro” you need to use the article, otherwise it will sound very weird. Compare “eu vou chamar o Pedro” and “eu vou chamar Pedro”. The second sentence sounds extremely weird and almost wrong at least for a Brazilian Portuguese native speaker. In fact, in some cases whether using or not might show the level of friendship between speaker and the person being referred to, but I’d say that in the vast majority of cases we use articles before names, at least in Brazilian Portuguese, not sure if it works like this in Portugal.

[@Armyan8300]

In old french it was very commun to use an article before a person name but now it's very informal and it tends to depreciate the person.

[@weekmix]

in Spanish, you can sometimes hear those who use the definite article when talking about someone well-known by both the speaker and the listener. LA María no vino a nuestra fiesta = María no vino a nuestra fiesta >>> María didn't come to our party (literally "the María, that María we both know") But this usage is considered vulgar, and often seen as typical of uneducated people, so not recommended.

[@desanipt]

@@hone3134 Yeah, in Portugal the most normal thing would be to use the article almost always. The thing is, it would sound weird to use it in certain situations nonetheless. Say you're, idk, a journalist describing a situation in an impersonal way. Like "Joe Biden chamou Xi Jiping para uma conferência" [Joe Biden called Xi Jiping for a conference] seria o normal. Dizer "O Joe Biden chamou o Xi Jiping..." would sound way out of place, as if the journalist actually was close to them or something like that (even if he were, it shouldn't be a thing he should be letting know in an informative text). But maybe in Brazil you'd phrase it differently? A thing I also notice a lot is that in Portugal we will [almost] always use the article before possessives (like "a minha mãe", "o meu amigo"). While I notice that in Brazil (despite still being used a lot of times) it is rather normal to just use the possessives without articles as well.

[@graf]

latin 🤝🏻 ancient greek

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

🤝

[@seid3366]

Sanskrit: *Cry*

[@imbricitor]

Proto-Germanic: ouga bouga I can't yet write. Also ek erilaz.

[@carterwood4197]

@@seid3366 Sanskrit > Latin/Greek fight me

[@seid3366]

@@carterwood4197 No. Modern Indo-European languages > Old Indo-European languages

[@jopeteus]

As a Finnish speaker, I found the articles unnecessary at first. In Finnish we know how the words are connected through cases. One funny fact about Swedish/Danish/Dutch: Masculine and feminine genders combined into one gender but the neuter gender remained unaffected. When they taught me Swedish in Finnish schools, they taught us there is "en" gender and "ett" gender without telling us why they even exist.

[@khalilal-bukhari7042]

Ahh yes the two genders, androgynous and neuter

[@jopeteus]

@@khalilal-bukhari7042 i think it's called "common" gender

[@markdougherty8203]

Also in Swedish etc. we have indefinite articles "en", "ett" but not definite articles. So we don't have a seperate word for "the".

[@jopeteus]

@@markdougherty8203 Swedish has definite suffix at the end of words

[@markdougherty8203]

@@jopeteus I know! But it's actually the same, just put at the other end. En katt (a cat), katten (the cat). Ett bord (a table), bordet (the table). Ok for plurals and stuff it gets a bit more complicated, but basically a separate word for "the" doesn't exist in Swedish. But you can say "denna katt" (this cat) and "den katten" (that cat). This always confuses me because "denna katt" is the most specific, definite reference to a particular cat but it uses the indefinite fom for katt, whereas "den katten" is the other way around.....

[@papmanhunter2285]

The articles in the modern Roman languages like ‚le’, ‚la’ or ‚il’ obviously came from the Latin demonstrative pronoun ‚ille, illa, illud‘, which means ‚that‘. It‘s an interesting fact, that as you told Homer often used the greek article ‚o’ as demonstrative pronoun. It seems to be a parallelism between ancient Greek and Latin. I’m Latin teacher in Germany and like your videos very much. Maximas gratias tibi ago!

[@comandanteej]

It's a typical European areal feature that definite articles are derived from demonstratives and indefinite articles from the numeral 1. Even Hungarian developed them around the 15th century (none of the other Finno-ugric languages have them). Czech, which is told not to have articles also started going down that way, as the demonstratives are often used with less emphasis, sometimes reduplicated.

[@nebucamv5524]

@@comandanteej I've studied Finnish and can tell you that it developes articles too. Even Agricola, the Finnish reformator, 500 years ago already used an article: se uusi testamenti (the New testament). "se" originally is the personal pronoun "it", but now it's more and more used as an article. I think because of the Swedish and English influence.

[@ogniankamenov481]

Romanians (Valahians) are Romanized Dacians (sub-branch of Thracians). The name Romania came in 19th century AD.

[@Starkiller935]

@@comandanteej Can you give me an example of how Czech is developing articles? I'm a native speaker and I can't say I've noticed this trend.

[@sebastiangudino9377]

​@@Starkiller935I cannot talk for Czech. But in Polish i think it is common to translate English articles into demonstratives. And it doesn't really sound weird to polish speakers (Specially younger ones that are familiar with English from an early age thanks to the internet) I cannot confirm this myself, and i am not a polish native speaker, just an L2 enthusiast

[@markvoelker6620]

As a native English speaker, I only became aware of “the” and “a/an” when I studied Russian for a year in college. And when I did learn about articles, I could not understand what function they performed, except to make a sentence “sound right” to my admittedly biased ears. I would say: “Step on the brake!!” to the driver of a car, while a Russian would say “Step on brake!!” What is the difference in meaning? None that I can tell. But the English sentence wastes a moment blurting out that extra sound.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Well, it’s not a waste. Definiteness isolates to a specific or understood item. It’s quite useful. But clearly languages can get along without this, just as English gets along without the texture or grammatical gender.

[@markvoelker6620]

@@polyMATHY_Luke When I do use grammatical gender, it somehow anthropomorphizes and personalizes the object being referred to, e.g. calling a ship a “she” instead of an “it”. Perhaps this effect is stronger in English since assigning gender is more of a conscious act, instead of merely following a rule.

[@theshrubberer]

@@markvoelker6620 i think this is true in English but this is a mistake in learning gendered languages. i mistakenly tried to understand gender in Portuguese in terms of this "gender of the thing itself" but really at least in the present form of the language it gender has nothing to do with the "thing" ...it is entirely the gender of the "word" for the thing, not the thing itself. Thus synonyms for simple things like cup, one word may be masculine but it's synonym will be feminine ..it has nothing to do with the "cup" itself, at least at present.

[@markvoelker6620]

@@theshrubberer Yes that is true. Gender in this context has nothing to do with sex or reproduction; it is a convention of grammar. Perhaps centuries or millennia ago there was some connection to sex, but that origin is now forgotten.

[@comandanteej]

@@polyMATHY_Luke I believe articles, case systems etc. are all connected to sentence structures that are allowed in a given language. For the case system this is obvious (declination means much more free word order). But similarly some subtleties can be expressed solely with the presence or lack of the article in a given place, that would otherwise require a reordering of a sentence. Not sure about grammatical gender though, this looks to me just like some random categorization that is probably a reminder of ancient phonological patterns.

[@mirceadolineanu9715]

I'm Romanian, and here we learn a lot of grammar in school (including cases), so this was a really interesting video to watch. You kinda make me want to learn Latin to see what that ablative case is all about:) One interesting note: You mentioned that romance languages in the west don't have cases. I was quite surprised to hear that, since I remember hearing about cases back when I studied French in middle school. I looked it up and it seems that French has cases for pronouns, but not for nouns. This made me realize how peculiar Romanian can be among the romance languages (and why it seems so hard to master for non-native speakers).

[@theinsfrijonds]

The ablative case when not accompanied by a preposition actually expresses a comitative sense in classical Latin indicating with someone or along with something. It originally meant from something or somewhere or someone and ended with a D in the 1st and 2nd declension making it distinct from other forms. There are significantly more prepositions that accompanied the accusative case than the ablative case. Another example of a preposition that preceded the ablative was a/ab, which meant by means of.

[@tnyeager]

In addition to what's already been said, the Latin ablative seems to have an older instrumental case collapsed into it. So if you want to say you something "by means of X," you use the ablative. It's such a useful case, languages like German and Greek about me because I want to use an ablative where they have to split up its functions, usually between dative and genitive.

[@rovanderby759]

@@tnyeager Modern Greek doesn't even use the old dative case anymore (except in some old, mostly biblical, expressions hey still use). They now use the genitive case in combination with syntax to express an indirect object. It usually takes the first position in the sentence. I found this very odd when I started to learn modern Greek, but after a while it felt totally natural.

[@williamramsey9140]

I find it particularly interesting how Old French kept a two-case system of nominative/subjective and oblique/objective. Sometimes the two cases even developed into separate words in later French: copain (nom., from Lat. nom. compāniō) vs. compagnon (obl., from Lat. acc. compāniōnem).

[@rabomarc]

It’s an interesting topic you raise with Bulgarian. I’m a native of another Slavic language and after just looking at Bulgarian articles I can say they look like transformed demonstratives. Which is yet another example for what you’re saying in the video.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Indeed!

[@Eugensson]

Russian was under the influence of Southern Slavic dialects due to christianisation. So there were some tendencies to have similar -tot/ta/to endings as definitive markers. However this system has never fully developed. However Russian can still abuse it to make some "monsters" like constructing definitive verbs which refer to the speakers expectation of some event to have happened. E.g.: "Pozavtrakal-to v konce koncov?" - "[but you have had] **breakfasted in the end, tho?"

[@Eugensson]

@@lilis969 yeah, now i see how crazy it looks for you guys “the who” for “someone” doesn’t even make any sense. But agree attaching -to to a verb is just another level of madness.

[@mirnacudiczgela1963]

Which is your native language? Mine is Croatian.

[@ogniankamenov481]

In Bulgarian the articles are the same like in English but they are attached to the end of the noun or pronoun and this is more logical and practical.

[@reppepper]

I did some tutoring of Slovaks, and, of course, they would omit articles, especially when tired, or they would use the wrong one. When I tried to explain when to use which, I realized it’s not always easy to explain.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Yes, I love these things.

[@landofw56]

Slavic people learn Italian very easy, but they "refuse" to use articles.

[@heathensein6582]

For some reason KZbin insta deletes the comment I made even when I ask my friends to post it here. I'll try to break it down and see what happens. I am not sure about Slovak, but as a Russian speaker I can tell there are regular ways to express the very same idea and I am not talking about obvious ones as trying to think of 'the' as of 'this' and trying to think of 'a' as of 'one' or 'any' and similar. There is this theory according to which a sentence can be broken down into two roughly speaking opposing parts, one is topic and the other is comment. The former is marked by 'the', the latter is marked by 'a'.

[@heathensein6582]

But languages that don't have articles still maintain this distinction, it's just expressed differently, e.g. 'the boy entered a room' and 'a boy entered the room' can still be translated into Russian, maintaining the distinction between them: 'the boy entered a room' - 'мальчик вошёл в комнату', whereas 'a boy entered the room' would be 'в комнату вошёл мальчик'. You can see that both are equal except for the word order. That's what they like to omit when speaking of the free word order that some languages have, i.e. it varies but is used to convey difference in meaning.

[@heathensein6582]

Wow, the reason were the supporting romanized Russian sentences. I'll stil try to add them мальчик вошёл в комнату - malchik voshol v komnatu. в комнату вошёл мальчик - v komnatu voshol malchik.

[@MensHominis]

It’s super weird, *German* is taking the opposite route from Homeric to classic Greek right now: we’ve been starting to use our _articles_ as demonstrative pronouns, because ‘dieser’ (this one) and ‘jener’ (that one) often sound way too ancient in non-written language! Or maybe we’ve always been doing so and just never stopped? Because I guess German articles too might have developed from demonstratives? When I was studying Greek, I attended a reading course for Homer only quite late. It was super weird then that suddenly words _without_ articles could be definite *or* indefinite again, while some random τόν in a verse could suddenly mean "this one [male, acc.]", even though this is super German now that I think about it.

[@MensHominis]

@Lucas Schult - gute Ergänzung, wenn ich auch ungern allzu präskriptivistisch argumentiere. Wobei der Präskriptivismus hier Sinn hat, wo er sich gegen Kunst-Hochsprache richtet. Allerdings ging es mir ja auch um die Frage nach der historischen und der aktuellen Entwicklung - und in Hinblick auf Letztere halte ich Deskriptivismus für umso angebrachter, will man linguistische Untersuchungen anstellen. Zum Beispiel ist das ‚kurze‘ Demonstrativum im Neutrum ja viel häufiger (bzw. häufiger guter Stil) als in den anderen Genera: vgl. die leichten Unterschiede in der Konnotation bei _„Das ist ...“_ vs. _„Der/Die ist ...“_ (evtl. noch stärker im Akk.?). Aber vielleicht wolltest du auch nur auf die eingeschränkte Anwendbarkeit von „dieser“ hinweisen und sonst nichts. Danke jedenfalls! Ein anderer Punkt wäre allerdings, dass wir auch attributives „dieser“ fast vollständig durch betontes „der“ ersetzen. (Nicht nur vor notwendigen Relativsätzen, wo ein betontes „dieser“ ja ohnehin wieder ziemliches Latinistendeutsch wäre.)

[@Eugensson]

Flemish dialcets have millions of demonstratives like this: dienen, dieser, dezen etc.

[@owidiu28boo]

Mens hominis=mintea oamenilor, it is courious that Romanian language kept the noun cases as in Latin and all the other romance languages lost it.

[@letswaveabook3183]

@Mens Hominis, that is a super interesting statement if true. I am a Dutch speaker and though our languages are close, your statement feels super odd. I couldn't imagine my native language dropping the demonstrative pronouns at first moment. Now that I think about it, you could avoid them, but considering how common they are in Dutch I can't see that happening. So that seems like an odd development to me, while probably Dutch would seem old fashioned from German point of view.

[@MensHominis]

@@letswaveabook3183 - I don’t know if it’s that odd. If German articles developed from demonstratives as they did in ancient Greek, maybe they never really stopped partially occupying that role. You can easily say “Hast du das/den gesehen?” (“Have you seen that thing/that guy?”), if fact it would be wrong to use the ‘long’ demonstrative here. As the guy above pointed out (in German), we really only use long demonstratives in attributive position, thus: together with a noun. “Hast du diesen Mann gesehen?” (“Have you seen this man?”) Sounds kinda formal though, you’d probably only hear that from a police officer showing you a picture, but with a respectful/formal Sie instead of du. 😄 But you can use the article as a demonstrative in attributive position, too, but only if you stress the word: “Hast du _den_ Mann gesehen?” Now, the phrase has a different connotation though, it sounds a bit colloquial and as if said man looks odd or specific in some way.

[@Joker5086]

in upper and central german dialects, as well as in the standard german spoken in those areas, people's names also usually come with an article. in the area where I'm originally from, low german was spoken until not too long ago, and using an article with a person's name in our standard german is seen as 'archaic', something not even my grandparents do regularly.

[@landofw56]

In Northern Italy, people's names are used with the article, especially feminine ones, but it is considered as a mistake.

[@NobbiMD]

Genau! In many parts of Germany we use the article with a person's name. What's even funnier is that in the Pfalz and the Saarland we use the neuter article with a woman's/girl's name. The same in Luxemburgish. See Ecolinguist's youTube video. Luke, gratias tibi ago.

[@KidariHengnim]

Northern Swedish dialects use the indefinite article with proper nouns. "Ja träffa n Anders igår" (I met 'an' Anders yesterday), not meaning any person called Anders, but the Anders both you and I know.

[@Kopeleto]

Bulgarian has a vocative case for when you address someone - adding е or о to a noun or name or replacing the last letter with it. But yeah - the other 6 cases we used to have now only have some remnant words.

[@MrHermes3331]

Interesting comment about languages becoming increasingly simple over time, it is often repeated but it's so intriguing to think about how a language could possibly re-develop a case system

[@weirdlanguageguy]

I once toyed with developing a dative case in a future variety of English in which the preposition "to" was affixed to nouns. It'd be cool if something like that actually happens

[@giannixx]

@@weirdlanguageguy I mean, it could. However, I think globalization and specifically the internet are going to slow down the rate and magnitude of linguistical changes, as has the standardization of national languages since then.

[@Sandra.Molchanova]

I think Chinese is doing it as we speak. They're not at case system stage just yet, but a lot of words that were words in their own right have turned into prepositions, and in some cases using them to express a certain type of meaning is a requirement

[@weirdlanguageguy]

@@giannixx I used to think that too, but I think that the internet can actually facilitate language change, especially in vocabulary, by bringing different groups and language communities together and by the rapid spread of internet change. Not to mention that people sharing a language can communicate even if they're dispersed, creating exclusive language zones in online spaces

[@weirdlanguageguy]

@@Sandra.Molchanova interesting

[@anthonyugarte1072]

I learn so much with every video you post, and not just about Latin!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks!

[@-haclong2366]

04:35 Buildings are a good example, because modern buildings are A LOT more complicated than most ancient buildings being composed out of lots of intricate small parts, but their exteriors look a lot simpler.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

That’s a fascinating analogy

[@ThomasWilde]

Also relevant in buildings: The Pantheon vs just pantheon.

[@jangelbrich7056]

I must say this was one of the most interesting language analyses I have ever seen on KZbin. I love the way how you can compare all these languages and eras of development!

[@fabienlehenaff2742]

Bavarian german and Swiss german also use articles in front of names, like " the Lucas"

[@mattonthemoon225]

Yes but sadly German keeps using cases 😭

[@Flozone1]

@@mattonthemoon225 Modern German cases are pretty mild compared to Old High German, Old Norse or Gothic. Germany really only has a genitive singular and a dative plural, the rest is marked on articles. The dative singular only surfaces as ornamental case, but can be left out most of the time.

[@amjan]

@@mattonthemoon225 Why would German want to dumb itself down to the primitive level of langauges without cases?!

[@mattonthemoon225]

@@amjan maybe.... because it's the natural evolution of all modern west european languages? :D

[@dmitrys.2932]

Being Slavic with no concept of article in language it was always amazing how so many nations even came to the idea of articles. This thing seems like unnecessary complication

[@adolfhipsteryolocaust3443]

Articles are definetly easier to use than cases

[@txdorovaa]

@@adolfhipsteryolocaust3443 definitely, I am bulgarian and we have articles, but (almost) no cases😆

[@Warriorcats64]

Я говорю по-английски и понятия не имею, почему во многих языках используется «гендер». Это ненужно и сложно.

[@katam6471]

Great video! I've always found it very interesting to compare grammar like this. It's fantastic how we find different ways to make languages work. On many occasions I've heard linguists say that if a language gets less complex in one respect, it often gets more complex in another way. The example they often give is that with a complex case system, the word order can be very free, but in languages without a case system, the word order becomes more complex instead. What you say about articles seems to be another example of that.

[@guillermorivas7819]

In Mexican-Spanish we could use an article before a name. For example, el Guillermo, la Josie, etc. This tendency is sometimes regional in Mexico, de facto colloquial speak. Even the chicanos in southern California use this, it is quite popular with them.

[@diegoherrera7785]

En Chile también

[@ShomerShmuel]

Mexican-Spanish? Por favor, el spanish es spanish, tenemos hasta un único diccionario y nos entendemos perfectamente en el registro formal y medio, por favor no caigamos en estas divisiones absurdas. El poner el artículo delante de nombre propio es propio del catalán y evidentemente con el gran número de catalanoparlantes que participaron en la emigración a América esta forma de usar el artículo determinado pasó a México y a Chile.

[@rsandino]

Yo he notado que sólo se usa en nombre femeninos, casi nunca en nombres masculinos. Eso también me parece curioso.

[@dlevi67]

@@ShomerShmuel So you think there are no differences between American, Australian, Caribbean and British English? All are mutually understandable... Don't be offended.

[@icafed]

this happens in Italian dialects too, it's 100% regional though

[@Romanophonie]

Very *cool!* I hadn't even noticed that Latin didn't have an article so it clearly doesn't limit a speaker's expression. Well done as always, Luke!

[@mRRandak]

Thank you, Luke! The quality of your content is amazing! I exceedingly enjoy them! Articles are nuisance, coming from a non-article language from Finno-Ugric part learning Chinese where in neither they exist, but knowing the reason behind their existence makes it more amenable to me to appreciate their existence. There's often just too much loaded information when articles are taught, which a student is supposed to organize out based on feeling or intuition, in case one has not learnt yet the full system of parts of speech, and hence is also unable to ask necessary questions. Keep doing what you're doing! You're my favorite KZbinr.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Very kind!

[@sir_humpy]

Ironically, it should be "articles are A nuisance" :)

[@poseidonokeanos9094]

Oh my god thank you so much polýMATHY! I am currently trying to learn Hittite which is the oldest recorded Indo-European language! But it doesn't has the Articles as well and I was wondering why? This video gave me an amazing answer! Thank you again. 😄

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

You’re very welcome!

[@Chris-mt4yq]

Another awesome video! You're a born presenter and you do great work explaining things I had no idea about, but make it easy yet also complex enough to comprehend as well as get into at the same time

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

You’re very kind. I hope my future videos live up to this

[@MsCliveharper]

As interesting as ever! Your breadth and depth of knowledge are amazing; and your delivery is the icing on the cake, so informative. Love the outtakes too 😊

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks! Very kind.

[@justinrhodes1745]

Absolutely amazing. I can’t believe you did this without pausing to check a script. These are my favorite videos of yours. Thank you

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks! Yes, no script, just my memory about the subject. More like this to come.

[@justinrhodes1745]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Awesome! Looking forward to it

[@tepan]

6:18 Actually, in some (northern) regions of Italy, putting an article before names is very common, too. To me, as a foreigner, it seems to imply that the person is part of the in-group. 4:13 The Altare della Patria is a reference to antiquity on its own and therefore a good prop when talking about how one might imagine antiquity. Good one!

[@ArturoSubutex]

I've heard that in all of Italy, not just the North... but for some reason a lot more for women than for men. Any guess why...?

[@MicheleSpagnuolo]

@@ArturoSubutex It mostly happens in Lombardy only. It might happen in some cases also in some other northern regions, especially in dialects. It does not mean that the person is part of an in-group, as far as I can tell. But it might mean that there the person is "close" (or dear). We are taught in school that we should avoid doing this :) .

[@ArturoSubutex]

@@MicheleSpagnuolo Ma scusami, la mia ragazza è cresciuta in Salento, proprio la provincia meno al Nord di tutta l'Italia haha, eppure ad esempio quando parla della matrigna dice sempre "la Luciana".

[@senbeiboi4511]

as a Portuguese speaker, I never noticed how with the point of view of an English speaker that was weird until he said "the maria" and now I'm trying to understand why do I feel like it's so unnatural to hear "the maria" but also unnatural if I don't hear "a maria" in Portuguese. I guess it's just the brain finding something that doesn't follow the pattern, languages are weird man.

[@tepan]

Grazie per I commenti. La prossima volta che sarò in Italia devo farci caso più attentamente.

[@kingofarnor1430]

Thanks for the concise and informative video! I've been asking myself that same question and I'm glad you anwered it! :)

[@sammcpeak6854]

Have always wanted to know this. Thank you, sir!

[@giovanni-cx5fb]

2:40 Luke: "Except for Bulgarian, of course." Me: "Oh, yeah! Of course, obviously!"

[@HandofOmega]

Informative as always, Luke! Any chance of a review of Val Kilmer's Latin in "Tombstone" and Christopher Eccleston's in "Jude" (both easily seen on youtube)? And I'm still hoping for a video on how the ancients pronounced the names of gods and heroes in ancient Greek and Latin (assuming they didn't actually say them the way we do now). Either way, keep up the good work!

[@captainpouch6478]

Great suggestion re Tombstone, I’ve often wondered how accurate that discourse is between Doc Holiday and Johnny Ringo. Such a tense scene and super interesting part of the film, as well as the build up it provides for the rivalry that the develops between those characters. Definitely keen to see a review of the Tombstone scene too please Luke and thank you so much for the content you provide. Look forward to seeing your next video.

[@pjeaton58]

Absolutely fascinating ! - this adds another dimension to the use and understanding of language and communication - Thank you.

[@stock.wheel.shawty]

this has got to be the most intelligent comment section on youtube. bravo, luke!!

[@jakewhittaker1145]

Such a gem of a channel! Always bringing up fascinating topics! Your videos, and their comments sections, just ooze the sort of discussions that I wish I were lucky enough to get into when I'm in the pub, without getting a lost, vacant look in return, or the classic line, "It's mad how much you're into languages, I can just about manage English!". ..."NO!!! Lay down your pint and marvel with me at Polish cases, or at how their verbs decline in gender in the past tense!" Thanks for your consistently brilliant content!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Hahaha a great scene at the pub, Jake. Thanks very kindly. More to come!

[@AnExcellentChef]

Great video on an interesting subject, gratias, Luci! Some linguistics/researchers think that Finnish, which doesn't use articles, may be in process of developing articles. They studied the speech of young people and noted that words "se" (it), and "joku" (some) are used much like definite and indefinite articles. Seems there is something like a parallel to how Romance languages developed their articles. Nihil sub sole novum, huh?

[@cosettapessa6417]

So cool. You finnish?

[@xolang]

In my language there's no "the" either. Yet in the spoken language, the possessive article of the 3rd person singular (her/his) has practically been used as "the".

[@AnExcellentChef]

@@cosettapessa6417 Yes.

[@landofw56]

Weird process: languages remind me DNA and his mutations

[@cosettapessa6417]

@@xolang and your language is?

[@Zestieee]

I love your videos! Entertaining and informative, and always about topics I care about.

[@gianlucabonet31]

Amazing content, thanks Luke!

[@j.parkerhopkins1695]

I like this spontaneous format!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

I’m glad you enjoy it!

[@rohinkartik-narayan7535]

Tamil also doesn't have articles. For example, the sentence, "Avan aaciriyar," can mean, "He is a teacher," or, "He is the teacher." (Also, the word be isn't used in equational sentences of noun=noun.) I know in English, the was a pretty late development all things considered in Old English, so the article se (and all its other declensions) was probably more likely to be interpreted as meaning "that." Se eventually became þe since all the other forms start with þ. Interestingly, Old English has 5 cases (Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative, Instrumental), and Tamil has nine (Nominative, Accusative, Dative, Genitive, Locative, Ablative, Sociative, Instrumental, Vocative).

[@mc3v804]

Salvete. I studied Latin in college but unfortunately did not keep up with practice. I do enjoy watching your videos as they help me reminisce vocabulary and declension. Latin also helped me learn other Romance languages. This spring break I am planning on going to Rome and I hope I can find many Latin inscriptions and hopefully make some sense of them. Valeo.

[@reubenconstantine2685]

This is fantastic. Very well researched and extremely natural presentation. I love the knowledge of ancient and modern Greek too. Big props from the UK

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Very kind! Thanks

[@catomajorcensor]

An interesting common trait of articles is that the definite article usually evolves from a demonstrative (English "the", at least the neuter version also used to mean "that", while the Romance articles came from the Latin ille, illa, illud, also meaning "that one") and the indefinite from a word meaning "one" (Old English ān means "one", and the German "ein" is a congate. Commonly in Romance, the feminine indefinite article is the same word as the one meaning "one"). This does make sense, as a demonstrative refers to a specific and sometimes known object while a numeral is usually used to introduce a noun.

[@comandanteej]

Indeed, but as far as I know this is not a global common trait but rather a European one. There are also languages, like Semitic, that indicate definiteness with an article / prefix but do not indicate indefiniteness.

[@alonsoACR]

The numeral "one" is not the feminine in Romance. It's gendered always so it varies but if we have to choose a "name" for the number, we would default to male. Uno, un, etc. In Spanish, by the way, uno and un are roughly equivalent and in no way signal the first numeral and the indefinite article are distinct, the second one is just an apócope, meaning a short version for prefixing attributes. So the male numeral and the male indefinite are equivalent. Another apócope is how the adjective grande becomes gran when used prefixed: - El mango grande - El gran mango Similarly: (someone gets asked about his food stock) - Un mango, una manzana, dos limones, tres patatas - Mango uno, manzana una, limones dos, patatas tres ... are equivalent, the second one is more unnatural (except in very specific situations, like if you want to emphasize the numbers)

[@hugoestevesrj]

As a Portuguese speaker (Brazilian), it's really nice when you mention our language. Sometimes I feel those small differences really challenging and, at the same time, quite interesting. We use articles a lot here, and when I switch to another language, it does take a little to get used to not using them. And when I switch back to Portuguese, I miss the other languages pronouns etc. Maybe it has something to do with the "rhythm" of each language idk.

[@gjvnq]

One interesting thing in Portuguese is a case system of sorts for personal pronouns, i.e. "caso reto" (straight case) vs "caso oblíquo" (olique case).

[@allejandrodavid5222]

@@gjvnq yes

[@scottweisel3640]

I lived in Brasil for three years on a campus where classes were taught in both American English and Portuguese. I fell in love with the rhythm of Brasilian Portuguese and immediately realized how much it influenced the Brasilian music. I couldn’t understand what the students were singing but realized it could never work musically if translated into English.

[@philippleisenheimer3383]

Very informativ video! I have so much respect for your sound research and your profound presentation of such a complicated topic!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Very kind!

[@engendroman]

I have seen some of your videos and I really appreciate the ease you have to explain these topics; unlike many other youtubers, you always sound interesting and relaxed. Greetings from a language enthusiast in Argentina.

[@engendroman]

I want to add that it's also possible to use articles before names in Spanish, though usually considered non-standard and informal, but mandatory for descriptive nicknames.

[@vojvodd]

In Northern Italy they also use the article mainly in front of female names. My mother's friend is from Pavia and she always says "La Giovanna" and so on

[@antonioscendrategattico2302]

Never imagined my hometown would be a case study for language. But yeah, that is a very Northern thing. Though I'd say that it's not limited to female names, it's just more common with them but people say "Il Giovanni" too. Or "il Gianni", it's more common with nicknames or people that the speaker and listener know well.

[@Kikkerv11]

In Flanders, we do this with masculine names!

[@sebastiangudino9377]

​@@antonioscendrategattico2302 It is very likely due to close contact with the "Langues d'oc". Like Occitan and Catalan, that do this as a de-facto

[@ruiseartalcorn]

Great stuff! Gaelic also doesn't have an indefinite article, however it does have a definite article. Interesting stuff :)

[@hiera1917]

Luke *Amadeus* Ranieri! Now I understand why the intro is the Magic Flute overture! :)

[@WeyounSix]

You're one of the most engaging youtubers I've seen so far for the size of your channel. Still great content!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Very kind!

[@WeyounSix]

@@polyMATHY_Luke In fact, on Monday when I get paid, I'm going to subscribe to your Patreon. eia!

[@toskosy]

The definite article in bulgarian comes from the different forms of the demonstrative тези (tеzi) which is cognate with the English word "this" , "that", "these" and "the". So the english and bulgarian definite articles are kinda remotely related.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Absolutely

[@comandanteej]

As in almost all European languages. The Balkan languages - including Bulgarian, Romanian, Albanian - are special in the way that they place the articles at the end of the nouns. These are areal features that develop in neighboring, sometimes unrelated languages via interaction.

[@txdorovaa]

@@comandanteej the Balkan sprachbund?

[@GholaTleilaxu]

@@txdorovaa Only for a Kraut.

[@guillemmoreno5522]

Great video. It's indeed weird how almost all Romance languages lost their cases and adopted articles instead. I find Catalan's case particularly weird: Catalan has both indefinite (un, una, uns, unes) and definite articles (el, la, els, les). However, Balearic dialects still retain and use a different set of definite articles that we call "articles salats" (es, sa, es, ses), which has its origin in the Latin word "ipse," just like in Sardinian. In addition, dialects surrounding the border between Catalonia and Valencia still retain the article "lo," much more widespread during the Middle Ages. "Lo" is not a neuter article like Spanish "lo." Instead, it's a masculine article and replaces "el." It's not accepted in the norm, though. Aside from these articles, Catalan also has a set of definite articles specifically for names: masculine "en" and femenine "na" (en Jordi, na Maria). These articles are particularly common in Balearic dialects, "na" being used exclusively in the Balearic islands. "En" and "el," however, can be used interchangeably in basically all of Catalonia, with some areas preferring "el" over "en" and vice versa. Strangely, Valencian dialects typically don't use articles at all to introduce names.

[@unlawfulfalafel7634]

Great video! Super interesting and been a fan of your channel for a while. I just wanted to add to your point at 6:20, in some varieties of Spanish, (I'm aware of at least Puerto Rican Spanish and Peruvian Spanish) people add an article to people's names as well, usually when referring to them in the third person (La Maria, La Linda). I haven't seen or heard of it being used to address someone directly though. Also want to say huge thanks to you for making these videos! I'm a grad student in Medieval History and I have to learn Latin as part of the program, so your content's super helpful.

[@mito88]

in portuguese it's the same: A Maria canta. O José trabalha. As crianças correm.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks for being a fan for so long! And thanks for the comment. Great point

[@mito88]

@@polyMATHY_Luke poly, did you that article titled GENDER IN LATIN AND BEYOND: A PHILOLOGIST’S TAKE? Genus, gender and genre

[@elifaletgutierrez9141]

Bro blew my mind in a minute lol, great video!

[@EGDfilms]

In Catalan it is considered correct to use the definite article before a person's name, whereas in some Spanish speaking regions (both in Spain as well as in the Americas) it is also used but only colloquially. It's an interesting phenomenon!

[@ytbaccount5513]

Romanian here, yes we have a case system its has 3 categories Vocative, Genitive-Dative and Nominative-Acusative. On paper there are 5 cases but the GD and NAc couples work similarly. Also as we speak we are in the process of losing the Genitive-Dative cases, the first signs of this process are already here, for example you would say: I-am dat o carte băiatului. (I gave the boy a book) „băiatului” is the G-D form of „băiat” + the deffinite article „-l” Nowadays youll hear more and more something like this: I-am dat o carte la băiat. Notice that the preposition „la” which means „to” is used to indicate to whom i gave a book, that is, to the boy. Another intresitng thing is that the deffinite article is dropped, gramatically youre not talking about a certain boy, but its kinda implied that you do. My take is that this is the way western romance lost cases, i predict it is improbable to lose the case altogether in romanian because 1. this extent of case dropping (as in the example above) is considered uncultured, but lower levels of case dropping are more accetable and makes you sound casual/informal, 2. its not that versatile as using the cases for example using cases more havily gives you a more consise and cultured and sophisticated sound, 3. we have losts of literature, documents and instruction so its not like the way you speak at your farm in 12th century becomes wide spread everywhere because thats kinda the way people speak now, what i mean by that is we have lots of reinforcement. We also have three genders Masculine, Feminine and Neuter. The neuter gender is not as distinct as in latin, what i mean by that is in the neuter gender there will be the singular form of the word as a masculine form and the plural form as feminine form: un băiat / doi băieți (one boy, two boys - M), o fata / două fete (one girl, two girls - F) and un ou / două ouă (one egg, two eggs - N). The last thing, „articulație” in romanian means exactly that „joint” as in finger joint -> (lit. the joint of the finger): articulația degetului / articulația de la deget (without the G-D case), if you mean to say „article” we have „articol”: the deffinite article = articolul hotărât EDIT: if you have questions i will answer to them

[@cosmina.m.7570]

I hate so much when the dative-genitive is droped in speech! It sounds so aweful like an unlettered. That s why I correct those people every single time I hear it, even if I am seen by them as a nazzi grammer.

[@nostradormouse3583]

This level of critique of the comparatìve structure of language is fascinating. More please.

[@gueviemoncor328]

There’s nothing like mastering the subject to make it simple to understand to others. Thanks. I use your videos to relax while cooking. Um bem haja de Lisboa, Lusitânia.

[@rasmusn.e.m1064]

Very good explanation to a very observant question! As an added thought, I think people sometimes get the wrong idea that synthetic languages are more complex because added variety in paradigms is correlated with added variety in syntax. Added variety in paradigms obviously increases complexity because there is more lexical information to remember and consider. What they overlook is that added variety in syntax actually decreases complexity. This is because a stricter syntax means you essentially have to connect every semantic role to its grammatical equivalent before you even say a word. My mother tongue is a very analytical language, and I have heard some Polish learners complain that they can't just tell me who was involved and what happened in the order it comes to them and then add endings to them afterwards because Danish has *one* correct place in the sentence for every single type of word. I guess that's the price you pay to have a verb system that legibly fits on the lapel of your jacket: Infinitive:"To do/make" - 'at lave' non-past: add -(e)r past: add -te/de (rarely used)present participle: add -(e)nde 1sg. laver lavede lavende 2sg. laver lavede 3sg. laver lavede 1pl. laver lavede past participle: add -(e)t 2pl. laver lavede 3pl. laver lavede lavet

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Exactly right. In addition to Polish, this makes narrative in Latin quite exciting, because the speaker or writer can portray scenes in cinematic order of occurrence

[@adamclark1972uk]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Talking about jackets, I didn't know you were a captain in the US army.

[@Thelaretus]

Last time I was this early Caesar hadn't crossed the Rubicon.

[@HBon111]

Halfway through the vid, I already knew the history of the romance developments of the article, but your pedagogy is just extraordinary I thought to give you a shot anyway. I am envious of your seemingly unbridled passion and dedication. You humble this stranger. Good fortune to you.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Very kind. Likewise

[@christopherfiore7456]

This was fascinating. Thank you!

[@arthur_p_dent]

3:25 THis misconception probably stems from the fact that Proto-Indo-European was a highly inflexing langauge. So if there was going to be change, it would probably be reducing the number of cases/inflexions and by using prepositions or a less flexible word order - because there was simply no way to add even more cases, add even more prefixes/suffixes, etc. This is, however, only true for Indo-European langauges - which, of course, happen to be the vast majority of langauges people know. But if we look at other language families, whose "proto" form didn't have 8 or 9 cases and a complex system of verb conjugation, the development would go in the opposite direction, creating inflexion where there previously wasn't one. At the end of the day, langauges don't becomes simpler or more complex. They just change.

[@felixweinlinger]

6:30 In some southern German dialects you can also put a definite article before someone's name, although teachers discourage one from speaking that way.

[@muffinman5741]

Where I'm from (rhineland) that is pretty much the standard of talking. Not discouraged at all. I think it's very common in most places except the north. To me saying "Ich sage das Thomas" instead of "Ich sage das dem Thomas" just sounds wrong.

[@cosettapessa6417]

Lol in italian it’s forbidden but regional languages can have it.

[@thorodinson6649]

@@cosettapessa6417 forbidden…. Sounds ominous

[@cosettapessa6417]

@@thorodinson6649 🤡😁

[@juch3]

Very interesting, Indonesian doesn't have definite articles like in some languages but there is one you can put before someone's name too ("si", as in "si Thomas") but it is also discouraged by teachers since it sounds very informal and can sound rude.

[@narsilify]

Sembri davvero gasato di essere in Italia! Bravo, sono contento per te! Ottima spiegazione, chiarissima!

[@alexfrost5220]

This explanation was excellent. Thank you.

[@shemyshaun]

great video, truly! Here in Argentina, too it is common in some regions to use the definite article with proper names.

[@malarobo]

In northern variety of italian (and northern italian dialects) the article is used just like you said, even before personal names. In central variety of italian is used only for female names. In southern variety of italian isn't used before names.

[@Facu_Roldan]

Yeah but people who do that tend to sound uncultured and uneducated

[@malarobo]

@@Facu_Roldan not really: it sounds regional rather than uncultured. In my region it is completely normal even among people with academic degrees (as I am and the people I know). Also various writers of the literature of the past used articles such as Dante, Verga, Natalia Ginzburg.

[@shemyshaun]

@@Facu_Roldan and that's relevant because you are very cultured and educated I suppose.

[@Facu_Roldan]

@@malarobo oh sorry, I didn't make myself clear, my comment was directed at Emiliano's comment, I'm from Argentina as well. When someone uses the definite article with proper names we either correct that person or make fun of him/her. According to the royal Spanish academy, the definite article should not be used before proper names.

[@kunwoododd2154]

It's really fascinating seeing someone frame articles as something that happens when a language loses cases, because having studied a few Asian languages I've been heavily biased to think in terms of articles being unnecessary for topic prominent languages, but necessary for languages that aren't topic prominent.

[@odietamo9376]

You are an amazing man. So impressed by your knowledge and experience.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Very kind!

[@Casey9999vr]

I love linguistic insights like how you did, compact, informative, fun and easy to follow! I personally (as a Greek and German native speaker) think a lot about such stuff my languages and oftentimes think damn that language does that really inefficiently xD

[@elimalinsky7069]

From what I understand, the definite article in Western Romance developed from the phrase "hoc ille", which means "that is".

[@wyqtor]

In Romanian too: sole ille -> soare 'lle -> soareLE (THE sun). Our ancestors just put the demonstrative adjective AFTER the noun!

[@arkady0177]

You're probably talking about the etymology of the French word for yes (oui)

[@elimalinsky7069]

@@arkady0177 The etymology for the French word for yes is similar. The second element ille is what became il/la in Italian, le/la in French, el/la in Spanish and o/a in Portuguese.

[@noamto]

No, it depends on the language. For instance in Sardinian it developed from "ipse", some Catalan/Occitan dialects also use that.

[@pile333]

Curiously even Northern Italians tend to put "the" in front of a person's name; mostly due to dialectal influence and that is one of the traits from which you can guess their origin.

[@cattubuttas4749]

Not all northern Italy but only in Milan area and some few other regions.

[@erkinalp]

How do they agree the gender of the article and one of the name? Gender of the person referred by the name, or gender of the word itself (those two might have different genders)?

[@cattubuttas4749]

@@erkinalp your question is not clear, we are talking about human names, for instance if "Luke Ranieri" is masculine they will obviously use the masculine article "Il Luke" (the Luke) but feminine, for instance "Lucy", they would use feminine article "la", hence "La Lucy" which in English cannot be rendered: "the Lucy".

[@pile333]

@@erkinalp Male articles for male names and female articles for female names. As I've already said, it's typical northern italian to use articles before personal names in general.

[@WaveOfDestiny]

@@erkinalp nouns have a male and female connotation usually defined by how they sound and how they are constructed, even for objects or concepts. You almost automatically know which is the right article based on the smilarities with other male or female nouns. Human names usually follow this rule but we still use the article based on the actual gender. For example Luca is a male name in italy, it doesn't follow the rule but it can be a female name in other parts of the world. I never used an article on a full male personal name, only on nicknames. Usually you put an article in front of a female name but it might be a regional thing

[@tenaciousdfan123]

That was brilliant! Thank You!

[@luisbernardomartinfajardo5232]

Thank you so much, an amazing explication.

[@amisikiarie]

Very interesting. One thing that may modify or help make your view more be precise is a consideration of Bantu languages. In Swahili (I'm Kenyan) there is no article and a very shallow case system, but there is an extremely specific and effective noun and pronoun system. Where Indo European languages tend to have masculine, feminine and sometimes neuter, the Bantu languages generally have at least 10 classes (a more generic concept than gender) and usually more.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Well said. Languages all develop and lose certain features according to what they seem to need.

[@jackking2225]

@@polyMATHY_Luke "Well said. Languages all develop and lose certain features according to what they seem to need." Russian has such powerful verbs of motion and is quite particular about eliminating ambiguity when it comes walking, riding, carrying, taking, bringing etc. I don't know this for a fact but I sometimes wonder if Russian is like that because it is such a vast country and has always been subjected to invasions of armies from many different directions. Maybe by necessity they had to be extremely clear about movement and direction, continual or repeated, in the past or in the future. When it comes to using scientif and math I kind of like how descriptive Russian is, especially about rotation, trajectiles etc.

[@pedrofuster9161]

In Spanish we don't usually use an article on names, yet for very close people like siblings or old friends we may use it, at least where I am. It would be something like saying "the Paul..." when speaking about your brother.

[@MariaFrancobollo]

Another great video! I agree with all the compliments to your presentation style as well as content! Just wanted to share an interesting postscript: Bulgarian, which puts the definite article as a suffix to the noun ( house = къшта but the house = къштата) has the vocative case. The nominative form of “god” is Бог, but when addressing god, they say Боже. Great to see more of Rome too!

[@T_D_B_]

Love this. The relationship of languages over time is more interesting than simply learning to speak them. At least to me. 😊

[@georgios_5342]

It was a very informative take on the subject! It has always seemed to me weird how English has a different word for a(n) and "one", since Greek, French, German and others don't, but after I saw it in ancient Greek it immediately clicked! I guess multiple cases make the article more redundant, not useless information but it would feel too much to have an article and a case in mind too. Greek weirdly has a different article for every case, gender and number, and could as well be the language with the most definite articles 😅. 18 if I have counted correctly (although some of them are the same for more than one, like το, του, των, τα)

[@oneukum]

So does Icelandic. The article is also declined for case. The problem with this theory is that the world has an extreme number of languages without either cases or articles: Chinese, Japanase and the languages of South East Asia.

[@Warriorcats64]

@@oneukum Or German where the article tells you the gender and case, and also, it has an article for zero [or not] "kein".

[@sluggo206]

English 'a(n)' did come from 'one'; it just split into two words.

[@sluggo206]

@@Warriorcats64 Where did German get 'kein' from? I've always wondered that. And how is it that 'ein' can't be plural but 'kein' can? "Ich habe eine Katze. Ich habe [X] Katzen. Ich habe keine Katze. Ich habe keine Katzen."

[@theshrubberer]

Excellent as always. Regarding the "simpler over time" misconception, I was very frustrated when I first encountered a case system in Russian. I thought "how could this complex system ever evolve?" I tried to find a popular language book that explains how cases develop in languages as it seems counter to the conventional but misleading "simpler over time" message found in many books. The ONLY book I found that adequately addressed the evolution of cases was Guy Deutscher's The Unfolding of Language. I strongly recommend that book for anyone interested. Anyone have similar recommendations specifically on language evolution? There are plenty of books that cover the "simplify" examples like pidgins but few that cover the unintuitive changes that result in "seemingly" more complexity

[@daca8395]

You wanna see simple to complicate? Russian adjective conjugation!

[@theshrubberer]

@@daca8395 yes very complicated

[@wiessiew9853]

You misunderstand something. (it's the other way around). Cases were INHERITED from PIE. It's the other languages like English that LOST them. You turned everything around

[@theshrubberer]

@@wiessiew9853you may be right but i swear that the book the unfolding of language referenced above goes into great detail about how the case endings in Latin or Russian evolved from concatenation of adjacent words. i am not doubting that PIE had cases , nor that modern English lost the cases of old English...but still i recall Deutscher described Russian case "growth" .... strange i need to reread it. perhaps he was looking at the evolution of a particular case in Latin or Russian, can't recall which, that evolved late and then postulates that mechanism as having been the original mechanism for older cases. will need to reread to clarify. thanks for raising this issue

[@wiessiew9853]

@@theshrubberer I do not know about Latin. I was referrencing Russian. The cases did not "evolve in some strange way". And it actually "got simpler", as it lost 2 cases compared to PIE, and 1 compared to Polish (vocative). So now it has only 6 cases while Polish and some other languages have 7

[@artawhirler]

Very clear explanation! Thanks!

[@ElisandroDeLeon]

I genuinely think this is one of the coolest people Ive seen on youtube.

[@justames5979]

Like in Slavic languages, Lithuanian (along with Latvian) has no articles as well, though what we have, which acts in a similar way to articles, are pronominal adjectives. In essence they are just basic adjectives with a third person pronoun added at the end. They can be used like the definite article in English (ex. gražusis - the beautiful one (masc.)), but most often they're used to describe something that is unique or singular, like in proper and scientific names. Great video!

[@xolang]

that's similar to my language where there's no "the" either. Yet in the spoken language, the possessive article of the 3rd person singular (her/his) has practically been used as "the".

[@justames5979]

@@xolang that's very interesting! What language do you speak, if I may ask?

[@xolang]

@@justames5979 the parallel is interesting indeed. I speak the national language of 🇮🇩 .

[@hoangkimviet8545]

Latin: "Can you let me borrow your vocabulary?" Greek: "That's OK. So, do you want to borrrow my articles?" Latin: "No, thanks."

[@Nilguiri]

That was extremely interesting and useful. Thanks.

[@hoi-polloi1863]

Very illuminating and interesting, thank you!

[@nicolegraber6400]

Salvē Luke, really enlightening! Thank you ! On the other hand …. why did you choose the monument to Victor Emmanuel II as your background ? In my opinion, this "cream cake" represents an idealization of Roman and Greek antiquity, the destruction of important parts of Rome's history and heritage, and the apology of nation-states in Europe, but alas not the spontaneity and organicity of a language ... Optime vale !

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

That's right! It also pertains both to Modern and Ancient Rome stylistically, and thus to the modern and ancient languages of the land.

[@frenchimp]

This notion of coloring associated with grammatical gender is totally new to me, and I must say it is an intellectually very satisfying idea.

[@theshrubberer]

perhaps but the study of grammatical gender is overall very dissatisfying to me. i am learning Portuguese and the number of nouns that do not end in the standard o masculino a feminino ending is enormous. i am baffled at how natives are able to identify the gender of all of the nouns that don't have these endings. there are supplementary rules but most natives cannot explain these additional rules and yet they never err

[@Flozone1]

Because for the most part grammatical gender is a bother to learn and most languages in the world don't have it at all. Originally Proto-Indo-European probably only had an Animate-Inanimate distinction as can be seen in Hittite. Indeed the weird Indo-European gender system makes it possible to have disjunctive phrases (or hyperbaton, dependin on whom you ask). Although other languages without such system again can do that. Perhaps IE languages just do it on another level. The Semitic languages also have gender, but only masculine and feminine nouns and feminine gender is more predictable and restricted. Then there are the East Caucasian languages, which actually only take grammatical gender if the animate noun does have a sex. They have a distinction between masculine, feminine, non-human and inanimate. It is also distributed very differently and you see it on verbs and nouns, but not in the way as in IE or Semitic. Like how cases refer to an object. Lastly there is Yeniseian which has a threefold system of masculine, feminine and neuter. It functions like many modern IE languages where you simply have to memorise the gender of a noun and there is no ending in the nominative case, that makes it apparent.

[@cosettapessa6417]

Coming from english is a mess when it comes to gender. Chair is a girl and spoon a man? Ahahah 🤣

[@frenchimp]

@@Flozone1 Come on, many languages have features that are "a bother to learn". Chinese for instance doesn't have gender, but they have many classes of nouns which you have to master if you are to speak correctly - for all practical learning purposes it is as if there were so many genders. Languages evince complexity, it is a fact of life. Speak esperanto, or live with it!

[@frenchimp]

@@cosettapessa6417 And coming from other languages English can be a mess, too. Different languages have different strategies, and either you accept this diversity and rejoice in it, or you are bound to suffer or to remain monolingual...

[@gabriellawrence6598]

Great explanation and gorgeous background.

[@luigimgallo]

Fantastic as always.

[@iainfraser7588]

I’m glad you mentioned Portuguese, I feel Portuguese seems to be forgotten about a lot when people speak about the Romance languages. Also I read somewhere a while back that some scholars or linguists were searching in North Africa for a lost latin based language which was left behind by the latin speakers who still stayed in the area after Rome had gone but may have now been forgotten because of the arrival of new the people who migrated in to the area and the establishment of the islamic caliphates had introduced their whole new language, writing and religious system to the area. Can you shed some light on this is it possible anything like a small people held on to some latin or some dialect or maybe variation had formed just like the Romance languages in Europe had.Could there be some dead latin variant that may be in North Africa perhaps some people retained for even a short period of time before it died out?

[@esti-od1mz]

Probably the last romance NorthAfrican people left were in the city of Capsa: sadly their legacy is lost because, since they were Christians and spoke a romance language, they rooted for the Sicilian Kingdom that controlled Tunisia in the 12th century, so the muslims after having reconquered the area decided to destroy that community as a punishment

[@Lexivor]

NativLang did an episode about Romance languages in North Africa, I highly recommend it and his channel in general.

[@xolang]

Portuguese forgotten? Romanian like 😏

[@iainfraser7588]

@@xolang na i hear romanian mentioned quite a lot mentioned when surfing the romance channels, it is third least though but the difference between last places is way above Portuguese which i would say is even lower than or just equal to Sardinian.

[@iainfraser7588]

@@Lexivor i’ll check this stuff out thank you

[@shmoobalizer]

"where they came from in the Germanic languages, is different from the evolution in Greek" Ancient Greek's definite articles are actually cognate with those in proto-Germanic: Indo-European: só, séh₂, tód Ancient Greek: ὁ (ho), ἡ (hē), τό (tó) Proto-Germanic: sa, sō, þat

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

True. However, what I meant to describe here was that the article did not develop in the parent language (PIE) and evolve into the article in Italian, German, Greek, etc. it developed spontaneously, sometimes as cognates

[@venox314]

Always enjoy these videos! Dope outfit btw :)

[@Tletna]

I did find that interesting. Thanks for the video.