Is There an 'Oldest' English Dialect?

[@jaguarsky55]

I met a surgeon once who studied language as a hobby. He used to love listening to my father talk (born 1913 in southeastern WV, USA). Not only did daddy use many antiquated words, his manner of speech was very formal as well: his family once aristocricy seemed to have held on to that part of their history even though their fortunes were long gone. I on the other hand was raised in the western part of that state and spoke a pure Appalachian dialect as did my mother. I told him once that I was sometimes ashamed of my accent because it caused people to label me as a "hillbilly". He told me not to worry about it because we spoke about the same as our Scottish and English ancestors did when they settled those different areas, with a lot of linguistic spillover from one to the other.

[@gabrielanderson8767]

I personally am not a donor, but I would venture to say that the people who are do feel as though they receive something from your content. I feel as though I have with the few videos I've watched. It's good, unique content, and I am certainly not alone in saying it's well appreciated.

[@suziewhattley3917]

Simon is such an humble young man. Something tells me this smart, talented fellow is going to be quite well-known some day. I would love to see him on an episode of QI.

[@acchaladka]

@@suziewhattley3917 i think Simon on QI could be unintentionally hilarious and well worth his time. I have no idea about his sense of humour and whether he would hate the experience.

[@MrMomst]

Yes i really agree with this, personally im 20 years old and stumbled across his channel whilst watching histrory videos and history of language videos hes inspired me to learn a language and finally go to uni next year as i didnt go this year hes a really good creator

[@maxlambie7788]

@@suziewhattley3917 oh boy, now youve said that... i could definitely get behind it

[@neilfranklin5644]

Dr who and the dialects

[@jakobmaximilianriedl1013]

"Languages Don't Reproduce Sexually" is definitely going into my mental folder titled "Statements I Would Never Thought To Have Heard Phrased Like This".

[@eott42]

Idk man, they do have genders after all. What’s stopping them? I posit that they can even have several parents. English is the product of an orgy between Anglo-Saxon, French, Gaelic, and Norse.

[@ecclesiastes1175]

@@eott42 Gaelic or the Celtic languages have affected the English language little. Features such as do-support and the Northern subject rule may have risen from Celtic Britons imperfectly learning Old English but this is debated. There are very few words in English that are Gaelic or Celtic loanwords.

[@nozrep]

yet, language can be sexual 🤣

[@theshamanite]

"...and there's no... partnership involved."

[@PyckledNyk]

Hearing you randomly say the word “butter” like an American had my drop my jaw for a second. It’s incredible how such little phonological changes can completely change a person’s vocal quality.

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

Those who can speak many languages will all tell you that the voice and especially the style of speech changes with the language. There is a reason language can be called tongue.

[@nozrep]

oh dude me too I was very entertained when he did that

[@matte2160]

I kind of wonder how much of an impact Dutch had on American English pronunciation, especially using the example of “butter.”

[@Bjowolf2]

@@matte2160 In Scandinavia we still call it "smør" [smur], which is the cognate of the OE smeoru ( i.e. "smear" ) = grease / fat / etc.

[@kernowforester811]

'Buddur' in Cornwall/Devon.

[@bradleyblackie1274]

I have insomnia. I watch these videos to help me sleep. Have been doing so for over a year now and have watched most videos several times. Thanks pal. Good vibe.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Wonderful analysis, Simon! Indeed, they’re all quite diverged.

[@divarachelenvy]

glad to see you here... Simon is pretty switched on linguistically... btw G'day..

[@3iggystheorem232]

@@divarachelenvy fall silent, you crazy old man!!

[@stuffandnonsense8528]

Hoho! polyMATHY! Excellent things converge.

[@Leptospirosi]

@@stuffandnonsense8528 culture and good content has a gravity of it's own! 😁

[@Billoybong2]

salvete Luke! Fancy seeing you here bro :D

[@_filifjonkan4290]

When I was an exchange student in the US the teacher played a record with the Canterbury Tales as spoken back when it was written. My classmates where totally confused, but I could read it without any problems, just pronouncing it “the Dutch way” (I’m Flemish). Dutch didn’t get the sound shift that shook English just after the time of the Canterbury Tales. Then I studied Germanic languages and found out that the oldest sentence in Dutch was actually English. Which made me think that Dutch stayed closest to the original Germanic language.

[@gnvinternationalambassador925]

soms wel soms nie

[@RadicalCaveman]

Dutch stayed closest to original North Sea West Germanic, maybe. Or maybe Frisian.

[@thetrueoneandonlyladyprinc8038]

Dutch is close to it in some ways, but it also changed in some ways, and now it only has the articles de and het - but Dutch sounds very modern tho, like English! I’m actually learning Dutch and the other Germanic languages! One thing I noticed that, both Modern English and Modern Dutch have been made to look as poetically perfect as possible and extremely refined visually, and the way they are written is also very different from most others, as they use almost no accents on the vowels (very few words have an accent or the E with two dots) so most words use only the typical letters, and this actually makes it easier to type in Dutch on a normal keyboard! That being said, I don’t want the extra letters that the other Germanic languages have to go away, but I just meant, it’s easier to type in Dutch than it is to type in Swedish or Norwegian etc on a normal keyboard, which does not have the other letters! And they are all very different and so similar at the same time, which makes every Germanic language even more interesting - so even though they all come from one language, it’s interesting how they all changed into very different languages, where each language has its own specific words and patterns and some even different letters, even though it also has things that are similar to another one! In those times, there weren’t that many words, because there was no tech and all these new items that exist in the modern worId, so they probably only had between 500 and 3k words back then, which were the main words, while all the other 30k + words that the modern languages have are words that each language got over the past century maybe and also all the other words they got over the past ten centuries or more, so that’s why they are very different now!

[@richardayton6862]

For all the Geordie accent isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, I’ve noticed the dialect being diluted in my lifetime. I’m quite broad when I’m speaking to friends and family, and thats an active effort to try and preserve it and encourage people around me to do the same. And when I watch your videos, I recognise a lot of words from my local dialect.

[@michaelsrowland]

What is the difference between accent and dialect?

[@philroberts7238]

@@michaelsrowland One way of looking at the two is that 'accent' relates to the way different words are pronounced, whereas 'dialect' involves a different choice of the words themselves. You can speak 'standard English' in any accent you choose, but in dialect the vocabulary (and sometimes the grammar) will differ from the standard form to a greater or lesser degree.

[@jameshind1689]

Yee keep it gan strang richy pal. Wil not let it gan nee wer soon like. Yinar wot am say'n, coz a bet ther's a few on here hu divvent.

[@hube7830]

Howay bonnie lad!

[@gailsmith9644]

This is a fascinating video. I live in the South-East of England but was born in, and raised in, the Black Country. I'm learning Dutch at the moment and see some parallels between Dutch and the Black Country. For example, the Dutch word for 'you' (when 'you' is the direct object) is pronounced 'yow' (which rhymes with 'cow') and it's exactly the same in the Black Country. Also, there is a sound in Dutch that I've only ever heard in the Black Country, which is used in Dutch, for example, in the Dutch word 'Huis'. My native Dutch teacher warned me at the beginning that native English speakers never get this sound right and was genuinely surprised when I got it right first time, and that's because I grew up with that same sound in the Black Country. There are also other parallels too. Thank you for making these videos so interesting.

[@blackcountrysoul]

Professor Carl Chinn from Brum Uni has written some interesting stuff on this.

[@tolrem]

An old Glaswegian I knew would say.."There's a moose in the hoose." [There's a mouse in the house.] He also had an expression "Splinter new." which his Dutch boss said was similar to Dutch.

[@simonevanmuiswinkel9464]

@@tolrem Dutch: Er (/Daar) is een muis in het huis. True: "splinternieuw"

[@simonevanmuiswinkel9464]

The word for you as a direct object is "jij". In cases it is indeed "jou" (dominative or accusative). The ui- sound in huis, originally was non existing in Dutch (f.e. huis was huis or hoes, depending on the dialect). But we took the sound, as we did with the ei/ij- sound, in the 18th and 19th century, from flamish, and originally from french. The sound does exist in french (although not heard as much as in dutch nowadays). It is written as eui, f.e. in portefeuille, it is pronounced the same way. Good luck with learning Dutch, how nice that you do this! It may help you to look at old english, I find it the missing link between modern english and modern dutch.

[@simonevanmuiswinkel9464]

the "Black Country" (near Birmingham, right?) always sounds so magical to me ;-) Succes met jouw nederlands!

[@CJ-rx5fi]

I love seeing the plants and nature while you speak. It’s lovely and very relaxing!

[@b43xoit]

I like that too. Some commentators say they don't.

[@roceb5009]

It's always hilarious to me when you talk about Devonian English, because it sounds like you mean English as it was spoken 400 million years ago. It's extra funny this time.

[@elimalinsky7069]

Isn't Devonian the same as West Country dialect? I always thought West Country was very conservative in how it sounds.

[@harrynewiss4630]

@@elimalinsky7069 Some elements of it are yes = rhoticity, preservation of defunct (in standard English) pronouns, past tenses etc. but not all.

[@andrewblake2254]

@@harrynewiss4630 Please could you give us some common examples of said pronouns, please? I was in Somerset for a small part of my distant childhood. I might have heard them.

[@TP-om8of]

And then there’s Cambrian….or is it Cumbrian….

[@elimalinsky7069]

@@TP-om8of Cambrian relates to Wales. It is the Latin rendition of Cymru, the native Welsh name for Wales. Cumbrian relates to Cumbria, a region North of Wales and South of Scotland, and which is a part of England.

[@Corialtavi]

One thing that was brought home to me one day, many years ago is how people adjust their accent depending on who they are speaking to. If someone wants to make a record of dialect speech it's much better to listen to two people with the same accent talking together. We seem to subconsciously adjust our speech if being addressed by someone with a different accent. This was made obvious to me when I was sat talking in an international group of people who all spoke good standard English. I was speaking to a guy from Doncaster, South Yorkshire & I am from North Nottinghamshire. As we spoke we both fell into our local accents which are pretty close (30 miles apart). After the conversation a German girl sat next to me said, Hey, I really thought I spoke English well but after listening to you two, I did not understand a word.

[@max22able]

English spoken 1000 years from now, what I would give to hear that!

[@PaulEcosse]

I say 'mooth' and 'heid'. I have never thought of myself as conservative, my parents would disown me. ;)

[@angycucumber4319]

LMAO.

[@jakobmaximilianriedl1013]

Normally, I find it's the other way round. (regarding your second statement)

[@lesjames5191]

Parts of county Durham say mooth and heid.

[@PaulEcosse]

@@lesjames5191 They do indeed.

[@dreddykrugernew]

@@jakobmaximilianriedl1013 he is talking about politics in the UK the Conservative party with him being a Scot and all that, its lost on none native Brits what it means...

[@rebeccamorrison3666]

I love hearing you speak old and Middle English! It’s like listening to my ancestors talk. I often think about if I went back in time, say to the 1000s in England, how much I would be able to understand and how much they could understand me

[@andrewblake2254]

Not much to start with but you would probably get there! I am judging from my experiences of learning to speak other languages.

[@stumccabe]

Rebecca. My (worthless) opinion is that you would learn it more quickly than you would learn a foreign language. When I first stared reading Chaucer (Middle English) it seemed very difficult to understand much - but, like "tuning in" to an unusual English accent, it soon became very easy to read and understand (apart from some familiar words having different meanings and similar problems).

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

You would in a couple of months learn the common tongue of where you ended up. And determination allows for comunication between speakers of different languages do to the fact of how much can be shown in signs and facial experssions and so on.

[@Anglisc1682]

Where are you from?

[@Supahdenning]

oldest english dialect is KJV english because thats what abraham and the apostles spoke innit

[@CyberDwarf1949]

Lol

[@michaelbedford8017]

I assume, supahdenning, that you are lightly trolling here.

[@suziewhattley3917]

Thanks for the larf!

[@malcolmplumridge2367]

I'll let you be the judge of that.

[@Bjowolf2]

Ja, Gud tal(k)er naturlig-vis Dansk / Semi-Engelsk - hvad ellers? 😂

[@TeddyLeppard]

I find your channel easily one of the most remarkable on KZbin for the depth of analysis on linguistics.

[@jackie0604oxon]

It's a pity that many accents, also dialect words, are disappearing; young people round here no longer speak with the old East Midlands dialect, but Estuary English. I listened to a now-deceased elderly relative's oral archive interview and it was astonishing. That dialect was so familiar but I haven't heard it for many years.

[@sissylynn9566]

Very interesting that you say that. I love in the deep South of the United States. I have noticed the same here. I am only 41 and I have noticed even a marked difference between my generation and today's youth (I'm s high school teacher). It is very sad.

[@DieFlabbergast]

If I were a Christian, I would undoubtedly hold the view that Estuary English is an abomination created and promoted by the Devil Himself!

[@jackofthegreen7529]

The young locals that were born there in the east Midlands still speak in midlands dialect it is the one that have moved there recently that speak estuary and even cockney.

[@dreddykrugernew]

Because of TV and the internet, i was listening to a BBC sounds episode of some old folk from East Riding of Yorkshire and they where talking broad East Yorkshire dialect and no one would be able to understand it in todays world, he said when he spoke normal for the BBC woman interviewing that village after village going right up the East Coast of Britain had variations of their own dialects. He said when a priest used to move to East Riding from down south he would do his Sunday service and folk couldnt understand a word he said and he couldnt understand a word they said unless they spoke proper English and he said the vicar would ask did you like the service and people would say it was a fantastic service even though they didnt understand a single word. As soon as the railways came that started to change everywhere, then radio, TV and here we are where we find ourselves today. Luckily this old chap knew of the importance of preserving his dialect so he writ it down it contains over 4500 words in the East Riding dialect.

[@TheMogregory]

@@DieFlabbergast and you would be right

[@samcook1318]

My grandma, whose 81, is from south missouri, she will pronounce 'roof' as 'rouf'(kinda like 'ruff' but not excatly that) and 'wash' as 'warsh'. Roof as in the roof of a home and wash as in wash cloth. I say them like that when Im around her just cause it makes me smile, my grandpa pronounced them the same way.

[@luannnelson2825]

Have you ever done a video addressing the use of “Hit” instead of “It” at the beginning of a sentence? I grew up in rural Georgia (US) and my grandfather, who was born around 1897, spoke this way, and I assume he grew up hearing this usage. In other words, he would say “Pick it up,” without the aspirated sound, but he would say “Hit don’t make no difference.” He only went through 8th grade, and I expect his teachers had little more education than he had, so I doubt there was ever any attempt to correct it, but my grandmother, who grew up in the same area in similar circumstances, never pronounced “it” in this way. They also pronounced “humble” as “umble.” My assumption is that these were holdovers from much older British/Scots dialects. Both of them - and most of the people in that area - were of British, Scots, and Irish extraction, with the occasional random German ancestor thrown in for variety. These were people who generally speaking originally came into North America in the 1600s through Massachusetts and gradually drifted south as they received land grants for military service.

[@aryyancarman705]

Wow

[@samcook1318]

Im from louisiana, Ive heard some older people speak kinda like that, I just always assumed thats how all older people spoke once they got to a certain age, but mabey its just a southern older people thing.

[@thedistantsoundcs8900]

I'm from Missouri and my grandma is from New Hampshire and I've never heard her or any other old person speak like that so it must be a South Eastern thing

[@notWaldont]

​@@samcook1318 It's a French thing. They don't pronounce their H's, young French speakers make this mistake even today. Louisiana was French-speaking until the US government put an end to that

[@b43xoit]

"it" is from Old-English "hit" said "heet".

[@chriswarburton-brown4028]

Great video, and a lovely garden too. I never understood why mouse = mice and but house = houses! But of course here in North East England we use the correct pronounciation, 'hooses'.

[@ThisHandleIsTakenTooToo]

Sir, you're such an oasis of calm demeanor and interesting knowledge, absolutely love your content

[@MuchWhittering]

"Languages don't reproduce sexually." Oh I dunno, I find there's usually a lot of tongue involved.

[@cigh7445]

Tongues are not involved in the physical process of sexual reproduction

[@mattwatson6259]

@@cigh7445 no need to out yourself

[@Newksypoo]

@@cigh7445 I may have read a different instruction set than you have.

[@sandroselladore3506]

i--

[@amandachapman4708]

😄

[@800beemer]

Love your channel Simon .My family are Durham miners and when my dad and his brother conversed "thee and thou" featured very heavily.

[@theseeker4642]

Do you pronounce thou as thoo like my Cumbrian relatives, which is the old English pronunciation & how Shakespeare meant it to be pronounced !

[@markscheck]

My grandmother from NYC born 1906 Would pronounce court, coat, caught almost the same as well.

[@nor4205]

This is the second video I've watched of yours now and I am finding your voice soooo relaxing to listen to 😌

[@bobbyclark6116]

I speak a modified Fife dialect from East-Central Scotland. I find south of the Forth-Clyde valley the whole sound of Scots is different from north. I was brought up by my Grandfather, in turn he was 'babysat' (if that is the word) by his great-grandmother born in 1820. He used many fascinating words such as 'redd up yer graith' = clear up your growth (mess); nock=clock; delf=crockery, gelt=coin. they all sound rather Dutch but we have no Dutch ancestry. I grew up near a road with a French name: Jamphlars (Champfleurs); there are many French influences such as ashet (assitette = large dish to serve a whole chicken etc), but the influence of Dutch, perhaps, has not been looked at? It is fascinating how these have grown up. I find it easier to understand my Geordie/Makem friends than my cousins from Shetland which still retains thou/thy/thine (with a hard 'd' for 'th'), girse=grass, eg 'dy sup has girse in it' as my cousin declared as a child, referring to vegetable soup etc. I wish we had an equivalent of yourself for Scots.

[@stevefranklin9176]

We’re very fortunate to have you Simon. Thank you.

[@GaryDunion]

A similar three-way distinction I noticed at university is "paw," "pour," and "poor" - three very distinct pronunciations in my Edinburgh accent but completely merged in my flatmate's Birmingham accent. Conversely, his pronunciation distinguished "soot," and "suit," whereas those words are merged in mine.

[@caimansaurus5564]

how do you pronounce "paw", "pour", and "poor"? i'm interested to know. i guess scottish english is rhotic(?) so paw is immediately distinct, but what vowels do you use for pour and poor?

[@vickiekostecki]

It's funny because my Scouse husband can make jokes or plays on words because of his accent that totally don't work with my Canadian accent. He says "hair" and "her" in exactly the same way.

[@GaryDunion]

@@caimansaurus5564 I think for me, pour rhymes with boar and poor with sure? Also I think they're both slightly diphthongised, going through a schwa-type sound in the transition to the 'r', which as you say is rhotic.

[@willmosse3684]

@@GaryDunion Lol - In my southern English accent, Boar rhymes with sure, so that explanation doesn’t really help a souther English speaker. All four of those words rhyme with each other 😂. I get what you mean about the diphthong in Boar though, as I know how a Scottish person would say that word, even though there is no diphthong there in my accent. So my limited bit of knowledge of Scottish accents helps me to get to the Scottish pronunciation of Pour based on your explanation… 🤩

[@markpartridge378]

@@willmosse3684 I lived on Skye for 25 years, with a partner from the Central Belt and neighbours from Aberdeen - there are lots of ways to say poor and pour in Scotland! To add to the fun, Gaelic dialects vary from island to island, and even within the same island.

[@D.HuwDavies]

Just discovered your channel and have subscribed. This has absolutely nothing to do with your video, but as a Brit living in the US, the one word that causes the most confusion when I talk to Americans - by far - is the way I pronounce "water" ("wor-tah" vs. "waddr"). I can't think of any other word that sounds to foreign to them (except maybe "nomenclature"). Something else - my ex-father-in-law (from SC) came to visit my family in England in the 1980's and was tickled to hear the word "rasher" (as in rasher of bacon) being used by my Grandmother. He hadn't heard it since he was a child. I haven't heard it used here at all but presumably it was in use until recently. Keep up the good work

[@finolaomurchu8217]

I just love your videos! I'm still thinking about the conversation of the Essex boys and the work-worn leather shoes ☘

[@zekleinhammer]

Love this. I think this is the best way to approach linguistics, archeology, anthropology, sociology, and even biology, history, and physics. Just try to describe the world, don’t make value judgments or superlatives.

[@malcolmplumridge2367]

People soon won't be reproducing themselves sexually if the political establishment has its way.

[@CinereoTheRogue]

Dude, this was great! - Your inputs inspire me as Dramaturge/Dramatist. We learn language from a much different angle, but lots of how you explain feels familiar and cozy, dissected and digestible, organic and historically represented.

[@sandroselladore3506]

woah that sounds like a really cool profession (just searched it up)

[@CinereoTheRogue]

@@sandroselladore3506 honestly, theres a better sub-section of Theatre Study that more addresses what his whole channel is about, too. As Actors we learn both “Lessac Notation” which associates sounds with physiological positions and functions of the human resonance systems. And another system i’ve seen him reference: IPA, International Phonetic Alphabet!!! But where he uses it, I imagine, to represent specific differences in phenomes, we use it to “Substitute” certain sounds, to help us dissect and mimic, through craft, research, and observation, accents and dialects for our characters. But I can’t recall or condense it into a school or field of study in Performance Study. We just kind of call it stuff like, “Speech and Diction,” or “Accents and Dialects.” XD But Dramaturgs, Dramaturge (The Field of Study Itself,) and Dramatists, are nore at the heart of all Theatre History. The roles of Producer, Director, or even Stage Managers are very modern. Writers and “Actors” were not even so distinguished for a very long time. Performers were Players in a Troupe, an Ensemble, or a Company, all performing many different roles necessary for the end product. Dramatists would reflect writers or researchers, maybe a director. And in modern times, a Dramaturge is often employed to provide answers to specific questions from designers, directors, writers, even actors, that require research for historical context.

[@sandroselladore3506]

@@CinereoTheRogue very cool, so i bet a degree in linguistics would be helpful for a dramaturge?

[@CinereoTheRogue]

@@sandroselladore3506 Would sure help in a lot cases, but the experience you’d have in research and historical context alone would help in a dramaturge’s primary objectives, and answering specific and sometimes oddly unique questions. (:

[@sandroselladore3506]

@@CinereoTheRogue ah, cool :D

[@bobbybrazier105]

This was really interesting, speaking as a potteries dialect speaker. People here always tout that potteries is the most simular to old English and all that. So it was interesting to see your perspective and get a more rounded view, i guess.

[@maaikegras775]

How fast languages change. I have been deaf for almost 30 years. Had an operation and now my hearing is quite well. But I have small difficulties understanding my own language. People talk faster, they articulate different, they glue words together, that they would not glue 30 years ago.......

[@mnossy11]

Are you planning to become a professor? Cause you’d be very good at it!

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

He does archiology.

[@faithlesshound5621]

The big money these days is in KZbin. Look at Ali Abdaal.

[@AlphaCorporateSales]

Brilliant analysis....please keep up the good work, as we say in America.

[@nguyendailam6703]

I live in Northamptonshire, my accent is so different to my nans. She blames television and the London overspill moving in.

[@rjmun580]

Thank you for another most interesting talk while rambling among the brambles - or perhaps brambling.

[@andynixon2820]

Being near to the old Germanic world in Norfolk I wonder how much of the dialect and accent is still in use . Older people in Norfolk still say foom for foam , as you say it could be a direct carry over from the Angles or just a local happening . Local accents slowly fade as we become more homogeneous , it's a shame but in the process we're evolving into something new .

[@phoenixmassey]

Andy, you just made me remember that some folks I know here in Maine USA pronounce loam as loom. For me it’s loam, but I am from Connecticut.

[@tomarmstrong130]

I always found it fascinating that in our East Anglian accents you have those in Norfolk (and north Suffolk) who might say fum (foam), hum (home) and pund (pound) - and those of us in North Essex and South Suffolk that might say fo-um (foam), ho-um (home) and pow-und (pound) - none of us are using the “correct” length of vowel we are doubling it or halving it!

[@jamesrogers5277]

I was in New York in 1964. I happened to be watching a word-play game show on telly. The words ‘marry’, ‘merry’ and ‘Mary’ were used in a sentence. They all sounded identical to my ‘naive’ English ear. The success of the game depended on this fact. I was struck by how this would not have worked in my RP accent, where the three are perfectly distinct.

[@Ethan54136]

You don't have to apologize for "late" videos or really anything like that. This becomes especially evident if you watch these videos at a much later date. That context becomes irrelevant. Thanks, Simon, for producing the content that you take the time out of your life to make.

[@richardbeebe8398]

One of the words you said in the final seconds of your video reminded me of one of the distinctions that I have become more and more aware of recently: how many differences in pronunciation between British English vs. American English are based on which syllable in a word is stressed. In this instance, it was the word "contribute" when you were thanking your Patreon supporters - CONtribute (as you pronounced it) vs. conTRIBute (as I would have said it ... with the first syllable pronounced more like "cun"). I especially notice this (usually when listening to our BBC America radio news reports) whenever I hear words ending in "ization" ... a long "i" used by British English speakers vs. a short "i" by Americans. It reminds me of differences in musical styles ... one has almost a syncopated quality, while the other is more sing-song.

[@Urlocallordandsavior]

Can't you just answer the hidden bottom right-hand corner question instead of going on a long ramble?

[@rasmusn.e.m1064]

@@Urlocallordandsavior I am sorry, but this response is as graceful as the username above it.

[@musicalmarion]

Controversy is another one like that, and we accept various versions of pronunciation for a word at times - envelope is a strange one because it's the American pronunciation which most resembles the French origin, whereas they usually "unFrench" their words. We still understand foreign speakers who stress incorrectly all the time in general speech, but it's just fascinating.

[@Tommat194]

@@musicalmarion I personally wouldn't say it's that strange, it's certainly not the only case - the American pronunciation of "garage" is closer to French than the British for example and... I know I'm aware of a couple of other examples, but they're escaping me at the moment.

[@dreddykrugernew]

Where im from in Yorkshire, Hull, we dont say couldnt we actually say cunt, 'ah cunt be bovvered' i couldnt be bothered. We also say brock instead of broke but if i was describing myself as having no money id say im broke, but if i broke my phone i would say brock me phone, broken is brocken also, woke is wock, as in 'ah wock up at 6 this mornin' wake is weck as in are you weckin up yet, a lot of T's are turned into R's like 'gerroff' means get off and 'purrin' is putting, the word 'giz' is give us, as in give us a look in your bag, giz a look in ye bag, ye is your, ye is you also, i only notice that nearly every word i say is not pronounced or we have a different word for it than what standard English is, i go to Netherlands a lot and the Dutch are like first class English speakers, our languages are so similar but can they hell understand me and when i say i am English they think i am lying. I have to speak so slow and make sure i pronounce every word properly, we dont say properly we say proply lol....

[@aragorn1780]

So when i took Old English in college I had 8 years of German and a year of Swedish under my belt (plus some limited familiarity with Dutch) What I found was that Old English was no more or less similar to either of those languages, when translating texts I'd find some sentences definitely felt distinctively German at first glance, just for another phrase to feel distinctively English, and then I'd notice others that felt more Swedish even tho that's a completely separate branch from German and English! And this was a language already diverged by at least 100 years from its continental counterpart that became Dutch and German and hundreds of more years diverged from Proto-Norse (add 300 more years for Viking Era Old Norse) that would become the Scandinavian languages! So even trying to go backwards 1000-1500 years will be just as inconclusive because of the mixmashed web of similarities and differences between the Germanic languages!

[@simonevanmuiswinkel9464]

As a Dutch native speaker (quite fluent in German and a little in Swedish), I found that Old English is much closer to Dutch (and obviously, even more close to old Dutch) than it is to German or Swedish. You can also tell from some clips that were made by Simon. English and German and Scandinavian people were able to understand some of it, but Dutch, Flamish and Frisia people were able to understand most of it.

[@simonevanmuiswinkel9464]

Also Swedish could be a seperate branch, but there's many similarities, as they had language influence from German and Dutch in the Hanze trade period. Also, there's even more similarities if you look at the dialects level instead of standard Dutch. There's many similarities between Swedish and the Saxon dialect of Eastern and Northern Holland and Northern Grrmany.

[@aragorn1780]

@@simonevanmuiswinkel9464 if I was any more familiar with Dutch I might say the same thing! Reason German became my fallback for comparison was because I was already fluent in it at the time As for Swedish, I do wholly acknowledge your point about continued trade contact, but my point was more how Swedish seemed to have retained some elements that protonorse had in common with old English that was retained in modern Swedish but dropped in old English, thus giving the appearance that those same elements from Old English have more in common with Swedish than it does with modern English or German/Dutch But thanks for your insight it was very valuable! 😀😀😀😀

[@Michaelneiss]

​@@simonevanmuiswinkel9464 As a Low Saxon speaker from Nothern Germany I can confirm your notion that it feels quite easy for us to understand Middle English and, on occasion, even Old English. The three great Scandinavian languages Danish, Norwegian Bokmål and Swedish have been heavily impacted by medieval Low Saxon, though (a.k.a. Low German, which is not to be confused with High German which became the mainstream language of the German North as late as 1900).

[@AMX86]

Having connection to a foundational language and literature is definitely a point of pride and a stabilizing comfort.

[@hrhcrab]

And it also justifies feelings of rampant nationalism which then mutate into regionalism.

[@saxon.ad410]

@@hrhcrab Fkn bullshit

[@hrhcrab]

@@saxon.ad410 lmao at account name and avatar! *chefs kiss* couldn’t have hoped for a better reply tbh. Thanks dude! 🤣😂

[@urmum3773]

@@hrhcrab "rampant nationalism" Oh, no!

[@hrhcrab]

@@urmum3773 nice vague response, makes it really hard to tell whether you are a xenophobic flag shagger or not! 😅🤣😂

[@Varekai-ep3hg]

I love the video style of Simon’s posts. Where else do you find yourself staring at the rusted lid of an incinerator with two bricks on it? Or a pile of pallets and a plant pot full of water. It’s both totally random and genuinely great - just snippets that otherwise would never be recorded.

[@dperson9212]

I was told many times that the Black Country dialect was the closest to Anglo-Saxon, making it very old, but I've heard elements of some Yorkshire dialects that are very similar, especially when I hear people from Barnsley, which to me sounds different to other areas in Yorkshire, such Leeds and Sheffield (which also sound different to each other) .

[@RobbeSeolh]

Cat runs in the house in Proto-Germanic, I believe

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

I thought it was gothic, but gothic is very old so not that far off.

[@JimCausleymusic]

Excellent video Simon, i particularly resonated with your point about English dialect speakers having understanding of at least two dialects as they have the ability of flipping between their own dialect and standard southern English. It's almost like being bi-lingual and i'd never thought of it that way before! I was then doubly thrilled when you used Devonian as your example because that is the dialect i grew up hearing and which i specialise in today! Many thanks for your insights.

[@DavidFraser007]

It is being bilingual. I had to start from scratch and speak standard English when I joined the Army 1977, I'm from North East Scotland. There were some weird and wonderful accents, my 2 best friends were from Manchester and Cornwall.

[@kitirsan6239]

This is one of the two loveliest styles of videos I watch.

[@petermsiegel573]

The medial -t- and -d- merger to the flap -ɾ- (in words like utter & udder) also occurs in Australian and NZ dialects, joining Canadians and Americans! In careful speech (e.g. on the stage) some fall back on spelling pronunciations or similar strategies.

[@rogueriderhood1862]

fascinating. In Yorkshire 'court', 'caught' and 'coat' are pronounced 'coort', 'cot' and 'coit' respectively. I love English dialects.

[@SilverBrumby165]

Fascinating as always - there's always something to think about in these videos.

[@mojopin70]

WRitten on a prison cell wall in St Briavels castle " The day will come when thou shalst answer for it for thou hast sworn against me " 1671 - Robin Belcher. Very apt for these times.

[@gabbytriestomakethings]

Where I'm from, people say "buddah" for butter and the word carp as in the fish is the same nearly as the work cop for police.

[@effyleven]

I like hearing you ramble, because you are such a very intelligent young man.

[@AccidentalNinja]

I've heard the argument that a language, or perhaps more generally a manner of speaking, will undergo less change the fewer speakers it has. I think I've heard this twice, once by someone who was arguing the Portuguese is the closest to Latin & I think the second time by someone who was saying that the English spoken by people living in the isolated communities in Appalachia is the closest to Shakespearean English.

[@malcolmplumridge2367]

Thou couldst be onto something there.

[@dooleyfussle8634]

Well, it may be due to fewer speakers but I was taught back in the day that a linguistic isolate would tend to "freeze" and remain relatively unchanged (ie. become extremely conservative) while the mother language would continue to change and evolve. This was given as the reason appalachian english remained closer to Shakespeare's English

[@overdose8329]

@@dooleyfussle8634 it also explains why Latin American Spanish has more Arabic derived words than Iberian Spanish

[@NathanaelFosaaen]

I've heard of folks from Maine in the US saying "housen" for multiple houses. this is the first I've heard that construction from anywhere else. wild.

[@IngridRollema]

Heard of or actually heard a Mainer use that term?

[@getrealroleplaying7427]

That was a truly outstanding rendition of "butter".

[@damoog5985]

You are doing such a great job here.

[@philholyman9036]

In Black Country dialect, catch/caught is pronounced cotch/cotched as in notch/notched. Coat is coot but court is similar to everywhere else. Keep up the good work, fascinating.

[@beepboop204]

AAVE is so interestingly similar to the Newfoundland English.... i find that fascinating.

[@chatman4998]

I love aave and the dialects 🤗

[@dperson9212]

Correct, in the Black Country, 'soft' is 'saft', bank is bonk, apple is opple and your hands are your 'onds'.....or your donnies. .

[@philholyman9036]

@@dperson9212 there are even slight differences within the Black Country, one that I've picked up on is the contraction of "shall not" (shan't), which can be variously "share" "shaw" or "shah" dependent on where the speaker is from. The origins of some words escape me: Heiver - big Lezzer - field Fode - yard 🤷🏻‍♂️ 🤣

[@dperson9212]

@@philholyman9036 "shaw" is the pronunciation I'm most familiar with out of those variations Phil. Here's another word I've got no clue on the origins of....calling your dog a "wammul". Where on Earth is that from?! I love the Black County dialect as its so rich and unique and you're right, it's varies from town to town, despite the towns having no clear boundary, its just a conurbation of towns that merge into one another but they have their own versions. In West Brom or Wednesbury people say "we" instead of "me"....."come wi we".....in Tipton, which borders both, they call a sandwich a "pace" instead of "piece". Its wonderful.

[@Dai_Abdurrahman]

Nice to see you all here

[@michaelholmes2101]

Blisthering Barnacles and Thundering Typhoons - Now where is my Whisky from the bottom of the Ocean, and is Friar Tuck drinking himself to Death like me in Shirewood Forest along with Robin Hood Maid Marrion . I like what you do with wo Ooooh Arrrds and Shakespear is such an artist and you aint to bad yourself. Thank you. And dont forget Friar Tuck. Ohh Arrr rr and pieces of Eight Arr Jim Lad you do be as bright as new paint Arrr arr

[@ComradeCheekiBreeki]

I have wondered in the past and this video got me thinking, how much is the perception of language especially in regards to its level of "conservatism" related to the social perception of its speakers? In the US for example, I have often heard the idea that the dialect of American English spoken in the South is the closest existing dialect of English to that spoken by the early colonists of New England. I have always kind of taken this uncritically but I realized later that often speech in the South, especially in the country, is seen as somewhat "backwards" or antiquated, and certainly the South is known for having a much more widely socially conservative populace. It made me wonder that perhaps this was said or believed not because it was linguistically true, but because the South preserves a lot socially and culturally from what is commonly seen as the more "traditional" period of American history. Wonderful video.

[@frugalhousewife9878]

Very interesting and thought-provoking, as always! Incidentally, I am from the NE of America and I pronounce "Mary, merry, marry" all the same. Funny that other people have different mergers too.

[@johnfenn3188]

Thanks for this. The claims of some dialects and of Lallans (possibly a cousin language on the Germanic side) to be in fact Middle English raise my hackles every time! And for precisely the reason you mention.

[@j.johnson3520]

It's such a pleasure to listen to a *knowledgeable* academic, unbiasedly articulating their field of expertise, rather than the 'so called' experts on the kind of topics that get wheeled out regularly on the telly in support/against of this, that, and the other, during these modern times. I hadn't realised how much I'd missed it! Question: Do you think modern communication technology will decrease, maintain, or, increase, regional dialects? Or do you think that the everyday use of regional dialects in those communities protects them? I was thinking of the example of the Black Country folks who used to use Housen a few decades ago, but Houses now. Many thanks, and great work by the way.

[@TheOakleysworld]

Yay! You talked about the Black Country! I am a proud Black Country mon. Your 'You' was a bit off. It's more of an 'ow' sound like 'ouch'. Yow.

[@roytoal9947]

Hi my fella black country Mon, I put a similar reply but wrote yaow, I heard somewhere it was because it came from thou

[@chris.bcfc.keeprighton.5685]

Yam roight ah kid.

[@KetinUSA]

In parts of the US, ‘caught’ and ‘cot’ are also pronounced differently, while in other areas, they are pronounced the same.

[@TheOrdener]

As an American, I’m always impressed when you speak words American.

[@TheDurnans]

I'm midwestern USA, near the Minnesota & Wisconsin borders, so my long O sounds are more pronounced, but not quite as bad as the Canadians. Court has the same sound as the word oar. K-oar-t. Caught has the same vowel sound as the word awe. K-awe-t. Coat has a strong O sound that sounds the same as the word oat. K-oat.

[@b43xoit]

That is also the way I say those three words. I live in Virginia.

[@PureZOOKS]

I love your cinematography. Just some birds, or snow, or a plank of wood, but its just enough to keep the eyes interested.

[@catherineladd5300]

Nice blackberries.

[@TheDNAGroup]

Hear, hear. #Poetry -- #TheBendsSlopesAndCascadesOfMeaning(Feeling)

[@MiceAndMinecraft]

As an aside, “housen” is still used today to describe part of a cart horse harness. Heavy horse magazine used to publish UK distribution maps gleaned from readers & what they remember from their older family as well, to show usage of & pronunciation of various working horse terminology around the UK. Due to the nature of the words used, relating to ploughing/working horses, many words are thought to date back a very long time indeed.

[@peterjhillier7659]

My Family come from the West Country - Doset, Somerset and Wiltshire. My Grandmother who was born into a Agricultural Community in deepest rural Dorset had an Expression which was 'This an' better may do, this an' worse'ill never do' meaning 'Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do Today'.

[@andrewburkholder3842]

This is very interesting. Really enjoy your videos. I'm a native southern US English speaker with a strong Spanish and lesser Russian and German competency and there are a lot of English words I struggle to understand the etymology.

[@tonywolton]

The BBC went around the UK back in the 1930s with a lorry full of sound recording equipment, and recorded everyday folk from many different towns and cities. This featured in a radio 4 programme, and that was probably 20 years ago. Well, just though I would throw it out there, point is, I wonder if there have been any shifts in some of the accents? Imagine if that same recording kit had been used in 1830, 1730, 1630 etc. I also wonder if regional accents will in time become diluted, here, USA, any country, because of our exposure to films/radio/ media etc etc. Walking past holiday holiday makers in Spain on many occasions I hear in the background German accents, mixed up with many others. Then I realise that some of the German accents, with words I do not instantly recognise, are in fact accents from Glasgow and Newcastle. I work with a man from Glasgow, sometimes I need subtitles. One last point- ever watched an American film and you you can't understand what they are saying ? Never, I catch every word be they from the south, north, New York etc. But speak to an American or a Canadian and they are forever saying " excuse me, what was that".

[@spooderman9122]

I don't think I've ever been the first one to see a video but I'm sure it will be just as interesting as always

[@kargaroc386]

There's a couple of videos on this channel that boil down to basically "the present is the past of the future" which sounds obvious, but given how people are interested in the past, well it stands to reason that people in the future would also be interested in the past - except that their past is our present, and we can (try to!) help them out.

[@bigyonga6461]

Your channel has helped me in so so many ways! Thank you Simon

[@seamusoluasigh9296]

I always enjoy and am enlightened by your videos Simon. Please take a look at Hiberno English, Yola from Wexford and Fingallian from North county Dublin.

[@jaycorwin1625]

Very interesting video. I enjoyed it very much. Thank you for the time and effort you've put into it.

[@LordJazzly]

4:01 It's also possible that the earlier process of merging the 'r' into the following 't' as a retroflex quality (I know it is a full place of articulation in other languages, but for English it's allophonic) might have repeated with the 'kawt' pronunciation, merging the vowel quality with the other two, but labialising the 't' to maintain a distinction that would be audible to speakers who had learned it as _phonemic_ but inaudible (edit: well, audible, but not perceived) to speakers of other variants in which it is only an _allophonic_ distinction. Of course I don't have access to this relative so that's all complete conjecture - but perhaps it's a conjecture that might prove useful to someone, so I'm leaving it here anyway.

[@hazchemel]

I appreciate that you venture into language as a portal to the past. Language does show aspects of culture not readily seen in other avenues of history. But we too quickly disqualify ourselves from an amateur study, usually on the ground of ignorance. Hope you continue. Much better that the bow is of many threads.

[@paulh2468]

Haven't seen you in a while Simon. Glad you're back. KZbin puts all my subscriptions/suggested on a multi-month cycle. I used one of your old videos in the summer, talking Old English, to help teach my teenage son.

[@Ok-bk5xx]

I came to this video after blogging theology-owner shared your link with us.

[@HistoryNeedsYou]

I have only just discovered your channel so now I’m happily toddling through the goldmine of your vids. Your quiet and calm delivery is so much better than the shouted three-word syntax of most KZbin vids. I particularly enjoyed your analysis of Black Country vowels in this vid. The Walsall accent contains some great sounds - foive and moine (5 and mine). Are these relics of Mercian OE?

[@ivane5110]

It's not the same, but it made me think of how I (Texan) and my Idaho friends say "crick", while my friends from other parts of the US say "creek" and then other friends from other area of the US didnt even know either word and said "you mean a 'stream'?".

[@hollish196]

This is fascinating and fabulous! I am sharing with a friend who is presenting a Native American program, as I believe this insight into languages merging will be very helpful.

[@tonywatson414]

It's interesting that in Icelandic, the words for house and houses are hús and hús, pronounced just the same as in the video and no difference in the plural. Someone at university asked a lecturer where the Black Country accent came from. She said she didn't really know but thought it arose out of the industrial revolution. One student swore she heard an elderly woman from there say "ho" for "she". A relic of medieval times.

[@CyberDwarf1949]

I've heard a linguistic academic claim that the Black Country accent is the closest modern relation to the English spoken by Shakespeare...

[@robinpayne125]

I half expected the answer to be "from the Black Country".

[@Muzprom]

In Swedish too. Ett hus, flera hus (a house, several houses). And the Swedish word for she is "hon" but that could just be coincidence.

[@GandalfTheGay98]

Hoo is sometimes used in Derbyshire to mean she. But it’s mostly really old people who use it.

[@laurencecollyer2509]

@@Muzprom ho is she in Nynorsk.

[@stephenphilp1380]

I love listening to your explanations!

[@giddygrub7176]

I once had a conversation with a Geordie who explained trying to teach a child the difference between 'look', 'Luke' and 'luck' (in a Geordie accent). Basically they all sounded like the same word.

[@tomwhite7022]

I’m struggling to understand, did he pronounce luck like Luke or like look?

[@giddygrub7176]

@@tomwhite7022 it all sounded like Luke during the conversation.

[@claymor8241]

That’s not true I’m afraid. Yes the pronunciation of ‘luck’ would be the same as ‘look’ (in the way a southerner would pronounce’ ‘look’). But a Tyneside Geordie would pronounce ‘Luke’ with the vowel the same as a southerner says ‘tool’, though slightly shorter. However, the words ‘cook’ and ‘book’ ( though not ‘look’) elsewhere in the northeast would pretty much rhyme with ‘Luke’, which itself would be pronounced more like ‘Lewk’.

[@judisutherland8051]

Geordie speech doesn’t differentiate between ‘shorts’ and ‘shirts’.

[@giddygrub7176]

@@claymor8241 I'm just recounting the conversation.

[@kgpz100]

I am in love with this man. Keep on keeping on!

[@leod-sigefast]

A couple more -en plural English hangovers, include: children, brethren. I think a lot died out in the middle and early Modern English period. I believe god plural used to be gidden. Something like that.

[@nicolaj665]

It's so wonderful to have found you. I have always been fascinated by languages, their dialects and accents and how they have evolved. I wonder how languages have become so grammatical and ordred especially German and Latin languages. Thank you.

[@wjstix]

There was a PBS documentary series in the 1980's called "The History of English". At one point it talked about a remote set of islands off the coast of South Carolina that had been settled by the English in the 1600s. According to some scholars the residents had continued to speak a version of English very similar to 1600's English, due to be being cut off from the rest of the world at least into the mid-20th century. I think that's where the 'American English is like old English' or 'Southern US accent is same as Shakespeare's English' ideas came from. But it is really only true (if it is) for those remote islands.

[@TigerPrawn_]

That was such a nice video! Didn't answer my question, but gave me other things to think about. I especially liked the 'Detectorists' type cinematography ☺

[@elucify]

Great points! It occurs to me that the idea of all Germanic languages coming from German, is akin to the notion that evolution says we (humans) all came from monkeys. But of course, we didn't--we and monkeys all descend from some other creature that is, in all likelihood, as different from both monkeys and us, as we are from monkeys. And that's true for some of the same reasons: localized change in isolation, and contingencies from events unique to one branch or the other.

[@crazylikeafox1000]

I went to the island of Roatan 10 years ago. There is a small family there that spoke an old English dialect. Remarkable. They were stranded there by the pirates and the language was preserved. I have searched everywhere but cannot find a recording, apparently the Smithsonian sent a team down and recorded them, I have searched and searched but cannot find anything about it. Truly amazing to hear. I felt I went back in time to the 1600s

[@jamiemorgan4146]

I live in the U.S. , accents change from state to state and many times within the same state. I came from an area outside of NYC and went to University in Buffalo NY. The locals from there couldn’t say, Mary was Merry , because she got married. Each word was pronounced the same as “Mary”. Mary was Marry, because she got Maryed. Where I grew up, each word was distinctively different. I lived most of my life in Southern California. The locals have a problem differentiating between Pin and Pen... They refers to a Pen as a “ Pin” and wear Pens ( a Broach )...

[@finolaomurchu8217]

Simon did you ever hear of "Yola" a type of middle english from the Barony of Forth and Bargy, Wexford?☘🧚‍♂️🇮🇪

[@hobi1kenobi112]

Similarly Fingallian.