The English Language 'Family Tree'

[@robertmcdonnell3117]

"I am an archaeologist, I am not a gardener"

[@user-bf8ud9vt5b]

Dammit Jim, I'm an archeologist, not a gardener!

[@maximilianolimamoreira5002]

@@user-bf8ud9vt5b " is this some kind of botanic joke, I'm too fond of archeology that it obstructs my understanding?".

[@paulohagan3309]

@@maximilianolimamoreira5002 A Star Trek joke

[@maximilianolimamoreira5002]

@@paulohagan3309 thanks, Irishman

[@txvoltaire]

So why is he hacking his cannabis plants?

[@ChrisBattrick]

You are the Bob Ross for my linguistic soul.

[@jackbyrne4911]

"All models are wrong, but some are useful."

[@expatexpat6531]

Personal anecdote: I, a Brit and German speaker, once lived near the German/Dutch border for a year. After a year of listening to the Radio Hilversum (Dutch) I was able to understand most of what they were saying. The local German dialect was Plattdeutsch, spoken mostly by the older population, which I could understand. I assume the Frisians, Jutes, Saxons, etc. went through a similar experience (w/o the radio) as they mingled in Britain: familiar sounds appearing out of the linguistic fog and gradually assuming clear contours and being adopted when they proved useful for dealing with the neighbours or your Frisian spouse.

[@jpdj2715]

The word "Dutch" actually means "common" or "of the commons" or "folk" or "of the peeps". The Dutch word is "Duits" and the Flemish is "Diets" (deets) or the German one is "Deutsch" (doitsh). So the German name of Germany (Deutschland) means Folks' land. My personal opinion is that we need to see this "of the commons" as opposed to Romance languages (Latin and its derivatives or corruptions). Renaissance being defined as a renewed interest in the original biblical languages added old Greek (koinè) and Aramaic/Hebrew to the foreign mix. "Of the commons" was opposed to Romance (of the savage nobles with urges to become emperor of the "Holy" Roman Empire) and corrupted clergy. And this also defined the background of the protestant christian reformations. "Dutch" dialects had a very high mutual intelligibility from Amsterdam to Berlin, and likely beyond. Germany's reference German of today stems from the geologically higher South, went through a couple waves of ablaut and had some ideologists make it more like Latin. You can see logic in a German student from Berlin studying German in Amsterdam. That one told me that my Dutch language was anachronistic. I answered that mine was more original, less mutilated by alphabetical people and ideologists than her reference one. In Dutch "plat" (flat) is a pejorative adjective used for colloquial dialect, but geologically it references the Northern German planes (North of Hanover latitude) that was in a continuum with the Netherlands. Or in Low German and Platt Deutsch the words Low and Platt must be seen as contrasting something like "highlands". Yes, you Brits. Imagine that the mean Scottish of the Highlands has become your reference language. Not saying that would be bad. But ... Take this all into abstraction and you can imagine that the "common" language may have been understood along the shores of the entire Hanse treaty regions. If you read Shakespeare's original text in a Dutch voice and pronunciation, for starters it rhymes again. You know, English had phonetic spelling too, but had its pronunciation corrupted into something like Chinese where you need to be told how to pronounce everything you write. Great innovation for dyslexics, it seems today. At the time of the Canterbury tales, the differences must still have been smaller. Put a Frisian, Scandinavian and Dutch person with some knowledge of German together to read these older texts and they can easily figure it out. Or, we should take that "common" very seriously.

[@kak3934]

Just a note - Plattseutsch (Low German) is not a dialect of German ("German" usually meaning High German) but a different language with its own varieties, more closely related to Dutch than German

[@oldranger649]

​@@jpdj2715 I've wondered if my Grt., Grt. Grt. Grt. grandparents from Lancester and from Fresia could understand each other if they met.

[@jpdj2715]

@@oldranger649 - That's Lancaster and Frisia, I presume. And let's assume that the Frisian ancestors were fluent in a form of Frisian that has better chances of mutual intelligibility. Then it boils down to the language of the Lancashire ancestors. And here is a complexity. Did they live in the Lancashire country side, was it before the mass migration of Irish to the region (mainly impacting urban area dialects), and even where in Lancashire did they live. Before the BBC, there was no "BBC English" and people may have spoken a form of family dialect at home and yet another, regional one, in public. If the ancestors linguistically had significant Saxon roots, then they must have had a high mutual intelligibility with the Frisians. In basic family life in the countryside, communication would still have been relatively easy and we have to assume that this also applied to the sailors of the Hanseatic trade routes. Note that around 1800 of the entire population of what is France today, only 5% spoke very good French, or 15% (includes the 5%) had reasonable capabilities. The North or North-West of France spoke a form of Frankish with a high mutual intelligibility with Flemish and Dutch. French Normandy had its roots in Viking occupation and the savage nobles that brought French to England as of 1066 really weren't that good at Romance language. Mutual intelligibility in regions of Europe inhabited by Germanic tribes must have been significant for a long time. With most royals in Europe descending from a hand full of counts in a couple German villages, we can wonder about court languages too - in France and England, for instance. Especially radio and TV have accelerated the spread of standard languages. Really ancient Greek that was spoken still in Southern Italy before WW2 is about extinct today. French president De Gaulle still talked about making a union out of France - a country with 400 different cheeses (De Gaulle's metaphor of differences in language or dialect and culture).

[@ronaldderooij1774]

@@jpdj2715 Thanks, as a Dutchman interested in language history, I learned something from you. One small correction. Dutch was also spoken south of Amsterdam, so it would be better to take the southern border of the language not as Amsterdam, but as Brussels (Broekzele) or Calais (Kalles).

[@frankbassoff]

every video: "Im an archaeologist not a linguist" has countless videos on the history of English and on dialects

[@Anon.G]

People are allowed to have hobbies buddy

[@frankbassoff]

@@Anon.G ik, i just find it funny and I think that at this point he might as well call himself a linguist (albeit amateur)

[@Markle2k]

@@Anon.G Plus, there can be cross-discipline benefits.

[@camhusmj38]

He does that because he got shouted at on some of his earlier videos for errors - because people on the Internet are not able to let things go. This way the disclaimer is right at the front.

[@amjan]

Everybody can make countless videos on anything these days. Simon is respectful to the merits of being a scientist in a field.

[@cahilljoe]

Simon how much per hour do you charge for gardening?

[@ChristophersMum]

🤣🤪🤣🤪

[@edwardjohnson7059]

The fact he's chopping those Goldenrods just before they're about to flower would have me questioning his horticultural credentials haha

[@Beruthiel45]

@@edwardjohnson7059 They were blocking the path. Machete required. 😊

[@j3tztbassman123]

Looked more like horse weed than goldenrod, and goldenrod won't bloom until late summer.

[@alexshaw1404]

Probably more that you can afford

[@shadowmoon1657]

And he wants you to know he’s an archaeologist by chopping his way into the jungle! Indiana Jones would be proud!

[@SuperHorsecow]

If Indiana Jones was a proper archaeologist then I'm fucking Xi Jing Ping mate

[@elisacooper935]

@@SuperHorsecow😂🤭

[@maximilianolimamoreira5002]

@@SuperHorsecow archeologists watching his actions and manners be like:" how dare you do that? such shameful behaviour, you breached all proper procedures".

[@bronzearmy2645]

American dialects from British regional Dialects is a very interesting topic. Appreciated the tip of the hat to it in the family tree. Also the trimming of the garden was an epic entry.

[@colinmorrison5119]

The audio issues are caused by auto-gain reducing volume when the winds blasts the mic. Get a deadcat (looks like a Tribble) for it for outside recording.

[@simonroper9218]

I think there's one lying around the house somewhere but I didn't know what it was for! Thanks for the advice :)

[@colinmorrison5119]

@@simonroper9218 A high-pass filter on your vocal track will also help. For male voice, it's usually set at 80Hz or so. Some recording devices have it built in, otherwise do it in post.

[@brianhynds6201]

Tribbles breed quickly so you should have have pile of them by now.

[@bennaustin6632]

Simon Roper You have obviously never watched ASMR, those fluffy wind shield mic covers are well known in those circles.

[@TheSuperCanucks]

lmao looks like a tribble

[@thomcowley7332]

Always a delight to watch your videos mate. Don't worry about getting them out late, it's still worth the wait!

[@PhoebeMostafa]

Such a lovely channel! We get wonderful information about the history of English language, as well as the birds and flowers and birdsong in your garden. Thank you so much!!

[@PodcastItaliano]

Came for the historical lingo, stayed for the birds. Great video, Simon!

[@TheBlackDogChronicles]

These videos are very informative and very useful to me personally. I want to applaud the gentleman for the work that goes into them, and thank him for the kindness of doing them in the first place.

[@cuchulainn140]

Just when I’m feeling down you send glorious succour to relieve my mind, thank you Mr. Roper

[@jonap5740]

You are never boring, sir. Never. I don't always get all you say on the first watch, but I'm learning!

[@ByronLina]

The continuum in languages that can be reduced to “family trees” again corresponds to biological species, commonly represented with a tree-diagram but often better represented as sets of continuum’s.

[@jointgib]

also hybridisation

[@philroberts7238]

@@jointgib And there is a similar question mark for biologists in determining where to draw the line between a species and a sub-species as there is for linguists in distinguishing between a language and a dialect.

[@deniecezinnecker9630]

I was happy to hear a comment about the influence of other European languages on American English. I grew up in an area of the U.S. where people from 2 northern European countries (not Great Britain) had settled, and yet, within the same state, people who ancestors came from the old Czechoslovakia had slightly different accents and even vocabulary. If you ever want to expand your linguistic studies, perhaps that would be an interesting question to delve into.

[@catchme4079]

Someone should kidnap this man and force him to speak for hours after hours. Your videos are very relaxing and informative, keep up the good work!

[@agnesarellano6033]

that's not jolly, that's not jolly at all -CGP Grey

[@januarysson5633]

He needs a second ASMR channel.

[@that1niceguy246]

Maybe not kidnapp but politely invite

[@varana]

@@that1niceguy246 "Make him an offer he can't refuse"? :D

[@that1niceguy246]

@@varana yup

[@swagmund_freud6669]

As a conlanger, I've always tried to find a way to make simulate this complexity in a way that works. The traditional way of conlanging, used by people like David Peterson, is to pick some sound changes, and apply them in a neat and consistent order. This gives the appearance of naturalistic evolution while keeping things neat and organized. I think it works well enough for most, but the obsessive bwai I am desires more naturalism. I've found the best method is to track out migration routes of my conculture on a map, with eras and levels of intensity. Furthermore, I determine whether they replaced the former inhabitants of that territory, assimilated into them, or hybridized with them. Then I select my innovations, with dates and everything, and get transparent plastic sheets to put over the map. I draw on them with sharpie to show the time and changes occurring. I then flesh out the details of noteworthy dialects, either because they are prominent in my sister's books or because they are prestigious or just personally interesting, or just to get an idea of what's going on, and describe them in more detail. This way, all I need know to translate a phrase is what who said it, where are they from, and what influences their speech patterns. It's intense but highly rewarding...

[@abhishekdb9800]

i would be interested in looking at your work.

[@swagmund_freud6669]

@@abhishekdb9800 I'll try to remember that I made this comment in a year or so when it's finished and put into a more presentable manner. Idk I'll set a reminder on my phone for one year or something.

[@shryggur]

@@swagmund_freud6669 I hope the comment section will remind you about it too :) Have you tried making digital maps, with layering and stuff? If yes, why didn't it work for you?

[@thorodinson6649]

@@swagmund_freud6669 please

[@rosaburgs6019]

@@swagmund_freud6669 how is it now?

[@wennick4859]

Nice a linguistics video and gardening asmr

[@marcovtjev]

Also keep in mind that e.g. traders, fishermen and smugglers still had regular contacts, and they were more likely to deal with people they could understand. Afaik there is an anecdote of fishermen (that used coastal dialects often based on Frisian) that during the Napoleontic export ban (continental system), the smugglers used dialect similarities between English and Frisian to know what was "good folk" and weed out possible custom officers that were probably not from the coastal regions.

[@donkeysaurusrex7881]

You know it is serious when an Englishman breaks out a machete.

[@GaryDunion]

That's a billhook, a properly old-school tool. As befits a time traveller like Simon.

[@donkeysaurusrex7881]

@@GaryDunion I stand corrected.

[@GaryDunion]

@@donkeysaurusrex7881 I mean for all intents and purposes it is just a broad, curved machete! But I notice Simon was using the outside of the curve; usually it would be the inside. It looks like his is sharpened on both sides.

[@cartoonhanks1708]

Wait till he gets out his monkey and pith hat

[@FuelFire]

Simon is one of the probably not many people that would start a video with chopping off greenery in the garden

[@jolenethiessen357]

This theory, and especially the US dialect one, makes a lot of sense. We had lots of regional migration from the Ukraine ams Poland in this area (which was Colonized mostly by the English initially) at the turn of the century, and a lot of vocabulary is part of our regional dialect. A friend grew up on Poland and thinks our Polish vocabulary is funny and antiquated. A similar kind of thing happened in Quebec - the French there kept a lot of "old" features of continental French. Here in Manitoba, our French is a smattering of Continental French and Quebecois with lots of Franglais thrown in for good measure. A lot of our educational materials come from Quebec, so that's probably why lots of the antiquated Quebecois vocab sneaks in even though "proper" French (i.e. Continental French) is what is taught and is used officially. And then there's Michif, which I'm just starting to learn. An Indigenous language, it has features from both Cree (another Indigenous language) and French. Most of what I've learned so far has recognizable French roots, although my understanding is that specific word groups and syntax are more like Cree. My grandfather I think spoke a version of Michif, as I could understand somewhat what he said, but had lots I didn't know (we spoke English 99% of the time). I wish he was still around so I could ask him questions as I explore this part of my heritage.

[@lmarsh5407]

I don't have much to say but I want to say thats very interesting!! I live in Ottawa and plan to learn an Ojibwe language (I have no indigenous heritage, I just want to learn the language of those who lived here first. Like how I learn the language of italians when visiting italy). Anyways I find that very interesting!

[@silverstreettalks343]

Those grandparents and their lost memories! My maternal grandfather (born 1883) had a few interesting pronunciations, like the past tense of "eat" sounding like "et". His father spoke both the local Cambridgeshire dialect from the early 19th century and that of a nearby region which had less immediate mutual intelligibility with London English. My grandfather could quote words and phrases in both dialects but didn't speak them. It's a pity that, when he died in 1972, cassette recorders were just becoming common, and no one thought of recording him.

[@philroberts7238]

@@silverstreettalks343The "et" pronunciation is still very common in parts of the UK. In fact, I was taught that it was the "correct" way to say it. ("Etten", on the other hand, was unquestionably dialect!)

[@thomasgrizzell223]

One day I will know enough about this to actually have an intelligent conversation about it with someone such as yourself.

[@MrTrilbe]

I don't think you need to know a lot to have an intelligent conversation, just know enough to know you don't know enough.. don't confuse knowledge with intelligence

[@shryggur]

Asking right questions in order to get proper knowledgeable answers is quite an intelligent move if you ask me!

[@sgrannie9938]

I am so envious of that garden and variety of birds ☺️

[@iamthirdyt]

I thought they were all nice garden plants then I saw the poison ivies. lol. Fascinating video!!! I’ve always wondered how languages sound at country’s bordered. You’ve quenched my intellectual thirst. Thank you!!

[@paulyberk]

The American dialect analogy is interesting. I am a native of Boston which is characteristic for our dropped 'r', however my understanding is that the British pilgrims and puritans who settled New England spoke with Rhotic accents when they arrived in the 1600s.

[@Sagitarria]

Curious if you’ve read or been made aware of the book Albion‘s seed. It explores the way that various colonies of the Americas were directly picking up the lifeways And language of the various parts of England that they were settled from

[@authormichellefranklin]

I want to know which of the goldenrods hurt your feelings.

[@regular-joe]

I always enjoy and learn from the content, and the random openings and closings of the vids are appreciated and enjoyed, too.

[@whukriede]

The birdwatching was just phenomenal and your other stuff as entertaining and highbrow as ever. Also we love seeing you in such a good mood.

[@vogelvogeltje]

Mexican American from california here, and I started learning dutch in January 2020 as a New Years resolution. I’ve kept on with it and I notice similar cognates, it trips me out!

[@digitalmimi]

It would be interesting to see a computerized version of the branches where like the interaction between languages after branching was able to be visualized dynamically

[@silverstreettalks343]

I quite enjoy your videos. I took an interest in Old English when I was in high school through reading books by Bradley, Potter, Hogben and others, and studying German with a truly scholarly German teacher (who gave me a quick introduction to Gothic, as he was studying it at the time.) An opportunity to wander the homelands of my North German ancestors a couple of years ago was stymied by shingles, which turned the holiday into a tour of the Great Hospitals of Northern Europe before I even reached the Tiefebene. I found your "BBC Interview with an Anglo Saxon" episode and the English/Old Norse intelligibility episodes particularly fascinating. Thanks for your efforts.

[@Firebreath56]

I've been wondering about the relationship between all of the West Germanic Dialects. I guess we don't really know that much about them because they didn't have a writing system at the time. Thinking about it, I do wonder if it's a similar situation to Ancient Greek, where there's no single "Ancient Greek" language, but a set of closely related dialects that are all nearly perfectly mutually intelligible. If that's the case, it might be a better way to look at the relationship between the West Germanic dialects at that time.

[@YngviFreyr]

That intro was everything.

[@oleksandrbyelyenko435]

That intro though

[@dr.arikgreenberg25]

Brilliant video, as usual. Great shirt, and love the images of birds and your yard.

[@michael.bombadil9984]

Your discussions are always fascinating. I'm very much looking forward to the British influence of American accents. At one time,prior to social media and 400 channels on tv, there were, arguably, no less than 6 accents alone in the county where I live, SE North Carolina, all sounding English. In college I was once asked from where in Australia I was raised, and in another class where in England, yet I had spent my entire life on the coast of NC.

[@ronaldderooij1774]

Imagine that Dutch still has 230 or so dialects in the Netherlands alone. And probably just as many in Flanders. Every village sounds different.

[@MrVegavision]

Thank you Simon. Really enjoyed this one.

[@Bobbieliz]

I enjoyed the "fading continum" telling. Especially showing From Dutch to German to regional Swiss Dialects...some S. dialects seem very strong to me, and up by Basle much more German. We were once near Schevingen in the Netherlands. My daughter, who could speak fluent Berne Deutsch and hoch Deutsch said, "They sound like they are speaking German English something else combination..I wish they'd make up their minds." I think she was 13 at the time. I wasn't strong in any language but English, so I couldn't help her there.

[@maritdegoede9119]

thank you for tidying up the garden before talking to us! i think its very important to look at languages and especially language development over time as a spectrum, and it made me think about how maybe dialects, like the eastern dutch/western german or southern german/swiss dialects, are becoming less prevalent as people are more expected to speak in their standardized language, i'll have to look into that! loved this video

[@nicosmind3]

If TV and the internet didnt exist i suspect that many would have grown further apart. But theyre getting closer instead. Im still surprised that Dutch turned into Afrikaans in South Africa, but English remained English in America (same goes for Spanish). All in the same time period

[@hamsterama]

@@nicosmind3 I wondered the same thing exact thing about Afrikaans! Like, why did it diverge from Dutch at a period of a widespread literacy and standardization, while America English is still very mutually intelligible with UK English.

[@paulohagan3309]

@@hamsterama Just a few speculations on my part but maybe useful suggestions for future reasearch for anyone interested? Afrikaans and Dutch are relatively small populations and more isolated from each other. African languages survived in South Africa to an extent that indigenous languages did not in the US and perhaps influenced Afrikaans significantly more. The US is next door to Canada which being loyal to Britain worked hard to keep the language reasonably mutually intelligible and this carried into the US. The US and the British Empire were for a long time quite hostile to each other and paradoxically the need to keep connections open and see and understand what the other side were up to perhaps led to a tendency to keep the dialects so. Continued migration between the US and Britain and maybe even between the US and Europe made a pool of people who had to speak in roughly the same kind of English especially when corresponding with the folks 'back home'.

[@hamsterama]

@@paulohagan3309 Those are some great speculations! But it's true, America and the British Empire never cut off contact with each other. I know the two continued economic ties after independence, up to and including the present day. And Americans never stopped reading British literature. I have to wonder if maybe those Dutch farmers and their descendants were largely illiterate, and had absolutely no communication with their ancestral country. Hopefully, someone more knowledgeable will chime in here with an explanation!

[@hamsterama]

@Saint Wendelin Yes, for whatever reasons German dialects are alive and well in southern Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, while they're disappearing in the north. I'm American, but 20 years ago, I was a high school foreign exchange student in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Only old people could speak the local dialect, Plattdeutsch. Anyone born in the 1950's or later could not speak it. Though, I gotta say, it made learning German for me much easier, because I didn't have to deal with a dialect. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is mostly rural. You'd think that dialects would thrive in rural areas, but that's not the case.

[@KC-vq2ot]

It is strange how "family tree" is the worst possible way to think about this situation, yet it is the only way that makes sense. What historical linguists try avoiding is idea of languages straight up mixing through rough translations and word barbarisation. My favourite example is how Slavic "otec" does not really fit with all the other fathers, vaters, padres and pitrs. However, in Ukrainian and Belarus, word for "father" was mostly displaced by "bat'ko"/"batska". We still retain word "otec", but it has more religious meaning now. Guess what. Only in Belarus and Northern parts of Ukraine heavy mixing of Old Slavic and some Germanic language was taking place due to Kievan Rus, that was, at its core, nothing more then Nordic expansion South. We still retain a lot of phrases and proverbs that word for word translate to various German and English ones. So what we think of as "Old Slavic" in fact, may be mixture of "True Slavic" with East Germanic language

[@user-th8qx4tx4y]

I just wanted to thank you for making videos :) keep up the good work!

[@meowcula]

your videos are always interesting. keep well, Simon!

[@Joejobass]

Not boring at all! I like your American migration analogy; I think it's very applicable. As an American who grew up in Europe, I was exposed to a lot of linguistic diversity, and developed an interest in these things and an ear for dialectical subtleties. Having lived in Germany as a kid, I found it fascinating when I moved to NE Wisconsin (decades later) and heard obvious German constructions, like "Come by me and I'll go with." Not to mention the vowel sounds: old people here pronounce the word "boat," exactly like the German "Boot," for example.

[@Beruthiel45]

Not strictly on topic but came to mind as you mentioned certain groups. Somewhere at some point I read that the Europeans with the closest genetic links to English people were modern day Frisians. I found it interesting since Angle land became England but Angles weren't necessarily the most prevalent amongst the invaders mentioned. Of course they were all lumped together by the time it was written down in history, much as Vikings were thought of as one group but who were really just guys from all over the Scandinavian peninsula. Not just The Danes who gave Britain the Danelaw. You do cause my mind to roam about and remember snippets of things I picked up heaven knows where, but it's fun and fascinating. Thank you. 😊

[@philroberts7238]

Yes, I've always found it interesting (and possibly significant - who knows?) that the Anglo-Frisio-Juto-Saxons eventually self-identified as "English", whereas in all the Celtic languages they were, and remain, "Saxon".

[@allangardiner2515]

The scatter graph modelling really aids explanation and the theorisation style is enlightening.

[@lucsgabriel1052]

your videos are really amazing and informative, and your voice together with the background noises make the video almost asmr-like :)

[@PDXGregor]

I think I’m as impressed by your openness to feedback as I am by your acumen. If only all scholars were like that. Thank you so much for the fascinating content you provide.

[@kellimbt]

Your musings are always interesting and always welcome!

[@VaucluseVanguard]

When I first started in health care in 1979 I worked in a very working class area of Birmingham, having had much of my teenage years there. I spent a lot of time translating between elderly Brummies, many who had reached adulthood in the Edwardian era and - mainly middle class - doctors for whom these people were speaking a foreign language! An Irish doctor friend of mine did his SHO years in Newcastle in the 1960s. He said it took him about 18 months before he could understand what many Geordies were telling him...... and consequently he thought he had misdiagnosed quite a few people!

[@douglasfur3808]

Comparing the family tree graph to the colored dot map was informative. Your appearance on the "can you understand Dutch" video had me thinking along similar lines.

[@Alex-fm3og]

Haven't caught one of your video's for a while, nice to find it again! the new (probably not so new now) camera is brilliant, nature shots look awesome

[@Wearldsproake]

Hey Simon, love your takes on Old saxon and Old English. Here's a challenge: how about us setting up a zoom call and see to what extent Old Saxon and Modern Low Saxon are mutually intelligible?

[@johnhockenhull2819]

Slightly tangentially, I watched a TV programme a few years ago where they took a Welsh speaker to Brittany (France) to see if a native speaker of the local language there and the Welshman could have a conversation. They could.

[@Wearldsproake]

​@@johnhockenhull2819 Interesting, but to be expected IMHO, as they're from the same Celtic branch. Centuries of nationalism have trained us to think in fixed language 'boxes', while in practice it's a fluid scale. Especially in the case of Low Saxon, it's very hard to tell where Low Saxon becomes Dutch and vice versa (or even where one variety differs from the next), while some varieties of Low Saxon can even be regarded as Hollandic-Saxon or German-Saxon hybrids. I imagine it's the same between the Brythonic Celtic languages. Selection procedures for standard languages are often arbitrary and based on politics, rather than linguistics. So non-standard varieties may become standards in other places (as can be seen with Norwegian, Swedish and Danish). And by focussing too much on one standard, we miss the obvious overlap with those other standards that are often preserved in our dialects. My proposal is slightly different in that it's trying to bridge a thousand years of language history between Old Saxon and Modern Saxon.

[@safi-sultanbeyli7761]

Your channel is precious.

[@jwrush]

With regards to American English dialects you may be interested in the anomaly of the Pittsburgh dialect which carries a lot of Scottish and Irish influence that merged with traits from eastern European languages and Yiddish as waves of immigration moved through. The endemic second person plural "yinz" commonly heard there is supposedly an evolution of "you ones" for instance. I've heard (I think on name explain of all places) that Australian English sounds to the British ear like an accent from "nowhere" because of the fact that it evolved out of settlers from across the island. I'd like to hear your take on this.

[@Beruthiel45]

I wonder how the "from nowhere" came about? I never heard that before. It's a fact that most of the unfortunates who were sent on the convict ships were from the London area or southern and southeast parts and from what we were taught once upon a time the Aussie accent derives mostly from Cockney. The pronunciation of vowels is very obviously related, with time divergence also being a factor of course.

[@nicosmind3]

Being half Spanish, but UK based, i find the Valencian Catalan debate a little fascinating. Most say that Valencian comes from Catalan, but theres plenty who say its the opposite (pointing out that Valencia produced literature first). Most say theyre the same language, but im now convinced that theyre different languages as theres so many differences. I havent learnt either language though, but ive been watching Valencian videos and pretty shocked at how much i understand. I say all that knowing there is a language continuum, one languge does become the other the further north or south you go. But also 1000s of words conjugated, and said differently. If Spanish is different to Portuguese, Valencian is different to Catalan (from my still limited knowledge).

[@jamespercy8506]

Interesting off-the-cuff exploration of language relationships. Than you.

[@hollyanforth1006]

I'm curious to know if you have an opinion on the effect music has had on the evolution of language. I've asked in a couple other videos, but I do realize that you get a lot of comments. But if you get a chance, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

[@thelivetoad]

Very interesting and good points and good analogies

[@Randomname8383]

Another banger of a video. Cheers, Simon

[@yum2735]

One thing I've always been wondering is how the Roman split into Istvaeones, Ingaevones and Irminones fits together with Proto-Germanic. Were there already significantly divergent dialects in Proto-Germanic times? How accurate is the notion of Proto-Germanic being a single language from which all Germanic languages are derived? It seems kind of unlikely to me and the same goes for later developments like West Germanic.

[@joshuahillerup4290]

Part of the problem there is that a lot of the Roman authors were verifyably pretty bad at doing accurate reporting.

[@kyleellsworth6440]

Well done! I feel I need to share this with some people from thirty years ago! If you ever pass through the Chicago area you can stay in our spare room. We are mostly not cereal killers. To be fair, you would mostly be fed eggs and toast.

[@suedaniels4722]

Simon could have used those goldenrod for dying cloth like the Anglo Saxons did - flowers easily produce yellow dye

[@AndrewTheFrank]

Another thing to note about many of the American dialects is that many of the distinct ones are in areas with a non Anglo or native English speaking population. That after many generations and no longer speaking the foreign languages they came over with there seems to be artifacts from those languages, such as pronunciations and intonations, that seem to persist.

[@hilarychandler3621]

A great example of that is the intonations in Northern Wisconsin and Minnesota- areas all settled deeply by Swedes and Norwegians. For reference listen to especially the film Fargo or radio show Lake Wobegon.

[@AndrewTheFrank]

@@hilarychandler3621 that was probably one of the dialects i was thinking of when writing that comment.

[@williamd.costigan3]

Archeologist or linguist? Definitely not a gardener! Just teasing you. I really like your channel, I studied Eng. Lit at UCB many years ago and your channel brings back fond memories of great teachers.

[@luke125]

Anyone here old enough to remember the movie “Harold & Maude”. Simon reminds me of the protagonist in that movie.

[@Chasantnik]

Not boring at all. Many thanks.

[@earthcat]

Always happy to see you have uploaded ☺

[@richardlindquist5936]

Welcome back, Simon!

[@louisrobertbrown]

I love how these discussions constantly fight between putting things into identifiable categories to find patterns, vs trying to emphasise where these categories are misleading or oversimplified.

[@KevinExploringMyWorld]

I thought the frog was real for a moment. But anyway, from the point of view of a genetic genealogist, I have some input on the use of a family tree structure being used to model language evolution. First observation, all of the attempts I see to model language evolution with a family tree diagram tend to have a series of parent nodes, and then child nodes that descend from the parent, and in a sort of a-sexual way. I personally think a slightly better model would be a two-parent model describing each node. For example, and being very broad here, modern English would have a mother of Old English, but a father of Old French. In reality, there would be nodes across time where the direct maternal line (like mitochondrial DNA in my field) would be the traditional parent languages, but there would also be a series of father nodes that would account for things like vocabulary infusion from another language. Second observation/comment. In my field, we do have trees for Y-DNA haplogroups and where mutations occur that can be directly mapped to individuals who walked the earth at points during history. But when we do family trees, we generally don't glean as much from these high-level trees as we do from trees that describe relationships between actual individual people. So I see this type of tree being applicable to linguistics as well. That is, I think we should attempt to make trees (not by individual speakers, but using specific grammatical elements/nodes) that show the ancestors (paternal and maternal via my model) of say specific words, grammatical features, phonological features, etc. You could then make "genetic network" diagrams (not sure of the equivalent in linguistics if there is one), whereby trends among the individual element trees can be examined in relation to the populations/languages to which they belong. I think such a process would model better creolization, ,etc. Comment getting a bit long, but not trying to reinvent linguistics here. You just got me thinking, which is why I love your channel.

[@theNorthernDogStar]

Simon... you are so Cumbrian.

[@jwrush]

The other phenomenon which the traditional genealogical taxonomy of languages ignore are the cultural interactions between linguistic communities that can have especially on vocabulary: Norman French with regards to English is of course the preeminent example, but it's often treated like an oddity when one can find many other examples if one looks. Maltese is a neat example for instance, but the cultural hegemony of China has impacted almost every east Asian language historically.

[@jimmerd]

Romanian is a good example as well, Vulgar Latin being strongly influenced by Slavic languages (and possibly a different Balkan substrate, evidenced by the Balkan Sprachbund)

[@MrVegavision]

Loving your shirt btw, Simon.

[@vashnator]

Your videos are so enjoyable!

[@TonyFreeman-LocoTonyF]

I love your videos. 👍

[@SuperAlexander31]

I lived in The Netherlands for two years. I am from the uk. I lived in Rotterdam and Hilversum.I decided from the very beginning of my time living and working over there, to learn the Dutch language. At the end of the two years I could hold a conversation in Dutch. It’s a hard language to learn. I once tried to have a conversation with someone from Friesland. But because of his accent and dialect, I couldn’t understand him! There are lots of words spelt the same as in English, but obviously sound different. Due to the way they say the alphabet. It was hard at times but even though that was twenty years ago. I still remember quite a lot. It’s fascinating how the English language is made up of so many languages. A real melting pot of words…… Simon I have the upmost respect for you. Each of your videos I watch I am glued to them. Thank you and I will say in Dutch tot zines. That means bye for now.

[@mariadamen7886]

Correction: Frisian is considered to be a Language. Very few people outside Friesland understand it.

[@asparagus3337]

I lived there for 17 years, and it is one of the easiest languages for an English person to learn, being a level 1 language with much the same construction as English, not to mention a lot of similar words. I now live in Bulgaria and yikes! Level 4 language, different alphabet, different way of creating plurals and adding the definite article etc, plus I'm a lot older.

[@robertmcdonnell3117]

Great video!

[@AlexanderSilver1996]

I have to say I’m very jealous of your bill hook! I’ve been eyeing one up for months but haven’t bought it and now you’ve beaten me to it!

[@Sprecherfuchs]

Have you considered the wave model, where linguistic innovations spread out to nearby areas but not across the whole language, leading to the dialects in different areas having different combinations of features?

[@chuckbowie5833]

I'm reposting this since a couple of people were interested, and apparently YT removed my comment because I included a link. On the notions of language and dialect from a historical, Latin/Romance point of view, I highly recommend E. Coseriu's "El llamado 'latín vulgar' y las primeras diferenciaciones romances" (available on Scribd). There's also an article version in German (which I haven't read), titled "Das sogenannte Vulgärlatein und die ersten Differenzierungen in der Romania" (also available online).

[@anghellicamakes2792]

It was not boring. Carry on mate, I'll be waiting for the next episode!

[@Safetysealed]

I was wondering if you'd fancy doing a video on the relationship between Scots and English, (and the continuum in between with SSE). And maybe your own thoughts on how/if the political situation with the "its a dialect" vs "It's a language" argument might affect the future "legitimacy" of World Englishes that David Crystal (among others) talk about, being seen as legitimate?

[@theonetheonlyjoey]

This would be an interesting video to watch

[@frankharr9466]

Not boring at all. I think we have to accept that the closer you look, the more complicated it gets.

[@Deines7]

Apart Old English and other Germanic languages, Simon likes birds too, and I don't have doubts :)

[@jaewilliss5407]

I personally find your musing videos are the ones i tend to click on moreso than the kind of higher production ones.

[@keeperofthedomus7654]

Bobby pops out of the bushes: “Oy! You got a license for that knife?”

[@1lobster]

i like anglish.

[@manorueda1432]

Are you seriously asking if this was a boring video? It's so interesting!

[@SeverusFelix]

Not boring at all! Also, I love the nature stuff.

[@AccidentalNinja]

A-musing video... Thank you.

[@peterwright7630]

Hi Simon, love your videos. Something I'm not sure about is whether these dialect continua between national languages still exist today. My experience is with Galician/Spanish/Portuguese around North Portugal and Galicia. Textbooks will tell you there is a dialect continuum running from northern varieties of Portuguese up to Galician, but the young people I have heard in Portugal literally right on the border sound very Portuguese, and nothing like Galician. I'd be very interested to hear to what extent German/Dutch still has a dialect continuum, or indeed English and Scots. My bet is that nowadays people on different sides of national borders sound a lot more different than they did a century ago, even if they stil l sound very different to the standard varieties of their national languages. All the best.

[@danieljeffares459]

I like you videos, thanks for making them. The language trees look very much like trees of species made by evolutionary biologists. In this field we use DNA as characters to infer the tree topology, and there are well developed algorithms to make these inferences. Is this well developed is this for languages and dialects? Seems like the vowel shifts you mention could be used as characters.

[@DarthCalculus]

Bold move chopping plants for the first 28 seconds of the video. Show those "how to grab your audience's attention in 5 seconds" people what's up

[@kwaaikat100]

The Frisian English relationship is one example where a tree gives a very misleading impression. Modern Frisian, as exemplified in West Frisian, is very close to Dutch in all aspects. It can’t be simply said this is Dutch influence (Welsh is not close to English) but rather a direction of development that these closely related languages took (or didn’t take). I as an Afrikaans (SA Dutch) speaker can understand writtten Frisian with ease, for example the excellent Frisian wiki entry describing Afrikaans. I do not draw on my knowledge of English to understand any of it. The languages Frisian and Dutch (and for that matter Afrikaans) are so close to each other, that even saying Frisian is closer to English than the other two does not have that much meaning. It’s like the question of whether Los Angeles or San Franciso is closer to Hawaii. On thenscale they are much closer to each other than any are to Hawaii, so if the purpose of the question was classifying US regions then it’s the wrong question. Commonly cited similarities between Frisian and English all relate to sounds, and some places where Frisian and English agree against Dutch (for example that nasal spirant law thing in the words for goose where the older [n] is supressed) also appear in other related languages, for example Afrikaans. The pop language science video where people speak Old English to a Frisian farmer are quite nonsensical from this perspective. To me it’s much like an ancestry tree. I’ve got 4 grandparents, and while I got my last name from one of them, I may resemble one of the others in many observable respects a lot more. Or I may be closer to some people I don’t share a surname with (even if the surname does indicate common descent in a paternal line not long ago), such as a close cousin. Languages don’t split and develop in silos aftet the split. For closely related languages, a geneoligcal family tree that branches out going back in time, rather than just going forward, is better than a real tree. Just like a geneological tree, cousins or second cousins sometimes have offspring, which means the tree recombines at some points. One way to visualise language relationships could be a type of “genetic distance” of modern (and perhaps ancient languages) to see where they cluster, a visualisation where lineage of how they got there is recognised as complex, and ignored for a moment. These are very helpful in genetic testing. When this is attempted for languages we should not use word lists solely, but many aspects of closeness. I believe when we do that, Dutch and Frisian will cluster quite close, with modern Low German somewhat in the direction of German, and German a bit further, with English a lot further on the other side. Just like family relationships can be thrown of track by one valid but small aspect, last name, in the same way language relationships are thrown off track by one or teonaspects of sound change history. Just kike genoelogy, it is mostly perfectly valid for one part of the lineage, but it is not valid for sole use as classifying relationships between them. I am also not a linguist, just spent a lot of time musing over these things.

[@DavidvdGulik]

There are of course many ways in which Frisian is more similar to Dutch than to English. But as someone who is fluent in all three languages, I must say that it is pretty clear and apparent that Frisian and English share more traits than Dutch and English do. Of course Frisian and Dutch are more closely intertwined since they developed alongside each other. But Frisian has been much less subjected to change than Dutch has and therefore still retains more characteristics that are visible in modern English

[@oldranger649]

@@DavidvdGulik I thought it was the English around York that was most close?

[@kwaaikat100]

David van der Gulik Thanks for your perspective. I think it can both be true that Frisian is much closer to Dutch, while it does share some similarities with English (not found in Dutch). Let me illustrate, using this wiki article’s intro. The Frisian first, followed by an Afrikaans translation. They are strikingly similar and the quoted Frisian sentences are instantly and completely understandable to any Afrikaans speaker. Not gibberish from an English perspective, but it definately does not feel like almost the same language, as is the case for an Afrikaans speaker: Fr:Afrikaansk is in Westgermaanske taal, basearre op it Nederlânsk fan de 17e iuw. Afr: Afrikaans is ‘n Wesgermaanse taal, gebaseer op die Nederlands van die 17e eeu. Fr:De taal waard pas op 8 maaie 1925 offisjeel erkend[2] en is sadwaande de tred jongste Germaanske taal dy’t in amtlike status hat. Afr:Die taal word eers op 8 Mei 1925 offisieel erken, en is soedoende die derde jongste Germaanse taal wat amptelike status het. Fr:It Afrikaansk wurdt it meast sprutsen yn Súd-Afrika, it is dêr ek ien fan de alve offisjele talen. Afr:Afrikaans word die meeste gepraat (mees gesproke) in Suid-Afrika, dit is daar ook een van die elf offisiële tale. Fr: Dêrnjonken is it ek in wichtige taal yn Namybje, dêr’t it as lingua franca brûkt wurdt. Afr: Daarbenewens is dit ook ‘n belangrike (gewigtige) taal in Namibië, waar dit as lingua franca gebruik word. The vocabulary and syntax are extremely close. Words that are slightly different (djêrjonken / daarbenewens) are so similar in they way they are used, that even these words are abundantly clear. From this perspective, saying English and Frisian are in one group, with Afrikaans and Dutch in another, sounds almost nonsensical.

[@peterdeep]

We miss you.