The Evolution of Numbers in Slavic and Germanic (ft. RozumRazum)【EDL 2024 Special】

[@LexisLang]

When we started this project, we all agreed to do easy, 5-10 min videos... Whoops! Anyway, I'm extremely proud of what we've created here. Don't forget to check out the others' videos with the links in the description! :D In case you're wondering where QuidNeuf's video is, he fell ill at the last minute, so his video will go up over the weekend instead.

[@Rozum-Razum_Slavic-linguistics]

So, we did it! And the result is really satisfactory :) There is quite a few hours of reading and learning behind this video, and I'm glad we went through this process! Thank you Lexis for this whole collaboration idea, and for the others, enjoy the video (and subscribe to Lexis' channel if it's not already done) :D

[@LuigiElettrico]

Now this video is just like my wish came true! Literally - today I was thinking about my conlang (one of many) that is based on ancient germanic languages. I started considering numerals. Then I was wondering why the hell "Nine" is "Dziewięć" in Polish (my native language) and "Neun" in German, knowing that there is PIE common ancestor... I tried to get to this by myself through PIE but... this now explains me everything. Thanks! :)

[@LexisLang]

Oh, wow, it's great when that stuff happens! Glad the video helped in your moment of need and happy you enjoyed! :D

[@LexisLang]

BTW, is there anywhere you post about your conlang I can read? Or is it just a private project?

[@LuigiElettrico]

@@LexisLang Basically I create music and sometimes I use my conlangs in songs to test them. Currently working on another "test" :) Just contact me if you want some details for the conlangs, I'll be happy to share.

[@LexisLang]

@@LuigiElettrico I might have to do that! I love seeing what people create with conlangs - it gives things a new level of amazingness to them! :D

[@Rozum-Razum_Slavic-linguistics]

That's a great thing to read! I'm happy we gave you the explanation you needed :D

[@guerun]

Good video

[@LexisLang]

Thank you! I'm happy to hear that! :D

[@WGGplant]

yknow i can find so many videos on the sound changes into germanic but have struggled to find quality ones about slavic

[@LexisLang]

Yeah, there aren't as many. It is interesting to learn about, but can be hard to find good resources on KZbin. Hope this helps! :D

[@xolang]

wow, just last night İ find out that the word for "week" in Turkish is "hafta", which is from Persian word "haft", seven, which in turn is related to Sanskrit "sapta", sometimes used in my native language, and of course Latin "septem" which gives way to the word for "week" in the romance languages, with it being most recognizable in Romanian săptămână (seven morning). As I was seeing the comparison of the numbers in İE languages, İ wonder about the divergence in several languages, with Armenian being the most different İMO. Thanks for explaining this about Slavic and Germanic languages! 😊

[@LexisLang]

You're welcome! Persian and Armenian are two languages I know embarrassingly little about - really just the basics, but I do love seeing the comparisons drawn. I should definitely read into them more. :)

[@nadirhikmetkuleli]

Persian for seven is Hæft Persian for week is Hæftæ Sanskrit for seven is Sapta Sanskrit for week is Saptaha As hæft and sapta are, hæftæ and saptaha are related .

[@Yoochko]

Some Bosnian speakers use also use 'Hefta' (borrowed from Turkish) for 'week'. Although the most common word for 'week' in Bosnian is 'sedmica' which comes from the Bosnian word for seven (sedam) which is derived from the same root as those words you mentioned.

[@shawolzen4893]

In Old Persian, number 7 is “Hafta” and in avestan (another old Iranian language) it’s “Hapta”

[@TheStraightEdger]

I so much love etymology and evolution of languages. Good job! Спасибо!

[@LexisLang]

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed! :D

[@bulvinis2966]

nice video! i'd just like to clarify that in the east baltic and slavic words for nine, the n>d change occured after proto-balto-slavic, as the baltic prussian word for ninth is attested as newints

[@LexisLang]

I'm glad you enjoyed! I think we simplified a little on that front. I did know about Old Prussian, but most scholars seem uncertain, so we just ignored that and kept it simple for the video. It is worth mentioning, though, so thanks for the comment. :)

[@eefaaf]

12:17 Interesting, kwetwor/petwor seems to correspond to Irish/Welsh ceathair/pedwar (Also, pempe and Welsh pump are almost the same)

[@LexisLang]

Yes! In Celtic, kw stayed distinct, then became /k/ in Goidelic and /p/ in Brythonic. Celtic correspondences to other IE branches are often obscured, but I think numbers is one area they're quite clear. :D

[@a_person-qy9ju]

Cool video. It prompted me to look into why one and two are pronounced so differently to their spellings, which is also fascinating.

[@LexisLang]

It is very interesting! And I'm glad you enjoyed the video! :)

[@askadia]

Nice vid! I'll check the other two channels, too. Thank you!

[@LexisLang]

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed! And I hope you'll like the others, too! They're very good! :D

[@diandradeeke]

the simmilarities between germanic and slavic words are very interesting. looks like they had long and good relationships in the past.

[@diandradeeke]

i am not sure about proto-germanic but in old german there was a differentiation between feminine and masculine numbers. The masculine numbers for two would be zwo and the feminine would be zwei

[@LexisLang]

A lot of the similarities are obviously down to shared ancestry, but they did have contact after dividing too. It is all very interesting! And yes, the numeral gender distinction is inherited, so existed in Proto-Germanic. PGmc for "two" was *twai in the masculine, *twōz in the feminine and *twō in the neuter. :D

[@francescoghigo8394]

Is this the reason why Polish (and possibly other Slavic languages I haven't studied) uses genitive for numbers above 4 (I know there are exceptions, but let's keep it simple) ? To give an example, "3 apples" would be "trzy jabłka" but "5 apples" would be "pięć jabłek", literally meaning "five of apples". If you think about it with ordinals, you use "of" in English (but also other IE-languages, such as French) to refer to the noun, so "the fifth of the apples". This nice little theory falls apart when you see that Polish would use "z" instead, so "piąte z jabłek", but I found it interesting that the number that use the ordinal form in Proto-Slavic are the same that trigger this phenomenon in Polish, is it just a coincidence ? Finally, about the weird connection with "of", while I know it's weak, I still think it has a strong connection with the genitive even in case-less languages. If we take French, "I have apples" would be "j'ai des pommes", but "I don't have apples" would be "je n'ai de pommes", both use "de" (where "des" is a partitive article, whereas "de" is the preposition "of" by itself). The same thing happens in Italian when emphasis shift, so "non ho mele" (I don't have apples) but "non ne ho di mele" (~I have no apples), where we see "di" (of) reappear.

[@LexisLang]

I think you're right, though I may need to refer you to Roz. We had a chat about this a while ago and I think it's because the numbers 1-4 are adjectives (or adjectival at least), while 5-10 recieved that nominaliser we show in the video, so are actually nouns. I assume that the nouns can't really modify other nouns, so they need the genitive, which is, when you think about it, can make nouns modify one another. The second part of your question I can confidently answer. The word "of" is a preposition marking possession or relation - the same semantic space as the genitive case. In fact, all languages technically have case of a sort, even if they don't mark it morphologically. Use in Romance languages of "de" as a partitive I'm not 100% on, but it may stem from overlapping fields of meaning with genitive and ablative (which "of" also often shows) with the partitive ("part *of*" something after all does align with ablative "coming *from*" (which we see with "de" like in Spanish de donde")). That latter is my guess, but I'm sure someone will have researched this. Hope that somewhat explains things. :D

[@Rozum-Razum_Slavic-linguistics]

So yes, that's exactly what Lexis said. The numerals from 1 to 4 are basically still adjectives in Slavic languages and the numeral from 5 are nouns (of course there are differences between the languages, I actually have a video on the matter of counting in Slavic languages). And because they are nouns, the noun after them is a complement of the noun, which means they are put into the genitive.

[@Olga-de3ru]

В русском то же самое: 2-3-4 яблока, но 5 и более яблок. Однако 22 (23, 24), 32(...) и подоб. -- снова "яблока".

[@mihanich]

I've just subscribed. Brilliant content!

[@LexisLang]

Thank you so much! I really appreciate it! don't forget to take a look at both of the others' videos and channels too - we've all put a lot of work into this project, so if you have 20 mins to spare, I highly recommend it! More content on my channel coming very soon, too, so stay tuned for that! :D

[@VenomVaxo]

1:20 I as a Russian-speaker can perfectly understand Proto-Slavic language. Litteraly, every single word. What I can't say about Proto-Germanic. I also speak English (B2) and German (C1), but I hardly understand anything at all😂 And it's interesting, actually. Apparently, the Slavic languages (or at least Russian) changed more slowly than the Germanic ones 🤔

[@LexisLang]

Don't forget, Proto-Slavic was spoken more recently than Proto-Germanic (at least the form presented here). Perhaps you'd understand West Germanic a little better, or Early Slavic a little worse. Rate of change may well still be different, though. :)

[@Olga-de3ru]

Да, я тоже поняла каждое слово!

[@bedcreep]

8:42 This isn't entirely right. Most modern Slavic languages do realise *v as a labio-dental sound (fricative or approximant), but it probably still was a bilabial sound in Proto-Slavic. In Ukrainian and Belarusian *v in coda position after a vowel (only after the short *ь and *ъ dissapeared since before then consonants could not be in coda position of a syllable) gave a diphthong with [u̯] in place of *v (*av in *pravьda is pronounced [ɑ͡u̯] in those languages). In modern Ukrainian "в" it is still commonly pronounced as a bilabial sound in all positions, although this pronunciation is being quickly replaced with labio-dantal because of a big Russian influence. Also, I'm pretty sure that some Slovenian dialects also realise "v" as bilabial sound.

[@LexisLang]

Interesting! Thank you for sharing! I've learned so much from doing this video with Roz, so I'll add that to the pile of new facts! :D

[@kincs38]

Yes, you are right, I am almost sure that e.g. the Czech v-sound is labiofricative because of the influence of loaning f-sound from German and thus completing the voiced / voiceless pair. @Rozum-Razum_Slavic-linguistics

[@blueeyedbaer]

Lithuanian is even more similar to PIE: 1 vienas, 2 du (m) / dvi (f), 3 trys, 4 keturi, 5 penki (5th penktas is literally the same), 6 šeši, 7 septyni, 8 aštuoni, 9 devyni (9th devintas is the same), 10 dešimt (10th dešimtas is the same)

[@LexisLang]

Lithuanian is famously conservative. The Baltic languages preserve a lot of features lost in most other branches. Lithuanian is such a beautiful language. Are you a speaker? :)

[@blueeyedbaer]

@@LexisLang Yes, a native one.

[@LexisLang]

@@blueeyedbaer Wonderful! As I say, I think it's a lovely language and is severely underrated. As indeed is much of Lithuanian culture. I'd love to learn more about it when I get chance! :D

[@zuarbrincar769]

Lithuanian should be better known

[@tideghost]

Can you make a similar video on Indo-Aryan branch? There’s not a lot of content for it on KZbin which is a shame.

[@LexisLang]

It is a shame. I'm hoping to do a video on one member of the branch in the next few months (currently thinking 3-4 months time). I do really want to look into it more though. I'll try to do a few bits here and there. :)

[@tideghost]

@@LexisLang Oh, cool. In that case, Hindustani would make for a good video. I think that you’ll have fun with it, especially the phonology and the evolution from Sanskrit to modern IA languages might even resemble Latin to Romance languages. Indo-Aryan branch is the only one (afaik) that kept the voiced aspirates of PIE which gives it a unique look amongst other IE languages. Later, it also developed voiceless aspirates, possibly through the PIE laryngeals + surrounding consonants (you’ll have to read some studies to fact check). And also, the additional series of sounds like retroflex sounds. By the time of Vedic Sanskrit, we get the four-way distinction that is still present in most IA languages.

[@konstantinekahadze7153]

Great video

[@LexisLang]

Thanks! Happy you liked it! :)

[@quidneuf]

Exporting right now, so I can finally watch this vid, 5 min long indeed haha ! 🍿

[@LexisLang]

Don't worry, it's definitely 5 minutes. Just don't watch it with a clock in the room... Lovely to work with both of you - I hope we can all be proud of what we've made! :D

[@Rozum-Razum_Slavic-linguistics]

The video is actually so interesting that it feels like being 5 minutes long, that's what matters!

[@sailor67duilio27]

Interesting how european languages have common roots and diversions

[@LexisLang]

It is! Historical linguistics and etymology are so interesting the more you learn. :)

[@y11971alex]

With “six” I think I read it in Beekes’s book that the original was probably preserved in Avestan as xšuuah < *ksweks 😅 “Eight” could also be interpreted as a dual from “four fingers” 😅

[@LexisLang]

The original form of six is really unclear. It may well have been *ksweķs; what we give here is just one theory. And I've heard the "four fingers" thing - it's quite cool (but I think still not 100% agreed on). :)

[@spaghettiking653]

Wow, this is awesome, but I have two questions. Why are the Slavic words for 5-10 taken from ordinals? Why do different words for numbers just "borrow" each others sounds or final consonants?

[@LexisLang]

The question of why languages change how they do is quite a big one. For the question of the ordinals, it could be that the original cardinal had grown less recognisable compared to the ordinal, with higher numbers cross-linguistically less likely to retain unpredictable forms, but it may have been prompted by something else, as they hadn't diverged that much. The question of the "borrowing" - this is just assimilation. Maybe a speaker 1500 years ago got confused, maybe they just grew more similar, but adjacent numbers are often linked in the mind, especially when counting, so they may just get more similar. The case of Germanic "nine" is probs most understandable - those words' endings only differed by one weak sound, so speakers recognised what they saw as a pattern and copied it. If the addition was later, when the -þ was close to being lost, that would just make more sense, as it may have weakened and speakers could have hypercorrected, thinking it was original to both. This is speculation, though - we can't 100% say what they were thinking. Hope that helps. :D

[@EllieK_814]

I thought PGmc "four" was generally reconstructed as *fidwōriz, hence Old Norse "fjórir" retaining the -r ending.

[@LexisLang]

-ir was a plural suffix. It was added on in North Germanic, but both East and West branches reflect original *fedwōr. Some scholars may disagree with that, though - I've not seen that reconstruction before. :)

[@siyacer]

can you explain persian next?

[@LexisLang]

Maybe not in this style, but I do really want to take a look at Persian. It's not a language I know buckets about, so it'll take work, but I do want to. In fact, I have a video planned about Persian. Probably won't come until the new year, though. :)

[@matt92hun]

How did Germanic languages end up contrasting aspiration in stops, while Slavic languages contrast voicing? I mean, for example why is ⟨t⟩ [t] and ⟨d⟩ [d] in most Slavic languages, while ⟨t⟩ is [tʰ] or [ts] and ⟨d⟩ is [t] in most Germanic languages?

[@Langwigcfijul]

They aren't contrastive in Germanic languages except for Icelandic and Faroese. In English and German for example, they are only aspirated in certain environments where [t] and [tʰ] are complimentary and so allophonic.

[@matt92hun]

@@Langwigcfijul You're probably confusing [tʰ] (voiceless aspirated dental/alveolar plosive) with [θ] (voiceless dental fricative).

[@Langwigcfijul]

@@matt92hun I'm not. Most Germanic languages don't distinguish aspiration in stops. Icelandic and Faroese do. English, German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish etc. don't. English does have aspirated stops, but they are allophonic only, as in German.

[@LexisLang]

Only some Germanic languages contrast only aspiration in stops. Others use voicing and aspiration. I don't know when it arose, but I assume during Grimm's law and the restructuring of the stop system. Slavic then just retains the PIE distiction, minus the voiced aspirates, so contrasts the PGmc system. I might be wrong of course. :)

[@matt92hun]

@@Langwigcfijul Aspiration is the difference between stop consonant pairs in English. Just record yourself saying "speech", cut the "s" part of the recording and the rest will sound like you saying "beach" instead of "peach", as ⟨p⟩ after ⟨s⟩ is not aspirated.

[@mordegardglezgorv2216]

Slavic numbers in 3500 year: dedin, dwa, dri, detyre, diat, dest, dosem, deviat, desiat

[@LexisLang]

Because who needs different initial consonants, right? :D

[@Olga-de3ru]

А gde " dem' "?😅

[@sailor67duilio27]

In latin two is duo. Is there a relation between latin,proto slavic and german?

[@LexisLang]

Yep! Latin is an Italic language, so part of the same Indo-European family. :)

[@макслюлюкин]

there are many Sanskrit words in Russian, I think this is the starting point for most Indo-European languages

[@LexisLang]

@@макслюлюкин Sanskrit is not ancestral to European languages - it's a descendent of PIE, basically equivalent to Latin or Ancient Greek in Europe. "Sanskrit words" in European languages for the most part are cognates - coming from the same original source, but not from Sanskrit itself. :)

[@tentothepowerof10]

I noticed that the word "tehunth" and it is similar to tenth, same all other numbers. Do you think this is where ordinals came from?

[@LexisLang]

English ordinals generally end in -th. This is from PIE *-tós - the same suffix as in Romance/Latin participles (Lt. dōnāto > It. donato). This gave Proto-Germanic -þaz and eventually English -th. As you saw, the word-final -þ was lost, so that can't be the source. You see the -tos suffix used on the ordinals Roz shows off for five, six, nine and ten (pénkʷtos etc.). Thank you for watching; I hope you enjoyed! :D

[@tentothepowerof10]

@@LexisLang ahh I see, thanks!

[@LexisLang]

No problem, thanks for watching! :)

[@Olga-de3ru]

1:15 - мне понятно каждое слово. Хотя, конечно, в протославянском наверняка не было слова "словенский", ибо тогда мы именовались Антами и Венедами.

[@Olga-de3ru]

Ещё: деревня, похоже, когнат слова Dorf, но есть и синоним -- "города и веси", т.е. деревня может быть названа весью; derevnia = ves' (old word).

[@LexisLang]

Interesting! I thought it'd be fairly straightforward for modern Slavic speakers, but with some difficulty. Cool that you get so much! And interestingly, "Dorf" and "derevnja" aren't related - it's just coincidence that they bear similarity to one another. :)

[@gavinrolls1054]

small nitpick, but "gōðaz dagaz" probably doesn't make semantic sense in proto germanic since *gōðaz meant morally good originally and was only really applied to people or personified things

[@LexisLang]

Interesting, thanks for letting me know of that! Do you have a source I could read for that? Because every modern Germanic language uses the descendant like that, so I'd be interested to read the theory! :)

[@mitiarazu6806]

The only think I learnt from the video is that our ancestors were really awkward with numbers messing them up

[@LexisLang]

You mean how they kept making them sound similar? That is pretty funny. Doesn't surprise me though - I know I stumble over my words a lot. :)

[@erikziak1249]

So every modern European language is just a dialect of each other. With the exception of Hungarian and Finnish.

[@LexisLang]

They're related - they're not "dialects of each other". There are a handful of other non-IE languages in Europe (especially depending on where you place the boundaries), but Hungarian and Finnish are famous examples. :)

[@gavinrolls1054]

they're not dialects since there's no level of intelligibility between them. also Basque isn't an indo european language either

[@erikziak1249]

@@gavinrolls1054 I stand corrected.

[@Jayvee4635]

Proto-Germanic for eight Me: 🤨

[@LexisLang]

What about it? I feel like I'm missing the joke here... :)

[@Jayvee4635]

​@@LexisLangIt's just the sound of spitting.

[@nukhetyavuz]

i guess,the R s mostly turn to Z... in turkish we have the chuvash language and the old bulgar language which represents these old R vocabulary... turkish still keeps R ending sounds,but most has turned to Z... the transformation can be seen in chuvash,sumerian,hungarian,turkish and mongolian...R to Z ... my thought... in europe,most probably this effect was also seen... in the germanic and slavic languages... thanks

[@LexisLang]

A change of R to Z is called "zetacism", while Z > R is called "rhotacism". Proto-Germanic Z mostly became R in the North and West Germanic languages, except word-finally (*wēzun > were, *aimuzjō > ember). It did also happen in Turkic (on the Oghur branch). All very interesting! :)

[@irian3x3]

@@LexisLang in old norse it did also occur word-finally but it was lost much later in continental north germanic when forming part of a nominative singular suffix. it is still preserved fully in icelandic and faroese.

[@nukhetyavuz]

@@LexisLangcool info...definitely an ancient worldwide shift,especially among slabic,germanic,turkic languages...

[@LexisLang]

@@nukhetyavuz It's a pretty common sound change. I wouldn't call it a "worldwide shift" - that to me implies that it was a single event that changed sounds in languages completely unrelated to each other, in different parts of the world and at different times. I think you'll agree that makes no sense. :P

[@LexisLang]

@@irian3x3 Yeah, I'm simplifying. It was also preserved in monosyllables in West Germanic - hence German "wir", from PGmc. *wiz. :)

[@КириллБеглецов-э7ц]

Ноль, целковый, полушка, четвертушка...

[@LexisLang]

Извини, я не знаю русский. I hope you enjoyed the video though! :D

[@Miklosh.Prostoi]

This is mem about alternative "scientist" - Rybnikov. He said, that "official science and history" is a lie, and he create "real, true" (bad) numera​ls (Tselkovyj, Poluška, Tšetv'ertuška...). @@LexisLang

[@Rozum-Razum_Slavic-linguistics]

@@Miklosh.Prostoi Thanks for the explanation, I didn't know about this!

[@Miklosh.Prostoi]

@@Rozum-Razum_Slavic-linguistics welcome!

[@MarcHarder]

eint twee dree feer fief saas syven aaght nägen tiern /ɐɪ̯nt tvɔɪ̯ drɔɪ̯ fɔɪ̯ɐ fif zas zi̞vn̩ aɦ ne̞n̩ tiɐ̯n/

[@LexisLang]

Definitely some form of Frisian. Can't say which, but definitely one of them. Always interesting to see subsequent steps to bring us to the present day! :D

[@MarcHarder]

@@LexisLang Close, it's actually Plautdietsch, another North Sea Germanic language, but part of the Low German branch rather than the Anglo-Frisian branch.

[@LexisLang]

@@MarcHarder Ah! Of course it is! I was actually going to say Low German, but I didn't, because I was reading the other day about how a - g - in the word for "nine" is a defining Anglo-Frisian feature, but now I remember it was an Ingvaeonic feature (thus including LG), not just Anglo-Frisian. Sounded like a right idiot there - "definitely". Is Low German a language you speak or just are interested in? :)

[@MarcHarder]

@@LexisLang I speak Plautdietsch, which is an East Low German language (Low German is a group of closely related languages, not a single language). It's my native language and the main language where I'm from in the Chaco in northern Paraguay. It's also a somewhat common language where I now live in Manitoba, though English is overwealmingly dominant nowadays. Also, Plautdietsch lost all coda and medial /g/'s in speech, though I chose to keep them in writing, most people would probably write something like näen or näjen for 9.

[@livedandletdie]

@@LexisLang Low German is a rare, I live pretty close to Germany, and my mother is the only one I know who has learned to speak it. Which feels bizarre to me. So don't worry if you forget about it. Everyone does. At least Germany is nice enough to recognize their Germanic Minority Languages as languages, it's not as easy in Scandinavia. Where mutual intelligibility can be less than 20% different grammar rules, and politicians being berated for not speaking Swedish in the Parliament while speaking by law a "dialect". It made for a funny youtube clip, and the only reason for the rulings that keep languages as dialects here, is because it would cost too much of the taxes to have people take language classes in their languages. Don't worry foreign minority languages no matter how small, we can find a native speaker to hold the courses, the native minority languages, nah that costs too much.

[@sunquake]

Wiz etamaz = Biz yeymiz )

[@LexisLang]

Ooh, it's nice when coincidences like that happen!

[@krunomrki]

in Ukrainian one is odin ... in Slovenian ena ... in Croatian jedan .... jeden in Polish ...

[@LexisLang]

Yes! The East Slavic je > o is a bit odd, but you can see how they're all related to one another. :)

[@Rozum-Razum_Slavic-linguistics]

And in Slovenian, the numeral "eden" also exists, not as an adjective, but as an adverb!

[@halilzelenka5813]

You misspelt Serbian

[@LexisLang]

Sorbian and Serbian are not the same language. :)

[@halilzelenka5813]

@@LexisLang I know. I was being cheeky in reference to Croatian

[@theofficeroliviersamson4498]

Some of these could suggest a possible clade... I mean Geographically, there right next to eachother! And with the actual words? Just compare *ainaz, and *aiˀnas. I could safely reconstruct it as *ainas. I know how this could be bogus, but I do love language groupings and polished classifications.

[@LexisLang]

Indo-European languages are really hard to classify that way. If satem/centum is a primary division, these two probably aren't that close, but this is disputed. An o > a shift occurs in several branches, though. In fact, it's likely, given PIE's apparent lack of /a/ (which almost all other langs worldwide have). It has been proposed as a clade, though. I believe Donald Ringe suggests a grouping, but others disagree. They are quite similar, though. Try comparing the Balto-Slavic words in this video to Germanic cognates. :)

[@theofficeroliviersamson4498]

@@LexisLang Idk, lately I've really been getting into optimized classification, it just feels so satisfying finding the perfect splits and branches for every language, and even getting to coin a name for every branch you make! I even tried to make a full on Indo-European Classification and I would like to show it right here. Indo-Hittite_______ | \____ Anatolian ____ Indo-European__ … / \___ _________North ----------South / \ / \ *Septentric* | Indo-Tocharian || Paleo-Balkan | Greater Italo-Celtic / \ / \ (See wikipedia) / \ Balto-Slavic Germanic Indo-Iranian Tocharian *Lugiranian* Italo-Celtic Baltic Slavic Lusitanian Ligurian Please don't roast me on how controversial this is I know!!! D:) But my theory was already suggested?

[@LexisLang]

@@theofficeroliviersamson4498 The idea of a BS-Gmc group isn't new, no. In your classification, where are Albanian, Hellenic and Armenian? Are they the Balkan group? Also interested why you've grouped II with Tocharian. One video I'd like to make in future is on how we classify languages. I think you'd be interested in the wave model - give that a read. The idea is that straight splits aren't always the best way to classify. It doesn't work great for dialect continua, for instance. If PIE were more like this, or had a lot of areal influences, using the tree model, as you're doing may not be the best approach. Btw, you often refer to Wikipedia articles. That's okay - linguistics stuff is generally pretty good on Wiki. But if you want to really step up your game, try looking at real papers. You can find stuff on Google Scholar or look at the Wiki references. Be careful there, though. Unless you're practised, it can be hard to separate the out-there theories from the consensus. You need to learn to read things a little differently, but if you're really into your linguistics, it's a really good step up towards the world of academia. :D

[@theofficeroliviersamson4498]

​@@LexisLang Yes Albanian, Hellenic and Armenian are all part of the Paleo-Balkan Group. The || was me trying to make the tree a little clearer. I have seen the wave model and the innovations, although I haven't seen the full picture yet. I can't really gain access to real sheets, as it only gives me a preview of the first page on the website... In my defense, Wikipedia organizes the info really well, but sometimes even Wikipedia doesn't cite their sources. ): Also, j'ai vu ton collaboration avec Quid neuf!

[@theofficeroliviersamson4498]

@@LexisLang so if centum and satem is a primary branch then... Indo Hittite -Anatolian? -Indo European --Centum? ----Anatolian? ----Hellenic ----Italo-Celtic? ------Italic ------Celtic ----Germanic ----Tocharian --Satem? ----Indo-Slavic? ------Indo-Iranian ------Balto-Slavic ----Albanian? ----Armenian? What do you think? I might have not included *all* langs, but I think it's pretty good.