The Mystery of the Missing Medieval Language

Why doesn't England speak a Celtic language? 1,500 years ago, most of the people on the island of Great Britain spoke the Celtic language of Brythonic (or Brittonic), but nowadays the Germanic language of English dominates the landscape. This Celtic language does survive into the modern day, through its descendants of Welsh, Cornish, and Breton, but in England itself it is very rare to find these languages spoken.
So what really happened to the Celtic language in England? Why don't most of the people in the United Kingdom speak Brythonic today? What are the misconceptions surrounding the topic, and where do they come from?
In this video I aim to provide an overview of two of the most popular explanations for the decline of the Celtic language in England, one of them is a common, and ancient, misconception, and the other is a more robust, modern interpretation as to why this Celtic language faltered.
Chapters:
0:00 - A Tale of Two Victorians
6:36 - The Fate of Brythonic
Sources:
On the High-Prestige/Low-Prestige interpretations:
Higham, N. and Ryan, M.J. (2013). The Anglo-Saxon World. Yale University Press, pp.95-103, 29-30.
Davies, John. (2007). A History of Wales. London: Penguin, pp.64-67, 44-45, 48, 37.
Davies, Janet. (2014). The Welsh Language: a History. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, pp.6-13.
Leslie, S., Winney, B., Hellenthal, G. et al. The fine-scale genetic structure of the British population. Nature 519, 309-314 (2015).
peopleofthebritishisles.web.o...
On Vortigern:
Wade-Evans, A.W. (1937). The Chartres Historia Brittonum. Archaeologia Cambrensis, 92(1), p.80.
On the number of Welsh, Cornish, and Breton speakers:
Office for National Statistics (2017). Number of Welsh, Gaelic, Irish and Cornish Speakers from the 2011 Census. www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transp....
Welsh Government. Annual Population Survey: Welsh language. statswales.gov.wales/Catalogu...
Jones, H. (2007). Estimation of the Number of Welsh Speakers in England. calls.ac.uk/wp-content/upload...
Région Bretagne (2018). Enquête socio-linguistique: Qui Parle Les Langues De Bretagne Aujourd’hui?. www.bretagne.bzh/actualites/e...
Primary Sources:
Giles, J.A. and Habington, T. (1842). Gildas’ ‘On the Ruin of Britain’, (chapters 23-26)
Attenborough, F.L. (1922). The Laws of the Earliest English Kings. Cambridge University Press, pp.43-46.
Stellar, A.M. (1907). Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of England. London: George Bell and Sons, (chapter VI p.146-147)
Maps:
© OpenStreetMap contributors, licensed under CC BY-SA: www.openstreetmap.org/copyright
www.floodmap.net/
Music:
'CGI Snake', 'Divider', 'Wonder Cycle' by Chris Zabriskie are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Source: chriszabriskie.com/dtv/
Artist: chriszabriskie.com/
Images:
Flag of Wessex by 1219279135, CC BY-SA 3.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons
"Berthold Schwarz", Jacob Gole, Yale Center for British Art (YCBA), CC0
Vortigern, National Library of Wales (NLW), CC0, hdl.handle.net/10107/4396654 (p.113)
"The Seven Bold Swabians", John Doyle, YCBA, CC0
Romano-British Brooch, Johnbod, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Medieval Brooch, The Portable Antiquities Scheme/ The Trustees of the British Museum, CC BY-SA 4.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons
Welsh Dragon - Tobias Jakobs, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Vexilloid - Ssolbergj, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
#welsh

[@connoroleary591]

Interesting fact. In the French census of 1880, only 20% of French people spoke French as a first language. The French state systematically and very successfully erased most of the languages and dialects from France. Even as late as 1950, there were one million Breton speakers, now you would be hard pressed to find a genuine speaker of the language.

[@CambrianChronicles]

It's very depressing and seemingly never talked about, I managed to find an AskHistorians answer that covers it a bit and even manages to end on a positive note: www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7u8oyk/how_true_is_this_claim_in_1789_50_percent_of_the/

[@pattheplanter]

My Welsh grandfather served in Brittany for a short while during World War One. He couldn't speak French and they couldn't speak English. They communicated easily in Welsh and Breton.

[@connoroleary591]

@@pattheplanter amazing story Pat. I worked with a man from Brittany a couple of years ago. He was bitter that if he was heard speaking Breton at school, he would be beaten. I stopped off at a cafe in Wales a couple of years ago and I was trying to work out what language the waitress and a few young mechanics drinking tea in the corner were speaking, I thought it was an Eastern European tongue, I was so pleased to find that it was Welsh, alive and vibrant on the tongues of young working people.

[@pattheplanter]

@@connoroleary591 My grandfather was also beaten at school if he was heard speaking Welsh. He was born in 1893.

[@connoroleary591]

@@pattheplanter yes i know that Pat, but Welsh children were not being beaten for speaking Welsh in 1963 like they were in Brittany.

[@katakai7117]

As a speaker of an endagered language with virtually no institutions upholding it (Aromanian) , i feel empathy for the celts of Britain, Great video and Channel

[@GAMER123GAMING]

aromanian is far more endangered than any Celtic language to be fair. Your average person probably hasn't even heard of it or doesnt even think it still exists. Atleast Celtic languages are more known

[@katakai7117]

@@GAMER123GAMING yeah no doubt, perhaps with the exception of something like Cornish

[@itstherealbrace6424]

​@@katakai7117Cornish has had a major revival in the last few decades actually. While outside of southwest England most people haven't even heard of the Cornish people, you'll find many Cornish speakers in Cornwall and (to a lesser extent) Devon

[@isilder]

Aromanian has 210,000 native speakers, of which 50,000 were in Albania, 50,000 in Greece, 50,000 in Romania, 32,000 in Serbia, 18,200 in North Macedonia, and 9,800 in Bulgaria ... and very importantly, there are 53 in Australia.

[@di3727]

​@@isilder any websites or dictionary one could order to learn/preserve Aromanian and Cornish? I'd love to invest my time into this.

[@timflatus]

Cornwall didn't come under English rule until the mid-9th century. Athelstan fixed the English border to the east bank of the Tamar and expelled the Cornish from Exeter. Cornwall and Devon have distinct genetic clusters from the main body of England, as does Cumbria

[@noahtylerpritchett2682]

So does the Elmet cluster.

[@Grrrr3FKAGrrrrGrrrrGrrrr]

Some say that the Britons of Exeter only went as far as the parish of St. David's, which is literally the other side of the city wall from the old 'British quarter'. That would mean there was still a Brythonic-speaking community in the mid-10th century

[@damionkeeling3103]

Cornish survived into the modern period thanks to the Normans. The Norman lords placed over Cornwall after the Conquest were Bretons who spoke practically the same language as the Cornish. Cornish at the time would've been closer to Breton than Welsh. Conversely the Normans helped screw over the Welsh and Irish.

[@rialobran]

@@Grrrr3FKAGrrrrGrrrrGrrrr There was, there is evidence that the language survived in the South Hams of Devon into the 13th century. And place name and other evidence that it survived longer on western Dartmoor.

[@ScholasticaMaan]

Yorkshire does as well

[@damionkeeling3103]

The Latin influence on Brythonic is possibly why Brythonic was later regarded as a separate language to Pictish.

[@CambrianChronicles]

That's quite interesting, I haven't read much on Pictish but your theory does sound very plausible.

[@goodday2760]

That sounds related to what I said a few posts prior to yours.

[@damionkeeling3103]

@@goodday2760 Brythonic changed under influence of the Romans but it is still an insular language and went through similar changes to early Irish suggesting that such changes were quite widespread. The difference would be that the changes effecting Pictish and Brythonic would not be uniform due to the Roman influence. The Romans controlled Britain to Hadrian's Wall and occasionally up to the Antonine Wall but there were forts in between and the influence on the locals must have been great for these tribes to develop like the ones in Roman Britain rather than the truly free tribes north of the Antonine Wall.

[@damionkeeling3103]

@@paulbennett7021 Other than the use of macq there is little evidence to suggest the Picts were Q-Celtic. Place names from their region are P-Celtic. That macq may be a borrowing from Irish too as it's used in King lists compiled by Irish monks and appears on some ogham stones where it's more likely to have been copied from Irish ogham - much like the Britons adopted latin forms on their inscriptions after the Roman invasion but kept native names. So filius (fil/f.) appears on inscriptions and also appeared on some coins prior to the invasion.

[@damionkeeling3103]

@@paulbennett7021 All those with aber and pit in the name are obvious ones. The Gaelic version of aber is inver. Scottish Gaelic kept a lot of the aber names though which is why those names still exist - obair in Gaelic. Perth has a direct cognate in Welsh perth meaning bush/hedge.

[@Ronnie1001]

There was a German professor during WW1 who interviewed English and Irish prisoners and recorded their voices (and where they came from) on the earliest recording equipment. From the recordings we can tell that even only 100 years ago, strong regional accents were found very much closer to London than today.

[@RichardBrown7k]

Blame it on the radio and later on TV, and the postwar migration from inner cities to the suburbs, Even until the early seventies you could still tell which London borough people came from by their accent, and I remember that in the fifties many of the older residents in Ilford spoke with an Essex accent (nothing to do with a certain reality TV show)

[@CambrianChronicles]

Yeah I'd heard that mainstream TV and radio were largely to blame for the loss of regional accents, apparently the same reasons are to blame for the loss of rhotic pronunciation

[@ndr8469]

I was told that as recently as the 1950s you could tell the difference between a north Londoner and a South Londoner. This has been lost.

[@ME-fo7si]

@@ndr8469 no it’s not lost, if you live there you can still hear it, more in the older peoples.

[@simonh6371]

True, I've heard a recording from the 70s of a Cambridgeshire man born in the 19th century, his accent was more like a West country accent. Now they all talk like mockneys. Estuary English.

[@locusamoenus831]

That high/low prestige perception still exists today and can be applied to other countries and regions. For instance, very few people know that the french-speaking region of Belgium, Wallonia, actually didn't have a French-speaking majority up untill quite recently. A romance language, Walloon, had been spoken there by the common people (roughly 80% of the population) since the middle ages, while french was spoken only by the upper classes and the Church (after Latin lost its position as main language of the Church). It wasn't until the first/second half of the XXth century that Walloon families stopped raising their kids in Walloon and instead only teaching them French, exactly for the same reasons explained in the video. Nowadays only old people and really small pockets of walloonian still exist in Belgium.

[@CambrianChronicles]

That's really interesting, I hadn't heard about that before. Hopefully Belgium can take some inspiration from the Welsh government and work to revive Walloon's status

[@willholland1697]

I've seen it myself first hand in Vietnam. I lived in an area with a lot of minority languages (bahnar, jrai etc) and I know people raising their children to only speak Vietnamese. When I asked them why they said speaking jrai won't earn them any money so they should speak only Vietnamese. Personally I find it sad but I can see their point of view.

[@graiovskitek84]

@@willholland1697 It's sad how many languages are dying in time. I read that in the UK many people with Celtic origins started learning back their ancestors' languages which is really uplifting. It's worse when the government of a country tries to erase the minority language like it happened to the French-speaking of America, the regional languages in Spain under Franchist dictatorship or in Communist Bulgaria where I read the Turkish minority were put in camps for resisting assimilation. (these are just a few exemples, this thing existed almost everywhere)

[@henkvandervossen6616]

As misconception is that french is a majority language in Belgium. In fact, it is flemish/dutch. Flanders is monolingual flemish/dutch. Capital Brussels is bilingual, Wallony is monolingual french, with some german speaking pockets

[@boudicca9807]

Also, the name Wolloon is related to the word Welsh, both deriving from the same Germanic word meaning 'foreigner'.

[@drys3136]

I'm English and interested in learning Welsh. It's one of the heritage languages of Britain and while the UK continues to exist I wish we could have more of a linguistic plurality. I would've liked to have learnt even a bit of Welsh, Cornish and Gaelic in school as a kid.

[@MrOx85]

If only the Anglo Saxons felt that way?😂

[@newpeasantsrevolt]

There are Cornish language lessons online- thats simialr to Welsh, as would have been Cymbric from Cumbria. Thats an 'English' celtic language or more accurately British celtic language to learn

[@-Haiden]

I'm a first language speaker and I say go for it! Speaking Welsh is one of my best assets!

[@mightymcduff2056]

Welsh on Duolingo

[@iforwilliams2509]

Plenty Welsh learners material on You Tube

[@tinitus23]

As others have commented here, Welsh is a language of these islands, formerly spoken throughout the land. I think it should be taught in our schools as a significant part of our heritage. I'm English, and would like to learn Welsh to bring our past into our present.

[@andrew4829]

I'm English, and have been learning Welsh on Duolingo for that exact reason. I'm not very good at understanding spoken Welsh yet, but am able to have basic conversations by reading and writing in Welsh.

[@tinitus23]

@@andrew4829 I've spoken to quite a few Geordies and often detect a Welsh lilt to their speech (as well as Liverpudlian). Given that Cumric or something like it was spoken in the NE, I assume the occasional Welsh twang is a vestige of the past lingua franca.

[@marcusaurelius4941]

and then >looks inside 23andme results >99.8% Germanic

[@tinitus23]

​@@marcusaurelius4941Sorry I don't understand your post.

[@tinitus23]

​@@andrew4829How's the Welsh going? I've signed up but not started yet.

[@Aries-hd1me]

I think a big factor left out is that, back then: Most people were illiterate. Writing books was very expensive. Literacy was usually synonymous with learning to read and write in the high-prestige language. Only the "high prestige" language was consistently written down (usually by monks in chronicles). Hence why there's almost no trace of the brythonic language. It was probably around much longer than we think, we just have little record of it as it was rarely written down (at least not anywhere important enough to be preserved and passed down).

[@sebastiangudino9377]

Yeah, but at one point the local celtic languahe stop being attested. Like what the monk's card at the beginning of the video said. But yeah! Absolutely, despite the little literary record celtic languages where the backbone of Britain in the middle ages for the average joe

[@sorayacatfriend]

Though Latin as it was spoken in Italia wasn't very influenced by Gaulish, we should keep in mind that the Gallo-Romance languages definitely are. In fact, there are more Celtic words in English from Gaulish (Change, Brave, Mutton, Piece, etc) than there are from Brythonic, due to loans from French. It is definitely strange that English doesn't have many Celtic influences, given the high degree of intermingling between Britons and Anglo-Saxons (as you mentioned in the video).

[@timflatus]

There is also a growing body of opinion that Latin, particularly the vulgar variety, did borrow from Celtic languages - as you say mostly Gaulish probably. Classicists tended to assume words were loaned from Latin because it was a high prestige language; while this was true for new inventions like windows and churches, many older words had common IE roots. It's also worth looking beyond vocabulary - English sentence structure is surprisingly unlike German and closer to Norse.

[@CambrianChronicles]

True! And the huge influence that Gaulish had on the Romance language in France post-Roman collapse is really interesting and quite an uncommon situation, I hope to cover it one day in the future. Although the fact that English has more Celtic-influenced words through French is really interesting, I wish I'd known that so I could've included it in the video!

[@mercianthane2503]

There are some gaulish-celtiberian loanwords in Spanish, a romance language like: - carro - caballo - bruja - brezo - gancho - vereda - jabalina - legua

[@weirdlanguageguy]

@@timflatus what aspects of English sentence structure do you think resemble Norse?

[@Gargoiling]

Yes, and with French/English, there are patterns in which words come from which language (the most famous one being that the words for farm animals are from English but the meats (eaten by the Norman elite) are French. I don't know if there's any similar pattern in Gaulish vs Latin. If people are lower status, you expect words to survive from areas of life the elite don't want to dirty their hands with.

[@mrwelshmun]

Some villages and towns of Hereford and Shropshire also still spoke Welsh up until 1920's (ish). As seen by the Welsh place names over the border

[@CambrianChronicles]

There are some towns that still have Welsh speaking populations apparently, my grandad would mention how there are even majority Welsh-speaking villages in the Oswestry area, although I have no idea how accurate that is

[@mrwelshmun]

@@CambrianChronicles I wouldn't be surprised! I only actually found this out by watching top gear. James and Jeremy keep making fun of Hammond because he lives in "Wales" but he lives in Herefordshire. So I got confused about why they think it's Wales. And turns out it's because up until very recently they were Welsh speaking areas

[@wayneseex1595]

@@CambrianChronicles Sadly it's not very accurate but there were certainly Welsh speakers in villages west of Oswestry until recently but no majorities for quite a long time.

[@schmozzer]

@@CambrianChronicles One thing I noticed visiting western Shropshire this year was the way people gave me the (Welsh) names of places that were at variance with what they were called on the map. That also suggests there was a Welsh vernacular in the area till relatively recently. It appears that the Mercians created a zone between Offa's Dyke and Wat's Dyke, which was built after Offa's Dyke (and not before) as historians used to believe.

[@Steve14ps]

Llyclys, Porth-y-Waen, Llanyblodwel, Nantmawr and Treflach are just a few places near Oswestry that retain their Welsh names although they are now in Shropshire, Llanymynch actually straddles the border, the A483 road divides Powys (Wales) with Shropshire (England)

[@jamesplatt3101]

I’ve lived in England all my life, and i’m going to Wales now to do my masters degree, so i thought i should learn some welsh as well as some of the local history and culture and i’ve been having a blast! I found your channel while searching for the history of Ceredigion and i have not been disappointed! I’m so glad Welsh has been preserved for all of us to enjoy today! As my welsh is still very rudimentary all i can say to you to express myself is diolch yn fawr iawn! Keep up the good work and I’m looking forward to your upcoming video on deheubarth.

[@S.pilgrim]

Aberystwyth Uni? Hope you enjoy!

[@CambrianChronicles]

Well I'm really glad you're enjoying the videos, and huge props for learning about the local history and culture, I'm very glad I made that video on Ceredigion now! Good luck with your masters and I hope you enjoy your time in Wales

[@justmove4483]

Diolch am dysgu cymraeg!

[@joethomas4935]

Duolingo is a nice starter place if you haven't used it already!

[@user-nf9xc7ww7m]

Wasn't there a sound theory in either 1996 or 1999 about pre Roman germanic-ish language in Britain? Supposedly, the frisian placenames and English placenames were quite close, including mentioning of rivers and lakes in Germanic names that were dried up before the romans even came. Anybody remember the name of this theory?

[@pirukiddingme1908]

A note for Cumbric, one of the last vestiges of Brythonic in modern England, up in the north west, it seems to have existed until around the Norman conquest and a couple of centuries after, but died out in favour of a heavily Celtic infused dialect of Cumbrian English

[@CambrianChronicles]

Cumbric is really interesting, perhaps I should've included it a bit more but I mainly want to focus on it in its own video

[@pirukiddingme1908]

@@CambrianChronicles love your vids mate, can’t wait!

[@quartztemplar3676]

I live up there and it's like Celtic language are second nature to pronounce due to my accent

[@eamonnclabby7067]

@@CambrianChronicles I believe some local Cumbrian shepherds still count their flocks in old Cumbric, apart from a red haired shepherdess...she,s from Bebington on the Wirral...!!..

[@WeiShiQiang]

@@eamonnclabby7067 Yep I remember someone telling me that they count sheep with "yan, tan, tethera, methera, pimp..." and immediately noticed the Celtic connection

[@IosuamacaMhadaidh]

We need more content creators and media in general taking Celtic history seriously and exploring the rich history. This channel and Fortress of Lugh are some of the best! *Bydd y Celtiaid yn codi eto, hir oes y Celtiaid!*

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you, and I agree!

[@riptidemonzarc3103]

The phenomenon of people adopting the language and culture of their conquerors is currently ongoing with virtually all tongues and cultures becoming subsumed with American English. The phenomenon is especially acute in Germany, with young people actively substituting large portions of their own core vocabulary with English equivalents. It is interesting to observe first hand.

[@egbront1506]

Fewer Sorbian speakers these days, as well.

[@veronicaroach3667]

Moving slowly towards acceptance of English as the main language of international communication. Lucky for those of us who speak English as our first language, we are understood in most places already !

[@Michael_the_Drunkard]

@@veronicaroach3667 oh please no. English people leave us alone.

[@duskpede5146]

the year is 2182, students in their history class marvel at the idea that ancient peoples used to not be able to understand one another when they spoke and that many regions had distinct "languages" from english

[@egbront1506]

@@duskpede5146...as their parents hastily consulted Urban Dictionary in order to communicate with their offspring.

[@exeterjedi6730]

That high/low status thing still exists today. English speakers are almost proud of not knowing any Welsh at all even though territory with speakers is a short car journey away. As it is I learned some Welsh when I was young, and quite a few people have picked some up. Lockdown meant a few people had time to start learning online.

[@CambrianChronicles]

The attitudes towards Welsh are definitely improving, both outside and inside of Wales. Of course you'll always have the occasional weirdo who doesn't like when people speak a different language, but even here on my videos I have hardly seen any disparaging comments towards Welsh

[@ourresidentcockney8776]

​@@CambrianChronicles I think it also helps that more people nowadays probably know someone who is Welsh. I would love to see Welsh or indeed any of the living Celtic languages taught broadly in English schools. If the future is firmly a UK beyond the EU then surely Westminster can lead the charge to start directing "foreign" language classes in school towards the rich, vibrant and beautiful languages of across The Isles. Prior to the War down where I currently live, a sizeable segment of Melbourne's society spoke Welsh and the Welsh diaspora had a vibrant cultural network. The local Welsh choir still exists from the era which is absolutely incredible.

[@JackHeywood]

@@ourresidentcockney8776 The EU had/has nothing to do with what languages the gov can teach in schools. Hope you've had the chance to study the local aboriginal language(s) of where you live.

[@superstructure23]

@@ourresidentcockney8776 It's funny you mention the EU cos the EU is one of the biggest advocates for regional languages, often much more so than the national government.

[@ourresidentcockney8776]

@@JackHeywood not really no. At least not in Melbourne. A lot of names carry on and some people do try to revive indigenous names for other areas. But unless you're of Aboriginal ancestry and within those survivng communities, it won't be taught. That being said, there has been a couple of stories of schools teaching all students the local language. Second language study here tends to be study one or a couple of European languages (Italian is normally always offered) in schools. There's always more 'unique' options at certain schools. My old secondary school taught Indonesian which everyone had to do a semester off. This was due to having a sister school over there. Beyond that you do tend to see signs for language learning places/events if you know where to look.

[@newg4515]

The low prestige high prestige thing also happened to English. Norman French had substantial impact on English despite English having its own words. E.g. mutton-sheep, beef-cow

[@brianm7287]

Anything having to do with rule, trade, or luxury will most likely take on the high-prestige lexicon. The English language military ranks are almost identical to French, Spanish, and Italian ones, but have virtually nothing to do with German ranks despite English and German being Germanic languages.

[@snakeplissken83]

I was just about to write comment like this!

[@grandsome1]

@@brianm7287 I think the ranks are mostly due to the popularity of French military doctrine throughout the Medieval, and especially the Napoleonic periods.

[@brianm7287]

@@grandsome1 Now do Germany.

[@grandsome1]

@@brianm7287 What?

[@nicokelly6453]

Thanks for the video. As a Welsh learner who also enjoys learning the history and anthropology behind these things, I absolute agree the prestige language status has more evidence behind it. I'm glad that Welsh might be gaining more speakers in recent years, and that revived Cornish has several hundred fluent speakers now. English speakers certainly have made attempts to reduce this over the centuries.

[@CambrianChronicles]

You're welcome, I'm glad you enjoyed it! I'm glad for the increase in Welsh too, and for the revival of Cornish, hopefully both movements can continue to find their footing and carry on growing

[@stanleyt.7930]

Other evidence that the Celts were not wiped out is the lack of mass graves from that period, although some Celts migrated to Brittany. The high prestige/low prestige rule is not always the case - we speak English, not Norman French, although middle English had a huge influx of French words.

[@CambrianChronicles]

Very true, especially considering their are population estimates of post-Roman Britain in the 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 range.

[@KyleVoices]

I was born in England but my parents are Welsh and I grew up in Wales. I was never taught to speak Welsh by my fluent mother. Everytime a Welsh song came on the radio, she would turn it off in disgust. I don’t know why she raised me to be ashamed of her language.

[@MrBenaud]

What puzzles me is the mechanism that meant the Saxons imported their Germanic language to Britain, but the Franks, Goths, Lombards, etc., all adopted the Latin derivatives spoken in the regions they conquered. Same question, different era: why didn't the English adopt Norman French, which was definitely a prestige language for at least three centuries?

[@CambrianChronicles]

The affect of French on Old English cannot be understated, and the amount of time that it takes for a high-prestige language to fully supplant a low-prestige one is potentially centuries. Consider how Rome ruled Britain for 400 years and yet still Latin was not permanently entrenched. I answered a similar comment before, so I'll copy and paste that portion here: The history of the English language is very complicated, and I could make an entirely different (and probably much longer) video on it. I am of course not an expert, but I can try to provide a short answer: The transitions from low-prestige to high-prestige languages take a long time, and it is often generational. Recall that Rome ruled Britain for about 400 years, during that time Latin had become a very prominent (and likely dominant (in some areas)) language in lowland Britain. It greatly affected and changed Brythonic, to the point that a Briton from AD 300 would likely not be able to understand a Welsh person from AD 600, but after the withdrawal of Rome, it did not permanently stick, instead being replaced again by Old-English and Old Welsh. If it had had more time, like in France and Spain, then it may have fully supplanted Brythonic. Now compare French during the Norman conquest. It too had a tremendous impact on Old English, to the point that if you compare Anglo-Saxon writings to something like Chaucer you may not even be able to tell that they are the same language. Middle English underwent the great vowel-shift, it adopted almost 1/3 of its words from French, and eventually dropped grammatical case-endings. And if someone from England in the 1200s was to communicate with someone from England in the 800s, they too would likely not be able to understand each other. French influence however, was not permanent. Apparently the loss of French territory in the 1200s/1300s led to a reduction of French nobility, and the use of Old English (now Middle English or Anglo-Norman) would remerge as a language of government and prestige. www.studyenglishtoday.net/english-language-history.html www.oxfordinternationalenglish.com/a-brief-history-of-the-english-language/ Although I wish I could rely on more academic sources, I think this hopefully suffices for a short answer.

[@Gargoiling]

I doubt anyone can say for sure but I guess you'd say greater collapse/dislocation at the end of the Roman Empire as proved by archaeology. I mean, the closer to the Med, the more, say urban culture survives. learned only recently that Londinium had the biggest forum north of the Alps. Yet, archaeologists have found a layer of "black earth" after the Romans left. It seems to have been completely abandoned whereas towns, at least in southern France, survived to a greater extent. In the old days, you'd put this down to Conan the Barbarian. But it could be more economic. I think economy in Rome related very much to the army and part of the reason for London's existence was to supply the army on the Rhine. It could easily be a combination of the two (greater economic collapse plus more barbarian invasion). There's also evidence of relative decline in towns even before the Romans left. The elite seems to have moved to villas in the countryside, though I don't know how that compares to other parts of the empire. Don't know the answer to the second one. It's also marked by high/low status words (eg: the Saxons looked after the (English) cows and the Normans ate the (French) beef.

[@Westwoodii]

@@CambrianChronicles Although Norman French led to a great amount of noun synonymy, the biggest effect on grammar was probably the Danish settlement of centuries earlier - dropping case-endings meant that English and Danes could pretty well understand each other. Mercian dialect (with the Danelaw influence) became predominant over standard West Saxon. Running text in modern English is average 75% Germanic, irrespective of total word proportions in the language - try writing a meaningful sentence without it! It's fascinating how the class system imposed by the Norman conquest is still reflected in the language - e.g. French "table" is considered superior to English "bench" (who would book a 'bench for two' at a restaurant now!), French "chair" is better than English "stool", and yet OE kings were quite happy to sit on one (their throne). The list is long. The video could have addressed place-names - areas of Celtic survival can be picked out by the presence of celtic elements even in the main A/S settlement areas. What these do not do, however, is throw any light on the subsequent fate of these populations - they simply show that survival continued longer in some areas than others (e.g. the Chilterns).

[@phil2854]

Surely it's a question of numbers, and who speaks the language. The Germanic invaders were of all classes, so not only the rulers, but also the peasants spoke German (or Old English), whereas the Normans were predominantly the ruling class. The lower classes (the majority) had no need for Norman French in their everyday lives. Eventually, presumably the middle and upper classes had to become bilingual in order to communicate with the rest of the country.

[@thischannelhasnoname5780]

@@CambrianChronicles Ah be careful now. There are relatively few French borrowings in early Middle English. In fact, most of the current French vocab in English came in not from Norman but from Central French later in the middle ages. And it is far from clear that either grammatical/syntactical change or the vowel shift had much to do with French influence. You can make a good case for the influence of Old Norse and for parallel developments in the insular Norse languages and Dutch as being more important.

[@mishapurser4439]

I want to be a part of the revival of Brythonic in northern England. So, I've been trying to learn the northern dialect of Welsh before trying to encourage others to do the same. I am aware that there are others who want to do the same but there are very few of us at the moment.

[@nicolasN712]

Thats very cool. I read that due to the lack of details about ancient Cumbric, it was decided that instead of reviving cumbric it would just be easier to learn modern welsh as both cumbric and old welsh were probably not separate languages but part of the dialect continuum of the "Old North". It might help "the cause" if Cumbria/the north could attend/compete in international celtic festivals like in lorient or the celtic song contest to drive more public interest

[@FireflyOnTheMoon]

I've always found the total loss of Brythonic so tragic.

[@Based_Stuhlinger]

A shame it didn't survive in at least some of england.

[@HighWealder]

I have read that in Victorian times a researcher discovered that some farmers in many parts of England, including East Anglia, were using a Brythonic counting system for things such as sheep.

[@CambrianChronicles]

A few comments have mentioned that, I hadn't heard of it before but it sounds fascinating

[@steve08717]

cumberland farmers where counting in 20s well into the 1960s in a half way form of welsh and strathclyde british a now long lost dialect that was proto welsh part viking and part scottish

[@grodesby3422]

The Yan Tan Tethera seems to be the common term for the concept en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yan_tan_tethera

[@oceansunset6147]

Does the term "counting sheep" come from this? I remember as a child that if we couldn't sleep we were told to count sheep whilst falling off to sleep. Rather than this meaning literally counting sheep in our mind would it maybe have been a way of keeping the old way of counting in our mind as we fell to sleep but over time lost its purpose!

[@micward]

The best video explaining this dynamic thus far. All the necessary nuance. Thank you, sir! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you for watching, I'm happy you enjoyed it!

[@williamarthurfenton1496]

The obvious comparison is with the Norman French influence on English. Despite tiny numbers the power they wielded dramatically impacted the languge, frequently in ways which betray the class difference (the classic pork vs pig, and cow vs beef). The difference with the Germanic groups is they resided not only in the highest classes of people, but also at every level below that.

[@ivandinsmore6217]

The high prestige/low prestige theory makes a lot of sense because this is exactly what happened in Ireland.

[@eamonnclabby7067]

Beyond the Pale....

[@thischannelhasnoname5780]

But it didn't happen in for example France, where the Frankish ruling elite gave up their language quite quickly although French took in some Germanic vocabulary. So it's not always just about prestige. And even in a high/low prestige situation you might still expect some leakage from one language to the other (as in the Frankish example above or indeed Norman French to Middle English) but that seems to have not happened to any significant degree from Brythonic to Old English which is very striking and not easy to explain.

[@markiec8914]

True and it was due acculturation/prestige of the English speaking area of the Pale. The same happened in Scotland when King David introduced English and Flemish settlers in Scotland from the 13th century where Gaelic became a low prestige language.

[@ivandinsmore6217]

The Picts were Brythonic too.

[@seanfaherty]

@@ivandinsmore6217 has that been confirmed by DNA ? I was under the impression that the Picts were descended from Neolithic hunter gatherers , not Indo-European .

[@Gortius-VIII]

Congratulations, I am genuinely impressed. I have watched all of your videos and really feel the improvement over time. I find the topics you talk about really interesting, and the way you tell and represent them too! I’m outraged though at the fact you have so few subscribers. Keep it up and great work!

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you, I'm really happy you can see an improvement!

[@kennymacdonald5313]

Although Scottish Gaelic, as is rightly said, didn't adopt many Pictish loanwords, it did adopt Brythonic-type syntax. That's how we know that Pictish was a Celtic language , and P-Celtic at that.

[@CambrianChronicles]

That's really interesting, I didn't know that

[@jimpenny8771]

But did they speak the same language in say Fortriu as they did in Cait? Were there Goidelic speakers already in Atholl prior to Dalriata? There is an assumption that Pictish was one homogeneous language, but we really don’t know that. Syntax and verb formats in Gaelic are more similar to those of Brythonic languages. I think we might find some clues in Deeside or Buchan Gaelic. They are now extinct, but there is a significant corpus of poetry etc.

[@raymondhaskin9449]

It’s also worth pointing out that the people in Northern Ireland were named “Cruthin” the Q-Celtic word used for the Picts. This suggests that Brythonic languages were initially spoken in Ireland before the arrival of Gaels from iberia.

[@Gargoiling]

There's place names evidence, isn't there? EG: Aberdeen (in the east of Scotland) vs Aberystwyth. I think "Pit" as in Pitlochry is unique to eastern Scotland. Wasn't Kingdom of Strathclyde Brythonic speaking until the Vikings? (I read somewhere that "William Wallace might mean "William the Welshman"). What I don't understand is why Bede considers Pictish a separate language.

[@jimpenny8771]

@@raymondhaskin9449 cruithni, or cruithnec (singular). If you substitute b or p for p-Celtic, you get something like Briton. I wonder if Ulster Irish has similar verb conventions to Scottish Gaelic.

[@evillamppost7493]

Quality stuff as always! Would love to see a video on the Cornish language/Cornwall in general.

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you! I definitely will do, I left out a bit on Cornish in this video as I want to dedicate a whole video to it on its own.

[@MrExtraordinaire16]

Why not all celtic languages such as brythonic, scottish and irish. That would be so cool.

[@CambrianChronicles]

I definitely will! Although Irish and rest of the goidelic family will be a bit difficult for me as I don't have any experience in reading or pronouncing them

[@MrExtraordinaire16]

@@CambrianChronicles well who cares, I'm pretty sure that even the irish don't know how to pronounce them. Lol

[@eamonnclabby7067]

@@CambrianChronicles walk into any Irish Centre around the country, they will always help scholars, even better try the Department of Irish Studies at Liverpool university, guest speakers have included Adrian Dunbar aka Ted Hastings....

[@nibbleheim4388]

it's been a little bit of a ride with your community posts and whatnot, and the wait I'd say was well worth it! Thank you for the video and I can't wait for what you'll make next.

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you, I'm glad it was worth it! I hope the community posts weren't too annoying, I really value everyone's feedback and it's nice to be able to engage with the community

[@noahtylerpritchett2682]

12:00 I'm sure East Anglia, Northumbria and Mercia had similar documentation. Just Danish, Norwegian, and Norman invasions destroyed all these sources. And I'm sure Henry the VII when he literally destroyed hundreds of churches in England for being Catholic, he also destroyed many Anglo-Saxon era documentation.

[@damionkeeling3103]

It must have affected Welsh records too. Given that the Welsh were the direct descendants of the Roman-Britons and maintained literacy, you'd have expected to find a lot more Roman and British history from Wales but perhaps the Anglo-Saxons and Normans destroyed it during the various wars of the early middle ages.

[@noahtylerpritchett2682]

@@damionkeeling3103 absolutely

[@Carewolf]

@@damionkeeling3103 You dont need to destroy, just not maintain it. Paper in Northern Europe doesnt survive that long. If monks didnt continuely copy it to new books, it would be lost over time.

[@eamonnclabby7067]

@@Carewolf other sources via the church, for example the anals of Ulster give us tantalising glimpses of the past linguistically, King/Saint Oswald during his exile in Dalriata ( present day north Ulster and Argyle) had his Angle name Oswald and his Gaelic warband name ..Lamigan/ white blade...best wishes from the Hiberno Norse peninsula of the wirral...E

[@robertfoulkes1832]

That would be Henry VIII, not VII

[@satomimakiseGAS_0306]

As a Sardinian, I'm 100% familiar with the concept of high prestige and low prestige languages and how they influence each other. Over the years, Sardinian was influenced by Italian a lot, but Sardinian did not influence standard Italian of course. But it did influence our own dialect, we use older words from archaic Italian, and sometimes we also use words directly translated from Sardinian (biggest example being 2 or a pair meaning "a few".) Obviously any other Italian wouldn't understand those translations and we don't ask that they do, we can speak standard Italian just as fine. However, Sardinian being considered a low prestige language is one of the main reasons it's now decaying, and not much people are working on preserving it

[@meretsegar7130]

Same reason the Irish language is going extinct and most people in Ireland can only speak English

[@sebastiangudino9377]

Yup, italy is a great analogy, specially with places like Milan where the mix of people from all around the country has made it so that current generations in many many cases don't really speak local dialects, even at home or between close freinds. Since that will just hinder communication

[@CapnYesterday]

I just discovered your channel recently, these videos are really informative and very well done, thank you for making them.

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you, I'm glad you like them!

[@cesyneighistaut3451]

This was something I wanted to know the answer to a while ago but couldn’t find any good information on, thank you for making this

[@CambrianChronicles]

You're welcome, I'm glad I helped!

[@davidcann4329]

Many thanks for this informative video, I remember an episode of Countryfile fairly recently where there was a pub in a relatively remote inland part of Cumbria where Welsh was still understood, but not really used, but they hired a Welsh speaking folk singer to come and sing to them in his native language.

[@drbreathe3459]

What an amazing and interesting video. I don't remember seeing one as well researched as this. How fascinating. Thanks. I wonder also if Latin influenced the consonant shift that separates Bhrythonic languages from early Gaelic...

[@danbebold1087]

Great video! I’m from the Fylde coast originally in Lancashire and have heard on multiple occasions that a Brythonic language was spoken there until the 11th or 12th century, which tracks considering bumpy bits to the west seemed to have these larger pockets of Brythonic people

[@rjdcarroll]

Really great stuff mate. So much content to summarise in such a (relatively)short video. You did a good job of explaining the lack of evidence around the topic. If you haven't already look out for anyone reading in 'old English', if you listen to Beowulf or Chaucer, it sounds like Welsh. Having read Oosthuizen's book on the Origins of the English, it's possibile that there was no mass invasion/migration whatsoever and that geographical as well as cultural trends are responsible for the lack of prominent Celtic languages in England, and Scotland for that matter. Not sure if you're familiar with Gerald of Wales and his own disparaging remarks about his fellow countrymen and their status cited frequently in his work. These contemporary observations support the high/low prestige point you make. Mallory's work on Proto Indo European Languages might be of interest to you too this also discusses the transformation of languages through osmosis, cultural and economic practices and political organisation. The change of legal/admisitrative systems in Britain might have played a role too. Finally, not a criticism but have you looked into Cumbric or the etymology of Wallace (beyond Wikipedia) it means Welshman or Briton from Ullas in Gaelic & Germanic interpretations are similar. CF Davies, Vanished Kingdoms. Fascinating stuff mate, new subscriber right here. Pob luc!

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you, I'm happy you enjoyed it! And thank you for all the topics to look in to, I've heard a few people on KZbin recreate old English but I haven't noticed the similarities yet, I'll give it another listen! I'll give Oosthuizen, CF Davies and Mallory a read, I plan to revisit this topic in the future so I'll check them out then, thanks again

[@rjdcarroll]

@@CambrianChronicles Diolch yn fawr! CF=Latin Confer to compare, Norman Davies Vanished Kingdoms and Horse Wheel and Language David Anthony. 😎🤓

[@Jtworthy1]

I love that you cover the subject of celtic language & history in such detail. PLEASE make a video about cornish I would love to learn more.

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you, I will definitely be making a video about Cornish!

[@Jtworthy1]

@@CambrianChronicles I would also love to learn about the relationship between breton and French and how they influenced each other.

[@westzed23]

Thank you so much for this video. This has long been a question mine as to why there was little influence of the Celtic languages to English.

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it! Unfortunately linguists still can't seem to agree on how much influence Brythonic had on English, hopefully it's a topic I can elaborate more on in the future.

[@davidwatkins8395]

There are a lot of people who speak both in the East of Wales as well it just tends to be that English is the first language mainly used by most places there but everyone still learns both in school where it is taught compulsory until g.c.s.e levels in all schools, so actually can speak the language ,or at least often understand some of it just remembering from learning it as a child, even if they don't use it their day to day life as an adult, in their workplace or amongst their social groups/families etc, they still know it though and it's encouraging to hear a an amount of young people who are talking nowadays, especially in places where you wouldn't have heard it before

[@CambrianChronicles]

I agree, the same happens a lot in Powys too, and really anywhere that has a lot of connections to England (i.e. having a lot of people who commute into England to work)

[@andiemorgan961]

Another fascinating video, thank you. These vids must involve a lot of research! I read about the Oxford DNA study and was surprised to discover how little the genetic makeup differed throughout Great Britain - the most noticeable difference being in East Scotland, where traces of the Viking influence still prevailed. I understand that historians are now changing their view of the "Anglo - Saxon" invasion. That it was more of a slow, gradual cultural transition. To avoid discrimination the native Britons would adopt Saxon way of life and subsequently be considered "Saxon". This would explain how today's "native" British still possess much of the ancient Briton DNA.

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it! It does take quite a bit of research (my last video was made during the reading/writing phase of this video) but I enjoy it. It's a really interesting study, and it surprised me too when I first read it how genetically similar most of Great Britain is, but like you said a lot of our assumptions on the Anglo-Saxon migrations are extremely dated, historians have been re-examining it for a while, a topic which definitely deserves its own video.

[@blugaledoh2669]

It is also important to note that both the Anglo Saxon and Briton were Indo European descentant of the Corded Ware people.

[@dylanflower2848]

This is the exact content I love. Thank you!

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[@jamescook2199]

Great video and a great explanation of why the Victorian old wives tales aren't historically viable. I'm definitely subscribed and looking forward to more. Thank you!

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[@notrocketscience1950]

Thank you for this video, I really appreciate your explanation and summary. The monolingual Brythonic speaker can have bi-lingual children,and then their children could be monolingual for the old English language. Similar to French in Flemish speaking parts of Belgium in the 19th and 20th Century. Even Greek has a low status in 20th century southern Italy.

[@CambrianChronicles]

You're welcome, I'm glad you enjoyed it! Another commenter mentioned the high-prestige/low-prestige relationship between French and Walloon in Belgium, which seems to echo your description of French's relationship with Flemish as well

[@TottWriter]

It can be even more dramatic than that. My nan is Welsh, and spoke it as her first language. However, at age 4 she moved to an English-speaking part of Wales, where she learnt English to communicate with her father's family. Then, age 12, the family moved to England, whereupon her new teacher immediately told her: "The first thing we have to do is get rid of that dreadful accent!" Having lived most of her life in England, she now has only the smallest trace of an accent, and has lost almost all her native Welsh in favour of English. There's really only a handful of Welsh words she uses with any regularity, and she didn't make any effort to teach it to my mum. So, the language was lost in just one generation for my family (although I am making a deliberate effort to learn it these days, because I've always loved it). I always think it's incredible that I heard Welsh growing up and barely even realised it, because it was only the odd word she hung on to - which as a child, I just thought of as her own made up way of saying things, and didn't pay attention to.

[@graiovskitek84]

Very interesting video and well made! Something similar to the situation of Brythonic, although even less known, happened to the Balkans (two times!). The original Thracian-Illyrian population was replaced by Latin when the Romans took over. Then the Slavs invaded and imposed their language over the Latinized Thracians and Illyrians. Greek survived because it was a high prestige language since ancient times. This is why the Bulgarians and Serbians who call themselves Slavs rather look like Romanians or Albanians than like Russians and Poles. They say this large Thracian-Illyrian language that was spoken over the entire Balkans only survived in Albania. I wonder if that's true.

[@yezdanus]

excellent content, now, onto how to preserve low prestige languages i as a circassian really envy how the welsh revived their language

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you I really appreciate it! Language preservation is definitely a really interesting subject and something I'm passionate about, if I can find some good sources I'd love to cover the history of Welsh language preservation

[@yezdanus]

@@CambrianChronicles we will steal those techniques, don't you worry about it ;)

[@eamonnclabby7067]

@@yezdanus just chat to us Gaels..happy to help...

[@mango2005]

I got the Ospreys book on Romano-British kingdoms recently and one historian at least called J Myres believed that there had been Anglo Saxon communities living in Britain - especially the East - since the 3rd century. I personally think the question of late survival of British Latin or British Romance needs to be considered, as there is a lot more evidence of Latin-derived words in English (though a lot of this comes from the Normans, some might have entered English earlier). In that case the language-shift might have been from Latin to Old English in eastern Britain, rather than Celtic to Anglo-Saxon. Even in Western Britain, an influx of Latin-speaking refugees would have boosted numbers temporarily. The Romans also settled defeated barbarian tribes e.g. Sarmatians and probably Germanic foederati in Britain. The 5th century Roman army was largely Germanic tribes called foederati, and its possible they were already present to some extent when the Saxon conquest began, though many were likely removed in Constantine III's revolt. Also, Bede also includes Latin as a spoken language, though historians aren't sure if he means it just as a liturgical language or also a domestic one.

[@jacobparry177]

Do love a bit of Victorian Era Myth Busting👀 Was expecting Welsh placenames in England to pop up at somepoint as evidence of communities of Welsh/Brythonic speakers still living in England for a time. Though I guess that could be a vid in and of itself. Diddorol iawn, fel arfer💪

[@CambrianChronicles]

Me too! I wanted to include place-names, and there was originally about 3 paragraphs written on it, but I could not for the life of me get it to sound coherent. I'll definitely attempt to give it its own video in the future.

[@paulwilliams493]

He did briefly show a few words but without going into detail. Coombe was in there, which has remained as Cwm even in Eastern Wales where most welsh place names have been anglicised.

[@honved1]

@@paulwilliams493 Which parts of “eastern” wales are you referring to?

[@Snagprophet]

I think Frome is literally the most Brythonic place name in England currently.

[@CartoType]

@@Snagprophet Any name ending in -dover (Dover, Andover, Wendover, etc) is Brittonic. And Dover is right on the Eastern side of England.

[@chris52386]

Thank you very much for reinforcing what I have always thought!

[@NerdWorldEmpire]

I’ve explored similar theories on my history channel as you, makes a lot of sense when you throw out Victorian ideas and any modern prejudices. Great video 👍

[@benjaminklass5118]

I'd like to see a video on the revival of the Cornish language. Fascinating stuff.

[@CambrianChronicles]

I'm planning to cover Cornish eventually, so I'll definitely include the revival in there

[@ThePoliticalAv]

one of the best videos i've seen on the topic

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you!

[@rurrjh]

A fantastic video. Filled in some gaps in my knowledge going back a generation

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you, I'm happy you liked it

[@StoicHistorian]

Also your channel is growing so fast from your last video, great to see

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you so much, I really appreciate that

[@Urlocallordandsavior]

Love your well-detailed sources.

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you, I'm glad! The research is half the fun of it so I have no reason to not include them all haha

[@Urlocallordandsavior]

@@CambrianChronicles Yeah, I wished I was as interested in discovering sources as are my interests in history itself...

[@crtc_av]

Henffych! Another smashing video! After watching the last kingdom and researching the early Kings of wessex I too was astonished to find so many brythonic names for these early "english" administrators.

[@CambrianChronicles]

It's super interesting and hardly ever talked about! It doesn't help that early British history is typically ignored, even the Anglo-Saxon stuff (which is super interesting in its own right). Not to mention how so many people just repeat Gildas and Bede's descriptions of early England, ignoring the super interesting theories and nuances that took place. Thanks for watching!

[@damionkeeling3103]

There's a passage in the Gododdin which suggests that the men of Deifr and Bryneich had sided with the Anglo-Saxons which would also suggest that the Anglian realms of Bernicia and Deira were still very much ethnic enclaves surrounded by Britons at the time. The Deifr were probably the descendants of the Parisi and the Bryneich the eastern Brigantes.

[@eamonnclabby7067]

@@CambrianChronicles there is even an Uhtred placename outside Abersythwth....

[@markiec8914]

@@CambrianChronicles you've also forgot to mention that some the most famous Anglo-Saxon saints like Chad and Cedd bore Celtic names as well as Caedmon who was best known as the father of English poetry.

[@joshuamoore8244]

Great video! Something that I never see addressed when this point is made, though, is the fact that Norman French didn’t altogether replace English. It changed it considerably, but it is still an exception to your rule that a high prestige language will typically replace a low prestige language. It would be good to explain what the difference between these two instances was when making the case for your theory.

[@aarondoliana6628]

Thanks, great video! It does a great job questioning some of the ruling class narrative, and sparking an interest in using linguistics to study history and question power structures. For me the video was perhaps too kind on the topic of language change. It sounded a little like most of the drive is coming from the low prestige language speakers adopting the high prestige language while trying to climb the social ladder. There is the flip side, of course, where members of the ruling class will coerce speakers of low prestige languages into adoption, from discriminating narratives, to burocraric language barriers (e.g. Sanskrit or Latin in religious practices), to submitting children to language change through violence in school. Would love to see a video from you to explore that side of things!

[@pickledpigeon2418]

Great video. You should definitely do one on the Hen Oggledd and the Kingdoms of Rheged and Strathclyde.

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you, I definitely will do!

[@willhovell9019]

Fascinating, well done in challenging Victorian myths and assumptions. DNA analysis has proved and will prove very useful in establishing a more factual narrative. The concept of high and low prestige languages is appropriate to describing the decline of Welsh and Breton in the 20th century . Welsh is slowly recovering with the language taught in schools and universities , but Breton is still struggling with with decline, as only 2 schools funded are by the French State. French is still making inroads into regional languages of France .Gregoire at the beginning of the 19th century, identified some 30 different patois, dialects and languages that were spoken within the borders of France, these include Bas-Breton, Bourguignon, Bressan, Lyonnais, Dauphinois, Auvergnat, Poitevin, Limousin, Picard, Provencal, Languedocien, Valayen, Bearnais, Roergat and Gascon. Among the largest groups of the non-Francophone population were the approximately one million Breton-speakers, one million German speakers, 100,000 Basque-speakers, 100,000 Catalan speakers, as well as those speaking Flemish and Italian. In fact, only a sixth of the departments around Paris were exclusively French speaking.

[@colinwilson4609]

I read a book the author and title of which I don't remember (as you can probably guess, I'm no expert on this subject) that theorizes that the people of Eastern England at the time of the Roman conquest spoke a language similar to the continental Belgae, which may have actually been a proto-Germanic language. Of course, Julius Caesar lumped all the people his armies conquered in that part of the world as Celts. But let's face it, the Roman Empire dismissed all non-Latin or Greek speakers as barbarians, so there probably weren't many ethnolinguists following the legions. The book claimed (sorry about no citations) that everything from place names to burial patterns suggest that there was already a cultural divide in what is now England long before the Anglo-Saxons showed up

[@vardito10]

This is really fascinating, thank you

[@CambrianChronicles]

You're welcome, I'm glad you like it

[@FutureBoyWonder]

You got some great content. I really enjoy the history of the isles it has so much color, imagination and grit. I understand a lot of it tends to be under a thick veil of apocryphal accounts and legend but i just find it captivating nonetheless.

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you, I really appreciate it! I find the uncertainty is what makes this period so fascinating, sure sometimes it can be frustrating (like if Gildas had written an ACTUAL history, it would potentially be one of the most valuable sources in all of British history), but I always find it interesting nonetheless.

[@eamonnclabby7067]

@@CambrianChronicles always interesting..

[@eamonnclabby7067]

PS...you have sparked a lot of interest in this post...well done...E...

[@CambrianChronicles]

@@eamonnclabby7067 Thank you!

[@eamonnclabby7067]

@@CambrianChronicles always welcome...

[@satyr1349]

There is also the peculiar change from old English to middle English (whilst the high language was the Norman dialect of French). As soon as middle English was being written the change was dramatic. There may well have still been some Brythonic speaking Britons mixing & marrying Saxons, Jutes & Angles, speaking to their children in their native tongue, thus affecting the developing English language.

[@andrewjennings7306]

looking forward to a video on Cornwall. I'm still salty about the prayer book rebellion. Will you be doing any videos on the Goidelic Celts in the future? as a scottish gaelic learner i think that would be super interesting.

[@CambrianChronicles]

I could do, their languages are also super interesting, but I am very unfamiliar with their history so I'll have to do a lot of research first

[@eamonnclabby7067]

@@CambrianChronicles as mentioned earlier Liverpool University, a Department of Irish Studies ,or any Irish Centre would help...

[@GustavSvard]

This high prestige / low prestige language dynamic is also reflected here in the Nordics in how Swedish was the high prestige language compared to Finnish & Samí. And how Swedish has historically taken in words from German & French (and nowadays English).

[@TheRetroGuy2000]

Great video! In addition to the eight Celtic words listed, here are several more: tor, wan, doe, brock, ass, brere, sark, gavelock, gwuillan/gull, peat, brill, basket (bascaed), lough.

[@karjay5448]

i was born in Carluel (Carlisle), Cwmryland (Cumberland) and raised in Penrith. the old farmers STILL count in Cwmric and the whole county is literally covered in (other) cwmric place and river names. Rheged and the old north were very much Brythonic even after nominal Saxon subordination in 700 ish. it remained so, coming back under the control of Brythonic Strathclyde until the 11th C, then nominally Scots until William Rufus in 1098 and not formally a Norman county till 1175. It was not closely connected to England till the 1745 rebellion. And since those farmers still count in it I'd venture the Bryt culture carried down the generations pretty well, and is very much evidenced in a sense of being neither English nor Scottish to this day in older communities, even though the exact sense of who we might be is now vague at best in most.

[@alicequayle4625]

I've noticed that some Gaelic words used in English / English slang don't get credited to Gaelic in the dictionary but OHG old high German or gothic. Eg (without checking the dictionary) gob is gaelic for mouth or beak. And also means mouth in some parts of England. Other words like Carr and coracle or lurgy (lhergy) . There are more but I can't remember off the top of my head.

[@melfynthomas8678]

This is also true for Welsh words borrowed into English. But it can be misleading - for instance 'Cwragl' is the Welsh word for Coracle and it more likely to have been borrowed into English from a Welsh source than an Irish one.

[@GustavoGplay]

History of language is something that fascinates me in a way I never expected.

[@jamesives4375]

Fantastic video, it’s always interesting to see the dynamics of civilizations in conflict with one another threw things like religion, culture and language.

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you, and I agree, those dynamics are so often overlooked (especially in online discussion) but I've found them so fascinating, I'm glad you enjoyed the video!

[@Takayama-sama]

The disappearance of Celtic language sounds a bit like what happened when immigrants came to North America. They travelled to the new world speaking one language, but they had to learn English(or French or Spanish) in order to communicate and do business in their new home. Over time the generations who grew up in North America stopped using the language of their grandparents and started using primary English/French/Spanish in every day life. That isn’t to say no one of Italian descent living in New York can speak Italian, but they are more likely speak English as a first language.

[@CambrianChronicles]

Very true, and probably one of the easiest examples to demonstrate, thanks!

[@eamonnclabby7067]

@@CambrianChronicles works for me ...with a scouser accent...with the merest hint of Limavady..

[@dnister_nymph]

Thanks for the video, very interesting, I’ll definitely subscribe. As a Ukrainian I have a firsthand understanding of the concept of high an low-prestige languages… Ukrainian language is really lucky to have survived

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you for watching! I agree it's very lucky and fortunate that Ukrainian has survived

[@eamonnclabby7067]

Indeed, Ukraine will prevail....

[@minniemoe4797]

Slava Ukraiyini ! Hgeroyam Slava! Ukrayina peremozhe!🇺🇦❣

[@minniemoe4797]

I also wanted to add that when the heirs of Middle Age (10-11th centuries AD) Kievan Rus dynasties conquered Finnish tribes in the East ( which is known today as Russia) and spreaded Christianity among them, the Slavonic language of the ruling classes and the Church became prestigious among the native Finnish speaking population

[@garyedmondson2998]

Well done explanation of the replacement theory. The Vikings' influence became more interchangeable (skirt/shirt). The puzzlement is how Old English simmered under about 200 years of high prestige French after William the Bastard's conquest and then re-emerged as something different from both. By the late 14th century, Chaucer is understandable with patience and a little help, but the Pearl Poet, probably writing within 100 miles of Chaucer, requires translation. Then Chaucer's high prestige London English swept the field.

[@vannjunkin8041]

Love this programme. Very informative perspective. I still find it fascinating Wales and Ireland and some Scotland still holding to their celtic language

[@johng7003]

I don't know how accurate to what I'm gonna say this will be,(feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), but the Kingdom of Strathclyde which also controlled a huge portion of northern England (aka Cumbria) was a Brythonic Kingdom that managed to survive until 1030. So basically we could say that the Brythonic language spoken by a substantial number of people in England existed till the 11th century.

[@damionkeeling3103]

Strathclyde was defeated by Northumbria at one point and Anglian settlement took place. Later it got it's independence back. Northumbria was very powerful before the vikings invaded. While the vikings caused problems for everyone they allowed Northumbria's neighbours to regroup somewhat. The Picts and Scots formed Scotland and Strathclyde became nominally independent but became a later vassal of Scotland and was eventually split between England and Scotland. It's possible that Strathclyde during this time had a declining Cumbric speaking population with Northumbrian English or similar becoming more widespread. There was also a colony of Irish in the Rhins of Galloway and later Norse-Irish colonists established what would become Galloway and while Norse was likely spoken, Gaelic was the language these people ended up speaking. Galwegian Gaelic lasted until the mid-18th century when the last speakers died. This is the form of Gaelic that Robert the Bruce would have spoken, his mother was a native speaker from Carrick.

[@EmmaMaySeven]

Thank you for this video. So refreshing to see a balanced and thoughtful approach to this period in history. Too often it is subject to high-emotion accusations and political pointscoring. There was a notorious paper some years ago which proved - with a statistical model rather than history - that English people operated an apartheid-like society on Celtic people. Sadly it is still paraded out on a regular basis. As an English person (Englander?) I'm aware that most of my ancestors acculturated to the Germanic incomers, rather than actually coming in the boat themselves. Just as their ancestors acculturated to the Roman and the Celts before them. (Also, thank you so much for not using "Anglo-Saxon"! It's such an anachronistic word which has sadly lodged itself where it doesn't belong.)

[@CambrianChronicles]

I'm glad you enjoyed it! And yes I am familiar with that paper, although I haven't seen anyone parade it as evidence. Interestingly enough it wouldn't even be a good fit, as the paper sought to find a reason as to why such a small group of migrants (the Anglo-Saxons) could have such a (supposed) large impact on the DNA of England. At the time of this paper (2006, or 16 years ago) the estimates of Anglo-Saxon DNA was 24.4-72.5%. Much more recent studies, such as the one I cited in this video, put it as low as 10%, meaning the theoretical explanations aren't necessarily needed.

[@EmmaMaySeven]

@@CambrianChronicles I've seen the paper raised in numerous discussions, usually in tandem with the "Welsh were all enslaved" thing. (The link between wealh and slavery is enormously complex, and there's a good PhD thesis which discusses the question in detail. Might make a neat video, though I'm sure you've already got a list longer than your arm.)

[@CambrianChronicles]

@@EmmaMaySeven Ah that’s unfortunate, no doubt that crowd will find this video eventually, so that’ll be interesting to see. I’ll have a look at the PHD paper as well, I’ve been wanting to make a video on why Wales is called Wales so it’ll be a good fit for that, thanks!

[@eamonnclabby7067]

@@EmmaMaySeven Hi Emma Francis Prior the historian would agree with you as well as Max Adam's who wrote the excellent King in the North about King/Saint Oswald....quick Last Kingdom reference, there is an Uhtred placename outside Abersythwith...best wishes from the Hiberno Norse peninsula of the wirral

[@EmmaMaySeven]

@@CambrianChronicles The PhD thesis is: Miller, Katherine Leah (2014) The semantic field of slavery in Old English: Wealh, Esne, Þræl. PhD thesis, University of Leeds. In short, she considers "wealh = slave" to have originated in Wessex after 700 when Welsh people were unfamiliar in some parts of the kingdom, but still occasionally taken as slaves in warfare on the border and being transported east. The semantic development is thus too late to enlighten the early interactions between Celts and the Germanic incomers.

[@fluxianata]

Excellent summary, thank you.

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed

[@BigGreedyWolf]

I really like this concept of "prestige", where language and class interact. It's interesting to note that English and its ancestors have been on both ends of the prestige spectrum in its long life - as high prestige over the Celtic languages, and as low prestige under Norman French. It's interesting to me that Norman French never came to replace Old English, instead succumbing to the romance-influenced Germanic language of English created by the collision of the two languages.

[@gwynedd4023]

back again great stuff

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you, I'm really glad you enjoyed it!

[@TheGetout04]

This video is so clear and concise lovely

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you so much, I really appreciate that!

[@jonathanlee5907]

Thank you for a fascinating video. I remember reading a paper which said that the occurrence of Germanic speakers in the east of England would have been higher than expected prior to the withdrawal of Roman forces due to the settling of Foederati and the importance of these people in the late Roman Army.

[@SulienSulis]

Penda if you research it straight up, no one knows the etymology however if you look towards Welsh, “Pen” - Ruler, Head, Chief, etc and “Da”- Good so Penda would mean “Good Ruler or Good Chief”

[@CambrianChronicles]

It's very interesting, a name essentially made up of entirely Celtic elements, yet with no known Celtic equivalent (unlike with Cerdic -> Ceredic, and Caedwalla -> Cadwallon)

[@SulienSulis]

@@CambrianChronicles There are some theories like Continental Germanic comparanda for the name including a feminine Penta (9th century) and a toponym Penti-Lingen, suggesting an underlying personal name Pendi. However, I find this to be unlikely and more likely to be of Welsh origin. Ideally, my etymology could be correct.

[@dracodistortion9447]

My DNA is 42% Anglo-Saxon and 32% Irish, followed by minor percentages such as 10% Swedish and 12% Scottish. I am proud of my heritage and my ancestors' great deeds. This was a great presentation and I enjoyed it, good work mate.

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed

[@eamonnclabby7067]

Good stuff...my son has traced Anglo Irish roots going from East Anglia ( Coburn) some Welsh ( Cadwallader) ,and O,cahan ( County Derry) on my ma,s side...our roots are a lot more nuanced than ar first glance... more than happy to be an adopted son of Birkenhead....via Limavady...

[@thischannelhasnoname5780]

Those DNA breakdowns are largely nonsense I'm afraid. You've wasted your money

[@dracodistortion9447]

@@thischannelhasnoname5780 source?

[@thischannelhasnoname5780]

@@dracodistortion9447 Any reputable geneticist.

[@Damian0358_]

Fascinating stuff! I'm slightly reminded by some of the things I had heard regarding vernacular Latin in Britain, as it similarly sees a lot of debate as to how it faded when compared to something like French (a Romance-speaking language named after the Germanic peoples that took over the region). As an example of one theory I had heard, it has been speculated that one of the many reasons why British Latin failed to take a foothold after the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons and why it doesn't appear to have left much influence on Old English was because of plague, striking the romanised population greatest, as the populace most likely at the time to have dominated in cities. But it is a fascinating topic regardless, especially in the more creative things it had inspired, such as Ray Brown's altlang.

[@wolfgaenger]

This is fantastic, thank you!

[@CambrianChronicles]

Glad you liked it!

[@torrawel]

I'm a linguist and "komz 'ran brezoneg" :) (I speak Breton). Although I'm not a specialist in the brittonic languages (focusing on native American languages instead), I've read enough about the topic to agree with the relative recent theory that both English and French have a lot more Celtic in them than often assumed. Maybe not in the vocabulary, but in their grammar, syntax, morphology and phonology. The English "weird" usage of the verb to do is often mentioned, and I completely agree with it even though, obviously, not everyone does. The English usage of the continuous (-ing) form is also very Celtic and not so much Germanic (I also speak Dutch. It's hardly ever used in this language. In Breton and Welsh however, it's used intensively) English is not a verb 2nd language like Dutch, Frisian or German and the infinitive is not at the end. It could be due to French influence, but also due to brittonic speakers. And there's much more. Finally, the counter argument that the oldest written English texts somehow contradict this theory, is, I think, not that strong. Obviously these texts were written by the elite of the native Germanic (Anglo-Saxon) speakers. Like gaulish in France, brittonic could have easily survived for centuries in the countryside, outside of the view of the new Germanic/Latin writing elites in the cities...

[@morvil73]

Doon as an auxiliary is very much used in Low German, where it expresses a habitual aspect.

[@morvil73]

English is verb second, but in compound tenses it’s very close to Scandinavian syntax. Again Brythonic influence here is not assured. The English continuous tense is pretty much the only syntactical element the seems reminiscent of Brythonic languages.

[@torrawel]

@@morvil73 can you give some examples of that? Thanks!

[@torrawel]

@@morvil73 I know English is often said to be verb 2nd (and/or SVO) but I tend to disagree with that. Some very simple examples, comparing English and Dutch : Dutch: Ik eet pizza Ik eet geen pizza Ik eet nooit pizza Ik eet bijna geen pizza Ik eet regelmatig pizza Morgen eet ik pizza In Italië eet ik pizza English: I eat pizza I don't eat pizza I never eat pizza I hardly eat any pizza I eat pizza regularly (or: I regularly eat pizza) Tomorrow, I (will) eat pizza In Italy I eat pizza Conclusion : English sometimes is verb 2 (but not in this sentence😉), but not with: A negation A "time word" Some adverbs/adjectives (but not all of them) Time or place condition. Dutch, Frisian, and German are always V2

[@jillybe1873]

I used to teach linguistics at Paris Descartes University. Even now, some are teaching that "African" is not really a language but a dialect. Some of my students were Africans and very shocked by this ignorance. Because the colonisers refused to speak with the locals, until recently they did not know any of the hundreds of languages used over Africa. They also seem to have missed the great scholars and libraries of the time. It brings into question the capacity of our glorious rulers, frankly. Croeiso

[@CambrianChronicles]

It's such a shame that even now people can be ignorant, especially of an entire continent with such a rich history!

[@eamonnclabby7067]

Indeed..

[@jasonhaven7170]

Well, sub-Saharan Africa is the most genetically, lingually, culturally and phenotypically diverse region on the planet

[@teresajohnson5265]

I agree with the logic exposed here. THANK YOU!!❤

[@jenkinsrooster7152]

Interesting fact about High/Lower class languages. What I would like to see is someone diving in to how it came to be how English, with the Norman conquest first quite clearly became a lower class languages in relation to Norman French but over the centuries against some quite grim odds managed to wrestle itself back in to a high class language, albeit it had changed, or even mutated, a great bit. And in contrast how Brythonic never managed to survive and muscle out Old English.

[@andrewwhelan7311]

The majority of people who were to eventually call themselves English are as ancient in this island as the people who were to eventually become the Welsh . History had to be deleted due to an Hanoverian minor dynasty needing to lay claim to a country they had no links to. This dynasty who had been interbreeding for centuries had to convince the people who were to become the English that they came from a common lineage. An Anglo Saxon master race narrative was championed by dignitaries like Bishop Stubs and others, who used a pre Hitlertarian dogma so the population would accept a foreign dynasty who had no credible claim to this island. He labelled the Briton's as lesser breeds. It is ironic that for centuries, the Anglo Norman dynasty's claimed lineage to king Arthur, an Indigenous war lord who was culturally appropriated to perpetuate the lie. The English have had their true history eradicated and the majority of them are actually ancient indigenous Briton's. Reclaim your true history.

[@alexwren8712]

you are retarded

[@raymondhaskin9449]

You’ve spoken some truth. But mostly ridiculous nonsense. Every aspect of Hanoverian society was styled in honour of the ancient Britons - from the British Empire to the British army - even British nationality itself was created under their reign. Why did they preserve such a visibly British country if they were trying to delete it? They also famously changed their name to Windsor to blot out the Germanic connection. So clearly their legitimacy wasn’t dependant on Anglo saxonism. If you watch the 1966 World Cup final between England and Germany you will see only British union jacks - not a single English flag. Which just proves how powerful British nationality had been cemented under their rule - and how utterly dead and decrepit Englandism was.

[@eamonnclabby7067]

@@raymondhaskin9449 happy to be a native of Limavady now an adopted son of Birkenhead, just like Declan McManus aka Elvis Costello and Paul O,Grady aka Lily Savage ( retired..) ...more about values and shared identity...cheers/Skol/slainte....

[@neilog747]

The word 'dad' is used instead of 'father' over much of England. I had a dad, but my dad had a father instead. I think dad is Celtic, although it ls also Romany (as derived from Dadus). A linguisitc map of dad vs father would be interesting.

[@neilog747]

@@kippkipper4126 Cool. Thank you, I didn't know that.

[@sebastiangudino9377]

Isn't "dad" just that phenomenon where almost all around the world a father is a "da/pa/ba" and a morher is a "ma"?

[@barbedbeggar5520]

The music set off my Historia Civilis alarm. Lovely video

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you!

[@colingibbs4276]

Excellent. I have tried to present this perspective but never as well as you have done.

[@sarahhale-pearson533]

Great video! I persevere trying to improve my Cymraeg

[@CambrianChronicles]

Thank you! I do too, I've been learning Welsh very slowly for about two years as my school education on it was pretty terrible!

[@ZeuzBluez]

Same thing happened in north africa where arabic , the language of the ruling arab invaders, were adopted by the urban amazigh and amazigh language survived only in inaccessible mountainous and saharan enclaves.

[@CambrianChronicles]

It's always a shame to hear of the decline of a language, there's been quite a few comments here with various people telling similar stories about the languages of their own home countries. Do you know of any revival or preservation efforts for Amazigh?

[@5BMN]

Alegria and Morocco recently allowed Amazigh to become co-official languages that could be used in local primary schools, before that arabic-only was enforced. This revival effort was violently opposed especially in Alegria due to arabist government policy being their idea of nation-building. Sorry for late reply but I thought I'd chime in. These issues over language can be important because of the two-way relationship with national/ethnic identity. A lot of north african arabs claim ancestry from Saudi Arabia, but then genetic test show them to be 90+% African. But they believe because of how family history is remembered in the context of the adoption of prestige language up to and including even the forgery of prestige ancestry. Plus the extra layer of mythology foreigners put on north-africans since they have light skin color/ light eyes that is not associated in popculture with "nativeness to Africa". there have been ancient aryan crackpot theories @@CambrianChronicles

[@phnkcell710]

I'm from Brazil and I don't know why I love all videos about english kingdoms, kings, wars .It's all fantastic

[@edwardstd52]

I think this high-prestige vs. low-prestige difference can be seen today in the US when looking at the "upper class" governmental documents where one almost needs to a law degree to interpret, compared to the "lower class" ordinary speech use in daily discourse. Good video!

[@nodruj8681]

In the early map depicting angle lands you showed control over south western scotland but that wasn't posessed by the English, but the kingdom of strathclyde.

[@CambrianChronicles]

Ah yes sorry that was a mistake, I'm pretty sure I separate Strathclyde in the other maps