The Sound of the Proto-Germanic language (Numbers, Vocabulary & Story)

Welcome to my channel! This is Andy from I love languages. Let's learn different languages/dialects together. I created this for educational purposes to spread awareness that we are diverse as a planet.
Please feel free to subscribe to see more of this.
I hope you have a great day! Stay happy!
Please support me on Patreon!
www.patreon.co....
Please support me on Ko-fi
ko-fi.com/otip...
Proto-Germanic (PGmc, Common Germanic)
Reconstruction of: Germanic languages
Region: Northern Europe
Reconstructed ancestor: Proto-Indo-European
Lower-order reconstructions: Proto-Norse (attested)
is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three branches during the first half of the first millennium of the Common Era: West Germanic, East Germanic and North Germanic, which however remained in contact over a considerable time, especially the Ingvaeonic languages (including English), which arose from West Germanic dialects and remained in continued contact with North Germanic.
A defining feature of Proto-Germanic is the completion of the process described by Grimm's law, a set of sound changes that occurred between its status as a dialect of Proto-Indo-European and its gradual divergence into a separate language. As it is probable that the development of this sound shift spanned a considerable time (several centuries), Proto-Germanic cannot adequately be reconstructed as a simple node in a tree model but rather represents a phase of development that may span close to a thousand years. The end of the Common Germanic period is reached with the beginning of the Migration Period in the fourth century.
The alternative term "Germanic parent language" may be used to include a larger scope of linguistic developments, spanning the Nordic Bronze Age and Pre-Roman Iron Age in Northern Europe (second to first millennia BC) to include "Pre-Germanic" (PreGmc), "Early Proto Germanic" (EPGmc) and "Late Proto-Germanic" (LPGmc). While Proto-Germanic refers only to the reconstruction of the most recent common ancestor of Germanic languages, the Germanic parent language refers to the entire journey that the dialect of Proto-Indo-European that would become Proto-Germanic underwent through the millennia.
The Proto-Germanic language is not directly attested by any coherent surviving texts; it has been reconstructed using the comparative method. Fragmentary direct attestation exists of (late) Common Germanic in early runic inscriptions (specifically the second-century AD Vimose inscriptions and the second-century BC Negau helmet inscription), and in Roman Empire era transcriptions of individual words (notably in Tacitus' Germania, c. 90 CE).
If you are interested to see your native language/dialect to be featured here. Submit your recordings to [e-mail]. Looking forward to hearing from you!

[@raylue6273]

I'm German and I love seeing all those 'unnecessary' writing irregularities make sense when you see how they were written and/or pronounced in Proto-Germanic. A lot of the vocabulary shown here still is in the German language. "ubilaz", for example, was very interesting to me because in German the general word for bad is "schlecht" but we do also have "übel" meaning almost the same thing. This is just a guess but I also made the connection "übel" > "evil" in English because the pronounciation is so so similar and meaning wise it also makes a lot of sense :) edit: I just checked and they are indeed all related. That is soo interesting. I really love how looking back makes you grab the logic and also the irregularities of languages so much more.

[@jeffkardosjr.3825]

Words are quite recognizable even with modern English.

[@Luger0312]

Yes, alot of them. Even more in german. Sometimes for the same word, there is one that sounds like tje mordern english word and one that sounds like the modern german word.

[@jasperzanjani]

No they are not

[@NaudizAshildr]

​@@jasperzanjani yes they are! I learned fuþark a while ago and got the majority from just reading the middle column, while covering the left and right side. I also made a long text document with every single one that is a cognate to modern English or Swedish (Mostly english because my Swedish blows).

[@jasperzanjani]

@@NaudizAshildr I challenge you to play this audio without subtitles to any modern English speaker and find anyone who would claim to recognize even 5 words. you might be able to thread the needle because of your knowledge, but not many others have it

[@somedude151]

you can undertsand every single word until its said

[@LukasAndalus]

It’s impressive to see how so much core modern English is still recognizably close to its Proto-Germanic roots!

[@LittleBearMysticNun]

I love that you plural is "juz." It gives hearing people say "Hey yous guys," a historical context.

[@gunnara.7860]

Wait, do people actually say "yous" in plural like that? I'm not a native English speaker, so I don't know.

[@fidenemini111]

The same in Lithuanian juz=jūs. Then ainaz = vienas, Þrīz = trys.

[@yaelthesnail]

@@gunnara.7860 Only in certain American dialects, specifically from the Northeast. It's considered an amusing feature of their speech by other English speakers.

[@326Alan]

@@yaelthesnail (and in British English and Irish English dialects)

[@EdsondoCarmoOoO]

@@gunnara.7860 is Just a comparison

[@ZombolicBand]

If i travel back in time to germania, lile, 300 bc, and count to 10 in Swedish, they will understand me. Its amazing.

[@nereus246]

In Germany it's basically the same.

[@beyondrecall9446]

well, in almost any Indo-european language. as a slavic language speaker, I was,back in high school, amazed to hear numbers in sanskrit .. so similar yet so far away .. even with germanic languages, when you go back in time, you realize more and more similarities .. it's amazing.. linguistics is so full of secrets and languages and writing is something that we should all be into, just to learn how amazing all of our histories are and that we should learn to respect each other's histories, traditions because, if you go waaaay back, we share something from the past that we will sadly never know .. I've always loved the north, unlike all of my peers who dream about going to the Caribbean islands or some hot places, I've always dreamt of visiting and even living North... such beauty in the snowy forests and mountains. One love for Sweden from Serbia

[@RobbeSeolh]

Some dialects still say fimf for 5 in Germany.

[@GhTamas]

@@RobbeSeolh where is this ü come from in the neogermanic languages?

[@sehabel]

@@RobbeSeolh My Austrian grandmother says "femf"

[@stonefaceBRC]

English: Woman Proto-Germanic: Queen 🥺

[@anderzzzzz]

Modern Swedish: Kvinna

[@stonefaceBRC]

@@anderzzzzz how interesting!

[@charbelyounes5188]

English: man Proto Germanic: simp

[@snoogkies]

You are my world, my angle, don’t treat me like potato

[@benny704]

Dass yew guurlll !

[@jsv8898]

King -> Kuningaz (Proto-Germanic) -> Kuningas (Finnish) Ruler -> Druhtinaz (Proto-Germanic) -> Ruhtinas (Finnish) Wise -> Wīsaz (Proto-Germanic) -> Viisas (Finnish) Ring -> Hrengaz (Proto-Germanic) -> Rengas (Finnish) There are countless words in Finnish that end with "-as" and they are almost always directly borrowed from Proto-Germanic.

[@noahtylerpritchett2682]

Loanwords always get preserved better from a language. Also this debunks the idea of Uralic people not being contemporary of Germanic people mean they must of arrived at Scandinavia at the exact same time

[@sven1161]

Wow, so "Hwat" was actually the correct pronunciation all along.

[@frzferdinand72]

There are so many Modern English words you can recognize. "Husband" is bridegroom. "Bird" is fowl. "Dog" is hound. "Flower" is bloom. "Bark" is both bark and hide. "Smell" is both smell and reek. "Die" is both die and starve. "Tie" is bind. "Road" is way. "Black" is also swarthy. "Dull" is slow. Many of these other words I can't immediately recognize also exist in rural UK dialects. It's interesting to see how some of the original Proto-Germanic words changed meanings in English. The word for "river" ended up becoming "flood" in Modern English. "Animal" now means just deer.

[@huttonmoon]

I’m super impressed by the pronunciation and quality here. Thank you!

[@TenorCantusFirmus]

On one side, you can still very clearly see the kinship with Latin, Greek and other Indo-European language. On the other, if some people still had doubts about English being a "fully" Germanic language, here it is: not only its syntax and grammar is clearly closer to that of the other Germanic languages than it is to Romance ones, but its "core" vocabulary also clearly has a fully Germanic origin.

[@stonefaceBRC]

Yes 1000 times. As an English speaker you might be surprised how much you can understand from the other Germanic languages if you listen closely

[@choonbox]

When you compare English to another Western Germanic tongue (NL/BE) you can see striking similarities. Also it's been said Dutch/Flemish & Afrikaans would be the easiest language to learn as an Anglophone: some examples: friend - vriend fingers - vingers chin - kin school - school Self - Zelf Smuggle - Smokkel What do the following sentences mean in English? - Dat is goed nieuws! - De beer dronk bier. - We relaxen in de zon. BONUS: Frisian is a sister language of English, originally spoken along the Northwestern coast of Europe. English is in the anglo-frisian group: - Butter, Brea & Grien Tsiis is goed Engels an goed Frysk - Butter, Bread & Green Cheese is good English and good Frisian. _Apart from 'Engels' and 'Frysk' it's pronounced exactly the same_

[@jeffkardosjr.3825]

Nah. Don't so easily disregard modern English's Latin origins.

[@independentthought3390]

​@@jeffkardosjr.3825 Not so much latin, but later French additions. Also, Norwegian is pretty close to English.

[@westelaudio943]

@@choonbox True, but cognates of "school" are used in both Latin and Germanic languages and they most likely stem from Greek. Probably because the Greeks introduced the concept of school to the rest of Europe. So there is no truly Germanic word for school except for later descriptions or slurs. "Relax" is also from French/Latin.

[@ANTSEMUT1]

Loving the Futhark script.

[@jojo.s_bekaar_adventures]

that looks like a curse word😂😂

[@hakanstorsater5090]

@@jojo.s_bekaar_adventures Seems like runic writing actually was used already in the late stages of Proto-Germanic/ Common Germanic. Very few comprehensible inscriptions are preserved from that era, though.

[@ANTSEMUT1]

@@hakanstorsater5090 if it's anything like say later early Norse it would have been used for short inscriptions like a name of a place or a famous warrior's name. Never a whole corpus of text which is a shame, it would have been so cool to read Proto-Germanic sagas.

[@bernhardwall6876]

How amazing it is that, in cases where the speaker gave two translations of one word, you can see how one translation became a modern English word, and the other modern German.

[@gilbeer.t]

Yes,also in dutch Proto-germannic.raukoz,smaukiz Engels. Smoking Dutch.roken

[@robertyoung9611]

@@gilbeer.t raukoz became English reek

[@Luger0312]

@@robertyoung9611 Or dutch roken and german rauchen.

[@westelaudio943]

@@robertyoung9611 Nope. "reukana" became English "reek" and German "riechen"

[@Dai_Abdurrahman]

ja schau mal bei beinem Germanischen Sprachen Video vorbei dann sollte dir das besser klar werden:)

[@Dara-qv8wn]

Some similar words with Iranian languages: 1. stōraz [big] stōrg (Middle Persian) 2. skurtaz [short] kurt (Kurdish) 3. mōdēr [mother] mâdar (Persian) 4. fadēr [father] pedar (Persian) 5. standaną, stāną [to stand] istâdan (Persian) stân (Kurdish) 6. wrībaną [to rub] robudan (Persian) ? farib [cheat] (Persian) 7. bindaną [to tie] bandidan, bastan (Persian) bandin (Kurdish) 8. mēnô [moon] mânga (Avesta) mâng (Kurdish) 9. sternō [star] stârag (Middle Persian) setâre (Persian) strêra (Kurdish) 10. erþō [earth] ard (Kurdish) erde (Armenian) 11. snaiwaz [snow] snezag (Middle Persian) 12. brinnaną [to burn] beryândan [to grill] (Persian) 13. dagaz [day] tâg, dâg, tâk (Middle Persian) 14. niwjaz [new] nawa (Avesta) now (Persian) 15. namō [name] nâman (Avesta) nâm (Persian) I also found some words just with the same roots.

[@dragondov]

Beautiful languages, lands, cultures and people. Love Germania.

[@connorgioiafigliu]

no doubt

[@sylamy7457]

I still cringe till this day when people say all the germanic languages come from German. Because they share a similar name, Germanic is the region, and German is the modern language that resides in that region.

[@sylamy7457]

By the way, I'm not accusing you, I'm just saying that because you saying Germania reminded me of people that get simple things mixed up.

[@luciathesylveon8082]

@@sylamy7457 Yes that's true. English, Germans, Swiss, Austrians, Swedes, Danes and Norse ppl lived once in one region till they developed their own language, made a language shift and wandered around till they got where they are now. Anglish from the land of Angels how it was called back then turned once into England. They spoke old English and then the Vikings invaded their country and the Vikings had influenced the English language. So England took many words from the Vikings old norse. Baka means back. And there are more words like that. Danish and Swedish people lived once in Denmark and Sweden, both countries were just called Denmark till they had war and then they got their own divided countries: Sweden and Denmark. I don't know how it was with Americans or other countries like New Zealand, Australia or Canada I wished I know. The German language comes from Old High German. There is still a song written in Old High German, it's called Hildebrandslied the song of Hildebrand. There are many versions of that song. The Old High Germans battled with spear's. The country they lived in were once called spearland. They spoke old high german and wrote in runes. They were a pagan folk. They celebrated the solstice and the winter turn. They believed in norse gods and wrote magic spells with runes. I find this as a German very interesting. Also the Old High German had once a word shift and the letters changed quite a bit and then the language evolved into Middle High German Which I find quite nice except the word foot 👣 sounds like vuoz, which in modern German sounds like "Pfurz" "fart" in english but it actually meant foot back in that day. Except that, I like the intonation of the language and there were many beautiful words that were erased from the modern High German. Sometime Swiss and Austria had their own countries but we never had a war with them if I recall correctly. Germania was a region were Old High German lived in. But it got into Deutschland in the end of the middle High German epoch, when Martin Luther translated the Bible into German he dissolved the Middle High German and created High German which it's spoken till this days.

[@luciathesylveon8082]

@dragondov you are right Germany was called Germania even if English, Danes, Swedish and Germans lived all together the region was later called what it is today Germany.

[@matteo91ization]

I love your work! I come from Lusern, a little town in Trentino-SouthTyrol (Italy). The people of Lusern are the last people in the World that speak in Cimbrian, a old bavarian dialect. We are a minority language and our language have 700 years old.

[@markusass]

The reason why English resonates more is because it still uses the runic sounds for wyn (w) and thorn( th). They've been lost in all the other west germanic languages.

[@jojo.s_bekaar_adventures]

the -aną suffix for infinitives is actually also used in some Indo-Aryan languages as -na suffix, e.g. in Hindustani to eat - khána to bathe - nahána to call - bulána to tease - satána to wake - jagána

[@jjclauslegos1999]

Thanks to this channel I can now speak with my proto-germanic grandparents in their native tongue

[@luciathesylveon8082]

I'm German and I recognize many words from German but also English words. It's interesting to see how the language changed and how it once was spoken.

[@smiedranokatirova5987]

Plz do more proto-languages Love from Iraq

[@beyondrecall9446]

one love from Serbia! I am curious if you can tell me about the Arabic languages .. In iraq, you speak Standardized Arabic but the Arabic speaking region is so big so can you understand someone from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Lybia, for example? does the language change very much through different countries ? Being from Serbia, in school, I was thought some Old Slavic and the letter system of that period, our languages were just dialects at time .. they are different languages now but not so different as, like german and english or icelandic .. it was very easy for me to have a basic conversation with a slovak after a few months living in Bratislava .. the further you go, the more different it gets .. so I was always wondering how is it with Arabic, can you understand people from different arab countries?

[@masterjunky863]

Smerdano in italian means "they ruin everything" lol

[@martinokhalil4900]

@@beyondrecall9446 Arabic dialects are as different as Romance languages because each dialect is so affected by the original language of the country before Arabic

[@charbelyounes5188]

You have the written/read Arabic (unchanged), and the spoken (usually casual) Arabic, which differs from country to country. I'm from Lebanon, I might understand most of the Syrian and Iraqi dialect, but be a bit confused with the Egyptian/North African one, cz casual/slang words are misunderstood.

[@smiedranokatirova5987]

@@beyondrecall9446 understanding other Arabic dialects for Iraqis is as easy for an Old church Slavonic to understand Slavic languages, but Arabs understanding Mesopotamian Iraqi is as hard as a half Czech half German trying to understand Russian It’s more diverse as Romance or Slavic languages Also Salute to Slavonian Srbija from Mesopotamian Irak 🇮🇶🇷🇸♥️

[@DaliwolfBacon]

I speak English, and some modern German, and I was surprised that I understood so much of the proto Germanic language! Thanks for making this video! It was very interesting :)

[@andreiii204]

Gothic might be the closest Germanic language to proto Germanic

[@williamramsey9140]

Makes sense, as it's the oldest substantially recorded Germanic language (and therefore the least removed from Proto-Germanic).

[@ktx1234]

Very difficult question.That Scandinavian substrate. Proto Germanic should sound more like Indo-European.

[@dunnohow2live997]

Proto-Norse (ancestor for all north-germanic languages) is the oldest attested germanic language actually, but has much lesser remaining inscriptions. Possibly it's other one written germanic language (apart gothic and other attested east-germanic inscriptions) that also has unchanged "-az/-as" ending in words.

[@duwang8499]

Actually it's Proto-Norse.

[@blothhundssbh1055]

Proto-Norse, although only attested in few rare inscriptions, was probably even closer... compare PGmc *hurną, Gothic haúrn, Proto-Norse horna, or PGmc *þewaz, Gothic þius, Proto-Norse þewaz.

[@itryen7632]

This is legitimately awesome. Thanks for reccomending me this, KZbin.

[@WobblyCube]

As a Belgian who speaks Dutch, I could understand nearly al words. If they didn't sound Dutch (or German, the languages are very similar) then I could understand based on English. It's surprising how close our languages still are to Proto-Germanic.

[@fidenemini111]

Ok, so what I managed to find is following: ainaz = vienas twai = dveji þrīz = trys fedwōr = keturi fimf = penki sehs = šeši sebun = septyni ahtōu = aštuoni newun = devyni tehun = dešimt ek = aš þū = tu iz = jis jūz = jūs hiz = šis hwaz = kas hwar = kur ne = ne anþeraz = antras (modern meaning "second" with synoniming meaning "other") stōraz = storas (meaning "thick") anguz = ankštas gumô = žmogus (žmuo - reconstructed neutral form - progenitor of masculine "žmogus" and feminine "žmona" - derives from "žemė" - "erth" "ground") weraz = vyras mōdēr = moteris (meaning "woman") wurmiz - kirmis (kirmėlė, kirminas) laubą = lapas ausô = ausis tanþs = dantis naglaz = nagas þarmaz = žarnos hnakkô = kaklas spīwaną = spjauti (spjaunu - I spit, for „vomit“ we have „vemti“) dailijaną = dalinti hnīpaną = gnybti, gnaibyti siwjaną = siūti sagjaną = sakyti sōwulō = saulė mēnō = mėnuo raukiz - rūkas (rūkti, rūkyti - to smoke) raudaz = raudonas (raudas - reddish brown) gelwaz - geltonas, geltas nahts = naktis kaldaz = šaltas niwjaz = naujas in = į (in - an older form, still used in dialects) awiz = avis exwōz = ašvos (plural, "ašva" - singular, an old form, still used in dialects) wullō - vilnos (Genitive, "vilna" - Nominative) gumanų = žmogų (Accusative) sagdē = pasakė (Past Indefinite tense) hauzi = klausyk (Imperative mood) awi = avie (Vocative) ne isti = nesti (ne esti) - an old form, still used in dialects

[@GrandeSalvatore96]

As a native speaker of Olde Anglisc from the kingdom of Wessex, I find this very easy to understand.

[@axisboss1654]

It’s so cool that most words in English and German can be traced back to the same root.

[@alphaundpinsel2431]

From words like “ahtau” Latin, “Octo”, “ek” Latin, “ego”, “exuos” Latin, “equus” you can see the connection

[@MajesticSkywhale]

holy shit "youse guys" might be archaically correct, how about that

[@NaudizAshildr]

lmao thats what I thought

[@Celtjak7]

This is almost like a combination of Dutch and English, so for a Dutch like me, I can understand almost everything haha

[@kame9]

en ook een duitse

[@gilbeer.t]

@@kame9 klopt dit is als een combinatie van alle Germaanse talen bv.nederlands,duits, Engels en de Scandinavische talen ✔️

[@JustAToeBee]

i mostly hear german in it, but it's not that i say "germans are the OG germanics" thats just because it is my native language and humans will try to make sense of it by comparing it with something they already know.

[@Luger0312]

@@JustAToeBee As german who did learn some dutch in school, almost all words that sound german to you also sound dutch. The languages aren't that far apart. Some of the things that sound english, also sound dutch, as dutch and german are very close but dutch and english have some similar words, too.

[@r.v.b.4153]

It's a combination of all Germanic languages, because that's how it was created. They compared all modern Germanic languages and all documented Germanic languages throughout history (e.g. runic inscriptions and medieval manuscripts of monasteries). By seeing the differences throughout time and between regions, they can make reliable argumentations as to why a certain word must have been pronounced in a certain way. There are uncertainties here and there, but we can be sure about some linguistical changes.

[@umashi4437]

Can you do Proto-Turkic or comparaison between Proto-Turkic and Proto-Mongolic please ? It would be very interesting.

[@sandu-vd7fi]

Also interesting is to compare Proto-Japonic, Proto-Tungusic and Proto-Koreanic with this 2 languages.

[@DoctorDeath147]

Altaic

[@umashi4437]

@@sandu-vd7fi I don't think these languages were very similar, even if they are maybe related. Maybe Proto-Japonic and Proto-Korean in a next video.

[@sandu-vd7fi]

@@DoctorDeath147 , Altaic languges are rejected by many linguists , because they affirm that similarities between these languages(japonic, koreanic, turkic, mongolic and tungusic languages) it is due to the long contact between the speakers of these languages. But, when japonic and turkic people interacted? I believe never, because area occupied by japonic people is far away from area of turkic languages' native speakers. The single mood to explain the similarities is the common origin. In conclusion, Altaic languages exist.

[@Nomadicenjoyerplus]

@@DoctorDeath147 there is no such thing as Altaic

[@voicelessglottalfricative6567]

gumo = homo kweno = gwen = queen kinþa = kinder

[@gula_rata]

They should have used this language in the Netflix series BARBARIANS.

[@MMadesen]

This language is even more ancient, than the series. The Barbarians would speak a form of west germanic. But since the Germans didnt write much, its mostly reconstructed and woudnt be really accurate to the actual tongue spoken back then. The latin on the other hand comes from written sources from this time period and is pretty accurate to actual latin spoken in that era.

[@adlerzwei]

Barbarians is a german show. The primary audience are germans not ancient proto germanic tribes. -.-

[@markiec8914]

@@adlerzwei exactly...They would need to have subtitles for their own modern German speaking audiences to understand it 😂

[@dannicron]

@@MMadesen Not unlikely that the West Germanic languages at the time were still fairly close to Proto Germanic, don't you think?

[@hansmahr8627]

Yeah it would still have been very close to Proto-Germanic. It's very likely that at that time there was still a large degree of mutual intelligibility between all the Germanic dialects. The earliest runic inscriptions in Proto-Norse were still very similar to Proto-Germanic even centuries later.

[@valiwidrirson475]

It's just awesome how I as a German can understand most of it

[@dan74695]

I'm Norwegian and I can also understand most of it.

[@herrbonk3635]

For a swede like me, it all sounds very qute with that voice, especially wurmiz :) We use a lot of "childish" words that ends like that (dagis, loppis, mjukis, sötis, kompis, snackis, ...)

[@MSS47Ag]

As a native Dutch speaker (Nederlands), proto-Germanic sounds quite “natural” to me😄

[@gabrieljusto6104]

Very accurate pronunciation. I love it.

[@SarimFaruque]

The number 4 in Germanic (fedwor) is similar to Welsh (pedwar)

[@galacticman4656]

Celto-germanic

[@tonit4233]

Wasn't it celto-italic

[@luciathesylveon8082]

It's similar but it's written with p

[@hakanstorsater5090]

@@luciathesylveon8082 Germanic initial F generally corresponds to initial P in many other Indo-European language groups. Grimm's Law.

[@weirdlanguageguy]

@@hakanstorsater5090 actually, this case is slightly different because the originally root was kwetwor, not petwor. Kw became p regularly in welsh, but only became proto Germanic f in this one instance.

[@Luger0312]

I'm German. I speak german, english, some decent dutch and some french. It is easy to see that english, dutch and german didn't get a heavy latin influence. Basically all those words have a very similar word in modern german (by far the most), english or dutch (which are mostly the same proto-germanic words that are close to modern german words, as the languages aren't that far off each other). Didn't know that german was still this "close" to it.

[@flutterwind7686]

English gained French (and Latin by extension) synonyms as well. We have Pretty (Germanic) and Beautiful (French). So English kind've has both Germanic and French vocabulary, and the less formal is Germanic and more formal/fancy is French usually.

[@Qdude10]

Wow, I can even understand some of these as an English Speaker. Crazy. I've also noticed that most if not all verbs seem to end with "na"

[@UnknownGuy8652]

Super this is old language is awesome

[@Paguo]

Etymology is a rad thing. Just found out "queen" has the root in "kwen" that just means woman

[@gabriellima7900]

And they are cognates with greek "Gyne".

[@snaiwa]

Thank you, I've been waiting for this video since the start of your channel!

[@saarbrooklynrider2277]

Interesting how it is a mix between English, Swedish and German.

[@simenbendikwilberg8711]

What a wonderful video. As a native speaker of Norwegian I recognized so many words. Also interesting to see different variants of the same words where only one is recognizable to me, and the other looking like another language. One thing i found interesting is the word for husband. In Norwegian the groom is called "brudgom", very similar to "brudigomo" which is proto-germanic for husband. However, the Norwegian word for bride is "brud". Why is "brud" (bride) not on your list of vocabulary? And do you know the proto-germanic word for groom (as in bride and groom)? Thanks again for the great video!

[@hakanstorsater5090]

*Gomo originlly meant man/ person, if I remember it correctly. So, the man of the bride...

[@hakanstorsater5090]

The intrusive -r- in English was due to mixup with the unrelated verb "grooming", I believe...

[@domsjuk]

Very interesting! I was wondering, if *gomo was actually preserved in some modern languages and couldn't think of any examples.

[@killerbee2562]

Bride is brūdiz in proto Germanic

[@obinator9065]

Many words at the start sounded close to the German equivalent. But then it all faded into the west Dutch /English.

[@josephkolodziejski6882]

More likely the other way round, German, despite its name, is more innovative. Remember that most Germanic peoples don't call themselves Germans

[@obinator9065]

@@josephkolodziejski6882 Yeah Deutsche, western German goes to duits or düütsch like Dutch but we call them niederländisch like the English equivalent.

[@12tanuha21]

High german, originated from middle-south germany, have some sound shifts that have not happened in the northern Germany. That is why low german is nearer to old german than high german.

[@iicarlyx3643]

Thank you! Was just searching for this!

[@chinmaybhogilal6459]

Can you do Proto-Indo-Aryan or Proto-Dravidian?

[@No0r_.]

proto indo Iranian would be interesting

[@jefferygoldmann2643]

Something is telling me you are from India

[@chinmaybhogilal6459]

@@No0r_. Yea, they did that on their old channel, but it got deleted when the whole channel went under. They did Schleicher's fable like they do for all the proto-languages in the Indo-European family.

[@chinmaybhogilal6459]

@@jefferygoldmann2643 Nice try, but the people there don’t know the difference between the two families and think that all languages originate from Sanskrit.

[@adityanawani8134]

@@chinmaybhogilal6459 Are you not from india,bro? And Btw,you are so correct about mother of all languages part.😄

[@ijansk]

English: lake. Proto-Germanic: lakō Spanish: lago

[@12tanuha21]

Maybe the Goths brought that word to spain

[@tirididjdjwieidiw1138]

the reason this sounds very similar to a lot of modern germanic languages is due to the fact that it has been reconstructed from old norse, gothic, old english, old high german and several other old germanic languages.

[@LadetJahonen]

This is superb! Thank you so much!

[@kwayyernorge7436]

Proto-germanic dads when they come back from a hunt: b-b-baka!

[@AhJauBut]

You know that Baka word came from Indo European language

[@doriannamjesnik3007]

@attilakreisz baka in some Slavic languages means grandmother.

[@blamethelag4992]

@attilakreisz That's the joke... Edit: On second thought, you might've been contributing to the joke. I sound like an asshole with this comment. Sorry.

[@fuehrer_tb5597]

Tsundere dad 😁

[@luciathesylveon8082]

Japanese has another language tree it's not germanic.

[@Smitology]

A good way of predicting cognates is that the long O sound in English usually comes from Proto Germanic "ai" and will be "ei" in German. Words pronounced with the long E sound and spelt "ea" in English usually comes from Proto Germanic "au" and will usually be "o" or "o" (umlaut) in German. Combine that with the High German consonant shift (th --> d --> t --> ss or z) and you can usually guess pretty well

[@jer8036]

Similarities with dutch: English - germanic - dutch Two - twai - twee I - ek - ik Here - her - hier What - hwat - wat Long - langaz - lang Man - mano - man Mother father - moder fader - moeder vader Dog - hundaz - hond Flower - blomo - bloem Grass - grasa - gras Eye - augo - oog Tooth - tanths - tand Tongue - tungo - tong ana is en in dutch Drink - drink - drink Eat - et - eet Sleep - slep - slaap Die - sterb - sterf Fall - fall - val

[@applelayla4532]

THIS is what the actors should have spoken in Netflix "Barbarians"! NOT German! Thank you so so SO much for this video and the work you do!

[@teachervitors.5694]

Proto-Celtic is definitely closer to Proto-Italic!! As someone has previously said... the Germanic does seem like a fusion of a sibling group of the Italo-Celtic to a Satem language group, maybe the Baltics or even a Pre-Indo-European language descending from the Anatolian and Middle Eastern farmers in the North!

[@karlscheuring3179]

but for real thank you for posting been waiting on this for a big minute

[@klaushuber4446]

Man sieht die Verbindung zu modernem Deutsch. Was auch auffällt: Wenn Deutsch und Englisch zwei unterschiedliche germanische Worte benutzen, erscheinen diese hier in ihrer angenommen Urform nebeneinander. Anders ausgedrückt: Wenn hier für einen Begriff mehr als ein protogermanisches Wort angegeben wird, ist häufig eines dieser Wörter der Vorgänger des englischen, das andere des deutschen Wortes.

[@danborggren6608]

We still say "brudgum" for groom (husband) in Swedish. Smal in Swedish means thin, but it is a cognate of small. It is a little bit sad that different Germanic languages are not mutually intelligible anymore. In Scandinavia we have retained intelligibility between our different languages, but the moment we cross the Danish/German border.... nope.

[@gabrielpr03]

brūdigumô (husband) -> Bräutigam

[@BrandydocMeriabuck]

There is also the term bridegroom in English

[@stonefaceBRC]

I know several people with Brautigam as a surname!

[@rexx23ify79]

It's "Brudgumme" in Swedish still

[@choonbox]

Bruidegom in Dutch-Flemish.

[@simenbendikwilberg8711]

Brudgom in Norwegian

[@cuckoo61]

Please do Proto Uto Aztec and Proto Eskimo Aleut :D

[@sandu-vd7fi]

I hope that Andy will make a video for each proto-language.

[@snoogkies]

Between speaking English and learning German, this was pretty easy to understand. 🤭

[@jackpw2005]

The power of *, spoken by my ancestors in Germania.

[@joshuafuller1464]

Knowing Dutch & English, you really feel the similarities. I have to say I think there are more similarities with dutch than english, makes you realize why words are the way they are in other germanic languages.

[@igiveup12]

Just watched a video from this channel on the proto urgic language, went to the comments, and read a few how they could understand some words. I get what they're talking about now!

[@richlisola1]

I hear bits of English, German, and believe it or not Latin! In Proto-Germanic. The word for horse is Ekwas or something sounds like Equis. The Latin word for horse 🐴

[@theprinceofdarkness4679]

@@Бегемот-г6м actually no ehwaz was only one of at least 6 words used for horse in protogermanic English horse and German Ross come a different protogermanic word ekwos was the approximate pronunciation of the proto-indo-european word that gave Latin equus and protogermanic ehwaz due to the first consonant shift German Ross and English horse go back to protogermanic hrussan The an in hrussan is actually spelled a with a mark underneath it to indicate nasalization of the a In the video the person pronouncing the words seemed a little off because the nasalization of certain vowels were not distinguishable as well as several other characteristic pronunciations of other phonemes In other words a native speaker of protogermanic would have considered the person a foreign speaker Now that's according to my understanding of how protogermanic should be pronounced Unfortunately there is a probability of differences in pronunciation and protogermanic was not really a language frozen in time It is of course the best approximation of what we can reconstruct

[@c.norbertneumann4986]

The more you go back in time, and the older Indo-European languages are, the more similar they are.

[@stjou4268]

What a beautiful tongue. Wish we could somehow revive it.

[@Zovlanov]

nouns end with "z" verbs end with "na"

[@unraed]

masculine nouns to be precise)

[@MagnusItland]

I was taken aback by how much of the first pages that sounded like the west Norwegian dialect I grew up with.

[@germandestroyzeppelin4432]

Beautiful language

[@ethanpearson853]

Does ANYONE know where to find the Middle English poem of The Wren? I have physical evidence of it's onetime KZbin existence from when I wrote it and yet I can't find it anymore.

[@ethanpearson853]

Only took 3 years.

[@almosthilarious9639]

Oo Would be awesome to hear Proto-Kartvelian!

[@whichoneispink5967]

Doctor: So where does it hurt? Germanic People: B-Baka! OwO

[@anglishbookcraft1516]

For these everyday words I think English is the nearest to proto-Germanic. The sounds and the words of choice are the same. The others have other Germanic words instead. Yes the Latin is heavy in English (mostly as a choice) but English’s normal Wordstock is so old.

[@Muhammedthemaverick]

I am a South African and I can speak Afrikaans and English Which are Germanic languages

[@angycucumber4319]

So you understand everything

[@vetar3372]

How to make Proto-Germanic: Take words from Germanic languages and add iz and az

[@PiroKUSS]

Sounds similar to Gothic. Makes sense.

[@raffer807]

Hey, this flag is amazing!

[@General_Popo]

Me: "I speak a modern germanic language and a bit of Old Norse. I will probably understand a bit of a sentence" <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="320">5:20</a>: "Hahaha, no."

[@DuetchJunger]

Speaking both english and german, its crazy how similar the languages are even to their older ancester lamguage.

[@Supernimo735]

Proud to have German ancestry 👏🇩🇪

[@yassies9640]

I'm a bit stunned with how many words are recognizable with their modern dutch equivalent. I thought it would sound far more removed

[@BreadWinner330]

Proto-Germanic sounds like English without the Great vowel shift and German without the Second consonant shift.

[@MHeymann]

This is amazing!

[@louisrobertbrown]

Felt especially Welsh at numbers 4 and 5 (fedwor vs pedwar and fimf vs pump, which is pronounced pimp)

[@jeffondrement160]

Language at the end of the video is not Proto-Germanic but Pre-Proto-Germanic. Proto-Germanic was closer to Gothic. Pre-Proto-Germanic was PIE with Germanic sounds.

[@connorgioiafigliu]

So beautiful!

[@MrAllmightyCornholioz]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="31">0:31</a> I TELL YOU *HWAT

[@arth423]

Can you do Proto-Finno-Ugric?

[@Pottan23]

Bruh, it's pretty wild to think that proto-germanic word for husband is Brūdigumô and the Swedish word is Brudgum (traditional/official, the every day word is just "Man").

[@prestonpizzaxd2344]

As a English person I actually understand this a bit. By the way I speak some Dutch and German

[@Pac-cm3xx]

Only a bit? Nearly every word is a cognate. Words that aren't a cognate are the exception.

[@thetriumphofthethrill2457]

This is the language the Germanic tribes should have spoken in "Barbarians" not modern German. Fascinating. I thought this language is unknown?

[@ruawhitepaw]

It's unattested, meaning it's not found written down anywhere. Some very early runic inscriptions could be considered a northern dialect of Proto-Germanic, but are usually just classified as Proto-Norse. That doesn't mean it's "unknown", because we can reconstruct a lot of it based on our knowledge of its descendants, and of its ancestor Proto-Indo-European. The forms you see in the video all have an asterisk * in front of them, which indicates a reconstruction.

[@olavmortensen7175]

Oh my days has language changed

[@mpforeverunlimited]

Why was this not used in the show Barbarians?

[@VanaheimrUllr]

Theres very few words that dont have norwegian words that is in use today that has the same meaning, fewer than english from what I can see so far. I love it.

[@Truthseeker447]

I once searched that Dutch language is the closest to proto Germanic, Dutch speakers how do you find it familiar with your language today ?

[@muiscnight]

German really is the root of the English language. I know thats painfully obvious but if there were any doubters they are no more.

[@samyrandome425]

I would love it if y'all could do proto-Afroasiatic

[@weirdlanguageguy]

Breatiful! More proto-languages please!