How languages evolve - Alex Gendler 

Did you know TED-Ed now publishes animations in 5 other languages? Subscribe via our channels tab or learn more here: bit.ly/3D5Xf9Z

The old joke is that the difference between a language and a dialect is that a language has a flag and an army.

When I say I want to study linguistics, people usually think that I am going to spend years learning multiple languages. When I tell them I want to do research on indigenous languages here in Taiwan in the future, they laugh at me and say "there are more than ten indigenous languages here, you can never master all of them!" Well, doing linguistic research is about using scientific methods to find out linguistic facts about a language or a group of languages. That means a linguist doesn't necessarily have to be a polyglot or study a language in order to do a research on it. Sometimes those people really get on my nerves...lol

I love the illustration! they make interesting analogies. that red dragon with the multiple tongues is a cool one

People in my class think learning English is difficult, then I always say that learning English as a German guy is much less difficult than learning it as a Chinese. It's true, the simmilarities are surprisingly big

"It may not be as foreign as you think." I love this quote.

like korean........north and south korea are experiencing a language separation from being apart for two long

can anyone explain why the word for "mother" starts with an "M" sound in so many totally different languages?

The fun thing about Greece, is that, even though it's so tiny, and only home to 11.000.000 people, it is SO diverse, and people in regions of Greece speak so differently from one another! It's insane! As an Athenian-born, raised with standard Greek and nothing else, when I travel around, I quickly get baffled by all the dialects. Greek is a very well structured and enduring language, but more ofthen than not, when speaking to elders, I just have ask for clarification. And foreigners are baffled too... That one time I was speaking to a Cypriot in frond of some people, and they were amazed, because to them, it sounded like we were speaking completely different languages... Which I found amazing, given the fact that we mostly understand each other...

Here is an easy example: English: Thanks Swedish/Norwegian: Tack German: Danke. Or Catalonian: Gracies Italian: Gratzie Spanish: Gracias

Did you see the russian and ukrainian matroshkas frowning at each other?? 1:50

Malay: Selamat pagi (Good morning) Indonesian: Selamat pagi (Good morning) Filipino: Salamat pagi (Thank you stingray) Salamat pogi (Thank you handsome)

Finnish is my first language and I'm studying Spanish; I was really surprised by the amount of similarities in grammar that they have for languages so far from each other.

1:50 see what you did there ted ed...

3:24 there's a mistake. Balto-Slavic is NOT a superfamily, but a language group of the Indo-European language family!

Nice touch with the Russian and Ukrainian matroskas

I think the "Chinese language" is misinterpreted by English speakers. I am a Chinese and I find the words "language" and "dialect" differ between English and Chinese because *these meanings of words were matched like a jigsaw by early bi-dialects to form a translation, and they may not be totally accurate.* *- more below -* In Chinese, "語言" means spoken language, "語" means speech or language and "言" means words spoken. "語文" means written language. "英"(ying) is the name we gave Britain. Therefore, "英語" and "英文" are not totally equal, meaning spoken English and written English. "地方" means place, "方言" means dialect in English, or in literal Chinese, can be interpreted as "spoken language spoken by minorities or smaller places". Therefore, it's not the same system of the westerns as we have an universal written language and different spoken languages.

Kudos to the ones who thought of and drew the analogies in this video. Amazed!

AWESOME metaphorical visuals throughout the video.

I got a BA in International Relations and a minor in French, which required me to take a Linguistics 101 class. It was probably my favorite class!

1:50 You made Russian and Ukrainian mathryoshkas hate each other? Haha

When considering two similar languages, you seem to ignore the possibility that they may have converged into their similarity as opposed to having once been the same language, diverged from each other.

That's a beautifully made video, full of interesting image choices and details (and i watch quite a few of the animation videos already). I came back to pause and rewind a few times to see better some great imagery in action. Congrats to the animator

Dude, imagine being so old that the way you speak to your family gave rise to other languages! This is very epic

All I know is that in any language/country "eh?" means "what?".

The evolution of languages reminds me a bit of the evolution in biology. Kinda funny how these fundamentally different things are driven by the same factors (physical movements, isolation etc) to come to a similar result.

My theory is that there was no "first language." When humans spread out from Africa, they were already in different areas throughout the globe when language arose. Because of this, their linguistic "starting points" were different, depending on how close they lived to one another. For example, if group A lived in section 1 of an area of the inhabitable world, their original language would almost certainly have been different from group L who lived in section 204, thousands of miles away from group A, who may or may not have begun using their own language around the same time. I call this my "Many Mothers" theory. To assert that there was only one original language would, by extension, imply that the first humans started communicating linguistically before they ever fanned out from their point of origin.

The matter of the origin of languages, briefly and beautifully presented.

I can relate. When i am having french classes in school i can understand most of the words simply because they sound so similar to english. What a wonderful world

I'm currently taking language related course in college. This video is a mind opener. Thank you❤

This video is giving an easy and comprehensive overview of what languages really are or come from.

I love how in my country(the Philippines), a word for something could mean two different things in the same island, some islands even have multiple languages and dialects in them.

The fact that there are at least 3000 languages is mind blowing!

Comments here depress me...

The conclusion was the best part, not denying all the video content.

I liked the closing statement, that was a good way to put language learning

Thank you for making this video, I love languages and this was interesting.

As a person who indulged in learning languages, to mention: German (I forgot how to speak!), Greek, and Hungarian, with ease, I'd like to say that: within a few months I can connect with more people than ever across the world.

This topic is so interesting! The video made me want to learn more about it.

Thanks for opening my ears & eyes about the origin of languages.

Basically, Darwinian evolution of languages instead of gene pools. I admire the use of the "Tower of Babel" story in what is essentially a scientific examination of language. Language is a fascinating thing--so much of our modern knowledge and early survival depended on it. I've been planning for my next video about how language barriers and misunderstandings act as catalysts for world issues and inhibited social progress. I recently put up a video about our ever-changing perceptions of our ever-changing world and how the two are key to making human progress. Check it out if you're interested, I promise I won't let you down. Good day to you all:) May we always learn from one another and never stop progressing.

you can see the effect of separation in way more recent, more recorded languages, it's visible when it comes to colonization. though some languages change more in a certain period of time than others do, which is also interesting. there's obviously the differences between english in great britain, north america, australia, india, etc. but if you take portuguese (which i'm using as an example because it's a language i speak), brazilian portuguese and portuguese portuguese can be quite different, not just in pronunciation or spelling but in a lot of words you'd find very basic, like "breakfast", or even something as simple as "girl". i have no idea what portuguese is like in angola, moçambique, and other countries that speak it as well, but i imagine their specific influences must make it very interesting as well, though also maybe harder to understand (i remember reading a book from moçambique (i think?) a few years ago, and it had a small "dictionary" in the back to clarify some words (including "breakfast, since it's also not the same word used in portugal or in brazil). in the case of colonization or any kind of domination, new dialects or accents can also teach about the language that was taken over. for example, some accents in brazil result from natives who learnt it not having a certain sound in their language, and producing it in a way that's different from how it was "supposed to be said", and then you get a regional accent as a result. i also find it super interesting to see how quickly languages change. brazilian portuguese, once again as an example because it's a language i speak, has changed considerably in the past 100 years only, or even less. if you read an older book, you can understand it, of course, but there are lots of words that aren't used these days at all, along with other changes. it's very obvious when something is older. meanwhile, while german has changed a lot throughout the ages, it hasn't changed as much in such a short time recently. and if you take icelandic, it's extremely similar to old norse - some icelandic friends of mine tell me they can often read texts that are hundreds of years old in school without that much difficulty, the language just didn't change that much even though it's been a while! one interesting thing i remember learning about english is how you can see that different words for two versions of one thing have different origins. for example, the word for "cow" has germanic origins, while "beef" is closer to the french word for it. because when the normans conquered england, they were largely the noble, rich people, as opposed to the germanic farmers. so the word for the animal in the farm is germanic while the word for the animal on a plate has latin roots a lot of the time. languages can really show a lot about the history of a group of people, which is why i find linguistics extremely fascinating, and am leaving a few fun facts for others who might find it interesting as well here lol

It's easy to understand, but hard to explain, but you did an amazing job

I once wrote a comment in spanish and someone replied in portugese: "Oh wow at first I thought this comment was portugese but it wasn't" and I understood! So I said (in spanish): "Dude I can understand you" and He replied: "Same I can understand you too"

*There has to be an outside influence*, because ideas can come to many people at about the same time. Example: *Language developed at about the same time everywhere on the planet*. Religions from different times and places have many things in common. Inventions and styles of music and art come to people at about the same time. It is not just a coincidence. Find out about this outside influence it has brought us the world we are living in now. Google *TruthContest read the Present*, it explains for the 1st time ever the big picture of life in every facet, it explains the nature of everything. It will set you free

I find it interesting that almost all austronesian languages always call number 5 as "lima".

Me llamó la atención lo de la TORRE DE BABEL !!! En realidad q pudo ocurrir para que el primer grupo de personas empezaran a cambiar su idioma básico, ¿ será q los idiomas se inventaron luego de la expansión de esas primeras personas...? Y por eso luego al encontrarse se empezaron a fusionar creando cada vez más nuevas lenguas ?

I love these things because it's like language science, and these are two things I like. Also, some videos on conlangs made me understand a lot if things in language development

The question I have is will we all go (back) into having one language in the future and by combine all current languages or having a complete new language?

Is 'Chinese' a language? I thought there was Cantonese & Mandarin?

I'm so honored and glad to be speaking an Austronesian language which is Tagalog.... Mabuhay!

Beautiful lesson.

I'm in the middle of constructing a whole dictionary of a new branch of words to simply add to English. My latest word added is "zore" which came into being from a mistake in Science Class where the teacher was trying to write "core".

1:49 Russia and Ukraine, this look

That's so complicated and interesting!

Brilliant video, flawless execution.

i was in Macedonia in the late 90s, and there was already talk of Croatians attempting to separate their language from Serbian. my friend saying this was a native and spoke Serbian too, and said that they were basically the same language. but even then the breakup of Yugoslavia had begun to have its impact on the division of cultures and languages. i found it fascinating that i was witnessing that at the time, and i'm not surprised there's been more change since. and i know my friends also spoke Bosnian and it was different in some ways from Serbian, tho i don't know specifics. i did get the feeling that all of those languages were very closely related and that it seemed that Macedonian was the least similar, having elements of Greek and other influences unique to its geography/history.

I've noticed only one thing that can be considered wrong XD: I'm a native speaker of Portuguese, and the Portuguese word for "yes" is not "sí", as in Spanish, but "sim". xD

언어가 진화하는 법에 대하여 배우는 시간이 되었습니다. 언어가족이 무었인지 알게 되었고요. 모든 언어의 공통적인 조상을 가지고 있는지 알아내기 정말 어려울것 같습니다. 좋은 시간 감사합니다.

Pretty cool video! Love the voice, love the animation, love everything!

People speaking Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Icelandic can all have a conversation like the Spanish and Portuguese.

why did the Portuguese said si ?

Very good and useful video. As I would like to show this to my classes I teach, I wish the narration was a bit slower. It feels a bit rushed. Still, the content was very good and useful intro to the topic.

very interesting video, also the last sentence, I agree, even though I do not understand the language I am listening but I could draw out some things that are familiar to some other I know and then probably conclude what it is about

It's really fascinated me to knowing about how languages evolve, as i'm currently studying human evolution and make me realize there are many things i should learn about our origins..

Wonderful video! I enjoy it very much and I agree with this video that geography and other human interactions contributed to the changes of languages. #miao #niamtxiv #hmong

Great illustrations!

جزاك الله خيرا على توفير الترجمة 😊

I hear foreign languages all the time since my school is international having students from dozens of countries, speaking more than 20 different languages and dialects... Our common language is English, since the school is in New York, and I've always wondered how languages formed and came to be so different from one and other...

Moo = Hi Moo Moo = How are you? Moo Moo Moo = Eat more chicken!

Fascinating! I am beyond obsessed with linguistics and I speak four languages (including multiple dialects in Arabic) and yet I feel like I still wanna learn more languages. But one day I will fulfill my dream of studying linguistics!..

Could you please make a video on how accents develop and evolve?

Spanish and Portuguese is spoken very differently. Spanish speakers hardly ever understand Portuguese aside from the cognates but Portuguese speakers can somewhat understand Spanish.

So 2000 years from now, American English and British English will evolve and become different languages, right?

Beautifully explained in 4 minutes =)

As an Indian it made me so proud to see the Sanskrit word "pada", as Indian languages and India itself is rarely spoken about in Ted

1:48 This video seems to display the current relationship between Russia and Ukraine, through subtlety. I only brought this up because the angry faces made me giggle.

One thing I've noticed is how many languages have the /n/ sound in initial position for words of negation (even the word 'negation'!). No Nein Non Ne Nee Nej Nem Ni Não Nu Niet Nie At least the languages in Europe, anyway. Maybe someone else can give insight on this, as I haven't studied comparative linguistics! :P

Beautifully done. :)

The last sentence was really great- Foreign languages may not be as following as we think; the key is to listen carefully.

3:39 BABEL of migration! lolololololol ted-ed ur so punny

this is a video, not a slide show, dont just look at the picture, hear what the narrator is saying ffs, she said that most portuguese and spanish speakers understand each other, they depicted the portuguese guy saying "si" because he understood what the spanish guy was saying! was that soo hard to understand? lets say you start speaking to some random guy who understands very little english, he will most probably end up saying "ok" or "good" meaning that he acknowledges what you are saying, it doesnt mean his native language has words "ok" or "good"

So GOOD! Thank you TED-Ed :)

Cool media on introductions to linguistics. Linguistics is a nice area of study.

2:43 brother, may I have some oats?

Interessante. Sempre tive vontade de estudar linguística, aprender a falar várias línguas diferentes e descobrir suas origens, variações, conexões, etc.

The origin of languages is still debatable, no one determined the source of it. It is interesting how language evolves! Enjoyable Ted-ED

Can someone explain how languages evolve after groups of early humans split up and become isolated? In the video it just said they split up and evolve, but what is it actually that causes people to pronounce a certain thing differently?

The reseblence of "name" could suggest there being common language, look how many n's and m's: Abkhaz: ахьʒ (āx’ʒ) Afrikaans: naam (af) m Aghul: тур Albanian: emër (sq) m American Sign Language: H@RadialFinger-H@CenterChesthigh Contact Contact Amharic: ስም (səm) Arabic: اِسْم (ar) m (ism), أسْمَاء m pl (ʾasmāʾ) Cypriot Arabic: ism m Egyptian Arabic: اسم m (esm) Tunisian Arabic: اِسْمْ m (ʾism) Aragonese: nombre m Aramaic: Syriac: ܫܡܐ m (šmā’) Hebrew: שמא m (šmā’) Armenian: անուն (hy) (anun) Aromanian: numã Asturian: nome m, ñome m Avar: цӏар (c̣ar) Azeri: ad (az) Baluchi: نام (nám) Bashkir: исем (isem), ат (at) Basque: izen Belarusian: і́мя n (ímja), (of a place, class, etc.) назо́ў m (nazóŭ), на́зва f (názva) Bengali: নাম (nam) Breton: ano m, anv (br) m Bulgarian: и́ме (bg) n (íme) Burmese: အမည် (my) (a.many), နာမည် (my) (namany) Catalan: nom (ca) m Chechen: цӏе (c̣ie) Chinese: Cantonese: 名 (ming4), 名字 (ming4 zi6), 名稱, 名称 (ming4 cing1) Mandarin: 名 (zh) (míng), 名字 (zh) (míngzì), 名稱 (zh), 名称 (zh) (míngchēng) (thing or organisation) Min Nan: 名 (zh-min-nan) (miâ), 名字 (zh-min-nan) (miâ-jī, miâ-lī), 名稱 (zh-min-nan), 名称 (miâ-chheng) (thing or organisation) Chiricahua: -́zhii Chuvash: ят (jat) Coptic: ⲣⲁⲛ (ran) Cornish: hanow m Crimean Tatar: ad, isim Czech: jméno (cs) n, název (cs) m Dalmatian: naun m, naum m Danish: navn (da) Dhivehi: ނަން (nan) Dutch: naam (nl) m Egyptian: rn r n Eshtehardi: نومَ (nōma) Esperanto: nomo (eo) Estonian: nimi Extremaduran: nombri Faroese: navn (fo) n Finnish: nimi (fi) (especially a person), nimitys (fi) (object) French: nom (fr) m Old French: nom m Middle French: nom m Friulian: non Georgian: სახელი (saxeli), სახელწოდება (saxelcodeba) German: Name (de) m Greek: όνομα (el) n (ónoma) Ancient: ὄνομα n (ónoma) Gujarati: નામ (gu) m (nām) Hausa: suna Hawaiian: inoa Hebrew: שם (he) m (shem) Hindi: नाम (hi) m (nām) Hungarian: név (hu) Icelandic: nafn (is) n Ido: nomo (io) Indonesian: nama (id) Ingrian: nimi Interlingua: nomine Irish: ainm (ga) m Old Irish: ainmm n Primitive Irish: ᚐᚅᚋ n (anm) Istriot: non, nom Istro-Romanian: nome Italian: nome (it) m Japanese: 名前 (ja) (なまえ, namae), 名 (ja) (な, na), (honorific) お名前 (ja) (おなまえ, o-namae), (honorific) ご芳名 (ごほうめい, go-hōmei), 名称 (ja) (めいしょう, meishō) (thing or organisation) Kannada: ಹೆಸರು (kn) (hesaru) Karachay-Balkar: ат (at) Karelian: nimi Kashubian: miono n Kazakh: есім (esim), ат (kk) (at) Khmer: ឈ្មោះ (km) (cmʊəh) Korean: 이름 (ko) (ireum), 성함 (ko) (seongham) (honorific), 명칭 (ko) (myeongching) (名稱 (ko)) (thing or organisation) Kurdish: nav (ku) Sorani: ناو (ku) Kyrgyz: ат (ky) (at) Ladin: inom, inuem Lao: ຊື່ (sư̄), ນາມ (nām) Latgalian: vuords m Latin: (please verify) nōmen (la) n, (please verify) nōmen nōminis n Latvian: vārds (lv) m Lithuanian: vardas (lt) m Lojban: cmene (jbo) Luhya: lisina Luxembourgish: Numm Macedonian: име n (ime), назив m (naziv) Malay: nama (ms) n Malayalam: പേര് (ml) (pēr), നാമം (ml) (nāmaṃ) Maltese: isem m Manx: ainm m Maori: ingoa Marathi: नाव (nāv) Mongolian: нэр (ner) Navajo: -́zhiʼ, yízhí Nepali: नाम (ne) (nām) Ngarrindjeri: mitji North Frisian: (Mooring) noome m; (Föhr-Amrum) nööm m Northern Sami: namma Norwegian: navn (no) Novial: nome Occitan: nom (oc) m Old English: nama m Old French: num m Old Persian: nāman Ossetian: ном (nom) Pashto: نوم (ps) (nūm) Persian: نام (fa) (nâm), اسم (fa) (esm) Pipil: -tukay, -tucay Pitjantjatjara: ini Plains Apache: -zhííh Polish: imię (pl) n Portuguese: nome (pt) m Quechua: suti (qu) Rohingya: nam Romani: anav m Romanian: nume (ro) n Romansch: num m, nom m Russian: и́мя (ru) n (ímja), (of a place, class, etc.) назва́ние (ru) n (nazvánije) Sanskrit: नामन् n (nā́man) Sardinian: nomene, nomini, numen, numene Saterland Frisian: Noome Scottish Gaelic: ainm m Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: име n Roman: ime (sh) n Sicilian: nomu (scn) m Sindhi: نالو (nālō) Sinhalese: නම (nama) Skolt Sami: nõmm Slovak: meno (sk) n Slovene: ime (sl) n Slovincian: mjuono n Somali: magac Sorbian: Lower Sorbian: mě n Upper Sorbian: mjeno n Sotho: lebitso (st) Southern Sami: nomme Spanish: nombre (es) m Sundanese: jenengan, nami Swahili: jina (sw) sg, majina (sw) pl Swedish: namn (sv) n Tagalog: ngalan (tl), pangalan (tl) Tahitian: iʻoa Tajik: ном (nom), исм (tg) (ism) Tamil: பெயர் (ta) (peyar) Tatar: исем (tt) (isem), ат (tt) (at) Telugu: పేరు (te) (pēru) Thai: ชื่อ (th) (chùu), นาม (th) (naam) Tigrinya: ስም (səm) Tocharian A: ñom Tocharian B: ñem Tok Pisin: nem (tpi) Turkish: ad (tr), isim (tr) Turkmen: at (tk) Ukrainian: і́м'я (uk) n (ímʺja), (of a place, class, etc.) на́зва (uk) f (názva) Umbrian: 𐌍𐌖𐌌𐌄𐌌 (numem), 𐌍𐌏𐌌𐌄 (nome) Urdu: نام m (nām), اسم (ur) m (ism) Uyghur: ئات (ug) (at), ئىسىم (ug) (isim) Uzbek: ism (uz), nom (uz), ot (uz) Venetian: nome Vietnamese: tên (vi) Volapük: nem (vo) Votic: nimi Welsh: enw (cy) West Frisian: namme c Western Apache: -̨́-̨́zhi’, -́zhi’ White Hmong: lub npe Xhosa: ifani Yiddish: נאָמען m (nomen) Yucatec Maya: k’aaba’ Zulu: igama class 5/6, ibizo (zu) class 5/6

2:05 this is so goddamn clever

In teded videos, what do you guys do first? The design (graphics) or the script??

Beautiful video!

I am currently developing a story of a gradually evolving language, set in a fictional world.

Just a small correction Ted. At the 2:30 mark the Spanish and Portuguese guy say the word "yes". The Spanish word is in fact "sí" but the portuguese word is "sim", not "si". Anyways, nice video :)

You can made language as you want. You can made information as you want. You can think about anything you want. But should be all good.

I ❤ learning and this YT channel is PRICELESS! 💎

I feel like it's so hard for foreigner to learn my language - Georgian, because only verb can have about two thousand form (11series x 12 subjective and objective signs x 15 verb prefics =1980 forms) and we don't even think while using one :D

One time I was at a bookstore in my country (Guatemala; I speak Spanish) and there was this girl and her mother talking a foreign language I did not recognize. They were European, tall, white and blonde, and the only word I could figure out was one that sounded like "book". Since we were in a bookstore, I knew it mean "libro" (book in Spanish), because the girl was holding one in her hands, convincing the mother to buy it. I did some research and I think it was either Swedish, Norwegian or Dutch, but I still don't know. ._.

very informative!

Weird word: exists Other languages: I'll take your entire stock