Hi, German here. Yes, there’s a “do” over here. It exists in Plattdeutsch, which is the old version of German that is still being spoken by some elderly country folks in the north of Germany. That dialect is very closely connected to English. I don’t remember when the German pronunciation changed from pp to pf and from k to ch, it’s been too long that I studied this, but the old version that still exists as a dialect uses “do” exactly like you do in English, and instead of “Apfel 🍎”, they say “Appel” and instead of “machen” (to make) they say “maken”. This dialect is also very much alive in modern Dutch which is why us northerners who still understand that dialect and practise it for traditions sake or for the fun of it in certain situations can also understand Dutch quite well.
this is interesting, in the old scots language, we said mak for make, and some old people even speak like this today, also the word 'ken' that is widely used in eastern scotland means 'know' which is used by the young and old alike!
@@Jc-ul9ff I find that fascinating as well. My uni professor once explained to us where our German word “Kind” (engl.: child) comes from. It’s derived from the word family “ken” or “gen”. And the German verb “kennen” actually means “know”. So a “Kind” 👧🏼👦🏻is an individual that belongs to those we know. The word “gender” is derived from it as well, as in “belonging together”. And thinking about it further the English “kind of” makes sense as well. I’m just guessing of course, but: If someone is “kind of” weird or “kind of” nice, he literally is the “child of weird/the child of nice”/belongs to those who are weird or nice. I love languages.
Hullo, south German here. I believe the "do" exists in Swabian as well, at least to some extend. Instead of "Hilfst du mir kurz?" we might say "Dursch mr gschwend helfa?", which translates to "Tust du mir kurz helfen?", the "dursch" merging the "tust" and the "du". That being said, not too many people (especially of the younger generations) really speak with Swabian grammar (or vocabulary) anymore, most tend to speak more standart German with a Swabian accent.
@@Jc-ul9ff 🤩Yes indeed! I know the English word “kin” as “family member” as well. Kinship, akin to… I haven’t heard “kith” yet. Very interesting, I’ll look for more information about it 🤩
Fascinating! I am a German teacher. Most of my students are native English speakers. When I tell them that German and English are first cousins, they want to know why and how. Your explanation of the movement of tribes will help me explain and the pie chart of the English language and its influencers will also be most helpful. Thank you.
Most interesting. I am a Canadian whose first language is English. My second one is French, and I have taken Italian and Russian at school ( university ). But for the last 23 years I have taught English in South Korea ( yes I speak a fair amount of Korean too ). By the way, Korean has a present and past continuous too. However, in the spoken language you can often get by if you use the present simple etc.
I wouldn't say that the movement of tribes explains the movement of languages, right? Lots and lots of people in North America speak English. A language very different from the Mandarin or Cantonese or Japanese that their ancestors spoke. Someone who was taking up a professorship in Norway asked me to say something in Norwegian. I stared at him blankly. My grandmother's maiden name was "Bakken" which might mean "hill" in Norwegian. Is "viking" a Norwegian word? That's all the Norwegian, I know. Oh, yeah! Lefsa! Is that the spelling? LOLOL!
@@dinkster1729 People of ribes from all over the world have moved to the USA where English established itself as the lingua franca. Same in Canada, here in Australia, in New Zealand, etc. And words from those tribes have this become part of the English language, often food words like tortilla, enchilada, dim sum, kebab/ kabob, etc.
Coming from France and teaching French to 12 years old Canadians, I told them they already knew a lot of French words and asked them to research the etymology of words in their dictionary . It was a hit!
Yes, the English "people" is a mix of ancient Anglo-saxons and NORMANDS, due to the Normands' invasion in 1066. It's very difficult for English society to admit that they are a mixture, not a pure nation, so English is more similar to Spanish, Italian or over all French than to any celtic language. Thousands of words that ethimologically are latin.
@@PM-ld4nn But Normans are Vikings and Scandinavians had already been among the original North Sea peoples that resulted in the Anglo-Saxon original language and culture. Don’t forget that the Normans of Normandy themselves even though they had contrived some sort of Franco dialect had not forgotten therein much of their original Norse vocabulary. Cabbage is an example of those words that replaced cole and also French col due to the too big number of homophones in older English to denote the vegetable.
I’m a Celtic anthropologist, so I really enjoyed this. It’s interesting hearing things that differ from what I was taught, but hey - that’s the beauty of anthropology and history. We’re constantly gathering new information that helps us contextualize peoples of the past.
What was you taught? Imagine saying what you have and claiming you are who you are and what your qualified in and not offering a full completion by stating what it is you've learnt. Utterly pointless 😴
Well, as the 'Celtic' notion in the UK dates only from the 1700s and the English were not majority Anglo Saxon, I take it you deal with a lot of fiction?
I'm an armchair linguist, and have studied this subject over and over and over again and never tire of hearing others talk about it too. Excellent video.
You are endlessly fascinating. I'm a retired teacher of English, from Australia. My personal interest has always been the evolution of language in the lands following invasion and migration patterns. The Jamaican use of modern English sparked my interest years ago. I have since been looking for a video like yours to provide another piece of the puzzle that is English today. Thank you for your research and sharing of knowledge.
Diolch yn fawr! I cracked laughing at what you said, "Je suis femme." I was in Les Deux Magots, a restaurant in Paris with my French friend. This was around 1976/77. Waiter approached to take our order... "Je suis femme." I said. My friend almost crawled under the table. The waiter laughed and corrected my French: "Ja'i faim." Well, I learnt more French that day, and never made that mistake again. Similar thing when I was learning Spanish. I lived in Gibraltar not long after that incident in Paris. I made friends with local people very quickly and decided to learn Spanish. We were playing volley ball on the beach and I hit the sand, face down. I shouted: "Estoy muy embarazada." instead of "Estoy avergonzado." Embarazada = Pregnant. Avergonzado = Embarassed. The same very warm day I declared, "Estoy caliente." instead of "Estoy calor." Caliente = Hot as in hot water or sexually aroused. Calor if you are feeling very warm. My friends fell about laughing, literally. I never made that mistake again. The joy of learning! Thank you so much for yet another informative and interesting lesson. I always enjoy your presentations!
"Are you wanting a coffee?" sounds like, "Are you one coffee short?" to my non-Scottish ears. I'll remember that. And let me just say that years of university education haven't taught me as much about the Celtic influence on English as this excellent video of yours. Changes at the grammar level are so seldom addressed in teaching materials.
That is interesting. They say Afrikaans is the daughter of Dutch. Kort means short. Afrikaans seems to follow the Scottish tzther than Dutch in this sense. Ek kort een koffie. I lack or am short of a coffee implying l want a coffee. If you said in Dutch...ik kort een koffie... they may think you are shortening somehow a coffee
Needing would be lacking, wanting is not needing, it’s getting something more even if what is wanted is not a need. That is how Americans, such as myself, think.
Julia D'Plume, I suspect that in generations that preceded the WW2 generation the use of “want” to imply the lack of something was significantly more common in the US. I’m familiar with it from the old proverb, “For want of a nail…”.
@@meadow-maker I've heard the wanting/lacking terminology in European old English. (I believe it was also used in a movie based on that time. Great movie with Heath Leger as a knight. "A Knight's Tale," I believe is the title.) Anyway, after this, I just thought it was the way "wanting" was used "across the pond."
I remember hearing often when I was a child ( in South Wales), some children and adults saying eg, ‘ I do do that’. ‘ I do do the food shopping on Thursdays’. The response would usually be, ‘ Oh, you do, do you. I do do mine on Fridays’. 🙂
"I do do that" comes from South Wales? Yikes! This American is of Low German ethnicity ...yet i have often utilized that positive emphasis on ...the Middle English "meaningless" "do"??? "Do be .. a do bee🐝 and Don't be...a don't bee" (A saying once taught to children...but I no longer even remember why!)
@@rmp7400 Perhaps when the Welsh had to switch from their own language to English, much of which obviously comes from the Saxons from Germany, there was a mixup. 🙂
I'm an English teacher and I was always fascinated by the history of English. I've dabbled in a variety of different languages and realized that the "do" we use at the beginning of yes/no questions is similar to Arabic. In Arabic, they say "hal" at the beginning of any question that has a yes or no answer. We use do the same way but we also use are the same way in English. I don't think it's because these two languages connect in some way but it is interesting that they both have a word that signifies a yes or no question.
It's not so much that the word introduces a question. After all, a question could be "can you....?" Or "will they...." Or "should I...." . And the verb "do" has its own meaning: "do these tasks!" isn't a question, right? And also, question words without a yes/no answer also use "do": like "what do you want?" And "where do we go?". And "do" changes to "did" in the past, while we don't use "do" for future questions. What's really happening is this rule: unless it's in a simple affirmative statement, every verb must use an auxiliary. If there's not an auxiliary already, then "do" is inserted as an auxiliary verb. Emphatic sentences stress the auxiliary, negative sentences use auxiliary+not, question sentences invert the auxiliary and pronoun. In the sentence "I can play football," the verb play is already using "can" as its auxiliary verb, so it doesn't need any do-support: Affirmative: I can play football, Emphatic: I CAN play football, Question: Can I play football? Negative: I cannot play football. But in the sentence "I play football" there is no auxiliary, so we need to add "do" as a supporting axuiliary for everything except the simple affirmative: Affirmative: I play football Emphatic: I DO play football Question: Do I play football? Negative: I do not play football. So the "do" introducing a question is simply the inverting of the auxiliary verb "do" and the pronoun.
Just adding a minor historic point: the connections between Arabic and other languages are manifold because they sat at the center of two major trade routes. So, you have Vikings in 1000AD showing up with crucible steel, which was made in the Levant and literally nowhere else. That's just a concrete case, but it was just as true as Caesar was writing his commentaries and informing us that the "Gauls" refer to themselves as Celts.
Misinformation. The Celts were a tribe north of Italy and were fiercely anti Roman. Any other people's that resisted the Romans were labelled Celts. It's inaccurate and nothing but Roman propaganda. The English language isn't Germanic but has its roots in the Chaldean region. According to Ancient Brythonic history the language of the Chaldeans who came to Albion in 1500BC was Iceninglas. This is the root language of English. Iceninglas became English. The English were re-educated in the 1700s to believe they were Germanic as to be more accepting of their new Germanic Royal family
Interesting you mention Arabic. The closest languages to Scottish and Irish gaelic as far as grammar and syntax goes, are apparently Arabic, Hebrew and Ancient Egyptian. There are similar nouns too.. Laban (milk in arabic) bainne (milk in gaelic) I'm currently learning gaelic and I keep coming across words that are used in English that I can't find an origin for other than gaelic. For example, Tioraidh (pronounced: cheery) for saying bye. Bròg (English: brogue) a shoe, leabhar (pronounced; lore) a book ("folklore"). Theres loads.... also Glasweagians are known for putting vowel sounds in-between consonants that don't have vowels in the word.. Film becomes Filum, Girl becomes giril, arm becomes arem... that's a feature of gaelic that happens in almost every word of similar construction... Orm (wearing/on me) is said Orum, Alba is said Alaba, ainm (name) is said ainum... The present continuous tense thing is quite interesting too, you don't say "I want a drink" in gaelic, you would say (not literal translation) "I am wanting a drink" (literal translation would be "Is me wanting drink") Another thing I've noticed is in English you can say "that was well good!" meaning that was really good. In gaelic the word for good is "math"(pronounced ma) but if you say "gu math" it changes the meaning to "well" as in "I am well" or "tha mi gu math" but if you want to say something is really tasty you say "tha seo (this is) gu math blasda (well tasty) I wonder if that's another Gaelic influence on English?
Diolch yn fawr am eich dysg a wybodaeth. Thank you so much for your learning and shared knowledge. As someone whose Welsh ancestors left Britain in the 1730s, I found your talk highly informative and easy to grasp. I am proud that my family has retained a degree of fluency in Cymraeg for what is now almost 300 years after leaving. My children and grandsons, now scattered across four continents, continue to show interest in maintaining that tradition, though to varying degrees. Of course, your observations about use of "foreign" syntax is spot on. For the reasons you intimated, I have found Spanish and French grammar far easier than either Kiswahili or Kibukusu, and German the most challenging of all. Though I must admit that Swedish is the most difficult of my non-tonal languages to pronounce correctly from reading. Please keep up the great work. BTW, in more formal Welsh, the phrase you quoted, "I didn't open the door", is not written as, "Wnes i ddim agor y drws", which is used casually, but rather, "Agorwn i ddim y drws", which I suppose is best translated as, "Opened I not the door".
Agorais i ddim y drws. (south wales) Wnes i ddim agor y drws. (north wales) // both are colloquial, and the first one yes it's sort of formal too. Nid agorais y drws. - this is more literary
@@ENGLISHTAINMENT Agorais (I opened), not agorwn (we opened), I agree. Blame my error on old age. However, this form was used by my Gog family too, so I don't think it's limited to the South.
I asked a friend from Ceredigion what he'd say and he said nes i agor y drws not agores i y drws. I think both are probably equally common with a verb like agor. But with less common and longer verbs the past tense becomes more and more formal. I don't know anyone who would say cyfarfyddes i o instead of nes i gyfarfod o.. a beth am cyfarfuont?? hmm.. Pa mor hen yw'r arferiad dwi ddim yn gwybod . dwi wastad wedi cael yr argraff ei fod yn dod yn fwyfwy cyffredin i ddefnyddio nes i ond does gen i ddim syniad os ydi o'n mynd yn ôl i'r ganol oesoedd neu beidio
@@billhicks7665 nes i agor construction is as old as the hills. this construction is found in cornish too. even in cornish english in the present tense. "i do go there"
This was absolutely fascinating! In Cornish dialect, people still use "do" (in shortened form) for positive statements: I d'like sugar in my tea. I d'go down town Mondays.
Brilliant thoughts on the Celtic influence I have not heard before as a lay linguist or a person fascinated by our English language but never a student in a linguistic class at university. Thanks for this break down.
I feel baffled by my luck stumbling across this video randomly. In school, I struggled with grammar. I think it’s fair to say it was mostly due to a learning disability and missing lessons because it took me longer to finish tests (I would be sequestered to another room to finish while missing whatever the next lesson was). ANWAY, thank you sir, because feel like I have a second chance at learning this stuff. Especially from an intriguing historical lens!
Thank you so much, Gideon, for this video and your work in general. Bringing togheter two of my special interests - Cultural History and Linguistics - in an entertaining way. Love from a Celt at heart (from the Helvetii tribe) with an obvious Germanic makeover (tongue, aswell as blond hair and blue eyes).
I was excited to know about the ”unnecessary do” being an element of celtic grammar, which influenced the english language profoundly, albeit celtic vocabulary left only sparse traces!
It seems like 'to do' still kept increasing its presence until fairly recently. Not that I have much evidence for that, but in a book from 1880 I kept seeing "I know not". That *could* just be a particular way of speech of course, but I believe I've seen that elsewhere as well (in old books).
@@tohaason A mode of negation shared with German, I think. Celtics, particularly Gaelic, has donated more vocabulary than I ever thought: 'trousers' for instance. More than just 'galore' and 'slogan.'
@@w.reidripley1968 I wonder, what did the ancient Persians call trousers? They famously wore trousers (infamously/scandalously to the contemporary Greeks).
@@Chris-mf1rm IKR? Actually, a scholar of ancient Persian I am not.. Those guys sure did think trousers were weird. Not sure either where Imperial Romans got 'braccae' from, for the britches their legions wore for bad weather marches etc up north. Might have taken the word from Gaulish. And we have what's left-- breeks, britches... and these only seem to come to just below the knee.
In German we also say "I have hunger", so this English saying must be coming from the Old Germanic the Saxons spoke. Besides, Old English had a second phonetic shift to become modern English, while modern German only went through a single phonetic shift. This is why English is pretty similar to German and some German dialects, especially those named "Plattdeutsch", have lots of identical words English also has, and also the Grammar is almost the same.
Scottish, irish, welsh, cornish , and english genes flow through me, yet I was born in Montana from a long lineage of Americans. Can this cowboy be yearning for knowledge of his own history? I also have a strong desire to learn more about early humans, and proto-language. This channel helps calm that beast inside me.
An ancestral surname in my family is a conjugate of Celtic and Old English. We trace that lineage back to the 1200's, not all that long after the use of surnames became a thing, or was becoming a thing. I just find it a charming reflection of those two languages coming together.
I've long wondered about this. One of the big features of English is it's ability to absorb words from other languages, but it seemed strange it did it so seldom with the Celtic languages native to Briton. My thought was that it's willingness to absorb vocabulary was tied to how valuable the source language was perceived to be, as opposed to how common the other language was spoken. This would explain why so many French words made it, but so few Welsh or Cornish. I never realized that if you switch from vocabulary to grammar, the story is a bit different.
Syntax is deeper than loanwords. The fact some syntax stayed but most vocabulary didn't means people in Britain mostly switched vocabulary but retained more of the way they thought/composed sentences. This is a classic example of the backbone of a substratum language, previously spoken by most of a population that then was subjugated/conquered/invaded and forced to make a language switch. Also think of this: when a linguistically naive person, for example, creates a Spanish-speaking character in an anglophone context, they will have him/her throw random Spanish words in the English dialogue, like 'I went with my amigo to his casa'. That's the WRONG way to show this character was born speaking Spanish. The way we think in our most used language most often comes out in another with atypical, 'wrong' syntax. So a Spanish speaking characters would make 'errors' along those lines, not vocabulary.
Thank you for this great video I have just discovered. I have been an English teacher for almost 37 years and I have always been interested in diving in old mysteries like the meaningless do, which I couldn’t find the explanation for. I will continue watching all the videos as they make me feel at Salamanca University long , long time ago. I love linguistics and I must thank you for giving me such an awesome opportunity to bring forward many of the things I studied but never used in my classes. Greetings from Spain.
I just found your channel and I immediately subscribed. Fascinating history and information. You're also an excellent presenter. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and research with us. 🇺🇸🌴
Here's a Scottish Gaelic (also Irish Gaelic) word construction that is heard in Nova Scotia, Canada --especially Cape Breton Island where thousands of Highland Gaelic-speakers settled --- I was just 'after' putting the kettle on when you came in. This is a direct translation from Gaelic but is part of the dialect in English.
That is the construction in Welsh too, something like Dw' i WEDI rhoi'r tegell a ferwi, I think it is. I am after putting like Gaelic is used for "I've just put"... Unlike the dialectal Wnest ti... example they give in the video
@@meadow-maker YES that sentence is good e2nglish tho a bit informal but the use of AFTER in the other sentences leaves me a bit confused as to meaning as we don't say that in American English
I am just after: the exact correspondent of the pusclavin " sem drö a.. sem drö a fà ...a legia, ..a ga pensà sü Poschiavo is an isolated . non- lombard language spot on the south Alps, 30 km from the Lombard border .
I concur with others who have commented: your presentation is very informative and easy to follow. I had come across the concept that Celtic influenced English grammar once before. It makes a lot of sense to me, and explains why English, while a part of the Germanic branch, does not have similar structures to German. (Old Norse also played a part.) Thank you.
a small correction. In Spanish we do have the same structure "estoy bebiendo café". "Bebo café" would be a generic, atemporal sentence like in " I drink coffee and not tea"
I do 😊 😊also agree. I would say that when referring to what you are doing ‘now’ there is a strong tendency for Spanish to use the ‘estar + gerund’ construction. ‘Estoy viendo un vídeo de Gideon’ is something you are doing ‘now’, whereas ‘veo vídeos de Gideon’ is something you usually do, but not necessarily ‘now’.
Yes, but it comes from the Latin gerund, although admittedly you have pinpointed a similar present continuous tense in use in Spanish. It could of course also have been influenced by Celtiberian!
Very interesting. I am a teacher of English as a foreign language in the UK and several of my students want to know why on earth we have to use the auxiliaries do and did when nobody else does. Now I can tell them, or better still, get them to watch your video. Many thanks
Great video! It's helpful for students of the English language to know about the various contributions other languages and cultures have made to it. As for "do," I think it's helpful in announcing to the listener that the question I'm about to ask is a question in the present tense or the past tense, and of course for forming negatives. Thanks for taking the time to go over this in such great detail.
Enlightening as always Gideon -- for what it's worth, I'm a native English speaker who had several years of French in grade school and studied Irish as an adult -- to borrow your term I was gobsmacked by the ways in which Irish felt like an *incredibly* *alien* (but immensely beautiful) methodology for constructing meaning (where, in retrospect, French seemed eminently 'reasonable'). I noted in your account that Welsh and Cornish were the Celtic languages at play in the dynamics you described (and, according to your chart, that Irish descended from a different branch of the Celtic language tree) -- there's no doubt a great deal more unpacking possible here. Thanks, as always, for the continuing information ❤
Hi, and thanks for your video(s). Concerning the use of "do", I must argue that even in Albanian we use it, but not so much as in Celtic or in English: e.g. we often say "bëj të flas" = I do speak, or "bëj të fle (or flë, in southern Tosk dialect)" = I do sleep, where Alb. bëj = English (I) do, is maybe used more in the sense of "(I) try to". Alb. "bëj" = I do is quite exclusively used in affirmative phrases, it is very rear in interrogative phrases, and quite never in negatives. Instead of English, we use the present continuous in two forms: 1. The regular form uses "duke" + past participle, the former word being very difficult to translate, but in Albanian it relates to the verb "duke-m/-sh/-t" = I/thou(s-he/it) appear(s), which in northern Geg dialect yields "tu(j)", e g. Tosk (= standard Alb.) "duke fjetur", Geg "tu(j) fjet" = sleeping, "duke folur", Geg "tu(j) fol" = speaking, etc. I find this form with "duke, tu(j)" as an ekuivalent of English "to". 2. The other form uses another supportive word, "po", which again is very difficult to find an ekuivalent in English, but we use the same word for yes, and as an abbreviation of "por" = but, as e.g. in "po fle" = (I) am sleeping, "po flas" = (I) am speaking, etc. This form is used in either affirmative, negative, or interrogative phrases. On the other side, Albanian has the word "do" - spelled do, not du as its English phonetic equivalent - and uses it in the supportive role of the future tense, as in "do të flas" = I will speak/talk, in the very sense of will, as it's a short form of the Alb verb, in Tosk "dua", in Geg "me/tu(j) dash" = to will, want, like, etc., which may only be found in the interrogative phrases of singular, as e.g. in "çfarë do?" = what do (thou) want/like/will? It is for sure not by coincidence the similarity both of grammatical forms and words used in both Albanian and English.
The Swedish word for iron is järn, and the pronunciation of haearn is quite similar to the Swedish word. According to the Swedish Wikipedia, järn and iron are from older germanic.
I'd taken the relationship between Eisen and iron to be due to rhotacism, as in the -is/-ir plural for lamb in English and German. However, even if iron came to England from Cuxhaven, that doesn't entirely negate the possibility of a Celtic origin.
Hello! I’m Brazilian and Portuguese teacher. I’m am fascinated by your video! I love languages History and have learned a lot about Celtic language. I have just subscribed to your channel and looking forwards to watching more videos to come! Bty your pronunciation in French and Spanish is fantastic. Thank you ever so much.
I've always regarded that meaningless do as a funny thing. Regarding the similarities between welsh an french, here are some examples : Eng: sad French : triste Welsh : trist Eng : bridge Fr : Pont Wlsh: Pont ( or bont) Eng : Church Fr: église Wls : eglwys Eng : horse Fr : cheval Wls : ceffyl ( sounds "kefal" like the old french word "cavale) Eng: Windows Fr : fenêtre Wls : fenestr And many more these...
A cousin of mine from Brittany and speaking Breton married a Welsh. She soon spoke welsh fluently and better than her husband(hubby, children and welsh collegues'opinion)! edit : She had to reverse to french with me, though 😅
When I was in school, the teacher asked a young fella ( fellow) to come up with a sentence with the word “autumn” in it. He replied “ In the autumn, the farmers do be out in the fields “. Dobedobedo is very common in Ireland. And shure why not?👍🏼
@@jegsthewegs Yes, I know 😉 You may have missed my little joke there about the Irish "dobedobedoo" - Sinatra actually sings that in his famous version of "Strangers in the Night", as you probably know 😂
I’m learning Italian presently. I always wondered why the sentences seem to be structured backwards from English. Very interesting that Celtic language had not many words incorporated into English, but those that were changed the entire structure of sentences. I will be watching more of your videos!👍
I thought the sentence structure in English mainly came from German, and the sentence structure in French, Spanish, Italian (which seems to be backwards compared to English) came from Latin.
Structured backwards? Well, Italian doesn't have an interrogative form (but north italian languages like piedmontese have), is the pronunciation that gives you the "question feeling" (as is in Welsh, I see). In Italian (and French, Castillano, Català, Portuguese...) _usually_ the adjective follows the noun (una mela rossa - a red apple, un uomo ricco - a rich man) but some times it precedes (un buon caffè - a good coffee). Sometimes the position changes the meaning: "un uomo buono" - a good man, but "un buon uomo" - a simple minded man, "Hai una faccia bella!" - You (well, Thou...) have a beautiful face!, "Hai una bella faccia!" - You are insolent!!, "una donna buona" - an good woman, "una buona donna", a bit... ehm....
The "do/does/don't/doesn't" in front of another verb is - still today - totally common e.g. in Alemannic (the native Swiss language, of pre-medieval Germanic origins and with many similarities to the Scandinavian languages). It took me 3 weeks to be fluent and secure in Danish, and 4 weeks for Dutch, as they're so obviously similar in structure, vocabulary, grammar and syntax) to my Swiss mother tongue. Of course, our Helvetian origins are Celtic as well. Things are changing fast now (standardised media gibberish, general decrease of active vocabulary).
The «meaningless do» immediately made me thing of the swiss german « go/ga » as in « I gange ga ichoufe », which when translated word by word gives something along the line of “I go (to) go shopping”. I’ve often wondered why we have that “useless go”..
And there are other examples in other Germanic dialects too. The claim that these constructions in English are Celtic influences is highly contentious.
Thank you for this lesson. An interesting point is "The meaningless do". I'm from Austria and my ancestors or the elder people were used to say: " Wir TUN gehen, singen etc." = We do go, sing etc." The consequences of this dialect expression were that we pupils/toddlers had to learn not using it (as it was "bad" grammar) by repeating the saying: " the do is locked up/das Tun ist eingesperrt". So, we Austrians also have an inofficial meaningless do -> May be a legacy of our Celtic ancestors.
Hi, always so interesting. I'm half breton (then from France), we have this breton word still used "Mazout", it means diesel for heaters and in french slang it's a mixture with alcohol. "Avon" looks like "Aven" in breton, it means "River" too. Bard (Barde in french) is still used too and comes from Gaul also then celtic. In Breton "Pen" means "Head" and "Leader, Chief" (Penmarc'h is located in Brittany and means "horse head"). We have "Du" in Breton it means "Black" so what's the meanning of DUblin (blin?)? Great channel thank you!
The "Du" in "Dublin" does indeed mean dark, as does the "Doo" in my surname, Dooley (Dubhlaoich). The second syllable in Dublin means pool, so essentially "dark pond". Dark is actually "dubh" so the b goes with the Du- and not the -lin.
@@denisdooley1540 Finally I got the answer, thank you! Something I found weird when I went to Dublin, Gaelic really looks like Breton but it doesn't have any sense to me, I mean I can understand romance languages as a french even if I didn't study them but for these both celtic languages it was confusing, they seem so close and so far in the same time. Kénavo 🙂
@@LetThemTalkTV I can only read a sub Breton language from my area, a kind of mix between Breton and French spoken by sailormen that my mother used to speak. Literary Breton language is hard to learn and is dying in fact. Diwan school is trying to save it but it's a wager. I think in one or two generations this language will be extincted.
I'm from Emilia, in northern Italy. We speak a Gallo-Romance language that has many words of Celtic origin and is intelligible with the Occitan and Catalan languages. After watching this video it seems to me that our Emilian language is definitely more celtic than English.
Marco Menozzi. This is fascinating. So many Celtic words are hidden in the ancient Italic dialects. Italian is just a mere 900 years old…or thereabouts. The family of Indo European languages is vast and amazing. Thank you for this video.
@@pennypiper7382 Even italian has several celtic words. This is because mainland celts lived in northern Italy (they founded Milan) and were strictly linked to the romans. So, several imperial latin Words derived from celtic. Celtic is more present in northern italian languages and in french and iberian languages, since the only contact with the south was through latin.
@@angelolaurenzaMJJ The archaeologic findings made in the center of Milan a few years ago reveal findings of the LIGURIAN horizont of Golasecca. Under this stratum, the terrain is sterile. So Milan , has been founded by the Ligurians in the center of the wast forest of Cispadania where they had a sanctuary. Nortern Italy was densely populated by the Ligurians, the main nation that had repopulated north- west Europe after the last glaciation.Ligurian toponyms, hydro- oro- zoo- and phytonyms are found from the British Isles (Albion)to Sicily (the Siculi) and from the Baltic to France (la tarasque de Noves )and Spain. The Celts immigrated much later in small dispersed groups , seeking new ground for agriculture. The Ligurians were redoutable warriors ( Aeschilos in his Prometheus liberated warns Herkules from the Ligurian army: ηξεις δε Λιγυων εις αταρβητον στρατον cited by Strabo, Geographica p 256 of the bilingual edition Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli). As the Etrucans penetrated the padan forest and encountered the Ligurians there was no military conflicts. After the Romans had conquered Cis and Transpadania, the Ligurians entered the military as auxilliares, and acceded to the class of the Knights among which the senate recruited his members. The myth of the foundation of Milan by some savage Gallic rabbles has been debunked by archaeology and genetics. As preindoeuropeans the Ligurians had majoritarily the A Rhesus negative Bloodgroup.7.11.22.
A really interesting video which answered a number of questions I had floating around my head. Such as the word combe - having lived in France many years, where combe designates a valley, I assumed English had borrowed it from French. Not so! Also in parts of France and French-speaking Switzerland, the word nant is used for a stream or small river, just like in Welsh. Now I understand where the influence comes from! Thanks for posting 👍
In the mid-1980's I visited Israel and worked on a Kibbutz with 3 West German girls. I kept up a correspondence with one of them. She told me that when she wrote out English essays in college, she always used Latin derived forms of English words. She found that she received higher marks then when using other English words with etymologies from Norman French or Saxon origins, etc.
I exploded when you asked the question about "do"!! I am a sci-fi writer and in considering a "universal language and translator" begun by a largely English speaking Earth began to think of all the things that other species of people would find exasperating about English and want changed. I started with two words, "Do" and "Have". More comedy has ensued in my writing than I anticipated as I found all the myriad ways those words pollute our speech. Its' changed the way I write and speak myself! So when an accomplished linguist like you brought this up I was thrilled. I think I may have had a good idea! I love your blog - your teaching and explanations are succinct, important to daily communication and very easy to follow. Thanks.
Because of the Glasgow football club and also the Boston Celtics I can't for the life of me pronounce it "keltic". Great video... has worth all your hard work on it.
@@LetThemTalkTV It doesn't help that most words I can think of starting with _ce_ - cement, centre, cereal, cell, ceramic - are all pronounced with the soft C... so when you get to celtic it all falls apart pattern-wise.
Quite an enriching video, thank you 😊😊😊, I’m from the Levant, and as you can guess, the last 10.000+ years or so of languages and they shaped us is a pretty fascinating one as well, with controversies alive and kicking today as well …
A very interesting and informative video, which I will pass on to my Spanish son-in-law, who lives in England, and takes some interest in the history of the movement of peoples, and languages.
Thank you so much for sharing all this information. I´m an English teacher (Spanish is my native language) and I studied this some time ago but I always learn something new from your videos. Really enjoyed it!!!!
This is exactly the sort of video I enjoy; well researched, lucid and full of interesting connections. One issue I had was that when a list of three or four written examples was being displayed, it disappeared all too quickly. Thanks all the same. I did enjoy it, (emphatic did). Drawing attention to features with which you are already familiar but not especially conscious of is particularly good.
The do used in Hiberno-English and in Scots English has a very specific purpose, it expresses habituation. That is what usually or normally occurs. It’s really useful 😊
Nein, es ist nicht meaningless in deinem Beispiel. Es ist eine Art Verlaufsform. Present Continuous: Was tust du gerade? Ich tu lesen. Ich bin gerade dabei, zu lesen. Im Ruhrgebiet: ich bin grad am Lesen dran...
@@andeekaydot I merely cited the term "meaningless do" from the video... In Helmond we can for example say "Doe dè mar op-ète" (i.e. "Doe dat maar opeten" i.e. Tu das nur/allerdings aufessen") where proper Dutch would be "Eet dat maar op" ("Iss das einfach"). I occasionally use this example to correct people saying "Did you went" in their English, which is obviously wrong, it should of course be "Did you wented?" 😀🎼🎵🎶🎻
This was fascinating. As the Welsh speaker I have always wanted to know why so little Welsh vocabulary entered the English language. I always thought that welsh was associated with a lower status group and (maybe) because men are more likely to fight whereas women might be taken as servants, concubines or wetnurses. this would make sense of retaining grammar while picking up vocabulary for the children. I think this makes more sense that an assumption that the transmission is due to men sharing drinks in a tavern - adults have established linguistic patterns . The grammatical patterns would spread through the home rather than through in the public sphere. You say it took time to appear in writing. One element that might have triggered the emergence of this, more modern, English, is the politics of the 15th-16th Centuries; first when the links between England and France fractured, and second when the Wars of the Roses finally came to an end with the arrival of the Tudors. There was a fair amount of complaint at the arrival of 'foreign' Welsh voices at court. You can see the discomfort about regional voices in Shakespeare’s play Henry V. This is a play which deals with voices with an Irishman, a Welshman and a Scotsman, together with a French princess having to learn English. It's a play aimed at a triumphant English audience. I miss a bit of the politics in your discussion, hugely fascinating as it is, of who spoke what and when.
Welsh to me is so incomprehensible, how can it be learnt? Would love to know just a few phrases. Born in Gloucestershire so near to Wales and my brother lived there, tried to pick up a few words, would love to know more.
And I as an english speaker with Welsh forefathers (way back) and German of recent origin, would like to know why just the name Ralph is translated to Raif and why, apart from Ralph Vaughan Willams insisting (so said his wife) on being pronounced "Raif" and not "Ralph", this distinction is sometimes made and sometimes not by the English speaking majority?
I really find the topic of the effects of Celtic languages on English fascinating. As you consider things like the status of English following the Norman conquest, one potential situation is that just was English was relegated to a lower class dialect, possibly, though not attested in writing, that Celtic influence was already present. The sagas of the Saxons and Danes would have been "high court" entertainment, but if the Celts really did stay right where they were and were not displaced, well, how likely is that their language was displaced? Other words like "cat," "uncle," and a number of other words are more or less cognates across Celtic, Italic, and Germanic languages. When combined with grammatical survivals you describe, perhaps the legend of the origins of English has been vastly over simplified, and continues to be more simplified than it really was.
Isn't that the case with so much though? And it's a real pity. What we might have of the truth gets lost in the desire to simplify things that are by nature complex. And also this compulsion to make definitive statements, when in reality we absolutely don't know.
Another possibility is that the invention of the printing press allowed for much more writing to be produced, including works in informal English. You're less likely to use a quill and parchment for something casual, but maybe a printing press.
The Celts did not stay where they were, large populations likely migrated to the west where their kingdoms were based to an ever greater extent with the passage of time. This is attested to by modern genetic studies. This was an interesting video but given the hostile relationship between the Anglo-Saxons and the Britons I find it very surprising he suggests that there was not substantial migrations of Celtic populations westwards from the areas under Saxon rule.
@@roberthudson3386 The genetic evidence mentioned in the video says that by and large they did. By the time the Danes and Saxons are arriving there was no place left to migrate to on the planet that did not populations already in place. Earlier migrations may have replaced significant portions of populations. There is support for that in European genetics. The account in the video though discusses the surprise that population genetics does not reflect evidence of wide spread replacement. That indicates the population remained as an "under class" for the the Saxons, just as the Sacon/Celtic population did when the Normans arrived. All I suggested is that the language is more of a layer cake than the common account describes. If the Celtic population stayed when the Saxons moved then their language stayed right there with them.
@@theeddorian What evidence? He didn't provide evidence that I'm aware of, just an assertion. There have been multiple studies that have suggested the populations in modern day Wales and Cornwall are distinct genetically, there are also studies that suggest more Scandinavian DNA in areas of northern England and the Scottish Highlands, which are areas settled by the Old Norse.
I am a Spanish teacher who is a native Spanish speaker and also speaks German, Italian and English. I appreciate how you explained “do/did” , since is something my students always ask about. What is do /did in Spanish? I’ve been telling them that is almost a replacement for the opening question mark we use in Spanish, but not in English. It seemed logical to me and to the students. I guess I was a bit lazy and never looked for the answer. Just followed my “gut instinct”. Then, as an emphasizer in do hope/know, etc… I also learn from your explanation on why English, unlike Spanish, uses the present progressive instead of the present tense. Ahhh, the etymologies of languages, love it! Muchas gracias, Señor Gideon! Vielen Dank, Herr Gideon! Tante Grazie, Signor Gideon! Many thanks, Mr. Gideon!
Just a little observation. Are you aware that "Mr." and "Herr" are normally used with a man's surname, not with his given name? In English, "Mr." is sometimes used when talking to children, kind of in a joking way. "How are you today, Mr. Charlie?", for example. Even in Spanish (I´m also a native speaker) "señor" is normally used with the surname, except in a couple of countries.
We, in Spanish, use the progressive tenses quite a lot too. A slight difference in amount cannot accout its origings. Besides, I find unusual the sentences he uttered in Spanish. I, for one, would never say in Spanish "Estudio" (I study) but like in English "Estoy estudiando" ("I am studying") which sounds far more natural. Arguably, both English and Spanish are the languages that use the professive tenses the most, among all of the modern and big European languages.
I grew up in the north west of Ireland, speaking English with a lot of Elizabethan relics. But we were told that our spoken language had an Irish grammatical structure. This always fascinated me. That this hidden structure was at play. Like some subterranean rebel force governing our thoughts. I heard that VSO is rare among languages, and may hint at a Persian origin - any truth in this do you think? (The Cuchulain story has a direct parallel in Persian myth.)
One example of this i I’ve noticed is the way Irish people answer questions in English as the same we answer in Welsh. Do you like football? Yes I do (rather than just yes). This os why there are so many ways to say yes and no in Welsh Ydw - yes I do Byddaf - yes I will Oes - yes there is Ydyn - yes they do Etc
I heard that a lot of Persians came to Brittain as legionairs during the Romain Empire, and a great number of spaniards as well. There have bin archeological findings of the mithras cult in the UK.
@@cymoeddambyth is it "yes I did," or "I did?" You get a lot of "it is" and it isn't" with Irish people speaking English. It's like there's no fun in a straight yes or no.
There is some form of present continuous in western German dialects called the Rheinische Verlaufsform or the am-Progressiv. It is used to illustrate current actions: "ich bin am schreiben" (I am writing, literally I am at write or I am at the write). It is so common that some have started to consider it a variant of standard German.
You don't get a lot of German in Sydney, and those who speak it usually put on their best Bühnendeutsch for non native speakers like myself, but I have come across that construction. I had a co-worker in 1964 from somewhere in North-West Germany who may have used it. He didn't speak English.
We use that in Dutch, too: "Ik ben aan het schrijven." (Ich bin am schreiben = I am on writing. That sounds kind of odd in English. Like, I am on drugs. I'm doing drugs. (Not that I would tell you if I was.)
I'm a native to North Eastern Germany - and not from a Rhinish or Western region - yet I'm familiar with this construction, though it would be considered colloquial and not proper German.
@@sefbauwens5764 As in German, that locution is literally "I am at the writing." In German "am" contracts "an dem," in English "at the" (inflected in the dative case).
I lived in Somerset in the 80s, and there were still a fair number of older, and younger working -class people who did-use the meaningless do all the time. Sometimes it was just a d-apostrophe. I would think someone meant “he’d say to me” (he used to say) when they were saying, “he d’say that…” ( “he do say” or “he did say”), Scotticisms of mine, that I hadn't realised were not Standard English, confused the hell out of people: “I’m away” (I’m off, I’m leaving) and “that’s me” (I’m done / I’m ready) Also “is + verb + ing” … (the cat’s wanting out). You can imagine how “Right, that’s me needing away, then” went down.
Thanks for that. I've never really thought about it till seeing you state that they were "Scottisms" Will you just "do one!" comes to my mind!! I would say I'm off to town.
Living in the Philippines and speaking Cebuano means that I fully understand what you were talking about. In Cebuano there is no difference between past tense, present tense, and present continuous except for the context. However, there is a future tense, and an infinitive. Languages, and their grammar, vary quite a lot.
Very interesting. Differences in languages truly are fascinating. In my mother tongue Estonian language there is past tense and present tense, but no present continuous or future tense. You just need to add when you are doing whatever you do or planning to do. In English it would sound like this: I eat carrots. I eat carrots now. I eat carrots tomorrow. :)
@@hannalaasberg2105 My late wife in Australia had Latvian parents. At the first house we lived in after our marriage we had an Estonian neighbor. My wife could understand Latvian, although she wasn't a fluent speaker of the language. She could not understand any Estonian, which is also understandable as Latvian is an Indo-European language, while Estonian is Finno-Ugric. Our neighbor's given name was Aasa. At university I knew a lady by the name of Reet Kaby, who was from an Estonian family. I don't understand much Estonian, but I have sung an Estonian song (from Eurovision 2013) on online karaoke! The song is "Et Uus Saaks Alguse" which I understand to mean something like "And there will be a new beginning". I remember the singer at Eurovision 2013 was an 18 year old lady who at the time was in the third trimester of pregnancy! To mirror your carrots, in Cebuano we would say "Nagkaon ko ang mga karot" for "I ate carrots", Nagkaon ko ang mga karot karon" for "I am eating carrots now", and "Magkaon ko ang mga karot" for "I will eat carrots". To the future tense sentence we could add "dayon" ("soon"), "human sa" ("after") or "ugma" ("tomorrow").
I'm not a linguist, just a lover of languages and I can tell that you speak from a vast knowledge. And you're very clear. Thanks a lot! I was fascinated by the names of train stations in Scotland. Gealic has such a beauty and sonority! Please, can anyone tell me how to say thank you in Gaelic Celt? Thanks!
And here is another video you might find interesting, on how Irish influences the English spoken in Ireland. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DyGpq4yKPG4.html
Maith = good. Is maith sinn = that is good. Smashing = is maith sinn. There are lots more Gaelic words in English than the list shown here. Of course, the influence of the language of an inferior race (according to the superior invader) would not be acknowledged.
What a marvellous video Gideon! A real amazing research, entertaining and fantastic presentation! I'm from Venezuela and one of my dreams was to learn English, which l had the opportunity of study it in Coventry and Warwick, 39 years ago. I've been teaching it since then and l always say that all languages should have the simplicity of English regarding the most tedious matter, verbs conjugation! Just 7 main auxiliaries and 3 verb tenses! Whilst in Castilian for example, we have to learn 5 verbs for each tense, having around 23 tenses. Thanks for all your terrific and amusing videos! Blessings!
Fascinating video that really makes me think about my first language, German. In Standard German, an excess use of do (tun) is often considered “improper” and “uneducated”. Still many West German regional dialects have variants of it and even my older relatives would say “Ich tu gerade ein Buch lesen.“ (I do read a book at the moment). I wonder where this can be traced back to.
@@voxveritas333 Both sentences are equally correct. There are differences though that even German natives mess up sometimes (and by which language skill is measured at school). Interestingly, the German tun is often used in places where English speakers would place a form of “be”…which might be an aspect of Frankish?? Yeah, language is weird.
I remember when my daughter (at about the age of 5) used to play with the girl from next door who spoke swabian dialect "tun" would often be used. E.g. "wir tun jetzt singen" = we're going to sing now, or let's sing now; or "ich tu gerade spielen" = I'm playing right now. Sort of a language often used by children in my region. But you can also use "tun" for "put": "tu das auf den TIsch" = put that on the table. It would be interesting to find out more about the origin of the word "tun". Could there be a link to the Celtic "do"? The Celts were actually all across Europe before the Romans came and the names of the two rivers in my town are supposed to be of Celtic origin.
As a child im Odenwald I was able to tell the Village kids came from by the use of their Dialect. The words Just and Fork(e) are found. Then we all have the Garage.
@@magmalin More likely that TUN was used way back in Earlier German dialects. But of course Old English is structurally closer to Modern High German. No periphrastic "do". The jury is still out on Celtic influence
Hi from Canada 🇨🇦. I’m new to your channel. It just came up on my feed. This really interesting. I’m Scottish/Irish and English decent and can speak some Gaelic. My Canadian husband learned Gaelic due the same background and is fluent now. I’ve learned a lot from your video and I’ve subscribed.
oh my. Loved it. Specially the part of the present continuous, that in portuguese is like in english, although you phrase it differently here and there. In Brazil we answer: Estou lendo (for what are you doing?) and in Portugal "estou a ler". I know no Brasilian who would repply "leio". It wouldn't be wrong, but surely would sound weird.
Came here for this. It's odd that this feature in Brazilian Portuguese is closer to its counterpart in English than to that in European Portuguese. It's worth mentioning nonetheless that those languages said not to have a continuous tense usually have less used constructions to convey the same meaning. They are based on the infinitive form of the verb, as in "estou a ler". In Dutch, "ik ben aan het lezen"; in French, "je suis en train de lire".
@@joaopedrobalieirodacosta2844in European portuguese you do always use the present continuous to refer to an action taking place now, except that we (usually) say "estou a ler" (i'm reading) rather than "estou lendo" as in Brasil.
Not correct, "leio" would not be heard as something weird in response to "what are you doing?". It is just more formal and rude in informal situations.
Really fun stuff to learn. Who says being an academic means being dry and boring. You explore the elements of language and all associations quite logically and that context really brings it all together. Thank you so much for an excellent presentation.
Diolch o galon am y fideo addysgiadol hon!/Thanks a million for this informative video! I am sure that you have heard about the 'Celtic from the West' theory. If true, it could mean that the Celtic languages arrived in Britain, and Ireland, a lot earlier than previously thought. Your analysis of the origin of the names of the river Thames is interesting. The orthodox theory is that it is from the Proto-Celtic *tamesās, which is also the root of other river names such as the Tamar (Devon/Cornwall), Afon Taf (x2 in South Wales). It's true that there are very few words thought to be of Brittonic/Old Welsh origin in English, but one of them is "car" which comes from the Welsh for a sled. Again, especially in the west (of England), English and Welsh populations lived side by side. Any place-name begining with "bret-" usually signifes a Welsh-speaking population. The theory of Welsh substrates in English is beginning to gain a lot of currency. You mention the auxiliary "do" in the video. Another one is the present particle (gerund) -ing which mimics the use of the imperfective (I think you call it "continuous" in the video.) marker "yn" in Welsh, e.g. Mae'r dyn yn siarad. ('The man is talking.)
Slightly off topic, but I was born and raised in South Wales. when I was in Grammar school, my geography teacher went to Brittany on holidays. When he returned, he told us that he was conversing with local Bretons in Welsh and they in Breton.
Interesting. My Irish and "British" cousins totally speak this way. I found it amusing, but never understood the reason. The remnants of original tongues remain extant, and continureto influence English, as it continues to evolve.
A very good introduction to a tricky but fascinating subject. Scholars have been responsible for a lot of assumptions about vocabulary that don't hold up. The British word 'coit' meaning wood remained in use as a place-name in Nottinghamshire until the C19th (even if no-one knew what it meant). It seems to have been used in the same way in Anglo-Saxon (coitan) but may have been mistranslated as cott or cottage. It was feminine the same as 'coed' in modern Welsh.
I'm from Northumberland and some of our place names are Celtic. Lough for lake, a bay pronounced Camus with Knockhill close by. Waterfalls called Lynn's. At least one hill called a Torr and lots of hills called Pen. My water working ancestors called their cabins a huddock, loads of dialect words have celtic roots here.Of course I also call my parents Mam and Dad.
There's a town in Ireland called Knock. In Irish it's written cnoic which means hill so knockhill is hillhill.., 😊 But the k shouldn't be silent really. People don't pronounce the k because they assume it's like the verb to knock in English.
An opposite phenomenon took place in the Iberian peninsula. Celts settled together with other pre-Roman peoples mostly on the North. Their language disappeared under the influence of Latin but a handful of very common words of Celtic origin survive in Spanish. Amongst them, “carro (car); camisa (shirt, chemise); Camino (road) and plenty of toponyms such as Segovia and Coimbra. My own surname is part of that Celtic heritage too (Ledesma).
I am German from the Palatinate region - Pfalz/Kurpfalz, the most south-western corner of the country. It is left and right from the Rhine, left is Rheinland-Pfalz, right is Baden-Wuerttemberg with Electoral Palatinate in Baden, the best known city nearby is Heidelberg. The rural Palatinate dialect - pfaelzisch - uses very much the "do" - "tun" (doohe) in local grammar. Why do you weep? - German: Warum weinst du? Pfaelzisch: Warum tust (doosh) du weine? He is chopping wood - German: Er hackt Holz. Pfaelzisch: Er tut (doot) Holz hacke. Don't make me crazy! - German: Mache mich nicht verrückt. Pfaelzisch: Tu (doo) mich net verrickt mache! The first "foreign" language German children in rural regions have to learn at school, is - German! At home they speak their traditional dialects of parents and grandparents. Since radio and television are spreading the high language, the use and the knowledge of dialects are shrinking more and more.
Very interesting video, thank you ! From a Dutch perspective I must say that we also can use both ways: Ik drink koffie (I drink cofee), or ik ben koffie aan het drinken (I am drinking coffee). Both sentences though do not mean exactly the same. The first one could mean you really are at it; you are actually performing the action of drinking coffee. Or it could be the answer to the question: Wat drink je? (What do you drink?) The second one is more atmosphere related: you're probably chatting with someone accompanied by a cup (or more) of coffee. The second one is more an answer to the question: Wat ben je aan het doen? (What are you doing?) --> Ik ben koffie aan het drinken. (I am drinking coffee) The same goes for example when studying; Ik studeer (I study) or Ik ben aan het studeren ( I am studying). The first one actually refers to the actual deed. And it is the answer to the question: Wat doe je; Werk je ?(What do you do? do you work)? --> Nee, ik studeer. (No, I study). The second one is more an answer to the question: Wat ben je aan het doen? (What are you doing?) --> Ik ben aan het studeren. (I am studying)
Your video is fascinating. It's interesting how the meaningless do became more common during the Tudor period. I'd read this was sadly a bad time for Welsh culture because Henry VII told the Welsh people to conform and start speaking English to improve their business prospects. Perhaps the influx of Welsh courtiers learning English and using phrases they found comfortable influenced English in London.
Wow! I never thought of that before. Could very well be the reason! Also there were caricatured Welsh characters in Shakespeare's plays at that time (Falstaff and Pistoll).
Not beautiful. Usable, changeable, adaptable but not beautiful in my opinion. As a native English speaker that speaks many others. Spanish is beautiful, Portuguese, Italian, French...those are beautiful 😍
I read the book he’s referring to years ago. If you are interested in how the English language changed from essentially a Germanic language to a total mixture, especially the grammar, it is a fascinating book.
Fascinating video! Thank you very much for your tremendous work, Gideon! I love this historic excursion series! By the way, as a non-native speaker studying English, I've though about this "meaningless do". In "I have to do it", for example, it plays an essential role, marking an action that has to be performed. But in "Do you speak English?" or "I don't know" it has only grammatical meaning, making the logic structure of the English sentences, but doesn't bear any meaning itself. And in "How do you do?" the first "do" is grammatical, "meaningless do", but the second is actual, essential "do".
Hello, I'm neither an english speaker nore a linguist but can say that in french, there is also a way to express that an action is going on now: je bois du café (like I drink coffee every day or just now) can be turned into je suis en train de boire du café, meaning i'm drinking coffee (now). Train has here nothing to do with any railway station and vehicles. About celt toponimy, we have examples in Switzerland. The best known is the Jura, a chain of mountains along the northwest side of my country, ranging from France to Germany. It's celt root means forest hill. I have been surprised to discover a scottish whisky called Isle of Jura, and the area where I'm living is named Jorat, from the same root... Thank you so much for your enlighting explanations!
Thank you for this video, Gideon! Celtic influence on English is very interesting, cause it was almost forgotten by linguistics, but it clearly exists and made it all the way through the centuries by the Celts, who started speaking their vernacular English
Anglo-Saxon/Germanic "scientists" and "linguists" will never admit to the heritage of Celtic in the English language. It is/was a political thing, continued to this day by tally sticks and economic incentive.
I was an English language teacher in a Breton (Diwan ) secondary school, and noticed even more similarities between both languages.Our pupils learn English faster and better than in most French schools thanks to these similarities : comparative, superlative, question tags, negative and gerund forms of verbs, the present perfect, the past tense of "to be", the overwhelming use of prepositions... and some vocabulary too and You could add these to another video, Gideon, but thanks a lot for this one!
Loved this. Makes total sense as TESOL teacher. Some comments I'd like to make. I have noticed many people who speak an Indian variety of English have a tendency to apply present continuous tense in a range of situations that English L1 speakers do not. I'm not sure if this reflects their own grammar system, or if it's over compensation in applying new grammar. Also, in Vietnamese language I notice the word "lam" which usually translates to "make" is often also used similarly to the English "do", however I'm not sure if that's the meaningless "do". In the the German language "do" can translate to "tun", but again, Germans seen to use "machen" in a similar way to the English useless "do", and perhaps "tun" is the useful form if the word. I'm not fluent in any language but English so I'm not sure about these observations. I do however, explain the "emphatic" form of do to my students.
German 1.L (spoken) English 2.L (spoken fluently) Latin 3.L French 4.L (just some basics left from school time) Spanish 5.L (spoken fluently) “Tun” in German is often used like the meaningless “Do” in English at least in the northern part of Germany especially where people still use “Plattdeutsch” which is very close to English (and Dutch). “Machen” in German translates to “make” or the meaningful “do” in English - though it’s the other way round 😉
😄 J'adore la subtile rectification des idées préconçues que certains pourraient encore avoir au sujet de nos ancêtres du Néolithique! Intéressant de voir comment les dernières découvertes en recherche génétique ont permis de valider/invalider certaines hypothèses concernant la Préhistoire et l'Histoire...
I wish you had been my English teacher when I was in school. The manner in which you explain what you're speaking about I would have understood and not have flunk English at all. Thank you so much for uploading this video. And I look forward to watching more of them.
Now I am totally shocked🙂 I would never think that a common word in my language has anything in common with the river Thames. You have mentioned the Lithuanian word "tamsus" meaning "dark". In many other Slavic languages "dark" sounds a lot the same. For example in Polish, you have the word "ciemny", or "ciemność (darkness) when in hasty spelling we can hear [t'm's] . In the other languages from the Slavic family we have Slovenian [temno], Russian/Ukrainian [temnyj]. I am mentioning this, because in older times communist scientists insisted, that Slavic languages come from some mythical family of mysterious incoming immigrants. Now modern research proves, there was not any mythical immigration and the people just lived and dwelt on our territory. That means the Celtic heritage is stronger than anybody supposed.
I loved this video! Having studied a little Welsh, I seem to remember that instead of "yes," they always say some form of our version, "I do" - in fact, in the version of Welsh I learned, it sounds almost the same: ydw!
Good you've mentioned Bavarian. While watching I was thinking that Swiss German (somewhat similar to Bavarian) has overuses "do" too. Not quite in the same way as in English, though. It's more used in a kind of (parents to) baby language, mostly for emphasis in questions and orders and not formal at all. I think it's the same in Bavarian and other southern German dialects.
The German spoken in Switzerland comes from the ALAMANI ,ferocious ennemies to the Bavarians.The Schwitzerdüütsch is clearly a parent of Schwäbish, spoken in Südost euh...SüdWEST Germany. Thank You Vera !
Lukas W In pusćavin, a ladino- italian mixture ( or a ladin/ rumanch language that has been heavily lombardised) spoken in one of the two italian parts of the Grisons ( east Switzerland) . We use : - sem drö a legia un libru ( I am after to ride a book an equivalent of the present continuous whereby drö means behind. -Sem drö a fa sü 'na cà I am building a house, indicating a durable action. 'I é drö a durmi ( he is sleeping) - èri drö a durmì ( I was sleeping)
I am so super grateful I came across Your channel on YT. I while ago I wrote my MA thesis on History of English Language so those videos are amazing for me. Thank you!! Btw Poland here
The meaningless DO examples that you gave or rather the simpler versions are such an eye opener. I could replace every English word with a Dutch word and you’ll have Dutch grammar.
Shalom Gideon, really like this video - the English language does have a fascinating story (at least before your friends from across the pond ruined it). Keep making your videos, they are fascinating to watch and very insightful!
"camisa, abedul, cerveza, camino y carro" are some Spanish words of Celtic origin. "Carro" means "chariot", and looks very similar to "car" in English. Actually in South American Spanish "carro" means "car".
Spanish has almost a couple thousand Celtic words. Portuguese has a couple thousand and some odd. French has not even 300. The list is much longer than you sampled.
@@jboss1073Source?? How French have less Celtic words than Portuguese and Spanish when it’s the furthest from Latin?? Stop spreading false statements unless you have a source because I have never heard of this before.
Great video as always! Just regarding the intro picture. That time (during the Roman occupation), yes, there were Pannoni and Azali in the Carpathian basin, but by that time they were outnumbered by nomads such as Skythas and later Huns and even later Avars, Celts (!), Illirs, germanic people such as Markomans, Quads, Goths, the Dacs, and Iranic people such as Alans and Asis. And all these at once! (A bit messy, isn't it? :) ) Concerning Romanian: it's really complicated; to start with, it has four layers. A proto-Romanian, non-romance, indoeuropean layer (the oldest part of the language); a West-Balcanic version of Colloquial Latin from the Roman times, a big half dictionary of slavic words from the Middle Ages mostly, and a novel and thick neo latin vocabulary which was mostly included in the 18-19. centuries. So, there are complete sentences that you can say with either slavic or romance words exclusively, and the two sentences mean absolutely the same thing. :)
I'm always surprised when I heard of some medical doctors so critical about this king of studies about DNA.... because it's amazing how we learn about history thanks to that. Thanks Gideon !
As a speaker of another Germanic language (German), I found it very interesting that German has the equivalent of "Ing" as "end", but only as an adjective. For example, "boiling water" is "kochendes Wasser", but t's never used as a verb.
Thank you for this fascinating video. Really enjoyed it ! I was wondering if the use of the "present continuous" (thank you Celts :-) could come from the fact that Celtic was more a spoken language, meaning, oral transmitted culture (tales, traditions, legends, etc.) than the other languages existing at that time ? I "do" not this language, but maybe words in Celtic describe more precisely the landscapes, forests, people etc. ?
@@cathjj840 i know nothing about the specifics, or which waves of immigrants. i do suppose the orioginal language of the Picts was pre-indo-european and then they learned Brythonic.
Most of the English speakers in Canada came from Celtic areas (Ireland, Scotland and Wales). This may explain why Canadian English differs from American and English English. Canadian French primarily came from Brittany and sometimes varies greatly from Standard French.
@@joycey845 The Celts outnumber the Anglo-Saxons by quite a bit, in Canada. My name, although made of Saxon words, is Irish. Many of the Celtic names in Quebec can trace their origin to orphans of the Potato Famine. Jacques Cartier was born in Brittany while it was an independent duchy. Anjou, Loire valley and Saintonge were once parts of the Duchy of Brittany, at its largest extent.
Excellent. And as a grandchild of Scottish migrants, I particularly enjoyed that last Scottish "are you wanting coffee?". Though in their case it was always tea
