Wikipedia: "The saying is sometimes attributed to Groucho Marx, but the earliest attribution to him dates only to 1982 [while linguist and computer scientist Anthony Oettinger had used it as early as 1963], and there is no reason to believe he actually said it." I personally would have associated it with Robert Anton Wilson ;)
Thank you for the video, I love this subject. There is a time related phrase in hebrew that I like: In the Jerusalem Talmud there is an aphorism by Rabbi Shim'on ben Lakish: "Yom ta'azeveni - Yomaim a'zevecha", meaning: If you leave (torah studies) for one day, you will be two days behind. Thus implying that the effort of studying propels one forward, and at the same time that there is an active nature to knowledge, which evolves and advances.
10:00 interesting. The chinese character 運 also means both "fate" and "to carry". I never gave it much thought, but this 'what fate carries' explanation makes sense.
@Golden Eagle I believe you're wrong 軍 is the phonetic component of the character and as much as your idea sounds nice it has nothing to do with meaning
There’s a video on NativLang that talks about how in the Hopi language time is switched on the sagittal plain where the future is backwards and the past is forwards, for metaphorical reasons. Also, one of Vsauce’s recent-ish (published late 2017?) videos talked about time being affected by gravity. Your video was very enlightening! Thank you!
I saw that you included the word "parabola" in the chart (but didn't talk about it), and couldn't help but think that an arrow shot from a bow travels in a parabola to its target.
And yet, bizarrely, 'parabola' in its mathematical sense *doesn't* come from the idea of 'throwing', but from the sense of 'comparison, application', becausee it is "produced by "application" of a given area to a given straight line'. Which is a really odd coincidence!
7:05 Oppeln - Modern day Opole, Poland. Werner was really insane guy - he drew hundrets, if not thousands, of city skylines, most of them are views from high above the ground and he did it without the help of planes, drones or anything like this. He is a kind of local 'hero' in my area, his works are a great deal for the historians.
Oh wow I totally never consciously realized that in Mandarin we use up and down to describe time. I just associate "up" with "last" and "down" with "next" so automatically I didn't realize until I thought about it. Also - metaphor is a metaphor totally blew my mind lol.
This is fascinating. I hope to hear more about your research in the future. You've covered the languages I know best (English and Mandarin), but if I remember my high school Spanish decently, it has a motion metaphor in which the past has passed and the future is in the process of arriving.
In one of the Discworld books it mentions the fact that trolls see themselves as walking backwards through time, for exactly the same reason stated in this video: you can see the past, but not the future. I wonder how that fares in translations to languages where that's the norm, if there have been any. If it were me, my inclination would be to flip it around to maintain the strangeness, though I'm not sure that I could provide a reasoning that's as neat and satisfying. I'd probably have to resort to a silly joke about them not wanting to trip over. Anyway, great video as always. How we think about time is a fascinating subject, particularly when compared to the actual physics of time. The fact that simultaneity is relative - whether two events happen simultaneously depends on your location in space - is very difficult to reconcile with intuitive notions of time.
Mara K - Apparently the Insular Celts viewed the day as beginning at sunset (a fact I only learned by reading on Wikipedia about the possibility that the medieval Welsh calendar had a nine-day week).
A few comments: 1. Symbolon in Greece was a clay tablet broken in two at the signing of a contract. Each party would keep one half, to later verify identities by connecting the two symbola and seeing if they match (hence "throwing together"). 2. In English today we also speak about the future (relative to a point of interest) as being "down the road". 3. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana (Groucho Marx).
This is fascinating cause we do say "up the month" and "down the month" to mean last and next month in Chinese. I also noticed a common phrase "Up and Down 5000 years of China", which means the 5000 years history of China. However, when I think about the order of month, like making a schedule, I'll order the months from left to right instead of up to down. I'm thinking it's probably caused by the modern writing order of Chinese, which is left to right, compared to the traditional direction, which is up and down.
I also wonder if maybe stuff like software plays a role here, a lot of electronics and software was designed by western companies and as such ordered calenders like that. That might have had an effect in recent times, though interestingly the current android calender actually scrolls down in the same order as in Chinese so I wonder if that can lead to a change in the west in the future.
One of the best. Always fascinated by language handling of space and time. Mandarin seems to place behind for the future and front for the past as you implied. Hawaiian for spatial directions are away and toward the sea, I believe, and prevailing windward and leeward side (e.g. kona). Perhaps you can do one more video focused on directionality.
Thank you! I may, though there are certainly other people who've done some on those topics. I will definitely return to the topic of time, I know that!
Fascinating video! I appreciated your sharing of your own research of OE time concepts! I was having a mental breakdown because of my ex making me suffer, but you helped me distract myself with something I love and by making me learning cool stuff. I owe you a lot. Thank you kindly.
I personally feel like I am going to the future, and time is flowing past me. I feel 'going' because I am (my personality is) changing through the time. So I am moving forward, and time is flowing towards me. The future is bringing new events, I meet them, and they become past behind me. My native language is russian.
This briefly touched on a conundrum that I should have been troubled by decades ago. Back in High School when I was learning Latin, and the principle parts of its verbs, one stuck out as being very different: the verb "ferro;" it's principle parts are "ferro, ferre, tuli, latus" and sure seemed to come from different roots. High school students don't ask, but memorize and move on; but that was sometime last century, so I can wonder about it now.
Yes, that's one of the verbs with a mix of roots. The perfect and the participle both come from PIE *tele "to lift, support, weigh" -- they're cognate with 'tollo, tollere, sustuli'. Thanks for making me look that up, now I can make sure my own students aren't as perplexed!
I speak Dutch, English, Swedish, German, French from fluent to just a couple of words respectively. Arrow is an odd word... it is not close to Dutch (pijl), Swedish (pil), German (pfeil) at all... I had to look up the French one (fleche). Dutch time is perceived the same as in English. I myself like to think of time as a two dimensional plane instead of an one dimensional line and I think the past is changing constantly just like the future, but I am weird that way, hahaha, please don't take this seriously. XD
Felipe Plattek And fletching and flechet which refers to a type of gunshot or shell which has a flechet, ie. A shot that's basically shaped like an arrow with guiding fins at the back and then a point at the front, nicely completing a linguistic and technological circle where we went from firing arrows to ball shots, and the now the most advanced guns fire tungsten or uranium arrows.
The thing about the people who always think in absolute cordinates was really interesting because that's how it was for ne for a long time. I really struggled to learn left and right for a long time and still have trouble with it, my problem was that I couldn't differentiate between the two. But I picked up on the cardinal directions really early on and had a really easy time navigating after those and could usually locate them. I did this using the local geography since I live in a port city where the sea is to the east so the other direction is west and I based north and south on the exits from the city. I also find it way easier to use a map like this, I'll always figure out what people mean when they say north quicker than if they say left.
Obviously, considering the topic, there could so much be said. I restrain myself and only mention the Greek word toxos for arrow, which gives us to think whether the Greeks used poisoned arrows or considered arrow wounds to be fatal in general.
Going with the use arrows to represent movement, we get to the Faynman diagrams that use arrows and other symbols to represent the interaction of subatomic particles. The Faynman diagrams, eponymous of Richard Feynman, use an arrow to indicate the flow of time. Interestingly, electromagnetic interactions of the particles depicted in the diagram are also valid if rotated or flipped around, and thus we need the arrow of time to read them correctly, similar to how we use a compass rose to orient a map. However, this poses the question: Why do not these interactions happen in reverse? As it turns out, some weak nuclear interactions will break time symmetry, constituting a physical arrow of time. See also: "This Particle Breaks Time Symmetry" by Dirk from Verastablium.
Yes, I read something about the weak nuclear interactions when I was doing my research -- thanks for this, I'll have to check out that video from good ol' Dirk. ;)
This may have been said before, yet... Terry Pratchett's trolls think the past is ahead of them because they can see it; and the future is hidden and subsequently behind them. It makes some eerie sense to me.
Great video, as always. I'm happy to see your channel steadily growing (I hope some of that is due to me bugging my friends to watch your videos). Would you be interested in making a video about the names of Indo-European people groups (endonyms and exonyms)?
Another fascinating video. In Slavic languages the very word "time" comes from two different stems. Either from PIE *kēso meaning "section" - hence Polish "czas", Czech "čas" etc. or from PIE *wértmn -> san. vártma meaning "track of a wheel" or "path" - which eventually passed to Eastern and Southern Slavic languages as e.g. Russian время or Slovenian vréme.
i always thought salix was latin for arrow. but turns out, salix just means willow, which in swedish is "pilträd" or just "pil", literally "arrow-tree" or "arrow". when i looked up salix i should have looked up which one it was. it is probably called "pilträd" because people made arrows from willow.
Actually, I often think of time (in dates) in a left-right metaphor, probably induced by the alignment in many calendars. Tuesday would then be to the right of monday. I have similar images in my head concerning the course of a year - however I additionally have an up-down image superimposed, creating a diagonal top-left (for January) to bottom-right (for December) image.
Yes, that makes sense -- I suspect many people have similar mental images from the apps/calendars they use. But the interesting question is the extent to which this affects language -- do you ever *speak* of days of the week that way? It seems to me that these visual images haven't crept into usual English idiom -- yet?
As I am not a native English speaker and have very few personal contact to such people, there are many idioms I have never heard of. But I will certainly pay attention to the way colleagues (from Germany, Russia, India, China, etc.) express their mental images of the flow and arrangement of time. I might find some further surprises.
My native language is Norwegian, in which the three forms of times are as follow: "Fortid" (past) "nåtid" (present) and "fremtid" (future). At least the past seems to be related to Old English with the prefix "for". Also "ond" is "evil" in Norwegian. I guess it makes sense as someone who's an opposite of/or against a hero (Nor: helt).
Yes, I've been looking at Old Norse and modern Icelandic, where the past is similarly labeled -- and 'fremtid' is 'framtið'. I'm currently quite fascinated by these metaphors.
I never really thought about any of this, it's so strange to think about. My native language is Hebrew and only now I'm noticing that the word for 'before' can also mean 'in front of' and is related to the words for 'face' and 'turning', the words for 'early' is related to the word for 'forward' and the biblical word for 'east', and the words for 'after' and 'late' are related to words that mean 'behind' (in both senses), to a word that means 'the end of a period of time' and possibly also to the word that means 'other'. Now I'll probably stay up to research about it...
I love these videos, and this one in particular was wonderful. Can you please speak at 10-15% slower?! I have to put you at 75% speed so I can keep up with what you're saying and still process the pictures and diagrams. I love your work, and I don't want to miss a connection!
Thank you! I know that I'm covering the material quickly -- but if I slow down, it produces unfeasibly long videos, and can read as 'boring' to some people. I'm aware of the problem, though... but I don't know that I can change it. At least you can use tech to make it go the pace you want it!
I guess this makes me a dorky linguist, but this is so fkn cool! Of course, information overkill as always, so I either have to pause and take notes or watch this about ten times. Can't you just make pt.1, pt2...? All of this information is very cool...arrows are generally cool...also, the words metaphor and transference being synonyms gives an interesting insight into for psychological nomenclature.
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it-dorky linguists unite! I’ve experimented with breaking videos up into parts and no one ever seems to watch parts two or three, sadly.
Spanish, English, Japanese and French (still learning thou I understand basic conversation). I have to point out that I can speak Guatemalan Spanish and Peruvian Spanish, they're different enough to deserve the specification. Guatemalans tend to say the time with how many minutes have passed. Example, 11:45 is 45 after 11, 5:15 is 15 after 5. Peruvians on the other hand, if they're young tend to say it like "usual", 11:45 eleven forty-five, 5:15 as five fifteen, etc. But older Peruvians can easily use fractions, I may calculate this one wrong, but basically they divide a clock in 4 pieces. 11:45 becomes "a quarter to 12", 5:15 is "a quarter after 5". In level of annoyance because I can't understand it easily 1st Guatemalans, 2nd old Peruvians and 3rd place thou not used as much, military classic 1100... >M> also, people who use 24hr in general, which is also quite common in Guatemala, I mean, every time they say "the thirteen hours" I start counting with my fingers, it's really difficult for me to process that. >M
When we exchanged mounted archers for Western style knights, we got rather weak. Steve I should have considered this before sucking up to the HRE so much. (Honestly, being an adjunct to krauts never actually worked but we kept doing it up to WWII.... What in the world?!)
I'm afraid not, except the prefix "and-". "Answer" comes from middle English "answere/answare" which then comes from old English "andswaru". "swaru" is related to "swear", so you could think of answering as anti-swearing, or swearing in return. :>
It's coincidental "answer" comes from Old English "andswaru" from Proto-Germanic "andaswarō" comprised of: "anda-" (against) and "swarō" (swear/oath) "Antwort" comes from Old High German "antwurti" from Proto-Germanic "andawurdiją" comprised of: "anda-" (against) and "wurdiją", a variant of "wurdą" (word) The "-weard" in the Old English word comes from Proto-Germanic "warduz"; the German equivalent is "-wärts"
Citation for 8:21? I'm very curious about a symbol that marks Christians as opposed to non-believers, because it seems rather like the Mark of the Beast in Revelations. Makes me wonder if the author of the book was trying to say something.