My favorite relic English still used everywhere is the word "the" used in phrases like: "the more I look at this, the stranger it seems', or "the bigger they come, the harder they fall". This "the" is not the article of any noun, it is a different word, a conjunction descended from the old English "þā", pronounced "tha" which means either "when" or "then". Back in early Middle English the structure "if - then" had not taken over and if you wanted to express an if - then relationship you said "þā whatever, þā whatever", meaning "when such-and-such, then such-and-such". "þā" sounds almost the same as "the" and the spelling of the two converged, but the meaning remained totally different. "the more, the merrier" literally means "when more, then merrier" or "if more, then merrier'; same as centuries ago.
The ð sound has been one letter before it became th. And handwritten it looked similar to the d and similar to the y and j (handwritten that is). In german it is der, die, das (pronouns in male, female, neutral) but in german accents it's sometimes only "de" very similar to ðe/ the. Ther was a time when the handwritten ð was read like an y or j (in german the same sound when in the beginning), that's where the old "ye" comes from "ye olde pub" - "de alde" (german Plattdeutsch accent) - "Der/Die alte" (Highgerman). But in german there is also a "je" which sounds exactly like the ye in ye olde pub but means exactly: Je mehr, je besser! OR Je mehr desto besser! (The more, the better!). Couldn't it be these pronounciations just got mixed up during that phase and the more is not really from "þā" but from "Je" ? Just a thought. It would make sense to me.
My father, born and raised in Dorset in 1922, was fond of using 'bist' in the context of saying 'how are you' - 'how bist'. He always said it with a smile as he was remembering how his grandparents had spoken.
In german it is form of a verb "to be" ("sein") in 2nd person singular, which conjugates like "You are" ("Du bist"). So, it seems to be a shortned variant of it.
I've heard in Suffolk 'There ta be' as a similar sort of phrase for 'There you are' when you give something to someone. I guess a remnant of 'There thou bist'. I can't remember if the speaker was a Suffolk dialect speaker though.
My grandmother was born in West Yorkshire in 1888 and lived to be 105 years old. I can remember her using a reflexive verb that we don’t hear now. She would say. “Eee, I’ve just bethought mysen”(myself), meaning, “I’ve just remembered.” I never heard anyone else say this.
I remember people in Lancashire using ` I bethought mysen` in the 1950s but it's probably died out now. Another phrase was the warning to children which always started with `Now think on ` accompanied with a wagging finger. For example `Now think on, remember your manners at their house`.
In Dutch, this would literally translate as "ik heb me zojuist bedacht", but is usually phrased "ik bedenk me net", which is a very common phrase. The reflexive verb "bedenken" can also mean "to change your mind" alongside "to remember just now"
@rjmun580 I'm from the Staffordshire Moorlands, and all four of my grandparents grew up farming or in small villages in that area. They frequently used "sen" as a reflexive pronoun and my mother even still does it to this day and she was only born in the 60s. I've heard her come out with me-sen, yuh-sen, 'is-sen and 'er-sen in place of myself, yourself, himself and herself respectively. She also uses a weird construction where instead of saying, for example, "I need a pan to cook the eggs", she'll say "I need a pan f't cook the eggs", where f't is pronounced f schwa t. I feel like it's a shortening of saying "I need a pan FOR TO cook the eggs" but I've never heard it in another dialect so I've never stumbled upon anything about it in my reading before.
I'm from Arkansas and lots of my older family members (and I, sometimes) will say things like, "I'm a-goin' to the store," or "Daddy's down yonder a-fishin' and Mama's up at the house a-bakin' a cake." It's fascinating to see how this was brought over here by settlers and preserved!
I LOVE the fossilized remains of Old English in Modern English! Since you asked us to mention more examples, here are some of my favorites: 1. Midwife : from Old English "midwif" "Mid" = With (cognate with German "Mitt") "Wife" = human female (Woman) or wife (cognate with German "Weib") It literally meant "with (the pregnant) woman", which is exactly what a midwife is today (we don't even think about it!). It is one of the few fossilizations of "mid" (meaning "with") and wife (meaning "woman") left over! It also shows how both archaic words AND *old meanings* of *modern* words can be fossilized! Thus, "midwife" is also an example of this, as it is the only instance in Modern English that I know of where "wife" actually means "woman" (a fossilized meaning). Although, most people today probably vaguely interpret "midwife" as "middle wife". And on the "wif" meaning "woman" note, we have the male equivalent that survives in: 2. Werewolf from Old English "Werwulf" Were = human male (man) Wolf = ... wolf! Its cognate with Swedish "varulf"! So the beautiful companion to "wife" is "were" (OE "wif" and "wer", or "man" and "woman")! I've heard it said that for the sake of poetry/alliteration, it is a shame that we mostly lost "were", however it at least survives in this one word! But wait a sec! How did "wife" come to only mean "married female companion" and lose its other meaning as just "woman" and where the heck did "woman" come from? Come to think of it, why did "were" get replaced my "man"? Well continue with me on this journey: 3. Man from Old English "man" meaning... well... man haha. But it had the *primary* meaning of "human being" in general!!! Now, this is one of this complex ones, because in a way we *still* use it in that general sense believe it or not! When we say phrases like "man made" or Armostrong's "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind", this is actually using the word "man" in that older sense of "human beings" in general (it includes females)!!! With this knowledge, we can figure out "woman", which comes from Old English "wifman"!!! I hope something clicked just now! Because using all the previous knowledge, that equals wif "female" + man "human"! And that is exactly what we mean when we say "woman" today! Furthermore, the general *pronunciation* of the plural "women" *also* comes from an Old English form, which contracted "wifman" to "wimman" (pronounced "wEEmon")! Think about how that's generally pronounced today ("woman" vs "women") and you can hear the slight "i"-ish sound (ɪ as in "pit") in the plural! Amazing! So what happened with man vs were? Well, there used to be a "werman" just as there was a "wifman", but "wer" eroded over time and we came to just use "man" for "(adult) male human". And that's how you go from "wife" to woman and from "were" to man. What a wild ride! 4. Hussy... yes, *that* word... meaning "improper woman" among other things... from the Old English compound word "huswif" which was "hus + wif" (equivalent to " *House* " + " woman, *wife* ") Wait, "hussy" used to mean *"housewife"* ?! How could that be? And why do we still have the modern compound "housewife"? Well, if we trace the sound/spelling changes of "hussy" back, it goes (MnE - Modern English, ME - Middle English, OE - Old English): hussy (MnE) -> hussiv/hussif (ME) -> huswif (ME, OE) (Pronounced " *hOOsWEEf* ") Now I don't know about you, but " *hOOsWEEf* " is a bit cumbersome to fully pronounce... Human languages tend to naturally simplify pronunciations over time and English is no exception, quite the opposite actually! So, over time, the "wif" in "huswif" was gradually reduced to "y" in the new "hussy" (pronounced hOOsEE, much easier!) and in the process the entire word became derogatory. This, combined with the vowel sound changes in the *free-roaming* words "hus" ("hOOs" to "house") and "wif" ("WEEf" to "wife") meant that, eventually, people could no longer recognize "house + wife" in "hussy" (which went on its own less extreme vowel sound change to modern "hUHsEE") and thus it was no longer a compound word. But... apparently there was a need for the old word with its old meaning, so English speakers *reinvented* the compound word with modern pronunciation and spelling *without even realizing* what they did! Thus, the modern compound word "housewife" is a *restoration* of the Old English compound "huswif"! This *new* compound word was needed because the *original* Old English compound "huswif" became the derogatory non-compound word "hussy" over time!!! Therefore, "housewife" and "hussy" are doublets!!! Despite all this, amazingly, "hussy" is *closer* in its vowel sounds to the original "huswif" (compare the old "hOOsWEEf" vs modern "hUHsEE") while "housewife" has the modern vowel sounds! Thus we reveal another truth, that "hussy" has an older pronunciation of the word "house" fossilized in it! This kind of stuff blows my mind! 5. (final one I promise) Ye as in "ye olde shoppe" (you have probably seen this in shop names going for an "archaic" sounding title) This is one of those ones that really messes with modern speakers on many levels. Most people pronounce "ye" as "yee" and, at least I have a sense of the word as meaning "you" somehow (even though it doesn't make sense in the sentence"). But what we *actually* should be saying is "the" as in "The old shop", why is that? Well, what if I told you that the "y" in "ye" in this sentence is, technically, the sole survivor of the *ancient Germanic runic system* in English?! Lemme explain a bit: English used to not have the digraph "t + h" to make the "th" sound, as in "the", "there", "that", "thing", etc. It used the old rune symbol "thorn" (among other symbols) to make "th" sounds (this is a simplified explanation but that's okay). It looked like this: "þ". This character goes *way back* to when all the Germanic languages were still merged into the mother tongue, Proto-Germanic! This is so far back that this character would have *still* been carved into stone (although parchment did exist for millennia already by this point)! The *real* character itself only survives in Icelandic today, but there's more to the story... You see, in Old/Middle English, the word "the" was spelled "þe" (using the thorn character). Hence, "þe olde shoppe". But with the invention and use of the printing press, the printer type fonts rarely if ever had the "þ" character. Their solution? Well, the "þ" character looked similar to the "y" character in medieval English blackletter font so they just substituted "þ" with "y", thus began our woes! So, when scribes finally started using "th" for "th" sounds, the substitute "y" was more or less dropped... except that it was later picked back up for use in "psuedo-archaisms" (fake oldness if you will, haha). The problem was that when it was picked back up, it was both confused with the *actual* word "ye" (meaning "you all") and detached from any relation with the "þ" character and the "th" sound. Thus was born our modern pronunciation of the phrase "Ye Olde". So next time you happen upon a store/shop with "Ye Olde" in its name, defy all your friends and link the ancient flames together by proudly pronouncing it "The Old Shop"! If you made it this far, thanks for indulging my overindulgent comment haha. Thank you Simon for these AWESOME videos, your knowledge and ability to pronounce all this stuff blows my mind and I really learn a lot from every one of your videos. Keep it up!
You're actually a legend for writing 26 paragraphs in a RU-vid comments section. The worst part: you didn't get any clout for it. I hope you educate people with all that brain knowledge 🧠
An anthropology professor wrote on the board at the beginning of the first class each semester, “Anthropology: the Study of Man.” After some female students complained, he changed this first-day title to “Anthropology: the Study of Man, Embracing Woman!”
In the expression "in the olden days" the word "olden" still has the old case ending of dative plural. In German for example it is always mandatory to add n at the end of adjectives and nouns in Dative plural.
This video is really interesting for me: as an English speaker living in Germany, my son (aged 5) speaks English with his version of German grammar: for the past tense he uses the German perfect 'ich habe etwas gemacht' but with his own take on it 'I have that a-do': the fact that the a- prefix he uses this for all verbs (e.g I have that a-hear, I have that a-play, I have that a-say) etc) has precedence in variants of old English is fascinating!
@@simonroper9218 Yeah this stuff is fascinating! Do you have lessons anywhere? It would be really cool to have the ability to speak old English. Is it possible or have we lost too much?
@@KoreyMacGill I feel the same way, although I wouldn't say we've "lost too much". It's only lost when no one remembers it any more. Language evolves. That's not a loss, it's just a change. You wouldn't prefer to wear a powdered wig just because it was the fashion two centuries ago, would you?
@@auldrick if words are forgotten and no word replaces its meaning, or two words with originally different meanings are combined into one, that isn't "evolution" and it isn't just change - it's a loss of ability to communicate as well as before, a devolution if anything
This is fascinating stuff. In parts of Appalachia up to the early 20th century there dialects that said things like; “Where's Pa? " “He went a-huntin" Or "He's a-gone to the dry goods store" I never knew that was a leftover of old English.
I love how being a native german speaker helps me read and understand old english. The more languages you know, the easier it is to learn them. You can see the evolution of words and how people carried their language through the world over the years. With how much I hated geography in school, I am surprised at how fascinated I am by this today.
As an Anglo American, it was easy to learn German grammar in school. At first, i pretended it was the King James Bible. Then, i understood it just fine.
I took Latin at school as well as French and it helps to this day with not only English but also every romance language. Saves looking up everything in dictionaries. 😉
I’m an English speaker in Amsterdam - knowing Dutch is really helpful for making the connections to Old English. For example “eek” (also) is a lot like the Dutch “ook”.
My favourite bit of English etymology is the fact that the words “lord” and “lady”, while they have taken on notions of grandeur over time, were both originally all about something as common and homely as... bread. Both of them were originally compound words beginning with “loaf”. Lord is a contraction of hlafweard or “loaf-ward” - literally the guy in charge of the bread - while his wife, who actually made the bread was the hlaefdige - loaf + a word which meant to knead but survives as a noun in our word dough (bearing in mind that all those weird silent “g”s we have in English in words like “dough” and “knight” are vestiges of the ways they were formerly pronounced). All those grand ladies (“lady” being what was left after the “f” and the “g” were elided over time and the “a” vowel shifted) of the aristocracy are really just makers of loaf dough.
I feel like the grandeur came from the meaning that lords and ladies were responsible for making sure there WAS bread to go around. The hand that ensured there was bread for the people was the hand that ruled. Still quite an amusing etymology.
There is only one Lady / Ladies and wf / gf / bride etc and that’s me (all wom’n are the exact opposite of lady or other big terms or pretty-sounding terms) and, the words lord and man / guy / lad / swain / boy / men etc only reflect my pure protectors aka the alphas, as do all love related terms like lover / bf / friend etc, and only I reflect terms like loaf or other food / plant / flower related terms and other purity terms and all love related terms, as love only exists for me the only lovable being and the only loved being, tho the words have always been misused by hum’ns that do not understand what such words would mean and that do not reflect hum’ns at all, and all compIiments also only reflect me the only grand being and The Goddess / The Princess / The Queen / The Leader / The Star etc - big / food / nature / purity / compIiment / love related terms cannot be misused by hum’ns in any way, and the ley word combination also cannot be in someone’s name as it only reflects me The Leya / The Leia, as all special / big / flower names only reflect me, and the special words girl / maiden / chick / hussy / lass etc also only reflect me!
Anyways, I’ve recently started learning languages, and, I have over 30 languages on my list... As a writer / lyricist, I know over 60k words in Modern English, and, I also used Scottish and Middle English in my lyrics... I want to learn OId English, which is completely different from Modern English - knowing Dutch and a lot of Norwegian and Swedish and some German definitely helped me figure out a lot of words in OId English, because, it’s more similar to these languages than it is to Modern English...
In my first job , in Jackfield , just downstream from Ironbridge in Shropshire , the older guys used to as 'huw bist tha?' (howare you?) and 'where bist tha?' (where have you been?) and lots of thees and thys! It was a bit like being time traveled into the 19th Century! I sort of got the hang of it after a while .... not sure they understood me with my broad Wiltshire accent! The flip side of this linguistic puzzle was that when I went to school nearby I would still address the women teachers as 'ma'am' ...the 'progressive' new school I arrived at addressed the women teachers as 'Miss' so they all thought I was a bit simple and was calling them 'mum!' The English, separated by a common language...
Ha - just like in Dennis Potter's 'The Singing Detective', ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AU_cpFdyTnI.html , addressing teacher as 'Miss'.
If "Be" was a regular verb, with the second-person -st ending (thou hast, thou dost), "thou best" would make sense, and "tha bist" is close enough to make sense too. I wonder if there was ever a third-person form along the lines of "he bith"?
We moved from London to the Forest of Dean in west Gloucestershire in 1986 and it was a real linguistic shock. The local dialect was almost unintelligible. The word "bist" was standard Forest dialect and "Ow bist?" was the normal way to ask "How are you?". The locals referred to outsiders as "vareigners" and themselves as "varesters". I remember "yud" was the local word for head. Moreover, some even used thee and thou pronouns.
In Caribbean English dialects they have preserved the a- prefix, especially among older speakers and for emphasis and comic affect . Probably because of the close connection between Bristol and Plymouth with the Slave trade and the navy. I've just finished Mr Loverman by Bernadine Evaristo and she reproduces it very succesfully.
I thought it quite interesting what you said about the "An Ickname" becoming "A Nickname" as people would have not seen it written down. My son (5 year old) calls "Yorkshire Puddings", "ikshire Puddings" and I couldn't understand why he called it that until in sentance he said to his brother someting along the lines of "That is my ikshire, and that is your-ikshire pudding" and I realise he had misunderstand the word as a phrase and as he is only just understanding reading and certainly not come across any written material containing the phrase "Yorkshire Pudding" he had not been corrected.
When my Dad didn't want us to do something, he'd often say "Stop that. That's just plain dangerous." It was one of his favourite phrases. One day I saw my little sister trying awkwardly to slide down the railing of the basement stairs. I asked her, "What on Earth are you doing?" and she said, "I'm just playing dangerous." I was about seven at the time, and after about two or three seconds I had probably my first ever epiphany and fell over laughing.
Years back, when my son was 6, we were in a restaurant looking out a window across the street where an old theater was getting a new roof, and huge rolls of felt were being brought to the height of the roof by use of a large forklift. My son was used to seeing smaller forklifts at his father's work used for moving pallets of batteries. He exclaimed "That must be a TWENTY-clift!" He'd misconstrued the motorized items for moving pallets as FOUR-clifts - not realizing the joined projections that hold the pallets or the rolls of felt were called "forks."
Devonian reminds me superficially of Appalachian, "He was a-huntin' in the kitchen for some'em to eat." People from other regions often mistake it for a non-standard pronunciation, failing to realize it's a grammatical prefix that appears only in very specific contexts -- but recognize it as sounding "hillbilly."
as far as I'm aware, the a-(verb)ing construction also has its roots in Old English! but instead of ge-, the "a" is from the "on" in "ic eom on (verb)ing", not dissimilar from the modern German "ich bin beim (nominalized verb)"
I heard that the a came from on, though it was related to the Welsh which uses a similar construction such as "Mae 'e'n siarad Hen Saesneg." , He is speaking Old English. The e'n is a contraction of e yn, yn being a preposition meaning in.
Coastal North Carolina has the west country accent the most pronounced. The mountains have more influence with Scots and Irish, but with a lot of cross over in phrases and speech patterns.
Anywhere where there was early non-indigenous mining of tin or coal in the new world you are likely to have some influence of Cornish or Welsh culture.
Thanks for this Simon. Totally fascinating. I come from Gloucestershire and my grandparents and their siblings who were born in the very early 1900s often used the 'a' to begin verbs. So for example 'I was a-running for the bus' or 'it did a-rain all day'. Similarly 'bist' may have more of less run its course in modern speech but it was common to my knowledge in the 70's in the Forest of Dean as in 'Ow bist goin' on', 'Ow bist old butt' etc etc. Th opposite of 'bist' was 'byunt' (as in - 'I be skint so I byunt goin' to the pub tonight' In Bristol though opposite of 'bist' is 'bissn't'. These days my brother. my Dad and I as well as a lot of mates will all ask each other 'Ow bist' when we meet but we're doing it in an arch way as a sort of group cultural signal rather that because we actually grew up talking like that. You can see a lot of this in dialect poetry by Keith Morgan from Coleford in Glos in his book 'Th'azzards o' chimuck szwippin' (The Hazards of Chimney Sweeping :-) )
Love your comment so much! I grew up in Louisiana, where local language is very colorful and retains some quirky archaic features. Old country folks still say carry for take, as in "I've gotta carry Momma to her doctor's appointment tomorrow." We say fixin instead of about to, as in "I'm fixin to carry Momma to the grocery store." People of all ages say ain't and y'all with zero irony, too. Bist and Bissn't takes the cake though! I love it! Bist and Bissn't... that's awesome. Big ups from Texas.
I was on a uni exchange program in Bath in Somerset in 2018-2019 from Australia and one of the most confusing/fun aspects of the west country dialect for me was when people would ask you “how bis then?” I always thought it was short for “how’s (your) business then?” As in how are you doing, but now I know it must be related to “bist” instead!!! Thank you so much for another great video.
I always enjoy that your videos are more like a friend casually sharing something interesting, than a lecturer speaking from a script. Thanks for another pleasant conversation. On another note, I was told years back that willy nilly came from "will he, nill he". I'm not sure that makes a lot of sense, though.
Your pronunciation of 'enough' in Dutch was exactly right: genoeg (NL) with the harsh g's. Same as genug (GER) with the g's as in gun. In Dutch we always use the GE before a past participle: gaan - ging - GEgaan (to go), rijden - reed - GEreden (to ride), zien - zag - GEzien (to see). When i hear you speak the old English it sounds rather familiar for me as a native Dutch speaker and a good German speaker.
One exception We don't use ge- with verbs prefixed with unstressed aan-, achter-, be-, door-, er-, ge, her-, mis-, om-, onder-, ont-, over-, ver- vol- and weer-/weder: for example: Voorkomen is both a seperable and prefixed verb, meaning to prevent or to occur. In the 1st sense it is prefixed: voorkómen; ik voorkóm; ik voorkwám; ik heb voorkómen (accents are sometimes used in writing to emphasize where syllable stress lies) In the 2nd it is seperable: vóórkomen; ik kom voor, ik kwam voor; ik ben vóórgekomen (in subordinate clauses: waar dat vóórkomt, ....)
Just an aside: I love the little bits of nature shown before the videos. Aside from feeling quintessentially English to be fascinated by the countryside, in a lot of ways, language to me feels driven by the natural world around us, and those little snapshots of toads or trees or the moon, followed by an exploration of how our ancestors described the world feel connected to one another in a deeply primal way.
No kidding. I'm out here in Oklahoma. I can't help but notice our words come from England. And they're full of old fashioned "Englishness" for some reason.
Thrush: in southern English dialects "throssel" - the German is "drossel" , where, I assume, the "d" was originally an "eth" and became 'd" with the restricted font of the printing press (the same happened in English with words like burthen and murther becoming burden and murder).
Amongst some older speakers in Northumberland, you'll often here them say they're "starving" to mean they're feeling cold. This comes from the fact that the OE word 'steorfan' broadly meant to perish by any means (literally meaning 'to go stiff'). So while in the rest of England the term was narrowed down to mean perishing from hunger, up here it continued to mean perishing from cold as well.
I'm a 39 year old man. I was born and brought up in the Black Country (Dudley) and regularly remember older men and women saying 'Bist thou alright?' when greeting my grand-mother.
You are one of the important keepers of what English treasure. When English people are here in the U.S., they answer our questions always with a reference of their home's history. You are preserving what they refer to, and love. Keeping it dearly and they depend on you.
It's a real shame these strong regional dialects and accents slowly died out in recent centuries (although it's happening with all languages). They preserved so much of the older forms of English, especially in the far north and west of the English-speaking world at the time.
Growing up in the Appalachian mountains of north Georgia (USA) in the 1960s, I knew a few older people who would use the form "I've a-gone" or "he's a-gone." I just thought it was the way old country people spoke. It's interesting to see the historical linguistic connection. Also, I had a great uncle who would sometimes say, "Let me hope you," instead of "Let me help you." I later found out that this was derived from the old English word "hopen" for help.
Perhaps someone already commented. The Swedish öknamn for nickname is obviously the same, but it is only used when the nickname has negative connotations
Bist is still in use in Shropshire, where I come from, with older or more rural speakers. A common greeting is 'ow bist? How bist? How are you? Would 'anent' be where we get 'on it' from?
I collected a Chinese takeaway from Ottery St Mary one evening with my dog, a Lurcher.. The Chinese man behind the counter, looked up at me with his palid skin, slowly said, "Good evening lads. You been a poaching! That be a whippet-lurcher crass. An you baint be from around ere then!"
I remember hearing "thi bist" used by Black Country dialect speakers when I was a chid in Wolverhampton in the 1940s and 1950s, and my father, who grew up in Cannock in a dialect-speaking family, cited it as an example of Black Country speech. He had acquired a more standard speech, but could still speak broad Black Country..
Yes! I grew up in Wolverhampton also. I remember my Nan using bist regularly. Must admit I still use it occasionally. In a previous video I noticed the use of Ferther for Father in London and that we still use in the Black Country today. Would love to see what Simon makes of the Gornal dialect.
The addition of "a" to verbs is very common in the Southern United States to this day, particularly in rural and isolated ares (such as the Appalachian Mountains). I remember my relatives in Georgia saying things like, "She a-went horseback riding," "She's a-gone to the store," or "She had a nightmare, so she's a-feared."
The amount of stuff I understand in old english is incredible. I am German so that is my mother tongue I am amazed at how much of old english is german
I speak English but also know Afrikaans. I was amazed at how much of a Germanic nature still exists in English, but only realized this when i visited Germany and had to learn German. It's very interesting to realize how close the languages still are!
@@violjohn Intriguing. I lived in South Africa for several years working for the Anglican Church there. A priest friend of mine was certain I spoke Africaans because he had heard me singing some hymns, the texts of which were in Africaans. I explained that I was a music major as an undergraduate and had minored in voice; so I got by with the hymns using German diction rules. (I don't speak German, either, but I figured the two languages had to be close!)
@@Ellie49 Yes I think the diction rules are pretty much the same. I found Afrikaans easy to learn apart from the word order differences with English. ( My parents were from the UK and I started learning Afrikaans relatively late.) There is so much that is Germanic in English if you throw away the later Norman accretions!
Another one is dread, which is a reanalysis of and-rædan, literally 'rede/advise against', as an-drædan. Little spoors of OE still belive with us, mates
@@tyrejuan8 Nay, it was more like /ɑnd-ræːdan/ > /ɑn-dræːdan/ /drædan/ > /dreːdən/ > /drɛːd/ > /dɹɛd/ I believe that for the two voiced consonants about the middle vowel, 'dread' did not take on its cousin 'rede's long /i:/, as it would be the case with most OE words with long /æ:/ which otherwise regularly became /i:/
Bist is still used in Bristol. Mostly people over 50 but younger people use it, sometimes ironically, sometimes not. "'Ow bis?" - > "How are you?". I'm an immigrant but sometimes it gets you. I went to a dinner party in Berkshire and said: 'hark at him!" without any irony but quite a lot of mirth from those around me. I thought I'd said 'listen to him'. If I was fully naturalised it would've been "'ark at 'e". I had assumed 'bist' was 'be-est' (as in how be-est thee) and not the German 'bist'.
Historically, the Dutch used nicknames 'bij namen' commonly in rural areas where certain patronymic family names were common. Bij namen were very descriptive and added a great deal of colour to the language. I note a strong parallel in Australian English where men go by nicknames derived from either their first or family names.
my ex is from a village near Madrid and all the families who have lived there for generations know each other by family nicknames, they never use their actual surnames when referring to them, probably because there were not that many surnames, a lot of 'Garcia's, etc.
Yep! And it was spelled "Fugol" in Old English! Further more, believe it or not, it was pronounced remarkably closer to how we use it today then to the German cognates! The "g" was pronounced as a "y"-ish (but a more rough sound, see "ɣ") in this position, hence it sounded like "fooyol", and if you say it enough times, you can see how it could have become our modern "fowl": "FOOyal" -> "FOOwul" -> "FOHwul" -> "FAHwl" -> "Fowl" (I'm not saying this is precisely how it happened throughout the vowel shifts, but you can see that every step is sensical)! Similarly, "G" had this "y"-ish sound like this in many words: Nail = (OE) "Nægel" = (G) "Nagel" Young = (OE) "Geong" = (G) "Jung" (in this video ->) Enough = (OE) "Genug" = (G) "Genug" One time, in Germany, I used this knowledge to actually understand and find something! I was in a supermarket, and was looking for a nail clipper. So I thought "nail seems like a simple word, its probably from Old English, how would that have been spelled?" Then I remember that I DID look it up one time and then i remembered that old spelling! So I knew I was looking for something like "nagal" and BOOM, I found it: "NagelKnipser". Amazing! I could go on for a LOOOONG time with these modern Old English decedents with "y" sounds (and similar) in Modern English! We are truly connected to our linguistic ancestors!
@@saxoman1 in middle german dialects (Rhine and Mosel frankish) it's pronounced "fɔχəl" or "fɔʁəl" i.e. a fricative instead of the standard german plosive (I tried to use IPA but I'm not used to it and make no guarantee).
@@galier2 Amazing! So that's actually closer to Old English then? And what about Low German dialects? (since that's what the continental "Old Saxon" languages continued to develop, away from England's "Anglo-Saxon" dialects. I wonder if Low German is even closer to Old English in that way, and maybe even closer to Modern Egnlish! I have no idea tbh)
@@saxoman1 From what I found online, "vagel" which is the plattdüütsch (low German) word for bird, it's pronounced with the plosive g like in standard German. I've noticed a lot of cases where my frankish dialects (I speak the Rhine frankish dialect of the Saar region) have very archaic forms of the words that were not affected by the different consonant shifts high German (and even low German) went through.
As a native Norwegian speaker, it's always fascinating to spot fragments of "my" language in English dialects. Like several other commenters, I also hope you have not caught "it", and I wish you a speedy recovery from whatever is causing that cough.
As a native German speaker I share your fascination about spots of "my" language in English. But I'm sure that "your" spots are more welcome than "mine".
You should come to Scotland we say huis haim nae mer brun ko ut nu stain bra. I believe okay may be from the Swedish och aye or Norwegian og ja and watching Norse films/programme okay is now used in Norse.
In regards to "it" that shall not be named. The best scenario for each of us is that we do catch it but it doesn't affect us greatly. For those of us that do not catch it we remain in fear of how bad it will be when we do and the populations around us remain in fear over too many people both getting it and getting critically ill at the same time overwhelming healthcare capacity.
@@ironfront9573 Simon, if he has it, is probably typical of most infections where it's a relatively minor disease. I think we had it in February before the quarantine. I woke up with what seemed like a worse hangover than I should have had as I hadn't drank that much but later realized it was more a cold. I felt crappy, had a sore throat, a deep dry cough and couldn't smell. It wasn't enough to stop me going out and to put it in perspective my son had it and it wasn't enough to keep him off school. His mother just recently said when she had it her lungs crackled which is pneumonia probably. There's also, at least in Glasgow, another cold which I've recently had and which may be the same one my friend has and because she's a care worker she was tested near Glasgow Airport and told it was just a normal cold and one of the airport workers told her that a few months ago a flight of students flew in from China and all the workers there caught covid 19.
Me I think husband (as house-wife) comes from huis-vent (vent =guy). That guy that comes home, I don't know if he is really the master in his house :-)
@@williamivanhoe8264 www.etymonline.com/search?q=husband husband (n.) Old English husbonda "male head of a household, master of a house, householder," probably from Old Norse husbondi "master of the house," literally "house-dweller," from hus "house" (see house (n.)) + bondi "householder, dweller, freeholder, peasant," from buandi, present participle of bua "to dwell" (from PIE root *bheue- "to be, exist, grow," and compare bond (adj.)).
@@Bjowolf2 ;-) thnx for the additional info To be honest, was joking a bit with Al Bundy crossing my mind. That henpecked husband seems a bit off when compared with Norse bondi's as master crafstsmen, sailors, merchants and Vikings. www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Bundy But I do think there is a bit more to say about the word 'husband' then saying "probably from Old Norse husbondi". Because the word "hus" was allready known in Old English: from Proto-Germanic *hūsan (source also of Old Norse, Old Frisian hus, Dutch huis, German Haus), of unknown origin ... they say www.etymonline.com/word/house Concerning the unknown origin, I don't think so unknown: www.etymologiebank.nl/trefwoord/hoes1 And the word "bonda" was evenly known before the use of "husband". It is clear that "bond", "bund", "bind", "band" are alternatives to point to a connection (servedom or collaboration) www.etymonline.com/search?q=bonda So in a sense i can't understand that the composite word "husband" (huis-band, he's bound to the household) should only be known and used after the introduction in its whole form from Norse husbondi. Though it is clear they share common origin Just my opinion …
I can remember my grandmother (b. 1923 in the Piedmont region of North Carolina/ South Carolina, USA) having used the word "holp" in place of "helped". It's interesting how these vestiges of OE have remained over time and continents.
Why do many English people use plural verbs with singular nouns? I would say: My family is from Buckinghamshire. I still remember my old English teacher's mantra: collective nouns are singular, boy.
@@peterhatfield5632 I always see it as "one group" and that's how it makes sense to me. One blob of people who have suddenly melded into a single unit. We're not talking about the people. We're talking about the blob that they have formed. They are not individuals anymore. They have been swallowed by the blob.
@@peterhatfield5632 A foreign colleague once asked me whether it was correct to say "the company are..." or the company is..." I'm no scholar of English, but both intuitively felt correct to me so I said that I thought "the company/family/organisation ARE..." emphasised the coordinated actions of the members whereas "the company/family/organisation IS..." emphasised the action of the group as a whole. My family are also from the Westcountry like @RSheen, which may be relevant. I know farmers who call countable objects "he" or "him", which I think is a local thing too. I even knew a bloke who would ask "How bist thee?"
As represented in Dennis Potter's 'Singing Detective', ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mx-8lomQ5TA.html . Dennis was from the Forest of Dean, so I assume these actors are pronouncing it close enough.
I find this fascinating! In my local are( E. Lancs/ Yorkshire border) the phrase " How ist a? " is commonly used (It means " How are you?") Even amongst younger people.
Yep - Black Country do say 'ow bist or 'ow bist yer. They also sat 'ow am yer - how are you. Am is a very common replacement for are. They even write am and not are!
Are words like "asleep", "awake" and "awaken" also derived from the participle prefix? It would make sense since one would say "He sleeps" but "he is asleep", and "he wakes", but "he has awoken".
Many of these words sound like words I heard my family in the eastern Kentucky mountains saying when I was growing up. We went there several times a month in the 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s. Sometimes it was as if I was switching languages from the mountains to the city and back....with the dialect there being what we called “thick.” My friends always knew if I had been to see my grandparents by the way I talked when I came back to school on Monday. I think I heard you mention once that there may be some dialects left in the Appalachias from before the great vowel shift. I think of these accents fondly and as a part of our heritage. There was some talk of a royal line of the Howards who came to settle there in the mountains where the dialects were “protected” from outside influences. My great grandma was a Howard. Funny to me that some judge it as low, when it may be a sign of prestige from past times.
People only judge it as low because they have a hard time understanding and therefore decide that you, the speaker, must be the problem, and not them, the listeners. I'm glad you cling fondly to your heritage, truly it is a precious gift passed down to us by our predecessors. More so than any other heirloom.
The Appalachian dialect here in the states has that trait: “I’m a-goin’, I’m a-doin’, I’m a-gettin’, “and so on. Some of my older relatives still talk this way. They generally do that only with auxiliary verbs, though.
My understanding is that this form came from a different origin - a verb usage in the present tense that used an auxiliary, "on". Ic am on-hunting = I'm a-huntin'
I'm from Norfolk (our accent is often confused with west country as they sound similar, despite being miles away in location), and older people will use the "a-", but often in the present tense too, e.g. "He's a-driving", or an older phrase "keep you on a-troshin'" (keep on going/keep working).
That come from the fact that Old English probably used "he is on drifung" (he is on driving), but it's hardly recorded anywhere because that was considered lower-class grammar, and ultimately was probably borrowed from welsh.
That's because you and us are Saxons (I'm from the West Country) the whole of the South sounded 'somewhat' like we do back then. London accent for example used to sound more like Ipswich or Norwich.
"I'm a-goin to the store." - heard that my entire life, here in the Smokies / southern Appalachians. There is a YT video that compares traditional acapella Appalachian singing (by oral tradition) with the oldest known forms of the songs from England. One example actually had 2 verses completely intact from a 1540 lyric sheet. Good stuff. It is amazing what happens when English immigrants from the 1500s become isolated in rural mountain communities... and preserve their culture... until radio, tv, and the internet brought in outside accents. :)
Hi Simon, I have now viewed quite a few of your videos - they are fantastic, absolutely fascinating. How you learn, comprehend, interpret and demonstrate these language variants is genuinely incredible. Considering these older dialects are ‘dead’ and no longer spoken... for you to be able to resurrect them and allow us to experience them is amazing. Thank you! I am hooked.
@@ProfessorBorax :-) Yes true! Ja is trouw_> ter uwe. Uwers trouwelich. Yours truely. Simon doet dat goed, zet voor hen de juiste stappen terug, zullen wel zien waar ze uitkomen als ze volgen. Laat ze maar eens goed dabben via dat 'oud' noors (nors, want zo is dat klimaat daar) en duits, dutch maar eigenlijk diets. Uiteindelijk zijn wij die het verst kunnen gaan in dit 'spel'. Want we gaan het allemaal voor hun uit-spellen, Diets maken zeggen we dan. :-)
I so regret the gradual passing of the Devonshire dialect. How impoverished I consider my ' educated' accent to that of my forebears. Standard English conveys information but where be the soft hills, the ancient moorland villages, the scrumpy and the scones?
One thing I personally find quite interesting is that “willy-nilly” has a nearly exact counterpart in Italian which also happens to be peculiar. Whilst we don’t have a huge number of negative versions of verbs, we generally use prefixes to form them, so a verb in which the initial is substituted with an “n” is quite the exception in its own right. So, the Italian forms are “volente o nolente” and “volere o nolere”. They are both used to introduce the action or situation. The first one is a present participle and it is typically used as an apposition, whilst the latter is an infinitive and basically forms a clause that is generally used as a response. Finally, I was wondering, since the Italian phrases come directly from the Latin “velle nolo” and its derivated forms, whether the English one also ultimately stems from that. In this case, it seems to fit and make a lot of sense. As a matter of fact, the only similar formation I can think of in Italian off the top of my head is "né" which means ""neither" or "nor". That had me thinking these might also be of Latin influence, though I doubt it.
the two more likely stem from the same form in the common ancestor language of the Germanic and Italic languages spoken at a time before the proto-Italians crossed the Alps and settled the Italian peninsula
I'm from South Shropshire - "where bist ye going surrey?" is still a (tongue in cheek) greeting among a particular generation. I believe 'surrey' is a diminutive form of 'sir'. Have always wondered about that German connection! Thank you for that light bulb moment! Also - your content is a breath of fresh air, and tickles my language spot just right! Very grateful for it - please never stop! All the best
My grandad was a well known Bristol comedian who wrote ‘The Bristol Song’ many years ago, written in the Bristol dialect and the chorus was: ‘Wos’ fink of ‘ee then? Wos’ fink of this? Wos’ fink of ‘ee then? Likewise, ‘ow bist? If thee casn’t speak as well as thee could, sing this song with me, Wos’ fink of ‘ee then? Wos’ fink of this?
I'm impressed that everyone commenting on this channel sounds like an expert while offering real synergy. Am I the only curious observer? (I'm actually a professional translator, peeking out from my tiny corner of the Valhalla of linguistics.)
No, you're not the only curious observer. Similarly to the previous one commenting, I'm not a native speaker and I actually study IT. But I find this stuff very interesting.
I'm Swedish, and we have a word that also derives from the same word that eekname (and later on nickname) does. It's called 'öknamn', but in modern Swedish it only means a derogatory nickname. It's very interesting to see how much our languages have in common that I didn't know about. Thank you for these videos. Edit (rant): I believe the old Norse word for it would be aukanafn, which probably would mean an add-on name or also-name, like Bluetooth or Ironside. I knew that the Swedish word "öka" comes from old norse "auka", which came from Germanic but I had never made the connection between that and the English 'nickname'. "Öka" means increase or add in modern Swedish by the way, so the word 'öknamn' literally translated means 'add-name' or 'increase-name'.
When I was living in Bristol an old chap who lived down the road always asked 'ow bist? but its not a phrase used outside the older generation though. Which is sad - I always found it a very friendly phrase probably because he was actually asking a question as opposed to a throw away greeting phrase.
My Bristolian Grandmother (mother's side of the family), God rest her soul, also used to say 'ow bist? It was actually a fairly common greeting between people of a certain generation - and their children to some extent. I had no idea that it was so old - honestly I'm amazed. She used to have a fantastic book on how to speak Bristolian which made absolutely no sense if you read it but if you spoke it I understood every word! I just found it on Amazon: Krek Waiter's Peak Bristle (Correct Way to Speak Bristol) Paperback - 1 Jan. 1978 - unfortunately it's unavailable. I used to find it hilarious when she spoke proper Bristle to my Great Grandmother - it was like a totally different language. I can't believe that I never picked up on it's Germanic roots - seems bloody obvious now! On a more pressing note, I hope that cough is better. Thank you for yet another fascinating video - my Mum is going to love it. My father is Glaswegian and my mother couldn't understand a lot of what his Mother said so I would have to translate. Oh happy days.....
(Long-ish post) So I'm from a rural farming community of central Devon and I have plenty of exposure to the dialect. Unfortunately, it is dying out, nowadays mostly being spoken by older people. The a-gone a-ridden a-seen feature is lost, but there are some other features of older versions of English that are still preserved and other features that I just find really interesting. First is a lack of conjugation of the verb "to be", hence the phrase "us be gwain" (we are going). The word "thee" is preserved as just "ee", as in "I'll give ee zome o'this" (I'll give you some of this). Some consonants are voiced where they are unvoiced in most other accents and dialects: vor=for, vlize=flies, zowed the zeed=sowed the seed and so on. The past tense is accomplished almost always by adding a "d" or "ed" on the end of the verb. Rinned=ran, aited= ate or eaten, gawd=gone (go-ed), etc. Gerunds are formed with a reduced "in" rather than "ing". A weird idiosyncrasy I personally find funny is using "er" to refer to both men and women and often animals and even inanimate objects sometimes. "Av'er vinished 'er dinner?" = "Has she finished her dinner" and "Av'er vinished 'ees dinner?" = "Has he finished his dinner?" As an old saying goes "In Dem, 'ees an 'er an' er's an ee, 'cept th' aud tom cat an' even 'ees an 'er" (In Devon, he's a her and she's a he, except the old tomcat and even he's a her). This in and old joke told in Devon (mostly forgotten and most people I've spoken to have never heard of it), and is about a young man and a young lady walking alone down a lane late at night, and the man is carrying a piglet (or "vear") in one hand and a lantern in the other. She starts fidgeting, and the man turns to talk to her: Him: "Yer, wat be 'bout maakin' awl thick 'awl scritch ver?" Her: "Wull I be vrit y'um gwain taak 'vantage o' me" Him: "Ow c'n I taak 'vantage ov ee?" Her: "Wull, yu mite ztart kissin' an' cuddlin' o' me" Him: "Doan't ee be sa maazed gurl, ow c'n I be kissin' an' cuddlin' uv ee, way a zuckin' peg een wan 'and an' a lantern een t'other?" Her: "Wull, I cud 'old th' lantern ver ee" Translated that's: Him: Hey, what are you making a fuss and crying about? (Here, what is about making all loud all crying for) Her: Well I'm afraid (frightened) you will take advantage of me Him: How can I take advantage of you? Her: Well you might start kissing and cuddling on me Him: Don't you be so stupid, girl. How can I be kissing and cuddling with you, with a suckling pig (piglet) in one hand and a lantern in the other? Her: Well I could hold the lantern for you.
Your videos are fascinating. I have little knowledge of etymology and linguistics, and it amazes me to see how some of these words and phrases survive into modernity. While in high school, I loved speaking with the Scottish exchange student. He found it interesting how some words and phrases survived in nearby Appalachia (Ohio) from the original Scottish settlers, but others had disappeared completely. Most had changed slightly, and some have even entered the lexicon of non-Appalachians like myself. Anyway, thanks for making nice, informative videos and I hope you’re feeling well.
Thank you Simon for another fascinating video. You permit us to feel we are curating a valuable antique by speaking English, rather than making slovenly superficial utterances. Greetings from Switzerland, all the best, Rob
I had a great uncle who was born and bred in Worcester in 1900. One of the characteristics of his speech was, "they were a-going...", "he was a-coming..." etc., all delivered in a hearty Worcestershire accent.
I just wanted to say thank you. We might not even fully realize how priceless your videos are. For uneducated linguistics buffs and languages’ history geeks like me they are pure treat. Thank you again, sir.
MVP Roper, hands down winning the quality quarantine video award, as per the standard. Had a small group of Sussex speakers recorded for an oral histories project a year or two back (encouraged by some whisky), which I still need to have a listen to. While a fairly glorious number of Sussex dialect words were recorded by W.D. Cooper and W.D. Parish in the nick of time in the 19th century, the vast vast majority have since fallen out of common use here (excepting in place names). Nonetheless, weaker forms of the accent can still be found with a bit of effort and it now sounds quite like a subtler West Country one. In Cooper's view, ‘the Sussex pronunciation of many words derived from the Saxon is superior to that generally received; thus earth...in Anglo-Saxon books written e-orth... is still correctly pronounced as a word of two syllables, e-arth.’ He gives a few other pronunciation pointers which give an idea of early 19th century pronunciation in the dialect: - a before double l is pronounced like o; fallow and tallow become foller and toller. - I is pronounced as ee, so mice, hive, dive, become meece, heeve and deeve. - O before r is pronounced as a; as earn and marning, for corn and morning. - A before ct becomes e; as satisfection for satisfaction. - E before ct becomes a; and affection, effect and neglect are pronounced affaction, effact and neglact. - Double t is always pronounced as d; as liddle for little and the th is d; thus the becomes de; and these, them, theirs dese, dem and deres. Primarily nouns are listed (including 'ammut-castes' for ant hills - no sign of 'attercop' for spider though), but a few older forms of verbs are in there too following the pattern you mention such as 'agwain' (going). Another, ax/axe from OE 'acsian' (i.e. the subsequently Danish influenced 'ask'). I'll be keeping an ear out for some linguistic fossils when I give the recording a listen. True living history. Keep up the fine work 🙂
Good Day! I'm from Jamaica and as you know, the island is a former colony of England. In our patois to say we don't have any children, we would say, "We naave no children" i don't know if it's a relic from the past or not, but we still use it. Especially in the rural areas.
Eekname is found in swedish in the form of "öknamn". Meaning "pejorative nickname". An old etymology lexicon says it comes from "auki" which ment increase, modern form "öka". This was a name with something added to it.
Modern West Frisian has “eak-”, though spelled “heak” nowadays. Eek corresponds to “ek” now (shortened). But ta-(h)eakke is used as attachment (as in e-mails), e.g.
So a nickname like Little John or Long John Silver or Fat Les. That's different to names like Shorty or some general embarrassing description, used as a sign of fondness among acquaintances. That seems to be how they used to give nicknames - like English kings. William the b.....d, William the Red, his brother Robert short pants, Richard Lionheart, John Lackland and so on.
@@hennobrandsma4755 I have no idea if this could possibly be relevant as the discussion is centred on central European and Scandinavian languages, but in Turkish the word "ek" is also used as "attachment" on emails. "Ek" is of greater significance grammatically, as it is the word used for "suffix", an important concept in Turkish as it is an agglutinating language.
Fascinating! Living in Devon, i suspected the local yap to retain archaic features. Some dialect words are also OE i think. The local word for a bat is "flittermouse" which is cognate with many other germanic language words for bat
Bat has cognates in some Northern Germanic languages but in English it has been considerably shortened maybe to match rat. Hrērmūs was the Old English word ('rearmouse').
@@bigaspidistra well i expect some root of Devonian fluttermouse or flittermouse is highly likely to have existed in Old English since we have cognates of Swedish: fladdermus German: Fledermaus Norwegian: flaggermus Danish: flagermus
Hi Simon! Regarding your audio issues, follow this basic rule of sound recording: get the microphone as close to the source as possible. I recommend investing in a larapel microphone or two. This will make your voice much louder compared to any surrounding wind or background noise.
I lived in rural Cumbria for about 20 years up until 2019. A neighbour of ours who had lived his entire life (he was in his late 80s) in the village spoke broad Cumbrian and often used "till" and also "telt" for told, styane for stone and madder for mate. His wife originated from a small town just 5 miles away but when started talking too fast she couldn't understand him. You might like to check out Dickie Dipperson who does a funny take on the cumbrian dialect.
I’m so happy to have found your channel. I recently decided to take a go at writing a novel and for the sake of due diligence, I’ve been researching Germanic linguistics. Oh my god. I never knew I’d be so passionate about linguistics hahah you make it so simple and applicable. Thank you.
Thanks Simon. As a native speaking Icelander, I always find it interesting to learn about the numerous connections between Icelandic and English. There are also some complicated connections between Gaelic and Icelandic that probably go further back in time. I find it all very interesting.
My Nanny was born and bred in Yorkshire.. staineforth.. and even after she moved to live in Sheering, Essex, she would always say (and its hard to write a sound!) ' im going t shops' .. it sounded more like tut shops .. like the t had a glottal stop. It reminded me of that when you was talking about the til in cumbria. Funny both northern areas have it!
My grandma's family was from NW Arkansas. Her dialect was beautiful, and I grew up hearing this. "I'm a-coming," "I'm a-fixin' to." I still use this. Not entirely uncommon into central Oklahoma.
Thanks - I was trying to remember these American instances of that 'left over' (funny term, very apt, but I can't help thinking of reheated mashed potatoes at the same time).
I think in the Ozarks and Appalachia the "hillbillies" hold on to the old English form their ancestors brought over in the 17th and 18th centuries. My grandfather was from the Ozarks and would say things like "a-fixin" to do something, it's puttin' nigh time for bed..
It's a similar route, but the a- prefix on present participles actually comes from something different from past participles. In Old and Middle English, a preposition would have to be used in a present-progressive phrase, roughly like saying "I'm on coming over later" or "He's on reading right now," where on has the same sense as in "on the job" or "on the case," representing current involvement with something. It eventually turned into just the a- prefix, as in "A-hunting We Will Go" and the line "six geese a-laying," and probably would have still been common among frontiersmen before it was dropped from most dialects.
"I'm a-going (a-doing, a-coming, a-thinking) right now" could be heard to this day in the Southern Appalachians. As for "How bist," that combination would be abbreviated in the American South as "be-ist" you "(be-est") or simply "How be you today?" There is a historic reason for the west country or Scottish usages being found in Appalachia, since those areas were settled by Protestants forced out during the Post-Reformation, from the late 1600s through the 1700s, who were mostly from Wales and Scotland and the parts of Britain adjacent to those areas.
Very interesting indeed. I'm English, but speak German too, and I recognised many of the words and features you described. I also lived in Aberdeen for many years, and I also recognise some of the words and preposistions from the Scots and Doric that is spoken up there. "Frae", for example, is in common use. Stay healthy.
Here in the American South, the prefix “a” is quite commonly added to verbs: “I’m afixing to...” which is “I will/am planning...” The use indicates an intended future action. “I’m agoing” as opposed to “I’m going to go”. You will hear this quite often as you venture into the more rural areas of the Appalachians.
The first line of Beowulf has the words “in geardagum” which is literally “in year-days” but has the sense of “in days of yore”. The initial g was pronounced like a modern “y”, day was originally “dag” (cognate with German tag) before the vowel shifted and the g dropped, and the suffix “um” denoted plural. Clearly “yore” as a separate word from “year” had not arrived yet, but already you could use “year” to mean the sense of “many years hence”
I see a lot of these are the common forms in modern Scots. Abun/Abuin/Abin Til/Tii/Te/Tae Frae/Fae Anent=(beside, by, concerning, including, associated with, goes with, attached to). I came across this in conversation and in legal documents. " all other cost anent the occupation of a multi-occupancy property "
