Pronouncing some Anglo-Saxon Words 

I'm also told that blue used to mean cyan or light blue rather than what we today understand to be blue just a few centuries ago.

Blue is a funny one. It is a colour that seems to cause difficulty in its individuality in most languages. Is this a symptom of human perception or the human eye? The green and blue colour cones being atuned to similar frequencies in the retina. Latin and Greek also beat around the bush in describing blue uniquely. Spanish and Portuguese borrow an Arabic word. French uses a Germanic word. Old English sometimes used haw, or less frequently blew, but more often than not used grey or green to describe it. Many languages 'confuse' green and blue. Again, I come back to the human perception argument and light frequencies.

​@@leod-sigefast Colour in general isn't nearly as straightforward and definite as it might seem. Basic colour names and to what they refer of course evolve over time (as with any word) but there is a general pattern which that evolution follows. First there is a "light-warm" and "dark-cold" distinction, which all languages have. Then a distinction between "red" (which usually includes orange and yellow) and the rest of "light-warm" (which now becomes "white") is made. (Note that at this stage "white" and "red" are much broader than they are in English). After that either "green" or yellow added; "blue" may be lumped with "green" or remain part of "black"; after that the other of the two is added. Blue is added next (as distinct from "green" or "black"), giving 6 colours: white, red, yellow, green, blue and black. Brown develops next, followed by other "basic" colour terms (in any order) - in English orange, pink, purple and grey; another other example is a distinct azure/cyan (e.g. in Russian). Orange for example didn't enter English _as a distinct colour word_ until I think around the 19th century (which is why there are so many orange things that are called red, such as red hair, the red kite or robin red-breast). (It did exist both as the fruit and a colour term before then but was not considered a "basic" colour but rather a shade/group of shades, similar to blue-green.) The lines which divide these terms are ultimately arbitrary and also may depend on how the colours were grouped early on. The further down this path a language is (not all languages are as "far along" as English so don't use as many _distinct_ colour terms) the more distinctions there are and so the greater the chance of divergence. There is no reason, for example, why a deep dark blue such as indigo need be in the same category as, say, baby blue or sky blue. Also bear in mind that where the distinction is drawn is heavily influenced by what a culture needs to distinguish and the associations it has. "Blue" for example often carries connotations of verdancy (think "blue grass") while "green" often implies youth or new growth (e.g. a young, inexperienced or naïve person may be described as "green"), as well as illness ("green around the gills" etc). A good example of this kind of thing is in Scottish Gaelic, which uses the word _gorm_ to denote what English would call dark blues, blue-greens and "verdancy", _liath_ for light blues and greys, _glas_ to denote grey and grey-green and _uaine_ for other greens. The _liath-glas_ and _liath-gorm_ distinctions also vary by dialect, with "grey" hair able to be described as either _liath_ or _glas_ and the "blue" sky as either _liath_ or _gorm_ As I understand it the reason for "red" being first colour to develop is indeed because of our ocular anatomy. It may also be because it is useful to distinguish "the colour of fire, meat and ripe fruit" ("red") from "the colour of day" ("white") (although that may be circular as that is what our colour vision is evolved to be best able to distinguish). Of course it is possible for there to be more than one selective pressure at play. (As a side note I'd be interested to hear the perspectives of some colour-blind people and/or synaesthetes on all this.)

Language has a huge effect on how we view colors! There's the Himba tribe in Namibia that considers blue to be a form of green, so while we see distinct colors, they only see one. They still see the same spectrum as us though, so they also have more words to describe green to make up for this lack of distinction. Language and culture become lenses for everyday life and affect how people interpret what they see.

@@Alphathon _> First there is a "light-warm" and "dark-cold" distinction, which all languages have._ To me, dark is warm.

does that mean squirrel or something?

@Hrǣdebrǣc The Gruelmaker its not hard to say [skʷwɚʟ̩]

@Hrǣdiȝbrǣc The Gruelmaker interesting

@A S i read it as ajhj-høan-hjen

@@servantofaeie1569 correction, im no professional but i think you wrote the velar lateral instead of the velarized alveolar lateral. + i feel like the w is redundant since the k is already velarized

My Fiancée gives me "that look" when I'm practicing IPA out loud or under my breath

Thanks for the interest! :)

Interesting!

Indo-european family at its finest!

That is so cool. You probably already know that it was a British scholar in India who, after learning Sanskrit realized that there were many English words with striking similarities to the equivalent Sanskrit word. You are virtually experiencing the same event that began the modern science of linguistics.

@@peterplotts1238 in those internet wasn’t a thing but NOW it is. It feels amazing to communicate to someone from, let's say, Siberia.

@@arta.xshaca I often marvel at this. Agreed. I think we are far apart, in fact. It's good to talk to you.

It's the same in French with Old French. And in both French and English, letters were added during the late Middle Ages or during the Renaissance to make the words seem closer to Latin Like the "b" in "debt". This word comes from Old French, in which it was written "det" (it is written "dette" today, still without any "b"), and the "b" was added in English to make it look closer to "debitum". Because why not.

Mercure250 God, the English academics back then made so many stupid choices. It’s like the confusion with the word herb. Depending on where you are it can be pronounced as “erb” or “herb” (UK). They made it similar to Latin “herba”, but could never make consistent pronunciation.

@@Odinsday That one's interesting, actually. The "h" didn't exist before the 15th century in writing, and it was still silent for centuries, but for some reason, in the UK, in Australia and in New Zealand, the "h" became generalized, and it also exists in the US. It's not like the "b" in "debt" which was always silent, and remained silent. I do think that, synchronically (i.e. when we look at the linguistic situation nowadays), it makes more sense to keep the "h" because of the fact many people do pronounce it. I'm pretty sure it's more usual in the English language to have people who don't pronounce the "h" in certain words (including the name of the letter itself) than having random "h"s being suddenly pronounced at the beginning of words that don't have it. The choice back then was still questionable, but I guess it was the zeitgeist. I mean, if you want to talk about questionable choices, we have the whole slave trade thing to talk about, you know... It's just that we need to acknowledge it and understand that it wasn't a very logical choice and we should be more consistent, scientific and logical when thinking about language nowadays.

@@Mercure250 My name starts with H and I freaking hate going to France where they insist on renaming me.

@@YujiUedaFan What, you think the French are the only ones who butcher names? I've heard French names being butchered by foreigners plenty too. But it makes sense : if a sound doesn't exist in your language, it can be hard to produce it, or even to realize it is a sound of its own. In French, "h" just doesn't exist as a sound, and it just sounds like the absence of sound. To you, it's obvious there is a sound there, because your native language has it, but it is not obvious to the French, as this sound just doesn't exist for them. They just don't hear it as an important and distinctive sound. It's exactly like how English people mix up "u" and "ou" when learning French. It sounds absolutely ridiculous to us French speakers, but it makes sense they would mix them up, because that distinction doesn't exist in English. I do understand it can be frustrating when people pronounce things wrong, especially if it's your name, but please understand people are not doing it on purpose, and please don't act like it's a problem specific to France, because I can tell you it really isn't (I will admit, however, that people from France *can* be assholes about it, but there are assholes in every country).

It sound a bit Afrikaans also.

That's what I was thinking, it sounds like people local to me only knowing certain English words and pretending to speak English like they used to do in my high school. (Speaking Sallands)

I mean that's where saxons came from

I understand most words

@@OP-1000 indeed, blue and fire is pronounced the same way in Anglo-Saxon as it is in Afrikaans

as a guy from the north-west of Germany I am amazed, too. just not surprised ;-) English and Dutch both seem to be just like the Low German we speak here, plus a lot of French influences (messing it up real bad lol). we don't have those here... De hefft wie hier nich. We had Dutch and Swedes as guests or invaders^^

Old English always just seems like a cross between English and German to me. Although Dutch often seems that way to me, as well, so I could see why you would point to it.

@Sky Winger yes exactly, we northerners in our Low German also did not participate in the consonant shift f/b (We have / wi heff / High German: wir haben The Linguists speak of Binnendeutsch ("inner German", southern German, Bavarian and allemans/Swabian languages and Butendeutsch ("outer German", the Low German languages all the way from Cologne up to the Danish border. The river Main is pretty much the natural border.

Actually, sometimes a slight leftover English accent makes it sound like Afrikaans to me.

The distinction between German and Dutch stems from around the sixteenth or seventeent century. I recognize quite some Flemish words and sounds in this Anglo-Saxon. No wonder as it is kind of the older version of Dutch.

Interesting

The Cornish word for ant is moryon or muryon. Ant is just a contraction of emmet. I prefer to use the moryon word for the English tourists. Moryon used as a dialect word in Penwith till recently. Emmet is also used in Devonian for ant.

@@kernowforester811 Yeh, my great grandmother (who died in the 1970s) used the word muryon, although she used it as a sort of slang for anything tiny - sort like "smidge" in modern English slang.

Actually, most of these words still exist in English and are used from time to time. They just aren't that common as other words which have similar meanings or have been replaced by other words and have been shoved to obscurity. The words in Modern English are: 1: Swart 2: Welkin 3: Holt 4: Mere 5: Wife 6: Deer 7: Hart 8: This word didn't survive into modern English. 9: This word also didn't survive into English and was replaced by a French borrowing.

These words in my dialect (ripuarian): shwartz, wolkn, holtz, meer (sea)/maar(lake), wijf, dier, hiersh, ij(e)l, eekhorn. Thanks for the time stamps🙂.

Many still do exist but as more specific cases or dialectal. Mere is still used for lake in some regions (think Winder-mere in the Lake district). Hart is another term for a deer. Welkin used to be used till quite recently for weather or cloud. It is seen in older literature. Swart lives on in swarvy. Meaning dark complexion. A little side note. Black in Old English meant ink. So that is why we use black now. Funny how one word takes over from another!

Modern West Frisian 1. Swart. 2. Wolken (plural wolkens) 3. Hout (but still hoalt in the Hindeloopen dialect) 4. Mar (but -mer also in toponyms) 5. Wiif (now hardly used for “wife” any more) 6. Dier (alder obsolete form djier) 7 hart (a < e before r) 8 Igel (i:gel)m with voiced fricative and lengthened i (in my dialect) 9 Iikhoarn (with breaking in the second syllable in my dialect, so [i(:)kwan])

@@hennobrandsma4755 Thanks for the Frisian! I always find it interesting to compare to Old English. The pronunciations of words like brún (1:47) and hús (2:35) also sound quite Frisian, right?

Precis vad jag tänkte :)

Which ones ?

@@ThisIsRiky Fyr for fire is something we use in my variant of swedish still (southeast Finland) but also most of the colors are pronounced nearly the same as in swedish. Eoten for monster/giant sounds sort of like Jätte, also meaning giant. Geråd for wisdom. Deor, Grimful, Grym for violent. Djur for animal, Fager for beautiful. More so the pronounciation of the words feels and sounds familiar

@@ThisIsRiky for ex. Fur as in fyr meaning fire and tun as in Eskilstuna, skultuna small towns in Sweden

Æthelstæn - ädelsten Geolo - gul Sweart - svart Eorđe - jord Èa - å Gäst - gast Dēor- djur Heorot - hjort Ācweorna - ekorre Mearđ - mård Eoten - jätte Ceorl - karl Faeger - fager Fæþm - famn With the same meaning in modern Swedish as in Old English.

I thought that was *Streichholzschächtelchen*

Mad compliments from *the* William Blake himself

@@lavenderandred_ blake, flesh and blood

he should shave though..

But take care, the Wenwolf, Wemwolf and Wesswolf could also appear ;-)

@@brittakriep2938 The Weswolf is about to be killed by the Wemwolf though, sadly...

Garret Jacobs true that. Think Simon said a few weeks ago that there are only a few onomatopoeic words, but I find them everywhere.

I (who am not a linguist) think that many old languages echo the sounds of nature in the places that they were spoken-- I mean spake--but I have not found any literature concerning this.

​@@tommydahill437 were spek, like lead -> led big brain And yeah, I think we might hear the animals do that sound in a way that sounds like one of our words because we know the word and try to associate it with the sound. Not necessarily because our ancestors named them after the sound they made. We often can trace them back to ancestor words that don't sound like that at all. That said, onomatopoeic words do exist.

Man, the Anglo-Saxons would have loved Pokémon

I guess it is also a bit like how "ask" is oft pronounced "aks" in AAVE

Ask / aks as alternatives do go right back to Old English (acsian or ascian). In early Modern English aks seems to have been the 'standard ' more common form.

Thank you :) I'm glad it's appealing to people!

Thank you :) I've definitely made a mistake or two. Good luck with future pronunciation endeavours!

An interesting business model you have there

Username checks out

@@Procrustinator52 nomen est omen^^

This is pretty close to the bavarian pronounciation

During my study, this is actually quite frequent. Some examples in order of Modern English, German, Anglo-Saxon enough, genug, ġenog nail, Nagel, næġl way, Weg, weġ day, Tag, dæġ

Almost all aenglic words are intercomprehensive for me, everything is almost my dialect with a phonetic variability of modern dialects in 60 km radius. Not more than 5 single (not cummulative) recognized sound shifts. I grow up in southern bonn, with a very preserved ripuarian dialect-like a early middle ages kölsch without the middle high german influences. I could understand aenglic as much as a modern day dialects from koblenz or leverkusen (90% of the words, rest from context). For whatever reason i even understand alot modern day islandic. What is also strange for me is that english grammar is so close to my dialect, but standart german is nothing similar at al... My favorit of this video was the knight/cnisht/knecht. So knights are the knechte of the lord of the land, mindblowing!

@@Halowarrior187 also fowl/Vogel, say/sagen come to mind

@@robinpayne125 indeed. sometimes turned into More examples in Modern English, German, Anglo-Saxon order: say, sagen, seċġan fowl, Vogel, fugol bow, Bogen, boga saw, Säge, saga

Looking at the etymology section on the wikipedia page for black, it seems there were classically two words for black in many Germanic and other languages! Swart and other forms meant a sort of dull black, whereas blæk was a shiny or luminous black; I'd guess that over time each language just picked one word for black, and we just happened to pick the one that the other north and west germanics didn't! (Also of note, swedish still has a form of the older cognate in bläck, but it means ink specifically!)

lmao

Made it into the 18th century so now "obsolete".

Be the change you want to see in the world

sound like the german "Grauenvoll"

The word survives in Birmingham, but the meaning hasn't, it now means things are very grim.

English used to be almost entirely Germanic before the invasion of the French Normans.

..and Cornish 'sowsnek', and 'sowsun' sounds like English spelling sawnek and sawsun. The place name Carsawsun, means the fort of the Saxon. The Cornish word for England is Pow Sows.

@@kernowforester811 cool! Caer is the Welsh word for fort, so I suppose that would be Caersaes. Languages are fascinating

That's one of my favourite paragraphs

My favourite: A frogge biþ broþers wiþ a toade.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HguKPVgIZL8.html

with the powers of german and english combined I could read it! Yes!

Pretty straightforward, even to modern English speakers. Mind you, having studied Chaucer for A Level English doesn't hurt. 😄

very interesting, since Swiss German is "Binnendeutsch" as I explained in another comment. Allemanic/Swabian/Bavarian dialects, basically everything German south of the River main, the Weisswurst Äquator. We here in the north are much closer to the anglo saxon and nordic Germanic languages with our Butendeutsch. (binnen is inner and buten is outer) Did you know that the people in Manchester speak like Swiss German speakers, the ch for a k sound? I flipped over backwards when I first heard that. Thought the guy was Swiss and speaking English...

Welcome to eorf!

In Dutch a wolverine is a warg and in Frisian warch, cf. Old Norse Vargr ("outlaw, wolf", anglicised as warg by Tolkien in his fictive realm). This word may also incorporate Old English wearh; from Proto-Germanic *wargaz > *werg, from Proto-Indo-European *werg̑ʰ- (“to choke”); Dutch wurgen. Cognate with Old Saxon warag, Old High German warc. Compare the meaning 'outlaw' in Norse with: Wearh hangian, fægere ongildan þæt he ær facen dyde manna cynne. The criminal shall hang, paying fairly for the crime he committed against the race of men. (Maxims II). Grendel is called a heoro-wearh at line 1267 and his mother a grund-wyrgen at line 1518. So perhaps 'wearg' is also a rather apt suggestion as an alternative designation for wolverine. See also: Jennifer Nevile, 'Monsters and Criminals: Defining Humanity in Old English Poetry', in: Monsters and the Monstrous in Medieval Northwest Europe, Louvain: Peters 2001, pp. 103--122: 120 esp. notes 73-75.. (We also have the Norse word fjeldfross (fjelross) for mountain cat or wolverine... so perhaps there was a cognate in Anglo-Saxon.)

@@binkiesaurus Is there another spelling of the Dutch word warg? I tried looking for warg in numerous Dutch dictionaries and I couldn't find it. I could only find veelfraat in Dutch. Is there an online Dutch dictionary you could provide a link to that contains warg? How long has Frisian used warch to mean wolverine? What did it mean in Frisian in the 5th-10th centuries (ie in the OE period)? In OE, wearg/wearh means 'a wicked monster, evil spirit, or a vile person', hence 'an outlaw, felon'; as an adj it means 'evil, vile, accursed'. Every OE word that contains wearg/wearh in it (eg wearhnes, wearhol, wearhtreow, wearh-cwedolian, etc) all contain the idea of 'evil, vile, accursed, wicked'. All these compounds containing wearg/wearh firmly contain the idea of accursed or evil, rather than 'wolf', which I think is more from the Old Norse vargr = demon wolf. Didn't Tolkien get his idea of the warg wolf from Old Norse, rather than Anglo-Saxon?

@@shmuelparzal Another spelling... no, I don't believe so. You're right about it being absent in Dutch Dictionaries; it is not in "Woordenlijst Nederlandse Taal". Veelvraat is indeed more common, and now I am not sure whether it is a neologism or not. I refer to: nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/warg ; fy.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warch ; nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/warg ; See for the relation between wearg or wolf and felon also the "Wargus-begriff" in: Walter Koschorreck, Der Wolf: eine Untersuchung über die Vorstellungen vom Verbrecher und und seiner Tat sowie vom Wesen der Strafe in der Frühzeit, V&R unipress GmbH, 2010, pp. 83ff; especially the passus on the vargshar in the Lex Salica (p. 85). By the way, I think you're right about Tolkien as well. There exists the word Waarwolf (as variant of Weerwolf) in Dutch for Werewolve. See also: books.google.nl/books?id=BvlLAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA129 Wareg and Warg can apparently also mean Barbarian, outcast, outlaw or fugitive in some older (Nether)German dialects.... I cannot find an old Dutch or Lower Saxon variant of the word when it concerns the animal. I found, however, this in the WNT, where 'stout als werge' is explained as 'brave as wild animal[s]': ivdnt.org/zoeken-in-woordenboeken?w=warg ; gtb.inl.nl/iWDB/search?actie=article&wdb=MNW&id=72435&lemmodern=warg&Betekenis_id=72435.sense.1 For Koschorreck 2010: books.google.nl/books?id=JgCLzVzGUrcC&pg=PA83

I have searched for the introduction of the word ‘veelvraat’ in Dutch, and it appears to be relatively modern (first mentioned in 1710), at least according to Nicoline van der Sijs, in: Chronologisch woordenboek: De ouderdom en herkomst van onze woorden en betekenissen, Amsterdam and Antwerpen: L.J. Veen, 2001, p. 359 sub ‘Geleende benamingen: roofdieren’ [borrowed naes: predators]: “1710 veelvraat ‘marterachtige’< NEDERDUITS”. I also looked for animal names which could be related to ‘wearh’ or ‘warg’ and I only found ‘barg’, first mentioned 701-800, for a castrated pig [gecastreerd varken] (p. 351), and ‘weer’ used for a castrated ram, as recorded in Dutch texts of the 11th century (p. 349). The definition of ‘werge’ in the sense of wild animals in “Dese capitein, wide becant, die vrome waren, stout als werge” was first suggested by Gabriele Schiebe in reference to use of ‘warc’ by Veldeke (Eineit v. 1137): ‘Dar mite voriet unsz der warc. Her waz listic und karc.’ See: Gabriele Schieb, Henric van Veldeken, Eneide: Untersuchungen, Stuttgart: Metzler, 1965, p. 26. Hartmann von Aue describes a dwarf as ‘ein warc’ (Iwein v. 4924|40|42), apparently the same word used for demons in Hell by Veldeke. See also: Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, ed. J.. Stallybrass, Cambridge 1888 [2012], p. 1604 (sub Devil): helle-wargen. Source: “Daz bediutet die hellewargen die gitichlicher argen die ir guot ze samne habent und ez verbergent und vergrabent vor gote und vor den liute.” See for the relation between varg and wolve (besides Koschorreck, mentioned above): Wilhelm Grimm, ‘Die Mythische Bedeutung des Wolfes’, Zeitschift für Deutsches Alterthum XII (1865), pp. 203-228: p. 214 and Harry Eilenstein, Die Symbolik der Raubtiere: Die Götter der Germanen, 2019, Vol. 43, p. 176: “Der teufel war der ‘vil ungehiure hellewolf’ („sehr ungeheure Höllenwolf“) oder die ‘hellewargen’ („Höllenwölfe“).”; Michael Jacoby, Wargus, vargr, Verbrecher, Wolf: eine Sprach- u. rechtsgeschichtl. Untersuchung, Almqvist & Wiksell, 1974, pp. 101ff (helleuuark , hellewarg); Hermann Müller, Die Marken des Vaterlandes, Bonn, 1837, vol. 1, pp. 185, 198-205, 219: 199 “der Wolf und nächst ihm der Fuchs sind die Walen, die Wargen, die Verfluchten des Thierreiches.”

You used the word: often! I was just thinking of the two different British English ways that it's pronounced! Sometimes as: OFF TEN then as: OFF EN! I suppose either way is correct! Can someone answer this for me? Thanks!

They're cognates not derived, and '-ham' is cognate with '-heim' not 'havn.'

Two meanings of ham in modern Engish placenames, either from OE 'ham' for a farmstead, literally a home, and 'hamm', typically a flat area by a river, bounded on two sides by that river. Topsham in Devon means the hamm belonging to Toppa. Meanwhile Brixham in Devon means the farm belong to Brixa. 'Tre' is the Celtic equivalent to English ham, common in place names in Wales and Cornwall, and still some across England.

so is dat. Us Plattdüütsch in Norddütschland is just as disse olen engelsen Woorden. Man blots ohne Franzosen de daa tussen rumfuhrwarkt un allens kaputt maakt.

dont forget the old word for butterfly sounding just like „Butterfliege“ in German

@@imansolms6609 a word we don't use, you may know we use the infamous "Schmetterling" instead ;-) which is more like "niederschmetternd" (overwhelmingly knocking down - one would think there's brutal butterflies in Germany...

@@couchcamperTM a wasn't refering to the actual word "Butterfliege" but to "Fliege", which seemed to be quite similar in Old English

This reminds me of the I love Lucy sketch

The anglo-saxons would spell it differently. 'gh' often makes the /x/ sound which the anglo's just used 'h' some examples rough - ruh tough - toh through - þurh thorough - þuruh thought - þoht though - þeah bought - bohte wrought - worhte

'ou' might have been pronounced as /u:/ & not /au/. The /au/ realization was probably due to the great vowel shift. 'ou' makes an /u:/ sound in French. after the norman conquest of England in 1066, the English language gradually changed its orthography to fit french spelling rules. For example, hus ➡️house mus ➡️ mouse Þu ➡️ thou genug ➡️ enough rund ➡️ round hund ➡️ hound (dog) muÞ ➡️ mouth

omg that's what I was wondering

In german fox is Fuchs, to describe the pronounciation/ speaking you could write Fux or Fuks, same thing.

He is pronuncing it as /foxs/ - voiceless "h" followed by "s", so I would imagine it is intentional.

@@arvedui89 thanks, I couldn't tell from the audio.

​@@unexpected2475 I'm on my headphones right now, and - to be honest - I had to listen twice to be completely sure I'm not writing bollocks. Cheers!

That's right - in textbook Old English, it would have been pronounced with the same vowels as 'grēne' :) He was Northumbrian, so it's possible that he would have pronounced it a bit differently.

Simon Roper - Many thanks, Simon. Cleared up at last!

I'm not a Swedish speaker, but I know enough to clearly hear the similarities with Swedish. Just before I read your comment, the thought occurred to me that Old English sounded quite Scandinavian. I think there are some linguists, a minority, who believe that English should be classified as being among the Scandinavian languages.