The beginning of this video is priceless and deserves a separate upload for it could go viral. The image of Simon as an optimistic and courageous Englishman trying to do his thing in spite of everything but eventually defeated by unexpected rain, with a big sigh and sad facial expression, is a quintessential Englishness that is seldom caught on film spontaneously, if ever. Thanks for leaving that in!
@@bashkillszombies "Any Englishman left in London" - I guess you're alluding to the hordes of Normans who have invaded your Anglo-Saxon country, right?
@@patrickmccurry1563 This! You have just learned (are learning) a writing system for carving into wood and horn. And therefore write on a suitable object you own. Also consider all the young people moving into their first apartment, and adding a nicely framed "HOME" on the wall. (Future archeologists will probably speculate on a short lived "ritual practice".)
Your joke dart has landed at a serious bullseye! Many IE languages have cognate words for "cattle" and "money." Lat. _pecunia_ < _pecus_ , "cattle". Eng. borrowed "money" via Normans from L. godess name _Moneta_ , but kept _fee_ , ultimately from O.E. _feoh_ , "cattle." Both descend from the PIE root *pek- meaning "sheep"; there is no reconstructed common PIE root for cattle. I can't recall any PIE language deriving "money" from "horse," tho. It's nearly certain that money has been invented after the PIE-speaking nomads settled and PIE split into multiple branches. Money is a relatively recent invention. Look at the Bronze Age Mediterranean civilization that embraced the western nearly third of the sea's shoreline from Mycenae to Hattuša to Egypt and collapsed in 1200BC. Coastal shipping trade was voluminous, but (oops, I'm trespassing Simon's territory again) no evidence of coinage use has been discovered. Some of these trading kingdoms spoke already well-differentiated IE languages.
You prolly dont care but does any of you know of a trick to get back into an Instagram account? I was stupid lost my account password. I appreciate any tips you can offer me.
@Deacon Darwin thanks for your reply. I got to the site on google and I'm in the hacking process now. I see it takes a while so I will get back to you later with my results.
Simon, you are a well of culture. Your videos are so interesting for me . I have a degree in English. Although it is all behind me now, I actually took a lot of interest in your knowledge of Old English and Middle English. I learnt English linguistics at University. I have always have a taste for foreign languages. And this takes me out of my depression. Being on my own, christmas is the worst time for me. I spent several hours this afternoon watching your videos. You speak a little too fast for me because I am French. But you explain the origin of English language perfectly. Thank you.
We still do. I'm from Denmark and Denmark, southern Sweden and northern Germany essentially have the same climate as Britain. The irony is; the Danes originally came from southwestern Sweden, pushing the Anglo-Saxons from modern day Danmark towards Britain. Later we and the Norwegians raided Britain, only to find the same shitty weather there. And the Swedes got the real "prize" by raiding Baltic states and Russia in the east. Climate there is just "super". Just like we went on to Iceland and Greenland. Idiots, lol! At any event, the north germanic peoples really lucked out on the climate.
I'm he did as well. I hadn't really thought about it, but it is very likely that it did. There likely was a dialect continuum from proto-baltoslavic to celtic across the area, and possibly a few isolated pockets of some unknown language isolate that had no known relatives like basque is today.
@@VTdarkangel There are very early Proto-Germanic words borrowed into Finnish, Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian which seem to be actually from a sister language of Proto-Germanic, rather than Proto-Germanic itself. It indicates that the greater Proto-Germanic spectrum (which includes all sister languages) was widespread in the East Baltic and probably the whole spectrum arrived from the East Baltic, but only the one branch of Germanic we known today has survived.
@@elimalinsky7069 That's interesting to hear. Seems to confirm the point. I know I have heard of words that exist even today in the more eastern dialects of modern Germanic languages that seem to have similarities to slavic words even though they are believed to be Germanic in origin. What you have decribed could be part of that. The history of languages fascinates me because I love seeing how modern languages fall out their ancient ancestors. I wish I had the ability to learn more about this stuff, but as I am an amateur, I don't have the time or the resources to do as much research as I would like.
@@VTdarkangel Languages and comparative linguistics fascinate me as well. The close similarity between Germanic and Slavic stem from the overwhelming evidence that Germanic and Balto-Slavic shared an immediate common ancestor, Germanic-Balto-Slavic, if you like. The theory suggests that the Satem-Centum distinction of Indo-European languages must be re-evaluated. Also, the eastern dialects of Plattdeutsch, that is the eastern variants of the Low German Saxon dialects had been influenced by the Wends, which is the name associated with the collection of various Slavic tribes inhabiting the regions of present-day Brandenburg, Berlin, Sachsen and parts of Thuringia. These tribes inhabited the area from circa 600 CE to circa 1100 CE, at which point they were absorbed into the Saxon culture and language.
@thecahn I know, but it seems logical that there still would have been a dialect continuum in the areas where the proto-Germanic peoples interacted with the Celts. It may have been a compressed, narrow area but likely nonetheless.
I liked the casualness of him standing in the rain not saying anything but just looking at a twig on a bush while the rain is pit-patting on the canopy *I read a book called 'The Story of English' and the blurb on the back mentions that "our language comes from a shared Germanic tribal speech..." Which is how I ended up here I did an English degree and have always been interested in language and derivations of it Thanks, Simon
Here, in my part of Brandenburg ( northern Germany), we can date back the first settlements to the first Century. The Tribes Name, who settled here was "Zamzizi" and they belonged to the River Elbe Slawes - Wends. It´s freaky awesome, what I found with a little research. Thx for the Video!
@@user-bl6so2iw3y does no one teach Slavs about the great Slavic migrations? Before the mid 500’s slavs only existed in southern modern day Poland and northern Ukraine, and Belarus. Eastern Germanic lived in modern day eastern and northern Poland long before the Slavic migration. Poles always claim Pomerania, Brandenburg and parts of Holstein were historically polish but that was in large part to Charlemagne’s massacre of the Saxons and his invitation of Christian slavs to these regions. Yes eastern Germany and Prussia had Slavic admixture, but the in the 6th century when the Slavic migration began slavs intermixed with the now extinct eastern Germanic peoples in modern day western, and northern Poland too.
@@northwestpassage6234 well at least Mr. Turebekow is able to understand that people mix and assimilate each other. So he's a bit ahead of polish nationalists for example. xD
@Crush the lies Memes (as we call them) have pretty much always existed, you'll never get rid of them. You could quite easily make the argument that oral traditions are a type of meme.
@John Smith I'm with you. My teenage daughters communicate _sub rosa_ in meme inscriptions. They can almost carry on a whole conversation with them, adding only articles and prepositions to link them together. It's like that Star Trek NG episode in which Picard encounters humanoids who speak entirely in metaphors or literary references. I think it would be wonderful if my daughters did speak in such references, but it's with great difficulty I can get them to move beyond the memes and other cyber-flotsam and ephemera.
Ok so i have downloaded this video for a long time but just ended watching it today. And i just HAVE to mention the portrait in the last part. Dude you're truly talented!
At 7:44. The 'rik' part is likely from the PIE word for a king, which in Germanic languages became the word for the king's domain at some unknown time. But note that it is on the end of the name, not the beginning. This custom, the modifier after the noun, was used widely by Celts, as seen in their king's names in the form 'rix'. Proto-Germanic speakers' southern neighbors were probably Celts, so the custom might be from that contact. If so then Harjarikaz would mean King Harja.
Yes. I agree, and I'm sure that the German "Reich", names like "FredeRICK", the Spanish word/name "Regina" (for queen), and the Latin "Rex" for king must all be cognates or can somehow be traced to the same roots.
Ed Dawson Gothic seems to have added things to the end, which is common anyhow. I’m not sure Celtic influence caused it to go at the end, but maybe. Example Þiuda ‘people, tribe”, Þiudans ‘prince, leader of the tribe’, Þiudinassus ‘kingdom’, Þiudareiks ‘people-king, Theodoric’
Rather than Celtic influence I find it more likely this is simply a shared practice. There's little reason Germanic names would have been influenced in this matter when Celtic names were not adopted otherwise.
Man, the Finnish language has a bunch of proto-germanic loans. For example harja means comb in Finnish, a straight loan. I also wonder if Holtijaz is related to the Finnish word "Haltia", elf.
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Finnish_terms_derived_from_Proto-Germanic It's incredible, due to its agglutinating nature, a few of the early Germanic loan words are kept frozen in time for about 1500 years, you're able to hear Proto-Germanic words like "kuningaz" (kuningas) up to this day. I'm always buffled about that.
If anyone is interested in how Finnish and other closely related languages ended up with numerous Baltic and Germanic loanwords, I recommend reading the works of Valter Lang, an Estonian archeologist. His theory about the origins of the Finnic languages is available in English in this collection of papers (from page 63 onwards): www.oulu.fi/sites/default/files/content/CIFU12-PlenaryPapers.pdf#page=63 His book about the theory in Estonian called "Läänemeresoome tulemised" has been reviewed in German: journal.fi/fuf/article/view/79536/40366 and Finnish: www.tuglas.fi/laanemeresoome-tulemised
weird thing about the woman from Oakington. My wife got a DNA test for xmas, and she is genetically closer to that AS woman than any Ancient Viking sample or modern Swede even though she is herself a swede with no English ancestry.
That's not that surprising to me. I'm from Glasgow and according to David Davidsky my closest PCA match by far was Medieval Swedish Vikings from Sigtuna. What was also more eye opening is how close ALL the populations of northwest Europe were to one another, there seemed to be almost no genetic distance between an Irishman and someone from Norway, so the whole Celtic/Germanic divide that has become so intrinsic to the various regional and national identities of the British Isles seems to be largely bullshit. I think we underestimate how much our ancestors got around and mixed. And I think we have a poor understanding of what they actually considered to be their people.
@@d4n4nable Well what's the cultural differences? They all speak Germanic languages now. They all by and large practice the same beige western Americanized culture.
Cat_City oh yes the difference between pronunciation of classical Latin and ecclesiastical Latin which is to say the difference between “veni vidi vichi” and “weni widi wiki”
Yeah I always cringe when people use the "s" sound for the latin c when they are talking about romans. It's okay if you are refering to christian sources though. I just dont like it when people mix them up.
0:00 - 0:51 of the video needs to become a meme! The change in Simon's facial expression from hopeful to defeated and everything in between is just hilarious and priceless!
I've only just caught up with Simon (and subscribed). I was hoping he'd mention ideas about potential Uralic substrates of proto-germanic. The idea that PG is what you get when you speak PIE with a Finnish accent (sort of). Maybe another episode.
That theory was proposed by Kalevi Wiik, a professor of phonetics (emeritus) at the University of Turku, Finland. His ideas are highly controversial, and from what I understand, not supported by the current generation of historical linguists in Finland.
The problem is that the Uralic stress patterns are much weaker than the Germanic; thus, in Uralic languages, there is a greater tendency to leave words uncontracted and inflexions intact, unlike the Germanic case. Likewise, other Indo-European languages (e.g. Italic, and Celtic among others) had also developed root stress, which led to loss of inflexion in the same way.
Fascinating! Tiwaz in the way you pronounced sounds like Estonian taevas (sky, heaven). Tiwaz as the god of Sun has tarted to make sense the origin of word taevas.
Simon,great show again,thanks. Any thoughts on Heilung? They use Proto-Norse,which was reconstructed from ruins and sing war songs, medicine songs, shaman songs,etc. Their live shows are remarkable( not to mention Maria Franz as being exactly the most beautiful and talented vocalist alive today). Have you listened to their lyrics and the language used? They brought a dead language very much to life.
Enjoyed the video Simon. Reading Jean Manco's 'The Origins of the Anglo-Saxons' at the moment. I'm never completely convinced by the idea Brythonic Britons discarded their Celtic culture and embraced the Anglian like Teddy boys becoming Mods in 1965-I mean honestly! Cannot imagine small elite warbands could have achieved such linguistic influence swiftly either, so the picture is very complex and variables such as length of acculturation all important. Germanic influence may go back many hundreds of years of course, even prior to Vortigern era. Always interesting, Happy New Year to you Simon. Can I recommend an ex Finnish Army parka. Bought one on eBay and I look rather splendid In the rain.
I've never read it but I'll have a look, there's such a huge amount of literature on the Anglo-Saxons themselves that I haven't read because I've focused on the language. Population replacement and cultural change are extremely interesting things that I've never really touched on in my reading. Thank you for the coat recommendation;
@@simonroper9218 thanks for your videos. They are very useful for me. I am from Spain and I am studiying english and danish. And I would love to deep into old english. It is amazing futhark and connections between danish. Tak/ Gracias/ Thanks!
@@marialeis26 Well, The Angels DID come from was later (until 1864) within the Danish Realm. So it's basically the same people saying home in Jutland or going out to Brittania. So no wo der there are similarities.
That intro must have taken dozens of takes to get right, what with the comedic timing. You're obviously quite dedicated to your craft and it's quite an inspiration.
Hearing birds esp. blackbirds singing in December and temparatures rising up to 13 °C (ca. 55 °F) like Saturday the 21st December, even here in Middle Europe (whereas the British Isles are milder due to the Gulf stream) it is quite unsettling from a native perspective used to at least a bit of snow between mid December to mid January. Almost ten years now, the only thing I wish for is snow :-(
@@thurianwanderer last winter we had a couple days where it got down to -32F without wind chill, unusual even for here but it happens occasionally. The leaves fall off the trees mid to late October and we don't see green anything until late April and can get snow as late as mid may although that is unusual.
George Swanson I saw the photos, it’s like the Great Lakes are turning white. Pretty terrible even though I don’t have a shit clue about ferenhaits nor do I know where Minnesota is. Hope you don’t get to endure that again this year.
Thanks Pierre, I'm married to a lovely gal from Yorkshire and a few years back I was on the west coast of Scotland and was astonished to see 10C temps and green things growing in January. Just keep reminding yourself that even though it's damp, it's not Minnesota. Cheers!
Your channel is awesome. People take the English language for granted and find it boring. Your channel shows that it is a great example of hybridization. Exciting and fluid.
