A friend of mine and fellow medievalist has informed me that a couple of elements in the video are in fact myths about the history of the book (though seemingly quite widespread ones). First, parchment wasn’t in fact invented in Pergamon. For instance, the earliest known Egyptian use of parchment is from the 20th Dynasty (1195-1085 BCE). The widely reported story goes that parchment was developed in Pergamon when Ptolemy refused to export Egyptian papyrus to Pergamon. This belief seems to have developed from the fact that Pergamon was a major producer of parchment (but not in fact its originator). Most of the etymological sources I checked repeat the myth, though occasionally with hedging language like “was said to have originated” or “supposedly”. Surprisingly, Wikipedia seems to be the one place that gets it exactly right! Secondly, there seems to be no evidence of the folding method to produce book sizes earlier than paper books, so it wouldn’t therefore be connected with parchment and sheep. As my friend points out, it doesn’t make a lot of sense with parchment anyway, since it would be very difficult to fold. The source for the idea that book sizes are connected to sheep sizes is a post on the blog Got Medieval, written by a medievalist who works with manuscript images, so seemingly a reliable source, but it’s been widely reported in places such as Wired and Neatorama. If anyone has any more information about this, I’d love to hear it.
I really enjoy this channel. Despite changes to The Algorithm, please don't be tempted to start a daily vlog or something. A quality upload once a month is great.
Thank you. Don't worry, I don't have any plans to stop making these long videos, though I may continue to occasionally intersperse a few shorter/easier videos while I work on the big ones.
The great thing about etymology it often clears up what translators of ancient or even just older text really mean. Too often these books are not translated at all but use the word in the modern sense. The idea of the Stoics always going on about passion was not that they wanted complete repression of emotion (a idea the Romantic Age scholar seem to imply) but comes from "passio" to suffer. A very modern psychology idea if you ask me. If something is causing you to suffer it is going beyond normal emotions to a distress state be it mania, depression, out of control anger, etc. The Romantics I think transformed the word from suffering to a strong and justifiable emotion which causes a lot of confusion about writing from pre-romantic era times. Being stoic isn't being unemotional just not being distressed.
That's interesting....but also kinda doesn't work if your *default* level of emotional experience is what others would consider "distress" or "too much" and you don't agree with the modern idea that you deserve to be locked up and forcibly drugged for being more expressive than expected. Stoicism definitely has its value and place, but for an artist it's a bit, um, counterintuitive.
Great video. The thing about tree bark reminded me of Onfim, a boy who lived in Novgorod in the 13h century, whom we know of because of bits of birch bark that he wrote and drew on.
Wow! I usually enjoy your videos and find them really interesting, but you really outdid yourself this time. This is absolutely fascinating. I'm in no way a linguist and I don't really know much about languages and language in general, but from what little I know I like to make these sort of connections in my head whenever I learn a new word or a new root. This video just put a number of missing pieces together for me and added a few new. Thank you for educating us! :-)
Your videos are so kaleidoscopic. I couldn't watch it without my etymological notebook and have to stop to confer reference sources intermittently. Do you happen to publish any kind of books? I learned really a lot from you.
This is cool! I love learning about etymological origins, and I like the petonym (was that the name?) that refers to words that got their names from the place where they originated.
Thanks! It's a toponym, actually -- from Greek 'topos' meaning place. And yeah, it's always fun to find out that seemingly basic words actually come from a place name.
holy crap! Ill have to find the video to be sure I am remembering correctly, but I believe the "escroe (to cut)" refers to the the practice of tearing (in an asymmetric way) of a legal document's copies off the same piece of paper so that the edges matching up would verify that the two copies where from the same original document. It was a video on the old English guild practices. I'll report back if I manage to find it. XD As always, superlative vid!
That reminds me of tally sticks where the same process was used with sticks of wood split in twain. There were used to record loans; each party kept one half of the stick.
I am glad to have found this channel. My main passion is linguistics but I was veered off by the opportunities of a Computer Science degree... I digress I am still getting my minor in Linguistics though. I also agree with +The Hard Problem that you should keep up the style you have, don't buckle to the pressures of RU-vid demands for weekly content for if the content is worth it, the subscribers will wait. I know I sure will! Good job! ^.^
Thank you! I think Computer Science with a minor in Linguistics is probably very smart, actually -- and I'm glad you enjoy the channel. No plans to change anything major in the near future, don't worry! :)
And here's a tangent, have you noticed that when one "goes down the rabbit hole" of Etymology and Linguistics it often takes you through many many more fields of study along the way? It's quite fascinating actually
Very interesting and inspiring film , just for your information ,some words you used have Slavic connections -for example: silly - весёлый , kill - kłuł , chew , jaw - żuł , codex - kłoda , book - buk , quarto - czwarto , fable - papla . Off course it`s many more , try to dig deeper in languages and you will be surprised !
Very good job! Your examples from the Old English, show very good the Germanic influence before English mixed up with the French language. 2:15 mete (Old English) may have a correlation to the German word "Essen"(noun) which means "food". It is not easy to recognize, but if we change the reading direction of mete, we get "etem", which is very similar to "Essen". In the German dialects I speak, we say "Esse" or "Ässe" for the word food. Seems similar to "I am hungry" and " Ich bin hungrig" in German or in a Swiss German dialect " I bi hungrig". ^^ But it also can descend from the word "made", because food has to be made (hunted or harvested). In "baby language" we say "mäm' mäm"/"meam' meam'" to babies for food and they seem to understand. I guess, it is because "Mama" (German) for Mother is mostly the first word, which babies can say. I think babies recognize the relation of the word "Mama" and the expression of "mm" if they like to eat something, but milk could be also a relevant word because it is the first food for us mammals.^^ 2:17 deor (Old Engl.) > Tier (German), Steorfan (Old Engl.) > sterben (Ger.) and many people died from starving in the Middle Ages. 2:30 girle (Old Engl.), girl (Engl.) reminds me to the German word Göre, which means in a funny or sometimes in a derogatory way a litte, lively, wicked child. The expression can be used for boy and girls, but is espescially used for girls. 2:36 fugel (Old Engl.) > Vogel (Ger.), bridd (Old Engl.) > Brut (Ger.) word for the eggs and young birds, but it can also be the process from lying the eggs to the point where the young birds leave the nest. 3:23 cunnan (Old Engl.) >to know (Engl.) > kennen (Ger.), sælig(Old Engl.) > selig (Ger.) word for blessed. 4:24 cnafa (Old Engl.), knave > Knabe (Ger.) the "V" changed to "B". cniht (Old Engl.) may have a connection to the German word "kniet"(imperative) or "knien"(Verb), which mean "to knee down". 5:05 gebed (Old Engl.) > Gebet (Ger.) word for prayer. ceasce (Old Engl.) reminds me to the German word "Kiefer", which means jaw. "Cheek" means "Backe" in German, so I agree to the suggestions of the video, that it has French influence from "joue", which means cheek in English, but "jouer" the French verb means "to play" for example a game. But if I'm correct, it may also have the meaning of "to be loose", which would fit to the function. In German I would translate "jouer" to "spielen". But in German it is not only the expression for "playing". If something has "Spiel"in German, it is another expression for "es ist lose"(Ger.) , what means "it's loose" in English, so it indicates the "movability".
I'm curious... in Spanish, a book is "un libro", which obviously comes from Latin. But a page is "una hoja," 📄 but "una hoja" can also mean a leaf 🍁. Is this just coincidence, a case of (linguistic) convergent evolution?
Ah, I've just looked it up and 'hoja' actually comes from Latin 'folia', so it's the same! It was Old Spanish 'foja', apparently. Thanks for bringing that up!
Alliterative ahh, of course! How could I forget, Spanish expelled a bunch of Latin f's (no one expected it!). Formica became hormiga 🐜, facere became hacer 🤛🏼, filius became hijo 👦🏻. Thank you!
Thats cause the English language especially was heavily influenced by French, Dutch, German colonization in Britain so they borrowed a lot of their words into the English language over the centuries!
Greetings outlander; I hail from the wastes to the south, a land forsaken by all gods, South Dakota, where the winters last a thousand years and the summer days grow hot enough to melt flesh.
Broadcast is not when you post to RU-vid. Broadcast is when you send out (cast) a signal broadly and old TVs pick up the signal. Posting a video on RU-vid is no more “broadcasting” than if I texted my mom and called it “broadcasting”
To broadcast is to send something out widely; it existed as a term before radio or tv were invented, and the radio and tv uses were metaphorical. To post something on RU-vid is to make it widely available, to spread it broadly. As opposed to texting a single person, which does not make the communication publicly available and does not reach a broad audience. The term 'broadcast' is now defined as "to send out or transmit (something, such as a program) by means of radio or television or by streaming over the Internet", to quote Merriam-Webster. There is a possible quibble that it is primarily used of live or streaming events on the Internet, but that isn't true of the use for radio or tv, so it's unlikely to persist as a meaningful distinction online.
Excellent video, I'm an amateur nerd fascinated by etymology. I have two questions... 1, in France we say "escrot" for a fraudster, do you think I'm correct in assuming that this is related to the old word for "to cut"? Perhaps where someone might slice off a piece of a weight when selling a weighed product, or when someone chops off a piece of something after it has been weighed. 2, I read in a Bill Bryson book that "nice" and "nasty" both had the same origins, originally meaning cheap or of low quality. Does this fit in with what you know? I've just thought of a third question. I have Scottish friends who say "you ken?" to mean "did/do you know?". I suspect that there's a connection. Is this correct?
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it. To your questions: 1) I think that must be right, but I don't know the specifics of that word; it would make sense that it's connected, though. 2) I suppose that's about right, though they're not related; 'nice' comes from Latin nescius "ignorant, unaware," literally "not-knowing," and when it first entered English it meant 'senseless, ignorant, poor'; 'nasty' is much more obscure, but seems to have meant "foul, filthy, dirty, unclean," when it first appeared (maybe from Old French, maybe from Old Norse, maybe from Dutch). 3) Yes, 'ken' is from Old English cennan "make known, declare, acknowledge", lit. 'to cause to know', going back eventually to that PIE root *gno-
They're the same people who cry and/or commit antisemitism, which should really mean an oppression of any semitic language speaking people but ironically it refers to the perceived oppression of European colonists who are oppressing real semites like in the world's largest concentration camp called Gaza.
Words change in time add plural to a defined words base some change into others in where there added with a connected foreword or tail conducted word give time of mind and how you hear a word currently just as the wod ending or started example an extinct animal may have wild reasons or lead wrong example chinese mixed with english may be chinese not graffiti on some art tip of the ages and ways trains pass window to doors not to forget your wAll
I've been learning old English lately/ Fugel was probably pronounced fau-uwel, which makes its evolution to fowl much less surprising. Often the g in old English takes the role of y in modern English, though as with modern English there are rules but they have many, many exceptions. :)
The word 'tea' could be more likely to come from the Malay word 'teh', as it's used in the name of a type of milk tea drink very popular in the Malay Peninsula - 'Teh Tarik' (literally meaning 'pulled tea'). In which the word 'teh' in Malay actually came from the Hokkien (Minnan) language pronunciation of the character “茶”(teh), due to many Minnan Chinese speakers settled in the Malacca Straits throughout the centuries even before European Colonialism.
For example the word "Gay" nowadays has another meaning .It was meant for men that enjoyed life.Men who caught the day; it had nothing to do with homosexuality.The origin is French:Gai.
I suppose it feels like a slightly dated term, but I can't think of any replacement verb for the act of entering a phone number for the purpose of calling it. It's not typing... What else is there? I wonder whether it's the victim of changing behaviour: smartphones allow us to forego the act of dialling on almost all occasions, so there's no longer the need for a specific verb. I wonder what other words have been victim to a similar fate.
