WHY RUSSIAN HAS CASES and English doesn't; A mini lesson in Historical Linguistics 

Сразу как только видео включил, сильно бросилось в глаза ТО, что цвет глаз и куртка хорошо сочетаются 👌🙂 Благодарим за информацию и ваши старания 🙌

As for stigma about whom... I grew up with an English Lit PhD for a mother, so that stigma certainly existed for me! lol I'm glad it did, because that has helped me better understand Russian grammar. In fact the grammar is why I fell in love with this language. Seeing an alternative expression of grammatical logic is fascinating. It reminds me of learning symbolic logic in college. Being able to put yourself in a different thought-mode is exhilarating.

Wanted to comment on your point about old Russian cases. Russian and its ancestors never had more than 7 cases, the 7th always being the vocative. Partitive and locative cases in modern Russian are not old cases leaving Russian, they are leftovers from lost noun declension classes, and these cases were always incomplete. You may note that those cases occur mostly in masculine nouns ending in consonant/-ь. Endings in those incomplete cases came from lost declension class also ending in consonant/-ь which had many common endings with the remaining one (examples of nouns from that lost class being домъ, боръ, носъ, сынъ, медъ). That lost case had -у endings in both genitive and locative (which really is the synonym for prepositional, it's just that the name "prepositional" have replaced the name "locative" in Russian grammar a few centuries ago), and so after the declension class was lost, some of its differing endings got reused as those incomplete cases, even in nouns that never belonged in the lost class.

Узнал много нового о своëм языке)) Спасибо за видео!

Native german here: We got eroding cases too, and it happens within a few generations as well. We used to consistently stick an 'e' at the end of words to indicate dative, i.e. "in dem Buche" vs. the more modern "in dem Buch". Substantives lost their dative e around mid 20th century. Those dativ endings are still universally understood and can be replicated by most competent speakers, but you'd come across pretty weird and stilted using them. Cheers!

Incredibly interesting.Thank you🙂

@16:20 That's the exact reason too why the Spaniards in the Philippines kept their language as an elitist language while the common folk spoke the vernacular languages yet the vernacular languages borrowed so much Spanish vocabulary in the politics and humanities sectors.

So interesting. Thanks for presenting this. Russian cases are a challenge that is for sure. As a grammar nerd I love the challenge.

Languages do not simplify over time, no, and no modern historical linguist claims such a thing. This misconception stems from the conflation of several ideas. First is the fact that 'complexity' is not synonymous with morphological complexity. When you've only been exposed to European languages, it can be very easy to conclude that the 'complexity' of a language is determined by how many different endings nouns and verbs and adjectives can have. But the reality is that these endings are just one strategy for communicating information - all languages have to be able to communicate any human thought, and so if one system becomes less complex, another has to take its place. In the case of English, as our case system eroded, we developed a much more rigid syntax. In languages with more flexible syntax, word order often communicates emphasis, while in English other strategies have developed for reordering sentences in order to emphasize certain elements. Complexity is pretty much a zero sum game. Now as for morphological complexity in particular, it's also completely wrong to think that this must simplify over time. All morphological systems had to be innovated in the first place after all, and plenty of languages can clearly be shown to do this or have done this. For instance, the Romani language had only two cases a thousand years ago, now it has eight. For Indo European languages more broadly, it's clear that originally there was only a two gender system (animate and inanimate), preserved in hittite, which then got more complex. The verb system originally was less complex than we observe in Ancient Greek or Sanskrit, neither of which were particularly isolated languages. What is often true is that old noun and verb endings tend to disappear over time, because the ends of words are particularly susceptible to sound shifts that make them disappear or sound identical. But languages can and do create new endings, or other sorts of morphology like the prefixes we see in bantu languages. It's okay to make mistakes, but if you are presenting something as a fact of a scientific field, you should cite sources and properly research the topic. Don't make a claim that just seems correct and then say it's 'linguistics'.

Perfect, marvellous!!!

English does have cases. Those are functions of nouns in a sentence: a subject, a direct object, an indirect object and a genitive form. But English is an analytic language and that is why cases in English are not modified by endings or another parts of speech.

@howjaneylearned - You should read "The loom of languages" by Frederick Bodmer. The book was written 80+ years ago, so some stuff sounds strange or outdated, but he shows the similarities between Romance langagues or Germanic langu4, how they developed, etc. In my opinion a must read for everyone interested in languages.

Дженни красивеет с каждым годом все больше.

What a great video! I have a 'love-not so much love today' relationship with Russian.

Из индоевропейских языков, сохранивших падеже - конечно, классическая латынь! Может быть испано- или Франко говорящим говорящим стоит освоить латинскую грамматику перед, или паралельно с изучением русского, многое станет понятнее.

@19:30 I laughed so hard because it's so true 😂😂

very interesting video, i learned a lot! i was thinking about how standard/classical arabic has case endings by adding sounds to the last letter but in the dialects/spoken arabic they're nowhere to be found, and overall grammar is very simplified. we do still use the dual form though, it's nice, i like it :) you cant use a plural in arabic ever when speaking about 2 of something, it sounds very weird

You are just smart

Вероятно, английский потерял падежи вследствие фиксации ударения на первом слоге и ослабления произношения в конце слова, а не из-за того, что говорящие перестали заботиться о грамматической корректности речи. Плюс есть существенная разница между норманнским и татаро-монгольскими завоеваниями. В Англии норманны остались и стали правящей элитой, в Северо-Восточной Руси монголы опустошили край, но там не жили, править продолжали русские князья, которые просто платили дань.

The whole premise is wrong. There are cases in English. I, me, and my are three different cases.

Janie who is the author of the book on the Tatars? :)

Да, правильно отмечено, что толчком к утрате падежей послужило нормандское завоевание Англии (7:39) Но, нет, это было не похожее на Монголо-татарское нашествие. В Англии норманны составили правящую верхушку, создавая строгое деление общества на классы по признаку этнического происхождения, отличая друг друга по языку. По сию пору неподготовленный слушатель ничего не разберёт в кокни! Английское общество имеет деление почти как индийские касты! Во время монгольского завоевания русская знать оставалась с народом, место русской знати не было занято монголами или тюрками, не произошло деления на свой-чужой по языку и по крови, даже наоборот, князья и бояре создали комбайн, взаимовыгодный устойчивый союз против нашествия. Так состояние языка не разрушилось. Для сравнения можно посмотреть на болгарский язык! Тюрки по языку волжские булгары в 6-7 веке переместились в места проживания южных славян и стали правящей верхушкой у них, но, утратив тюркский язык, они повлияли на тот южнославянский язык, и теперь в болгарском языке тоже нет падежей.

Great and very informative video. Thank you! I've learned about Russian more than I previously knew.

Does anyone know how to become her student?

Я тоже создал самые лëгкие уроки русского языка на основе поверхностной грамматики русского языка на английском языке. 😎

So sad, first sample and already slightly incorrect "mom loves dad". Word order in Russian somehow matters and can create meaning.

Case study Nice pun

the Bulgarian language without cases sounds terrible to the Russian ear

As someone who is learning Russian, I don’t use the different cases. It’s easier and faster to just use one word, and I focus on the vocabulary and not the grammar.

Shalom from Israel! I’m a native language speaker and I really think, that cases system is suck! So many ppl, who live in RF make a lot of mistakes! blood from my eyes) Especially they make mistakes with “numerals”! It’s as bad as my Eng))) Example: у меня нет двухста рублей» или «у меня нет двести рублей» Родительный падеж от слова «двести» - «двухСОТ». You can hear it on TV or radio. I hope, that rules will reduced. Will fall off like vestiges. And it will be easier for everybody to learn the language. But.. I can’t find the reason for foreign people to learn this language! Seriously. Что касаемо склонения заимствованных слов (СРеднего Рода в частности), то мне, как коренному жителю столицы, жутко режет слух «в метре», «на метре» «в пальте» «пальта» «Кофя» etc... Ах да, фраза: "поехал На Москву" для меня marker. Москвич никогда так не скажет. Он скажет "поехал В Москву" "В Ростов" и т.д.

Иностранцы поэтому и не любят русский язык, потому-что в нём есть падежи! / That's why foreigners don't like the Russian language, because it has cases!

Children are a foreign race who change the language

I still can't understand, how american girl can tell so facinating things about my native language in her native language. How does it work?

But English DOES have cases. Or is that English DO have cases

The same story with bolharian and macedonian laguage, becouse of turks invasion. This languages are slavic and they don`t have cases. But you should be happy becouse russian cases have a system, you can us endings like lego, and all be fine.

Джеини радует мои глаза 😍

What I find very interesting is that languages with cases tend not to use articles, and vice versa. Latin has six cases and no articles, but when people discarded the cases on the way to becoming Italian, French etc, they felt the need to introduce indefinite and definite articles by adapting the words for "one" and "that".

Очень интересно было послушать про историю! А я стараюсь использовать whom, когда общаюсь на английском😅

Спасибо, очень интересно. Про местный падеж даже не задумывался раньше. А звательный начинает, похоже, заново формироваться. Все эти "Мам!", "Тёть!", "Саш!" :)

Ммм. Русский язык какой-то сложный.

As a Polish speaker I find Russian cases relatively easy, but the word stress is killing me. Polish has predictable stress and many if not most Russian cases translate well into Polish.

You speak about the languages interesting. I want you to keep it up 👍

Очень интересный рассказ! Так вернём же болгарам и македонцам падежи, а англичанам- whoM! 😀😀😀

Awesome bideo, better than sex.

I russian spaking ukraninan and I love watch your chennel)

(Earlier) Greek & Latin have cases & they’ve had them way earlier than Russian (or church Slavonic, for that matter) even existed. 😮

There was also partitive case in Russian that still sometimes occurs nowadays...

Hello, I'm from Croatia and I've been learning Russian for 2 years, and Russian cases are a bit difficult for me even though I speak a Slavic language, (Fortunately, in terms of vocabulary, Russian and Croatian are very similar) all Slavic languages have cases (except Bulgarian) that are difficult to learn, try learning Croatian! or not to mention Polish!!! :)

Even knowing quite a bit about Russian cases, this video is once again helpful and so well stated.

Maybe Bulgarians and Macedonians lost their cases to the Ottomans? Or perhaps they were more aligned with the Greek Orthodox and the continuity with Old Church Slavonic was severed? OCS is Greek influenced as it is, so maybe just more and more exchange over time? I'm imagining a Patriarch Nikon type situation recurring over and over again over the centuries. Or just the general linguistic diversity of the region? Some of all of the above? Also the historical political instability of the region could certainly have the effect of a lack of *consistent* elitism surrounding the grammar, even if during a particular regime that elitism existed.

I remember when my English teacher explained the origin of irregular verbs in English, and suddenly they began to make sense 😂 Lessons like this are really important for better understanding. Your Russian is a music for my ears. Subscribed, though I don't need to learn Russian 🙃

“Whom” is a case. It’s the dative, I think-the indirect object. So it’s actually a very old holdout for the English case system. Also, there is one case in English that has survived in its entirety, almost in original form, and that’s the genitive-AKA the possessive. In Old English, the case suffix was -s. In Modern English, it’s -‘s or -s’ for words in which the stem ends in s. So it’s arguably gotten more complex than it was a thousand years ago. It’s the one case that word order won’t make clear.

Six cases is alot but seven is even worse😅 Hrvatski (i Srpski) su još kompleksniji kad su padeži u pitanju nominativ,genitiv,akuzativ,vokativ,lokativ,dativ i instrumental 😅

16:35 Это точно ! "Незваный гость хуже татарина !" (с) В. Даль, "Пословицы и поговорки великорусского народа". 😎

A diamond: a normal everyday item 😂

Дженни, Вы Молодец! Так глубоко погрузились в вопрос! Вызываете уважение! Хочется Вас поддержать! А самое главное - Вы сказали, что нам нужно больше общаться в эти трудные времена. Это будет способствовать общему процветанию и миру. Согласен!

Из всех иностранных ютуберов Джейни лучше всех говорит на русском языке и конечно знает его правила. На мой взгляд первое место с ней может разделить только итальянка Валентина Моретти. 2 место у француженки Леа Камий. 3 место полька Настя и испанка Нурия. 4 место швейцарка Лориана и венесуэлка Кайла

In Cebuano, we are slowly losing the Oblique case and it's merging with the Ergative case. It's most likely because of influence from English.

I've heard that the reason English lost its cases was due the fact that the English had to live side to side with Normans for centuries. They had both similar languages that differed mostly in case endings. So it wasn't Norman French that influenced the loss of cases but the very similar Norman speech (old Norse).

К слову, Дженни, дарю Вам рифмованную загадку в тему: "Я Марины мама сына. Как же звать меня? - Марррина!"

Also I heard that languages don't simplify, they just go in a cycle. Like, analytic > agglutinative > fusional > analytic and so on over and iver again. It lasts for thousands of years. Chinese is getting agglutinative little by little, Estonian is getting fusional little by little etc.

Im polish and we have nasal vowels, the vocative case and some remnants of the dual number. Interesting that the only languages of the slavic world that preserved the dual number in its fullness are these most westward: slovene and sorbian (spoke in eastern germany)

Thank you for presenting all this information in such an interesting and inspiring way!

Brilliant! Respect for your job!

Хочу стрим-битву с LANGUAGE SIMP! Буду комментировать пока не увижу.

Approve for more linguistics and diachrony!

Пальто, нет пальта, дать пальту, винить пальто, творить пальтом, о пальте. Польта, нет польт, дать польтам, винить польта, польтами, о польтах. (Даже слово менять не пришлось) -Кофе- кОфий/кофЕй - кОфия/кофеЯ, кОфию/кофеЮ, кофий/кофей, кОфием/кофеём, о кОфии, о кофеЕ (Пришлось немного видоизменить слово, хотя форму кофий видел в старых текстах, кофей же часто использую сам, даже вошло в привычку). Остальные "несклоняемые" слова из видео не склонял, кроме бюра. Также метро склоняю.

because of the ottoman empire ?

Ah! For lost innocence! 🙄

Excellent video !

Is it possible to have you as a tutor? Please

Awesome subject matter. I love this grammar stuff. Totally agree about on whom, in spoken English it is quickly going going, soon to be gone. Never send to know who the bell tolls for; it tolls for whom.

Lol

16:55 По-моему, "алмаз" от греческого "adamas" - "несокрушимый", а "кафтан" от персидского " haftan" - "haf" - "мешок", и "tan" - верхняя мужская одежда. Нет ? Тюрки были лишь посредниками, возможно, в передаче этих слов из греческого и фарси в русский, но не более ! Это НЕ тюркские слова изначально....

Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod.

Many tenses have disappeared in French

The hungarian language has 35 grammar cases

I'm an English teacher in Russia. Sometimes I get a smarty-pants student (they are adults) that asks about "whom" or say "Shouldn't that be 'whom'"?... Eh, maybe keep it in mind for EILETS... Я душнила... Also, when I say there is 12 verb tenses someone will occasionally interject with "Umm, actually, I heard it was (either) 16, 18 or 24 (or some number like this) because they saw a diagram once that counted, like, passive voice and conditionals as unique verb tenses. Yeah, but with whom I just tell them "no one cares", also. Same with "whilst" (but I think it might still be a thing in England). When an answer contains something in the subjunctive mood and they as I just say "eh, that's how the queen of England talks"... Because it is not worth going through it all with B1 students, however just last week I did do a deep dive with my c2 students on the subjunctive mood. Of course they had no problem with the conditional type of sentences but all the other stuff hurt their brain. While easy to learn how to form it, I found it interesting to try and explain WHY people know might use the subjunctive mood, of course I have my own explanation, but I am serious as how you might answer this question (especial they it comes from a Russian). Also, in 4 years of teaching well educated adults, only two people knew that at the end of a sentence comes a... not dot... not point... but a period. I suppose add one more if you count "full stop", which I don't. When that even become a thing in England? The same time H became "'хэч"?

Очень интересное погружение в историю языков, но хочу отметить, что в татарском языке тоже есть падежи и их тоже 6 как и в русском, думаю, это тоже повлияло на то, что русский в отличие от английского не потерял систему падежей, так как у французских норманнов падежей не было.

Language And The Mind with The Great Courses on Audible was also very good.

That was cool😊

Прослушал до конца но ни фига не понял

Privet! Great video!!!