How Weird Would Modern English Sound To A Medieval English Person?

In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period (also spelled mediæval or mediaeval) lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. This period began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD and ended with the fall of Constantinople in 1453 AD, this era would transition into the Renaissance and then the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages.
Population decline, counterurbanisation, the collapse of centralized authority, invasions, and mass migrations of tribes, which had begun in late antiquity, continued into the Early Middle Ages. The large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the 7th century, North Africa and the Middle East-most recently part of the Eastern Roman (or Byzantine) Empire-came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, an Islamic empire, after conquest by Muhammad's successors. Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire, Rome's direct continuation, survived in the Eastern Mediterranean and remained a major power. Secular law was advanced greatly by the Code of Justinian. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated extant Roman institutions, while new bishoprics and monasteries were founded as Christianity expanded in Europe. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th and early 9th centuries. It covered much of Western Europe but later succumbed to the pressures of internal civil wars combined with external invasions: Vikings from the north, Magyars from the east, and Saracens from the south.
During the High Middle Ages, which began after 1000, the population of Europe increased greatly as technological and agricultural innovations allowed trade to flourish and the Medieval Warm Period climate change allowed crop yields to increase. Manorialism, the organisation of peasants into villages that owed rent and labour services to the nobles, and feudalism, the political structure whereby knights and lower-status nobles owed military service to their overlords in return for the right to rent from lands and manors, were two of the ways society was organised in the High Middle Ages. This period also saw the formal division of the Catholic and Orthodox churches, with the East-West Schism of 1054. The Crusades, which began in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims, and also contributed to the expansion of Latin Christendom in the Baltic region and the Iberian Peninsula. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence but making the ideal of a unified Christendom more distant. In the West, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. The theology of Thomas Aquinas, the paintings of Giotto, the poetry of Dante and Chaucer, the travels of Marco Polo, and the Gothic architecture of cathedrals such as Chartres mark the end of this period.
The Late Middle Ages was marked by difficulties and calamities including famine, plague, and war, which significantly diminished the population of Europe; between 1347 and 1350, the Black Death killed about a third of Europeans. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the interstate conflict, civil strife, and peasant revolts that occurred in the kingdoms. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages and beginning the early modern period.
Terminology and periodisation
Palais des Papes, Avignon
The Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history: Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Modern Period.[1] A similar term first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or "middle season".[2] The adjective "medieval",[A][4] meaning pertaining to the Middle Ages, derives from medium aevum or "middle age",[3] a Latin term first recorded in 1604.[5] Leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People (1442), with a middle period "between the fall of the Roman Empire and the revival of city life sometime in late eleventh and twelfth centuries".[6] Tripartite periodisation became standard after the 17th-century German historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods: ancient, medieval, and modern.[7]
#medieval #english #language

Пікірлер: 651

  • @chumbucketjones9761
    @chumbucketjones97619 ай бұрын

    So the French guy from, 'The Holy Grail', was actually saying it right.

  • @NewtC1998

    @NewtC1998

    9 ай бұрын

    First thing I thought 😄

  • @SoiledWig

    @SoiledWig

    9 ай бұрын

    And the Knights Who Say Ni were merely standing their ground phonetically.

  • @boreopithecus

    @boreopithecus

    8 ай бұрын

    The French guy in the movie says k-niggets, but the ‘gh’ sound was never pronounced like that, it would have been pronounced the way Metatron does it at 2:40, like the ‘ch’ in German ‘Licht’.

  • @retard4urmom

    @retard4urmom

    6 ай бұрын

    Ni ni ni

  • @herbiehusker1889

    @herbiehusker1889

    5 ай бұрын

    your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries!

  • @sceema333
    @sceema3339 ай бұрын

    It's always so funny to me as an Austrian to see how close English used to be to german (Ik English is a Germanic language) and its fascinating to learn about the development of English as someone who speaks German as first language, English as 2nd and also knows a bit of French/latin

  • @goransekulic3671

    @goransekulic3671

    9 ай бұрын

    How about Austrian and German? ;)

  • @sceema333

    @sceema333

    9 ай бұрын

    @@goransekulic3671 what about them? I like learning about them too but that's not the topic so what is your question

  • @akl2k7

    @akl2k7

    9 ай бұрын

    ​@goransekulic3671 They speak German in Austria. It's a form of High German that can be hard to understand for people only accustomed to Standard German (though not as much as Swiss German), but they still consider it a form of German.

  • @hueyiroquois3839

    @hueyiroquois3839

    9 ай бұрын

    Modern English is about 50% Romance.

  • @sceema333

    @sceema333

    9 ай бұрын

    @@hueyiroquois3839 yeah no shit, what are you trying to tell me?

  • @Reziac
    @Reziac9 ай бұрын

    Would be fun to hear modern written English read aloud by someone who speaks Old English, and pronounces to suit.

  • @JMagician.

    @JMagician.

    9 ай бұрын

    I’d give that a shot. I’m far from fluent in Old English, but I know the West Saxon dialect decently. Thing is I don’t have a following, so it’d probably be better if someone like Simon Roper were to do it.

  • @christopherellis2663

    @christopherellis2663

    9 ай бұрын

    They wouldn't have a clue. It's a totally different Orthography æ ð þ ā ē ī ō ū

  • @christopherellis2663

    @christopherellis2663

    9 ай бұрын

    Middle English would be possible

  • @JMagician.

    @JMagician.

    9 ай бұрын

    @@christopherellis2663That’s true. Now that I actually think about it😂 we have many diphthongs, among other aspects, that just wouldn’t work in Old English. There’s really no way to pronounce a word like “good” using Old English.

  • @Reziac

    @Reziac

    9 ай бұрын

    @@JMagician. That might be part of the fun -- discovering all the ways it fails.

  • @gaius_aerister
    @gaius_aerister9 ай бұрын

    This is such a cool video. I'd be awesome to see the same concept applied to romance languages and Latin.

  • @M3nacria

    @M3nacria

    9 ай бұрын

    Same. His perspective as a native Italian speaker would add a lot.

  • @adrianomarchesi3982

    @adrianomarchesi3982

    7 ай бұрын

    I would REALLY love seeing him making this connection between Ancient Latin - Italian - Old and Actual Brazilian Portuguese.

  • @Noblebird02

    @Noblebird02

    6 ай бұрын

    Yeah. I am writing time travel stories, so I have to ask this question (anthropologist who is bilingual in English and Mexican Spanish, so how quickly do they learn to speak Ceasar's Latin)

  • @anjinsantaipan4393

    @anjinsantaipan4393

    13 күн бұрын

    Yes if you could would becgreat

  • @timelston4260
    @timelston42608 ай бұрын

    I'm 61, and I can already hear differences in how the younger generations, especially in power centers of the U.S., like New York and Washington DC, pronounce words. Words like mountain and button, for example, are sometimes pronounced "mowden" and "budden". It drives me crazy, but I do know, since my undergraduate degree was in linguistics, that this is how language changes over time. Since I can tell that in my own lifetime American English has started to change intergenerationally, I have no doubt that it will be a lot different a thousand years from now.

  • @GoofyGoober7582

    @GoofyGoober7582

    5 ай бұрын

    Going back to the roots, eh?

  • @xjdkdndnhzndjfndndnnd5506

    @xjdkdndnhzndjfndndnnd5506

    5 ай бұрын

    I say mountin or mow’in And bu’in

  • @notsocrates9529

    @notsocrates9529

    5 ай бұрын

    You know what grinds my gears as a layperson? It is when I hear people say "hating on", how the heck do I hate onto something? Do all languages get dumber, or more simple as they evolve?

  • @smergthedargon8974

    @smergthedargon8974

    5 ай бұрын

    'murican here Mountain for me is largely the same except the t is a strange "nasal glottal stop".

  • @MaxMustermann-tq3lu

    @MaxMustermann-tq3lu

    5 ай бұрын

    that's mostly a cultural thing, to describe it in one word "niggerification". The way shit is rn the lowest common denominater get's the cultural say, that's why this blight stikes first and hardest in the hoods and ghettos.

  • @ashenen2278
    @ashenen22789 ай бұрын

    There is a video on youtube where the English/British queens Elizabeth I and Elizabeth II speak with their accent from their respective times and make fun of each others accent. Also, interestingly, German had a similar vowel shift like English, but Germans still decided to write everything phonetically (at least much more than the English). And I would love to see more of those videos to get an impression how it would feel if our languages changed

  • @MatPete

    @MatPete

    9 ай бұрын

    Ben Crystal’s video :). There are interesting videos in which he presents so called “original pronunciation” or what Shakespeare’s English probably sounded like. really enjoyable to listen.

  • @oyoo3323

    @oyoo3323

    9 ай бұрын

    More fascinating to that, to me is that High German (but not Low German) also went through a great consonant shift, and that, almost as a mirror to English, it is now the consonants in modern High German which seem to be spelt less phonetically, not vowels (as is in English).

  • @oyoo3323

    @oyoo3323

    9 ай бұрын

    @@MatPete I love sound of it. More than anything though, the way it sounds is definitely most similar to West Country English (which I love the sound of even more), basically proving what was already suspected, that West Country English is the most conservative form of English known (with some debate, if we count Scots as English). Even pronunciation aside, it is noticable that West Country English is also a lot more conservative in terms of grammar and vocabulary too, often using archiac constructions, and in some varieties, even actively retaining archaic pronouns, such as thou/thee and ye/you etc.

  • @MeganMay62442

    @MeganMay62442

    9 ай бұрын

    I really wish they would have updated the spelling, so mostly everything is spelled how it sounds. Would be nice lol.

  • @MatPete

    @MatPete

    9 ай бұрын

    @@MeganMay62442 I am wondering if it’s possible. English spelling is weird but we are used to it, aren’t we? Btw English dialects evolved phonetically in different ways, I think current orthography in spite of seeming outdated remains functional in all versions of the language regardless of quite significant differences in pronunciation.

  • @tomhalla426
    @tomhalla4269 ай бұрын

    I wonder how much recorded sound has flattened the difference between different accents, and stabilized pronunciation. It has been a bit over 130 years.

  • @cahallo5964

    @cahallo5964

    9 ай бұрын

    A looooot particularly in the US

  • @oyoo3323

    @oyoo3323

    9 ай бұрын

    @@cahallo5964 I've noticed. The US in particular, as compared to other English-speaking countries, seems to have lost A LOT of regional variation over time, to the point that now, with the exception of a few standouts (mostly in the east and southeast, where the language began in the area), basically everyone sounds nearly, if not completely identical, stripped of nearly all regional features. I think it's a little sad, actually... To me, the southeastern and eastern accents sound much more melodic and interesting than what most in the country sound like now, with the "generic yank" accent, sounding like something I can't describe as anything but really boring.

  • @akl2k7

    @akl2k7

    9 ай бұрын

    Of course, there are still some sound shifts happening (eg, the Northern Cities Vowel Shift), and there are plenty of dialects despite mass media. Basically, it can be attributed to kids speaking more like their peers at school than their parents a lot of the time.

  • @maxonite

    @maxonite

    5 ай бұрын

    @@oyoo3323There is still distinct accents in the US. You’re just used to hearing many of them through modern media and such so you don’t notice them as much. Side by side, you can easily tell who’s from New Jersey and who’s from California, though

  • @oyoo3323

    @oyoo3323

    5 ай бұрын

    @@maxonite that's just it. It takes the distance from one place to the whole opposite side of the continent to make a difference equally perceptable to most to that of two cities of few dozen km apart in Scotland or Ireland for example. Also, it is a factual truth that almost universally throughout the country regional accents are dying out, in some places faster than others, in others already long gone.

  • @asdfghjkl123asd
    @asdfghjkl123asd5 ай бұрын

    So English sounded exactly how it was written. And when I learned it my "wrong" slavic pronunciation of the words was actually right for medieval times. That's funny.

  • @modern_memory

    @modern_memory

    23 күн бұрын

    Basically. The great vowel shift basically ruined the English language for anyone trying to learn it.

  • @holygooff
    @holygooff9 ай бұрын

    Knecht means servant in Dutch and I think German as well. It's weird that it means something very different in English.

  • @alexj9603

    @alexj9603

    9 ай бұрын

    Yes, in German, too.

  • @blueprairiedog

    @blueprairiedog

    Ай бұрын

    Knights did serve the lord and lady.

  • @danadnauseam
    @danadnauseam6 ай бұрын

    This scenario reminds me of a French film from 1993 called The Visitors. A medieval knight and his servant are transported to modern France. They are described as speaking a mixture of Latin and medieval French. I don't think the /k/ would drop from kitchen. The initial cluster in knight was probably a substantial factor in that change.

  • @stalfithrildi5366

    @stalfithrildi5366

    3 ай бұрын

    A better consonant combination that would change would be "str" like in 'strong' and 'straight'

  • @martabachynsky8545

    @martabachynsky8545

    3 ай бұрын

    @@stalfithrildi5366 It would probably change to "srong" and "srait". I've heard drunk people pronounce it that way because for some reason, they couldn't pronounce the "t" sound, so it's possible that "lazy talkers" would eventually drop the hard sound.

  • @michaelrs8010
    @michaelrs80105 ай бұрын

    This was very interesting. I once heard a demonstration of how the Lord's Prayer would sound 600 years ago in English and I could hardly understand anything. This explains a lot

  • @Bronte866

    @Bronte866

    3 ай бұрын

    I had to read Beowulf” at university. It’s wild! Just as you’re saying! Barely recognizable as English many times. I believe there is one of two existing original copies of Beowulf in the British Museum. Given the age of this story it was incredible to see it. 🇺🇸

  • @egorsozonov7425

    @egorsozonov7425

    Сағат бұрын

    That’s cause Beowulf is pure Old English, before the Norman Conquest and the ensuing Frenchization of English. I.e. the diff is not due to an evolutionary process but due to a revolutionary, violent linguistic change. Middle English is much closer to modern

  • @Unpainted_Huffhines
    @Unpainted_Huffhines9 ай бұрын

    Yes, this topic has always been one I've found fascinating. As an English speaker, I speak a little Spanish and German. I've always wondered what it must be like to speak a language with a very close sibling language. Spanish-Portuguese obviously cones to mind, but really all the Romance languages that aren't French or Romanian sound similar to my ear. I feel the same with Dutch and German, but apparently, German speakers think the same but in reverse, that Dutch sounds more like English than German. And what a Latin speaker would think of Romance languages is very interesting to. I will eagerly look forward to your breakdowns on the subjects.

  • @SaintJames14

    @SaintJames14

    9 ай бұрын

    Dutch sounds like English being spoke by a crazy man with wet socks in his mouth to me. Like I can almost detect sense but there's too many vowels. I think that's the closest English can get if you don't include esoteric and distant accents

  • @smallhelmonabigship3524

    @smallhelmonabigship3524

    8 ай бұрын

    Find a video to watch of a person speaking Frisian. It sounds like they are speaking English only you can't understand what they are saying.

  • @Unpainted_Huffhines

    @Unpainted_Huffhines

    8 ай бұрын

    @@smallhelmonabigship3524 I've been watching the "Friesan Horses" channel for years. A word or two, every once in awhile a string of words. Even if it "sounds like they're speaking English", if you can't understand it, it's not really the same as Romance speakers communicating.

  • @smallhelmonabigship3524

    @smallhelmonabigship3524

    8 ай бұрын

    @@Unpainted_Huffhines I never said Frisian was a sister language to English. However, many linguists will say that Frisian is perhaps the closest foreign language to English. The closest thing English might have like the relationships in the Romance languages would be some of the more obscure dialects of English. They can be exceedingly difficult to understand at first, until one gets used to the way words are pronounced. Even then, they can be a challenge.

  • @Unpainted_Huffhines

    @Unpainted_Huffhines

    8 ай бұрын

    @@smallhelmonabigship3524 it _is_ a sister language, and is very similar to Old English. It's definitely the closest related extant language to Modern English. But English has undergone drastic changes since the days Old English, in grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation, to the point where it's _mostly_ unintelligible to its closest relative. Had the Normans never invaded, and English had been left to itself and continued to evolve on its own, it would probably be mutually intelligible with Frisian and Dutch, to a similar extent as Romance languages.

  • @gazlator
    @gazlator9 ай бұрын

    Absolutely brilliant, Raff - fascinating stuff. I just can't help but imagine that if someone from Chaucer's time did appear in a pub in 2023, there'd be a lot of hilarity as they tried to make sense of a guy's dialect that probably sounds like he came from somewhere in the deepest darkest west Midlands or Norfolk!!

  • @litigioussociety4249
    @litigioussociety42499 ай бұрын

    I would like to see a longer video on the Great Vowel Shift. I only know a little about it.

  • @WGGplant

    @WGGplant

    6 ай бұрын

    simon roper did a video on it. it's pretty thorough, if you like his style. his videos are often slide-heavy

  • @Bagginsess
    @Bagginsess9 ай бұрын

    Yes definitely would like a deep dive video on the vowel shifts. Thanks for this one :)

  • @stevenschilizzi4104
    @stevenschilizzi41049 ай бұрын

    This is a really great idea and so original! Brilliant! Yes, please do more of these.

  • @allexanderchristian3873
    @allexanderchristian38738 ай бұрын

    Keep doing your great work mate. Good quality content. Cheers!

  • @iberius9937
    @iberius99379 ай бұрын

    One of your most interesting videos! I daresay the evolution of English is one of my favorite topics. For all watching, I recommend going to A.Z. Foreman's channel for not only excellent recitations in Medieval and Early Modern English, but in other languages as well. He is an excellent linguist with an ear for phonological accuracy and historical phonetics at that.

  • @sarahrosen4985

    @sarahrosen4985

    9 ай бұрын

    Thanks for the recommendation!

  • @fatalisticbunny
    @fatalisticbunny9 ай бұрын

    I really like your content. I also appreciate the balanced and reasonable approach you bring to the topics you cover.

  • @Hellfire_Combustion
    @Hellfire_Combustion7 ай бұрын

    Brilliant! I learned so much in such a short video. Love it.

  • @Procopius464
    @Procopius4646 ай бұрын

    Someone from the medieval period would think we are speaking a totally different language. I imagine they would react to hearing it in a similar way to how a modern person reacts to hearing middle period or old English. In both cases you have to be told that it's English. It's the same degree of difference.

  • @emilstorgaard9642

    @emilstorgaard9642

    2 ай бұрын

    They are two different languages after all

  • @harrynewiss4630

    @harrynewiss4630

    2 ай бұрын

    Middle English and Old English are very different. An educated modern English speaker can read middle English to a considerable extent, but will understand little of Old English.

  • @harrynewiss4630

    @harrynewiss4630

    2 ай бұрын

    No they are stages of the same language@@emilstorgaard9642

  • @KnightofWine
    @KnightofWine9 ай бұрын

    I remember I read some medieval Portuguese "trovadores" in literature classes and it was pretty alien to me, especially when I think about how would be the pronunciation.

  • @ElmerEscoto
    @ElmerEscoto9 ай бұрын

    Fascinating stuff, Raffaello! Thank you for teaching us so much!

  • @andrewa8765
    @andrewa87659 ай бұрын

    Would love to see a video comparison of ecclesiastical Latin and classical Latin, throwing in the Italian as well.

  • @lucyvicious6564
    @lucyvicious65649 ай бұрын

    Great video. It was fascinating how German medieval English sounded. I'm definitely using that as a discriptor.

  • @marcofaustinelli7010
    @marcofaustinelli70105 ай бұрын

    Darn interesting, and explained very well. Subscribed on the spot. Looking forward to the GVS video.

  • @lelandstottlemeyer8355
    @lelandstottlemeyer83559 ай бұрын

    I’d love to hear more on this! All the ideas you mentioned sound very interesting!

  • @luncius_
    @luncius_9 ай бұрын

    Great video, I would love a full in depth video on the great vowel shift. I often hear linguists talk about it, but it seems to be mentioned in passing more so for many edutainment channels.

  • @allisonwade
    @allisonwade9 ай бұрын

    The most curious thing is that the words spelling didn't change along with the pronunciation and this makes things even more tricky for people that want to learn English (especially us Italians that tend to read the words as we write them :D)

  • @angeldude101

    @angeldude101

    9 ай бұрын

    I like to describe written Modern English as just written Middle English and that actually written Modern English doesn't actually exist. The closest we have to written Modern English honestly might genuinely be _internet slang._ Of course learning English is hard, because you're basically learning two separate languages; one for writing and one for speaking.

  • @allisonwade

    @allisonwade

    9 ай бұрын

    @@angeldude101 if they actually decided to conform the spelling with the pronunciation a lot of people would be very confused for a while 😂

  • @happywithdrawal
    @happywithdrawal7 ай бұрын

    This video is the PERFECT reference and exactly what I needed! I'm writing something where a Middle English speaker needs to learn Modern English, and the intricacies you described in this video covered EXACTLY what I needed to know! Thanks so much for making this video!

  • @_synne

    @_synne

    5 ай бұрын

    I would LOVE to read whatever you're writing.

  • @eduardolima5495
    @eduardolima54954 ай бұрын

    This video is awesome!!! Never knew those changes details, really impressive!!

  • @sceema333
    @sceema3339 ай бұрын

    Amazing video! Frankly an ingenious idea to do this comparison (idk if you came up w it yourself, to me you did either way) would love to see more videos using this analogy

  • @metatronacademy

    @metatronacademy

    9 ай бұрын

    Thanks and yes it was my idea :)

  • @eh1702
    @eh17029 ай бұрын

    This Scottish “i” you didn’t get quite right. The ay/aye, rise/rice distinction is not like “raise” or “hame” It “pulls in” more. When I listen to IPA charts I can’t find anything “close” enough. It seems to be represented as a diphtong, too, but it isn’t, or else it is an extremely rapid one. When I was little, before I went to school, I had never heard RP, which was more “Queen’s English” in those days too. My mum started putting in this radio show “Listen With Mother” so she could get a nap (she worked shifts). Apparently I cracked her up with my incantation of their intro which went, “Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin.” I had no clue what she was saying, but we all like a chorus, so I would chant along, “Ahyew seetinkomfta blee? Thon weel big een!” (I thought the last bit last bit meant “those-there well big eyes”.) It wasn’t too long before I started getting bits and pieces of the stories but apparently I would solemnly mimic or babble the sound of a lot of it. i would be about four. At six or seven I had not yet seen moving pictures. My intro was at a neighbour’s house, and I can tell you exactly what someone speaking 1960s RP English sounded like to someone with a more conservative form. (I realised much later it was Richard Baker reading the BBC evening news). It sounds like this: Gudeev-neeng. TaDAHyee! !een PAH leemint, thee bleh, bleh, bleh, bleh-bleh, !ent MEEstah! WEELsan! SIGHed! bleh-bleh-bleh, bleh-bleh, bleh! As well as vowels having a very different quality, the barking glottal-onset of words that start with vowels, the random LOUWWD words, the drawling, and also the disappearing / intrusive R of RP English were literally the strangest things I had ever heard.

  • @Ms.AisforAwesome

    @Ms.AisforAwesome

    4 ай бұрын

    It really is weird when you think about it. Mid-Atlantic in America is super weird too. The fact that all these Americans decided to start speaking like that for radio and then in the talkies and then it just kept on as though ANYONE actually spoke like that... Crazy.

  • @samtemporary
    @samtemporary9 ай бұрын

    Yes, yes, and yes! I'd love a full video on the GVS!!!

  • @warrenstutely7151
    @warrenstutely71514 ай бұрын

    Wonderful programme. Many thanks

  • @MrFirecasters
    @MrFirecasters4 ай бұрын

    Wonderful! Definitely up for more videos 😊

  • @ZachariahJ
    @ZachariahJ7 ай бұрын

    Literally just watched a video by Simon Roper who said the word 'nightingale' as it was pronounced at specific points between about 1200 and the present. By about 1750, it was recognisable - before then, if you didn't know the context of a sentence, most people wouldn't understand it.

  • @himfalathiel4012
    @himfalathiel40129 ай бұрын

    This is so interesting! I definitely want to see more videos about this.

  • @julianneheindorf5757
    @julianneheindorf57573 ай бұрын

    Wow, this is a great video. Thank you so much for your detailed explanations. Languages and the evolution of languages is a fascinating subject.

  • @raydail3825
    @raydail38258 ай бұрын

    Yes, I would like to hear a video about language evolution (i.e., English) & the Romance languages. Thank you so much!

  • @ashenshugar8650
    @ashenshugar86508 ай бұрын

    A big problem in communication would also (obviously) be conceptual gaps. Try explaining a computer or a telephone to a 14th century English peasant. The vocabulary issue would compounded by the fact that no comparable words existed in his lexicon.

  • @avilacanario
    @avilacanarioАй бұрын

    First time on here. You are brilliant. I've got on my list to watch.

  • @StanGraham1
    @StanGraham19 ай бұрын

    Great work Metatron! I love all that I have learned from you. Keep up the great work!😊

  • @DarkSamus100
    @DarkSamus1009 ай бұрын

    Interesting concept, and nice video. I would be curious to see the same principal with others languages. That part of a medieval knight being sent into the present, and his reaction of the language change(and possibly other things as well), reminds me of the French comedy movie, "Les visiteurs"(1993), starring Jean Reno and Christian Clavier, where a medieval Knight is sent by mistake into the early 90's. Fun movie, I recommend it, and who knows, maybe it could inspire you to make video on it. Anyway, thank you this video, and also for your others videos on your different channels. Have a good day, and bless you. And the same to those who take the time to read this.

  • @user-tz9jb4ug4i
    @user-tz9jb4ug4iАй бұрын

    What a great video. Thanks. 💕

  • @gesslr
    @gesslr5 ай бұрын

    This was fascinating. Thank you.

  • @robertjustinoff845
    @robertjustinoff8455 ай бұрын

    Very interesting, very educational video. Thanks.

  • @Keegerator
    @Keegerator4 ай бұрын

    I loved this video. It's so interesting to consider how much language has and will change. I really enjoyed hearing actual examples in succession to best hear the difference. I would love if in future, similar videos, the words could be phonetically or otherwise displayed on the screen for a visual processing component to the information!

  • @kaiserwilhelm5562
    @kaiserwilhelm55629 ай бұрын

    Definitely interested in the Latin to Italian concept

  • @LurkerDaBerzerker
    @LurkerDaBerzerker9 ай бұрын

    I admit, not all of the videos from this channel draw me, but this one was an instant click.

  • @baeber
    @baeber9 ай бұрын

    yes I'd be interested in more of the feeling videos. I enjoyed this one

  • @MadNumForce
    @MadNumForce9 ай бұрын

    Excellent video concept! You should really develop it, not only with some generalities about the shifts in pronounciation, and some example words, but with some classical text read in both the old fashion and the future fashion. That would be astoundingly untertaining and bewildering.

  • @Jacky9071
    @Jacky90719 ай бұрын

    Fascinating, I really enjoyed this video!

  • @metatronacademy

    @metatronacademy

    9 ай бұрын

    Glad you enjoyed it!

  • @MeganMay62442
    @MeganMay624429 ай бұрын

    Yes I would love more videos on this topic, the Latin one would be cool! And some lessons on Old English would be awesome. I took one course on it at University, and it was really interesting. Unfortunately, I did not have a lot of time to dedicate to that class and didn't really get to learn much so it would be great to delve into it some more!

  • @bogdancocarlea
    @bogdancocarlea3 ай бұрын

    Very interesting. Thank you.

  • @brycetheviewer9986
    @brycetheviewer99868 ай бұрын

    this "feel like a person from ... century" idea is great❤

  • @Octa9on
    @Octa9on9 ай бұрын

    wonderful video! I'd love for you to make a video where the entire script is in this hypothetical future English, just to hear how it would sound as a whole

  • @jhonwask
    @jhonwask5 ай бұрын

    As a fan of studying languages, especially English. I thank you for this video. I'm still upset about The Great Vowel Shift. A perfectly fine English became vulgar, but today's Modern English can be just as beautiful, if one takes the time to pronounce it and use it correctly.

  • @Hawaiian_Shirt_guy
    @Hawaiian_Shirt_guy9 ай бұрын

    Very cool, and yes, you should definitely make more videos of that type. The only creator I know making quality and really interesting historical lingustics content is nativlang, and his vids are short and he doesn't upload frequently. A video examining the changes from latin to spanish (or another romance language), or a video in which you essentially create a "future English" or show how North American and British english through sound changes could become incomprehensible in 2000 years if they followed the same trajectories as, say, German and Dutch in the last 2000 years, would be very interesting.

  • @chazlewis8114
    @chazlewis81149 ай бұрын

    Great vid. I'd love to see a comparison between modern Spanish and medieval Spanish.

  • @AngraMainiiu
    @AngraMainiiu9 ай бұрын

    It's funny cause as an American, I too pronounce "People" as PAYple and not PEEple.

  • @hameddadgour
    @hameddadgour20 күн бұрын

    Great examples!

  • @desmondhughes9143
    @desmondhughes91434 ай бұрын

    Loved this video

  • @susanheath5467
    @susanheath54672 ай бұрын

    Love that you are so knowledgeable! Yes please, anything on comparisons, developments and change . Never really understood the GVS. I love knowing how languages work. I am fluent in English and some grasp of French and German and wish I know Italian and Latin.

  • @roberthamilton9263
    @roberthamilton92639 ай бұрын

    Fantastic!!!!! David and his son Ben Crystal introduced me to how Shakespeare would have sounded. This was mod. English ... but the difference between OP and RP was amazing for me to hear!!!! How you resurrect these old pronunciations is magical to me (also I grew up in Boston: You can't pahk ya cah in Hahvad yahd ... the guahd won't let ya in without a parkin pass so pahk in the squaha, put some quatahs in the metah and come up to my apahament. (Another interesting note, I'm dyslexic so I will see words as I hear them!!! Wensday, Febuary, Lincon, etc. -- once I know how they are spelled, I see them as they really are spelled.)

  • @15thTimeLord
    @15thTimeLord4 ай бұрын

    Its good explaination for me as kind of a beginner of understanding this, i have spotty knowledge, but the perspective between the two times seems helpful.

  • @jonhaas640
    @jonhaas6404 ай бұрын

    A vid on gvs is a must, my friend!

  • @iberius9937
    @iberius99379 ай бұрын

    Please: A similar video for both Latin AND Greek, si tempus spatiumque conceditur (if time and space allow/yield).

  • @ravenkamalioneplus
    @ravenkamalioneplus9 ай бұрын

    I always enjoy your videos and with every video I learn something new. Thank you for producing awesome videos.

  • @giveitaswingoutdoorswithsm2901
    @giveitaswingoutdoorswithsm29015 ай бұрын

    Every generation puts a twist on language! Interesting channel 👍

  • @markw4206
    @markw42063 ай бұрын

    Brilliant. I knew about the GVS but I couldn't imagine how you would simulate it in reverse from this hypothetical medieval person.

  • @sebastianpolo6271
    @sebastianpolo62719 ай бұрын

    Imagine people are able to watch 1000 year old videos in the future and are like : ouch Gaw, HeAi don’t Undarstein.

  • @WojciechPrzyborowski
    @WojciechPrzyborowski5 ай бұрын

    What a great mini lecture! Thank you. And I really appreciate comprehensive description below. Would you consider doing a video about an American accent? Is it similar to anything in an old English? Our is it something completely new? Where did it come from?

  • @VTPSTTU
    @VTPSTTU9 ай бұрын

    Thanks for the video. I've experienced some of that with extreme southern accents. I grew up in eastern Tennessee in the USA, but my parents pushed me very hard to have no accent. As a result, I sometimes noticed big differences between the way I said things and the way people around me said things.

  • @0harris0
    @0harris09 ай бұрын

    8:04 - that is literally how some Australian and South African accents say it! (I'm British, love accents..) a couple of your other "future" pronunciations sounded a bit Birmingham or Liverpool (those accents are pretty radical when strong!)

  • @danieldover3745
    @danieldover37455 ай бұрын

    Man, it's already changing. People have pointed out that some vowels are changing ("caught" and "cot"), and there's terms like "LOL" being verbally spoken rather than just written that remind me of the evolution of "Okay." I'm not especially old, but once some linguistics have pointed out how language is changing, I can't unsee it. I'd love to see a video on a hypothetical evolution of English

  • @frustrateduser9933
    @frustrateduser99339 ай бұрын

    More great vowel shift videos please and more about languages

  • @hashcosmos2181
    @hashcosmos21819 ай бұрын

    I surely need a video about the GVS made by you, Metatron senpai 😊👏🏼

  • @divicospower9112
    @divicospower91129 ай бұрын

    It's a knight (old pronounciation) - English man = so weird - German man = of course I know, keep going.

  • @GiulioBalestrier
    @GiulioBalestrier9 ай бұрын

    I love this video. I'd liked to hear a text read in high medieval English.

  • @pattobyo
    @pattobyo9 ай бұрын

    It would be really cool to hear your analysis of modern and some older form of Japanese. I think even comparing the differences between now and pre meiji era Japanese could be interesting.

  • @wolfcryerke
    @wolfcryerke9 ай бұрын

    Love you using the example of "knight" as in Dutch we have the word "knecht" still in use (so the middle pronunciation of your example). It refers to either a young boy or someone who is an aid to someone else (so the old meaning of knight)

  • @Philipp.of.Swabia

    @Philipp.of.Swabia

    9 ай бұрын

    Same in Germany, Knecht means „Servant“, we also have words like „Edelknecht“ which means Noble servant or „Kriegsknecht“ meaning War Servant.

  • @wolfcryerke

    @wolfcryerke

    9 ай бұрын

    @@Philipp.of.Swabia cool, we don't have those others as far as I'm aware. But I don't think they are used often anymore? "Knecht" is still used a lot in certain dialects around here, both meanings.

  • @Philipp.of.Swabia

    @Philipp.of.Swabia

    9 ай бұрын

    @@wolfcryerke no, they are only used in a „Medieval“ context. Knecht is still used, in several forms, now at days mostly as an insult though. We like to say „Du Knecht“ to men/Boys if they act like absolute Muppets. But the word itself in a normal use is quite an old one and not that often used in a serious context.

  • @lauradekeyzer1945

    @lauradekeyzer1945

    9 ай бұрын

    @@Philipp.of.Swabia Knight is a relatively 'new' english word. In old English they used the word 'ridere' or 'rider' which is more or less the same as the Dutch word 'ridder' and the German word 'ritter'.

  • @Philipp.of.Swabia

    @Philipp.of.Swabia

    9 ай бұрын

    @@lauradekeyzer1945 I think that one might come from the Scandinavians though, as in Sweden they say Riddare and in Norway and Denmark Ridder, very similar to Swabian German too though, where the German word of Ritter is pronounced (and if written as pronounced) „Ridder“ as well.

  • @dylanlobley8680
    @dylanlobley86805 ай бұрын

    Those things you said at the end are all great ideas and you should definitely do them if you haven't already (I know I am a couple months late).

  • @Clothmom1
    @Clothmom19 ай бұрын

    Yes, yes, yes to a video about the Great Vowel Shift! 👍

  • @xenomorph6599
    @xenomorph65999 ай бұрын

    Yes Please do a dedicated video. Also could you compare modern day japanese to an older age of japanese?

  • @hgr.7857
    @hgr.78576 ай бұрын

    W🤯W. New sub well-earned. 👍, or is it "leek", or "Lee", or "lay" now?

  • @aoefsmrap
    @aoefsmrap9 ай бұрын

    I would like more videos on vowel shifts.

  • @IosuamacaMhadaidh
    @IosuamacaMhadaidh7 ай бұрын

    I heard the surname Knyvett came about from Norman French speakers who had trouble with pronunciation of the "c/k" sound the Ænglisc word for knight had in the 2nd (or 3rd)syllable.

  • @matthewheald8964
    @matthewheald89649 ай бұрын

    Dude, I've been doing a thought experiment lately on how future English might sound & this whole video was so timely for me it was awesome. Would love to watch ancient Romans flip their crap at your small everyday conversations XD. Or really any Romance language(s).

  • @tallsock3852
    @tallsock38524 ай бұрын

    when ever I think about this stuff my mind always goes to the way "Alright" seems to becoming shortened to "Ight" or "Hello" to "E'oh".

  • @okulusanomali9716
    @okulusanomali97169 ай бұрын

    YES! Please make videos re: Classical Latin vs Italian (et cetera), that would be super fun, I've always been intrigued with the way Latin morphed into the Romance languages!

  • @theredknight9314
    @theredknight93149 ай бұрын

    This is mind blowing

  • @g.v.6450
    @g.v.64504 ай бұрын

    I would really like to see a presentation like this on Greek pronunciation across time (and space). Ευχαριστώ πολύ!

  • @manuelramospetruchena4620
    @manuelramospetruchena46209 ай бұрын

    Oh, please do. Make that video. I struggle with some students who are Spanish natives, and they try to pronounce certain words in English. I understand how difficult it can be to change the pronunciation of a letter from Spanish to English, especially given some vowel combination can be really tricky. And it's sometimes troubling to explain that. Thank you for this video!!

  • @anonymm3152
    @anonymm31529 ай бұрын

    Could you make a video comparing the pitch accents of different languages, for example Swedish, japanese, and turkish? Also maybe contrasting them with true tonal languages like thai or mandarin.

  • @keithkannenberg7414
    @keithkannenberg74149 ай бұрын

    I find the GVS fascinating. I'd love to watch a vid on that subject.

  • @Taltosmaster
    @Taltosmaster9 ай бұрын

    Fascinating topic indeed, I too always wondered such things. If you feel like having a challenge, please try to compare how the Hungarian language changed. There were quite a few changes in the past 500 years - many of which were a result of a country-wide effort to modernise and standardise the language.

  • @blanska
    @blanska8 ай бұрын

    You have such an interesting accent :O

  • @hoi-polloi1863
    @hoi-polloi186324 күн бұрын

    Hi Metatron, lovely video! I believe we *need* the GVS video, as well as the Latin ones. A thought... maybe combine the two: start with how does it feel, then go into the mechanics. Finally, could you explore the transition from Old English to Middle English? I read a story once where a Celtic person who knows Old English travels forward in time and get annoyed that she has to learn English twice!

  • @angieoxford7092
    @angieoxford70929 ай бұрын

    This makes me think of the word been. Here in the southern US we pronounce it as bin but in Canada they pronounce it like bean. Due to it’s spelling, ee, the Canadian model seems more accurate to me & I would like to see it evolves as such.

  • @kikidevine694

    @kikidevine694

    9 ай бұрын

    Pen (what you write with) in English is pin in New Zealand. A pin (that you fix fabric with) in English is a pun/pen in New Zealand

  • @angeldude101

    @angeldude101

    9 ай бұрын

    I think that /i/ and /ɪ/ are actually equivalent in this context and both are valid pronunciations, with some accents maybe favoring one over the other. I'm fairly certain that I hear and maybe even use both on a regular basis depending on context and how much emphasis is put on the word.