Added: 3 years ago
From: ProfASAr
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  • In Low Saxon (earlier Old Saxon) we use today the same pronunciation as in Old Norse/Icelandic 'ek' but the spelling is different and looks like 'ik' or 'ick'. The word 'rice' is in Low Saxon today pronounced as 'rieK', modern english 'rich'. I don't understand the pronunciation 'rih-tche' because the 'ch' in the word is spoken like the french 'ch' what is in high german 'sch' and modern english 'sh' and rarely the 'ch/s(c)h' is in use today in Low Saxon.

  • I think it sounds creepy, but it's interesting to know how english started off

  • ic = ik or itch?

  • @AlienGrowthSpurt

    Do you say it in anglish or french?

  • @AlienGrowthSpurt

    It's pronounced like the former (i.e. 'ik'), which contradicts the intervocalic hard 'c' pronounce like the latter (e.g. 'rice' as 'rih-tche'). Often times you may see a dot or even an apostrophe above 'ic' to denote its odd qualities, as it is closer to the Old Norse 'ek'.

  • Somewhere between German, English + Danish.

  • Thank you! I've forgotten so very much, this was great to see! Can't wait to see the other videos.

  • old english sounds a bit like dutch and german some written words are also the same back then which have changed now

  • hahah wtf ?

  • Thank you so much, Prof, that was fascinating!!

  • That was creepy. 

  • lol , very lot words same with Slavic ,e.g. swin =свинья[swini'a]in russian.I belive , what all indoeuropean people , has one language, if you will learn other indoeuropean languages , you 'll understand)

    look these several words in another indoeuropean(aryan)languages: door ,tree,cat,brother,sister,mothe­r,father,goose,egg.name,I am.

  • brilliant!

    

  • I really hate the modern language that young people spill over the internet. I'm 18, and I have great respect for our language. I do not want it to be replaced by 'lol omg rofl lmao.' I've also noticed that 'you're' is hardly used anymore, will it be replaced?

  • @sunonthewindow lol wut? u mad bro?

  • the most commonly used words are generally from old english, but english borrowed a lot from old french in the 11-13th centuries. i grew up in quebec, english and french are both my first languages basically, and i'd always wondered why they were so similar til i found this out! it has also borrowed heavily from other languages, seeing as how the english colonized the whole world in the last 500 yrs. it's a very rich language bcz of that.

  • this is so interesting! It seems to sound a bit like german, and bit like latin. fascinating!

  • fascinating, i've been interested in how languages evolve and studying ancient languages is incredibly interesting!

  • I love how northern Germanic this sounds!!

  • Those letters that you think are thorns might actually by wynns(Captial: Ƿ Lower Case: ƿ).

    The wynn was a letter used in Old English, which makes the same sound as a Modern English W.

  • What I learned today: The people that lived in England during the 5th century spoke elvish. Awesome.

  • @Danno1850 elvish is based on celtic languages not germanic

  • @TranceExplosion no Tolkien based it on Finnish

  • @Danno1850

    As TranceExplosion said, Elvish is based on Celtic languages, specifically Welsh (as far as I know). That's nothing like Old English.

  • @MarvellousMuffin Sindarin is based on Welsh, Quenya is based on Finnish

  • Arespollo@, what givesyou the right to state that. This person has a far superior knowledge of english than you ever will. English is his mother tounge.

    You know the american accent is alot closer to the general british accent three hundred years ago, than the current english accent.

  • @servercabinet what si this current engis language? there are more accents britain than their are languages in europe, there is no single accent, and most of the accents are over 200 years old as most formed in victorian times

  • After doing a lot of travelling and watching foreign movies, English does sound very similar to Swedish and Norweigen, and since I have lived in Spain I have noticed why Americans pronounce some words like they do.

  • So now we have an American teaching us Olde English when they cannot even manage NEW English! Please spare me! :)

  • @aresapollo2004 The English do enough to butcher the language, I think. Still can't understand a word chavs are saying, innit?

  • @aresapollo2004 well maybe Michael Caine would do a better job, or the maybe the pikey from Snatch?

  • @aresapollo2004

    Oh get over yourself. The British gained their accent over the past few hundred years. American's don't speak "NEW" English (whatever that is), they speak American English. English is a mongrel language that borrows heavily from many different languages (and now borrows from American English). Just like every other language on Earth, English has localized dialects. This American knows more about your own language than you do.

  • @aresapollo2004

    Oh get over yourself. The British gained their accent over the past few hundred years. Americans don't speak "NEW" English (whatever that is), they speak American English. English is a mongrel language that borrows heavily from many different languages (and is now borrowing from American English). Just like every other language on Earth, English has localized dialects. This American knows more about your own language than you do.

  • @aresapollo2004 what the hells new english? do you mean american english?

  • @TranceExplosion Don't you mean british english...?

  • It's interesting to learn that old english had the letters 'Æ Ø Å' in its alphabet. It's sad english does'nt have them anymore! We're sitting up here in the north, quite alone, still using those letters.

  • thumbs up, man. u really worked hard to learn what u know, good job. u deserve praise

  • I've heard from other Old english sources on the internet that the first person singular pronoun is pronounced "ich" and not "ik," like in Dutch. But I assume no one is sure how it was truly pronounced.

  • lol, i'm icelandic and i can understand a little bit of this because it's a little bit like icelandic

  • @audveltadmuna And I'm norwegian and can also understand quite much of this actually. How cool is that...

  • Olde English sounds pretty. It's interesting to see the evolution of languages over time. I can see how much of Modern English comes from both Latin and the Germanic Languages.

  • @MrMatt9009 Funny, because Old English wouldn't have ever been spelled with an "e" on the end, not even back then. The unnecessary "e" on the ends of words came after the influence of French into the English language from the Normans. Since Old English is from periods before French influence, it wouldn't be spelled that way.

  • Alex, why is it that Old english is so different from modern?

  • I'd love to learn Old English, but I found it really funny when you read the text.

  • I`m come from Norway, and when I look at the grammar and structure of Old English, it seems actually quite a lot like the Norwegian language. Maybe I will teach Old English some day.

  • I`m come from Norway, and when I look at the grammar and structure of Old English, it seems actually quite a lot like the norwegian language. Maybe I will teach Old English some day.

  • now.. whisper it and your speaking elf-ish..

  • Ich reise (though reise now means journey, earlier it meant to rise), und ich fahre zu meinem Vater, und ich sage ihm: [lose it there]

    I rise, and I ride to my Father and tell him

    I got that out of it xDD, I'm trying!!

  • Hey, do u know how the language change ??

    someone reply plz :)

  • @EmilyRules971

    You mean how it the English managed to change so much? I think its because, once it got to England it was isolated from the rest of the Germanic languages. And England had the most contact with France, so English changed a lot to become more like French, as you can see today.

    American English got made the way it is in almost the same fashion. Since it was separated from England it got different slangs and such, making it a whole new subsection on English.

    Hope that helped. xD

  • @Kivs01 french you serious?

  • @EmilyRules971 because of the godamn normans

  • Hey, do you know how the language changed from Old English to Modern English ???

    Someone reply plzzze. :)

  • Professor Arguelles, I'm currently writing a research paper on the origin and development of high English, and am slightly confused about the origins of Anglo-Saxon. From what I've read, it came about from the intermixing of the Jutes, Saxons and Angles; does this mean it was a creole or semicreole made up of these tongues? Is there any way of knowing?

  • holy....... woa what a damn big change...

  • I can understand it a little, since I'm dutch, and for example 'ic secge him' is just like our 'ik zeg hem'. But it sounds really strange, like a mix of icelandic, latin and dutch.

    But if this hadn't changed over time, I think learning english would have been much easier for me.

  • @LivesOnStars

    'ic secge him' is 'ich sage ihm' in german. I'm always astonished how similar the vocabulary between our languages is. I wonder if back then the Anglo-Saxons would have had any problems understanding other tribes like the Proto-Dutch or Proto-Germans.

  • @0rganixmatter According to some, they wouldn't have had any trouble understanding Old Norse, if that helps.

  • And of course, there is Scandinavian influence due to the Viking invasions of the early middle ages.

  • You can really hear the Latin influence on the language at this point. The earliest forms of Anglo-Saxon were speculated to have been much similar to Old Saxon spoken in Continental Germany, thus making it akin to Dutch and Frisian (Old Frisian and Anglo-Saxon were said to mutually intelligible). The language eventually took on Latin characteristics due to the Clergy and Christianization of the Saxon peoples in England, Celtic characteristics because of contacts with the Britons

  • I see many similarities to Scandinavian. Kind of cool. The Vikings had a huge inpact on the english language

  • @Pusimjau just because it sounds similar doesn't mean that its because of scandinavian influence.

  • @redcoatsrule There definitely was Scandinavian influence on Old English from the 9th century and later. Not to mention both Old Norse and Old English had the same ancestor in the first place. Some people think that Old Norse and Old English would have been mutually intelligible.  They had a similar grammar.

  • dude the cimbri had the oldest germanic languege

  • sounds like welsh

  • @gocymru sounds nothing like welsh and besides we don't know what it really sounded like cause we don't have voice recordings from the time.

  • 16 people didnt need the translation and speak old english already

  • Modern English: Good Day Sir!

    Old English: Godlif Daeg Leof!

    Future English: OMG LKE GD DAY BRO! LOL ROFL! :)

  • @D00mnukem Actually, I believe that's incorrect. When using informal speech, (suggested by the use of the word "bro"), the LOL LMAO (pronounced lawllmaow) conjugation is more fitting.

  • @D00mnukem more like 0mg l1K3 h1 br0 101 r0fL

  • @D00mnukem if this happens, someone please shoot me in the face.

  • @D00mnukem no offence, but i think it sounds more like "Gōdne dæg hlaford!" Leof means something like "beloved, darling, dear". the word 'lord' comes directly from O.E. word 'hlaford'

  • @D00mnukem Idiocracy comes true!

  • @D00mnukem I love it.

  • old english texts mainly come from west saxon and the "g" before "e" should be a palatal sound "j" and not a velar. /jegaderode/ and /jewilnode/, for example. ( j as the y in yell)

    Your idea of reading texts in ancient languages is just amazing, bravo.

  • ....This is really interesting.

  • Wow... Old English sounds beautiful...

  • Thank you for this.

  • I think the c is meant to be pronounced as a k. Since old english has no k in it's alphabet this makes sense. Actually if you trace back the words like ic and spræc well you have them in Modern Dutch where it is ik and spraak both with a k sound.

  • Do they sell bibles in the old english language?

  • @infinitylord08 no because the anglo saxons didnt belive in christanity back then

  • Is it possibly to buy bibles in the old english lanuage?

  • that was so cool! i understand frisian and i jumped to the part that he started talking. then i realised it was about the ''the lost son'' from the bible and i understood like 30% of it!

  • Thanks for this, I wanted to show my daughter a bit about what Old English might of sounded like. The sound is quite unique.

  • I'm Frisian but I recognise allot of words in here like

    Libbende : Libjende (living)

    Folgode : Folgjende (following)

    Swin : Swyn (Swine)

    heolde : Hâlde (hold)

    Ic : Ik (me)

    hine : Hinne (to/towards)

    aeton : iten (eat/eating)

    Nice to see that someone is translating en explaining languages.. good job!

  • Imagine enlish in the year 3000 . People would need subtiltes to watch movies from the 1900's.

  • @tigerboyX And just think about it. That would be f**king awesome. This is why I believe any movie should be preserved. Sure they might be crap now, but 500 years from now they'll be ancient relics of an older time.

  • @Hotshotter3000 I'm pretty sure people in 2510 will laugh at the movies we watch today. We can't watch movies in the 1500's. Would the been nice watching video footage from 1510.

  • @tigerboyX The world probably wouldn't survive to year 3000. There are so many reasons why I don't have any obligations of explaining. But anyways if it did* I would be interested in travelling into the future.

  • @tigerboyX there were very few movies in the 1900's

  • @yuriythebest um actually most movies are from the 1900's...unless you were thinking of 1900-1910

  • @tigerboyX lmao well thought

  • @tigerboyX. From the few films made over the last couple of decades I watch on TV, subtitles are needed now. Have you tried to understand what some of those women are saying? To me it is a babble of nasal and adenoidal sounds with no meaning. But there again I speak South of England English and believe me a great many from the Blair/ Brown education system are hard to understand.

    Tense your glottis and pronounce= little, brittle, battle,bottle etc. It comes as if the ""tt"s are missing.

  • @tigerboyX

    its the same not many people of my vintage (born 1994) can fully understand old books wirtten 100 years or 200 years ago. well its different but after you read it a few times you normaly understand :-(

    its very sad but many words who are common for old arent even known by young people .but language changes just like people change.

  • @tigerboyX nope. they wouldnt need to. Back then, Language was really really fluid. It changed by generations. We see languages stable out and become very standard with the evolution of books. therefore, the english spoken in 3000 will be very similar, except for Slang.

  • Sorry that i kick att you all this night But "If you look at it whide a intelectual prespektive, you can understand that it sound somthing like this". You don't tell how or if you did now how one sigel character whas pronansed at that time. If you now tell it and how. AND PLZ, NOT USE TXT-TO-SPEACH. And if i am not totaly wrong, is "Ic ärise, and ic fare tö minum faeder: I stand up and go to my father. (irritated wide authority) (have a feeling i have reed this before). Keep it up

  • Sorry that i saw you all the time this night, But "If you look at it whide a intelectual prespektive, you can understand that it sound somthing like thois". You dont tell how or if you, dont tell how to a sigel character whas pronansed at that time. PLZ tell if you know in you vid. AND PLZ AGEN DONT ISE TEXT TO SPEECHE WHEN YOU REED. plz

  • Strine: Geez mate tha's orl Greek ta mae!

  • This sound similar to all nordic languages i think, you sound like a Finn trying to speak Danish when u read the text :D

  • @jimmyjager Danish is the closest language to English in existance.

  • @ashtonmadhatter You do mean closest of the *Nordic* languages, correct?

  • @ashtonmadhatter No, English is classified as West Germanic, while Danish is in the North Germanic branch. The closest living language to English has to be from West Germanic also. Most often it is said to be Frisian. Among the major languages, I suggest Dutch.

  • @ashtonmadhatter I like the Danish language, but Frisian is undoubtedly closer to English.

  • @ashtonmadhatter No, it's Frisian. Frysk, as it's called, is the linguistically closest language to English.

  • @ashtonmadhatter

    What about Scots? Though some would argue that it's a dialect of English.

  • m y l a n g u a g e is not the most important on this planet - there are plenty of other languages here ... so keep on learning .. keeep on connecting

  • If i ought to guess the beggining of my text with my Icelandic id say: Once was a man that had two sons, they were unhappy with their father and had an argument(deilur) about im guessing some heir or something they owned which was either 8 off or 1/8 part, and the wather was asked to hand over the thing, then they had parliment(þing) and argued it their. Its probobly a guess in the blue but i understood some words

  • Nice video, im icelandic and i could understand some parts of the text, i could also read the latin alphabet form of rune stones for bronze ages when i was in a musem in Denmark

  • As a student of languages, I would be quite interested to know which resources for learning Old English/ Old Norse you would most recommend regarding self-teaching.

  • @Hrrothgar learn regular Icelandic, its almost the same as old icelandic/norse

  • As a student of languages myself, I would be quite interested to know which resources you would most recommend regarding teaching oneself Old English and/or Old Norse.

  • i was just wondering if you had any interest in or may do a video on any of the constructed languages like esperanto.

  • "Forspilde" look a lot like the Dutch "Voorspelde" which been ''predicted''

  • DUTCH: Onder de kleine berk is een sprinkhaan in het lange gras

  • So old norwegian and old english is the same language?

  • @Berntisso no but some words sound alike

  • @Berntisso

    Old Norse and Old English are two seperate languages but they both stem from an older language.

  • is the W a V like in German/Dutch or is it W like it is now..I now that depends on where you come from in the Netherlands you either voice it as a V or a W

  • 1'Vi 2'har 3'inte 4'sett 5'de 6'blå 7'skepp[en] 8'full[a] 9'av 10'röd[a] 11'viking[ar] 12'är 13'dem 14'död[a]?

    1'We 2'have 3'not 4'seen 5'the 6'blue 7'ship[s] 8'full 9'of 10'red 11'viking[s] 12'are 13'they' 14'dead?

  • I did a lot of comparitive phonology study on Old English.

    And I have come to some conclusions.

    Some vowels are silent, but affect other vowels in the word. The "U" is pronounced as "ou" sometimes.

    "æ" is sometimes pronounced as long "e" and sometimes as short "a".

    the letter combination "ih" makes the "ai" sound usually. That's all I got. I got more , but it's a bit hard to explain.

  • Polski: Pod niską brzózką jest konik polny w wysokiej trawie

    Doesn't sound alike, huh?

  • FINNISH: Pienen koivupuun alla on heinäsirkka pitkässä ruohikossa

  • @TheJemRio wtf i cant read it!

  • you kinda sound like old german teacher. have you ever taught German? about the video I noticed the way they said "and" back in the day, sounds just like the german word und. to my ears when I hear old english i'm hearing a cocktail of icelandic, finnish, dutch, german.

  • @lutdabs It's supposed to be like sort of like Frisian. Finnish isn't even a Germanic language btw. It's Uralic.

  • I have to wonder about your pronunciation of the letter Ash (æ). It sounds to me as if you are pronouncing it exactly the same as the long letter ē, and I know that couldn't be right, since ē and æ often remain distinct to this day.

  • Without your explanation, I would guess at some of these words based on Swedish and some assumptions.

    Sothlice, the man who had two sons?

    ''Father, show me my share, my ownings that will be given to me''?

    Then he shared with him his ownings?

  • Kynde Professor, Colde þou pointe pe way to a onlaine lynke pat holdeð sampeles ov Early Middel English abowt pe mydwey poynt betwixt leyt olde English an Chaucer?

    I þank þee.

  • Excellent video. I Love studying germanic languages and germanic culture.

  • Ic Haebbe Mike Athertons Ealde Englisc boc!

  • it's a very beautiful lang =]

    I'm chinese and I think that it sounds 100x better than my mother language!!!!

  • If þe Normans woud not have beaten Anglo-Saxons in 1066, þe Englisc tunge woud have lukde laic þis today.

  • i don't think they'd say "long gras" in german but rather "in dem hohen Gras" or "in the high grass" ...

  • It also kind of sounds like English backwards.

  • HESSICH: ( Hassian - German Dialect :)

    When a Fire goes out - it ´s cold in an old House.

    Wenn ä Feier gäit aus - is´s kold in äm olde Haus.

  • @kaiserschnitt100

    Wanneer een vuur gaat uit, het is koud in een oud huis (Dutch)

  • ドイツ語の方言みたいなものだ。

  • @a0a0aful そうだよな。

  • I love your voice.

  • All of these videos are great and very interesting. I have listened to other Old English (Anglo Saxon) videos being spoken and a lot of the them pronounce the letter 'R' by rolling it on the tongue; I tend to think this is wrong as Germans from the North West of the country don't and this is where the English are from - North Western Germans make the sound of the letter R with their throats - it's only Austrians and Southern Germans that make the R by rolling it on the tongue.

  • @Blabloo72 Yes they might pronounce it that way NOW in the North West of Germany but how do you know that that's how the Anglo-Saxons would have pronounced it centuries ago? Language changes.

  • @Blabloo72 The "r" as we pronounce it today in most German dialects (uvular [ʁ]) isn't the classical way and is probably imported from French. The old pronunciation as it is still used in some Austro-Bavarian/Swiss German dialects and also in Dutch was indeed [r] and I guess it was the same in Old English.

  • cool i am speaking German!!!! Awesome!!!!

  • I am speaking german!!!! awesome!!!!

  • cool i am speaking German everyday!!!!!!

  • it sounds swedish at times

  • This very interesting, I can kind of hear how English has evolved from this language. I noticed how the sentence structure is very different than it is now. Most definitely subscribing.

  • Sound wonderful. Let's switch back to Old English.

  • I am norwegian, and I like how I can tie all of the germanic languages together after seeing your videos.

    I am currently speaking and writing in norwegian, english, and german, but I can understand some parts of icelandic (obviously the parts that have to some degree survived to todays norwegian) and I am very pleased to say that I could guess the translation to every sentence you said out loud with an astonishing accuracy!

    I was amazed of how similar (in some way) this language is to norwegian!

  • Fascinating!

  • I'm English and from the outset, it looks like nonsense, but once he translates it and you look back over it, you can kind of see the similarities.

  • so similar, I can also puzzle out many words and understand 70% of whats written there, also the Grasshopper comparison between Modern English, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and German is astonishing.

  • Cool language but kinda creepy sounding :D

  • I'd like to point out a few mistakes in the video.

    He likes to pronounce the "e" at the end of words like they have a sound of their own , however , the "e" usually makes the syllables before it sound different (Just like modern English) and are used after "d" ,s" , or "r" to make them sound.

    for example "hungre" was pronounced almost as "hunger". In "huse" , the "E" makes the "u" sound like "ou" , which makes it sound like "house" or german "Haus".

  • Thanks for the helpful video!! Best wishes from Cologne:)

  • Ic thank thee for these short videos on English. Ic may say soothfully, that studying all of the English language enables oon to wholly appreciate it's versatility and innate germanic beauty. In music, so in language: Oon must hear the whole symphony (that is English) to truly apprecate and understand it.

    "Speak as thou wilt. Freely, and without fear that the homie, whom besloucheth beside thee on the plane, 'ain't gonna understand yo ass.' You probably don't need him to anyway." Ealdorman

  • Ic thank thee for these short videos on English. Ic may say soothfully, that studying all of the English language enables oon to wholly appreciate it's versatility and innate germanic beauty. In music, so in language: Oon must hear the whole symphony that is English to truly apprecate it.

  • i feel like your reading the bible but in a different language

  • go to 2:56

  • If you wanna skip to the reading go to 2:56

  • Actually as a Swede I could read that text fairly well, many words that are way similar still today - though obviously spelled differently. Many of them words seems closer to Swedish than modern day English I'd say.

  • @k1lkenny Det är väldigt trevligt att tro att det är så nära den svenska. Jag skulle hellre fylla min engelska med ord anglosaxiska rötter än ord från latinet. OE låter bra att mitt öra.

  • I think we germanic people are very stupid sometimes. 1000 years agoe we spoke basicly the same langauge in all the germanic countries why could we not keep it that way...

  • @ownya88 I agree. You are right. We should have all stayed together, spoken the same language and let the latins and others have their variations on their core languages.

  • all those old languages really make me think about tolkien's elvish and his other languages...to me they sound similiar and i find it really interesting because i know tolkien was a linguist too and probably knew much about these old languages :)

  • This is pleasantly close to German in word order and vocabulary. I really hope I could learn this language.

  • Hey, that really sounds a little bit german... I can understand some of the words

  • as an englishman whos family can be traced back to pre 1066 i would love to speak old english WHERE WOULD I START

  • @bollockchops55 i would recomend you to learn icelandic. Iceland has keept their language and has borrowed almost nothing from other languages, not even english. Old English is pretty similar to icelandic so i guess the best way would be to move to iceland. that is what i will do becuse i wan't to learn old Swedish/ old norse

  • i love black people. dude can you teach me how to say " i love black people " in old english? pleassssssssssssssssssssssssss­ssssssse. no seriously!

  • I wish I could travel back to 1066 and kick William I's norman arse!

  • I got the older Teach Yourself book by Blakeley, but it bombarded me with grammar rules all over the place. I think the Blakeley's "TY" would be better for a student who already knows some Old English and is using it to refine his/her knowledge of the grammar. But for a beginner, I would recommend the knewer "TY" by Mark Atherton.

  • Um, his pronunciation is off... I know we can't be certain, but in Old English the "g" is pronounced like a "y", so gebyreþ would be pronounced "ye-beer-eth". And the ash ("æ") is not so short as he pronounces it. But this is good review for my History of the English midterm on tuesday!

  • In my Low German dialect we pronounce all of the "g's" as "j's" and I've heard those studying Anglo-Saxon pronounce them in the same manner. I was just wondering if you may have been mispronouncing them.

  • If nobody knows how it may have sounded like, nobody cares about some "intelligent guesswork" either.

  • @ToobYew Fuck af! din Dum Tyrker!!

  • Interesting! Even can understand some of it because it looks/sounds a bit like dutch if you reform the words :)