Old English Lesson 1 : Pronounciation

[remyworldpeace]

Thanks!

[richarddickiebaker]

Thanks for your feedback. In response to the negative comments, I am a professional linguist of some 25 years' standing. I would be curious to know whether anyone can solve the following crossword clues:

Head start? Gee follower. Cockney's challenge. Haitian capital? Goalpost-shaped letter. Common aspiration. It begins here. What makes it a hit? Character in the middle of nowhere? Initial letter dropped by Cockneys.

Same answer in each case, five letters. £1 million prize!

[iddyumpty]

'Pronunciation', not 'pronounciation'. If you can't pronounce contemporary English how are we to believe this account of Old English?

[HarryBodensson]

@iddyumpty

Maybe because the latin tounge is foreign to us? You wouldn't question a Welshmans pronounciation of Welsh, so don't question a Engliscman.

[rogue9292]

@iddyumpty Maybe learn a bit about the differences between American English and British English... and maybe another bit about the difference between spelling and pronounciation...

[richarddickiebaker]

If you look in any good dictionary of English you'll be able to see that the name of the eighth letter of the alphabet is spelt "aitch" and pronounced as such. It doesn't have an H at the beginning of it. This is simply a statement of fact. The abominable "haitch" is as incorrect as saying: I've got stomach 'hache' [ache]" or "People's eyesight deteriorates with 'hage' [age]".

[iddyumpty]

@richarddickiebaker Well said - the letter 'h' is spelt 'aitch' not 'hatch'.

[kmfw72]

@richarddickiebaker Personally I dislike 'haitch', but in other Germanic languages the name of letter 'h' is aspirated - hence 'ha' in German andDutch - as indeed the Semitic letter was, pronounced as 'ḥêṯ'. 'Haitch' is a feature of Irish English, because in Irish the letter is pronounced 'hesh'. 'Aitch' came into English by way of Norman French 'hache', pronounced 'ash' - in most Latin-derived languages, except Romanian, 'h' is silent and no longer aspirated.

[Kiptracx]

I've always wondered, is it "Olde ["ole-day"] English" or just "Old English"?

[wildvenisson]

I'm always tempted to say the "æ" as "ay"... bad habbit?

[FAUN99]

Could someone please translate my name into anglo saxon (old english)

My name is Thomas Cobain.

Thanks

[h3lblad3]

@FAUN99

Yes, your name is Thomas Cobain.  I'm pretty sure names don't change regardless of language. Just the accent used to say it. :P

[FAUN99]

@h3lblad3 no im meaning, substitute the letters and phoetic sounds to old english pronoounciation and alphabet

[DrPants711]

It's actually "diphthongs", not dipthongs. :P

[Notemug]

Also, I think you're wrong about the 'sc' ever being pronounced like shk. Could your provide some sources for that? Great job on the other lessons, though.

[Notemug]

This is wrong on several counts:

é and ó were not diphthongs like "ay" as in may and "oa" as in boat, they were long monophthongs, like in German "beten" and "Boot". Or indeed may and boat. in some Scottish and northeastern accents.

u was not as "u" in but, but as "u" in butcher, push etc. But you know this since in the other video you pronounce "sunu" properly. :)

[FaolanWolf]

It's not pronounciation, but pronunciation

[Bethalaine]

Also, the thorn þ is slightly more forced and hard-sounding than the eth ð, which is softer.

for example, the TH of the thorn is pronounced like in the word "Thrice," and the eth is pronounced as in the words "than," "then," and so on.

[RixPixable]

@Bethalaine Well fuck you.

[Bethalaine]

I think you should have also mentioned that the umlaut "ü" is to be pronounced as a specific way: shape your mouth as if to say "oo," but say "ee" while your mouth holds this shape. this will produce the desired sound.

[gorsian1979]

KH in fact this letter is from middle east languages like Arabic her brew and Assyrian

[okpapereat]

umlaut U in german is pronounced ue sound like he said.

[pearlgian]

muy buen video, lastima que ustedes jamas van a poder disfrutar de un español antiguo como el que yo si puedo disfrutar y tambien de ese ingles antiguo que acabo de ver porque entiendo ingles moderno, gracias a la cultura de mierda que tenemos que hizo que todo fuese mas "accesible" en ingles por culpa de los estadounidenses (MAL LLAMADOS AMERICANOS, porque el boliviano, mexicano, chileno, argentino, brazilero, etc., tambien son americanos) y terminan siendo la sociedad mas idiota e ignorante

[stiffex]

The difficulty is that studying anachronistic language through the prism of modern standardized versions is not infallible when it comes to accuracy; without universal standards language has a tendency to pidgin itself to isolated familiar dialect with moving emphasis, spellings, syllablization, slanging, etc. You can see this in the regional accents & slangs of modern UK Eng. A modern standardized Eng used in 13 colonies, Oz, NZ, morphed very little by comparison .

[Ilona7maverick7]

Corresponding Frisian, probably the - i - spoken very short, not a longer one as in German. Ìc, the c more like sort of k. Suppose he did not study Frisian, which is close to old English. Old Frisian and Old English were basically the same. West Frisian (Westerlauwers Frisian) is considered the dialect corresponding most to Old English.

Search for vowels "West Frisian language" (wikipedia)

[ThomasRowsell]

Is Ic pronounced as Ich (like german) or itch?

[RepublicofSocialismZ]

@ThomasRowsell There were many main dialects and sub dialects of those over Old England. The "itch" sound of "Ic" would be more characteristic of West Saxon.

[MsOneiroi77]

a lot of these pronunciations are similr to modern scots

[Silverswordfish]

You've miss pronounced "pronunciation".

[Thrawn6211]

@Silverswordfish you've misspelled "miSpronounced"

[Silverswordfish]

@Thrawn6211 Touche

[MrSashaT]

I was looking up other languages earlier and seeing on this vid the pronounciation of letters (esp the hard and soft sounding 'th' symbols), it looks and sounds similar to Gothic... (To me Gothic seems sort of cross between Dutch and German although others have said that it's more Icelandic than German.

[comepost]

So many similarity's with Dutch.

[ChristIsSaviour12]

why do i hear birds

[RivJohnson101]

I was wondering how do you know these sounds are right when the language has not been spoken for a thousand years.

[wildvenisson]

@RivJohnson101 As long as you know which region a language comes from you can re-assemble it from other texts. For instance we know that the Saxons were Germanic, so we can study their original language and find evidence to piece things together. Just like anything history, you piece together the fragments and this is what we ended up with.

[DofSproductions]

Thanks for sharing. :)

[SubjectAlpha100]

Mostly correct. The long "ash" makes the AY sound and the long "e" sounds like a regular "e" but is pronounced longer. A long "o" doesn't have an OO sound at the end. A short "u" sounds like the "OO" in 'lOOk'. Still very good though!

[Nortrix87]

Nerly all were like Norwegan pronouncation=)

[solzanna]

For some reason it stops on the 1:06 mark. is it just my browser or is the file corrupted?

[EngliscHerewulf]

@solzanna works for me?

[TJRHINO29]

@solzanna works for me too

[trampyblod]

Nice video thankyou :)

[britishpatriot001]

Great video.