NativLang
What Latin Sounded Like - and how we know
updated
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
Check my sources: docs.google.com/document/d/1r3Am9jL5hVZr0YiQfm7okTtNO42MjG709dS2XUPs7MY
~ Briefly, with *spoilers* ~
Today we learn the characteristics of SOV and figure out why it's the #1 word order. Along the way we'll cover:
- SOV's superlatives across history, geography, thought
- a feel for V (verb) final languages, using a garden path sentence
- roles: SOV as Agent-Patient-Action
- flexibility even within SOV languages
- cues: meaning, case marking, word order
- SOV as the "language of thought"
- animacy and (non-)reversible sentences
- an underlying human-inanimate-action order
- how removing family and area bias boosts SOV at the expense of SVO
- colonialism and the (future?) spread of SVO
Art, animation and music by me. I've written up a sources document for claims made and for pics, sfx, fonts:
Sources: docs.google.com/document/d/1r3Am9jL5hVZr0YiQfm7okTtNO42MjG709dS2XUPs7MY
Continuing the call from my OSV video, here are groups to support:
Support: docs.google.com/document/d/1W9zHIS1T34aq2giAwWev1HKZkJ2_8gIyvfub96mOvSk/#heading=h.gpolixoat5xi
Sources: docs.google.com/document/d/1W9zHIS1T34aq2giAwWev1HKZkJ2_8gIyvfub96mOvSk
Support: docs.google.com/document/d/1W9zHIS1T34aq2giAwWev1HKZkJ2_8gIyvfub96mOvSk/#heading=h.gpolixoat5xi
Art, animation and music by me. Open doc above to read sources for claims and for pics, sfx.
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
~ Briefly, but with small spoilers ~
When I was young, I got interested in how sentences are arranged in various languages. When my grammar books treated basic word orders as different types of languages, I began to imagine them as a linguistic horoscope. I'm back with animated questions about that language zodiac:
- What even is word order?
- How many languages have different ones and where?
- Why is SOV so common and OSV so rare?
Along the way, we'll realize that the two least common word orders, OVS and OSV, are found among the languages of the Amazon. Check out my sources document above to even more.
~ Links mentioned this time ~
Sources for this video: docs.google.com/document/d/1_duCLZZVbNwpENJXCQJ6nWd2BWK_8-MZxDDzwdRhS3w
Support impacted people: docs.google.com/document/d/1ywiOfzN5FZt2sh7s3V8EfCB54vUoHg4iA1VevAxgZeU/#heading=h.8iwaseaw0ce6
Saussure in French:
fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Cours_de_linguistique_générale/Texte_entier
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k314842j/f107
Saussure in English:
archive.org/details/courseingenerall00saus
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
~ Briefly ~
Today we do two things together. First, let's look at the love and confusion expressed in your comments on "Zeros", and let me add a bit of thoughtful commentary. Two, we'll read what Saussure had to say about those unpronounced but meaningful signs we met in "Zeros". All along the way, instead of explaining things to you, I'll animate our study time as we learn and read and think through this together.
~ Credits ~
Art, animation, narration and music by me. Other credits linked in sources document above (relinked here):
docs.google.com/document/d/1_duCLZZVbNwpENJXCQJ6nWd2BWK_8-MZxDDzwdRhS3w
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
Read my sources: docs.google.com/document/d/13_5Kej-KmIS-rVRQ6-VY2RBPtW-VBGEsvwWnhMEsTHM
~ Briefly ~
My animation tells the story of linguistic zeros. We'll see the evidence of their existence I've been collecting in my folder, then meet their proponents and their critics. By the end we'll aim to find good reasons for avoiding and for proposing zeros, depending on the people, the context and the cultures involved.
~ Credits ~
Art, animation, narration and music by me. All other credits in sources document above.
Solidarity: docs.google.com/document/d/1ywiOfzN5FZt2sh7s3V8EfCB54vUoHg4iA1VevAxgZeU/#heading=h.8iwaseaw0ce6
Voices: docs.google.com/document/d/1sI3YRMA6jM7GrqiWkGLXS-2FeMYGHhta1smhXQY6BG0
Sources: docs.google.com/document/d/1ETctVEewo35-h4c7H8SWMagwtW-Z6ADMTYwS4j7bTic
The Papuan languages are traditionally said to be the old non-Austronesian and non-Australian languages of Melanesia. What makes Papuan languages "Papuan"? And what are the real relations between Melanesian, Oceanic and Austronesian languages? How are these tied to the people and their "langriculture" from the last video?
Art and animation by me, with pics from sources above.
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
Most sounds by the Sawos people of Toremby village, recorded by Dr. Tyman: http://www.johntyman.com/sawos/sfx.html
Aid: docs.google.com/document/d/1ywiOfzN5FZt2sh7s3V8EfCB54vUoHg4iA1VevAxgZeU/#heading=h.8iwaseaw0ce6
Voices: docs.google.com/document/d/1sI3YRMA6jM7GrqiWkGLXS-2FeMYGHhta1smhXQY6BG0
Sources: docs.google.com/document/d/1ywiOfzN5FZt2sh7s3V8EfCB54vUoHg4iA1VevAxgZeU
Art, narration and animation by me. Some of the music, too. See sources doc above for details.
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
Most sounds by the Sawos people of Torembi village, recorded by Dr. John Tyman: http://www.johntyman.com/sawos/sfx.html
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
~ Briefly ~
Follow my animated recipe for a taste of how sound shifts changed French pronunciation throughout the ages: Latin, Gaulish and Frankish influence, an early Romance era of Oïl vs Oc, Old French, Middle French, the Renaissance, all the way to Modern and then Contemporary French.
Yes, it's a recipe! I originally wrote this as a more direct history. After much tinkering I wanted to recreate the story of the sounds of French as a pastry.
~ Credits ~
Art, narration, animation and some of the music by Josh from NativLang
Sources for claims made, and credits for most of the music, fonts, sfx:
docs.google.com/document/d/1lo0bvzhli24783Ox5_THM3rHHe4lNV-7iO2jpqS3UF8
Licensed Music:
Laid Back Guitars by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3964-laid-back-guitars
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Danse Macabre - Sad Part - no violin by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3597-danse-macabre---sad-part---no-violin
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Sardana by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5002-sardana
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
March of the Spoons by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4021-march-of-the-spoons
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Village Consort by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4585-village-consort
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Suonatore di Liuto by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4440-suonatore-di-liuto
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Heavy Heart by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3865-heavy-heart
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Silver Flame by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4362-silver-flame
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Thinking Music by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4522-thinking-music
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Duet Musette by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3685-duet-musette
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Sneaky Snooper by Jason Shaw
Link: audionautix.com
License: creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
~ Briefly ~
Meet Adlam, N'ko, Vai and over twenty more scripts that capture West African linguistic features and give new visual representation to native West African tongues.
Topics covered:
- backstories of Adlam and N'ko
- list of many other scripts
- examples of African scripts beyond West Africa
- prenasalized stops like ᵐb
- labiovelars like g͡b
- vowel length in Fula
- length and tone in N'ko
- nasalization as an areal feature
- older visual codes like N'sibidi and Adinkra
- sociolinguistics of script creation
See the sources doc below for much more information.
~ Credits ~
Art, narration, animation and four pieces of music by Josh from NativLang
Sources for claims made, plus credits for music, fonts, sfx:
docs.google.com/document/d/1v4oGwztBdP9-K3CLJuF6fr9zCL33ZyNF0UOjorL_dsY
~ Music ~
Please see my doc above for full credits. Public domain credits:
Teko, song of nostalgia, traditional music of Burkina Faso, Tuasgo & Gouama accompanied by Kondé:
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k10801793/f1.media
Creative Commons credits:
Monkoto by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4072-monkoto
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Thinking Music by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4522-thinking-music
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Kumasi Groove by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3958-kumasi-groove
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Silver Flame by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4362-silver-flame
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Infados by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3914-infados
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Links to African & diaspora language/linguistic history creators: docs.google.com/document/d/1gbsoD71MNajMJFncLzZjz4E7AZnhoUhgPwGq9H5jSK8
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
~ Briefly ~
At first, the map of Africa's many languages seems complicated. However, in just a few minutes we'll learn how linguists classified them into just five families. Once we meet Africa's language areas, the five families begin to fall apart.
We'll leave with a complicated picture of families, hypothetical groups and many isolates and debated classifications. Along the way, come to appreciate Africa's diverse peoples and languages.
~ Credits ~
Art, narration, animation and some of the music by Josh from NativLang
Sources for claims made, and full credits for music, fonts, sfx:
docs.google.com/document/d/1Hihfgik9supmLFEnyMmQF9iKgnmX-M1hSJG20TgseTM
Music:
Please see my doc above. I created the opening piece, the outro and one reprise from Thoth's Pill in the middle. The rest of the credit goes to:
Silver Flame by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4362-silver-flame
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Infados by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3914-infados
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Thinking Music by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4522-thinking-music
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
~ Briefly ~
I'm following up on my tale of Egyptian phonology with this intriguing hieroglyphic shift. We'll contrast Egypt's developments with the alphabets emerging around the Mediterranean, revisit the basics of how hieroglyphs work, learn some of the readings and substitutions that drive cryptographic writing, and encounter examples of how sign choices relate to mythic context and content. At the end, we'll briefly wonder about the roles of temple, creativity, hybridity, and attrition in favor of alternative alphabets in the long twilight of the hieroglyphs.
~ Credits ~
Art, narration, animation and much of the music by Josh from NativLang.
My sources doc for claims and full credits for music, sfx, fonts and images:
docs.google.com/document/d/1vfS3F-Z4YQ8Q33EpGUCNDYgxGgLRgVB9n44oROvqdKc
Music not by me:
Peace on the Water, Unlimited Potential
by Darren Curtis (custom license: http://darrencurtismusic.com)
Silver Flame by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4362-silver-flame
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Thinking Music by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4522-thinking-music
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
~ Briefly ~
From Hatshepsut to Nefertiti to a Coptic Abuna, meet the many forms of the long-lived Egyptian language. Watch as they help us listen back to the original sounds of the hieroglyphs. Then, identify a family full of Egyptian's ancestors and relatives, refine those pronunciations and arrive at an outline of Egyptian pronunciation.
~ Credits ~
Art, narration and animation by Josh from NativLang. Two of the musical scores, too.
My doc full of sources for claims and credits for music, sfx, fonts and images:
docs.google.com/document/d/15oGlSTW24CrL_fg1g19_Wvt52xLwjrQdKRAjJdgbzFo
Music:
Please see my doc above for all songs. Most of the credit belongs to these talented creators: Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) and Darren Curtis (darrencurtismusic.com).
Big Mojo by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3435-big-mojo
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Return of the Mummy by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4281-return-of-the-mummy
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Silver Flame by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4362-silver-flame
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Dhaka by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3646-dhaka
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Thinking Music by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4522-thinking-music
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Path of the Goblin King v2 by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4502-the-path-of-the-goblin-king-v2
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Virtutes Instrumenti by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4590-virtutes-instrumenti
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Temple of Endless Sands, Ale and Anecdotes by Darren Curtis
(custom license through darrencurtismusic.com)
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
~ Briefly ~
Starting with Swahili, we'll tour a whole range of ways of telling time around the world. I will mention or discuss all of these:
- Swahili Time
- 12 and 24 hour clocks
- Italian and Thai six hour clocks
- temporal hours
- traditional Chinese time units
- Nāhua hours and cycle direction
- Hindustani time units
- Japanese 30 hour days
- natural standards
~ Credits ~
Art, narration and animation by Josh from NativLang. Quite a bit of the music, too. Other music by Joshua David Mitchell, Darren Curtis, Kevin MacLeod (see required incompetech.com credits below).
My doc full of sources for claims and credits for music, sfx, fonts and images:
docs.google.com/document/d/1OXoburKVVRjabBs4fUGhBQuKiEIZaAQv8xlaD2-o8rc
(? Cut from final edit:
Arid Foothills by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3380-arid-foothills
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
)
Adding The Sun by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5708-adding-the-sun
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
My previous video about the history of the glyphs, mentioned a couple times:
youtube.com/watch?v=RAK87QMbw_0
Glyph demonstration mentioned in the video:
youtube.com/watch?v=630e2bFLbfY
(See my sources doc below for details and full credits.)
~ Briefly ~
Last time was about the history of these various scripts. This time, let's meet the glyphs in the present, see how they are used, and get curious about their future.
~ Credits ~
Art, narration and animation by Josh from NativLang. Much of the music, too.
My doc full of sources for claims and credits for music, sfx, fonts and images:
docs.google.com/document/d/1XHI2TPO83Sxz7ft1rTZtJ_22KSY1ZpdcRs4QHWs63F8
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
~ Briefly ~
The sun rises ever earlier on writing in the Western Hemisphere. Travel back and forth to discover the people present and past whose writings these are, and why the Cascajal Block may change the way you talk about the history of writing.
~ Credits ~
Art, narration, animation and most of the music by Josh from NativLang. Two pieces of music are by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com).
Sources for claims made, and credits for images, music, fonts, sfx:
docs.google.com/document/d/10-E55G1VCn9--JHarptC-c0CLp4XCZPPxnIiwI-qboQ
~ Chapters ~
0:00-0:24 Open
0:24-2:13 Intro
2:13-3:30 Aztec
3:30-3:57 Mixtec
3:30-4:31 Teotihuacan
4:31-5:24 Maya
5:24-6:11 Kaminaljuyu
6:11-7:04 Isthmian
7:04-7:54 Zapotec
7:54-8:32 Olmec
8:32-8:57 Outro
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
~ Briefly ~
First contact scenarios fascinate us, so I was asked to get animated about how they work from a linguistic perspective. How in the world can you go from total outsider to speaking the language? Start with this first contact survival kit.
In this animation, we'll go from the legendary and romanticized "contact" scenario to walking through the steps that researchers use to build trust and start speaking a language monolingually. You'll conclude with questions about the ethics of even doing this in the first place as you stop to consider Indigenous perspectives that reframe your "contact".
~ Credits ~
Art, narration, animation by Josh from NativLang. Much music, too, including intro and outro theme.
My doc full of sources for claims and credits for music, sfx, fonts and images:
docs.google.com/document/d/18PL1f0WDLR7YgHzYqA5mLXprkGnbKNtu8XVMOqd_BqU
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
~ Briefly ~
A journey through Siberia's languages, including large families and "Paleo-Siberian" languages. Come meet the many families of Siberia, from Turkic to Yupik to Yeniseian to Nivkh.
~ Credits ~
Art, narration and animation by Josh from NativLang.
My doc full of sources for claims and credits for music, sfx, fonts and images:
docs.google.com/document/d/1KJcDuyfgqhGJ12qNvG5iTqKLa2k6pQ_K6vcDV83rqeU
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
~ Briefly ~
A journey through Siberia's languages, including large families and "Paleo-Siberian" languages. Come meet the many families of Siberia, from Turkic to Yupik to Yeniseian to Nivkh.
~ Credits ~
Art, narration and animation by Josh from NativLang.
My doc full of sources for claims and credits for music, sfx, fonts and images:
docs.google.com/document/d/1KJcDuyfgqhGJ12qNvG5iTqKLa2k6pQ_K6vcDV83rqeU
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
Earnings from this and other NativLang videos this month will be donated. The highlighted message at 5:49 is from Cultural Survival, though I may add others:
https://mailchi.mp/culturalsurvival.org/covid19
~ Briefly ~
I've spent the first part of this pandemic researching the languages of Siberia. Along the way I noticed how many languages were spoken by just a very, very small community. Today let's take some minutes to think about one such language traditional to the edge of southeastern Siberia.
Start in Japan, then journey through a brief history of Ainu. It's missing many details, but you'll end up with a sense of who the speakers are, where they have lived, down to where the language holds on at present in Japan. Even learn some features that make it similar to and very different from Japanese and from nearby Siberian languages.
We'll end with a note about languages with few speakers left (often few elders - sometimes just one!) The month of this video's release, YT ad revenue from across NativLang videos will go to groups who are aware of this issue and support indigenous communities.
~ Credits ~
Art, narration, animation and much of the music by Josh from NativLang
Sources for claims made, and credits for most of the music, fonts, sfx:
docs.google.com/document/d/1wZwR7UWVF7M637OQecDRF5Ay3kQV1lZmHcGbbaJrCkE
Music:
Please see my doc above for sources. There I give full credit to Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) for the track at the start and a couple in the middle.
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
~ Briefly ~
Take a journey across the entire Mongolic language family in under eleven minutes. Here we learn about the basic traits inherited from Proto-Mongolic, then get brief introductions to the Central, Southern (Qinghai-Gansu), Western (Moghol) and Eastern (Dagur) branches of the family. I take a moment to mention recent attempts to use Khitan and other evidence to extend the family back to a pre-Mongolic Xianbei or Serbi. Finally, I share why Mongolists find family trees insufficient for explaining these unique languages.
~ Credits ~
Art, narration and animation by Josh from NativLang. Outro theme, too.
All other music by Kevin MacLeod – please see sources doc below for full credits.
My doc full of sources for claims and credits for music, sfx, fonts and images:
docs.google.com/document/d/1M9ffy5d1Dupl3Dwjroe5Gcz5C-AYzG5n_D_yck7gJvU
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
~ Briefly ~
This animation tells the linguistic story of a script that was invented over a thousand years ago and lasted for three centuries. Despite everything written about them in Chinese history and the written evidence in their language, their scripts remain somewhat of a mystery. We'll get an understanding of the difference between the two scripts, the attempts at decipherment so far, and what we do know about them. We'll end comparing identifiable Khitan vocabulary to other languages to see where it fits into North Asia's linguistic scene.
~ Credits ~
Art, narration and animation by Josh from NativLang. A bit of the music, too.
Most of the music is by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), with one piece by Darren Curtis. Please see my sources document below for full names and credits!
Doc full of sources for claims and credits for music, sfx, fonts and images:
docs.google.com/document/d/1Cu74ghDD8zZhNM-LDQT6CMtz-WB6VMIKPTj20LVJjEc
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
Vexillographer channel: youtube.com/user/Vexillographer
Argent's work: argentkvasnikoff.com/qena-sintisis.html
Thank you for watching and supporting across the years. My calendar flipped to 2020, and I'd like to credit some of the people who sent warm messages asking me to tell a tale about their language. It's bothered me over the years that I'm not getting to all of these, so I wanted to appreciate these viewers and their linguistic.
~ Credits ~
Art, animation, narration and some of the music by Josh from NativLang.
Sources doc full of credits for images, music, sfx, fonts and sources for claims made:
docs.google.com/document/d/1RKx7TNr3nwm_XfycI26Ug8erWUTez11QLr3joC7Tltk
Music:
"Cherubs" by Josh Woodward. Free download: http://joshwoodward.com
"Dragons and Fireworks" by Darren Curtis
"Sardana" and others by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
(please see sources doc above for full attributions!)
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
~ Briefly ~
Our story starts with a map of modern Romance languages, zooming in one of the areas where a local neo-Latin language did not survive: Roman Africa. We'll meet Punic speakers in Carthage, hear of Roman and Vandal and Byzantine and Umayyad conquests, and Amazigh ("Berber") people all along as we uncover pieces of this tongue's story.
In the end we're left speculating, wondering about a language that maybe - possibly! - had a vowel system like Sardinian, k-sounding Cs like Dalmatian, b-sounding Vs like Spain and interacted with local languages that other Romance languages hardly knew.
~ Credits ~
Art, narration and animation by Josh from NativLang.
My doc full of sources for claims and credits for music, sfx, fonts and images:
docs.google.com/document/d/1B8CmMkE3PhKOG_pKHyDyeE9HoTaG6Zr1JFLv1P0IO1Y
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
~ Briefly ~
The second of two fun, experimental takes on features English lacks and has. Part one lives here:
youtube.com/watch?v=5iLpKFA1ADQ
Last time we met skills English is missing compared to other languages, now it's time for what it does have:
- (its spelling system)
- suppletive ordinals
- obligatory plurals
- definite and indefinite articles
- possession with "have"
- perfect with "have"
- passive voice
- asymmetric noun-pronoun alignment
- particle comparative with "than"
- interdental fricatives
- rhotics
- r-colored vowels (ahem, "coloured")
- nounless adjectives with "one"
Thank you for watching, and see my sources doc below for even more!
~ Credits ~
Art, narration and animation by Josh from NativLang.
My doc full of sources for claims and credits for music, sfx, fonts and images:
docs.google.com/document/d/1rlNzQz2JRUOgE5BG9ppKzzMBbUI7r-4qOdLcd_vUqzA
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
~ Briefly ~
The first of two fun, experimental videos where I'm playing with features English lacks and has. This time we'll take a look at some grammatical skills that English might consider unlocking:
- reduplication
- distributive numerals
- politeness
- predicative adjectives
- question particles and interrogative word order
- copula vs locative be
- weather verbs
- instrumentals vs comitatives
- clusivity
- evidentials
Thank you for watching!
~ Credits ~
Art, narration and animation by Josh from NativLang.
My doc full of sources for claims and credits for music, sfx, fonts and images:
docs.google.com/document/d/1KjWUYZxa2CXo95HXTQ42sO5JtJyGHmlg3q2NaV2enok
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
~ Briefly ~
Starting with my little quiz, see how languages from Turkey to Northern China have "embarrassing" parallels. Some linguists explained these similarities by linking the languages together into one large family. They called the family "Altaic", with a core containing Tungusic, Mongolic and Turkic. Capitalizing on connections between Korean and Japanese, Altaic proponents added these two apparent isolates to form an even larger "macro" family. The result was a sweeping hypothesis: all Turkic, Tungusic, Mongolic, Koreanic and Japonic languages are genetically related.
The idea at first seemed to take off, with Moscow at the helm of the research. However, linguists increasingly criticized results and the methods used by Altaicists. They were skeptical that the languages were convergent and shallowly similar rather than divergent and truly related. One notable supporter turned into its most vocal critic. We'll drop in on the spat between him and three foremost Altaicists to uncover the controversy and the controversy over the controversy.
We'll leave with a sense of how Altaic fell from linguistic grace, along with some of the main reasons why. While there are people who do Altaic, linguists tend to give me the impression that consensus is strongly on the side of areal explanations for the features we saw in my quiz (like the Mesoamerican Sprachbund) instead of genetic affiliation (like Indo-European or Austronesian).
Thank you for watching! This isn't about taking sides, but appreciating the story.
~ Credits ~
Art, narration, animation and some of the music by Josh from NativLang
Turkish captions by Ümit Duran
Sources for claims and credits for music, fonts, sfx:
docs.google.com/document/d/1L5r2chCbT3eIEjx5k-0LPs02lTdfn4Qs7774ZeOMGlo
Music:
Please see my doc above for all song titles. So much credit to these talented creators:
- Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
- Jason Shaw (audionautix.com)
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
~ Briefly ~
Starting from one clustery word, we'll go on a journey looking for the "root" of this record-breaking consonant phenomenon known as Georgian. We'll quickly pass over some of its standout characteristics, from its ejective sounds to its striking writing system, before we settle down into Georgian's atypical syllable structure.
Not only are its syllables long, they're full of sonority violations. This happens thanks to the language's morphology, particularly the way its verbs put pieces together. We'll end with a contrast between the clustered but relatively benign gvprtskvni-like verbs versus ones that look deceptively easier to say but have much trickier grammar.
~ Credits ~
Art, narration, animation and some of the music by Josh from NativLang
Sources for claims made, and credits for most of the music, fonts, sfx:
docs.google.com/document/d/1FiH7PeI-zXUbXQfqUxixzCImgevWyZsfwCPSkCHneBY
Music:
See my doc above for song titles. Credit to these talented creators:
- Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
- Josh Woodward (joshwoodward.com)
- Jason Shaw (audionautix.com)
Previous video about Maya tenselessness: youtube.com/watch?v=ttq0S4cuIHA
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
~ Briefly ~
Last time we adventured through the strategies the Maya use for sequencing events in time. That journey took us from a lab to an ancient site to a town that was about to be struck by a hurricane.
It also left some of the audience confused. This time I'll spend more minutes following up on the details of just one piece of Maya's solution to tenseless time. By the end, we'll cover these concepts:
- coding time, topic time, event time
- deictic tense
- perfective vs non-perfective aspect
- imperfectives, terminatives, prospectives
- natural temporal reference point (NTRP)
- binding non-perfectives to a perfective topic time
- temporal anaphora: contextually determined topic times
~ Credits ~
Art, narration, animation and some of the music by Josh from NativLang
Sources for claims made, and credits for most of the music, fonts, sfx:
docs.google.com/document/d/1FNploKCQIjprjMg9jcva7rfoAaXRitvg1c2TpoD5qF0
Music:
Please see the sources doc above for full credits and list of songs. Besides parts of three of my own tunes, most of the credit goes out to these very talented and sharing creators:
- Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
- Josh Woodward (joshwoodward.com)
- Jason Shaw (audionautix.com)
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
~ Briefly ~
Two speakers in a lab. Over a thousand years earlier, two glyphs on a stairway. What do they have in common? Time without tenses!
We'll journey from an experiment to an inscription, then get an overview of how Maya uses aspects, moods and temporal anaphora to situate events in time.
The research made an impression on me. I've been eager to share it with you. I plan to follow up with more of the details, since this is some unique linguistics I haven't seen discussed much outside of the papers I've been reading.
~ Credits ~
Art, animation and narration by Josh from NativLang
My sources doc with credits for images, music, fonts, sounds and sources for claims made:
docs.google.com/document/d/1cTfX1AEtVjXyRTNvOyPqHRrBjVa0X48Ggdn3Yy2S1FA
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang
Subscribe for more: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
~ Briefly ~
I'll start with a personal story of how my sensei peppered feedback with filler words as we practiced. That was my jumping off point for learning more about Japanese aizuchi.
Compare a sample conversation in English and Japanese. Learn the history behind the term "aizuchi" and how it went from conversing about ironworking to conversing about conversing. After that, come to see how aizuchi work in Japanese, including a quick tour through the research. Finally, I'll consider the back-and-forth conversation building this communication strategy allows and end with a remark on what aizuchi means to me as I reflect back on my sensei's encouragement.
~ Credits ~
Art, animation and narration by Josh from NativLang
My sources doc with credits for images, music, fonts, sounds and sources for claims made:
docs.google.com/document/d/1EIRxnG-1kXtRCEGzLv2Cf7sLYy0697VLxZCKSNvFMwU
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang/overview
Subscribe for language: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
~ Summary ~
Our journey starts with a Mongolian grammar and a trip to modern Mongolia, a language with some standout features. You'll see the Khan's name written everywhere... but in the Cyrillic script. Cross the border to Inner Mongolia in China to see everyday use of a much older script, a script with extra "hidden" syllables.
We'll trace those syllables back to when the soon-to-be-Khan, Temüjin, conquered the Naiman and encouraged his dignitaries to use the newfound Uyghur script. That Written Mongol has some archaic features, and comes from the time of the Khan, but another piece of evidence suggests it's too archaic.
In the 1800s, a scholarly Russian monk found a history book in China. It was written in Hànzì (Chinese characters), but the text didn't read well... unless you pronounced it in Mongolian. This turned out to be the Secret History of the Mongols. The language of the text was similar to Written Mongol, but it had notable differences, including modern-looking features. Still, it also seemed to come from the Khan's time. Was this Middle Mongol more authentic?
That's when we'll run into a third line of evidence: linguists comparing Mongolic languages and reconstructing Proto-Mongolic. There's not just one modern Mongolian; there's an entire Mongolic family. The features of this reconstructed proto-language matched the slightly modern-looking Middle Mongol.
In the end, these three ways of looking back to the early Mongols situate the Khan in linguistic history. Before him, there were Turkic loans (including the Khahan, the state (ulus), and the hero (baatur) in Ulaanbaatar), maybe dialects, and perhaps sibling Para-Mongolic languages. After him, a diversification into the modern languages. Between those, he unified his people and, in a "linguistic bottleneck", created a common Mongol language that turned into a language family in a relatively short time.
Along the way, we'll meet these forms of the language:
- Mongolian: the modern standard language of Mongolia, a standardized form of Khalkha
- Mongol: a general term for stages of the standard or prestige language, as well as a native term for many individual Mongolic varieties (Mongol, Mangghuer, Moghol, ...)
- Written Mongol (WM): the archaic language behind a continuous stream of texts in the Mongol script
- Secret History (SH): the longest early Mongol text, here claimed to represent a different form of MM
- Middle Mongol (MM): the oldest attested stage of Mongol, typically including SH and Preclassical WM, plus later material like 'Phags-pa texts
- Mongolic: the language family branching from early Mongol after the time of Genghis Khan
- Proto-Mongolic (PM): the reconstructed common ancestor of modern Mongolian and its sibling languages
These discussions were heavily, heavily trimmed for time. They're mostly a given by Genghis Khan's era, but they definitely matter when we're digging into the backstory of PM and early Mongol:
- (Mongolized) Turkic: Mongolic has many Turkic words that must predate PM but show clear signs of borrowing, not common ancestry
- Para-Mongolic: a headscratcher of a hypothesis, but we may possess evidence of ancient siblings to the Proto-Mongolic or pre-PM language itself (not direct ancestors of modern Mongolian), with current focus on Khitan
~ Credits ~
Art, animation and narration by Josh from NativLang. Some of the music, too.
Other music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) and one by Josh Woodward (joshwoodward.com). Full credits in the sources doc below.
Sources for claims and credits for images, sfx, music and fonts:
docs.google.com/document/d/1qPNvp_BES1F3EzHku41FLqFY1nHaeoYH82a7LNZpV8I/edit
Subscribe for language: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang/overview
~ Issues ~
Danish fans & commenters took issue with the way I talked about Danish dialects at the end. I appreciate you sharing more! For my original source vs the opposing dialects-alive-and-well perspective, see the end of my "sources" section in my sources doc linked below.
~ Briefly ~
Danish sounds funny to other Scandinavians. And just about everyone else, too.
When I recently explored the asymmetric intelligibility between Scandinavian countries, I noticed that everyone seemed ready to point the finger at Danish. It sounds weird, funny, throaty, and unlike the familiar Swedish accent or the many Norwegian dialects.
Journey back 1300 years ago to Old Norse, then learn how change after change shifted Denmark towards its current standout pronunciation. Along the way, we'll meet:
- the splitting of East Norse and West Norse
- the vowel reduction of the early Middle Ages
- the lenition of the later Middle Ages
- the ever-proliferating vowel qualities that give Danish its high vowel count
- the extremely unique and notable stød
- the "guttural R", a late but fashionable borrowing
One final change will solidify Danish's phonological rift with its neighbors. Unlike Sweden and Norway, Denmark's dialects largely fade in the face of the speech of Copenhagen. This history leaves us with a quirky modern Danish, a unique language indeed.
~ Credits ~
Art, animation, narration and a bit of the music by Josh from NativLang
Sources for claims made, along with credits for images, fonts, sfx and the rest of the music:
docs.google.com/document/d/1eL6y92d_jBb7I0w9HX9uxM-Pf_kmzFLkE5uSyqYMzqE
Subscribe for language: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/NativLang/overview
~ Briefly ~
In this animation I'll share a couple cases of this strange uneven understanding. I'll tell you about a time I witnessed it myself, then take out a map and journey to Scandinavia, where this kind of thing is normal. With Scandinavian languages in hand, we'll think about the terms "mutual intelligibility" and "asymmetric intelligibility".
We'll see three factors at work: attitude, exposure, language. Journeying into that last one, we'll look at results of studies that try to relate Scandinavia's linguistic differences to asymmetric difficulties in understanding. We'll hit a snag that requires a bit more research before concluding it's not entirely about the languages themselves.
I'll end with some quick examples, including ones that patrons pointed out when they voted for this video.
~ Credits ~
Art, animation, narration and some of the music by Josh from NativLang
Doc full of sources for claims made and images, music, sfx, fonts used:
docs.google.com/document/d/1oHh187AWkbZFiICj5wwgyOM4-9Go44p-dQr7BBGrHD8
Music that's not by me:
Tickled Pink
Josh Woodward - http://joshwoodward.com
Marty Gots a Plan, Silver Flame, Thinking Music, Cheery Monday
Kevin MacLeod - incompetech.com
Subscribe for language: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/user?u=584038
~ Corrections ~
One messenger warns that the "Inuit" system does not actually reflect Inuit languages. For more information and multiple sources on this issue, see my sources doc link below.
~ Briefly ~ (small spoilers!)
We'll take a tour through the traditional breakdown of kin terms around the world into just six systems: Inuit, Hawaiian, Sudanese, Iroquois, Crow and Omaha. Along the way we'll see how each works using my animated family tree diagram full of faces. We'll also meet some truly unique examples of kinship systems, including spending a bit more time with siblings in Hawaiian language itself and a detour to the Asantehene's kingdom to show off how Crow systems work. Wait, but that's just six systems, right? There's one more, a system that looks like Iroquois until we zoom out and meet your grandparents' siblings' descendants.
You'll end up with a dizzying but amazing sense for how linguistic kinship systems have been classified in the past. Before you go though, I'll ask a few questions that poke at these systems, challenge the assumptions we make in this video and have been hard for me to answer.
~ Credits ~
Art, animation, narration and some of the music by Josh from NativLang
Doc full of sources for claims made and images, music, sfx, fonts used:
docs.google.com/document/d/1uwqu4DXqvhbLhIz689cqp0r-feKzyN6YT08TG4hTXGs
Music that's not by me:
Crazy Glue, Tickled Pink
Josh Woodward - http://joshwoodward.com
Thatched Villagers, Thinking Music, The Path of the Goblin King v2, Silver Flame, Arid Foothills, Vadodora Chill Mix, Sardana
Kevin MacLeod - incompetech.com
Happy Ukulele, Sneaky Snooper
Jason Shaw - audionautix.com
Dragons and Fireworks
Darren Curtis - darrencurtismusic.com
Subscribe for language: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/user?u=584038
~ Briefly ~ (spoilers!)
What Chinese once sounded like and how that was discovered throughout the ages... to be explained, not through the eyes of European linguistics, but in the old and venerable tradition of Chinese linguistics!
Since ancient times Chinese scholars have been arguing about the right way to pronounce classic poetry and literature. Here's how they dug into the past and reconstructed the earlier sounds behind the characters.
After a note about my struggles with Chinese phonology, our tale begins in 1842 with Chen Li's attempt to piece together older Chinese pronunciation. He's working from a fanqie dictionary put together more than 1200 years earlier by Lu Fayan after a party at his house turned into an argument about the exact pronunciation of ancient rhymes.
We'll look at an example of fanqie, then wander hundreds of years later to see how rime tables presented Chinese phonology in a more systematic way. With these resources in hand, scholars spent centuries convincing everyone that they could reconstruct any syllable and that Chinese had exactly 36 initial consonants.
We return to Chen Li's time to watch him dissect the fanqie and prove that Chinese phonology was more complicated and less understood than previously thought. Then, a Swede named Karlgren will visit China and use information from modern "dialects", including Sino-Xenic pronunciations, to fill in the fanqie and rime table categories with real sounds.
After considering how scholars have built on this work, we end up with tiny snapshots of historical Chinese pronunciation but a good overview of the framework used to investigate it. With one important adjustment: what's being reconstructed turns out not to be a single language called "Ancient" Chinese. It's a period and a categorical system now known as "Middle Chinese". "Middle" because there's an "Old" Chinese, which is even older, has its own (connected) stories and could be worth a visit.
~ Credits ~
Art, animation, narration and outro music by Josh from NativLang
Doc full of sources for claims made and images, music, sfx, fonts used:
docs.google.com/document/d/1uq3P0MCEaNxuG3gynlZo3r-7Q21EGHqQL19NtlrRnrE
Music:
Dragons and Fireworks by Darren Curtis - darrencurtismusic.com
Asian Graveyard by Darren Curtis - darrencurtismusic.com
All The Tea In China by Shane Ivers - silvermansound.com
Shenyang by Kevin MacLeod - incompetech.com
Eastern Thought by Kevin MacLeod - incompetech.com
Silver Flame by Kevin MacLeod - incompetech.com
Opium by Kevin MacLeod - incompetech.com
Crazy Glue by Josh Woodward - joshwoodward.com
Sneaky Snooper by Jason Shaw - audionautix.com
Great Unknown by Jason Shaw - audionautix.com
Subscribe for language: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Become my patron: patreon.com/user?u=584038
~ Briefly ~
A strange Egyptian mummy was found in the 1800s. Its bandages were filled with the letters of a book - not an Egyptian book, but a book written in an archaic Italian language known to Romans as "Etruscan". The book held a deeper mystery beyond the question of its provenance: it couldn't be read, not because the text was undeciphered but because the language was unknown.
Throughout the video we'll discover what we can (and can't) say about Etruscan sounds and words. You'll glimpse bits of Etruscan consonants, vowels, grammar, syllables, accentuation and one major change in the language's history. Along the way, I'll share tales of the hopes and frustrations of the scholars who worked through these discoveries. Finally, you'll hear the reconstructed pronunciation of an Etruscan phrase, along with a likely translation, before concluding we're still far from understanding this captivating tongue.
~ Credits ~
Art, animation, narration and some music by Josh from NativLang
Full credits for images, sfx and for claims made:
docs.google.com/document/d/1pWBVjtjaeycVAKP2M6qdkopveyxBDw3LCwYnssA9GGg
Music I did not create (see above doc for full attribution):
Jason Shaw: Sneaky Snooper, The Great Unknown
Josh Woodward: Twinklebell, Cherubs
Kevin MacLeod: Big Mojo, Return of the Mummy, The Sky of our Ancestors, Thinking Music, March of the Spoons, Rynos Theme, The Path of the Goblin King v2
Subscribe for language: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Be my patron: patreon.com/user?u=584038
~ BRIEFLY ~
In the last video (Dyirbal Glottochronology part 1) we traveled to Australia to meet a quirky language that seemed to change way too quickly. Then Swadesh entered and told us that no, actually, all languages change at the same pace. His idea is called glottochronology, and it's been abandoned and criticized over the decades.
Discover some of the reasons why language change rates do indeed vary. Still, with facts, abstraction and a dose of speculation, could we still get to the bottom of this "how long" question? Take another linguistic trip to Australia with brief stopovers in Norway and Iceland, and let's see if we can find something to say about how long a language remains recognizably intact, or "intelligible". Then we'll separate "unintelligible" from "unrecognizable" by moving from single languages to language families, and finally end up with two broad answers to this question.
~ CREDITS ~
Art, animation, narration and some of the music by Josh from NativLang
Document full of credits for images, sfx and sources for claims made:
docs.google.com/document/d/1ewVU3XSN4418d4JRJuYLN8p5DZ3YSAbRN-7q7aHEbms
Music I did not make (see sources doc for full attribution):
Jason Shaw: Sneaky Snooper
Josh Woodward: Twinklebell, Cherubs
Kevin MacLeod: The Sky of our Ancestors, Thinking Music, The Path of the Goblin King v2, Chee Zee Jungle
Subscribe for language: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Be my patron: patreon.com/user?u=584038
~ BRIEFLY ~
Dyirbal (pronounced like "gerbil") is an eccentric language from Australia. Robert Dixon documented its marvelous features in a book that still captivates grammar nerds and syntacticians. However, when linguists came back to study it just decades later, they encountered a language with very different features.
Take a look at some of Dyirbal's traits and its changes. Then meet Swadesh, who thought he could explain language change using word lists and math. Learn the basics of the method and consider what it says about language change, notably the claim that all languages change at the same pace.
This is only half the story. Next time, we'll return to Australia and explore the complexities of language change by asking, "How long before a language becomes unrecognizable?"
~ CREDITS ~
Art, narration, animation and some music by Josh from NativLang
Sources for claims and credits for imgs, music and sfx:
docs.google.com/document/d/1jTXpOxmcxQUR-7l6TD6giL9BO_MxEErJWSTB4btruTE
-- Music that's not mine --
Pieces I pulled from other talents. All come from artists worth checking out and are used under a CC BY license.
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com):
Chee Zee Jungle, The Sky of our Ancestors, The Path of the Goblin King v2, Thinking Music
Jason Shaw (audionautix.com):
Time Passing By, Sneaky Snooper
Josh Woodward (Free download: http://joshwoodward.com):
Twinklebell, Cherubs
Subscribe for language: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Be my patron: patreon.com/user?u=584038
~ BRIEFLY ~
After years of studying Hopi, one linguist wrote a whole book focusing on just one thing about the language: it's full of ways of talking about time. Of all things, why time?
Decades earlier, Whorf studied Hopi. Building on his mentor Sapir's ideas about language, thought and culture, he drew a provocative conclusion. Comparing Hopi to European languages, he told us that the Hopi have a vastly different notion of "time". To simplify, the Hopi think about time differently because they speak Hopi.
Hopi became the poster child for linguistic relativity or "Sapir-Whorf", the idea that language shapes your thoughts or even determines how you think about time. Watch as the big fish claims about Hopi time grow. See why Malotki and other detractors dismiss them. Then explore the resurgence Whorfian ideas about language from curious cases of fieldwork on the ground and results from the lab. Finally, meet the curious case of Yucatec, a tenseless language.
In the end, we'll see that languages do talk about time differently, but getting people to act as if they have fundamentally different concepts of time.
~ CREDITS ~
Art, narration, animation and some of the music by Josh from NativLang
Sources for claims and credits for imgs, music and sfx:
docs.google.com/document/d/1Jo0LZ6rcLpXfmd7yekZDCce_cGLA9T6PZa6rsXIDFmI
Subscribe for language: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Be my patron: patreon.com/user?u=584038
~ BRIEFLY ~
First, meet Whorf. (Or meet again, for some of you...) After studying Hopi and comparing it to European languages, he's sure of two things: language shapes thought, and Europe's languages can be lumped together into a single "Standard Average European".
Is there such a thing as "S.A.E."? If so, what does it look like? Decades of debate followed over which languages belong and which don't, which languages are part of Europe's "periphery" and which are inside Europe's "core".
Debate gave way to data gathering: the EUROTYP program (ahem, sorry, programme). On the heels of that huge effort, research shifted to quantifiable efforts to identify and classify European languages against each other.
One key part of that shift was to identify features common to most European languages. Another was to identify which ones were uncommon among non-European languages. Haspelmath's work combined the two, bringing us 12 traits that defined Europe as a language area, plus a bunch of likely candidates for further traits.
We'll take a few of those traits and play a quick game of You Might Be A European! Then we'll map the 9 of the 12 features that had complete data to find out which languages counted as "Standard Average European". Which languages were revealed to be the linguistic heart of Europe? How European is English? What about Basque?
We'll wrap up with some thoughts SAE and the reasons for its existence, including a more recent note on the general scholarly opinion or trend in work on Euroversals.
~ CREDITS ~
Art, narration, animation and some music by Josh from NativLang
Doc full of sources for claims and credits for imgs, music and sfx:
docs.google.com/document/d/1lQHKbwHr0n2_YsF-U9_ldMfDlyHsBxhRXBNpskyZR3A
Subscribe for language: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Be my patron: patreon.com/user?u=584038
~ CORRECTIONS ~
- pronunciation of Ossetian (thanks to Taymuraz Tsalikov)
~ BRIEFLY ~
The Caucasus was runner-up in my patron poll, and then it won in the rematch. So, it's time we travel to this mountainous region and explore its complicated linguistic situation.
We go through major languages, family by family, briefly meeting Indo-European languages like Armenian and Kurdish, Turkic ones like Azeri, and even a Mongolic tongue named Kalmyk Oirat. Then, we see how linguists draw a line between "languages of the Caucasus" and the indigenous "Caucasian languages".
The Caucasian languages fall in three families: Northeast Caucasian, Northwest Caucasian, and Kartvelian in the south. Explore some of their intriguing features, including massive numbers of consonants and one of the earliest documented examples of something called "ergativity".
Despite some similar features, these languages don't belong to the same family. In fact, they may not even be a true "linguistic area"!
At the end, we're still left with the question: why so many languages? We'll consider how one linguist looks at the relationship between geography and the lives of language families.
~ CREDITS ~
Art, narration, animation and outro music by Josh from NativLang
Doc full of sources for claims and credits for imgs, music and sfx:
docs.google.com/document/d/187Rgxm4pSU058WQxMHn0TPjLhrn3vCL9MwrXOZWnJgQ
Subscribe for language: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Be my patron: patreon.com/user?u=584038
~ CREDITS ~
Outro theme - Celtic by Joshua LF Mitchell
soundcloud.com/joshualfmitchell
twitter.com/jlfm97
https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCwTYGa4jPUrZ-Ols4XXUjhQ
Art, narration and animation by Josh from NativLang
Doc full of sources for claims and credits for imgs, music and sfx:
docs.google.com/document/d/10E-LulQznrlPYXv41ky3Jy3he41fMLUonyLEf7Riw0c
~ CORRECTIONS ~
"i nGaeilge" : "as Gaeilge" is the expected phrase here! Thank you to multiple commenters for pointing this out.
~ I GCUPLA FOCAL, BRIEFLY ~
I'm preparing a video that explores the entire history of Irish. As I stitch together my notes, I'm noticing I often just have time to name-drop terms like "Proto-Celtic" and "Ogham". Today let's spend time on one of the more unusual ones: "initial mutations".
Archaic or "Primitive Irish" had neat Celtic syllables, but when Old Irish pops in just a couple centuries later, it's already full of worn-out endings and these strange mutations.
Two types. First, lenition: a word's starting sound gets softer, like /p/ turning into /f/. Second, eclipse: the starting sound gets more voiced or nasalized. The textbook Sengoídelc adds a third type, aspiration: adding h before a vowel.
What makes these devious is that they're triggered by grammar. We'll take a look at a few examples.
I'll close out by thinking about how Irish's "will mutate for grammar" strategy likely developed. I'll also consider how, even though they now look so uniquely Celtic, mutations are not inherited from the common Proto-Celtic ancestor.
Subscribe for language: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Be my patron: patreon.com/user?u=584038
Discuss this more on Commonlounge:
commonlounge.com/community/b6f3a9d85edf4cdebf38c7e79ee9b01d
~ Corrections & Additions ~
- The traditional Scottish pronunciation of "Gaelic" is G[ɑ]lic rather than G[eɪ]lic. Thanks to John Hamelink and others!
http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/gaelic
~ The Short of It ~
This time it's the tale not of a language, but of a leid. As I prepared to shelve Early Modern English and jump to the next topic, the one that eked out a victory in my first patron vote, I couldn't quite shut my creative notebook on this subplot.
A Middle English letter got its second wind in Scotland, and was particularly useful for representing a "y" sound. When the printing press made its way to the Scottish Lallans, the Anglic being spoken there was already distinct from London English. This had become the home turf of Scots, an emerging language with its own literature that it was eager to print. But Scots printers made some spelling compromises, inadvertently paving the way for later speakers to misread a letter. Thanks to this glitch, the original pronunciations of certain Scottish names sound strange to us, while the misreadings have become perfectly standard!
~ Credits ~
Narration, art and animation by Josh from NativLang.
Sources for claims, imgs, fonts, noises and such:
docs.google.com/document/d/10swXhvs9epw3efMj76IlahBGR4WcDFEYB8HA3Rp0l7Y
Subscribe for language: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Be my patron: patreon.com/user?u=584038
~ Briefly, and without spoilers ~
I'm embarrassed to admit that this is the first time I ever really got into Shakespeare. There's a personal story here, which I'll quickly share in the video.
The idea of reconstructing his pronunciation intrigued me. As I started making trips to the library and downloading old grammars, I just found the questions piling on. I did find some answers for you.
It starts with his odd spelling - well, the spelling he inherited. Chaucer's medieval spelling was followed by modern sound changes, including the start of the Great Vowel Shift. The introduction of Caxton's printing press and the spelling debates put Early Modern English in a state of flux by Shakespeare's time. They also left our first trail of evidence.
Other evidence comes from rhythm, rhymes and - more reluctantly - puns. Many of these don't work the same way anymore, from the rhymes like "sea" and "prey" to the rhythm of "housewifery".
Modern dialects add another layer of evidence, at times preserving features that standard English accents, notably RP, have lost.
The sound of his language is also shaped by his grammar. His use of "thou" and his third-person "-th" vs "-s" verb endings always stand out to English speakers. Finally, though data-crunchers challenge his legendary status as king of all the words, we consider how innovative he was in the way he used words.
We end with a note on linguist David Crystal's Original Pronunciation ("OP") experiment at the reconstructed Globe Theatre, and some thoughts on what studying Shakespeare's sounds as a different pronunciation system says about him and about us.
~ Credits ~
Narration, art and animation by Josh from NativLang. Some of the music, too.
Sources for claims and for imgs, sfx, fonts and music:
docs.google.com/document/d/183wkdASSh4RfY52I5hdPOB3-v2gquXwlpd8EyINZHSE
Subscribe for language: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Follow my progress and become a patron: patreon.com/user?u=584038
Thanks to Vlogbrothers for their sponsorship of this video.
~ CORRECTIONS & ADDITIONS ~
The man from Leonidio is a "headmaster", not "schoolmaster". His story and links to the recordings are in my sources doc below.
"hoplos researched" should read "hoplon researched" / "aspis researched" - my thanks to @Roelkonijn
~ SUMMARY ~
Ancient Greece was home to a variety of dialects. Athens and Sparta both put up a major fight. Long story short, the dialect of one of those cities won out. Guess which? Athens, of course. Attic Greek combined with a hefty dose of Ionic to form the Koiné (Common) Greek, the ancestor of basically all modern Greek dialects.
All but perhaps one. Travel to a small town in the south of Greece, where a headmaster leads his students up the hillsides to record the words of their elders. These aging villagers speak Tsakonian (Τσακώνικα), a special remnant that may soon crumble into another Greek artifact.
I look at pieces of the grammar and pronunciation of the language, and show you what sets it apart from Modern Greek. Search for any ancient holdouts it preserves. Consider its connection to the Doric dialect of Ancient Sparta. Finally, ponder its place in modern Greece and how much longer it will be with us.
~ CREDITS ~
Art, narration and animation by Josh from NativLang. A bit of the music, too.
Sources for claims and credits for sfx, images and music:
docs.google.com/document/d/1xO-7sL4jKysGRvALSoTWDP3uqrrd4--XI2kbVyLFCGY
Subscribe for language: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Follow my progress or become a patron: patreon.com/user?u=584038
~ Corrections ~
As Rodrigo Chacón comments, the transitive "nicua" is not used alone. Instead, expect to find "nitlacua" (indefinite -tla-) or "niccua" (definite -c-). Here's a better illustration for building the verb: "ni___cua".
~ Are you reading instead of watching? (no spoilers) ~
He's commonly known to English-speakers as Montezuma and Moctezuma in Spanish, but his language is a different story. Travel to Mexico and dig into language history. Look at early colonial writers and grammarians, learn their strengths and limitations, then move onto some surprising old and new evidence.
Along the way, you'll learn what the Aztecs called themselves and their language and how they really said "chocolate". You'll study a bit of their fancy grammar. You'll hear me take a shot at pronouncing the reconstructed form of Montezuma's own name as it would've been pronounced in old Tenochtitlan. You'll see how it took modern linguistics to sort out some of the historical evolution of the language's sounds from classical to modern times. Finally, you'll learn about the dramatic differences between common speech and ritual speech. In the end, you can see how the pronunciation, grammar and style leave us with an understanding of Montezuma that's more complex, but also more beautiful, than if his language were a simple Mexican monolith.
~ CREDITS ~
Art, narration and animation by Josh from NativLang. Some of the music, too.
Sources for claims and credits for sfx, images and music:
docs.google.com/document/d/1BGaFnFZ9SJN1QjK2-FlgnvoF5EGoRiIkTZd09mCVEVo
Subscribe for language: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Follow my progress or become a patron: patreon.com/user?u=584038
The World Atlas of Language Structures chapter that I'm building on:
http://wals.info/chapter/19
~ CORRECTIONS ~
After saying "velar" in the pharyngeals section, you hear me make a sound that's actually a UVULAR fricative. - Thanks, Carl Bille!
Redditer languagejones states that my /!/ is wrong, as I pronounced it by doing what some San scholars call "flopping". Take this into account if you're trying to reproduce the sound.
I'm not sure how far off my pharyngeals were. Arabic speakers commented that they're not quite right. The linguistics gets complicated here, since some argue Arabic does not have "true" pharyngeals, in which case I could be doubly wrong! Best to do a bit more digging if you're trying to master either (1) the Arabic epiglottals or (2) a language with pharyngeals.
~ Overview (SPOILER FREE!) ~
I went looking for the oddest speech sounds. That's what happens when you give language nerds free time. I didn't have to go far, since WALS.info had a good start with its chapter on uncommon consonants. WALS is a resource many in this community are already familiar with, but I recommend it if you aren't.
So, what kinds of sounds tend NOT to occur in the world's languages? Which languages have them? Ooh, and although most of them are found in lesser known languages, which ones happen to be used in English? WATCH FOR ALL ANSWERS!
You can also read the WALS chapter for info and stats. But I've scrounged up even more, some of which are rarer than the consonant places/manners of articulation in their post.
~ CREDITS ~
Art, animation and narration by Josh from NativLang.
Some of the music, too.
Sources and full credits for images, sfx, fonts and music:
docs.google.com/document/d/18kBGhWizpbse3p9xfInlTsfAOWPTSbgJf2-NY5i8snM
Subscribe for language: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Follow my progress or become a patron: patreon.com/user?u=584038
~ Spoiler Alert! ~
I couldn't ignore the many commenters who've pleaded with me to give Hungarian a shot. After gathering up some grammars and purchasing Lendvai's history, The Hungarians, I see why! I just had to share this linguistic tale.
This video tells two stories that intertwine. First, how Hungarian got to be such a lonely language island among Indo-European languages. Second, how Hungarian uses a long-word-building strategy that's "foreign" in a European context: agglutination with vowel harmony. At the end, the two come together as linguists trace its words back to a common ancestor called Uralic. The Uralic family explains Hungarian's uniqueness, but also its distant relations to Finnish and Estonian within Europe and its closer shared prehistory with Uralic languages in Russia that suggest a long, long, LONG migration from Siberia!
I cut an observation from the video that I wish to add here. "Agglutination" is abnormal in Europe, but that could have more to do with a quirk of Indo-European than Uralic. "Agglutinative" languages aren't rare around the world, and even other families like Turkic have vowel harmony. Compare that European-style "fusional" types.
I am not Hungarian - check and correct. That said, I poured into this every last ounce of the time I spent practicing the language.
~ CREDITS ~
Art, narration and animation by Josh from NativLang.
Some of the music, too.
Sources for my claims and credits for imgs, sfx, music:
docs.google.com/document/d/1aLQ2sY4KTj8Ya3ymhvsBULtX7i2QT2kwwUxOhqzUwUw
Subscribe for language: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Follow my progress or become a patron: patreon.com/user?u=584038
This video was unlocked as a Patreon milestone goal. I appreciate the patrons who made it happen. Stay for the credits to see them!
~ For you readers ~
The Tower of Babel is one of humankind's early attempts to explain the variety of languages spoken across the earth. Thousands of years later, philologists and linguists studied the natural evolution of language. So then, what's the true story of language history?
In this video, we'll look at the traditional interpretation of the Tower of Babel story: the Adamic language once split into 72 languages to confuse people. Then we'll consider how historical linguistics compared cognates, established language families and traced related languages back to a common proto-language.
Right where historical linguistics hits mysteries and dead ends, you'll meet the "long rangers". These linguistic mavericks dared to go further back in time. Finally, briefly see why mainstream linguistics dismisses long-range findings as pseudoscientific.
~ CREDITS ~
Art, narration and animation by Josh from NativLang.
Some of the music, too.
Sources for my claims and credits for imgs, sfx, music:
docs.google.com/document/d/1uO5tOOHkK0xXTUVfEAsxnsvfIMOtU1rJnsR2LAAbv2w
Subscribe for language: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Follow my progress or become a patron: patreon.com/user?u=584038
My last video looked at the role of Aztec (Nahuatl) and Maya (Chontal) in the conquest of Mexico. This time, we learn the grammar of these languages.
I'll start with the things that stood out to me about Chontal Maya and Classical Aztec pronunciation, nouns, verbs, prepositions, alignment and basic sentence structure. Stick with me through that, and you'll earn a reward big enough to satisfy the grammatical cravings of almost any language nerd.
After you understand their differences, step back to see their strange sameness. Mesoamerica is a Sprachbund, an area where languages shared the same space for so long that they ended up developing many of the same features. Not just basic things like borrowing the word for "chocolate", I'm talking entire linguistic structures here. I'll consider a few of these features and close with what I find so intriguing about this language area.
This is a bit of a change from recent videos. Let's see if you enjoy digging into more of the grammar behind my linguistic tales.
~ CREDITS ~
Voice, art and animation by Josh from NativLang.
Some of the music, too (outro, piano, and a couple softsynth instrumentals).
Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com):
The Show Must Be Go, Path of the Goblin King v2, Big Mojo, Our Story Begins, Arid Foothills
Sneaky Snooper by Jason Shaw (audionautix.com)
Sources for claims and credits for images, fonts, sfx:
docs.google.com/document/d/1jhms1U2Y-HsfbTx4AWJ9D696c8BsvLLucqmMxI-XYTg
Subscribe for language: youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NativLang
Follow my progress or become a patron: patreon.com/user?u=584038
This video tells the history of the translators involved in major early events of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. See how Classical Nahuatl, Chontal Maya, Spanish and Montezuma's flowery Aztec poetry all contributed to political decisions that led to the fall of the Aztecs.
~ CREDITS, SOURCES & LOTS OF NOTES ~
Art, narration and animation by Josh from NativLang.
Some of the music, too (ending, light piano in the middle, Thoth's Pill bits).
Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com):
Our Story Begins, Path of the Goblin King v2
Music by Jason Shaw (audionautix.com):
Opus One, Sneaky Snooper, Quiet
Lots of notes plus credits for all outside images, fonts and sfx:
docs.google.com/document/d/1BES073aUMukhpSNT9lvJb-YQzppBnpO8IbmrPLMbBZA