How Geography KILLED a Letter
Vložit
- čas přidán 26. 06. 2018
- Fun facts:
I had a speech impediment as a child where I couldn’t pronounce TH properly, instead using an F sound. Good thing I got all that cleared up before making this video.
If you’re curious what thorn looks like actually using thorn to spell it, it looks like this: Þorn. Now you know why I didn’t show it in my video.
Last fact, there are a bunch more letters the english language used to have, like Wynn and Yogh.
Music: www.bensound.com
"WE'RE SINKING"
"what are you sinking about"
I DIED LMAOOOOOOOOO
Don't you mean the people on the ship died?
Actually they died too. HAHAHAHA
gold
डूब
a funny thing is, years ago my teacher (i'm from germany) showed us this video in class and told us this is the reason we should learn proper english. Never thought I'd see it again.
Plebeians: "You"
Sophisticated people: "Thou"
Me, an intellectual: "þou"
fm
Ha ha, poo.
Wait what, thorn is still alive and on youtube comments? Who did you do that!
NPC 19867
1) that bloody english mate XD (no hate)
2) its pretty easy, theres many ways, But the easiest way of getting the ability to type thorn is by going to settings, and add the icelandic keyboard on your mobile, since icelandic has the english alphabet (Plus Ð and Þ) So you have more acsess to extra letters in icelandic keyboard, (or either that or copy and paste the letter but thats slow af)
3) the thorn letter isnt dead, its still used in many languages and still makes the same sound.
hello i speak like dis not like þis
Why do ya say "thing"
When yo can say "þiŋ"
How did you write that n
@@LukaDebiL copied it, probably searched ng letter and found it
@@LukaDebiL ŋ is the ipa symbol for velar nasal sound aka the "ng" sound.
@@tmfan3888 I know that, I was asking where he found the letter to write in comments, I already knew what it means
Ying
þe most surprising þing is þat I can actually find this letter in my phone by holding t
me too
I cant, but i just use icelandic keyboard
iPhone or Android? I can’t find thorn on either the UK nor US English keyboards and I’m using an iPhone.
Đat is so cool! Þanks!
Holding d yields đ, and holding t yields þ.
I þink we should bring it back
whats the alt-code for that character
I sink not
If you brought back boþ letters ðat’d be great!
Golden Ideas & DIY I just use icelandic keyboard to do it. *Ð* is right next to p and *Þ* is ðe button to ðe left of right shift!
@@saftobulle Thou canst only do it if thou art writing from mobile.
WE'RE SINKING WE'RE SINK
Hello, what are you *sinking* about?
To be honest, I' m not german and I thougth he WAS saying thinking. Until I saw this comment...
To be honest, Germans are well aware the "th" (thorne ;) exists and can HEAR it alright. But the problem is less hearing it right but more pronouncing it right when actually speaking.
... the most difficult word still is "Squirrel" tho XD
@@BritneyLaZonga
Very True, we're (Germans) simply not conditioned to pronounce that sound in the right way. The more interesting question is, why the German language lost that sound in the first place.
@@BritneyLaZonga Well, even gernans are able to say a good "th" with a but Training
@@RufusE Of course. English teachers really try hard to get that across. But well... students are lazy sometimes ;)
Are you sure it wasn’t deleted because of how it looks?
“þorn”
Lol
born?
Looks worse capitalized
Þorn
Badoodoodoo
@@millemelon1595 thorn
“Thou” (2nd person singular nominative) and “You” (2nd person plural objective) have always been two separate words; “You” eventually took over the role of its nominative counterpart, “Ye”, along with the singular “Thou” and “Thee”, over the course of the 1600s or so. The visual similarity using thorn is just coincidence.
Exactly. Like “Ye Olde Shoppe” should not be confused with the similar actual word “Ye”. But hey why not just spell 2 of the most common words in English the exact same….
I’m not sure but I think the difference is that “Thou/Thee” was used for casual conversations whereas “You’ was used to show respect or some sort of politeness.
As someone who loves linguistics I can say that
thou = tu
you = jūs
when comparing my language to older english.
@@mid-dinero7869 if that's true, it's quite similar to Dutch where the casual version of you is "je" and the formal is "u".
*Þou
Losing þis cool letter was a real þorn in our side.
you know I just read "porn" at first, right?
@@anierrn6935 lol, þat's understandable. I hope you enjoyed þis þornographic video.
*ðis
@@jonasloe4926 þ and ð were interchangeable in Old English because /ð/ was an intervocalic allophone of /θ/, so they didn't need to constantly be distinguished by separate letters in Old English writing. It wasn't until much later into Middle English that /ð/ & /θ/ became separate phonemes. Many Greek barrowings with intervocalic /θ/ (pathos for example) and the voicing of initial dental fricatives in articles (the), determiners (this, that, these, those), pronouns (thou, they) and some adverbs (there, though) contributed to /ð/ & /θ/ becoming their own sounds.
David Kirby ðis
It's quite surprising that a native speaker doesn't hear the difference between ð and þ. Ðis is someþing I þought was very obvious, as speaker of a language ðat doesn't have eiðer sound, ðe difference is quite striking.
As for the other linguistic inaccuracies, they have already been pointed out.
It's the difference between v and f, or z and s. As a secondary English speaker, I did have trouble telling the two apart (or noticing they're an actual specific sound, because my English teachers sucked), but before long I learned the difference. From watching TV.
'ð' just sounds (and even looks) a lot like 'd' to me, but i remember from my early years of learning english that 'þ/th' had a very similar sound to a geminated 's', and took me a while to train the slight difference in the tongue positioning under the teeth to make the correct sound.
But really, this/that just sounds extremely like 'dis/dat', and not at all like 'þis/þat'
The difference is if your young is inside your mouth or not
This(tounge outside)
That(tounge inside)
Because we are taught very early in school that the sounds are the the same (phonics). Throw in the multitudes of regional dialects one will encounter and it just isn't that noticeable. Like Josef Ruiz's accurate example of tongue placement. I never use tongue outside, unless I am doing it for dramatic effect. All my TH sounds are made by placing my tongue on the pallet and barely covering the base of the front teeth. Never do I make a TH sound with my tongue protruding beyond my front teeth, unless I am trying to make the sound in a dramatic or emphasized way.
No, we hear them differently; there are minimal pairs such as _either_ vs. _ether_ . It’s just that nobody pays attention to the difference because they use the same digraph.
4:50 on the contrary, the "þ" sound /θ/ always existed in Germanic languages, but it died in continental Europe later.
This man clearly wants views and doesnt actually care about linguistics.
Also, "you" existed in English already as a sound, not because of the typographic Y. It's a cognate to the Dutch "jij" (yay) or "je" (yuh) meaning the same thing.
Indeed, Þ was adopted into the Latin English alphabet from Anglo-Saxon Runes, which in turn were lightly adapted from continental Runic.
You literally just have to google "did German have th" and it will give you a wikipedia text about the High German consonant shift. This video was clearly put together on things the guy remembered hearing and stuff he thought would make sense.
You absolutely did NOT come from a misinterpretation of "thou" spelled with a y. You was always the English second person plural word. It later became the respectful way to address superiors in the singular, and gradually thou fell out of use.
@@Zero_Contradictions *Þis
oh yeah? prove it.
@@zunderdod24 Thou stopped being used in the 17th century. More than a hundred years after the Gutenberg's Press.
@@hkgx Not in dialects, across the North of England in places like Lancashire, Cumbria and Yorkshire you still hear old folk saying 'tha' (Thou) and 'thee'
Wow so English had modal forms? Cool. I always wondered why English lacked such thing, Spanish has "tu / usted" informal / formal and then you have Japanese with something like 7!!!
The difference between the th in thing and the th in this your use of voice. In thing, you're just pushing air through your teeth. In this, you're activating your vocal cords to make the sound. It's similar to the difference between s and z.
It took me a minute of saying each one to get what you were saying, but you're right! I don't know how easy that is to distinguish over the mic unfortunately. Also I'm a big fan of your channel!
@@AtlasPro1 English is not my native language and I was able to distinguish the differences between the two sounds in your voice, even though you said that they sound the same to you.
@@AtlasPro1 There's actually two words in English that only differ in pronunciation due to the difference between these two versions of 'th'. These words are 'either' (as in 'either' this or that) and 'ether' (the 5th element in the western classical understanding of the elements (fire, water, earth, air, ether))
Yes, I could hear the difference as he pronounced them in the video. Thanks for explaining.
@@user-zc9si7ls9i Oh nice. Good find.
There's a mistake at the end of your video: the TH sound [θ] and the letter "Þ" both did NOT originate in English or in England. ALL Germanic languages (including Old High German) used to have that consonant (though in Old High German it was represented with the letters "th"). They simply lost it over time, and English was one of the few to retain the sound and the letter. Þ (Thorn) actually derives from the old Germanic rune ᚦ (Thurisaz), and the oldest attested Germanic language, Gothic, also had a letter to represent that 𐌸 (thyth), to represent that sound, which is also transliterated with into the Latin alphabet using a "Þ".
The "th" sound did exist in German but faded due to the High German sound shift.
Yeah he got þat mixed up, Icelandic and english kept đe th sounds because þey were isolated
@@michaelbell3952 well gothic got little old norse still moar
@@michaelbell3952 its not đ its ð
@@imadeyoureadthis9124 It´s both. How you pronounce thing (þ) and the (ð) is distinct even though in English they both have th in front
@@Gunxify but thats no the right letter
4:48 actually dental fricatives, [θ] and [ð] are ancestral to the Germanic languages, not an English innovation. They two sounds merged into German d which is why you is cognate with German du and the is cognate with der.
The dental fricative is a really rare phoneme in general regarding modern languages, never mind that two of the most widely spoken languages on Earth just so happen to have both the voiced AND voiceless pair (standard English and standard Arabic [as differentiated from regional dialects like Castilian Spanish using the voiceless dental fricative instead of a voiceless alveolar fricative for their letter "Z"] have both sounds, along with Greek, Albanian, and Burmese as a few examples). It got reduced to an alveolar stop/fricative for whatever reason in most languages (which is why "What do you tink?" or "What do you sink" are really common Shibboleths for native English speakers).
EXACTLY thank you, which is also proven my the fact that they still use it in iceland, so we know that during the last part of the german migration period (when iceland was colonised), it was still used by germanic tribes. It then fell out of use in the continent, as every language tends to change and simplify interacting with others but not on the isolated Iceland. Thank you for pointing this out. (isolation is probably the reason why it was kept for longer in the english language as well, it being more isolated than a continental germanic language)
You is not cognate to du but thou is.
Yeah, this video has too many mistakes to be considered an educational one
@Stephanie Logan ðeir*
How Emoticons REVIVED a Letter
:þ
5:24 Iceland is so...
Ice/o/lated
Oh the pun
Ha. Ha
Here's a better pun: "Thorn was preserved in Ice(land)".
Luiz Fellipe delete this
Ðat was very punny
4:44 Actually, the thorn sound was around in all early Germanic languages. It was just dropped in German, and most others. It was however retained in English and Icelandic.
Native speakers now: "we should bring it back"
Native speakers after: "Why did we bring this back?"
Everyone else: "What þe hell is þis?"
Whæt ðe hell is ðis? Þink about ðe consequences of using ðis and þrow it out!
Đ
Hƿǣt ðu gemaðel ey?
@@Geegs But wouldn't it make it easier for us (and in turn, people who are just starting to learn English) to differentiate between the two th sounds though?
@@naufalzaid7500 it would be very interesting. Still doesn't change how weird english is
I totally ϸink ϸat we should bring back ϸis amazing letter. After all, "TH" is one of ϸe most common letter combinations, and ϸere is no point in not having it have its own letter.
I'm not a native english speaker but i agree with you (or may i say þou), "TH" is definetely one of, if not the most used letter combinations and English lacks accentuation and letter variations (like é, æ, ø, ã, etc...).
@@KimowotaJP Yeah. I advocate using Þ because some languages might not have T or H in their alphabet so this would make it easier to learn. One letter needs to be learned instead of one, possibly two.
Definitely. We must make þ a letter in þe English language again. Not to mention, it would bring back þe use of þou and þy, which I personally would love to see. Someone, quick, make a catchy song for þ like Phineas and Ferb did for þe word "Aglet"!
i 100% agree wiþ your idea it’s such a common sound so it woild be more convinient to bring it back
@@mukhrizezry Æ don't þink people would easily change. Perhaps if we can get our meme-lord Pewdiepæ to start using it, ðen it mæght stand a chance.
Just for fun from an Icelandic Þ & Ð point of view (notice the "Th" in my name should be a "Þ"):
"They thankfully think this thing is the best thing that they can throw the three times they need to throw a thing." --> Becomes --> " "Ðey þankfully þink ðis þing is the best þing ðat ðey can þrow ðe þree times ðey need to þrow a þing".
How can you possibly not hear the difference between thorn and eth? Eth is voiced!
ikr, i wonder if he can't hear the difference between T and D either
Or V and F... or S and Z...
@@pia_mater you joke but some american english dialects (like my own in the north east) often just pronounce both t and d as a completely distinct sound that isnt t or d (alveolar flap? i forget the name for it).
Sad to say that most of the general public probably doesn't study geographic linguistics and wouldn't care even if it was pointed out. That and the fact that some English speakers don't even speak clearly in their own native language, depending on the environment of their nurture.
I've noticed that a lot of Americans pronounced "with" with a thorn sound, and not the eth sound, as God intended. 😁
I was used to switch the TH in english for F and D when I was learning the languege..
- I'm a native portuguese speaker.
"Tell me De truF"
"Don't Frow your cloFes on De floor"
"I do not Fink Dese Fiories are good"
somtimes when i speak english somtimes i replaced the ϸ sound with an f sound and the ð sound with a v sound for some reason
Português de Portugal ou Português do Brasil?
@@carltomacruz9138 Brasil 🙃
@@fpocoyo: Ahh, you're an "Oliwudji", as my Spanish professer would say. :p
@@carltomacruz9138 I understood that you're trying to write a brazilian pronunciation but I did not catch the word lol. it's Hollywood? We'll say something like Holiúdji 😂😂.
"You" and "thou" existed at the same time. "Thou" was the familiar second person singular pronoun, akin to "tú" in Spanish, while "you" was the formal or plural second person pronoun. Also, the difference between Θ/Þ and ð is voiceless/voiced, similar to the difference between s and z. It's not THAT critical in English since there are no words which can be mistaken with other English words if you use the wrong one of the voiced/voiceless, pair, but in other languages (I don't know Greek, Welsh, Turkmen, Arabic, Burmese, or Albanian, or a few of the other languages that actually have both voiced and voiceless dental fricatives, as it's a really rare phoneme) that might be a different story. However, if you can't hear the differences between the ð in "then" and the þ in "thin," please get your ears checked, because, much like English adjective order, as soon as you hear someone say "þat" instead of "ðat," you will internally go apeshit :P
I use it fore þis:
:þ
I am se German guy
the "th" in that is a đ
@@ok-op8lg It's actually this letter: ð. But this letter is only used in Iceland and was never used by the anglo-saxons, so you're wrong there too.
@@randomguy263 đ and that other letter are the same letter
@@ok-op8lg that would not start with a Ð no words start with a Ð, that would be þat. greetings from iceland
Now in old English, ð was not used the same way as in Icelandic and þ was used more often.
wait, you can't hear the difference between the two "th"s ?
Ikr, ðey are completely different. We have two letters in Arabic
ذ
ث
@@95kpeople2 Đat letter also appears in Icelandic! It's unique đere too!
Th in that is voiced, Th in thin is unvoiced
the =δe
think=θink
This didn't help you at all , did it ? :-)
Ðð = Voiced
Þþ = Unvoiced
Amazing work! It's not only the tons of information you found but the creative way you are presenting it and also you can tell there was a lot of effort for the visual effects of the video. This channel is the best informative one in the whole CZcams. I love it! Greetings from Bulgaria!
R.I.P.
The letter Thorn
other letters that died:
That
Eth
Long S
Yogh
that is all I remember
There's one more (that I know of): Wynn, written "Ƿ" (no, it's not a fancy "P"), was a rune that was adopted by the scribes into the Old English alphabet. It had the same sound as "W", which wasn't in use at the time. It was eventually dropped in favor of "UU", which went on to be collapsed into the single grapheme "W". And now you know how W got its name.
In German there still is the long s, only written differently. It now is this thing ß.
Kameon it doesn‘t get used in switzerland
@@shagarakar Ok, then only in German spoken (or rather written) in Germany
@@Knabberwasser_H2SO5 ß is the sharp s
"The pen is mightier than the sword!"
Geography walks in.
Pen gets very quiet and avoids eye contact.
"I'll take 'the penis mightier' for 400, Trebek!"
„think” is voiceless, “this” is voiced
That’s the difference, like p vs. b, t vs. d etc.
"surprisingly it has someþing to do with geography"
lookes at title
*shocked pikachu face*
Me looking at this comment:
😲
Felsbrocken *þis comment
þikachu face
A lot of the runic letters would make sense to bring back in English. Æ is a personal favourite of mine, but also certain diphthongs in general.
This is the letter that should be removed
-> C
Causes many misspellings
Also v, q, j, x, and y should be removed. v = w/f, q = ku, j = dsh/i , x = ks and y = u/i
I agree, it should make a different sound like a Ch or Sh rather than making a K sound. Also -> X
@@HT-vd4in v shouldn't be removed :/
@@HT-vd4in C, V, Q and X should be removed in my opinion, but not J (I'm not a fan of big diagraphs). It should have only one sound, though: "dsh" - "i" already has one.
Sorry, but the word "you" does not come from a confusion between þ and y. English had the same differentiation between an informal and formal 2nd person singular pronoun that a lot of languages do. The informal/singular was the standard "thou" while for the formal one, the plural version "ye/you" was used. Over time, the informal word fell out of use and "you" started to be used as both singular and plural. I don't know where you got that fact from.
Also, you got the reason for why there's a th sound in English and none in German wrong. Proto-Germanic did in fact feature a th sound, but in all continental languages this sound became shifted (in German, for example, to a d sound), while it was preserved in isolated languages spoken on islands, like English and Icelandic.
Your point that geography killed the th sound basically still holds up, just the other way round. Anyway, your other videos are great! Subscribed!
thank you
I'm tempted to believe you but you didnt explain why he's wrong on the first thing. That's not a contradiction.
Interestingly, the reason that people in the old days said _ye_ for _you_ sometimes is because they derived from different cases (nominative for _ye_ and accusative for _you_ ) in Old English
Well said! Swedish used 'eth' for they and them but eventually dropped the aspiration, from "dhe" (they) and "dhem" (them) to "de" and "dem".
Interestingly, the spoken language simplifies these to one "dom" which goes against present day grammar (a pain to us teachers to correct in written exams etc), however "dom" is but a remnant from the days of eth and thorn, indicating dative form. Basically, the viking roots stick around.
@@francisluglio6611 because he wasnt wrong when he said that "ye olde" comes from "þe olde" but he was wrong when he said "you" comes from "þou"
5:43 I hear a big difference. In my native language, 'Th'ink is a variation of the 'T' consonant and 'Th'is is a variation of the 'D' consonant.
My native language (German) has neither. But I always thought that ð was almost identical to "d", while I had huge problems with þ - it would either come out as "s" or "f".
Unvoiced versus voiced. The same difference as between s and z, t and d, etc.
In Portuguese we normaly (wrongly) say "Dis"(this) "Dat"(that) "De"(the)
And also "fink"(think) "fing"(thing)
"Dis fing rai dere is de one dat you wer finking"
(This thing right there is the one that you were thinking)
For me its fink and dis. Preserving the unvoiced and vouced but not the th sound itself.
I love how the Icelandic "Đ" and the south-western Slavic "Đ" are completely different sounds
Đ is also used in Vietnamese with a different pronunciation
@@Ida-xe8pg they are both wrong, the Vietnamese Ð /ɗ/ and the slavic Ð /dʑ/. It is for a soft th sound like in Icelandic.
Þannig á fólk að nota eð, ekki eins og helvítis Víetnamarnir eða Slavneska fólkið á Balkanskaganum.
Is Đ important to you? My people dont have it we write dz.
And also its nothing strange let me compare my alphabet to the english one.
written = spoken = spoken
letter = latviski = english
e = e = ī
ē = ē
r = err = ār
t = tē = tī
u = u = jū
ū = ū
i = i = ai
o = ua = ou
ō = ō
p = pē = pī
a = a = ei
ā = ā
s = ess = es
š = ešš
d = dē = dī
f = ef = ef
g = g = dzī
ģ = ģē
h = hā = eich
j = jē = džeī
k = kā = keī
ķ = ķē
l = ell = el
ļ = eļļ
z = zē = zī
ž = žē
c = cē = sī
č = čē
v = vē = vī
b = bē = bī
n = enn = en
ņ = eņņ
m = emm = em
as you can see in english even the names of the letters dont corespond to the sounds they are used for.
@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 Icelandic doesn't have a a "dz" sound in our language. Ð is used for a soft th sound like in bath.
@@oligultonn Yes I understand that, tho I say baf for my english has no th.
But I was asking the slav not the german.
That’s not where “you” comes from. You and he were the plural forms of thee and thou. They became the formal or polite form of address, and eventually the polite form was used so much that the informal thou just disappeared altogether.
Thee and thou are the same lexeme, but in a different case. Thou is nominative, thy is genitive, thee is accusative and dative.
Thorn (Þþ) is voiceless
And eth (Ðð) is voiced
So kinda like "T" vs "D".
And k & g
s & z
f & v
p & b
Actually incorrect, both were used interchangeably in English.
English spelling was only standardised after thorn and eth fell out of usage (during the 18th century I believe). Finding texts in Middle or Old English you're likely to see either one or the other used for both voiced and unvoiced depending on the author.
Really find any text in it's original from before the 18th or 17th century written in English, and try to see how to spell specific things, or even what word to use in specific cases. (I've seen pure Latin used instead of English for specific words in some texts. English was not the official language of England during the time those were written, French and Latin were, hence the heavy presence of loanwords from those languages in English today). You'll see just how widely they varied, it's fun.
It’s not like s&z don’t vary either. They do too.
@@AlvinBalvin321 That's not the point. C and K, and C and S both exist and yet at times produce the same sound. English spelling isn't so simple, nor was it ever so specific with the usage of eth and thorn, as the language wasn't even standardised then.
Here is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Middle English). Eth is not used once in the text, only thorn. Both voiced and unvoiced dental fricatives are represented by thorn. (you can also see many other letters being used to represent sounds you won't find them used for in English today).
quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Gawain?rgn=main;view=fulltext
And here is Beowulf in Old English. In this text both eth and thorn are used, however they are both used for both sounds. Sometimes eth is used for voiced/unvoiced dental fricative, sometimes thorn.
www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43521/beowulf-old-english-version
So again, the notion that they were used specifically for voiced/unvoiced, not ambiguously, is incorrect. Not even modern English distinguishes the two sounds as different, nor have they really been before.
We also used to have a letter called a 'wynn' ( Ƿ ) which was ultimately replaced by the letter 'W' (originally substituted with 'uu' or 'double-u').
1:21 that’s wrong; you only used it 11 times. the other 25 times were the phoneme /đ/ which is also represented orthographically with but phonologically seperate
Near the end of the vid he says he doesn't hear the difference, so there's that.
3:57 is completely false. _you_ derives from Old English _ēow_ , the dative from of _ġē_ which is why some old writing use the word _ye_ .
Also, at 4:44 the _th_ sound is inherited from Proto-Germanic, i.e. it existed before the Angles left Germany. The Germans just did away with it and started pronouncing it as _t_ or _d_ , as in _dies_ vs. _this_ . For example, Icelandic also preserves the _th_ sounds; compare Icelandic _þeim_ to English _them_ .
This video also incorrectly states that the thorn pronunciation was developed in Britain but didn't develop in Germany. This is false. The thorn pronunciation was actually preserved in Britain and imported from Germany, but was lost in Germany. The evidence for this is that other germanic languages all share thorn in common, including the thorn letter, yet are not descendant from English, such as Icelandic and Norwegian.
yep it's pretty poorly researched video
I think it's that thou and you merged because of the lack of thorn
@@MK-ex4pb that doesn't really make sense because thorn disappeared in 14th century and thou survived until the 17th century.
@@christopherrowley7506 and so did ye olde and the olde. It started with the y printing but eventually merged. What sucks is we lost the useful plural, which is what you was (thou being singular).
HAAAH im icelandic and we still use that letter regulary
Er.. He actually spent a couple of minutes talking about Þ and Ð being used in Iceland. Þú varst væntanlega ekki að fylgjast með.
@@halldorherm ég var að fylgjast með en leyfðu karlinum að monta sig ;)
@@serjunkan9016 Haha, ekkert mál vinur ;)
Iceland, keeping it real, one Viking letter at a time.
And ðat's why I love Iceland
It would be awesome if you did a video going more in depth into many of the other unique European letters, as there are several that really confused me when I went to visit. German, Icelandic, and Irish in particular, as well as other old English letters like Æ and so on
There’s one incorrect bit. Icelanders would never spell “this” like “ðis.” The eth (ð) is never the first letter of any word.
This is an english word so the real sound in Icelandic would be ðis. But as you point out, we never start words with ð, so we don’t have any words in Icelandic that starts with that sound, except when we talk with a lazy accent. Like the word þetta (this in English) is can often be heard as ,,ðetta” when we talk
How would you write and pronounce the name of the god "Thor"? I assume in Icelandic he is also called Thor?
@@Zarkovision it's spelled Þór in Icelandic. But because the letter Þ is missing in English (and other languages) it spelled Thor outside of Iceland. Now, you could practice these sounds by sayin Þormóður Þórðarson very fast 10 times....
@@donellione75 The old German name is "Donar". I wonder if there also was a "soft th" in the past in the Germanic dialects.
@@donellione75 that's a thorough and thoughtful theorem
i normally write using both þ and ð in handwriting and when talking to people i know well online, i really think we should bring the þ back.
Interesting!
I'm þingking of þat too
It’d be “þinking ðat” ðough...
I also use wynn, yogh, œ, and æ, and ðe ðat symbol. (On mobile so I can't type most of ðem right now)
Edit: eng too
I use them in taking notes to write faster
A lot of missinformation here in this video.
This german accent thing I just say it´s more complicated and not that easy, I´ll leave it there.
1. This is not were you comes from, you is plural it used to be the polite version of speaking to each other, the old thou faded over time it´s grammatically more complicated to build.
I go I have I am
Thou goest Thou hast Thou beest/ or Thou art
He/She/It goes He/She/It has He/She/It is
We go We have We are
You go You have You are
They go They have They are
2. German had the thorne sound but due to pronunciation shifts it became a d sound.
A few examples english/ german: the thing/ das Ding, this/ dies, thou/ du, thin/ dünn, thick/ dick
3. Letters could be used much more sound efficient.
for example the letter C could be replaced by other letters in english a K or an S depending on the word.
X could be removed as well and replaced by KS because X doesn´t represents a single sound but two sounds, KS.
But this would make words look strange. If it had been done earlier, before almost everyone could write it would have been easier.
But then how would we Spell X-mas?!
Also, Brexit would be _Breksit_ lol!
I know it's a joke but X-mas is a borrowing from Greek and thus should be Chi-Mas (The first letter of Christ's name in Greek). Which in this case means that C shouldn't be replaced by either K or S :P
The thee/thou/you thing is actually very interesting from a religious perspective since these days we often still see thee and though used when talking to God in Christianity. People tend to think it's a formality thing but it was actually a personal /informal/ thing. You spoke to God like he was your close friend or family member rather than some stranger or superior.
@@gildedbear5355
I know what you mean. I think it´s the same in all the languages that have a formal and an informal version that you can talk to God with the informal one. At least in the Christian Religions, I have no idea how that works in other religions.
You're correct that "ye" is the plural of "thou" however "þe" was historically often typeset using a single block which placed the "e" over the "þ". When typesetters ran out of these, they would place a small "e" above a "y" as in Gothic script they looked rather similar. (This is what led to the eventual dropping of thorn altogether.) Consequently, people began to see the word as "ye" even though "þe" was always pronounced as "the", and the readers of the era knew it.
"You" is plural of "Thou".
Or ge with a dot above the g, in old english
@Gizio the Jackal Originally it was just plural, then it became plural and formal singular (like French vous or Russian вы), then thou fell out of use and it became the only 2nd person pronoun.
@Gizio the Jackal Incorrect. In Old English there was no formal pronoun. Instead there was a difference in case - ġē was the 2nd person nominative plural, and ēow was the accusative/dative 2nd person plural. By early middle English these had become ye (nominative) and yow (oblique), and there was still no formal pronoun. By late middle English ye/you began to be used as a formal equivalent to thou/thee. By Early Modern English, the accusative you began to replace ye. Subsequently it began to replace thou/thee as these pronouns began to be viewed as rude rather than just informal. The result is that what was originally exclusively the 2nd person accusative/dative plural pronoun became our only 2nd person pronoun.
@@Glossologia and then theres japanese even tho OJ didnt have rheme
One small correction: the "th" sound is original to Germanic languages. English and Icelandic didn't invent it, German just lost it (along with most other modern Germanic languages). That's why you can find thorn used in Old English, Old Norse, and Gothic, but it is quite rare in modern Germanic languages, barring English, Icelandic, and a few other exceptions.
'th' is unvoiced in 'think', and voiced in 'this'. I'm surprised you don't feel and hear the difference when you say them. :)
It could be from your local English accent. Irish english for instance pronounces "th" very differently than american southern english.
@@rivitraven It was quite noticeable in his pronunciation of thing and this in the video though, that's why he's expressing surprise. It's not just an irish thing, its also a distinction that is definitely present and noticeable in southern american english if you know what to listen out for.
You mean: 'þ' is unvoiced in 'þink', and voiced in 'ðis'. I'm suprised you don't feel and hear þe difference when you say þem. :)
@@DihydrogenMonoxideGuy i still don't hear anything different. Although, I am from south Dakota so there may be a reason there
Yeah, it’s like the difference between “thuh” and “the”. Definitely see why it would be a different letter there
Þank you for ðis video! It really sheds a lot of light on some questions I've had for a LONG time. Especially þat whole "ye olde..." þing. I've wondered about þat for soooo long. And by þe way, "Ye Olde Cupcake Shoppe" (now simply known as The Cupcake Shoppe and Bakery) that you briefly showed, is just a few miles from me in downtown Ogden, Utah, at 2352 Kiesel Ave. Þeir cupcakes are spectacular.
dude your videos are so good
Absolutely fascinating! Bring back þe 'þorn'! I recently read through Sir John Fortescue's 'On The Governance of England' (1470) and he seems to use both þ and 'th'. I'm glad you mention Icelandic and its two versions (voiced and unvoiced) of the Þorn sound!
3:57 Citation needed. I could not find any reputable source saying that that's the origin of "you"
It's not.
ye you thou ye olde
I don’t understand how you can’t here the difference between þ and ð, cause I’m pretty sure you can here the difference between f and v, and it’s the same difference. Also half of the facts in this videos are wrong, like how you say that proto-germanic didn’t have th-sounds, and how you say that you is derived from þou. You was the plural and þou was the singular 2 person pronoun.
Can't here the difference between þ and ð when its actually used in the example.
Of course you can
EXACTLY it annoys me if you couldn't tell
for anyone who's struggling, try this:
touch your throat while saying "think" and "this" repeatedly, you should notice that "this" makes your throat vibrate while "think" doesn't.
@@swedneck Alternatively, try pronouncing "thanks" with no hint of an F sound. It should be abundantly clear.
I was thinking I may have a linguistic edge, since my language has soft and hard Ds (hurhur), but English already has clear soft and hard thorns.
Honestly, one of the best videos I have seen on CZcams. I am going to watch this many more times until I hundred percent absorb it
You might want to do some fact checking, tho. There are several pieces of misinformation in this video (mentioned in many comments).
Two of my favorite letters second only to schwa- the upside down backwards "e" (not on my keyboard...). I've heard a few other explanations for its falling out of favor, but your's seems the most plausible. 💚😎
I was under the impression that "you" was originally supposed to be plural, and "thou" was originally supposed to be singular.
@@meadow-maker I meant exclusively plural. So I can't say that you just posted this message. I'd have to say thou posted this message.
"Gutenberg" not "-burg". also we used to have th in german. But we lost it in our high german consonant shift, when every d became a t and what used to be th became d (though in written german the th survived up to the first uniformation of written german in the 19th century. Though there is one word that kept it's th, "Thron" - throne, as the emperor refused to change his spelling of it)
yeah im dutch and i hate that you fuckers changed so many ds to ts
and that you use the weird throat r
also your language is the ugliest in the world
ᗪ૯ՐᑕՐคԲ੮૯Ր [GD] oh ok the hebrews use it too i think it sounds nice
ok your opinion, I think it sounds funny but I also like the German "r". Both languages are beautiful in their own way.
ᗪ૯ՐᑕՐคԲ੮૯Ր [GD] you cannot deny that the rolling r is the perfect r
@@quamne But you use the weird throat g...
As usual, very interesting and fun to watch
Actually very interesting video, very informative, good work!
Þ was also used in Norwegian, þak=roof, tak=to grab a hold of.
Now we use tak for both words.
How can you not hear difference between "th" in "this" and "thing"? It's equivalent of not hearing difference between v and f.
For me its dis and fing, preserving the voiced and unvoiced but not de th sound itself.
The only reason why the differences between phonemes /f/ and /v/ are much more glaring are because of the abundance of minimal pairs they have. For instance, they can be observed this way in the words "file" and "vile", given that they're in contrastive distribution and completely change the meaning of the word they're in. /θ/ and /ð/ are different, though. There are almost no minimal pairs in our language for these two phonemes, so pronouncing "this" as /θɪs/ instead /ðɪs/ of isn't going to obscure its meaning.
5:56. There is a noticable difference in Greek too. Th is The has a Δδ and th in think has a Θθ sound.
This may be of interest to you. From Math I concluded that the Ancient Ionian Greek dialect produced the modern symbol for 'Sigma' used in statistics and in a 'Summation Series'. However, what literally gets lost in the translation is the 'Athenian, Euboean and/or Etruscan' symbol for 'Sigma' which looks like 'Zeus's' thunderbolt, a rain or lightning symbol on a weather map...and not an 'E' ! This forgotten version of 'Sigma' comes into the Runes or Futhark as 'Seig' as in the 'SS' greeting. I think it may even have something to do with Liebnitz designation for the 'integral symbol' in Calculus ! Note that the Germanic tribes who guarded the northern border of the Roman Empire spoke and used Greek !
Great video! Well done!
How can you possibly not hear the difference between think and this?
Yea, one ends with -nk, and the other -s
yeah no kidding. They only have one letter in common!
Then and Thin... Best way to explain this... But some ears can't pick it up like many English speakers can't distinguish between SH and X in Chinese... Although I think it has more to do with not thinking about the sound at all.
(English Canadian) Well I hear it now. Th-huh-anks.
@@krouwtheknockingcrow But he's English native speaker...
There are several bold claims done in this video. The one I'd like to point out is the " 'you' comes from 'thou', written with the wrong letter". Written language is a *second version* of the language we learn as kids. It was in the past mainly used by the elites to write about technical things, and for that, it's a bit of a stretch to think that a spelling mistake would find it's way into the spoken language, specially in a word as common as a *pronoun* . Such changes would be more common for technical words, that are not frequently used and are learned as we learn to write. Pronouns are words frequently used, and they tend to survive longer than common words, and don't change as much. Many pronouns in many european languages are related and older than 5000 years. Such changes may happen nowadays due to the education system and have made some minor changes in pronunciation in uncommon words, like names and adverbs ( Anthony, Stephen), but it would be quite rare to happen to a pronoun. Besides that, a quick search on the *wiktionary* for the etymology of "you", shows that the second person plural pronoun "ye" had an accusative form "you", that was used for formal singular second person probably due to the influence of continental european languages and their use of the *T-V distinction* for formality.
I can’t believe I hadn’t found this channel until today.
Love this channel
"You" did not arise as a result of the use of y in spelling thou. You had existed for almost as long as English; it was the formal second person pronoun, like usted in Spanish.
"You" and "thou" were different, but "you" started to dominate "thou" in all uses during the 1300s, becoming the only second person pronoun by the mid 1700s.
"You" did not arise from "thou."
That's why Dutch has the word "ju", even though it has shifted all "th" to "d"
3:57 that's not where "you" came from, it just helped it get more attention
5:01 until a little tribe called the Normans showed up and changed everything
This is astounding!!
The difference between THing and THis is that the TH in THis is voiced and the TH in THing is not.
Notice that when you say "thing" you don't engage your vocal cords until you get to the "ng" sound at the end whereas for "this" you vocal cords start vibrating immediately.
EDIT: Damn. I should have read the comments. Someone already pointed this out
If you find yourself making up fake etymologies for "you" and confusing the very obviously distinct voiced and voiceless th sounds, maybe steer clear of linguistics.
To be fair what words are only distinguished by voicing of the dental fricative? Thy and thigh? Thy is obsolete, and those are the only pair that I could find that didn't have common alternative pronunciations that rendered the distinction mute, like how I see ether vs either when there are different equally valid pronunciations of those two words that sound nothing alike.
*And* the spelling doesn't differentiate which adds to the confusion
@Grodan Gnaskar is /ˈi.θər/ while is /ˈaɪ.ðər/ or /ˈi.ðər/.
/ˈɛ.θər/ also happens, especially in North America, but it's not standard.
@@JoelDZ ooooh, those are good ones, thanks
Joel Thank you! That really helped me understand the distinction.
Breath and breathe, bath and bathe as well.
C, the letter C has two sounds that are already used by two other letters S and K.
C forcefully replaces the two, for example Community could be replaced with an K and the C in Recite could be replaced with an S.
Exactly what I was thinking. Though we could keep it to replace CH.
Well yeah, although that is a good idea I think English could adopt a new letter that makes the same sound from another language. 🧠
Þis video is actually very interesting. Þanks!
We should drop C.Q, and X and invent letters for TH (both of them), CH, SH, and NG.
Þ č š and ŋ. I'm with you.
Ƿen I'm bored I'm aktually doiŋ ðat lol
I don’t think ng makes a seperate sound tho.
ng makes sense as a combination between N and G in my opinion, as you can hear both the sound of the N and the G, but merged. Whereas with CH, SH and TH, you don't really hear that.
@@Ianlegendstone /ŋ/ isn't a combination of /n/ and /g/. Like, the tongue is positioned within the mouth in the same way to pronounce a /g/, but you pronounce a nasal consonant instead. It represents a velar nasal, not a consonant cluster of /ŋg/ or /ŋk/.
German here, not offended at all haha.
Thanks for the informative videos. Keep up the good work!
Hurray! More videos coming soon :)
I’m kinda offended you guys dropped your dental fricatives
@@AtlasPro1 someone in the replies said something, so i said “안 돼! 뭐라는거지? *음악을 재생*” or “oh no! what are you saying? *music plays*” in korean. i had to do something about it, because i was nervous.
0:08 um.. Wales... speaks welsh..
English is the native language of over 68% of Wales and Welsh is only spoken by ~29% of the population (Both 1st and 2nd language speakers)
And it's not the Angle that generated a thorn sound after they arrived in Britain, but the Deutsch people changed their "th" into "d" after Angles had moved away. think - denken, thou - du, then - dann.
czcams.com/video/-_pBwpOoLo0/video.html
Didn't you also have the letter æ? The one we still have in several Nordic languages.
Yea... they did.. for example Æthelwulf
It's still in use today, although its rare, the word medieval is sometimes written at mediaeval and mediæval.
I were reading a relatively new English book a few years ago, and stumbled upon the word mediæval.
@@niller1994hansen or encyclopaedia (British spelling, less common nowadays), faeces, the hae- prefix (meaning blood), aether (British spelling), paedophilia (again, British spelling), archaeology.
A lot of these don't conjoin the letters, and even one that might do, encyclopaedia, is more of a ceremonial thing that actual spelling rules.
Or ærobatics.
I like your style and the editing but this video is completely full of mistakes
Please make a video.
@@alanhowitzer It could be cool but I'm not a video maker.
What are the mistakes?
I would find it interesting to know. ✌️
Photelegy check ðe oðer comments lol
@@alanhowitzer that is always your response and it is hilarious. The creator of THIS video misinformed and should correct it. Not another person.
If a newspaper does something wrong they have to write the correction on THEIR newspaper and not on some other.
Þis channel is þe greatest ever. Þank þou
I watched this several years ago and have continued to use thorn in my notes as shorthand
This video was horrendously inaccurate. I wish there was a way to report a video for presenting fiction as fact. You're misinforming thousands of people.
I agree. A big responsibility comes with presenting people with information and I wish more youtubers were aware of this responsibility.
Please make a video.
Yes. Also, Gutenberg did not invent the "first real printing press", it had already been invented by the Chinese in the 8th Century en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_printing_in_East_Asia
+1
Also the fact that several Germanic languages use ð. Welsh also had ð for a period and to this day has a comparable th sound (DD)
4:45 no german merged the th-sounds with t or d.
I can see where that eth one came from as we irish pronounce the word 'this' with more of a d sound and th word 'thing' with more of a t sound
Thank you for this informative video. It will help with a very serious Special Project on which I am working.
This is extremely inaccurate. You was the oblique form of ye which was the plural form of thou. The word thou then fell out of use in favour of "you".
Was a sign stating 'Ye Tavern' correct for the time then? What's an oblique form?
@@alanhowitzer
No, that use of "ye" in "Ye Tavern" is anachronistic and sprang up because of the confusion between the appearances of Þ and y after Þ fell out of use.
The "ye" that LFalch is talking about is the pronoun "ye". "Ye" was the nominative form of the 2nd-person plural, while "you" was its oblique form. The nominative form is used for the subject of a sentence, while the oblique form is used for the object of the sentence. It's like how "I" is used only for the subject while "me" is the object. Also "he" vs. "him", "she" vs. "her", "thou" vs. "thee".
Example:
"I saw the man", not "Me saw the man".
"The man saw me", not "The man saw I".
"Ye saw the man", not "You saw the man".
"The man saw you", not "The man saw ye".
Eventually the oblique form "you" took over the job of the nominative form "ye". Afterwards, "you" also replaced "thou" (which was the 2nd-person singular) after "thou" came to be considered too informal and even offensive at times. So now "you" does both its original job as the 2nd-person plural and the job of the 2nd-person singular, as well as being the nominative and oblique form for both (Though nowadays you see a lot of people replacing the 2nd-person plural "you" with "you guys", "y'all", "yinz", etc.).
Alan Fox It is true that was used as an alternative to thorn when printning press came about. You could likely see the word “the” written with y and a superscript e or something like that. But it was still just the word “the”. The pronunciation of words weren’t really affected by this.
I cannot believe that "you" (instead of thou) was caused by a mere typo. It's too much to believe. I take this as "unfounded urban myth" with a cute video-presentation".
Also I can't believe you can't discern th/dh sounds (unless you're dead maybe?) I have a difficult time pronouncing dh ("this") as distinct from plain "d" ("diss") but I can still hear the difference and even pronounce it when I try more consciously, and the difference between this and thing is exactly the same as between do and toe.
I love these videos.
Interesting. Thanks for presenting. I've been learning Icelandic, on and off, for a while, and they have lots of letters we don't, (and also several gaps where we do have letters, sorry c, q, w, z.) One interesting thing about the constancy of their alphabet and language is that a modern Icelandic kid can pick up one of the Icelandic Sagas or something written a thousand years ago, and read it with practically no difficulty. Whereas practically no English-speaking kids could pick up a reproduction of the original Iliad and read more than one word in twenty. And this is more than just a, 'Wow, that's cool,' sort of thing. It means modern people can understand the context and specifics of what was going on in those old texts and so forth. Business journals talking about trade and and science and so forth have a lot more value...
Your videos are so high quality, I have no idea how you don't have more subscribers.
Thanks! It's good to know all the hard work is appreciated :)
@@AtlasPro1 the hard work of not being able to google the etymology of the word "you", or the origin of the th-sound in English.
His name was Johannes Gutenberg, not Gutenburg
People often use last names to abbreviate names. Like in WWII and movies you'd hear names like Hitler, Stalin, and Churchill. Not _Adolf_ Hitler, _Iosef_ Stalin, and _Winston_ Churchill
Edit: I just realized the U and the E in GutenbErg/GutenbUrg
Are you for real? Are you gonna say this when people talk about Einstein, Hitler, Stalin, Heisenberg, Nobel, Tesla, Columbus or basically any other people n the history of earth?
To think I took “history of typography” for an entire year, and NEVER heard of thorn or this story!! Wow.
Claim your money back ;)
The difference between the sounds thorn and eth make is that eth is voiced, meaning you use your voice when making the sound. Thorn isn't. You just blow air through your teeth
Bad linguistics
Horrible linguistics
Horrifying linguistics
Mind numbingly shit linguistics for many reasons.
His name was "Gutenberg", though.
The greek letter "Θ / θ" (seen in the beginning of this vid, as the phonetic sound of thorn) also has the same sound as thorn. You can see it in greek words passed into english like theater thyme thesis theamine etc
Great video! I teach language so it's super interesting. BTW; you can easily hear the voiced and unvoiced "th" in the words think and they.