Summarizing Germanic sound shifts

Had to play this at 0.75 speed to follow this as a non-native English speaker, and even then I sometimes couldn't distinguish the words you were saying, but thanks for the interesting vid!

Fun fact: The Swedish spoken in Finland does not have the velar fricative like the (standard?) Swedish spoken in Sweden e.g. for /sk/, which is instead pronounced [∫]. So "skön" (beautiful) is pronounced the same as German "schön".There are also other major phonological differences between Sweden-Swedish and Finland-Swedish.

English does actually have non-latinate /d͡ʒ/, also as a result of palatalization. Geminated *jj (< *jj, *gj) in OE (as well as *j when preceded by a nasal, if I remember correctly) fortified to /d͡ʒ/, spelled as ⟨cġ⟩. An example: PG *brugjǭ > OE brycġ > ME bridge

A few remarks: -Belgian Dutch has a bilabial w (transcribed as [ β̞ ]) and a voiced v -Belgian Dutch distinguishes g and ch. -[ʋ] also occurs in Germany, Denmark and Sweden. I think it would be better to say that all Germanic languages have [v~ʋ] except for Dutch, Frisian and English.

Awesome video, but I felt like I had to watch it on 0.75 speed to process things. As someone who has a amateur interest (think non-academic) in linguistics, a decent chunk of this stuff was not new, but I still had trouble following along at your speaking speed, and I could not read the text without pausing constantly. Great, informative video, but I thought I'd drop my two cents about the pacing. I really did enjoy though.

Dude your pronunciation of the Swedish "fyra" at 6:42 was probably the most on-point I've ever heard by a non native speaker, because you kinda nail the the sound from the upper class Stockholm accent. Your pitch variation in two-syllable words sounds a bit off sometimes, but overall your Swedish is really good, keep it up!

"Ande" only barely mean "ghost" in Swedish. "Den helige ande" is the translation for the trinity's "the holy ghost", but "ande" most often mean "spirit" as in mind/soul as in "the spirit is willing..." or as in a supernatural being as in a disembodied soul or "genie" as in the bottled kind. We also have "anda", which is breath ("hålla andan" = "hold your breath") or spirit of the more zealy variety ("kämparanda" = "fighting spirit")

As I am a native speaker of two of these Germanic languages and speak all the others (I speak German though, not Yiddish) I have to say that your pronunciation impresses, Icelandic and Swedish are very close to correct and your Danish is not bad though it is clearly the one you have the biggest problems with pronouncing correctly. Keep up the good work.

i love this channel so much, you and a few other similar channels that are also pretty small and new are really forming a new wave of youtube linguistics content and its really cool to see how willing you all are to assume people are smart enough to understand linguistics concepts as long as they're explained well. i am now most the way thru my degree (not linguistics but directly related and i got into it thru linguistics) and ppl like tom scott and xidnaf were my introduction to the whole thing years ago, but honestly these videos are better and more thorough and accurate than those were. its really cool to imagine the generation that will get into it thru these videos (and the similar ones also coming out recently) and hope to see u continue making videos and get more traction on here bc its baffling you only have as few subs as u do

this channel is so good, as a person who studies biology but somehow ended up having interest in linguistics too (especially germanic and turkic) your videos are so useful learning something, as u could think i dont have much time to learn all of that stuff by reading, so watching you is a fun and nice shortcut to get the basic ideas. keep it up

Im gonna start sharing all of these videos with people, I find your channel so fun and interesting

12:09 To nitpick a bit: In the North Germanic languages the word for chicken has a diminutive suffix, so the Proto-Germanic form for them would be *keukilīngaz (or *kukkilīngaz) The the Icelandic <ú> /u/ is completely off here. It's hard to tell, but /kl/ sounds like it turned into a [ç]. And finally, the <u> /ʏ/ should be reduced a bit so that it's more central and shorter.

Your energy and enthusiasm are possibly the best favor you do to the subject matter in my view. If I knew nothing about this I'd be intrigued simply on account of your descriptiveness and tempo.

Please, slow down! it's not a speed race, or is it?

your icelandic pronunciation was pretty good. one thing to note is that even though u and ö are transcribed with œ and ʏ they are central vowels

As someone who studies English, German and Swedish, I've found this video very intriguing. You did a great job at summarising all the information into a short and entertaining video. I'm just hoping that we get a similar video about Slavic languages soon.

So on my gaming channel I promised to provide more detail on where my native language, Faroese, fits in with these sound changes... only to promptly forget about the video so with many apologies here several months later are my comments: Voiced plosives: Like everywhere else except German, the b becomes v intervocalically and finally so have is at hava at to give is at geva. Note that unlike Icelandic we actually spell this v as a v and not as f. However, we completely lost the other two voiced fricatives. In places where this would result in a hiatus we where applicable insert a glide, the exact glide depends first on the preceding vowel and if that is ambiguous (i.e. not being high) we look at the following vowel. So the word dagur: the nominative form dagur is pronounced ['tɛa:vʊɹ] glide because the preceding vowel is non-high and thus the following vowel determines the value; the accusative form dag has no such glide and is simply [tɛa:]; and finally the dative form degi is pronounced [te:jɪ] because the non-high [ɪ] is interpreted as an [i]. Nasals liquids and trills: all remain, except [w] > [v] (as mention) but also [r] > [ɹ] (also as mentioned). The Faroese version of "skarre-r" was around for a while but died out shortly there after. There used to be 'oss' in Faroese pronounced like the Swedish but it's archaic today; this is because Faroese and Icelandic got rid of the old plural and instead use the old dual for the new modern plural, which is why "us" is okkum and okkur respectively. As for mouth: It's actually a bad example for Faroese as it is influenced by the nnr > -ðr soundchange in Old Norse, so the more common nominative form is muður but all the other forms have munn as the root: muður - munn - munni - muns etc., however muður can also have munnur as its nominative form. Examples of other nouns with the same sound change and which may have both nominative forms: brunnur/bruður (well), drunnur/druður (Gaelic loan word(!)), maður (mannur is just wrong), grunnur/gruður, lunnur/luður, and runnur/ruður. Some are rare with the ður form since as all the other forms have nn, analogy wants the ð forms to become nn forms too. Anyway, munnur and muður are pronounced ['mʊn:ʊɹ] and ['mu:ʊɹ] (generally no glide here). Water is vatn and is pronounced [vaʰtn]. Red is reyður: ['ɹɛi:jʊɹ] although it also kinda sounds like ['ɹɛj:ʊɹ] to me at times. Initial hl-, hr-, and hn have all be lost in Faroese but hv- merged with kv- but still spelled as hv, white is hvítur and pronounced ['kvʊi:tʊɹ]. We still have voiceless nasals and liquids but I'll get back to these later. Your comment about Icelandic hn being a separate develop is kinda true and kinda not, it's just that Icelandic merged kn- and hn- in most cases (yet still kept it in words like knattspyrna (football)). Faroese: ringur ['ɹɪŋkʊɹ], lurta ['lʊɻ̊ʈa]. You didn't mention hj, in Faroese it either merges with j [j] or kj [tʃʰ], the exact rule for when each is used always escapes me however but it may have to do with the voicedness of the following consonant. Icelandic f doesn't just become [p] before nasals like in höfn [hœpn] but also before [l] so the main airport in Iceland is in Ke[p]lavík, but OK this is (< *b) not /f/ (< *p). Four is fýra ['fʊi:ɹa]. To sing is at syngja ['sɪɲtʃa]. Why ? Because in Old West Norse ingw the w rounded the /i/ to /y/. Danish synge is a later development from older Danish sjunge where the ju simply merges into y. The cognate of choose is kjósa ['tʃʰɔu:sa]. The cognate of think is tekkja [tʰɛʰtʃ:a] while we also have teinkja ['tʰɔɲ̊tʃa]. Feather = fjøður [fjø:vʊɹ]. Thou in Faroese is tú [tʰʉu:], so no t > d weakening here. The Faroese word for night is nátt [nɔʰt:]. Tooth: tonn [tʰɔn:]. As mentioned before, Faroese loses voiced fricatives completely, so the adjectivial suffix -ig is simply pronounced [i], although in lemma form we'd of course use the masculine for which is -igur [i(:)jʊɹ]. However, before n it's kept but like in Icelandic becomes a stop, so -ing: [ɪŋk]. Which leads to that Icelandic and Danish chain shift and yes, it also happened in Faroese for stops and affricates, so initial b d g dj gj [p t k tʲ tʃ] contrast with initial p t k tj kj [pʰ tʰ kʰ tʲʰ tʃʰ] but do note that the vast majority of Faroese speakers merge dj and tj with gj and kj respectively. I'm only separating them for completion's sake. So goose: gás [kɔɑ:s] and cold: kaldur [kʰaltʊɹ]. Faroese has also palatalised *k and *g before short high and central front vowels. It happened later than in English and like in English only unrounded vowels trigger palatalisation, so only /e i/. Of course adjacent to a j they also palatalise so kjúklingur is pronounced [tʃʰʉu:klɪŋkʊɹ]. The Faroese word for knee is knæ [knɛa:], no disappearing initial k- here. So like k and g, sk is also palatalised before short high and central front unrounded vowels, so like in English and German, this is pronounced [ʃ] in these positions. Therefore, skína is a bad example for this as it's still just ['skʊi:na], however a good example is the word for ship which is skip: [ʃi:p], yes, Faroese skip is pronounced like English sheep, I know. Mouse in singuar and plural in Faroese is: mús [mʉu:s] and mýs [mʊi:s]. Green is grønur [krø:nʊɹ] (yes, /ɹ/ has many allophones). Like German, Dutch, and English, Faroese also had its Great Vowel Shift. In short, short vowels lengthened and long vowel diphthongised. You've already seen many of these examples in the examples I have mentioned here. The possessive pronoun my/mine is thus mín [mʊi:n] in Faroese. A sound change that developed in Faroese and Icelandic is preaspiration. Preaspiration also exists in some (if not all) Sami languages as well as in Scottish Gaelic. It's uncertain where this feature originated; it could've been borrowed from one family to the next or it could be an areal feature. It's possible that ScG got it from Old Norse, which itself may have gotten it from Sami but don't quote me on that. Anyway, I'll explain Faroese preaspiration. Notice how the "voiceless" stops and fricatives in Faroese have postaspiration word initially? Well, intervocalically they shift from being postaspirated to preaspirated: [ʰp ʰt ʰk ʰtʲ ʰtʃ]. They do however lose their preaspiration if the preceding vowel is a high vowel or the diphthong ends in a high vowel, so this applies to [i: u: ai: ɛi: ɔi: ʊi: ɔu:]. However, if the stop/affricate is geminated: [ʰp: ʰt: ʰk: ʰtʲ: ʰtʃ:] then the preaspiration is never lost but this is also another feature of Faroese where vowels have different pronunciations depending on the number of or the length/gemination of the consonants that follow. Note that especially for the ungeminated preaspirated stops there are dialectical differences in Faroese, the dialect of the capital Tórshavn (or Havn for short) does not have these ungeminated preaspirated stop and just pronounced them as regular stops. A final pretty unique feature of Faroese is the so-called skerping. I sometimes call it Holtzmann's Law 2.0 as it pertains to how after high vowels or high diphthongs (same meaning as above), the cluster ggj is added after front vowels/diphthongs and gv after back vowels/diphthongs. I compare it to Holtzmann's Law because where Holtzmann's Law describes the difference between Faroese egg and German Ei, skerping describes the difference between Old Norse ey and Faroese oyggj. There are many such words in Faroese so you will come across it almost immediately. It's not fully fleshed out, however, and there are archaicsms that existed but don't any more. For instance, the preposition in, the word for no, and the other word for yes (the positive reply to a negative question) are in modern Faroese í, nei, and jú. In older Faroese, we find íggj, neiggj, and júgv. I hope that was it. Sorry if it's not that well ordered but I was following your video.

Just came across your channel. As someone mildy interested in languages you have my sub.

Very nice video! I always enjoy seeing historical linguistics stuff and this is quite comprehensive, if a little fast! :D

dude how don't you have more subs?? your future american video got recommended to me yesterday and i was instantly hooked, these videos are great