What Makes Each of the Germanic Languages Unique (English, German, Dutch, Swedish, and more!)

This video covers the unique traits of the Germanic languages, including English, German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Afrikaans, Yiddish, and more!

timestamps:

0:00 intro
1:00 Common Traits
4:43 English
9:15 Scots
10:57 Dutch
14:31 Afrikaans
16:25 Limburgish
17:59 Frisian
19:37 Standard German
24:07 Bavarian
25:18 Low German
27:17 Luxembourgish
29:32 Yiddish
31:39 North Germanic
32:15 Swedish
35:40 Danish
37:39 Norwegian
39:33 Icelandic
43:43 Faroese
46:10 Elfdalian
47:55 Gutnish
48:55 Old Norse
49:48 Gothic
50:42 Outro

[Ljothans]

I'm so glad that you included Elfdalian. This language is neglected by Swedish authorities. Whereas Romany, Yiddish, Sami (five dialects) and Finnish (two dialects) all have official status and are given specific rights in education and public administration, Elfdalian and other Swedish "dialects" get no support at all.
One remark: All the "Ovansiljan" parishes speak the same kind of language. That is the parishes of Älvdalen, Våmhus, Mora, Sollerön, Venjan and Orsa. Although Elfdalian is the most archaic one.

[mohammedsalman]

Great video! just one correction maybe, at 07:33 "Not found in other Germanic languages" in German you could say "Das ist meins" meaning "That is mine" so it definitely has independent possessive determiners.

[Afrologist]

I speak both English & German, so my fascination with Germanic languages has been a thing for years, especially once I started getting into Old English & Old Norse during my senior year of HS. This was a great breakdown & it didn't even take a full hour; respect.

[evskara]

I've always been fascinated by how different the languages are while still being pretty mutually intelligible.

Like, if you're reading some German, like on a menu or a sign, you can normally guess what it says, especially if you know the nuances of how spelling changes between English and German (T/D = Th, SS = T, etc.).

[LedgerBalance]

Minor correction: English actually does use V2 sentence structure; it just isn't very consistently applied. If English didn't sometimes use V2, people would refer to the popular wedding song as "Here the Bride Comes, " teens would learn about each other through a game of "Never I Have Ever, " when people do something they aren't sure of, they'd say "Here nothing goes, " and tombstones would read "Here [person's name] lies." From what I've found, when you begin a phrase in English with an adverb or adverbial phrase, and the subject isn't denoted using a pronoun, it's generally acceptable to use V2.

However, there are some instances where V2 in English is required. For instance, when you start a sentence with "here." When you see the bus coming, "Here the bus comes, " and "The bus comes here, " are not grammatically correct; only "Here comes the bus" is. That is, only the sentence using V2 sentence structure is grammatically correct.

[DoctorKalkyl]

The thing about the Swedish "sj" sound being a mix between a velar and post-alveolar sibilant fricative is just fascinatingly insane, because it clearly does not exhibit both qualities simultaneously in any dialects of Swedish I know, as a native speaker. It is true that it is realised as a postalveolar sibilant in some dialects, then usually contrasting with a corresponding affricate that would be the alvelo-palatal of standard Swedish, but that does not mean it has such a quality in standard Swedish. In "more standard" Swedish dialects, it is a lot more appropriate to call it a dorsal fricative, usually with some degree of labialisation, so it is essentially like the <wh> in certain conservative dialects of English. I like to use the sentence "Jag äter wheat" as a joking example of this, since the English word 'wheat' is close to homophonous with the Swedish word 'skit' in certain dialects.

[shwabb]

It would be interesting to also include some varieties that might be separate languages according to some (such as Zeelandic, West Flemish, Kaaps, Wymysorys, Low Rhenish, Pennsylvania Dutch), and also the two extinct languages related to English - Yola and Fingallian

[torrawel]

Dutch teacher here (teacher of Dutch ;)): just wanted to say that I'm impressed with the research you did. Also: I couldn't find any mistake about my language! Geweldig! :)

[snowfloofcathug]

This is such an impressive and ambitious project. You've done well

I thought it was a 15 minute video and didn't realise I was wrong until I looked at the length 20 minutes later

[joeport]

I’m a speaker of Icelandic and I often find many people are totally off base when they attempt to talk about anything related to the language, but this was fantastic. Always love sound break downs.

[waddei]

this is such a interesting video! very well researched, I'm glas you shined a light in smaller dialects that are often sidelined

[SirQuickenn]

I'm glad you mentioned that Afrikaans was once written in Arabic

[NATIK]

Speak Danish, German and English of the Germanic languages, and this is enough that I can also understand Norwegian and Swedish in both spoken and written forms with few issues. I can sorta read Icelandic and Dutch as well with some effort.

Dutch is a funny experience as a native Dane, it sounds to me like Danish but all the words are wrong, which is a confusing feeling until the brain adjusts and realizes it isn't Danish.

As a native of western Denmark I also understand Frisian very well, in fact it's probably even more mutually intelligible with my native Danish dialect than Norwegian or Swedish is.

[j]

A bit disappointing that Alemannic didn't get any coverage. It has some innovative grammatical features such as stressed/unstressed pronoun distinction ("i hilf ire" <> "i hilf re" <> "ich hilf re"), cross-serial dependencies ("i han kei Zit wil i ire d Wohnig helf iirichte") and verb reduplication ("i gaa go esse").

[Oznej]

Lovely video! I'd like to point out that Elfdalian and other Dalecarlian varieties are usually not classified as East Scandinavian. Most researchers today consider them to be West Scandinavian, some even see them as divergent enough to form their own group, Central Scandinavian.

[jackrorystaunton]

The massive effort you put into making this video is evident. I am not a linguistics person or even a languages person but I still found this fascinating. Great job!

[ConlangKrishna]

Epic work here! As a Luxembourger, I can confirm your data about Luxembourgish are correct.

[CookieFonster]

Small correction/elaboration upon the German section (from a German speaker): In modern German, the subjunctive mood is only used for a few common verbs, such as "sein" (to be), "haben" (to have), "können" (to be able to), and "mögen" (to like). For example, "Ich wäre" means "I would be", and "Ich möchte" means "I would like" (can be used in polite contexts, like English).

I love the extreme level of detail put into this video. It must have been an ordeal to make! I think you would make a great linguistics/foreign language teacher. Also, when you know the mechanics of the German consonant shifts, it makes it easier to read Dutch and to a lesser extent, other Germanic languages.

[ArxonFiernalys]

Belgian Dutch speakers and speakers from the Dutch provinces North Brabant and Limburg (not sure about Zeeland) can still differentiate between the three grammatical genders. The language developed differently in the south vs the north. Instead of “een stoel” we could say “ne stoel”, which indicates masculine gender, contrasting with “een tafel”, where “*ne tafel” is not possible, thus indicating female gender. “Ne” instead of “een” is lost in the North.

[wendymueller]

A fascinating overview of the Germanic languages. Thank you! I am an Australian English speaker who speaks, reads and writes German as a second language and am currently learning Swedish and Dutch as well as French, which was the preferred second language at high school in the 60's and 70's. Language fascinates me, particularly the origins of the English language and the correlations between the languages.