Why do people say AKS instead of ASK?

EXPLANATION OF ENDING: ‘Asked’ is so often pronounced exactly like ‘assed’/‘arsed’ that the YouTube automatic captioner can't tell them apart: it sometimes writes ‘asked’ when the speaker intended ‘assed’ or ‘arsed’! I could have made this clearer 🤷🏼‍♂️
---
An exploration of the form 'aks' in various dialects, through history in and across the world.

0:00 Introduction
0:44 'Aks' in Old English
1:30 'Aks' in Middle English
1:57 'Aks' in the Bible
2:44 'Aks' in the Shetland Islands
3:44 'Aks' in Jamaica & MLE
5:28 'Aks' in the USA & AAVE
6:10 Stereotyping & prejudice
7:50 'Ask' pronounced as 'ass' & 'arse'!

More on Shaetlan:

Beowulf from this excellent article:

The Knight's Tale in Middle English by Ancient Literature Dude

The Miller's Tale in Middle English by the Philological Bell

Up-Helly-Aa photos by Mike Pennington
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

Jamaican New Testament

Stormzy photo by Raph_PH
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Scots language map by SkateTier
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Peter Serafinowicz sketch

God's Outlaw: the Story of William Tyndale

[jeanlobrot]

My mom studied English in college and one of the things she taught me growing up was that you should never look down on someone for the way they talk, due to complex grammatical and linguistic histories

[BigBadBalrog]

I'm embarrassed to say that I've judged people rather harshly for saying "aks" in the past with not a single thought for the shortcuts and technical mispronunciations in my own speech. It's a brilliant channel that challenges biases in good faith without putting anyone down.

[satyakisil]

Here in India, my college teacher once spent a whole lecture talking about data structure and memory allocation where she spoke "hard disks" as "hard dikss" for at least a dozen times. My friends had some very good moments back then.

[stuartslyper]

In South Africa I had an economics professor who constantly spoke about the importance of “data mining” or “data mine”. Towards the end of the semester I finally worked out that he was saying “determine” or “determining”. I thought he just really liked working with data… All my notes made a lot more sense once I understood this 😅

[wolf]

I had put "aks" into the "dialectic variation" category but I didn't realise it went *_that_* far back.
The ending was hysterical, watching the auto captioner trying to make sense of "can't be arsed".

[stephIstravel]

As a Jamaican myself I believe that it’s mostly from old English. Most of our creole especially in the rural areas that didn’t get urbanized through media m. You’ll hear most of the old words, perfect example my younger sister that grew up on Disney was watching Bridgeton today and heard them say “ Make haste” and realize that it’s the same as the creole “mekase” that we use in the same context but is no longer a common part of speech bcuz it’s been replaced with simply “ hurry up”

[yoku]

Amazing! As a young man (24) growing up in the United States, I always associated "aks" with AAVE. I had no idea it had such a rich history! It's a bit sad that there is such a big stigma towards speakers who prefer "aks" and other similar "non-standard" forms of words, because that's simply how languages evolve! Great video Dr. Lindsey!

[fronts]

Fascinating. Many years ago, in a linguistics class the professor explained, for African Americans who use aks for ask, the pronunciation was from West Africa and it arrived during the slave trade. I had never heard that aks was in Chaucer or Old English. I hope it is included in the curriculum today.

[DrGeoffLindsey]

EXPLANATION OF ENDING: "Asked" is so often pronounced exactly like "assed"/"arsed" that YOUTUBE'S AUTO CAPTIONING can't tell them apart. So when people say "half assed" or "can't be arsed", it sometimes captions this as "asked". I should have made this clearer.

[moxmox]

The Chaucer example with both forms in the same sentence was fascinating

[nathangriffiths]

I confess I had just assumed it was a modern affectation but it's really fascinating to see how fragments of old English persist and reappear in different contexts.

[chameleonedm]

What I love about your videos is the fundemental acceptance that language moves on and changes, a constant reflection of our thoughts rather than a "correct" form

[moonloversheila]

My grandmother was born in Lancashire in 1897 and lived in the county all her life. She always said ‘axe’ and it’s still very frequently heard there today. It’s a common feature of Lancashire dialect poems.

[adamlaceky]

"Mix" is another example of metathesis. The past participle of the Latin verb "miscere" is "mixtus." We still put the S before the C in "miscellaneous, " but pretty much every variation on the original Latin infinitive is pronounced "mix."

[willesloco]

This has been very educational! When hearing people say “aks” instead of “ask” it has annoyed me to the same level as when people say “pacifically” 😂 now that I have learned the history behind this, I can hopefully let go of this annoyance!

[incaseofamnesia]

I love your videos so much. I'm a native English speaker and yet every time I watch I learn not only completely new information, but new understanding into my native language.

[taylorizedfunster]

As a non-native speaker I’ve never noticed this phenomenon. I wouldn’t have even noticed it if you hadn’t slowed it down. Thank you for making our ears more attentive!

[PedroConejo]

If this has done nothing more than equip me with the words, 'It's in Chaucer and the first English Bibles, ' then it is a great video. Knowing the roots and possible roots of the current usage gives me pause to think too, and so it is even better. Thank you.

[UnDark]

In the US “Aks” is looked down on simply because it’s typically associated with AAVE speakers and African Americans. Thanks (or Thansk?) for sharing the history of the pronunciation. Fascinating.

[mrsparkle]

Really appreciate this video. Helps to understand where the variations between different dialects come from and makes one question biases you have about people who utilize those dialects.