Indo-European Languages: An Intro. (37 Min.)

An up-to-date introduction to the Indo-European language family with a little bit of everything: how we know these languages are connected, the history of different branches, and some questions for the future. Created by Dr. Jackson Crawford (a historical linguist specializing in Old Norse and the Scandinavian languages) with input from scholars specializing in other branches of the language tree.

Logos by Elizabeth Porter (snowbringer at gmail).

[hefeibao]

I feel better knowing there are 4000 other people out there that find this information fascinating enough to watch the whole thing through.

[RafaelSCalsaverini]

The scenery, the accent, the hat, the learning... That's glorious.

[erentoraman]

The word for mom in Turkish is "Anne", but we do have the word "mama" which means baby food. I assume when baby's cried out "ma, ma!" people assumed they were crying for food.

[wyattwahlgren]

There's an interesting exception to what you were talking about with "mama" being the word for "mother" in so many languages. In Georgian "მამა" (mama) is father and "დედა" (deda) is mother.

[pablolloyd]

“The past is as complex as the present or the future.”
- Jackson Crawford

[NotSpockToo]

I'm not sure how youtube recommended this channel, but it's one of the best channels I've seen. I chose science over linguistics for a career path, but have never lost my fascination with languages. I love your matter of fact explanations and the many references provided. I just got your audible books of The Poetic Edda and the Saga of the Volsungs and am happily listening to them.

[YamishiMizuandDracus]

Professor Crawford, the work you do is seriously underappreciated.

[hussaindaud]

Last time I was this early the horse was not yet domesticated

[fugithegreat]

You have the best classroom, Dr. Crawford!

[veni]

The amount of facts we can find out about the native speakers of Proto-Indo-European language just from words present in it is mind blowing! Thank you for the video.

[mauritsponnette]

The Indo-European language family and by extension the Germanic and/or Celtic language families are often talked about in relation to people's ancestry and although languages carry cultural heritage, it's interesting that you separate language from genetic ancestry. I feel like a lot of people often mix up these two. So thanks for sharing!

[danielsimeonov]

31:45 “Хуммингвнрд” would be “hummunvnrd”; maybe you meant “хуммингбирд” 🤓 Good point in that segment, though. @Jackson Crawford

[Herot]

In Modern Persian (An Iranian language):
Pedar - Father
Mâdar - Mother
Dokhtar - Daughter
Barâdar - Brother
Bad - Bad
Na - No
Now - New
Band - Band
Berenj - Bronze
Kimia - Chemistry
Dandân - Tooth (Dental)
Pardis - Paradise
Dar - Door
Abroo - Eyebrow
Famil - Family
Gerân - Great
Gorouh - Group
Narang - Orange
...
and many more

[akumayoxiruma]

I came for the attractive man and stayed for the education.

[Pokephosgene]

I wish someone did a detailed analysis of Uralic languages- I can only hope Mr. Crawford has friends in the community who are Uralic language enthusiasts. He did do a video once on why Finnish is separate from Nordic.

[nomansland]

The intro, badass. The knowledge, fascinating. The channel, indispensable

[vorthora]

This brings me back 30 years ago to my favorite subjects (History of the English Language, Univ of Seville, Spain; and Historical Linguistics, Indiana Univ, Bloomington). I'm an ABD (due to horrible family illnesses, and me being the caretaker) in English Philology. I completed all my courses, worked on my dissertation, but couldn't finish it. My dad's very premature Alzheimers took care of achieving my dream. So I specialized in English Linguistics, nd teaching English as a foreign language is my job in lovely Seville, Spain. However, I was really into Old English and its literature, so when I heard you talk about the P and the F, I immediately knew you were going to talk about Grimm's Law. Such good times!!! But unless you've got a Ph.D, forget about teaching historical stuff outside the University...

[NoMercy]

I really really love and enjoy learning about this! literally I sit here excited like a little kid learning something new and amazing :D

Especially the part when you explain how you can deduce from the existence of words for "snow", "beaver" and so on that the language must have been spoken more in the north and not too far south, or how you can show from the lack of a word for "writing" that there was no writing.
That is so unspoeakably fascinating to me ^-^

Kinda reminds me of how in archaeology you can tell a lot about the age of findings just by comparative stratification with other dating evidence.
Or also how you can tell the comparative age of walls (or similar) by looking at joints and intersections.

I love it!
Thank you so much :)

[Kosovar_Chicken]

Im currently in school for Linguistics and Anthropology and this man is living my dream

[jellosapiens]

I personally love your "sunburst" model; it manages to capture important distinctions between varieties while also showing how much the dialects influence each other in a family where the "tree" model breaks down.