History Hijinks: Another Dumb Italy Story

Plot Twist: Language is wacky, who knew.

SOURCES & Further Reading:
A hefty amount of Wiktionary trawling to check and compare etymologies
A Linguistic History of Venice, Ronnie Ferguson, 2007
My relevant language experience is 2 years of university-level Italian and 4 years of middle-school French
I'll be honest this was a Wiktionary-heavy video

MUSIC:
And about 4 seconds of Kass' Theme from Breath of the Wild

Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.

[OverlySarcasticProductions]

If you're Italian, please share your favorite place-name in your local language!
I've seen a handful of comments saying that Venice in Venetian is closer to "veNESSia", and others saying there's hefty internal variety even within the Venetian language. Sourcing that pronunciation for the Venetian Language itself and not just the Venetian dialect of Standard Italian was a pain in the ass, so even if "veNEEsa" turns out to be wrong I'll take it as further proof of local language wackiness.
-B

[a.morphous]

“I was thinking about [simple premise] and I realized [PROLONGED NONSENSE]” is the best kind of setup for an OSP video

[bastienfelix]

“My first instinct was to blame french” is definitely going right into out of context/quote compilations

[samfisher]

I am absolutely okay with OSP incorporating linguistics and etymology into the rest of their humanities bingo card.

[MyrmidonRadd]

"Languages are just complicated and Localization is fine" is a take we need more of.

[danidm]

As an italian, I can only describe the impact of hearing Blue changing language mid-sentence as the equivalent of a flashbang.

[legateelizabeth]

Blue really is trying to do everything he can to avoid saying "English is actually closer to what they called themselves than modern Italian is" and the clear pain it brings him to even come close to doing that brings me an unimaginable sadistic joy.

[pebbles]

Blue having a melt down about not being able to read Danté in the original Tuscan is such a mood

[boooksareamazing]

I was not expecting Blue to pop into his best Mario “Oh no” impression. This is basically the equivalent of Reds video about the nine realms. “Oh boy, I sure do love a simple topic with no nuance.” 3 days and several academic textbooks later. “WHY AM I DOING THIS TO MYSELF?!!”

[JaySkywalker]

Blue the Historian, Blue the philosopher, Blue the dome lover, and now… Blue the linguist. He’s just assimilating more humanities subjects every year!

[Catasros]

This is basically a good part of the reason why Tolkien’s Middle Earth is so extensively detailed; my man wanted to make a language of his own (that is, what would become elvish) but being a literal professor in language, he knew language doesn’t exist without context, culture and history. So he got to work, which is (probably) why elven history is so much more detailed than that of the race of Man and dwarves. Aaaall of the history, culture and internal rivalries between the broader elven tribes/clans/groupings.

[anicrue]

Welcome to the wonderful world of linguistics, where everyone's playing a game of telephone and no one knows where it started and somehow you're "It" despite that being an entirely different game.

[andreivulpescu]

Romanians everywhere thank you.

Also, as a violinist, I NEED to see that one about Stradivari wasting his time making violins.

[antonymilne]

I never thought I'd see the day that a man would go through the 5 stages of grief backwards over the Italian languages but here we are

[KingsBard]

I died when Blue went from speaking a beautiful Italian straight into a full on Mario "OH NO", like, same delivery.

[inteligentidiot]

Props to Blue for his not-too-shabby Mario impression at 7:41.

[geosultan]

Fun fact: Livorno has a traditional English exonym that didn't come from France. Because it was a common port-of-call for English merchant ships, it became known in English as "Leghorn." Which is where a popular chicken breed with a white body and bright-red comb became known as the "Leghorn." And that is part of how the Looney Tunes character, Foghorn Leghorn, got that name and that design.

[jasminedragon]

I was not expecting to hear blue burst into fluent Italian. But I would be lying if I said I didn’t wanna hear more

[Darbicus]

Not gonna lie, Blue's existential meltdown in the end had me cracking up.

[TheStormWolf]

The fact poor Blue starts having an existential crisis concerning his beloved Venison is such a treat and opens the door for OSP to dissect Linguistics. Seriously channels like these are a treasure!