British country names explained

Why is 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿England named after the Angles and not the Saxons? Does 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿"Welsh" really mean slave? And where was the original 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿Scotland? These questions answered and many more on this etymological trip around the 🇬🇧UK.

In this video, I explain the origins of the names of England, Scotland and Wales, as well as the rest of the British Isles and 🇮🇪Ireland. And prepare for a shocking revelation about walnuts.

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==CHAPTERS==
0:00 Introduction
0:22 "England"
3:54 "Wales"
4:56 Ground News
6:07 "Wales" continued
9:25 "Scotland"
11:05 "Ireland"
11:37 "Britain"
11:09 "Albion"
14:04 The British Isles ("Shetland", "Isle of Man" etc.)

[slevins_video_channel]

As a Belgian fan of yours, I was shouting: Dude, that's where the word Walloons comes from and then you confirmed it. And my day was made. Keep up the good work, love the channel.

[QUIRK]

The "wall" in Cornwall being related to Wales is one of those things that's completely obscure before, but then ridiculously obvious in hindsight.

[Andreas_Trottmann]

Here in the German speaking part of Switzerland, we refer to the French speaking part as “Welschland” and to the French speaking people as “Welsch”. I never would have guessed that this has the same roots as the English referring to “Wales” and “the Welsh”. Amazing!

[Shirafune]

Estonian word for Germany is Saksamaa, meaning "Saxon land/Land of the Saxons". England is Inglismaa, "land of the Angles/Ingles".

[Piime]

6:44 The Vlachs/Wallachians in Romania are also named after the same word.

[delienn]

I'm so happy you talked about my little lovely Brittany 🤩 I speak breton (brezhoneg in our language) daily and also teaching it in school. We have indeed a special link with Wales, not only linguistically speaking, many welsh people are living here and it's pretty easy to find welsh lessons. It's actually easy to learn when you're coming from breton. Thanks for the vid !

[buc_tia]

Fun fact about the word "Welsh".

In Italy we have a province called "South Tyrol" (in Italian "Alto Adige" and in German "Südtirol") where German is an official language and it's spoken even more than Italian. At the border with Trentino (basically the last fully Italian speaking province before South Tyrol) there are two towns called Nofen: one was historically German-speaking, therefore it's called *Deutschnofen* ("Deutsch" means German) and the other was historically Italian-speaking and so it's called… *Welschnofen* ! So interesting!

[cyclofeedubox]

The old English word for wales comes from the proto Germanic Walhez, which is also why the Polish name for Italy is Wlochy - same early Germanic root meaning Latin/Romance language speakers

[shawnotoole]

Not only is this video informative, but your wit makes it fun to watch.

[Mr.Crowley]

As a medievalist professor (now retired) I explained to my students every year that the Angles gave their name to England and to English

[Geokinkladze]

There's a great Billy Connolly skit where he references the Scotti coming to Scotland from Ireland and exclaiming "We've found somewhere colder and wetter than home, COME ON!!!"

[pipr]

You have a really delightful tone, pace, and way of explaining things - thankyou for the very excellent video! Subscribed, and I'm already looking forward to watching others

[sebastiendifederico]

As a french speaker of Switzerland, we got the nickname of "die Welsche" from the german speakers. The meaning here is closer to "the others". We prefer to call ourselves "La Romandie" 😊
Love your work !

[fortniteking]

Wow, everytime I watch Rob it's like going down a rabbit hole with an infinite amount of buroows leading away. He truly makes the language fascinating and a touch exciting when the loose ends come together.

[musicalmeg]

I clicked on this video out of genuine curiosity for the topic, expecting a monotone and boring presentation. Was I wrong! This was fantastic! Immediately subscribed for more!

[bikepacker]

I'm not from GB but be proud, you guys and your country is amazing. You are the basis for the modern world. Be proud.

[friede]

As someone living in northern Germany I knew about the origin of the word "England" (btw there is still a small region called "Angeln" here in Schleswig-Holstein) but the way you explained this plus all the additional info was spot on and entertaining as always. 🤩 Thank you!

[JustAnotherNameYo]

I love reading the comments after the video because folks add so many little details. Great companions and fantastically informative.

[conchitaelisa]

I'm so happy that I found this channel. I'm what you call a word-nerd. I'm Flemish from Belgium, and I'm a linguist and Orientalist specialised in Indian languages. But I love all languages, so this is gold for me. Thank you, Rob.

[patrickdemarcevol]

Fabulously interesting video, I'm a Frenchman with a Welsh grandpa and a Kentish grandma, what a mix!