re: A podcast for those interested in the etymology of the English language and History

what bump? I only started it an hour ago.

We speak these words but few comprehend the journey they have taken. Their roots. Latin, Norse, Germanic, French...

They’ve been truncated and transformed and twisted.

You know the Monty Python bit about Kuh-nig-its?

That was closer to the original pronunciation than our current knight.
And in the Norman period they were called chevaliers, from the French cheval for horse.

My commute is only about 15 minutes, so I imagine that would be too choppy. I have a flight in a couple of weeks, so I’ll give it a go then.

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150 hours

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Listening to the intro now. There goes the next two+ weeks of productivity.

Indo-European (IE) is the root language of almost all European languages as well as Sanskrit, Iranian, and some other lesser known languages. Some of the languages spoken in modern India are IE.

The original root language was spoken by the proto Indo-Europeans who lived in southwest Russia about 6,000 years ago. 19th century scholars called these people "Aryans" which fell out of favor after WWII (for obvious reasons).

The IE or "Aryan" grave sites have been excavated and their DNA sequenced. They were tall, robust, dark haired and dark eyed. They were not blonde as most people assumed they would be. (It seems blonde hair is native to "Old Europe" before the "Aryan" invasions).

In any case, this group invaded Europe starting in the late neolithic and ushered in the bronze age (circa 4,000 B.C.) The Indo-Europeans pretty much wiped out the native European males but kept the females alive for "marriage." (We know this because native Euro male lineages all but died out). They introduced the horse and chariot and certain forms of bronze weaponry. They subsisted off of pastoralism (cattle herds and the like) while the native Europeans were farmers. They brought milk to Europe and the lactose tolerance gene with them.

We know that they later left Europe and went back East onto the Steppe lands and south into west Asia. They dominated Kazakhstan for centuries. Some made it all the way to the Chinese desert.

Around 1500 B.C. a group of these people went south into India and took over the crumbling empire down there. The Sanskrit language was brought with them and the Rig Vedas were written by them.

It was in the 1600's when British colonial scholars in India began noticing that Sanskrit had a ton of similarities with ancient Greek and Latin. They studied it further and came to the conclusion that all European languages were derived from Sanskrit (this is false - Sanskrit is a branch, but not a direct ancestor).

There are two branches of IE languages: Centum and Satem. Most of the western European languages are centum while the easterly languages are satem.

English itself is a Germanic language. Germanic is believed to have developed during the Nordic bronze age in Scandinavia (1700-500 BC). But ultimately it was derived from Indo-European just as were all languages (except Hungarian, Basque and Finnish).

Galiec/Celtic languages are also IE and related closely with the Italic languages (linguists call it "Italo-Celtic"). Great Britain was utterly ravished by the IE peoples as they made it into western Europe. They replaced about 90% of the gene pool of the Isles in 400 years. That means a lot of killing (and probably disease spreading) went on. Since both males and females seem to have been wiped out equally, there is a good chance disease was responsible (the plague is a possibility). If it were genocide, most likely they would have kept some of the women around as "wives" as they did in central Europe.

How do we know this about Britian? Because modern British males are about 80% R1b, but this lineage is not found in any male's bones that predate the IE (Bell Beaker) invasions. This means the R1b males dominated either through genocide or disease.

Anyway, this is a fascinating rabbit hole.

That doesn’t surprise me. I’m not tied to the blonde haired, blue eyed Aryan myth. Conquerors have risen out the steppes from Time immemorial. Tartars, huns, mongols. Slavic mythology is steeped with them.

They did what conquering tribes always did. Raped and slaughtered and pillaged. And left their genes and traces of their language behind. And in time this gave rise to the Germanic and Nordic barbarians. Who did the same.

It’s fascinating stuff. We stand on the shoulders and speak the language of rapers and reavers. I look at it all with the long eye of Odin. The modern mores matter not to me. Our tale is one of blood and devestation, plague and plunder.

And our language reflects that. I would expect No different.

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Dandy Lion

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I was just being a dick.

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Which is normal.

Great new episode on the Canterbury tales out now.

Very interesting

THere’s an awesome new one on the history of vulgar Language. Very interesting

You got me thinking. I got a degree in English in 1991 and the ONLY course I can remember enjoying is Milton. It was taught by a very short lady whose name I cannot recall, sadly. She was fantastic! Does anyone remember her?