"Our history lives in the words we speak and hear." well-said!

This narrator's voice is so pleasant and soothing.

English isn't even my first language and I had the exact same image in my head. wow

So many people here are making disparaging remarks about this clever video. I find it to be very educational and thought-provoking. She can't possibly cover this complex topic thoroughly in 5 minutes, but she gives us the highlights in a creative, insightful way.

Wow, this is amazing! Even myself, who doesn't speak english as a nativ language, imagined exactly what she described! I'ts like a magic trick! So cool! Language is so interesting.

This segregation of english language, described in this video, is also still noticelbe in how whe call our food, especially meat today. While the lower class farmer only had to do with the animal itself and hardly could afford to eat meat, they just named the animals (for example "cow"). In contrary, the rich aristocrats only ate the meat, and never worked with the real animal, so because of french influences, they had their own names for the animals/it's meat ( cow ----> beef [from french "boef" means cow]). That's why in english, there still are different names today for animals and it's meats. Oh man, I just love history

The last phrase was just amazing, so meaningful, so accurate.

The letter style had also a lot to do with the way we picture both sentences.

When those Anglish lads saw those Danish lassies, I'm not surprised that they quickly learnt the meaning of the words skin, legs, want, root, freckle. They all can be used in one sentence.

I wished that there was an intro to the Great Vowel Shift, as that was significant in the evolution of the English language.

our history lives within the words we speak

I always love language history. Just seeing how other languages influence one another. It's so fascinating to me

"Our history lives in the words that we speak and hear." perfect 👌

"The memory persists, in the feelings evoked by the words you speak". That's a trip. And considering words alter biological changes. We're really just a shadow of the past. A continuation projected by it. We're all sea foam and part of that ocean. Wow

Well done. I learnt a lot. That last line "Our history lives in the words we speak" is indeed true. Thank you.

Awesome, I am not a native english speaker, my mother language is spanish, that is closely related with latin and arab, but it didn't matter, i pictured the very same images for the two sentences, it feels lime, as you learn a language, you, subconsciously, also learn its history, its memory, I am amazed.

Language is so deep-seated in society, it's really fascinating to learn more about it

This is cool! Love the hearty welcome and cordial reception part!

For the hearty welcome I imagined small villagers in a hut greeting me while for the cordial reception I imagined powdered wigs and baroque music

She was talking like she was doing ASMR was this Ted trying to give us tingles?

Beautiful, informative thoughtful piece. Great speaking voice. Thanks.

This is especially interesting when you compare how English speakers view languages like German and French. English speakers tend to view German as a very rough and brute language, while French is viewed as a very refined and posh one. Do you think that this contrast is related to the general Anglo-Saxon (Germanic) and French divide?

Note to self-'Language is expression of History'.As a student of History i appreciate this from bottom of my heart.Afterall History pulsates and gets enliven through the language which we are speaking.Language is much more than semantics,grammar,syntax- it's a living legacy in the end it was so illuminating& enlightening.

I read and heard this history recently from other sources and found it very difficult to get a clear picture, apart from facing difficulty in retaining the details. However, I would applaud the makers of this video who covered many importance details in just a few minutes in a way that was easy to understand and, hopefully, retain!

Very nice, But I have a small quibble. "They gave us a hearty welcome. They gave us a cordial reception." Here, "reception" and "welcome" are (more or less) synonymous nouns in English. But the adjectives "hearty" and "cordial" do not mean the same thing, and in some sense, they might be opposites. That's why they evoke different images. Instead of "cordial," I'd choose a different latinate word like "enthusiastic" or "effusive."

English is awesome because it is adaptive. We're like the borg, assimilating everything we come in contact with. Our grammar may be broken, our rules constantly ignored, and our language may seem confusing to others, but I like it. A fluent speaker can understand very complex ideas and say the same thing in a dozen ways. And when we don't have a word for something, there are easy ways to create one that make the new word seem intuitive.

I'm not even American or British... I'm a Chinese-descent Filipino and that's EXACTLY how I imagined the mental pictures when the narrator asked us to imagine "A Hearty Welcome" - a friendly house visit to an American friend's house, where he and his family have open arms to me and mine. "A Cordial Reception" - striding towards the host of a black tie event where the host smiles and shakes my hand and people have wine glasses. amazing! just to show that these language impressions/connotations transcend even cultural borders...

So amazing!!!! I'm not a native speaker but a professor of English. I had exactly these images (and drinks) in my mind associated with the phrases!!! Thank you) a cordial gratitude)))

Whaaat?!! You mean to tell me that Anglo-Saxons didn't buy the English version of Rosetta Stone from Amazon??! I was way off. CC!

"Cute Viking neighbours" - hmmmm 😳

This video is really excellent, and the narration a beautiful voice - intelligent yet soothing. Thanks for your research!

Excellent video, absolutely loved the way it was presented!!

Watching TedEd for an hour gives more knowledge then three years in school.

I like this! Cause if someone tells me to speak properly I can explain to them that there is no such thing!

I think this little video is superb. I learned a great deal. Thanks for posting! Bravo!

Lol, "hearty welcome" scene in my mind was with wine and caviar. Cause these things are common(except caviar, it is not cheap, but it is for really *hearty* welcome) in my country, Moldova, with its slavic-dacian-latin mixed culture.

Not many people know this but it was the Anglian dialects of Old English (Mercian and Northumbrian) are what evolved into the English today. The Lord's Prayer presented in this video is of the Late West Saxon dialect.

"Did away way with the Celts" *looks at the Scottish, Irish, and Welsh*

I enjoyed this mightily! Thank you TED-Ed.

It is great how language evolves over the centuries. I hope they wil do something like this for other languages, too.

A group of Chinese dialects (like Wu, which is represented by Shanghainese; Yue, represented by Cantonese and Hoishan; Min, represented by Hokkien, Teochew and Fuzhounese) also followed the similar developing pattern in the ancient time. They used to absorb Mandarins in different periods of time and preserve their original languages (actually in the very beginning they are different tribes, in which people speak totally different languages compared with Mandarin at that time) as basis.

Wow amazing, as we learn English we also learn German, French, Latin, Viking XD

Bro for that "hearty welcome" scene it's literally EXACTLY what I pictured that's crazy

WoooW!!! I never knew that english words have such history. Thank you for sharing it! I really love learning history :)

@Caesar Santizo I remember reading about the invasion of Britain by the Anglo-Saxon (Germanic) tribes. In most other invasions, the populations ultimately mix, as indeed happened in the British Isles late, with the Viking and Germanic groups eventually merging. With the Anglo Saxon invasion, though, the Germanic groups seem to have not integrated with, but replaced the Celts. The thing I read seemed to say that no-one is sure what happened to the Celts, but they were probably either shoved out of the way into places like Wales and Cornwall, or they were largely wiped out. Either way, their culture and language disappeared. I would guess that the answer to your question is related to that. Any Latin picked up by the Celts when they were occupied by the Romans was 'lost' when the Germanic tribes supplanted the existing population. As the Germanic groups were never conquered by Rome, all traces of Latin might have been lost in England. However, that theory would only work if the existing populations in Spain, France, etc. weren't wiped out or pushed away in the same manner. It also means there might be some traces of Latin in Welsh or Cornish, as that is where most of the Romano-British and Celts would have gone too (if they weren't all killed). It's also worth noting that England was relatively out of the way. Cultural exchanges to or from the country weren't that common, I don't think, and even Christianization came late to the British Isles. The adoption of Christianity in the Roman Empire in 380 happened just three years before all Roman soldiers were removed from Northern England for the final time, and only 30 years before the total end of Roman occupation of Britain. I can't swear that's why, but that's my guess, based on what I know.

This video is absolutely wonderful! Beautifully explained, with an acceptable grasp on the historical facts. The English language one of the most powerful languages in all the world, and in all of history, surpassing classical Latin & Greek!

Fantastic video, love the a hearty welcome and a cordial reception part.

I must say this is the perfect video for someone who did not already know these facts. BRAVA.

Ted-Ed did 2 or 3 videos on English. It would be fabulous if there were different languages.

A friendly introduction to a long, fascinating, and strange story.

I love this talk!

Really informative! I didn't know a lot of this before.

Same way at Turkish. After Romans, Oghuz tribes came to Anatolia. But there were Greeks before. Just like Saxons and Celts. Oghuz-Kipchak language become common like Anglo-Saxon language. And then, Mongols invade here with Persian Culture. So, Persian words are noble words in nowaday Turkish.

that was cool!

Such a fascinating video! I loved it

I agree on word creation. Easiest word creation among languages I had contact with!

The whole noble/peasant divide in the English language can especially be seen in words for meat and animals; the words for animals often come from Old English, for example, Old English cu, sceap, or hogg would develop into the animal names cow, sheep, and hog, since the English-speaking peasants primarily interacted with the living animals. On the other hand, the French-speaking nobles interacted more with the meat, so Old French boef, moton, and porc were introduced into English, where they would become the words beef, mutton, and pork. It's actually a bit of a shame this didn't get brought up, since it illustrates the division much more clearly than "Hearty welcome" and "Cordial reception."

the norski in me WANTS A FRECKLED LEG SKIN ROOT

this was so dope. thanks for the insights!

Lots of language lessons, I love it.

I am just wondering how Small places like England has more language dialect? Was it North-South division (based on Jared Diamond's theory that East to west is much more easier to spread).

Awesome video! In India speaking English makes us feel aristocratic. 😁 Today I got to know that the same feeling persisted in England.

A person who keeps their desire to a minimum and reaches maximum rationality is a sage. A sage always thinks about how they can benefit and help others.

Synonyms have a whole new meaning thank you.

"And so the centuries passed, with Bri'ons happily speaking Old English" XD

The Romans protected the Celts from the Saxons? Not really. The Celts were pretty isolated and didn't have to worry about invasions until the Romans crossed the Channel. The Saxons didn't become powerful until centuries after the Romans left. I'm being a bit nitpicky, though. I guess this video is supposed to simplify a lot. (ouLearn's video is better)

Our history lives in a words we speak and hear.

Thank you. So well put.

Or the french words are bigger, less well known, spoken less in regular speech and more specific in what they mean. So when you hear "Hi, I'm john and these are my mates" you think, 'okay this guys normal' whereas if you hear someone say "Hello, my title is John and this is my entourage" you think, 'this person is high class' because they are saying words not commonly spoken.

THIS IS A GRATE PEICE OV HISTORY M8

Very educational video. Thanks for posting!

This is amazing, great job!

4:33 is that Louis C.K. I see?

An entertaining and insightful wee piece with regard to the origins and impact of language... HOWEVER, the history presented is massively simplified (which I could just about forgive considering the length and target audience of the presentation), and in some places - such as the linguistic divide presented between Anglo-Saxon and Danish - almost completely wrong. Also, Latin was already present in the British Isles and Ireland LONG before the Normans arrived with their Catholic clergy. I'm sure there was another group present in Britain for some time before them who might have spoken Latin... Perhaps the Romans?

1:09 - "Mr. Romulus Augustulus, I don't feel so good."

This was beautiful to watch.

Did away with the celts lol you mean displaced and then conquered.

Pretentious, Moi?!

I really feel like they need to make some movie that take place 1000 years ago and they make the language they speak pure and true to the age. That would be amazing.

Amazing said : our history deals with the words we speak.

This was a really great and informative video, I'm just not convinced about the Saxon and French words having connotations reflecting their origin. The semantics of the words themselves are what conjure up the different images in our heads. 'Hearty' means 'from the heart', and 'to welcome' is a much more positive verb than 'to recieve'. The words in the phrase 'affectionate salutation' are of French origin, and they evoke positive feelings. It's the chose of words that change the mood/feel of what you say, not the etymologies of the words.

Denmark FTW!

I closed my eyes and still imagined the two scenes the same way as in the end.

This explains the beauty of the language.

So are the Celts the original inhabitants of the British isles?

2:16 the Saxons weren't in Ireland ;-)

Bravo! Very good piece!

Amazing video, it was so fascinating how even though I had no idea of the origin of those several words, they evoked such different connotations in my two sentences. Keep making these awesome videos!!

Et ouais les mecs, c'est nous les rois ;)

VIKINGS DID NOT HAVE WINGS ON THEIR HORNS!!

beatiful video thank you guys!

English is my third language and it’s my easiest to learn. Thank you for this history on the language. Vikings were vicious.

The English language is akin to the "Borg". It automatically seeks to assimilate or eradicate. It is funny to watch the developing world cram English words in to their syntax.

I only speak English

Brilliant video! Excellent

I can't believe Vinland Saga actually helped me understand more of this in context XDD

The Romans protected the Celts from Germanic tribes? That's not true at all. In fact one of the reasons why those Germanic tribes settled the British Isles was that they were contracted as mercenaries by Roman aristocrats after most of Roman legions left the isles as the empire was slowly collapsing.

what about Greek

THIS IS SO AMAZING!

so helpfil thanks