Linguist Gareth Roberts joins WIRED to answer the internet’s burning questions about the etymologies of English words. How did the first languages first form? Was there once a single common language that all the others evolved from? When were swear words invented? Have words like “dude” and “bro” become gender neutral? Who came up with the word poop? Is “unalived” a real word now? Answers to all of these questions and plenty more await on Etymology Support.
0:00 Etymology Support
0:14 Etymologies rock
1:05 Gender neutral dude bros
2:50 Silent letters: Why?
3:47 “Unalived”
4:55 Grimm’s Law
5:57 %^*&*%!!!
6:47 Making up new words
8:41 How did each language form?
12:05 What was there before we had language?
14:06 Orange
14:47 💩
15:09 Fall into Autumn
15:54 Did we ruin demure?
16:35 New Slang
18:00 NO
18:34 The Great Vowel Shift
19:51 Shakespeare!
20:34 Why did we stop saying ‘thee’ and ‘thou?’
21:57 …..word?
22:21 Pregnant: Origins
23:25 Doggos
Director: Anna O’Donohue
Director of Photography: Caleb Weiss
Editor: Richard Trammell
Expert: Gareth Roberts
Line Producer: Joseph Buscemi
Associate Producer: Brandon White
Production Manager: Peter Brunette
Production Coordinator: Rhyan Lark
Casting Producer: Nicholas Sawyer
Camera Operator: Christopher Eustache
Sound Mixer: Sean Paulsen
Production Assistant: Sonia Butt
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Post Production Coordinator: Ian Bryant
Supervising Editor: Doug Larsen
Additional Editor: Paul Tael; Jason Malizia
Assistant Editor: Andy Morell
Still haven’t subscribed to WIRED on YouTube? ►► http://wrd.cm/15fP7B7
Listen to the Get WIRED podcast ►► https://link.chtbl.com/wired-ytc-desc
Want more WIRED? Get the magazine ►► https://subscribe.wired.com/subscribe/splits/wired/WIR_YouTube?source=EDT_WIR_YouTube_0_Video_Description_ZZ
Follow WIRED:
Instagram ►►https://instagram.com/wired
Twitter ►►http://www.twitter.com/wired
Facebook ►►https://www.facebook.com/wired
Tik Tok ►►https://www.tiktok.com/@wired
Get more incredible stories on science and tech with our daily newsletter: https://wrd.cm/DailyYT
Also, check out the free WIRED channel on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Android TV.
ABOUT WIRED
WIRED is where tomorrow is realized. Through thought-provoking stories and videos, WIRED explores the future of business, innovation, and culture.
There’s a misconception that Americans don’t say Autumn. We do. We use it interchangeably with Fall. We don’t use either one to the exclusion of the other. I personally prefer Autumn, but I don’t not say Fall, either.
i dont know why but if i had to imagine what a linguistics professional looked like, they would look exactly like this guy
Unaliving needs to be gone or the original word not be made so taboo by having this word in its place – its taken so long for the act of unaliving to be more widely recognised and discussed that making the word of it so taboo as if to disguise the act as its not welcome here, goes against having it talked openly about and in the serious way it deserves.
8:31 Wow! Dutch is my mother language and to say “outside” we say “buiten”! And 14:41 The German word for adder is Natter… wow again! So clarifying!
Bear in German is Bär. Pronounced almost the same.
Dude/bro/guy are all masculine terms. It’s true that the masculine is often used to refer to a group of mixed genders, but when used to refer to an feminine individual, I find it offensive.
Well, lucky future linguists for not having to worry about undocumented slang, they would have so much of it that they’ll be sick of it😂
i dont think unalive exists because of social taboos
its more like the draconian ridiculous censorship that youtube imposes upon its users
The people contributing questions are so dumb and illiterate it makes me not want to listen.
I’m so lucky to speak a language that has gender nouns!
10:10 Fryslân mentioned
this topic is so interesting to me
Man, as an amateur linguist, hats off to this dude. He’s very knowledgeable, to have such a deep understanding about the origins of such a wide number of words is admirable even for a professional.
I always wonder why the werewolf doesn’t called a wolf man or something
7:12 Me: That’s clearly a Frouse.
The issue with linguistics compared to other disciplines is that by studying anything u r able to predict future development of events. It is not the case for linguistics 😅
“Stop trying to make swoop happen, Shakespeare. It’s never gonna happen.”
Amazing!
What is the origin of the word Grammar?
In Chinese, the cat is called “mao”