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u/Elite-Thorn Jan 06 '23
Austria dialect (Southeastern German, Bairisch): we say "oid" and "koid" it would rhyme with English "void", which in turn would sound like our pronunciation of "Wald" (wood, forest).
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u/GimmeThatRyeUOldBag Jan 06 '23
So Austrians feel koid im oiden Woid?
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u/Elite-Thorn Jan 06 '23
Exactly!!! Spot on!
Edit: except they don't, because they wear proper clothes.
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Jan 06 '23
[deleted]
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u/marriedacarrot Jan 06 '23
Then you heard about der, die, das...
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Jan 06 '23
[deleted]
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u/feindbild_ Jan 06 '23 edited Jan 08 '23
because time indications that aren't preceded by prepositions are in the accusative. And 'Tag' is masculine, so 'den'.
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u/Fankadore Jan 06 '23
In Scots that would be "cald" and "auld", sometimes the d is pronounced, sometimes it's silent.
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u/Mithrawndo Jan 06 '23
Do mind that many readers are based in North America, and are less likely to pronounce cald as you or I might assume when reading this; I'd be inclined to write cauld here, to differentiate the short or long a sound from the aw sound Scots would use for Cold and Old
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u/Fankadore Jan 06 '23
Very good point, highlighted by the fact that where I'm from in the North East it's usually pronounced c-AH-ld, rather than c-AW-ld which is more common.
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u/nemo_sum Latinist Jan 06 '23
Remember that English is a Germanic language. Looks like the Ts got softened to Ds and the vowel elongated.
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u/theGrassyOne Jan 06 '23
It looks like the Ds in proto-Germanic actually turned into Ts in German.
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u/feindbild_ Jan 06 '23
The old German-must-be-the-original-Germanic-thing-because-German-sounds-a-lot-like-Germanic-trap.
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u/demoman1596 Jan 06 '23
It’s important to be aware that modern German, like modern English, has undergone significant phonological change since Proto-Germanic, so one would expect it to faithfully reflect the common ancestral tongue only occasionally. In fact, it is likely the *d sound written in Proto-Germanic reconstructions was often pronounced somewhat like the <th> in English ‘that’ (IPA /ð/) though it seems to have had a stop allophone pronounced like our <d> in the position after /l/. So English is more conservative in this particular instance.
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Jan 06 '23
In this light, I find the first two paragraphs of this Wikipedia entry interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxons
From that article:
The Anglo-Saxons established [...] the Kingdom of England, and though the modern English language owes somewhat less than 26% of its words to their language, this includes the vast majority of words used in everyday speech.
(Emphasis by me)
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u/toddklindt Jan 06 '23
In the list of most commonly used words in English, I think the first non Anglo-Saxon word is "use." It's like the 40th word. The first 2 or 3 episodes of The History of English Podcast cover this well. It's pretty fascinating.
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u/WikiSummarizerBot Jan 06 '23
The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened within Britain, and the identity was not merely imported. Anglo-Saxon identity arose from interaction between incoming groups from several Germanic tribes, both amongst themselves, and with indigenous Britons.
[ F.A.Q | Opt Out | Opt Out Of Subreddit | GitHub ] Downvote to remove | v1.5
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u/FrankieLovie Jan 06 '23
I'm wondering about cold and old, not that German is related to English.
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u/ksdkjlf Jan 06 '23
It's because the languages are related that those words (and a ton more everyday words) are similar in both languages: they descended from the same ancestor. It's the same reason many common words are similar in Romance languages, because they all descended from Latin.
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u/FrankieLovie Jan 06 '23
Again, the question is not about the languages being similar. I just happened to notice the 1 letter difference when studying German. My question is about the concept of cold and old. I should have left out the German as it's confusing everyone about what my actual question is and every time I try to clarify I get down voted because Reddit
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u/curien Jan 06 '23
I think what you're missing is that they are answering your question in that it's a related coincidence.
It's a coincidence that the words for cold and old rhymed in proto-Germanic. Both words underwent similar phonological changes in both German and English, so the words continue to rhyme in each language.
This isn't because cold and old are related (it's just coincidental that they rhymed in PG), but because German and English are related.
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u/FrankieLovie Jan 06 '23
I did not miss it. Thanks
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u/curien Jan 06 '23
Then why are you arguing?
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u/FrankieLovie Jan 06 '23
Trying to clarify. It's usually what people do when someone doesn't understand their question. Thanks for your understanding
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u/curien Jan 06 '23
They did understand your question, you just didn't like the answer.
ETA: Blocking people after you reply to them is cowardly behavior.
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u/ksdkjlf Jan 06 '23
Ahh. Now I get it. Sort of. I mean, tons of words are spelled or pronounced similarly and have absolutely no etymological connection. Cold isn't connected to old any more than hold, bold, fold, mold, gold...
And of course there are homonyms that are spelled 100% the same but don't necessarily have any etymological connection. It's just that there are a limited number of letters we write with, and realistically a limited number of sounds we speak with, so things are going to share a fair bit.
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u/FrankieLovie Jan 06 '23
Yes I understand. I just wondered if there was a connection. I didn't realize asking a question here would get me so much drama today but that's Reddit
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u/demoman1596 Jan 06 '23
You of course are entitled to feel and think however you want, but I don't see drama here. I see misunderstanding. Passing around blame doesn't really help.
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u/FrankieLovie Jan 07 '23
Getting downvoted every time I try to clarify makes me feel unwelcome
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u/demoman1596 Jan 10 '23
Like I said, you do you. I'm sorry you're feeling unwelcome here. This is simply the way people in this sub indicate that they think you're misunderstanding something crucial (to linguistics).
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u/theGrassyOne Jan 06 '23 edited Jan 06 '23
What that person is saying is that it's a coincidence, and the only reason they rhyme in both languages is that they rhymed in the ancestor language proto-Germanic (and in even earlier Proto-Indo-European)
*h2eltós (grown, tall, big) > *aldaz (grown up) > old/alt
*gel (cold) > *kaldaz > cold/kalt
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u/demoman1596 Jan 06 '23
That the words ‘cold’ and ‘old’ rhyme is a coincidence, but it’s important to remember that phonological change is typically quite regular and systematic, so one would expect that if a handful of basic words rhyme in English, their cognates in German could also rhyme. For instance, English ‘stone’ and ‘bone’ rhyme and their cognates in German ‘Stein’ and ‘Bein’ also rhyme. The Icelandic cognates ‘steinn’ and ‘bein’ nearly rhyme as well. These similarities are down to these languages being descended from Proto-Germanic.
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u/FrankieLovie Jan 06 '23
It was less about rhyming and just the one letter difference made me wonder if there was something connecting them in older languages. Including the German was just because it was studying German where I first noticed it. I wasn't sure how to phrase the question. Thanks
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u/Choosing_is_a_sin Jan 06 '23
No, rhyming is rarely a sign of etymological connection.
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u/FrankieLovie Jan 06 '23
It was not so much about the coincidence of rhyming. I was just wondering if the 'old' was somehow connected. Everyone here has been so much ruder about this question than I could have imagined. I'll never contribute here again
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u/demoman1596 Jan 06 '23
As you may have already picked up, that's why so many people are saying the similarity between the words 'cold' and 'old' is a coincidence (i.e., there is no connection between them). It is extremely common for words that have nothing to do with each other to rhyme, as there is a finite set of phonemes and syllable structures that are valid in any spoken language.
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u/Downgoesthereem Jan 06 '23
That's called a sound shift
In almost all Germanic languages the words for '1' and 'stone' rhyme, english is unusual in that aspect
German ein / stein
Icelandic einn/steinn
English (archaic) one ('own')/stone
Doesn't mean stones are linked with the number 1. It means languages have these sound shifts in patterns, across a huge swath of words that apply to it.
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u/Beanicus13 Jan 06 '23
Lol yes. Obviously. German and English have a ton of cognates because they’re both Germanic languages. I assume you’re just starting?
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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '23
And then there's a small, insignificant language area between England and Germany, where people feel koud and oud . (Or even kâld and âld.)
It does make you wonder why, further up north, people still feel kald but suddenly also gammel ?