Extinct Languages Spoken - Ubykh, Old English, Proto-Indo-European and more

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• published: 06 Sep 2014
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Five extinct languages spoken, including Ubykh, Old English, Proto-Germanic, Proto-Indo-European, and Proto-Nostratic. Some more information on the languages (from Wikipedia): Ubykh, tʷaxəbza in the Ubykh language, is an extinct Northwest Caucasian language that died with its last native speaker, Tevfik Esenç, in 1992. It has the largest consonant inventory among attested non-click languages, with 84 phonemic consonants (but only two phonemic vowels). Old English, Ænglisc in Old English, is the direct ancestor of the modern English language, although very different due to its lack of Romance influence from the Normans, and because of this is much closer to Icelandic or German. It was spoken from the mid fifth to mid twelfth centuries. Proto-Germanic is the unattested common ancestor of all the Germanic languages and is a descendant language of Proto-Indo-European, likely spoken in present-day Denmark, and southern Scandinavia about three thousand years ago.. However, certain inscriptions found may be of the early Proto-Norse or late Proto-Germanic periods. Proto-Indo-European is the unattested, yet highly supported common ancestor of all Indo-European languages, including Hellenic (including Greek), Italic (including Latin and the Romance languages), Germanic, Celtic, Slavic, and the Indo-Iranian languages. There are about 439 Indo-European languages, with almost three billion native speakers, by far the most of any widely recognized language family. The most accepted hypothesis places it spoken in the Pontic steppe, about six thousand years ago, although estimates vary greatly. Proto-Nostratic is a controversial common ancestor of Afro-Asiatic, Kartvelian, Dravidian, Eurasiatic (including Uralic, Indo-European, and Altaic), sometimes including Elamite, Sumerian, Nivkh, Yukaghir, Chukotko-Chamkatkan, and Eskimo-Aleut languages. It is believed to be spoken in the Fertile Crescent around 12,000 years ago. Texts Used: Ubykh: from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubykh_language#Samples_of_Ubykh Old English: The Lord's Prayer, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Lord%27s_Prayer_in_English Proto-Germanic: Schleicher's Fable, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Germanic_language#Schleicher.27s_PIE_fable_rendered_into_Proto-Germanic Proto-Indo-European: Schleicher's Fable, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schleicher%27s_fable (Byrd's translation) Proto-Nostratic: from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostratic_languages#Sample_text Information on the phonetics of the languages come from their respective Wikipedia pages. Stuff used: Recorded on an iPhone 4s, audio edited in Logic Pro 9, pictures made in Gimp, video made in iMovie. **DISCLAIMER** All of these languages are extinct. As such, all pronunciations are completely approximate, especially that of PIE and Proto-Nostratic. I'm not very good at the voiced aspirated (breathy-voiced) PIE stops either, and am unsure about stress patterns, and Old English vowel reduction. Also, I am not perfect. I made quite a few mistakes - see if you can spot them! Hopefully my American English accent didn't get in the way to much. Anyways, thanks for watching! Maybe in the future I'll do another... I'd like to do Latin, Ancient Greek, maybe Old Chinese. I'd need some good texts with IPA pronunciations though. If you want, suggest a language in the comments! I can't imagine how anyone could speak fluent Ubykh. They must have very tough uvulas... (Luckily the Ubykh text didn't use qˁʼ)