Wait, computer isn't English native?
No, it's an old French word for "to calculate/to count". Today the French word for that is "compter" (and a counting machine is a "compteur").
What Is Anglish?
11–20 of 363 posts
Re: What Is Anglish?
#12Wait, computer isn't English native?
'Compute(er)' is a French word
Re: What Is Anglish?
#13> Anglish is a kind of English which prefers native words over those borrowed from foreign languages. does not make sense - english is a language sythesised from huge borrowings from other languages, over time. what is the "native" language supposed to be?
Probably the Germanic languages of the Anglo Saxons- it's called Anglish, after all.
Re: What Is Anglish?
#14This is a fun way to speak English, but this notion of "native" vs. "borrowed" words is incredibly slippery. For instance, the example replaces "union" with "oneship", but these words share a common Proto-Indo-European root and can reasonably be interpreted as the same word; the same goes for most other Norman words "borrowed" into English after the conquest. The page advocates the use of "Old English words ... revived and updated to modern spelling and phonology to be used for a modern meaning". How old is too old?
Not to over-charge this conversation, but it reminds me of anti-race-mixing ideologies. Race is also a much more slippery concept than some people would care to admit; we're all related if you go back far enough.
Re: What Is Anglish?
#15> Anglish is a kind of English which prefers native words over those borrowed from foreign languages. does not make sense - english is a language sythesised from huge borrowings from other languages, over time. what is the "native" language supposed to be?
If you wind back when the borrowings started happening in great number, you get to a time when English was mostly "purely" Germanic. That's what this project is - as if Old English had continued on without being influenced from French etc.
Re: What Is Anglish?
#16This is a fun way to speak English, but this notion of "native" vs. "borrowed" words is incredibly slippery. For instance, the example replaces "union" with "oneship", but these words share a common Proto-Indo-European root and can reasonably be interpreted as the same word; the same goes for most other Norman words "borrowed" into English after the conquest. The page advocates the use of "Old English words ... reviv…
Yes, you could go back and back and back. But the point of this project is to see what a modern "pure" Germanic English would be like.
Re: What Is Anglish?
#17Re: What Is Anglish?
#18> Anglish is a kind of English which prefers native words over those borrowed from foreign languages. does not make sense - english is a language sythesised from huge borrowings from other languages, over time. what is the "native" language supposed to be?
If you wind back when the borrowings started happening in great number, you get to a time when English was mostly "purely" Germanic. That's what this project is - as if Old English had continued on without being influenced from French etc.
borrowings have always happened.
and as regards early english, did you ever see phillip larkin describe it as "ape's bumfodder"? luckily we replaced it with many, many borrowings, so much so that looking at AS english is prainful on the brain - and uneccessary.
Re: What Is Anglish?
#19Before anyone gets too worried, the Anglish community in my (limited) experience has been incredibly anti-racism/Nazi/etc.
They are just a bunch of linguistics nerds who are having fun imagining what English would have been without a Norman invasion.
In the same spirit, I'd recommend checking out the Uncleftish Beholding. Although I think it predates the modern Anglish community, it's an attempt to describe Quantum Mechanics with Latin/French derived words.
https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/110/docs/uncleftish_beh...
Re: What Is Anglish?
#20I have had a lot of fun with Anglish in the past, composing poetry and even attempting to write school assignments in it.
However as I've grown as a linguist, I now disagree with the direction that they've taken it, but I understand why.
That is, the Anglish project uses cognates and sometimes inventions from Old English, Dutch and German because most linguists (and people) consider English a West Germanic language, most closely related to German and Dutch, and more distantly related to Swedish, Norwegian and Danish.
But I'm convinced that Faarlund is correct [1]; that Old English is not the only ancestor of Modern English, and that actually Modern English is more like a creole of Old English and Old Norse.
So I'd like to see an Anglish project that instead uses the Scandinavian languages for word replacements.
[1] "English as North Germanic [Language]" https://brill.com/view/journals/ldc/6/1/article-p1_1.xml?lan...