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> 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.
> 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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
This 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.
All I'm saying is, the word "pure" doesn't make sense to me here.
This has the same feel as avoiding "immigrant German". My family is ESL, and communicating in our original language/dialect has devolved into a free mix of German and English words. It takes a conscious effort to keep it all German when talking with relatives from the old country! But I agree with others, trying to keep English "pure" is a lost cause; it's a glorious hodgepodge of influences from all over, and I love…
I 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,…
Also, I wonder if such a thing might actually arise in the Scandinavian countries in the future?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably the Germanic languages of the Anglo Saxons- it's called Anglish, after all.
This is turtles all the way down. All Germanic languages are highly related to the other Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet we use to write can be traced back to Egyptian Hieroglyphs. People just like to pick arbitrary points in an evolutionary timeline and use those points to create in-groups and out-groups.