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What Is Anglish?

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Re: What Is Anglish?

#251

Post by culebron21 »

deafpolygon wrote: post #199
tomxor wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that mainly due to it being based upon a historical snapshot of English? that by definition never evolved further. If it had the same huge population of English speakers over hundreds of years (i.e was a living language) then it may also have evolved a diverse range of words without the need to absorb other languages - not that I care for it. On a slight tangent, I've noticed when translating from English to Chine…

In Dutch, as an example we have a word called zoetwater - which if you translate it literally, is "sweet water". But it is the word for 'freshwater' in English [as opposed to saltwater], not some kind of sweet water. Even though zoetwater could be literally translated, no one really knows it means freshwater in English. There is advertisement for 'fris water' or 'vers water', which means fresh water correctly.

Same in Romance languages: it acqua dolce vs acqua salata, es agua dulce/salada, pt agua doce/salada (all meaning sweet/salt water).

Re: What Is Anglish?

#252

Post by zirgs »

deafpolygon wrote: post #199
tomxor wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that mainly due to it being based upon a historical snapshot of English? that by definition never evolved further. If it had the same huge population of English speakers over hundreds of years (i.e was a living language) then it may also have evolved a diverse range of words without the need to absorb other languages - not that I care for it. On a slight tangent, I've noticed when translating from English to Chine…

In Dutch, as an example we have a word called zoetwater - which if you translate it literally, is "sweet water". But it is the word for 'freshwater' in English [as opposed to saltwater], not some kind of sweet water. Even though zoetwater could be literally translated, no one really knows it means freshwater in English. There is advertisement for 'fris water' or 'vers water', which means fresh water correctly.

Turns out that we aren't the only ones that call freshwater "sweet water".

Re: What Is Anglish?

#253

Post by pja »

deafpolygon wrote: post #199
tomxor wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that mainly due to it being based upon a historical snapshot of English? that by definition never evolved further. If it had the same huge population of English speakers over hundreds of years (i.e was a living language) then it may also have evolved a diverse range of words without the need to absorb other languages - not that I care for it. On a slight tangent, I've noticed when translating from English to Chine…

In Dutch, as an example we have a word called zoetwater - which if you translate it literally, is "sweet water". But it is the word for 'freshwater' in English [as opposed to saltwater], not some kind of sweet water. Even though zoetwater could be literally translated, no one really knows it means freshwater in English. There is advertisement for 'fris water' or 'vers water', which means fresh water correctly.

Fresh, non-salt water used to be called sweet in English too, but that term has fallen out of use for some reason.

Re: What Is Anglish?

#254

Post by englishrookie »

deafpolygon wrote: post #239
aden1ne wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"fris" is closer to "chilly", tho.

Yea, that's true - in the sense that it's "chilled", or "cool" (i.e. a frisdrank) but not in the sense that it's cold (koud) or chilly outside.

Well, you can say "het is fris buiten", meaning "it's chilly outside".

Re: What Is Anglish?

#255

Post by rando14775 »

gerdesj wrote: post #148
calvinmorrison wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the premise of Anglish can be summed up as: No, we don't need latin, or greek roots, to enjoy our language, and there's just as much if not more of a reason to use roots natural to our language, and no you aren't smarter or wiser, more scholarly or intellectual, because you use big long fancy sounding latin or greek based words. maybe the reason a lot of english doesn't make sense (in contrast to german) is b…

English is French! (lingua franca) The reason for that is because English is considered relatively easy to communicate with as a second language. English has quite happily built upon its roots and is able to grab "foreign" words and take them on board, without fear, favour or rancour. Why not? Modern English takes advantage of a vast vocabulary, much of which is not natively derived or generated but is still cherishe…

The main reason English is used so much is because of the British (and later US) empire, and not because it's easy as a second language (that depends heavily on what someone's first language is). Empires always spread their official language far and wide, no matter how "easy" it is.

I agree that language purity stuff is related to xenophobia.

Re: What Is Anglish?

#256

Post by logifail »

biztos wrote: post #233
MrJohz wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're cherry picking examples here though. How do you explain the "-zeug" words? If you think of "Zeug" more as tool then some of them kind of make more sense ("Feuerzeug", "Werkzeug", at a pinch "Spielzeug") but are you really thinking of a plane as a flying tool? And there are also cases where English has opted for a compound word and German has just invented its own: Ampel vs traffic light, for example. Personall…

I disagree about the Zeug, I think it’s great to have the flexibility — “Zeug” is also just “thing” sometimes — but I find Fahrzeug and Flugzeug just as intuitive as Werkzeug and Feuerzeug. Now relating them to the various meanings of “zeugen” might be tricky but I think I get that too. In many languages the airplane is a “flying machine” and that makes way more sense than “flat thing in the air” if you think about i…

> find Fahrzeug and Flugzeug just as intuitive

There is a certain logic to German. How about:

Wheel -> das Rad

Wheels -> die Räder

Bicycle -> das Fahrrad

Bicycles -> die Fahrräder

Cyclist -> der Radfahrer / die Radfahrerin

Cyclists -> die Radfahrer / die Radfahrerinnen

Re: What Is Anglish?

#257

Post by bigpeopleareold »

jameshart wrote: post #94
triyambakam wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Which is all a fun linguistic ‘what-if’ game - but when you start posting ideas online about ‘pure Germanic heritage’ you might find you attract an audience who are not just interested in word games.

Certain people would be attracted to things even if you didn't mention the word 'pure'. We all clearly understand that there will be people will have impulses towards provincialism, etc.

I just think though, by avoiding the word 'pure' to describe something like this, even if it is not exact, this becomes another form of language purification. in this case, it's leaning towards prophesizing how a concept would be approached.

Re: What Is Anglish?

#258

Post by rnosov »

biztos wrote: post #233
MrJohz wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're cherry picking examples here though. How do you explain the "-zeug" words? If you think of "Zeug" more as tool then some of them kind of make more sense ("Feuerzeug", "Werkzeug", at a pinch "Spielzeug") but are you really thinking of a plane as a flying tool? And there are also cases where English has opted for a compound word and German has just invented its own: Ampel vs traffic light, for example. Personall…

I disagree about the Zeug, I think it’s great to have the flexibility — “Zeug” is also just “thing” sometimes — but I find Fahrzeug and Flugzeug just as intuitive as Werkzeug and Feuerzeug. Now relating them to the various meanings of “zeugen” might be tricky but I think I get that too. In many languages the airplane is a “flying machine” and that makes way more sense than “flat thing in the air” if you think about i…

Airplane makes some sense too as according to Wikipedia:

"Aéroplane" originally referred just to the wing, as it is a plane moving through the air. In an example of synecdoche, the word for the wing came to refer to the entire aircraft.

Re: What Is Anglish?

#259

Post by culebron21 »

Tor3 wrote: post #246
lisper wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the point of this project is to see what a modern "pure" Germanic English would be like. The absurdity of this is manifest in the name: "pure Germanic English". That's like "pure California Champaign" or "pure Wisconsin Parmesan". There is no such thing as "pure English", Germanic or otherwise, because one of the defining characteristics of English is that it is, and always has been, an amalgam of many different la…

Agreed. English is not the only language deeply influenced by other languages. The other "Germanic" languages aren't necessarily any more "pure" than English. The other day I came across an article (unfortunately I can't find the link) which talked about how the Scandinavian languages were forever changed by the contact with the Hansa trade union, some 40% of Norwegian vocabulary, for example, is from Low Middle Germ…

Grammar stays the same in borrowings. For instance, Italian has greek borrowings for centuries, that disobey the gender endings (-o for masculine and -a for feminine, m. fotógrafo -> f. fotógrafa), and the biggest offender is the Greek suffix -ista, which can have both genders (communista, feminista, etc.). Nevertheless Italian grammar didn't get broken. (I'm personally outraged that they say "il mouse" (pronounced il máus), instead of native il topo/la rata as every other Latin language, but Italian grammar still functions fine.).

Re: What Is Anglish?

#260

Post by slim »

nqzero wrote: post #79
squiffsquiff wrote: post #7

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." --James D. Nicoll

Is this English: Yes (riffing off the "Is this Arabic" that was posted a few days ago - it's a lot easier in english, ie if the speaker says ti's english, it's english)

I won't miss his is a unique occasion to post this arabic meme (one has to spend his karma) :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1e62d6wHIU

Explanation to get around HN guidelines : The guy says : "Hey Morsi [ndlr. common male name in Egypt], Is this English ?". It started when Modamed Morsi was president of Egypt and spoke in incomprehensible English. Since most arabic speaking people are notoriously bad at English, it became a meme used when someone says something incomprehensible in any language

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