> Americksland
This reminds me (a Welshman) of my favourite theory for the origin of the name "America":
What Is Anglish?
291–300 of 363 posts
Re: What Is Anglish?
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I understand and appreciate these distinctions, I think a lot of Brits can get a little precious about the idea that England, Scotland, etc. are different “countries”, to the degree that they even e.g. field competing teams in the World Cup. I understand that there’s a nuanced narrative in which the UK consists of four different countries that share a monarch and a government, but from the outside y’all are jus…
I don't know any English people who think that Scotland or Wales are countries. Most people understand that the four nations compete separately in football because the game was invented here, and the first ever international match was between England and Scotland. A great distinction I once heard was that the US is a nation made up of states, the UK is a state made up of nations.
Every English person I know thinks that England, Scotland and Wales are countries. It's what we were taught in school. I find it odd that you find the opposite.
Re: What Is Anglish?
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
English also seams to borrow heavily from latin for anything medical. The words in Spanish for your bones, bacteria, etc would all be recognizable to your doctor.
It's quite systematic. Latin was the language of medicine. When they switched to English, or other local languages, they kept a lot of jargon. Religion and government and academic areas are similar. Some of it is a social division that originates back to the Norman conquest of Britain. The guy in the field would call a cow's heart (the Old English equivalent of) a cow's heart. The lord would call it the (Norman Frenc…
Cow - said by the Anglo-Saxon serf that would rear it. Beef - said by the Norman noble that would eat it. Same with deer/venison, pig/pork, sheep/mutton.
Re: What Is Anglish?
#294The beauty of the English language always comes from picking the word with the perfect connotation. At the most articulate, you have speakers like Christopher Hitchens: “It especially annoys me when racists are accused of 'discrimination.' The ability to discriminate is a precious faculty; by judging all members on one 'race' to be the same, the racist precisely shows himself incapable of discrimination.” ― Christoph…
that Hitchens quote is nice, but typically for him, and fittingly for the context, it’s more of an attempt to be contrary and interesting than it is to be correct. racists are accused of discriminating by race. he obviously knew this, and it’s still an interesting point, but to be annoyed by it is to be annoyed by correct usage of English
Re: What Is Anglish?
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it depends on what region of England or the UK at large you want to consider. If you're NE England into Scotland, yeah, Scandinavian languages had influence and that's is reflected in their current vocab. Other areas may have retained more of the original dialect with fewer Scandinavian influences initially though those would return via the Norman invasion with added French vocabulary.
Old Norse accounts for about 5% of English vocabulary, including very common everyday words, not regional. Examples: egg, knife, sky, skill, etc, etc. Tons of core vocab. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Old...
And "they", "them", "their", which is really interesting. I can understand a language borrowing nouns (or verbs, or adjectives) from a neighbour, but pronouns?
Re: What Is Anglish?
#296This reminds me of London slang, or what I now know is called "Multicultural London English"[1], which I was introduced to when I moved to London. A friend asked me:
> "Ey, wagwan fam, bare man gwarn dis flick, whatchu sayin'?"
Translated, this means:
> "Hey, how are you? Some folks are headed to the cinema. Would you like to join?"
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multicultural_London_English
Re: What Is Anglish?
#297The example of the preamble to the US Constitution is a bit poor really because the Anglish version doesn't properly convey the meaning of the English version.
A constitution is not merely, and not entirely, a book of laws. My lawyer wife had a great pile of law books, but none of them were a constitution.
And the idea that one can sensibly revive Old English words to use in Modern English grammar is a bit odd, they are after all related languages not the same language. The first is inflected, the second mostly not.
In my opinion, contrary to that of John Cheke, the great strength of English is precisely that it is so willing to borrow from other languages. It is one of the defining characteristics of English that a foreign word can be adopted, and adapted, very easily so that after a relatively short time it doesn't feel especially foreign.
Re: What Is Anglish?
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
The counterargument is that lots of words allow for precise concision. wordbook can be ambiguous, as almost all books are filled with words. Is wordbook specifying that this book is a word book as opposed to a picture book? wordkenbook might be less ambiguous, but maybe this referring to all nonfiction books using words? all that being said, I think uncleftish[0] beholding is an amazing piece of text and a good exerc…
>The counterargument is that lots of words allow for precise concision. In fact, the hallmark of writing/speaking good English is conveying yourself using the least words required with the utmost precision. Don't believe it? Watch a British politician roast someone in Parliament. That is bloody masterful English literature right there.
That's just modern fashion - in other eras "flowery" language would be considered superior.
Re: What Is Anglish?
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s interesting to me how comparatively impoverished Anglish seems. Here’s to promiscuity!
Opinion of a Polish guy: In my eyes, English is pretty bloated, when seemingly almost every concept can have three or more alternative words, each from a different source. It is all matter of perspective, I suppose. :) I think such feeling can be caused by languages that rely strongly on creating compound words rather than borrowing a new ones (example from the site: Dictionary > Wordbook).
> three or more alternative words
Wait until you start studying Sanskrit ;)
Re: What Is Anglish?
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
na, you are missing the point here, in German "Wörterbuch" (literally wordsbook) is the standard term for a dictionary. No ambiguity because by default a book is with words and then all composita describe some kind of deviation (Bilderbuch= picture book, Handbuch = handbook -> manual, Fahrtenbuch = drive book -> driver's log). English just draws vocabulary from many roots and attaches connotations to them which have…
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'd translate "Zeug" as "device": a tool or other contraption made to facilitate some activity. Flugzeug definitely helps flying, like Werkzeug helps working.