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What Is Anglish?

anglish.org

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Re: What Is Anglish?

#51

Post by martynr »

epicureanideal wrote: post #28
triyambakam wrote: post #20

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,…

Do you have any examples of an English / Scandinavian hybrid? Also, I wonder if such a thing might actually arise in the Scandinavian countries in the future?

Northern English is significantly influenced by Scandinavian words today- for example the “-by” suffixes on town names is a direct use of the modern Danish word for town, Kirkby meaning Church Town in a direct translation

Re: What Is Anglish?

#52

Post by zabzonk »

triyambakam wrote: post #25
zabzonk wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Of course, at different times it happened to more or less a degree, and from different languages. It's all arbitrary, but this project chose an arbitrary precision of "pure" Germanic English. It's their choice and doesn't feel ideologically motivated, more so in the spirit of conlang (constructed languages).

> only a quarter to a third of modern English vocabulary can be legitimately described as having purely English

does that make sense? are we dealing with recursive definitions of english here?

Re: What Is Anglish?

#53

Post by martynr »

OnlyMortal wrote: post #45
epicureanideal wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any examples of an English / Scandinavian hybrid? Also, I wonder if such a thing might actually arise in the Scandinavian countries in the future?

Yorkshuhman here… we say “ta” (tak) for thanks. We also say “cheers” (tschuss) for goodbye. Going a bit deeper, “dale” (daal - Dutch), “beck” (beek - Dutch). Having learnt (not learned) in Amsterdam, it’s very, very like the dialects of the north east of Yorkshuh. So much so, it’s rather a surprise.

Exactly my observation as a southerner who has lived in the north and Scandinavia

Re: What Is Anglish?

#54

Post by triyambakam »

epicureanideal wrote: post #28
triyambakam wrote: post #20

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,…

Do you have any examples of an English / Scandinavian hybrid? Also, I wonder if such a thing might actually arise in the Scandinavian countries in the future?

I'm not aware of any natural or constructed English/Scandinavian pidgins/creoles, but that sure would be fun. The conventional wisdom is that it's easier for an English speaker to learn Swedish than it is to learn German.

Regarding if that would arise in the Scandinavian countries in the future - it actually seems more likely in German speaking countries. There is actually a word for it now - Denglisch (Deutsch Englisch), similar to e.g. Hinglish (Hindi English). Basically using German grammar with large amounts of English vocabulary. I hear so many English words in German lately for which there exists a perfectly good German word already.

Examples:

Denlisch: "Bist du ready?" Deutsch: "Bist du bereit?" English: "Are you ready?"

Denglisch: Joke Deutsch: Witz

Re: What Is Anglish?

#56

Post by triyambakam »

zabzonk wrote: post #44
triyambakam wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, at different times it happened to more or less a degree, and from different languages. It's all arbitrary, but this project chose an arbitrary precision of "pure" Germanic English. It's their choice and doesn't feel ideologically motivated, more so in the spirit of conlang (constructed languages).

> "pure" Germanic English something there never has been?

No, there was a definite period of history when English was highly Germanic and lacked influence from non-Germanic languages.

Re: What Is Anglish?

#57

Post by ZeroGravitas »

triyambakam wrote: post #20

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,…

They'd probably get some of that for free if they leant on Scottish and Northern dialect words, like they give the example of

Famous > Nameknown is one of the examples, but perhaps Wellkent would work better if they're otherwise using ken for knowledge.

Re: What Is Anglish?

#59

Post by jagthebeetle »

Of particular note are some reinforcements from Old Norse (circa 850s onward):

- are (displacing bēoþ, sind, and sindon)

- their (displacing heora)

- they (displacing hīe)

As a linguistic game, sounds fun. Hopefully its pupils don't take it too seriously, hem hem, e.g. William Strunk the Lesser: "Saxon is a livelier tongue than Latin, so use Anglo-Saxon words"

Re: What Is Anglish?

#60

Post by shkkmo »

triyambakam wrote: post #27
MarkusWandel wrote: post #24

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…

This project isn't ideologically motivated, which I think many people immediately jump to that conclusion. It is a fun project to explore. If you have never come across the conlang (constructed language) community it might not make sense, but it's more so linguists and linguistic hobbyists having fun.

> This project isn't ideologically motivated

I'm sure many people who play with the idea are not ideologically motivated.

However, like some other constructed languages, ideology does play a non-neglible role. I think any time the word 'pure' is used to describe Anglish, it seems likely that some sort of ideological motivation is at play. William Barnes, for example, supported english purification to make the language more accessible to the uneducated.

many supports of the language were

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