I live in a village in Northamptonshire on the border with Rutland.
Around 10 years ago I used to regularly meet an old chap on my dogwalks just outside the village. He remembered the Dambusters flying over after training at Eyebrook reservoir.
"Bad writers, and especially scientific, political and sociological writers, are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones, and unnecessary words."
Orwell, skewering both Boris Johnson and Russell Brand before they were born.
The modern stronghold of Denethor’s madness is academia. I had the honour of editing and proofreading fine art dissertations for both of my daughters and I gave up trying to verify if the terms they were encouraged to quote and use actually existed.
I wonder if that tendency towards French/Latin terms has since abated now that academics can signal their education by using social justice jargon language instead. Why honour the colonial rulers of Rome and Rouen when you can pay tribute to the modern rulers of Britain (Harvard, Silicon Valley)
And Columbia. If any university deserves the name "the Cathedral", it is that university. Practically every progressive idea that goes viral from Deweyite Education, to Boasian Anthropology, to the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, to post-WWII Beat poets, to Edward Said's Post-Colonial Theory, to Kimberley Crenshaw either graduated and/or have their lair at that one university!
During the Renaissance Greek, rediscovered in the West, became all the rage among the highly learned. Hence it was pillaged (and still is) for scientific terms.
Parallels between how Japanese has been Sinified and English has been Gallicized are pretty striking and much has been made of it. Chinese derived vocabulary serves pretty much the same purpose as French and Latin derived vocabulary in English.
Buddhism, brought over China, was one broad conduit. And for a while in the Middle Ages every Japanese scholar spent his student days in China learning Chinese and its lore.
"In Anglish, theology would be godlore. rhetoric is speechcraft. doctors would be healers, journalists newsmen, and status-signalling would be rankmarking. A rodent is a gnawdeer while a comedian is a laughtersmith."
Chinese words are put together like this, e.g. chemistry in Chinese is 'change-study', In fact I've heard Chinese learners of English express great frustration that so many common English nouns seem to be unique stand-alone words which contain no hint of their meaning, like ambulance or library.
I’ve searched in vain for where I found it when in college, but I recall reading that TP “Tay Pay” O’Connor, when asked about the Gaelic Revival, said “the language of Shakespeare is good enough for me”. A sentiment I endorse wholeheartedly.
There probably would be due to borrowing from Latin, which the common Catholic faith, and later the university culture of scholarship, would provide a route for. German has the letter.
Re: Ich bin, du bis, er bist
Er bist? German has "er ist" and Dutch "Hij is" ("is" has common cognates across a large number of Indoeuropean language, including Greek and the Slavic languages). The form "he be" does exist in English, but as a subjunctive and we very seldom use that construction these days.
Re: linguistic purity campaigns are always hopeless battles against globalisation
Maybe not quite always? Romanian, in growing awareness of its Latin roots, borrowed in a good many Latinisms and junked some Slavic loan words. Hindi and Urdu are essentially the same language, but the former got rid of of all the Persian and Turkic loans in could, for political and religious reasons. Some languages have even refused useful international loans. "Hydrogen" is "Wasserstoffe" in German and "Vodorod" in Russian.
Re: with ingoing for entrance similar to eingang.
A coworker once came back from a vacation in Germany with photos of and giggles over "Ausfahrt" on many exit driveway signs.
Re: birther for foetus
Wouldn't it be "birthling"? The -er suffix generally notes a doer of an action. We Orthodox might translate the Virgin Mary's Greek title of "Theotokos" as "Godbirther".
Re: Yet as much as I would have been on Team Harold in 1066
Harold and William were both connected to the old House of Wessex through marriage only not lineal descent. William's great-aunt was the wife of both Ethelred II ("The Unready") and Canute. Harold's aunt was the wife of Edward the Confessor. So neither had a blood claim on the crown. (Though something similar is true of the Romanovs of Russia-- related only by marriage to the old Rurikid dynasty)
Re: new and novel
The root of both is another widspereead Indoeuropean cognate.
Yeah Anglish assumes that Latin wouldn't have had a huge impact. Also the huge structural changes in English in the later middle ages. I don't think its proponents are literally stating this is how it would be, more that it's a fun exercise.
The loss of inflectional endings was already a trend in Old English, and it's happened in all the Germannic languages (Icelandic the least, but also there to an extent). This is thought to be due to the fact that Germanic words are normally stressed on the first syllable so endings are easily slurred and lost.
Speaking of lexical doublets, Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer is full of doublets, many of which are Anglo-Saxon/French origin, each with a different shade of meaning. To take just a few examples from the Communion service: 'that they may truly and indifferently minister justice', 'rightly and duly administer thy holy sacraments' 'ye that do truly and earnestly repent ye of your sins' 'we acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness', 'provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us' 'confirm and strengthen you in all goodness''thy manifold and great mercies' - there are many more. It's one of the many virtues of his incomparable prose.
I like the idea of an ambitious class conscious Anglo-Saxon being the same as his descendent Derek “Del Boy” Trotter misusing french words almost a thousand years later.
An English-speaker can make out the meaning of the Romance languages but not German. Thanks to the Romans and the Normans, English is a corrupted Romance language.
Un angloparlante puede entender el significado de las lenguas romances, pero no el alemán. Gracias a los romanos y a los normandos, el inglés es una lengua romance corrupta.
An English speaker ought to have less trouble with "Englischsprachiger" than with "Angloparlante".
Most of our basic vocabulary is Germanic. Brot, Kase and Wasser can be readily deciphered as bread, cheese and water; not so with pain, fromage and eau.
There, the English, under King Harold, won a breme and athel seyer over the Normans, led by Earl William ‘the Unrightluster’, a man who was willing to spill a swith great muchness of blood to fulfil his yearning for the English highsettle, wealth and his own wulder.
I loved this, thank you. I'm going to take a risk and not look up Politics and the English Language (which every professional writer should read, once a year), but you're making a joke with "Most people with an interest in the subject" aren't you - that's the opening line, if I recall correctly. This column is the most enjoyable I think I've read this week. (Speaking of Orwell, the "pure" Anglo Saxon examples in your piece are reminiscent ("thinksome"?) of newspeak.)
I live in a village in Northamptonshire on the border with Rutland.
Around 10 years ago I used to regularly meet an old chap on my dogwalks just outside the village. He remembered the Dambusters flying over after training at Eyebrook reservoir.
One day there was a new enclosure in a field.
Me: "What's that for?"
Him: "Dog training."
Me: "Who built it?"
Him: "Bloody foreigners"
Me: "What, Poles?"
Him: "No, they're from Daventry"
ha!
"Bad writers, and especially scientific, political and sociological writers, are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones, and unnecessary words."
Orwell, skewering both Boris Johnson and Russell Brand before they were born.
The modern stronghold of Denethor’s madness is academia. I had the honour of editing and proofreading fine art dissertations for both of my daughters and I gave up trying to verify if the terms they were encouraged to quote and use actually existed.
I wonder if that tendency towards French/Latin terms has since abated now that academics can signal their education by using social justice jargon language instead. Why honour the colonial rulers of Rome and Rouen when you can pay tribute to the modern rulers of Britain (Harvard, Silicon Valley)
And Columbia. If any university deserves the name "the Cathedral", it is that university. Practically every progressive idea that goes viral from Deweyite Education, to Boasian Anthropology, to the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, to post-WWII Beat poets, to Edward Said's Post-Colonial Theory, to Kimberley Crenshaw either graduated and/or have their lair at that one university!
Mostly Greek…ontological, phenomenological, semioticism, daemonological
During the Renaissance Greek, rediscovered in the West, became all the rage among the highly learned. Hence it was pillaged (and still is) for scientific terms.
You may enjoy Hardy’s poem ‘The Pity of It’
I walked in loamy Wessex lanes, afar
From rail-track and from highway, and I heard
In field and farmstead many an ancient word
Of local lineage like 'Thu bist,' 'Er war,'
'Ich woll', 'Er sholl', and by-talk similar,
Nigh as they speak who in this month's moon gird
At England's very loins, thereunto spurred
By gangs whose glory threats and slaughters are.
Then seemed a Heart crying: 'Whosoever they be
At root and bottom of this, who flung this flame
Between kin folk kin tongued even as are we,
'Sinister, ugly, lurid, be their fame;
May their familiars grow to shun their name,
And their brood perish everlastingly.'
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57339/the-pity-of-it
That is interesting. wish I could have added.
incidentally, 'You may enjoy Hardy's’ - four words which instantly sow distrust in any teenage boy at school
I loved Hardy at school!
Mawkish pap!
Parallels between how Japanese has been Sinified and English has been Gallicized are pretty striking and much has been made of it. Chinese derived vocabulary serves pretty much the same purpose as French and Latin derived vocabulary in English.
And managed without an invasion. Pure cultural cringe.
Buddhism, brought over China, was one broad conduit. And for a while in the Middle Ages every Japanese scholar spent his student days in China learning Chinese and its lore.
"In Anglish, theology would be godlore. rhetoric is speechcraft. doctors would be healers, journalists newsmen, and status-signalling would be rankmarking. A rodent is a gnawdeer while a comedian is a laughtersmith."
Chinese words are put together like this, e.g. chemistry in Chinese is 'change-study', In fact I've heard Chinese learners of English express great frustration that so many common English nouns seem to be unique stand-alone words which contain no hint of their meaning, like ambulance or library.
I’ve searched in vain for where I found it when in college, but I recall reading that TP “Tay Pay” O’Connor, when asked about the Gaelic Revival, said “the language of Shakespeare is good enough for me”. A sentiment I endorse wholeheartedly.
Re: there is no ‘Q’
There probably would be due to borrowing from Latin, which the common Catholic faith, and later the university culture of scholarship, would provide a route for. German has the letter.
Re: Ich bin, du bis, er bist
Er bist? German has "er ist" and Dutch "Hij is" ("is" has common cognates across a large number of Indoeuropean language, including Greek and the Slavic languages). The form "he be" does exist in English, but as a subjunctive and we very seldom use that construction these days.
Re: linguistic purity campaigns are always hopeless battles against globalisation
Maybe not quite always? Romanian, in growing awareness of its Latin roots, borrowed in a good many Latinisms and junked some Slavic loan words. Hindi and Urdu are essentially the same language, but the former got rid of of all the Persian and Turkic loans in could, for political and religious reasons. Some languages have even refused useful international loans. "Hydrogen" is "Wasserstoffe" in German and "Vodorod" in Russian.
Re: with ingoing for entrance similar to eingang.
A coworker once came back from a vacation in Germany with photos of and giggles over "Ausfahrt" on many exit driveway signs.
Re: birther for foetus
Wouldn't it be "birthling"? The -er suffix generally notes a doer of an action. We Orthodox might translate the Virgin Mary's Greek title of "Theotokos" as "Godbirther".
Re: Yet as much as I would have been on Team Harold in 1066
Harold and William were both connected to the old House of Wessex through marriage only not lineal descent. William's great-aunt was the wife of both Ethelred II ("The Unready") and Canute. Harold's aunt was the wife of Edward the Confessor. So neither had a blood claim on the crown. (Though something similar is true of the Romanovs of Russia-- related only by marriage to the old Rurikid dynasty)
Re: new and novel
The root of both is another widspereead Indoeuropean cognate.
have corrected the German typo!
Yeah Anglish assumes that Latin wouldn't have had a huge impact. Also the huge structural changes in English in the later middle ages. I don't think its proponents are literally stating this is how it would be, more that it's a fun exercise.
The loss of inflectional endings was already a trend in Old English, and it's happened in all the Germannic languages (Icelandic the least, but also there to an extent). This is thought to be due to the fact that Germanic words are normally stressed on the first syllable so endings are easily slurred and lost.
Speaking of lexical doublets, Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer is full of doublets, many of which are Anglo-Saxon/French origin, each with a different shade of meaning. To take just a few examples from the Communion service: 'that they may truly and indifferently minister justice', 'rightly and duly administer thy holy sacraments' 'ye that do truly and earnestly repent ye of your sins' 'we acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness', 'provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us' 'confirm and strengthen you in all goodness''thy manifold and great mercies' - there are many more. It's one of the many virtues of his incomparable prose.
Do other languages have as many?
Would be interested.
"The English language: Diversity is its strength." (Ed West)
Yes, indeed. We should be invaded more often.
I like the idea of an ambitious class conscious Anglo-Saxon being the same as his descendent Derek “Del Boy” Trotter misusing french words almost a thousand years later.
German often makes more sense if you imagine it being spoken by a Geordie
Poul Anderson - Uncleftish beholdings
https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/1100/docs/uncleftish-beholding.html
Physics in Anglish
That's suberb!
An English-speaker can make out the meaning of the Romance languages but not German. Thanks to the Romans and the Normans, English is a corrupted Romance language.
Un angloparlante puede entender el significado de las lenguas romances, pero no el alemán. Gracias a los romanos y a los normandos, el inglés es una lengua romance corrupta.
Bollocks
Quite.
An English speaker ought to have less trouble with "Englischsprachiger" than with "Angloparlante".
Most of our basic vocabulary is Germanic. Brot, Kase and Wasser can be readily deciphered as bread, cheese and water; not so with pain, fromage and eau.
I'm pretty sure that if you tried out your second sentence in my neck of the woods, you'd be told: 'tha's torkin traipe lad.'
The working class still speaks Anglosaxon.
Indeed. That's what English is. The cosmopolitan-bourgeoise (a minority unto itself) appear increasingly to speak a dialect of American.
PS: we sons of the soil retain a preference for hyphenated form of our mother-speak.
Irish has just 18 letters, doing without j k q and the last useless five, though they sneak back in imported words like veist and pizza.
There, the English, under King Harold, won a breme and athel seyer over the Normans, led by Earl William ‘the Unrightluster’, a man who was willing to spill a swith great muchness of blood to fulfil his yearning for the English highsettle, wealth and his own wulder.
Stanley Unwin?
I don't understand
The Professor himself! Though I think it needs Kenneth Williams to convey the full grandeur.
Sorry, bigness
Oh, the Kenneth Williams gay London argot - poymeroy or something?
I loved this, thank you. I'm going to take a risk and not look up Politics and the English Language (which every professional writer should read, once a year), but you're making a joke with "Most people with an interest in the subject" aren't you - that's the opening line, if I recall correctly. This column is the most enjoyable I think I've read this week. (Speaking of Orwell, the "pure" Anglo Saxon examples in your piece are reminiscent ("thinksome"?) of newspeak.)