What’s Anglish?

The intention of Anglish is: English with many fewer words borrowed from other tongues. Because of the fundamental modifications to our language, to say that English individuals in the present day speak Fashionable English is like saying that the French speak Latin. The fact is that we now speak a world language. The Anglish project is meant as a way of recovering the Englishness of English and of restoring ownership of the language to the English people.

The goal of the Anglish project differs from individual to individual, however mostly it is to explore and experiment with the English language. This exploration is pushed for some by aesthetics, for the ethnic English by cultural wants, and but for others it is purely an interesting diversion or pastime. Language plays a big function in our lives, so to be able to play with that language, and form it to our own wants or needs may be very important. For this reason, writing or talking in true English is a positive finish in itself, in as a lot as it provides an other outlet for this need.

However there is additionally the additional idea that Anglish is a recognition and a celebration of the English part of contemporary English. For, although it has borrowed 1000’s and hundreds of words all through its life, there still exists a real English core to English, crucial everyday words which no sentence or uttering may manage without. By stripping away the layers of borrowings, Anglish lets us better appreciate that core and the function it plays in our language.

The best way to seek out out where a word comes from is to look it up in a dictionary. Most respectable desktop dictionaries will include quick etymologies for a lot of of their entries, which give a little knowledge of the place the word arose from, and the way it was used or written in the past. Some on-line dictionaries have this knowledge as well, such because the Oxford English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Dictionary.com and Wiktionary. There are also dictionaries dedicated to word etymologies, which are a goldmine for knowledge about English words. The Online Etymology Dictionary is maybe the perfect available online.

However these will only tell from where and when a word came into English, but not whether or not it ought to be thought ‘borrowed’. Some immensely old and very primary words, comparable to ‘cup’ and ‘mill’, are indeed borrowed from Latin, but nobody would say these words are usually not English. Conversely, words like ‘thaumaturgy’ and ‘intelligentsia’ are clearly not of English origin, and have been borrowed comparatively lately.

Where to draw the line between English and ‘borrowed’ is but an other area of personal choosing, and there are numerous views on this among Anglish proponents. A really broad rule says that anything borrowed from French, Latin and Greek within the final eight hundred years ought to be thought borrowed. A more discerning view would say that any word which was introduced into English to fill a real want or gap in vocabulary needs to be kept, but those words borrowed to “adorn” or “enrich” the language however in reality push out present words, ought to be weeded.

Are there truly that many borrowed words in English?

Yes. English is renowned for having borrowed so many words from different languages during the last thousand years. The core of English is Germanic, however only about 25% of the words in English today derive from such a root, and that includes these of Norse, Dutch, German and others, as well as English. Which will sound like many, one in each 4 words, but not so much when one thinks that Latin and French every account for 29% of the English vocabulary. Greek yields an different 6% of words, with the last 10% being from different languages, derived from personal names, or simply unknown.

Nevertheless, as mentioned earlier, the core of the English language still mostly consists of English words, which makes an undertaking like Anglish possible.

When a word is taken out from English, the place do replacement words come from?

There are lots of roots for words to exchange these which have been removed from English. Typically, a word which is removed will have a commonly known English synonym already present. Words like ‘quotidian’ and ‘illegal’ can simply be switched for ‘everyday’ and ‘unlawful’ without shedding meaning or intelligibility. When there may be not a readily available English word for use, a new word have to be found or made. Some old or obscure words will be introduced back to life and reused; new words could be calqued from English morphemes using the old word’s pattern; different instances wholly new words, “neologisms,” will be put collectively from existing words and affixes. None of these strategies are right or unsuitable, however every has its stead in making a wide and varied lexicon for Anglish, and each is used in accordance with the context and particular needs of a word.