English is a very unusual language for many reasons, and one
of those is its inflated vocabulary. There are over three quarters of a million
words in the Oxford English Dictionary, by far the largest lexicon of any
language on earth. A lot of those words are synonyms, terms that mean basically
the same thing but with subtle differences. For example smell, as a noun, has many such synonyms; however scent, perfume, fragrance etc
can only be used in relation to pleasant smells. Odour, whiff, stench, stink etc are always unpleasant; and there's even a synonym that
can only be used to describe the smell of food, aroma. Languages influence each other when the speakers interact
and no tongue has ever been more promiscuous than English. A large amount of
our vocabulary comes from French as a result of the Norman Conquest of 1066.
English before then was very different, to the point where Old English texts
like Beowulf are completely
incomprehensible to the modern Anglophone. In those days English was far more
similar to continental Germanic languages. English is classified as Germanic in
terms of its grammar (although there's intriguing evidence to suggest that it
began as a second language for Celtic-speakers, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLpgVEfy4mQ).
This has led to the question of what English would be like without all those foreign
influences; especially Norman , but
also more recent jargon or loanwords from Latin, Greek and many others.
"Anglish" is a constructed language, primarily created by an online
community, which is based on English, but it has an entirely Anglo-Saxon
vocabulary. This is achieved in four ways. 1. Always use a Saxon-derived
existing alternative; for instance use sundry
instead of various, whore instead of prostitute, and land
instead of country. 2. Revive
anachronistic Saxon words like moot,
a word never used in modern English that means a meeting place, conference or
gathering. 3. Inventing new words by adapting terms from other existing
Germanic languages. Rike is based on
the German Reich and it means a realm
or nation state. 4. Invent compound words by amalgamating more than one Saxon
word. Literature can be replaced by bookcraft; and geology can be replaced by stonelore.
Once you get the hang of it, it's very easy to learn Anglish if you already
speak English. You'll be able to work out new words from simply knowing the
format. In fact I guessed before looking it up that rikecraft meant politics.
Source: http://anglish.wikia.com/wiki/Main_leaf.
The above website includes some Anglish translations of
well-known English texts and ironically one of those is George Orwell's famous
essay Politics and the English Language,
see: http://anglish.wikia.com/wiki/Rikecraft_and_the_English_Tung.
I find Anglish very interesting and, of course, it's really just a bit of fun.
It's completely harmless. However I've always had an aversion to linguistic
engineering because of Orwell's influence on me, but even prior to that. I have
yet to tell the full story of my rebellion against "Newspeak", and I
must do so soon. French also has a language purity movement, but in this case
it is far more serious and established. For some decades now there has been a
backlash in France
against franglais, the vast and
increasing number of English loanwords entering the French vocabulary. Some of
these are official such as le week-end
and parking, but on a colloquial
level it is far more extreme. Some French-speakers will even say things like Je vais driver downtown, "I'm going
to drive downtown". So the French
Language Academy Paris demanded all media outlets
try and put a stop to it. Most famously a popular TV sports commentator was
told to stop using the term le goal
and instead say le guardian for
"goalkeeper". The author Miles Kingston wrote a series of humorous
books in which he parodied franglais
by creating an entire fictional language of his own which was a complete
English-French hybrid. One of his books was called Let's Parler Franglais one more Temps! I can sympathize with the
old conservative Francophone who tears his grey locks at the sound of franglais, but unfortunately languages do
change naturally over time. Like the evolution of life, they form families,
adapt, mutate, die out and interbreed. The idea that a centralized authority
should wade in and force artificial changes to language repels me. Orwell
warned that this action could be incredibly destructive and could even be used
as a terrible psychological and cultural weapon. In his novel 1984 the people of the Big Brother state
are forced to use "Newspeak", a degenerate language with as few words
as possible to eliminate creative thought and prevent people talking, or even
thinking, about resisting the state. Linguistic engineering is happening right
now, mostly in the form of political correctness. New PC words and styles of
speech have crept up on us in forms that we hardly notice, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/jason-wilson-on-cultural-marxism.html.
There are even terrible stories of people being sacked from their jobs, ending
up in court and even being subjected to violent assaults, for refusing to speak
according to the rules of PC. Since I wrote the above article this has famously
happened to a Canadian academic called Jordan Peterson, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAlPjMiaKdw.
So enjoy Anglish. I hope you find it as thought-provoking and entertaining as I
do; but let's keep it as it is, just a bit of harmless fun. I would hate to
live in a world where it was enforced by law or violence.
See here for more
information: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/beyond-babel.html.
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