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"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, E

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." --James D. Nicoll

nqzero 4y ago
Is this English: Yes (riffing off the "Is this Arabic" that was posted a few days ago - it's a lot easier in english, ie if the speaker says ti's english, it's english)
- dsr_ 4y ago
  More precisely: Is this English? Cool cool, it finna be.
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    What do you think that says, and in what dialect? If the intended dialect and meaning are what I think, the definition of 'finna' and the overall usage are wrong.
- hinkley 4y ago
  With English it’s not a case of “if” but “when”.
- walrus01 4y ago
  speaking of Arabic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Arabic_origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Arabi...
- slim 4y ago
  I won't miss his is a unique occasion to post this arabic meme (one has to spend his karma) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1e62d6wHIU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1e62d6wHIU Explanation to get around HN guidelines : The guy says : "Hey Morsi [ndlr. common male name in Egypt], Is this English ?". It started when Modamed Morsi was president of Egypt and spoke in incomprehensible English. Since most arabic speaking people are notoriously bad at English, it became a meme used when someone says something incomprehensible in any language
- tikkabhuna 4y ago
  Sometimes speakers say its French as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon_my_French https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon_my_French
paganel 4y ago
Related to that, it's interesting how many European languages have heavily borrowed from French in the last 2-3 centuries, especially what I would call "technical" terms. I was watching the subtitled video of a speech made by a Hungarian minister recently and the few words that I could make sense of were all similar to the their French counter-parts (or how I would think a French technical word loaned into Hungarian would sound like). Ditto for German, even more so, I'd say. Russian, too. In fact even a word that we've now stopped regarding as "technical", such as bicycle [1], comes in English via modern French (so not via the French spoken by the Normans back in the day): > Borrowed from French bicycle (modern bicyclette), from bi- (“bi-”) + cycle (“cycle”). First attested in English in 1868, and in French in 1847.
- speakspokespok 4y ago
  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.
  - gerdesj 4y ago
    ... and Old/Ancient Greek. When you see -phth- you know you are in for a right old tongue twister. Not human but fish related: ichthyophthirius. In English it's called "white spot" - both of those words are very Anglo-Saxon. Spanish is considered a "Romance" language, along with French, Italian int al. English is considered a "Germanic" language along with German, Dutch int al. English alone has at least three major periodic based "versions" - Old, Middle, Modern. There were also events such as a major vowel change where the way we pronounce vowels today differs from before that event. Spanish seems to have a famed "lisp". However that simplistic approach to a complex language and Spain as a whole ignores rather a lot of history, culture and is frankly an insult! As we say in Britain - "Viva la difference". English as spoken in Britain and elsewhere should borrow and bother from every language it ever trips over. It should always evolve and mutate and continue to become ever more flexible. It should also continue to enable useful "pidgins" which are amalgams of English bolted on the side of another language and vice versa. What English seems to have lost compared to the other Germanics is a lot of formal complicated verb conjugations and nounal declensions and noun genders and quite a lot more. Complexity can be bolted on but it is optional. Subject object verb is also quite fluid too in English. I believe German at least insists on a verb dump at the end of a sentence. English still has many of these structures - active, passive, subjunctive verbs (transitive, intrans etc); Nom, Voc, Acc, Gen, Dat, Abl for your nouns but they are largely implied via other words instead of suffixes. English is quite literally and vocally French! (lingua franca - language of the Franks)
hcayless 4y ago
It’s interesting to me how comparatively impoverished Anglish seems. Here’s to promiscuity!
- tomxor 4y ago
  Is that mainly due to it being based upon a historical snapshot of English? that by definition never evolved further. If it had the same huge population of English speakers over hundreds of years (i.e was a living language) then it may also have evolved a diverse range of words without the need to absorb other languages - not that I care for it. On a slight tangent, I've noticed when translating from English to Chinese (mandarin) many of the equivalent literal translations do not have a unique single purpose word where English does. So it can sound much like this Anglish e.g the literal translation of "thigh" is just "big leg", and this is not a one off. I have no idea why this is.
  - gfaure 4y ago
    That's because that _is_ the word (大腿) for thigh — native speakers don't perceive it as "big leg", which would be 大的腿 instead. This is exactly analogous to "little finger" in English.
    - nick123567 4y ago
      Except we call that one Pinky
      - Veen 4y ago
        Americans do. It’s not common in the UK.
  - deafpolygon 4y ago
    In Dutch, as an example we have a word called zoetwater - which if you translate it literally, is "sweet water". But it is the word for 'freshwater' in English [as opposed to saltwater], not some kind of sweet water. Even though zoetwater could be literally translated, no one really knows it means freshwater in English. There is advertisement for 'fris water' or 'vers water', which means fresh water correctly.
LordDragonfang 4y ago
Y'know, I've seen dozens of versions of this quote, but this is the first time I've seen it phrased this way and with proper attribution. Edit: From wikiquote[1]: >(This observation is extensively quoted even outside of Usenet, and has appeared in textbooks. It has also been misattributed, in part and in whole, to Booker T. Washington, to Ambrose Bierce, to Terry Pratchett, and, in one case, to the painter James Nicoll (1846–1918).) [1]https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Nicoll https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Nicoll

nqzero 4y ago

Is this English: Yes (riffing off the "Is this Arabic" that was posted a few days ago - it's a lot easier in english, ie if the speaker says ti's english, it's english)

dsr_ 4y ago
More precisely: Is this English? Cool cool, it finna be.
- wolverine876 4y ago
  What do you think that says, and in what dialect? If the intended dialect and meaning are what I think, the definition of 'finna' and the overall usage are wrong.
hinkley 4y ago
With English it’s not a case of “if” but “when”.
walrus01 4y ago
speaking of Arabic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Arabic_origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Arabi...
slim 4y ago
I won't miss his is a unique occasion to post this arabic meme (one has to spend his karma) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1e62d6wHIU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1e62d6wHIU Explanation to get around HN guidelines : The guy says : "Hey Morsi [ndlr. common male name in Egypt], Is this English ?". It started when Modamed Morsi was president of Egypt and spoke in incomprehensible English. Since most arabic speaking people are notoriously bad at English, it became a meme used when someone says something incomprehensible in any language
tikkabhuna 4y ago
Sometimes speakers say its French as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon_my_French https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon_my_French

paganel 4y ago

Related to that, it's interesting how many European languages have heavily borrowed from French in the last 2-3 centuries, especially what I would call "technical" terms. I was watching the subtitled video of a speech made by a Hungarian minister recently and the few words that I could make sense of were all similar to the their French counter-parts (or how I would think a French technical word loaned into Hungarian would sound like). Ditto for German, even more so, I'd say. Russian, too. In fact even a word that we've now stopped regarding as "technical", such as bicycle [1], comes in English via modern French (so not via the French spoken by the Normans back in the day): > Borrowed from French bicycle (modern bicyclette), from bi- (“bi-”) + cycle (“cycle”). First attested in English in 1868, and in French in 1847.

speakspokespok 4y ago
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.
- gerdesj 4y ago
  ... and Old/Ancient Greek. When you see -phth- you know you are in for a right old tongue twister. Not human but fish related: ichthyophthirius. In English it's called "white spot" - both of those words are very Anglo-Saxon. Spanish is considered a "Romance" language, along with French, Italian int al. English is considered a "Germanic" language along with German, Dutch int al. English alone has at least three major periodic based "versions" - Old, Middle, Modern. There were also events such as a major vowel change where the way we pronounce vowels today differs from before that event. Spanish seems to have a famed "lisp". However that simplistic approach to a complex language and Spain as a whole ignores rather a lot of history, culture and is frankly an insult! As we say in Britain - "Viva la difference". English as spoken in Britain and elsewhere should borrow and bother from every language it ever trips over. It should always evolve and mutate and continue to become ever more flexible. It should also continue to enable useful "pidgins" which are amalgams of English bolted on the side of another language and vice versa. What English seems to have lost compared to the other Germanics is a lot of formal complicated verb conjugations and nounal declensions and noun genders and quite a lot more. Complexity can be bolted on but it is optional. Subject object verb is also quite fluid too in English. I believe German at least insists on a verb dump at the end of a sentence. English still has many of these structures - active, passive, subjunctive verbs (transitive, intrans etc); Nom, Voc, Acc, Gen, Dat, Abl for your nouns but they are largely implied via other words instead of suffixes. English is quite literally and vocally French! (lingua franca - language of the Franks)

hcayless 4y ago

It’s interesting to me how comparatively impoverished Anglish seems. Here’s to promiscuity!

tomxor 4y ago
Is that mainly due to it being based upon a historical snapshot of English? that by definition never evolved further. If it had the same huge population of English speakers over hundreds of years (i.e was a living language) then it may also have evolved a diverse range of words without the need to absorb other languages - not that I care for it. On a slight tangent, I've noticed when translating from English to Chinese (mandarin) many of the equivalent literal translations do not have a unique single purpose word where English does. So it can sound much like this Anglish e.g the literal translation of "thigh" is just "big leg", and this is not a one off. I have no idea why this is.
- gfaure 4y ago
  That's because that _is_ the word (大腿) for thigh — native speakers don't perceive it as "big leg", which would be 大的腿 instead. This is exactly analogous to "little finger" in English.
  - nick123567 4y ago
    Except we call that one Pinky
    - Veen 4y ago
      Americans do. It’s not common in the UK.
- deafpolygon 4y ago
  In Dutch, as an example we have a word called zoetwater - which if you translate it literally, is "sweet water". But it is the word for 'freshwater' in English [as opposed to saltwater], not some kind of sweet water. Even though zoetwater could be literally translated, no one really knows it means freshwater in English. There is advertisement for 'fris water' or 'vers water', which means fresh water correctly.

LordDragonfang 4y ago

Y'know, I've seen dozens of versions of this quote, but this is the first time I've seen it phrased this way and with proper attribution. Edit: From wikiquote[1]: >(This observation is extensively quoted even outside of Usenet, and has appeared in textbooks. It has also been misattributed, in part and in whole, to Booker T. Washington, to Ambrose Bierce, to Terry Pratchett, and, in one case, to the painter James Nicoll (1846–1918).) [1]https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Nicoll https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Nicoll