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Uncleftish Beholding: English minus the non-Germanic words (1998)
- rosser 13y agoI'm reminded of the first time I read novels like A Clockwork Orange, or Greg Bear's Queen of Angels, where the fictional world's slang is used, but not explained.
- happyscrappy 13y agoMy copy of A Clockwork Orange had a little dictionary of the slang at the end which was very amusing.
- xxxmadraxxx 13y agoThe youth slang in Clockwork Orange is derived from Russian. I always assumed that, the book having been written during the Cold War, this was the obvious 'alternative vision' to our own world were American cultural influence predominates amongst the young.
- pavel_lishin 13y agoYou should read Neal Stephenson's Anathem.
- gilgoomesh 13y agoWhile English is a Germanic language, 41% of English words (ranked by frequency) come from French, making French the largest source of words in English, not German (which comes in at about 35%). Of course, removing all non-French words would be worse since English pronouns, prepositions and conjunctions are mostly German derived. According to Wikipedia, 97% of the top 100 words in English are German derived. The loss of German would leave little to "glue" a sentence together. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language#Word_origins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language#Word_origins
- vidarh 13y agoTo nitpick: Germanic, not German. Modern German looks quite different.
- ithkuil 13y agoTo nitpick even further: something is Old French, something else is Middle French, which are quite different than modern French as well.
- judk 13y agoHow much is 97% of 100, approximately?
- StavrosK 13y agoAbout 95.
- sliverstorm 13y agoThat's about 97% accurate!
- oska 13y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_purism_in_English http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_purism_in_English
- sologoub 13y agoIt's pretty amazing how either conquests or preferences of the aristocracy shaped languages. Being a fluent Russian speaker, I had a chance to interact with a person from Serbia without a translator, who did not speak Russian. The experience was eye opening in how languages evolved. Though the two started from a common ancestor language, Russian had become extremely "polluted" (using the term loosely) with foreign words for the most basic things. For example the word for Army is now derived from Army, whereas Serbian is using the word "wojsko" (not sure of actual spelling, transliterating), which is very close to what I would consider old Russian or proto-Slavic.
- wazoox 13y agoI can't help but be reminded of how in "War and Peace", almost all aristocratic characters (which is nearly everyone in the book) speaks French most of the time.
- r00fus 13y agoCould be that the aristocracy tended to inter-marry for political/economic reasons, and thus leading to the "pollution" of their mother tongues.
- vidarh 13y agoThat, and invasions. Quite substantial parts of Europe have spent hundreds of years under rulers from a country with a different language, who'd often mean aristocrats and bureaucrats and military with a different language. English is the prime example of the effects of this, with it's French/Germanic split (French from the Norman aristocracy).
- henderson101 13y agoThe French may have originally started to trickle in to English from Norman French, but Norman French and Central French differ greatly and most of the Central French in English actually came much later due to French being a prestige language with-in Europe. The Latin and Greek also came through a similar mechanism, though more because they were scholarly. The idea that Norman French is the source of all English French loans is pretty easy to prove with comparison - Warranty vs Guarantee, liquor vs liqueur, hostel vs hotel, castle vs chateau, catch vs chase, warden vs guardian. Some could equally have come from earlier borrowings (e.g. hostel vs hotel), but the same happens when you compare any two dialects of the same root language (i.e. Norse and Old-English dialects), so nothing is 100%.
- louisdefunes 13y agoSome errors: "to give rise to the rest": "rest" is latin "ordinary waterstuff": "ordinary" is latin too.
- gphilip 13y ago"der Rest" is German, and so is "ordinär".
- mathieuh 13y ago"Rest" as in take a break from something is Germanic, "rest" as in remainder is Latin, they probably got mixed up.
- SilasX 13y ago"Rest" is used to mean "remainder" is German as well. It was quite a surprise in class to read the line "Wo ist der Rest?" ... and find out it was legit German.
- glyxbaer 13y agoSee "Herkunft": ordinär, from french and latin: http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/ordinaer http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/ordinaer Rest, as in reminder, from german, italian, latin: http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Rest http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Rest Rast, as in break, from german: http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Rast http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Rast
- bladedtoys 13y agoI wonder why 5th century invaders (Anglo-Saxons) are considered native while 11th century invaders (Normans) are not. Nor for that mater are 1st century invaders (Romans) Indeed, if Normans are considered an intrusion into a formerly pure Britain, one would think that the Doomsday book would be the considered the beginning of illegitimacy rather than the other way around.
- _ak 13y agoBecause everyone else was either pushed back, left or got assimilated into the supermajority of self-identified Englishmen.
- rjknight 13y agoDepends on who you ask. I doubt that the Scots or the Welsh or even the Cornish would consider the Anglo-Saxons to be the 'natives'. Fortunately hardly anyone in Britain actually thinks in terms of racial or ethnic purity. There definitely is a sense in which French and Latinate words are considered more upper-class, clever, fancy or polite - my favourite example is how referring to someone as 'fat' is considered rude whereas 'obese' is not, with the only difference being that one word is Germanic and the other Latinate.
- ithkuil 13y agoSame happens in italian where English words are used to sound fancy and hide behind technicisms. Sometimes it gets funny because you end up with words like "devoluzione" coming from english "devolution" (which in turn comes from latin) replacing the italian "decentramento". "obese" doesn't sound less rude per-se because it's latinate, but because, being latinate, it became a technical term and thus can be used to describe something with more distance, and apparent objectivity.
- junto 13y agoSpot on. Only the BNP and UKIP are fascinated by ethnic purity and luckily they have a limited number of uneducated bigoted followers. There was an interesting DNA study that I read on the BBC website some time ago about the Welsh (Celts of Breten) being 'true Britons' [1] The Celts of Breten are the usually named as the true 'indigenous' Britons [2], but you wouldn't be able to find a 'pure' one if you tried. But the origins of the Celts are also suspected to be of mainland European descent as well. [3][4][5] The real true Britons, who more than likely crossed the land bridge during the last ice age left no trace of themselves [6]. After the Celts the Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Danes, Romans and Normans were all additions to the melting pot. More recently, immigration after the WWII of workers from ex-Empire countries (now nearly all Commonwealth) have added to that vibrant mix. 1000 years later and our DNA is a good healthy mix. I think that was nature's design in the first place right? [1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/wales/2076470.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/wales/2076470.stm [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Griffin#Policies_and_views http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Griffin#Policies_and_views [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britons_(Celtic_people) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britons_(Celtic_people) [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celts#Origins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celts#Origins [5] http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/british_prehistory/iron_01.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/british_prehistory/iron... [6] http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/british_prehistory/peoples_01.shtml#two http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/british_prehistory/peop...
- luxpir 13y agoLast September I spent a little time going through Beowulf and pulling out words we no longer use but are still active in modern Swedish. I got to 100 very quickly. I can't speak so much for German, having only a basic grasp, but to me it looks like Scandinavian languages are closer to Old English now than Modern German. That might give a picture of how English would otherwise look without a Norman conquest (or if the Normans had retained their Norse language).[0] For info, if you hadn't heard yet, Tolkien's Beowulf translation is due out on the 22nd of May. Scholars say it is likely to just be his working translation and teaching notes, unlikely to rival Heaney's efforts. I think everyone interested will want to see it though. Myself included. [1] [0] http://lukespear.co.uk/2013/09/old-english-vs-modern-swedish-via-beowulf-and-heaney/ http://lukespear.co.uk/2013/09/old-english-vs-modern-swedish... [1] http://www.tolkienbeowulf.com/ http://www.tolkienbeowulf.com/
- pessimizer 13y ago>That might give a picture of how English would otherwise look without a Norman conquest Wouldn't that be Icelandic, or Faroese?
- luxpir 13y agoSure, but perhaps the development of the Scandinavian languages would be closer to the most likely outcome (speculation), with their general European influences, rather than the wider, and better preserved Nordic variants. There's a brief comparison of Old Norse and Old English in the blog post mentioned, if interested. They were very similar, almost mutually intelligible, and so only major outside influences would have caused their divergence (as has happened). Without those influences, though, who knows, maybe Icelanders and the Germanic-British could still converse in their own tongues.
- cgio 13y agoAs a Greek, I always admired Zolota's speeches, which are the exercise in reverse. Speeches Two of his speeches in English are considered to be historic and notable because they contained mainly terms of Greek origin. Here are the texts: 1957 I always wished to address this Assembly in Greek, but realized that it would have been indeed "Greek" to all present in this room. I found out, however, that I could make my address in Greek which would still be English to everybody. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, l shall do it now, using with the exception of articles and prepositions, only Greek words. Kyrie, I eulogize the archons of the Panethnic Numismatic Thesaurus and the Ecumenical Trapeza for the orthodoxy of their axioms, methods and policies, although there is an episode of cacophony of the Trapeza with Hellas. With enthusiasm we dialogue and synagonize at the synods of our didymous organizations in which polymorphous economic ideas and dogmas are analyzed and synthesized. Our critical problems such as the numismatic plethora generate some agony and melancholy. This phenomenon is characteristic of our epoch. But, to my thesis, we have the dynamism to program therapeutic practices as a prophylaxis from chaos and catastrophe. In parallel, a Panethnic unhypocritical economic synergy and harmonization in a democratic climate is basic. I apologize for my eccentric monologue. I emphasize my euharistia to you, Kyrie to the eugenic and generous American Ethnos and to the organizers and protagonists of his Amphictyony and the gastronomic symposia. 1959[edit] Kyrie, it is Zeus' anathema on our epoch for the dynamism of our economies and the heresy of our economic methods and policies that we should agonize the Scylla of numismatic plethora and the Charybdis of economic anaemia. It is not my idiosyncrasy to be ironic or sarcastic, but my diagnosis would be that politicians are rather cryptoplethorists. Although they emphatically stigmatize numismatic plethora, they energize it through their tactics and practices. Our policies have to be based more on economic and less on political criteria. Our gnomon has to be a metron between political, strategic and philanthropic scopes. Political magic has always been anti-economic. In an epoch characterized by monopolies, oligopolies, monopsonies, monopolistic antagonism and polymorphous inelasticities, our policies have to be more orthological. But this should not be metamorphosed into plethorophobia, which is endemic among academic economists. Numismatic symmetry should not hyper-antagonize economic acme. A greater harmonization between the practices of the economic and numismatic archons is basic. Parallel to this, we have to synchronize and harmonize more and more our economic and numismatic policies panethnically. These scopes are more practicable now, when the prognostics of the political and economic barometer are halcyonic. The history of our didymus organizations in this sphere has been didactic and their gnostic practices will always be a tonic to the polyonymous and idiomorphous ethnical economies. The genesis of the programmed organization will dynamize these policies. Therefore, I sympathize, although not without criticism on one or two themes, with the apostles and the hierarchy of our organs in their zeal to program orthodox economic and numismatic policies, although I have some logomachy with them. I apologize for having tyrannized you with my Hellenic phraseology. In my epilogue, I emphasize my eulogy to the philoxenous autochthons of this cosmopolitan metropolis and my encomium to you, Kyrie, and the stenographers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophon_Zolotas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophon_Zolotas
- raldi 13y agoThe reason it seems funny to see the word "stuff" in a scientific essay is that it's very much not a French-derived word. French-speaking people ruled England for a while starting in the year 1066, and quite quickly in that region the use of French-derived English words became seen as a sign of high class. That sort of thing, once strongly established, becomes self-perpetuating. That's why, even today, a police officer might say in court, "I observed the individual in the vicinity of the canine" whereas among family the officer might be much more likely to say, "I saw the man near the dog." The first sentence is full of French. The second, Anglo-Saxon. It's the same reason we eat beef and pork, but raise cows and pigs. The people eating the meat were upper class and thus used the French-derived words; the people taking care of the animals used Anglo-Saxon.
- rodgerd 13y ago> French-speaking people ruled England for a while starting in the year 1066 Norman French speaking people. Normandy had been heavily colonised by the Norse, just as Anglo-Saxon England had, and left it quite different to French. Harold had as many connections to Scandanavian royalty as William. Attempts to Latinise Englist are still going strong; any time you hear some folk grammaticist inveigh against split infinitives as "bad English", you're hearing someone who is continuing the 19th Century efforts to Latinise the languae.
- ErsatzVerkehr 13y agoThe Google etymology thing (I didn't even know it existed - just search for "stuff etymology" and you get a nice little graph) tells me that the word "stuff" came to English from Greek (stuphein) via Old French (estoffe). So maybe it is not correct to say it's not a French-derived word? But it's also present in German- stoff means something like "material". Amusingly, there's a wikipedia article titled "List of stoffs". The elements have names like Wasserstoff = water stuff = hydrogen. In the attached essay (which claims to be written without German derivatives), it seems strange to prefer "waterstuff" to the very Greek "hydrogen"... ?
- StavrosK 13y ago"Atomic" is Greek too, so I don't know why they chose to use one Greek-derived word but not the other.
- fit2rule 13y agoI'd love to have a way to do this automatically with my text .. anyone know of a good way to do this, maybe there are some already-established dictionaries which remove the non-Germanic words out there, somehow?
- archena 13y agoIt would need the ability to coin plausible replacement words too, like 'firststuffs'.
- pseudonom- 13y agoI made a little website to do this a few months ago: http://angler.herokuapp.com/ http://angler.herokuapp.com/
- jblazevic 13y agoThis was thoroughly entertaining, recognizing each word's meaning is like solving a small puzzle. Like recognizing English words written in katakana. Some words were taken directly from German, like waterstuff (== Wasserstoff), sourstuff (== Sauerstoff). Bernstone for amber/ēlektron is my favorite.
- coldcode 13y agoGermans love to make long words: http://german.about.com/library/blwort_long.htm http://german.about.com/library/blwort_long.htm
- pseudonom- 13y agoHa. I made a little website to automatically suggest Anglo-Saxon words a few months ago: http://angler.herokuapp.com/ http://angler.herokuapp.com/
- voidlogic 13y agoThis is interesting, I wrote a few samples describing my life and things I own and it suggested no words. Then I pretended that I was starting a school writing, and it found many.
- nomadcoop 13y agoDo you have an API? I'd be interested in incorporating it into Storytella - https://storytel.la/ https://storytel.la/
- gkya 13y agoI've been so happy to submit this! I read all the comments and learned a lot of stuff. Thanks to all commentators thus. A very similar situation can be observed in Turkish: Turks went to Europe and Middle East in 4th century, the ones that went to Europe eventually died, and the ones that went to Middle East and formed empires, including the rather long lived and glorious Ottoman Empire. While they were busy becoming more Muslim and more Arabic, learning fancy Arabic and Persian words, borrowing their alphabet and elevating this new Ottoman language to be the language of the palace, and the language of art, whereas the public spoke their own languages (lots of ethnicities were within the umbrella of Ottomans); Renaissance and The French Revolution happened, which eventually got Ottomans to love and behold Europe, mainly France, and borrow their words and lifestyle. In 19th century, Ottoman language was such a travesty, the first lessons of an under-graduate History course in Turkey now teaches the language, albeit Turkey directly descended from Ottomans not even a century ago. Together with the Kemalist revolution did start a movement of linguistic purism, along which the Turkish language was greatly stripped from what made it Ottoman, and the result was an easy-to-learn, simple and consistent language. Still, though, it'd bear the same effect with “Uncleftish Beholding” to the average Turkishman, a text where only Turkic-rooted words were used, as still there are lots of words in the language that come from Arabic, French, English and Latin. Also, it'd be a bother for the average Turkishman to communicate with a Middle-Asian Turk of modern times, language of whom is closer to pre-Islam Turkic languages. It is fun to play games with language, watch it grow and find out about how it came to be the language it is today.
- gwern 13y agoThere's a whole wiki devoted to this idea: anglish.wikia.com A good example of it related to OP is http://anglish.wikia.com/wiki/Roomlore http://anglish.wikia.com/wiki/Roomlore