“Anglish”

@gallitrot - (belatedly) by all means substitute Anglo-Saxon based words for Latin based ones if that's what floats your boat, but at least choose equivalents: "lexicography" is exclusively to do with the the theory and practice of compiling and writing dictionaries, a "wordsmith" is someone who an expert in the use of words or whose vocation is writing, as the use of the word "smith" would imply. Wordsworth was certainly a wordsmith, but as far as I know, not a lexicographer.

Incidentally, the word lexicography has apparently been around in English about two hundred years longer than wordsmith. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

@jayles (who for some reason comes up in Google reader as jayles the unwise). I live and teach Poland (Central Europe), and while Polish has a few words of Germanic origin, it also has quite a lot from French, for example "etap, parter, ekran, plaża" and hundreds, probably thousands from Latin, many of them similar to the ones we have. If an English word ends in "ation", there's a good chance Polish will have a similar word ending in "acja".

It was one of the first things I learnt when I started teaching here: it's not the longer Latin-based words they tend to have problems with, it's the short Anglo-Saxon ones and phrasal verbs they don't get. In fact, I imagine "Introduction" would probably easier for most foreign learners than the phrasal verb based "Lead-in". That's rather an anglo-centric way of thinking, I would suggest. Actually, I don't see "lead-in" and "introduction" as being completely synonymous, but that's a different story..

Latin was not only the basis of Romance languages, it was the "international" and "official" language of its day in much of Europe, (to use a couple of somewhat anachronistic terms) - Domesday Book was written in Latin, for example. English was affected by this and the influence of medieval French, just as other languages today borrow words from English.

I've no objection to avoiding complicated long words, but what's wrong with doing this on a word-to-word basis, rather than this crude all Latin-based words are bad, all Anglo-Saxon words are good nonsense.

Actually, I think I'll start a campaign for Real British, that's to say the genuine native language of these isles, before that bunch of marauding foreign mercenaries, the Angles, Jutes and Saxons, led by Hengist and Horsa, brutally betrayed the trust of Vortigern, King of the Britons. This will be quite easy; only Brythonic languages, Welsh, Cornish and Breton, will be allowed in schools, and they will meld into one British language once again. Children will be punished for speaking any other, as they were for speaking Welsh and Gaelic a hundred years ago. Loan words will be allowed from the sister Goidelic languages, but from no other.

There's a lot of nonsense written on these pages about how wonderful the Anglo-Saxons and Norsemen were, and how awful the invading Normans were. But they had all been invaders in their time, and while the Norman invasion made life a bit awkward for a while, Anglo-Saxon culture survived. The Anglo-Saxon and Norse invasions, on the other hand, for whatever reasons, led to the almost total disappearance of Celtic culture in England. Nobody seems to be mourning that on these pages. Some people here seem to have a very selective (and I would say over-romanticised) idea of history, and of the history of the English language.

English is what it is in no small part as a result of the influence of other languages, especially French and Latin, but also Dutch and the languages of the Indian Sub-continent. For me, as an English speaker, this is something to celebrate, not something to moan about.

"The Latin and French basis of many of our words makes it considerably easier for us to learn other European languages, and for speakers of European languages to learn English."
And the germanic-rooted words make it easier for central Europeans to learn English!
The latin and french ones only help romance-language speakers.
Perhaps we should write English with chinese characters: that would make learning Chinese, Japanese and Korean easier!

I am with Holy Mackerel on this: latin-rooted words often sound effete, elevated, and overly academic. Take another butcher's.

If one looks at ESOL textbooks like Headway, they often use "lead-in" for "introduction". Why ? Because it's easier to understand?

*". . . a conversation wherein after . . ."

It must be getting late . . .

That reminds me of a conversation I overheard in a pub in Fife after every few words the speaker would interject 'ye ken'. It's great, that.

Haha, sorry about the Third Reich reference, Gallitrot. I didn't mean it to be too nasty. I suppose it comes with the territory of discussing the preservation of Teutonic linguistic purity. I certainly didn't mean to imply that anyone here has any devilish intentions.

There is certainly something exquisitely visceral about words that have a deeply-rooted connection with the language. Native English words have a richness that Latin loanwords will never have. And often it's unnecessary, insipid, and haughty to favour a long Latin-rooted word when a simple English one would do. I think people should take pride in the words they're using and there's nothing better than having an understanding of and using this kind of heritage language. Anything to keep the spark alive. I like the word 'guts' much better than the word 'intestines'. I like 'wickedness' much more than 'turpitude'. What I bemoan is the sterilisation of language with listless contemporary coinages. English is great partly we have the choice to use more evocative language or more sterile language depending on the circumstances. English has a long and wonderful evolution. Let's not forget that 'haughty' has its roots in Latin 'altus' but everything about the word shows how all kinds of factors have contributed to the building of our vocabulary. But nowadays so much of it is being lost across the board and it's a pity that none of it is studied or remembered. I imagine that this is the way so many English words went and I hope that we don't continue to lose more of the language to sterilisation. At this point I become something of a prescriptivist. It annoys me to hear people talking to me in such broken-down language. Someone told me that a night out was 'ridiculous'. What the hell was he talking about? Why can't people speak and explain things these days instead of using these trite, flat, colourless words? Few would shrug and let Roman ruins go to pot simply because that's the natural evolution of building materials. I don't think there's anything wrong with trying to preserve language. It certainly isn't questioned with endangered languages.

It's terrible that regional speech has been so extinguished. Having that strong connection with language as regions do with their own slang is beautiful. Certainly the teaching of Standard English is necessary for society to have some kind of lingua franca in which communicate but it does kill out a lot of local linguistic charm. That Lallans Scots is great. Sadly fewer and fewer folks are speaking this way with the influence of internationality. I've got a Scots dictionary on my shelf and I love it.

Everyone has the freedom to talk however he or she wants in the end. At least most of the time that's true. I don't think anyone here is advocating a practical overthrow of prevailing linguistic conventions in English such that words like 'university' or 'hospital' or 'government' would no longer be used. I don't think that even needs to be said. But everyone has his or her own thoughts on this business. I think a lot of it is fantasy and if we can't have fantasy why have anything? But some folks have real grievances with regard to usage and, fair enough, voice them here.

''Finally, "sesquipedalian" may be a bit too "sesquipedalian" for you, but didn't you get a bit of a thrill when you first found out what it meant?''

Not really, as I recall learning it from some jumped-up, haughty little turd using it for precisely the reasons I mentioned.

@Gallitrot - you're quite free to use what language you want, and to avoid fancy foreign words if you like. I rather enjoy your use of words like "manifold", "bespattered" and "haughtiness". You're also free to campaign for others to do the same; I just don't want any restrictions forced on us.

Ever since people like Dryden and Defoe first mooted the idea of some oversight of English through an Academy or such like, the idea has been (rightly in my mind) rejected. The great glory of English is that it is 'We, the people', generation after generation, who decide on its development, not some authority, be it prescriptivist or linguistically so-called purist. The development of English has been closely associated with democracy; let its own development be similarly democratic.

And to say that English's roots are Teutonic, is for me a great over-simplification. Yes, it is a Germanic language, but right from the start, it had non-Germanic elements and later opened up to the international culture of its time. It is precisely this rich admixture, especially the French connection, which makes English so interesting, something I cherish.

There's also a small practical point. The Latin and French basis of many of our words makes it considerably easier for us to learn other European languages, and for speakers of European languages to learn English.

Finally, "sesquipedalian" may be a bit too "sesquipedalian" for you, but didn't you get a bit of a thrill when you first found out what it meant?

''But this can be done without denigrating their home language. Indeed studies on both sides of the Atlantic show that a comparative approach enables students to handle Standard English better...'' '' Let's have more dialect on the BBC, for example, not less.''

Yes, I'm liking this. People seem to forget that Oxbridge English grew out of East Midlands dialect and Estuary Anglo-French.

'' ... impose some kind of Goebbelsian prescriptive recasting of the language in line with linguistic purity. ''

Oh God, here we go, wondered how long it would take before someone invoked Godwin's law on the thread. *yawn*

Just once it would be lovely to discuss the breadth, range and manifold strengths of English's own words without some self-righteous classroom- level b*llocks (excuse my French - and by that I mean 'class' and the -eous ending) being wielded. Always as though we'll all instantaneously don jack boots and slip on brown shirts if we dare bespeak the usefulness of words from English's roots (those being Teutonic - whether you like it or not) which were often wrongly and intentionally ousted in favour of flamboyant, wordy one-upmanship initiated by ink-bespattered, periwig-clad bigots.

France, Holland, Germany, Iceland have all tightened up the measures by which needless foreign words enter the language - okay, not always effectively, especially on a slang level. However, they tend to safeguard the administrative/ political/ judicial realms of the language from Latinate superciliousness and lexicographical trickery ( or Latin haughtiness and wordsmith's cunning, if you like).

Of course, no one here believes you could effectively cast out the whole plethora of Latin and French in the language - nor would it be wise or necessary in many cases. However, a pruning of needless 'sesquipedalian' usage would be a useful start **you see, that word would be one of the first to go** 'longwordy' would be way more recognisable, easier to remember and just as effective. Thus empowering ordinary native-English speakers instead of making them feel their own language is a minefield of 'learned' privilege.

@HolyMackerel - I understand your position, and certainly don't equate you with some of the loonier ideas on this page. But I do find this 'Anglish' business at best a fantasy based on a misunderstanding of how languages develop and the history of English, but at worst something rather nastier, bordering on linguistic cleansing.

Meanwhile, there's a real revolution to be made, viz. in the way we treat dialects, where as you rightly point out, many of these old words still exist. In a recent case in Teeside, a head teacher sent a rather condescending letter to parents, telling them to correct their child should they hear them say certain things, which included: 'nowt', 'yous' (like in the West of Scotland), 'gizit her', and 'he was sat there'. No doubt with good intentions she was trying to get them to use Standard English. But this can be done without denigrating their home language. Indeed studies on both sides of the
Atlantic show that a comparative approach enables students to handle Standard English better.

http://stancarey.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/theres-nowt-wrong-with-childrens-dialects/

Let's have more dialect on the BBC, for example, not less. It's already acceptable in drama and comedy programmes, and poses no great problems for viewers and listeners. This is the real heritage we should be defending.

Your talk of the Gorbals reminds me of a time I was sitting in a pub in the Borders and overheard part of a conversation between two men. One had said something that the other found difficult to believe. "Aye", said the first, "Ah saw it wi' me ane twa een".

For me, this is just an exercise in etymology and an appreciation for lost vocabularies. I have no intention to impose some kind of Goebbelsian prescriptive recasting of the language in line with linguistic purity. I like playing around with language and I like Old and Middle English. I agree with Warsaw Will in this but am perhaps a bit more wistful.

Linguistic prescriptivism is a tricky game. As with most things, it's best in moderation. The Icelanders seemed to have done all right with it from the beginning but the inexorable spread of popular culture has leaked in a few new words. I don't really have anything against that. 'Les immortels' over at the Académie française are fighting a ridiculous war trying to keep words like 'le weekend' out of common parlance. Dozens of rules were invented in English in the nineteenth century like those governing prepositions at the end of sentences and split infinities--both demonstrably and history fine in English but invented and imposed by academics modelling English on French. This annoys me a bit but I understand that these things are part of the history of the language. But sitting on the bus a few days ago and listening to some kids talking I remarked how bland their vocabulary was. This has nothing to do with education--I assumed that they were university students. Or a couple not speaking to each other at all but each of them looking at his or her mobile. Again, I don't really care. To each his own. Languages evolve. It seems sometimes that popular culture is having the same strong affect on language as French or Latin-language culture did in the Middle Ages. But nowadays it's not the writings of Thomas Aquinas or Boethius that are influencing the language. I understand the vast importance that Latin and French had on the history of the English language culturally and linguistically. It's not regret but celebration. I have no desire in stripping every word with roots in Nahuatl or Hindi or Xhosa or Cantonese or whatever from the language. I don't want to tell people how to talk. But sitting in a pub in the Gorbals and listening to some old-timer talking with such colourful language makes me think about nature of linguistic progress at the hands of contemporary culture.

@Gallitrot - according to David Crystal, the period of greatest French influence was not that of the Conquest, nor that of the eighteenth century inkhorns (who were in a minority in the educated classes anyway), but from the 13th century, when Paris was the capital of world culture as they knew it at the time. This was not snobbery but a genuine desire amongst the educated classes to benefit from that culture. And remember, Latin was the not only the language of the Church, one of the most powerful institutions of the period, but also the language of international discourse. This was the way people like Erasmus and Thomas More could communicate, and many people at the time chose to be tri-lingual. Yes, there was social pressure to be considered educated, but apart from that, nobody was forcing anything on anybody.

Whether people like it or not, this all part of the rich fabric of the history of the English language. Why regret any of it? (Apart from two hundred years or so of prescriptivism, granted!) That's what I can't fathom.

Erm, but Norse was very close to Old English - so the influence more obvious and natural. Plus the sheer amount of Scandinavian immigrants to the UK's shores were always going to have a naturally overwhelming effect on the language as it stood between the 9th-11thC.

French and Latin, however, never influenced English due to such a migrant-manifold, if you will. No, instead the former was imposed, albeit by attrition, through a 5% invasion force and the latter by ink-horn wielding snobs hell-bent on lauding pseudo-superiority through classic literature...I mention no names...but The Bigoted Idiot (aka Dr S Johnson) and his supposed comprehensive dictionary of English.

Caveat: All opinions displayed in this post are those of the author and are very, probably accurate

@HolyMackerel - The beauty, no, I grant you. But the size and variety of the language does reflect the diversity of sources, to which you are quite right to add Norse and Gaelic. The latter might not have much influence outwith Scotland and Ireland, but Norse languages had a great influence on English in much of England. And it's not only French and Latin, there are all those other languages such as Dutch and the languages of the Indian subcontinent which have also enriched our language so much. Should we favour Anglo-Saxon over them as well? What are yacht and hullabaloo in Anglo-Saxon? It is this very diversity I celebrate, not any so-called "linguistic purity".

Not that it would work anyway; as the French language authorities are finding out with their attempt to ban "hashtag" .

I can quite understand having an interest in Old English. It's the attempt to impose an Anglo-Saxon only policy on English that I hold no truck for. It suggests that after Chaucer everything went downhill, which is absolute nonsense. I'm highly suspicious of any sort of purity in these matters, especially when all the major English-speaking countries are becoming increasingly multicultural. I totally agree with JJMBallantyne and douglas.bryant on this one. But then those two usually do talk a lot of sense in these pages.

I meant to write, "the beauty of a language is NOT measured by how many words it has in its vocabulary." Sorry.

That's more or less what I was getting at in my earlier post. These words entered the English language around the Middle English period but hadn't killed out the English equivalents yet and represent a trend of a influx that eventually led to the loss of many good English words. The date these words entered the language is probably recorded in the literary language of Chaucer and other educated London or East Midlands dialects and the Chancery Standard. This isn't the language spoken, for example, in the West Midlands countryside that Tolkien so loved. But indeed the adoption of French and Latin terms certainly has enhanced the English language but also pushed out many others. You're right--it's a matter of personal taste. As a student of Old English I have a fondness for that lost English of . I mentioned before that I revel in the lexical choice we have in English but the beauty of a language is measured by how many words it has in its vocabulary. It is a beautiful language in part because of the foreign influence of French and Latin and Norse and Gaelic.

@Holymackerel - As far as I can see, apart from poem (1540s replacing ME poesy), all your examples are in fact from the earlier part of Middle English or even earlier:

place - c1200 (or earlier) - conflation of Old English plæce and Middle French place, both < Latin platea < Greek plateîa (replaced Old English stow and stede);
use - mid 13th century - Middle English usen < Old French user < Latin ūsus (replaced Old English brucan);
music - mid 13th century - Middle English musike < Latin mūsica < Greek mousikḕ

Origins and dates from Online Etymology Dictionary and Dictionary.com.

Moreover, one person's 'corruption' is another person's enrichment, and what I personally like about English is the eclectic way it has evolved; the fact that is not pure bred but a loveable mongrel. It gives us more choice: climb or ascend, fast or secure, ask or question. A choice especially useful to poets and exploited as early as Chaucer, who used both Old English "hous" and "mansioun" recently arrived from Old French. To quote De Quincey - "Neither part of the language is good or bad absolutely, but in relation to its subject". According to David Crystal (The Stories of English) - "the main legacy of the Middle English Period was the enhancing of lexical stylistic choice. Lexical doublets became available ... in many cases there were triplets of the ask / question / interrogate type." "In 1200, people could only ask; by 1500 they could question (from French) and interrogate (from Latin)".

Why is it, I wonder, that English probably has more words than any other language? What's so wrong with glorying in the richness of the language we have, rather than wishing for some form of ethnically pure language that, thank God, we haven't?

http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/is-it-true-that-english-has-the-most-words-of-any-language

Aye, I agree. The Scots and Northern English dialects are truly wordhoards for this kind of exercise. Furthermore, Middle English still had thousands of survivors from Old English that could still be currency in Modern English. The OED still preserves many of these as 'obsolete'. Some of them are even still in usage in regional dialects. For me, Middle English is the true mother tongue. It retained enough of the original Anglo-Saxon and Celtic words that made it British and with some Norman or mediaeval Latin erudition but hadn't been so corrupted that it would employ Greek- or Latin-rooted words like 'place' or 'use' or 'poem' or 'music' in everyday speech to stand in for basic English words. But mediaeval Latin or even Greek ecclesiastical vocabulary serves a historic function in the English language.

@John Gibson - I think you've got a very good point. Instead of trying to recreate some phoney purist language which never existed (there were Latin elements in the various languages that melded into Anglo-Saxon before they even hit these shores), why don't we cherish and nurture the very real heritage we do have: regional dialects. Those forms of speech that too often in these pages are referred to as "lazy" or "uneducated", by people who know no better.

I recommend that y'gan and spend a couple of weeks in the toon of Newcastle in Geordieland. From Wikipedia:

The dialect of Newcastle is known as Geordie, and contains a large amount of vocabulary and distinctive word pronunciations not used in other parts of the United Kingdom. The Geordie dialect has much of its origins in the language spoken by the Anglo-Saxon populations who migrated to and conquered much of England after the end of Roman Imperial rule. This language was the forerunner of Modern English; but while the dialects of other English regions have been heavily altered by the influences of other foreign languages—particularly Latin and Norman French—the Geordie dialect retains many elements of the old language. An example of this is the pronunciation of certain words: "dead", "cow", "house" and "strong" are pronounced "deed", "coo", "hoos" and "strang"—which is how they were pronounced in the Anglo-Saxon language. Other Geordie words with Anglo-Saxon origins include: "larn" (from the Anglo-Saxon "laeran", meaning "teach"), "burn" ("stream") and "gan" ("go").[70] "Bairn" and "hyem", meaning "child" and "home", are examples of Geordie words with origins in Scandinavia; "barn" and "hjem" are the corresponding modern Norwegian words. Some words used in the Geordie dialect are used elsewhere in the northern United Kingdom. The words "bonny" (meaning "pretty"), "howay" ("come on"), "stot" ("bounce") and "hadaway" ("go away" or "you're kidding"), all appear to be used in Scottish dialect; "aye" ("yes") and "nowt" (IPA://naʊt/, rhymes with out,"nothing") are used elsewhere in northern England. Many words, however, appear to be used exclusively in Newcastle and the surrounding area, such as "Canny" (a versatile word meaning "good", "nice" or "very"), "hacky" ("dirty"), "netty" ("toilet"), "hoy" ("throw"), "hockle" ("spit").[71]

Language has long been a function of social class stratification. Often class lines are only discerned by linguistic differences or social class identities separated along linguistic lines. Indeed, even national identity is often defined along similar linguistic boundaries: who is Basque if he can't speak the language and who are Bretons if not Breton-speaking Frenchmen? The same goes for accents. In Glasgow, speaking the Patter is a marker of social class as is the Boston accent in Massachusetts, the 'Yat' dialect around New Orleans, the Cockney accent in Greater London, and so on. Traditionally this is manifest in the U/Non-U vocabularies. Here's a good read on that: http://www.helsinki.fi/jarj/ufy/24991_s113_150Ross.pdf

But this social divide is rooted centuries earlier in English and is intertwined with the mixed pedigree of English-language vocabulary. This divide is exemplified in the differences between words for meats and words for beasts the meats come from. The working-class Anglo-Saxon farmers said 'sheep' raising them in the field whilst the Norman nobles said 'mutton', seeing them cooked on the plate. These discrepancies are widespread throughout English: cow/beef, pig/pork,
This disparity is not only a matter of social position but education: the Latin-literate upper classes would say 'urinate' whilst the lower classes would say 'piss' and over the years this difference became associated with the unrefined manners of working-class folks.
In a way, this enriches the language as the French only have the word 'boeuf' while we have both. In some cases, we have the Norse word, the Anglo-Saxon word, the Norman word, and the Latin word ( cast off, snub, spurn, shun, scorn, reject) each with a slightly nuanced meaning, influenced by various factors over centuries, and only possible with so many equivalent words. What I lament is the loss of great English words. I lament the loss of words that could add to the palette of English vocabulary or that have needless been thrown out for Latin or Old French equivalents.

There is beauty in words like 'piss' and 'shit' in English. The English language has suffered enough under the oppression of the prestige dialects. This, from the Oxford English Dictionary says it all: ORIGIN mid-seventeenth century, from French, literally 'illusion, glamour', from late Latin 'praestigium' 'illusion', from Latin 'praestigiae' (plural) ‘conjuring tricks'.
Prestige. Aptly yclept.

" Pashto is a second-class language "
At the end of the day it is not the source of the word that matters; it is people's attitude to it. Some borrowed words enrich the language - "kindergarten" must have been brought in to fill a gap. It really makes no sense to say that "kindergarten" is okay but "au pair" is not - but "kinderschwester" would be. No, upper class English people have a "nanny", middle class, an "au pair", and lower class a babysitter if they can afford it. Rich people used to employ a nursemaid. Perhaps if we could all afford a nanny there would be no distinction. At root it is snobby attitudes not word origins that count.

I wish we could revive Anglo Saxon words or at least use words of Germanic origin. I love languages, especially Latin, for it was my first beloved language. I listen to Gregorian chants because Latin is an incredibly beautiful-sounding language to me. But I do not want Latin or Greek imposed onto my own language: English.**

As a man who loves languages, I can proudly say that I can speak three languages! I have learned Spanish and Pashto. Pashto is a language in a similar situation as, English but not to the same extent. This is what I mean: The Anglo Saxons were invaded and conquered. Their language was raped by the Normans, raped again by the renaissance with Latin and Greek words, and is still being raped today. Pashto is a language of a people who were conquered by Arab-speakers who then forced their language and their religion upon the Pashtuns. Luckily, Pashto survived as language, but it suffered a huge influx of Arabic words for religion and other "high" level topics like pyschology, politics, government, law, medicine, and so forth. In addition to Arabic, Pashto even has Farsi/Dari words imposed on it. Pashto is a second-class language in both Afghanistan and Pakistan and its speakers--the Pashtuns--were geographically split in half by the Russian and the British with the Durand Line, which then became the national boundary between modern day Afghanistan and Pakistan. When I learn words in Pashto, I try to use the true Pashto words as the primary words rather than secondary words that are considered "meatier" or "simple" or "uneducated". For "government" I say "daolat" (Pashto) instead of "hokumat" (Arabic).

**I understand that English itself is a blend of two or three other Germanic languages, but at least they were very similar languages from similar ethnicities.

******* Forgive my rant and my disorganized writing. I have been dozing off for the last few hours due to fatigue. Good night, y'all!

**YES! Awkwardly afield, I say. It should become much, much less so, so the richness of true English can at last come to the fore unbridled and shine through.**

Again Aengelfolc, you hit the nail right on the head, and that's onefoldly what we're here for. Not to dance and juke about pointlessly exclaiming how much needless Latinate terms there are in our tongue - that's self-evident.

"maisonette", in England, is a semi-detached or terraced house where the ground floor is one apartment and the upper floor(s) are another. There is no communal stairwell; each upper apartment has its own front door at street level and its own private stairs. Some were built this way; others converted from a large house. So the word is well-known.

Thanks for the kind words, Gallitrot!

"Just astounding how much French there is in English!"

YES! Awkwardly afield, I say. It should become much, much less so, so the richness of true English can at last come to the fore unbridled and shine through.

@jayles:

Most folks don't know French like you do. I don't believe at all that most English speaking folks would understand "maison" to be 'house' without learning some French. If they did, then like you and I, they should see some likenesses. Indeed. most would likely mix Fr. maison up with the English word 'mason' (brick-layer) which is truly from Frankish *makjon. No sole English speaker is seeing that "endeavour

1983, Lawrence Durrell, Sebastian, Faber & Faber 2004 (Avignon Quintet), p. 1057:

That is the little bit of essential information which enables us to complete our devoir

Just astounding how much French there is in English!

we also have "maisonette" and "manor" in English, both from Fr.

"Nous devons écrire un contrat pour la maison."
= we endeavour to scribe a contract for the mansion. (endeavour

"Again, in romance and germanic tongues it is often possible to guess at meanings: that just doesn't seem to work once one moves east"
Not hard to link "Schaf" with "sheep" or come up with "ewe" for "owca" (polish=sheep)
but moving east, hard to guess that "domba" (Indonesian) means the same.
My own experience is that it takes three times as long for an "Asian" student to learn everyday English vocabulary, compared to a European. The reverse is also true. Finnish, Hungarian (or worse still tonal tongues like Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai) are much harder for us than easy-to-guess Italian or Danish.
French people can often write quite passable English sans difficulte', whereas it is rare indeed for ,say, a Korean to achieve the same level - the hurdles, the idiom, the way of expressing ideas are too "European" and far-adrift from their own.

And frith and froth be with you too.

"contract" means to "draw/bring together a deal." Indeed, English didn't need this borrowed word. It must've been the overbearing Norman overlords strong stand that all things law must be written in Norman-French. O.E. handgewrit (> M.E. *handȝewrit/ *handywrit; E. *handawrit/ *handewrit) was the English word for contract. DEED also means 'contract', but today is mainly said about land dealings.

Instead of "let's sign the contract," I have heard it more often than not said, "let's do/sign the deal."

Today's French for contract is 'contrat'...the French tongue is infamously (straight from L. infām[is])known for losing bookstaves: spoken or unspoken. I guess it likes near, but I don't believe the everyday English speaker would understand that to be akin to 'contract'. At least in other Germanic tongues (Afrikaans, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, & Norwegian) it is written the same > contract or kontrakt, which is in keeping with L. contractus.

See here: "Nous devons écrire un contrat pour la maison."

Doesn't look manifestly English to me. Thoughts?

@jayles:

It would be wrong to say that the Norman-French bearing on the English was a bit of "froth." Right?

English words folks don't likely know....

frore: adj. frozen; frosty; Middle English froren

"Again, romance and germanic tongues it is often possible to guess at meanings: that just doesn't seem to work once one moves east"

I don't understand what you mean here.

" it's a froth to behold ..."
I only found froth to mean bubbles in the dictionary.
There are however "frover" and "frother" as doing-words, which might bring more joy.

**Anglishers would have nearly half of a school-leaver's word-stock ripped out and replaced. I don't think that will go down truly well.**

No, not really, as no one's putting forward that the wordstock be ripped out. Just that needless foreign words be slowly and steadily insteaded by more English based ones. It would be a slow forthgoing to begin with but could increase as/ when the trend for more native words took hold or became newfangled.

Aengelfolc, it's a froth to behold your posts and input here. I nearly always yeasay your ingivings on this thread, and think you're likely the only fellow here with a kindred samethinkness as myself.

The point about French is that one gets past the basics the word-stock is often the similar - for at least 8000 words. More if you are Spanish, very little if you are Germanic.
For an English speaker, German starts off better, but the business and academic word-stock is harder to recall. "contract" in German -> er, ..Betrag. no...Beitrag...ah Vertrag. French so much easier at this level.
Again, romance and germanic tongues it is often possible to guess at meanings: that just doesn't seem to work once one moves east.
It is important to remember that out-and-out Anglishers would have nearly half of a school-leaver's word-stock ripped out and replaced. I don't think that will go down truly well.

"Of this word-stock over 4000 would be "French", and about the same again from Latin."

With lots of frenchified Germanic rooted words akin to English. Truly, they are hardly all "French".

" the meaningful word-stock is French - this is quite normal in business and half-scholarly writing. For a born and bred English wight, after the ground-framework, French is hardly a fremd tongue."

The 'meaningful' word-stock? Like what? Business folks don't speak like that unless the were taught Globalish.

"Salut, comment allez-vous ?" is nothing like "How are you?" -- One cannot see enough kinship to guess the meaning. Even when writing with an Englished French word, it is not readily manifest > "J'avais la chirurgie" = "I had surgery"

French is most fremd when matched against English.

"SANS" is in the English wordbook, but it is not an English word. It was borrowed Funny enough, the root of 'sans' (L. sine) does share PIE root as E. sunder.

"My loue to thee is ſound, ſans cracke or flaw." -- about 1590; William Shaespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, act v, scene 2

I think "sans" is in the English dictionary - used by Shakespear - sans teeth ....

Hey Meedgetter,

This again is a funfilled lofty-wafty idea, had French really been spoken by superior numbers of French settlers then no matter how hard the Anglophone authorities attempted to impose English they'd have failed. I just don't believe that one treaty or deal or mandate would have worked in instilling French as the forefront language of the States without some kind of widespread genocide of all the Anglophones, plus Dutch and Germans to boot. Teutons who obviously found the transition to English easier with time than an unrelated Romance language. You'd have ended up with a Quebec state like situation at best, surrounded on all sides by Germanic speakers.

@jayles: "Never ceases to amaze me how close French is to English...."

Haha, well this is obviously utter bollocks... you've likely been hitting the old wine flask before hitting the tweennet.

How does 'sans' sound anything like without? Sounds like lots of the stuff you find at the beach.

@Aengelfolc

Re. Rogier - yes, I've thought this concerning English for a long time. Rogier's plea just happens to have survived, and terrifyingly embodies the way many a Francophone bureaucrat likely thinks about their own language in Belgium to this day...However, economics and prosperity of the Flemings is countering this idea of Frenchly superiority, not to mention the helpful bolstering effect of English to the similar Flemish tongue.

Just, aside from the little grammar words, the meaningful word-stock is French - this is quite normal in business and half-scholarly writing. For a born and bred English wight, after the ground-framework, French is hardly a fremd tongue.
On starting university, a true English wight may have a word-stock of about 15000+ words, hingeing on what is meant by "word". (see Nation).
Of this word-stock over 4000 would be "French", and about the same again from Latin.

@jayles: "Never ceases to amaze me how close French is to English...."

What do you mean here? English and French to me are not alike at all. The only thing that is alike are some of the borrowed words.

Never ceases to amaze me how close French is to English, how easy to read sans wordbook.

Had the Lousiana purchase fallen thru, les Americains would be speaking French, and so would we all.

(Or had Arpad got to America.... or Columbus landed further north.....)

True to form, the English stand-ins for 'violence' are mostly more specific:
beating, hitting,striking,harming, threatening, anger.....
I was just wondering how best to put "domestic violence" ....
"wife/child-beating/threatening" was the best I could come up with.
Or maybe something with '(a)wielding'??

Anglo-Fr violent < L. vīs "strength, might" + L. -ulent "full of..."(< L. -ulentus); see FECULENT for a good laugh.

Sskt. ahiṃsā = "no harm" < a- "no, not, un-" + himsa "harm" (< Sskt. hims "to hit, strike")

See G. Gewalt "violence" < Ge- "to do something over and over again without end" (< PGmc. *ga- "wholeness") + walt, wald (see O.E. weald > E. wield) "strength, might, to rule"

O.E. ġe- = a-/i- in today's English >> a- + wield = awield < same as G. Gewalt.

There are many, many English words of today and yesteryear that can be said instead of L. violence.

consensus > shared understanding, like-mindedness, fellowship of the mind, kinship of thought, kindred mind/thought, oneness, one-mindedness/ one-mind, sameness, wholeness, togetherness... of mind.

Belgium's co-founder, Charles Rogier (a Francophone), wrote in 1832 to Jean-Joseph Raikem, the minister of justice:

Les premiers principes d'une bonne administration sont basés sur l'emploi exclusif d'une langue, et il est évident que la seule langue des Belges doit être le français. Pour arriver à ce résultat, il est nécessaire que toutes les fonctions civiles et militaires soient confiées à des Wallons et à des Luxembourgeois; de cette manière, les Flamands, privés temporairement des avantages attachés à ces emplois, seront contraints d'apprendre le français, et l'on détruira ainsi peu à peu l'élément germanique en Belgique.

In English > "The first principles of a good administration are based upon the exclusive use of one language, and it is evident that the only language of the Belgians should be French. In order to achieve this result, it is necessary that all civil and military functions are entrusted to Walloons and Luxemburgers; this way, the Flemish, temporarily deprived of the advantages of these offices, will be constrained to learn French, and we will hence destroy bit by bit the Germanic element in Belgium."

Hmmm? Does anyone else think that thoughts like these were only found in the 1800's? Maybe we can apply this seemingly Francophonic mindset to Ænglisc?

violence > bewielding ??? as in "ahimsa" -> non-violence

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rede
- gives other meanings too
In my worklife 'consensus' was sometimes benoted to shroud what really happened;- blood in the boardroom , the last man standing achieved a 'consensus'.
How about 'like-minded ground' or' 'widespread feeling'....

@Jayles ... now you're getting into the geist of things!

The word for revenge/avenge/damage/destroy is wreak: http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/wreak

Strait is said to come from French < Latin strictus. OTOH straight is from OE.

Harass has a Germanic root: early 17th century: from French harasser, from harer 'set a dog on', from Germanic hare, a cry urging a dog to attack. http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/harass There is also always "bother" (Anglo-Irish).

rede (as a verb) means to giv advice. http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/rede

Bield is fetching but one can say enbolden (or inbolden is an old spelling if yu don't like the en-) as well as hearten, enhearten/inhearten, or even inheart for encourage. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/inheart

Deal is good ... and often noted. "He signed a deal with ... "

Earlier I was working on a story and needed a word for "consensus" ... I think samentale (of the same tale) might work here. So I wrote, "the samentale was ... " meaning the "the consensus was ... ".

Why not "deal" for contract?
if bespeaking the document itself then deal-writ.

patient > tholemod
encourage > bield
peace > frith
condemn > fordeem
innocent, pitiable,fortunate > seely >
result > yield
accuse, challenge > becall

to approach > to nigh (a doing-word)
benefit > boon
satisfy > fulfil
revenge, persecution, destruction > wrack
request, reserve > bespeak
a difficult position > strait(s)
provocation, harassment > trolling
govern, protect, discuss > rede (as a doing-word)
depart, disappear, vanish > wend

Speaking of French words that are wontedly said to be from French ... Here is a sunder one for mince. Most etyms say that it only comes from the French and that the French word comes from vulgar Latin:

From Middle English mincen, minsen; partly from Old English minsian (“to make less, make smaller, diminish”), from Proto-Germanic *minnisōnan (“to make less”); partly from Old French mincer, mincier (“to cut into small pieces”), from mince (“slender, slight, puny”), of Germanic origin, from Frankish*minsto, *minnisto, superlative of *min, *minn (“small, less”), from Proto-Germanic *minniz (“less”); both from Proto-Indo-European *(e)mey- (“small, little”). Cognate with Old Saxon minsōn (“to make less, make smaller”), Gothic

"Likely in East Anglia..." .. and the rest of England???

http://mr-verb.blogspot.co.nz/2007/04/english-as-fourth-branch-of-germanic.html

I am still not won-over.

@Ængelfolc ... Passion, when first brought into English, was mostly noted in the religious witt. It is in a land charter turning some land over to the church:

ðaet Eghwilc messepriost gesinge fore Osuulfes sawle twa messan, twa fore Beornðryðe sawle; and aeghwilc diacon arede twa ***passione*** fore his sawle, twa for hire; — that Every mass-priest recites for Oswulf's soul two masses, two for Beornthryth's soul; and every deacon reads two passions for his soul, two for hers. - Oswulf's Charters, c805

None the less, the ord (point) is that "passion" did not come to English in Middle English thru French ... It came into OE thru Latin. Therefore, it goes on the fore-1066 list.

Highly thought stirring!

In his writings, Dr. Peter Forster has put forth that English may not be an off-shoot of the West Germanic branch, but might be a 4th North Sea Germanic branch unto itself. Dr. Forster estimates that Germanic split into its four branches some 2,000 to 6,000 years ago. If he's right, the ‘Celtic’ tongue (thought to be spoken in England before the Anglo-Saxons came) may, in truth, be a branch of the Germanic language tree after all.

"I am not won over to the onlook that most of the population now have more than 50% German blood."

Likely in East Anglia...

"Passion is found in OE c805 ... nearly 300 hundred years before the Norman-French takeover, yet most etyms are "ME from French." ... "

I wonder why the Anglo-Saxons allowed for the word 'passion' in 805 or thereabouts? We still have 'thro(w)e [O.E. þrōwian or, maybe, O.E. þrea],' in English today. English also still has "thole" [O.E. þolian "to bear, suffer, undergo"]

"Seventy beds keeps he there teeming mothers are wont that they lie for to thole and bring forth bairns hale so God’s angel to Mary quoth."--1922, James Joyce, Ulysses

@jayles: "As a Brit then naturally our roots are Celtic..."

Should I take 'Brit' here to mean someone Welsh or Cornish...not English?

"My problem with Norman French language influence is not its dominance asserted by natural demographic distribution of d'oil folk, but its elitist fueled tinkering of the English language." Yes! Hear,hear!

"But shouldn't they toss out all the Frankish words too?" Yes, but the French don't know, don't acknowledge,and/or shroud the true roots of these words. Some wordlorists have guessed that 10% of today's French wordstock is know to have Germanic roots. I have found that many French wordbooks do what English wordbooks do--they stop short of the first roots of many words, markedly Germanic words. If the French wordbook writer finds that the French word is from Vulgar/Low Latin, they seek no more beyond that. A good byspell: We did not find out that FARM or FOREST was a Germanic word until the latter-day.

Another good word: Bogglish - to be uncertain, doubtful, wavering, or a wee bit skittish about something.

"75% of British and Irish ancestors arrive[d] between 15,000 and 7,500 years ago" (that is, long before the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons, and even before that of the Celts)
Based on a re-estimation of the number of settlers, there is a view that it is highly unlikely that the existing British Celtic-speaking population was substantially displaced by the Anglo-Saxons, and the latter were merely a ruling elite who imposed their culture on the local populations.[25][26]
from: wikipedia.org/wiki/English_people
Even the Daily Mail said that only 50% have SOME German blood.

I am not won over to the onlook that most of the population now have more than 50% German blood.

"I saw "sell-by-date" in U.S. supermarkets all the time." ... True! ... Right before I had put that up I had redd a writ on the BBC website that claim that "sell-by date" was a Britishism that was now being seen in the States. However, after I wrote the abuv, I did my own kenseek (research) and ... noting the same way and kenbits (data) that the BBC noted ... that "sell-by date" show'd up in AmEn abut 10 years before it did in BrEn. I check'd the other words that the BBC said were Britisihisms and the same ... the were in AmEn before. Bad kenseek on the part of the BBC.

Nonetheless, "sell-by" is much better and unbecloudier than "expiration".

"New" old words:
forward/foreward ... meaning a contract or agreement (ward here in the witt of guard)
samentale ... agreement (of the same tale)

Oh and I agree with Aengelfolc, can't dismiss the fact that the Welsh speaking peoples where the first on the island. So provisions, and location specific favouritism, should be encouraged so as to aid, maintain and promote Welsh in those areas where it is spoken i.e Wales.

"My point was that we should not impose an exclusively Saxon/Norse/Dane tongue on them all when their heritage is so mixed, any more than we should impose Norman-French or Latin."

Hmm, this is very pleasant and utopian in its conclusion, but the reason we have different individual languages is usually due to a predominance of one type of people communicating in an identical tongue, usually named after their geographic location.

The law of democratics tends to dictate that majority rule, so as well over 75% of people in Great Britain are of an Anglo-Germanic heritage, would it not be safe to assume, indeed assert, that English as it stands has a right to the same percentage of native words in its vocabulary? It is preposterous that the dynamics of English's wordhoard are dictated by (educational snobbery in relation to) a fractional amount of the peoples who wended here 2000 and 900yrs ago respectively. The Netherlands was invaded more often than we on this island have ever been, yet they sensibly maintained a truer, grassroots approach to the main stead of their spoken Germanic tongue.

"If this is true then we should be sticking up for Welsh not English."

No, we should look to the bringing back of Cymraeg (Welsh tongue) as a way forward. We should learn how this tongue, along with Hebrew, Belarusian, Cornish, Manx, and Wampanoag (an Indian tongue of the U.S.), among others, is making a comeback.

"My point was that we should not impose an exclusively Saxon/Norse/Dane tongue on them all when their heritage is so mixed, any more than we should impose Norman-French or Latin."

Well, I do not have an abiding thought about that yet. Most of the Latin/French/Greek words did not come into English without heavy burden. We know this. The same cannot be altogether said about English.

If we listen to Oppenheimer, and others, an English-like, Germanic tongue may have already been spoken before Hengist and Horsa came over in about the year 449. The overstepping Germanic folk coming from over seas may have frankly strengthened and bolstered the tongue already there. No one can truly say.

As I have always said, Norman-French before 1066 is mostly okay with me (they were gallicized Vikings that could at least say the Germanic -W-, and mixed Norse words, uttering, and Germanic stæfcræft/ stæfwrītere into their French after all); Latin as it was begotten from trade; Most Greek words are okay, too. As long as the fremd word isn't an inkhorn word, abounding or overmuch, and the fremd word hadn't bereaved the English word from the tongue by some political/government falderal, I'm good with it.

"Americans use "expiration date" for the British sell-by date"

I saw "sell-by-date" in U.S. supermarkets all the time.

@jayles ... If you're talking about financial investments, then let's start with gelt (money).

gelt +hood, ship, or ness for finances (noun)
My gelthood isn't in good shape right now.

To invest money ... ingelt? Thus a financial investment would be ingelthood or ingelting.

One wontedly buys into an investment ... maybe ... inbuy? Which might be more bending. Fb ... I can't ingelt for that I'm broke, but I can inbuy time. (put in time). Or I can't inbuy gelt, but I can inbuy time. Gewiss, here one can say "put in" ... I can't put in gelt, but I can put in time.

If one is investing in a siege, then the word is beset.

Just a few thoughts to chew on.

investment -> in-goings, in-cladding (a calque)

Americans use "expiration date" for the British sell-by date - the date by which supermarket food must be sold. But sell-by date is increasingly used in the US in a figurative sense. Eg "That idea is well past its sell-by date." ... Sell-by is better than "expiration"! Even tho "use" is a Latinate, I often hear (and say) use-by date for medicines.

Jobseeker allowance is a bettering over "unemployment insurance" ... Hmm, I don't think "wage" would be a good bestead for "allowance" here ... maybe "mete" from OE mete (meaning meal ... or meat) or as a noun from the verb mete (from OE metan - to measure out). Or "meten" as a noun from the -en afterfast (like "a burden" from to bear). It would be a good play on words with like-sounding "meat"! lol ... the "jobseeker mete(n)"

With fewer folks studying Latin ... I think that, outside of academia or burocratese, word-making is falling back to the AGT roots. Haplessly, still too many words are struck by those academics or burocrats.

My way for abiding Latinates is:
1. Was it in the tung pre-1066? ... If I find it in B-T, Clark's Concise A-S, or the Univ. of Toronto's wordstock, then it is good to go. Thus we find many words to inhold words like passion and press.
2. Is it found in widespread noting other Germanic tungs? ... Bus and family are good byspels of this.
3. Is it short, fremful (useful), and not eathly besteaded by an AGT? ... prey

Greek rooted words don't bother me as much. Many of them are church words (the New Testament was first written in Greek) that were Latinized a bit. The Greeks didn't take over Britain nor were in widespread fighting with the Germanic folk as were the Romans. Greek as many of the consonant clusters of English ... like "th". Sometimes I think Greek is nearer to English than Latin. That doesn't mean that words like gynotikolobomassophile (woman-earlobe-nibble-lover) don't trip up the tung, but words like problem, throne, asf are good to go for me.

I am of the same mind - "English" lede are of mixed roots, varying in different parts of the country. My point was that we should not impose an exclusively Saxon/Norse/Dane tongue on them all when their heritage is so mixed, any more than we should impose Norman-French or Latin.
Put another way, if say 5% of the lede are of Norman descent, then would it not be fair to allow, well, at least 5% of the wordstock from Norman, and hardly "fair" to shut out any word on the grounds that it is fremd. Nothing wrong in English being a mixed tongue at all.
We just need some other logical bedrock to benote as a deeming mark.
Perhaps leave words like "chair" alone - if it ain't broke don't fix it.
But clearly there is little need for words like "in retrospect" where "in hindsight" is at hand. So the deeming mark could be nearer "don't use big words where little ones would do".

@jayles:

Your writing about "British" DNA is old, and has been undone with new findings. Anyway, DNA does not mean anything about folkways. But, let's look about, since you brought up the addled World of DNA.... Which of these "smart folks" are we to believe?

1. University College London academics studied a segment of the Y chromosome that appears in almost all Danish and north German men. They found that half of British men also have the segment.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2005829/Half-Britons-German-blood-geneticists-reveal.html

2. In 2002, Dr Mark Thomas, of the Centre for Genetic Anthropology at UCL, found that The English and Frisians studied had almost identical genetic make-up but the English and Welsh were very different.

3. Bryan Sykes says that only 10 per cent of men “now living in the south of England are the patrilineal descendants of Saxons or Danes… that figure rising to 15 per cent north of the Danelaw and 20 per cent in East Anglia”

4. Stephen Oppenheimer has put forth that 68 per cent of English DNA was on the island before the first farmers in the 4th millennium BC, and that most of the British forefathers arrived from Iberia. He also seems to think English was already spoken in England before the year 450.

5. "Britain's DNA" says 32 per cent of British men are descended from the original Britons, 12 per cent from ancient Germanic lines, 11 per cent are hunter gatherers and 7 per cent are ancient Irish.

6. This Summer (2012), Professor Peter Donnelly, a professor of statistical science at Oxford University and director of the Wellcome Trust centre for human genetics, said from south and north Wales genetically have "fairly large similarities with the ancestry of people from Ireland on the one hand and France on the other. Further, he also said that "modern people from central and southern England had many genetic similarities to modern people in Denmark and Germany". He said further that the Welsh could be the oldest Britons in Britain.

7. In 2003, Cristian Capelli did a study called 'A Y Chromosome Census of the British Isles.' He and his fellow scientists found that Orkney and Shetland have significant Norwegian input and little to no German/Danish input, that the English and Scottish sites all have German/Danish influence, and that the Western Isles and Isle of Man have German/Danish influence, presumably due to English immigration.

And, there is much more than this out there! Who is right? It was found in a study called "The Genetic Legacy of the Vikings in Northwest England" that the following places in Britain had huge Scandinavian background: Isle of Man (39%), Orkey (40%), Shetlands (42.5%), Wirral (47%), West Lancashire (51%).

It is odd to mark that Archaeologists after the Second World War rejected the traditionally held view that an Anglo-Saxon invasion pushed the indigenous Celtic Britons to the fringes of Britain. Any guesses why? ;-)

Here is a thought stirring link that indeed will get the one thinking: http://www.englandandenglishhistory.com/origins-of-ethnic-english

And another one here: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2011/06/britons-english-germans-and-collective-action/

From the writ you linked..."The most visible British genetic marker is red hair..." Now, how did Tacitus talk about the way the Germans looked? "All have fierce blue eyes, red hair, huge frames..."

Do we truly know that those folks that spoke a "Celtic tongue" are not genetic kin to the folks that spoke a Germanic/Teutonic tongue? I mean, the genetic marker R1b is both found in Celtic tongued folks, and in Germanic (Anglo-Saxon/Frisian) folks.

Again, genes have nothing to do with folkways.Aren't we all from East Africa anyway? ;-)

there is no dole here ..... one must be "actively seeking work" (and prove it).

"jobseeker allowance" >> "Jobless/Workless Pay". Job-Seeker hints at someone that is truly looking for work. Odd that this word would be noted to mean "someone out of work, without a job/work, down & out, jobless, workless, on the dole." It doesn't seem to fit, does it?

Instead of "vagabond" > Enlish has landloper, loafer (*landloafer; see G. Landläufer)

G. werben "to advertise, to woo, to recruit" (many meanings) = O.E. hweorfan/ hwearf/ ġehworden "to turn, to travel, to roam, to wander"

1. "Hwiðer hweorfað wé" (whither shall we turn)
2. "Ðú hweorfest of hénþum in gehyld godes" (thou shalt pass from humiliations into the favour of God)

Today's G. werben is akin to Today's E. wharf, but sadly, I do not think that the work-word (verb) made it out of O.E. I will have to look through some of my books.

Where I live the state unemployment benefit is called "jobseeker allowance" - and the term "jobseeker" is widely benoted instead of "unemployed" - such is the politically correct reality of life here.
I wonder if "werben/warb/geworben" made it into English is some form?????

Personally, I think that adding Anglo-Saxon words would be great only if it is not at the expense of already enmeshed vocabulary. Most of word selection is preferential. I think having an alternative word would be nice.

I meant to say that folks wouldN'T sully their Latin with English words.

applicant - seeker
application - seeking ... job seeking

I don't mind the short words like "chair" so much but I will shun them when I can. It's not so much of "un-Latinizing" English as to not shun the Anglo-Germanic-Teutonic (AGT) rooted words. Often, not always, but often speaking the AGT words hav fewer syllables and can be said quicker and are more eathly understood. Writing ... no so much as the not only the consonant clusters but also the screwy spelling of English sometimes takes as many if not more stafs (letters). Thus noting the AGT words is often more streamline(d):

Job Seeking - three syllables; 10 stafs (inholding the space)
Job Application - five syllables; 15 stafs (inholding the space)

English has a way of streamlining Latinates, fb ... app (from application) is now it's own word, bus (from omnibus). I daresay that in a few years, if not alreddy, most folks won't know that app is short for application anymore than they know that bus is short for omnibus.

When a Latinate streamlines the tung or fills a gap, it's not a big deal. But when it only makes things longer, more ravell'd, and is noted more to show off than to share knowledge ... then it's time to toss it and find a short, sharper AGT.

The plight is that so many of the AGT word that are still there hav gather'd dust and aren't as well known. They can only become well-known by noting them. Keep in mind that a lot of folks don't truly know what the overblown Latinate means ... they only nod their heads and keep going. Between the screwy spelling and the over-noting of Latinates, it's little wonder that there is such a high illiteracy (unreadingness?) among nativ English speakers.

So there you are ... It could streamline the tung and raising the readingness among nativ English speakers.

Just to nutshell my points:
1) There must be some overwhelming selling point, some compelling reason for delatinizing English that will spur lede to take it on. What exactly is that?

Appealing to the Saxon in us to stand up is one-sided, and one-eyed - most of us a mix of Celt, Saxon, and Norman. We would become split-minded.

It must be rooted in today's world - not many lede care about what happened a thousand years ago. And in today's world latinate words do get you your next job, your degree, your promotion. We may not like this, but it is the biggest hurdle.

2) We cannot expect Joe Bloggs on the street to bone up on exactly when each word came into English. That is a no-starter.

3) What is the point of getting rid of latinate words if it just leaves us with a hedged-around word-stock?

"Chair" is an everyday word where I come from. "Settle" is a long bench-like piece of furniture, and "stool" is a chair with no back or arms. Taking away "chair", "couch" and maybe "sofa" and "cathedral" just lessens our choices and lessens the richness of the language. Likewise, we may use "put in" instead of "apply" for a job, but we are left with "applicant" and "job application form" which are hard to re-stead. And now "apps" is an everyday word - how many apps on your iPhone?

It's not unwonted to hear, "I put in for that job."

The word France comes from the word for Frankish. Sadly, the Franks, after beating the Romans, settled in and took in so many Latinates as to make Frankish die out. See tho, that many of the Frankish words for war (such as war) liv'd thru. These cognates were eathly taken into English. The French should be looking to ed-quicken those Frankish words as well!

The Norman-French takeover itself likely wouldn't hav had a great change for English but for that it set up the French-Latin-is-good; English-is-crude mindset. The few early ME writings in English that we hav truly didn't hav that many Latinates and many of those were from the church (and, in the end Greek) but then most folks wrote in Latin and French and would sully their French with a lot of English words.

Sadly, to make things worse than they seem, there are Latinates that are wrongly given as Middle English from French but truthful are Old English from Latin. Passion is found in OE c805 ... nearly 300 hundred years before the Norman-French takeover, yet most etyms are "ME from French." ... Tho the Middle English Dictionary credits OE and B-T credits Latin.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/07/0719_050719_britishgene.html

"In The Tribes of Britain, archaeologist David Miles says around 80 percent of the genetic characteristics of most white Britons have been passed down from a few thousand Ice Age hunters........"

As a Brit then naturally our roots are Celtic, but the sheer weight of north Germanic inflow is obvious to see in the native population; so many men sporting gingery whiskers and mousy brown hair colour that can only indicate time-honoured, mass inter-marriage between dark haired celts and blond teutonics. The point is, whether one attempts to back up Welsh or not, by the conquest English in it's various dialects had completely countermanded Brythonic speech, something Latin did not do centuries earlier. And in my opinion that can only come from widespread Germanic speech throughout the British isles, and with it hoards of Germanic speakers.

My problem with Norman French language influence is not its dominance asserted by natural demographic distribution of d'oil folk, but its elitist fueled tinkering of the English language. Useful Norman French words, I have no objection to, the Hasting's Overthrowing obviously brought nootly words with it - however many of those had been introduced and exhausted by the 12th century. It's the arrogance subversion of English in things like the Peterborough Chronicles where some cock of a monk decided to scriven out hundreds of English words in favour of their own incompetent English - in effect a bit like me as an English speaker taking Descartes' works and with my piss-poor French erasing all the words I didn't know and popping in English ones where it suited my ignorance.That's not cool, and it is an unfitting wrong.

"DNA studies are beginning to show that the English are mostly
Brythonic (Celtic) in origin; no surprise to anyone who reads about
Boudicca of the Iceni and other tribes which stood up against the
Roman invasion, including the Welsh themselves.
The concept of alien Saxons spread across the English map is proving
to be unfounded. The Saxons came, but they managed to impose their
culture on everyone else, not their bloodlines, which probably only
affected the people in places like East Anglia. Same with the Vikings
in Yorkshire and the Danes in the Thames Valley. The Normans (that were mixed themselves) didn't marry into the people, only into the ruling classes.
Given that, you can see that to talk of the English as an Anglo-Saxon
race is a nonsense. The bulk of English people are Celts or pre-Celtic. "

If this is true then we should be sticking up for Welsh not English.
And English is every bit as elitist and imposed as Norman-French.

Today's English is truly a carrier of English culture - it shows some of them are a snobby lot.

@Ængelfolc: "APPLY, too, is highly academic, no?"
I think not - apply for a job and so on. I would say it was an everyday business word, like so many Norman-French borrowings.

"My main thought against these words is that they are both after 1066." Yes, true.
My point was that they are equally as well embedded in today's English as the borrowings from latin before 1066 - so why treat them differently?

I do agree the French lede stick up for their own language (and nice French films too).
But shouldn't they toss out all the Frankish words too?

Iceland is different: they were never invaded. (?????)

There is much that could be done to further a sturdier and less academic English - it's a shame Tolkien didn't just write in early middle english - but we need to have clear logic backing up our offerings.

For "transit lounge" ... lounge is good to go so we only need a word for "transit". Here, "faring" (as in a journey) would work ... faring lounge.

Station, as in "bus station" or "train station", meaning the big, open hall/building ... English too has the word "hof": http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hof ... No reason not to swap in. So you see, these words haven't gone away ... they're still there only waiting to be dusted.

As for the word bus itself ... if one truly wanted to bestead it, one could note "folkwain" or "streetwain" or "roadwain" so something like that, however, that's a lot for the word "bus" which, by itself, means nothing in Latin. Bus comes from a Latin word that is so chopp'd up (by English speakers I believe) that no Roman would know it. In Argentina, a bus is call'd a "collectivo" (a collector) they look at you funny if you ask about an "autobus". I think that the word "bus" is common among the Germanic tungs (aside from Icelandic).

I pretty much go with he fact that if 'pride' was being used by a mother-tongue befolking of around 95% English speakers against 5% Norman French speakers, then the word is most likely attributable to English, whether a Gallic slant in meaning was overlaid or not.

PROUD - pg. 374, The Concise Dictionary of English Etymology
By Walter W. Skeat (1993 edition) > http://books.google.com/books?id=aDhGlKL3h00C&pg=PA374&lpg=PA374&dq=proud+etymology&source=bl&ots=t4ARe42fOi&sig=cHcrOGgJEArMfakViRLZdzUB1no&hl=en&sa=X&ei=LoleUNvRIITzyAHn5IGYCw&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=proud%20etymology&f=false

O.E. prȳde and O.N. prȳthi are akin to one another from O.E. prūd, prūt and O.N. prūðr < maybe from "Vulgar Latin" through French? Now, set this against O.Fr. prud, prod "gallant" < L.L. prōde "useful" < L. prōdesse "to be of worth"

www.etymonline.com says, "The sense of "have a high opinion of oneself," not found in Old French, might reflect the Anglo-Saxons' opinion of the Norman knights who called themselves "proud."" This same website puts forth that the Norse may have gotten the word O.N. prūðr from the same seeming Vulgar Latin word as O.E. I am yet far from won over though. Any thoughts out there?

"I was thinking that most lede are not worried about word-roots, they just want to be understood clearly and get on with their lives."

Sadly, you are right. Most folks have forgotten what it means to holdfast their folkways. As I have always said, "Sprache ist Traeger der Kultur." If the lede were more aware and had more pride, it would've been harder to muddle English with all of the fremd words. I give you Iceland and France as today's standard bearers.

"Hmm but wouldn't 'transit lounge', or 'bus station' be an everyday word?"

Yes, although bus station seems more 'everyday' to me. Bus Stop is even better.

French General (retired) Stanislas Baudry founded horse-drawn Omnibus bus lines. The name comes from his first such undertaking in Nantes in 1823 - one of his bus line's stops was in front of a hat-maker's shop owned by a fellow oddly named Omnés. The stop, called "Omnes Omnibus" was a pun on the Latin sounding name of that hatter Omnès and Omnibus; Omnibus means "for all" in Latin. The omnibus was brought to England from France in 1829.

There was no Germanic word for the brainchild called an omnibus.