“Anglish”

As far as I'm aware, this song has not one none Germanic word in its lyrics... that's fair seldom!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8smO4VS9134

Gallitro: if you had the time, I'm sure you could show that many of the most liked songs in English are those with few FLaG words.

@ þ:

I don't see where the WIKI says it is not true. There are a lot of "if's, and's, & but's"; nothing that is hard truth. The WIKI does seem to say that this thought is indeed not within the mainstream, and many mainstream thinkers about this do not acknowledge the seeming truth of it.

I am going to look about the web and see what I can find. Thanks though.

"English was quite small, and we are left with mysterious words like ,er, "dog"." Well, one thought about where 'dog' comes from is this:

DOG < Old English docga “strong hound breed” (it had a marked, keenly drawn, meaning, not unlike 'hound' in English today), a pet-shape of Old English -docce (“muscle”) (see fingerdocce (“finger-muscle”) with ending -ga (see frocga (“frog”), picga (“pig”)), from Proto-Germanic *dukkōn 'power, strength, muscle'. See Platt dogge "a big dog"; Dutch dog "a bull-dog"; German Deutsche/Dänische Dogge "Great Dane", die Dogge "mastiff"; Danish dogge, Swedish dogg, a mastiff.

Pop culture: Now there is an economic market or husbandry-field within which much success could be had in influencing language and wordstock. Pop music is the song of the ally/ almean/ common man and that is really how many of our most simplistic germanic language is elegantly and melodically preserved. The tonguely withholding of gleedream, if you will.

Wow yes "let-holder" magic thank you.
Many German place names and rivers are pre-germanic, just the same as in England, Wales and Scotland. Despite this, the uptake of pre-germanic words into English was quite small, and we are left with mysterious words like ,er, "dog". Likewise something like half the words in Hungarian are of mysterious roots. I guess each tribal group more or less had its own tongue with dialect words, much like England a thousand years ago, so we should not be taken aback if the roots are not written down somewhere.

Ængelfolc, I think that statistic is a little old. There once was some theory about a language from which Germanic borrowed lots of words early in its history, but it's now thought not to be true. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_substrate_hypothesis

This got me thinking today > "About 80 percent of Germanic word roots are of non-Indo-European origin."

If 20% of Germanic roots are from PIE or IE, where does the other 80% come from?

Look how near Frisian and today's English are, even with all of the Latinates and Greek words it doesn't need:

English Frisian
as as
cheese tsiis
cow kou
day dei
ear ear
head haed
hear hear
thought tocht
through troch

Maybe Frisian is how weed be speaking English, if 1066 went the other way!

I agree that "letholder", or something based on "let" is likely the best word.

@jayles: As you likely know....

"Buy-to-let is a British phrase referring to the purchase of a property specifically to let out." -- "let out" (rent) from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buy_to_let

Well, here is what GOOGLE gave me:Terms & conditions of lets - Dundee College from

"1.11 The let holder must ensure they have an appropriate level of public liability ... Use of Dundee College premises for lets to let holders shall be granted at the ..."

And from the Glasgow Government website: "IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE LET HOLDER TO SIGN THE JANITOR'S ... Let holders are responsible for ensuring personal possessions are adequately ..."

It seems there is yet hope! Let-holder is good and being noted/brooked (used) for lawful writs/writings!

@jayles: I've got it!!

LET (before 900; Middle English leten, Old English lǣtan)

Well, I guess you could always go Anglo-French > leaseholder. What about flat-holder or dwelling-holder?

German Miete(r) < OHG miata, mēta < P.Gmc. *mēzdō, *mizdō "reward, payment, bribe, hire" >>> P.Gmc.*mēdō > Old English mēd, meord, meard, meorþ "reward, payment" > M.E. meede, mede > English (hoary, bygone, olden) meed. Akin to Gothic mizdō.

You could quicken 'meeder'/'meeter', right? Maybe 'meed-holder'?

Yes, 'rent(er)' is Latin-French. So is 'tenant'. "Paechlter" is 'der Pächter' from die Pacht "lease,rent", which is from L. pactum; akin to E. pact. So, its no good anyway.

Yes thanks. However, lodger/boarder refers to someone who rents a room in your own house, sharing kitchen /bathroom and so on. "Tenant" is someone who rents a separate flat or dwelling. What happened to "Mieter" and "Paechlter"? "Renter" is of course from french I think. So for instance "I am having a spot of bother wiith one of the tenants" is clear: but putting in "one of the holders" loses the meaning.

@jayles:

tenent < lodger, roomer; maybe 'boarder'.

Any stand-in for "tenant"??
"Holder" of course, but somewhat befuddling when talking of "landlord and holder". I am looking for something more pointed, like "fiefholder" or something.

Word-of-the-Day to be thrown out of English > INCOGITANT

What a true ink-horn word!!! THOUGHTLESS is all an English speaker needs!!

Well, we disagree, but that's okay. Indeed, not only is it okay, but diversity is good. Lots of different approaches will give us more to work with and choose from. Can I ask if you have a website for your work?

@Thorn,

People won't bide that which is unfashionable. Make something trendy, then they will grace any idea with childlike obsession. Balls, to the idea that folk won't take on new words, they do it daily in work, the pub, social networks. Anyway that's why we're chatting, about the reintroduction and edquickening of those words which have been wrongly rendered redundant. A clever ploy, applied in just the right way could have Beckham speaking like Beowulf in an eyeblink. That simple.

For me, the problem with "wissel" is that's it's not a widely known word. It might be Scots, but that's still beyond the knowledge of many English speakers. We would be putting upon people to ask them to learn a new word when one isn't needed. If we can avoid that we should, as folk have a limited amount of patience.

Wachter says L. cambio (the root of 'change') is likely from the Germanic (Frankish) c(h)am (said *kham) < chan < khan "the hand" < P.Gmc.*khanduz, meaning "to alter, trade, barter, transform, exchange, asf. He said it means, " de rnanu in manum trado." The word "change" is said to be first known from the Frankish 'Lex Salica', and therefore, it is not unthinkable that the root could be from Frankish.

Many word-lorists today think 'change' came about thusly: Celtic *kmb-i-ati- > Celtic *kmb-io > Celtic kamb-io- > Gallo-Latin cambiō > cambīre > cambiare 'exchange' (see L. cambium) > Old French changier (where L. c = Fr. ch; L.b = Fr. soft-g;m/n are nasal, switch back and forth) > Anglo-Fr. chaunger > ME chaunge(n) > E. change.

Something worth looking into.

@ Thorn,

Yeah, switch and shift could be used more, but in relation to 'swap' or 'exchange' then I see no problem with wissel/wistel - though I would back the double-S spelling first to avoid ambiguity with its tuneful neighbour.

"Change" might be Celtic at root, but the real issue should be how a word entered English. If it came straight from Celtic, that's fine, as it was borrowed without duress. But as it came by way of French, we have to ask whether it would have otherwise been borrowed. That's the way I see it: http://rootsenglish.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/1-on-good-grounds/

I would say that many of the meanings of "change" can be covered with "shift" or "switch", without bringing in a new word. We should avoid a new word here if we can, for there are other places where we cannot avoid it.

I yeasay that one!

Wissel sounds like its long overdue its place in modern English. And if Broad Scots has it then it most definitely is true English.

Why not bring Scottish 'wissel' into English?

Scottish WISSEL/WISTEL "to change, change money" < akin to Mid.Dutch/Dutch wissel; Old Franconian: wihsil; OHG/O.Sax. wehsal; MLG wessele, wissele f., wissel; ON vīxl < P.Gmc. *wīxsl(i)a-z, -n, *wixsla-z, -n. See also WISSLER "money changer".

Probably the closest thing you'll get to how ME would've sounded if the conquest hadn't happened.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhBuT_b5Uc8

So do we keep "change" "exchange" in our "English" wordstock because of its Celtic origins???

"I find the US English explanation a bit misleading."

How so? There is no strife (< Frankish *strid) over HONE being Old English

Hone is a true OE word, originally meaning a whetstone - one hones a blade, as one hones skill. I find the US English explanation a bit misleading.

Always use Þ instead of ð to write Ænglisc, I now say. Eth (Ð, ð) was born owing to Latin-writing Irish monks needs a mark to mean thorn (Þ, þ), I think. That is why eth is in Icelandic and Faroese, as well as, Old English.

As for "hone in", I know "home in" is right. The 'm' and 'n' are right next to each other on my keyboard.

So, no one seems to talk about how "hone in" came about. It is an American-English eggcorn. It is from a book called Paper Lion by George Plimpton (1965), "...looking back for the ball honing in to intercept his line of sight...”

Home in < pilot talk: "home on the beacon", meaning guided back to base by a radio beacon < from what homing pigeons do.

It seems "hone in" will likely stay in English, sad to say. It seems to be said much more often than "home in", its rightness notwithstanding.

"But theft serveth of wicked note
Hyt hangeth hys master by the throte" MS Hari 1701 f14

I wonder whether we could use "benoter" for "consumer"; and "end-benoter" for "end-user"???
Nice to see this word in wiktionary. I found "A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Volume 2, Halliwell, 1860." quite an eyeoopener in terms of the breadth of old wordstock.

I've been thinking about Anglish for a long time, and I've begun to blog here http://rootsenglish.wordpress.com/. I hope you will at least come and have a look, and I'm sorry if it does not belong here.

Oops, that's "lose the net".

In OE, focus was fustra ... btw, it's "home in" not "hone in", one can hone his skills but he homes in on a target. (Hone in was a mistake made about 50 years ago and it's still here).

For suggestion, the word is foreset: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/foreset

Yes, I kno about onefold, I just like anfald: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anfald better.

Loose the net for a two weeks and I miss a lot! lol

I noted Qapla' as a byspel for that it is from a constructed yet is alreddy in the English wordstock: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Qapla'

change (v.)
early 13c., from O.Fr. changier "to change, alter", from L.L. cambiare "to barter, exchange", from L. cambire "to exchange, barter", ***of Celtic origin***, from PIE root *kamb- "to bend, crook".

Þ and ð were noted interchangeably in OE. The ð was brought in by Irish monks but the thought that they were noted for different th sounds never laught (old strong form of latch) on.

Etymology 2
From Middle English noten, notien, from Old English notian (“to make use of, use, employ, enjoy”), from Proto-Germanic *nutōnan (“to make use of”), from Proto-Indo-European *neud- (“to acquire, make use of”).

Verb http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/note
note (third-person singular simple present notes, present participle noting, simple past and past participle noted)

(transitive, UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) To use; make use of; employ.
1553, Gawin Douglas (translator), Eneados (original by Virgil), reprinted in 1710 as Virgil’s Æneis, Tranſated into Scottish Verſe, by the Famous Gawin Douglas Biſhop of Dunkeld:
He would note it.
(transitive, UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) To use, for food; eat.
1808, Jameson:
He notes very little.
Derived terms
benote

Verb http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/benote
benote (third-person singular simple present benotes, present participle benoting, simple past and past participle benoted)

(transitive) To use.
(transitive) To consume.

"I, too, think that it is likely the Viking Rus gave the Russian tongue the word 'khlep'."

I want to also say that it is highly likely (more so, I think) that the Goths gave the Slavs the word from Gothic hlaifs. The Goths had already settled the Vistula sometime in the 100's A.D, and were always pushing East and South. The Slavic tongues have a great many Gothic borrowings in them.

"if you push OE words at me, (unknowing as I am of such), I am just bemused. "

Aren't all bemused when reading words beyond one's ken? What is the word 'enough', but the Old English ġenōġ (IPA: /ˈje.noːj/)?? We know it, since we were taught it.

Give these new words to the kids; they are our best bet to spread the word(s). Blog, write, speak to quicken the English of old, and make them anew.

"'hlaf' (loaf) is I think a Viking word and they went to Rus and gave them 'xlep' (khlep) which means 'bread' in modern Russian."

LOAF < M.E. lo(o)f, laf < O.E. hlāf "bread, loaf"; akin to O.N. hleifr, Scots laif, East Frisian luffe, North Frisian liaf, Swed. lev, O.H.G. hleib, Ger. Laib, Goth. hlaifs < all from P.Gmc *hlaibaz . O.C.S. chlebu (said xlěbŭ), Russian хлеб, Ukrainian хліб (xlib), Finnish leipä, Lithuanian klepas, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian hleb/hljeb/hljȅb, West Slavic (Polish, Czech, Kashubian, Slovak) chleb/chléb/chlieb < P.Slav. *xlěbъ < are all Germanic loanwords from many sundry Teutonic tongues < P.Gmc *hlaibaz.

I, too, think that it is likely the Viking Rus gave the Russian tongue the word 'khlep'.

@Jayles. hear hear!

Ive been pushing the teaching of Dutch for all primary children for years. Brits are fecking lazy, and unfortunately still well zombie-like in their unfraining(unquestioning) of Francophilia. I do a little like you, Jayles, and try and sneak a few doublets or triplets into my blogs and business correspondence. Wordstock and Wordhoard are some of my faves, others however are 'chuckleworthy, mirthmaking, middenmouthed' the list goes on, just keep trying to use the old stock, and then I suppose change is quicker than any of us think.

Well I'm not very bookish, but looking at the doing thereof, where would we begin?
Whom are you truly going to write to, using a requickened OE word? Surely not your boss or any other business-body, as one would not be understood. I have dared to use "wordstock" instead of "vocabulary" or "lexis", and that is okay because it is readily understood; but if you push OE words at me, (unknowing as I am of such), I am just bemused. What needs to happen first is that young folk are taught OE (or maybe Dutch or something) that will make these words easier to take on-board: or another way - let the news-writers and storytellers push some requickened words into their writing. Either way there would be much marketing and talking-round to do.
Has anyone thought for instance of writing something for the last side of Time magazine? something understable but somewhat Chaucerian I would lay forward.

''Well, how do new words make it into today's wordbook? Why can't Old English words be dusted off, spelled anew to meet today's standards''

Again Aengelfolc, you're speaking my speak.

Why can't Old English words be dusted ... and put back in the English wordbook?
Search me, bro'. Guess we would have to get folk to use them again first.
'hlaf' (loaf) is I think a Viking word and they went to Rus and gave them 'xlep' (khlep) which means 'bread' in modern Russian. The English term "upper-crust' meaning the aristocacy comes from the practice of the lords claiming the top of the loaf. Of course in those days bread didn't come in plastic bags from the supermarket, and McDonalds was undreamt of.

LOL funny word roots:

LADY (before year 900); M.E. ladi(e), earlier lavedi < Old English hlǣfdīge, hlǣfdige "loaf-kneader" (hlāf loaf + -dīge, -dige, variant of dǣge kneader).

LORD (before 900); M.E. lord, loverd < Old English hlāford, hlāfweard "loaf-ward".

They don't seem so kingly now, do they? ;-)

"Making up modern spellings for words that are no longer in the wordbook i think would put the writing beyond the pale and make it not understood."

Well, how do new words make it into today's wordbook? Why can't Old English words be dusted off, spelled anew to meet today's standards (Frankish *standord/*standhard) , and put back in the English wordbook?

Capricorn = Goat-Horned One

Pisces = Fishes

Taurus = The Bull

Cancer = The Crab

Gemini = The Twins

Aries = The Ram

Virgo = The Maiden

Sagittarius = The Bowman

Libra = The Scales (Old Norse skālar, Old English scealu)

All the Zodiac signs have a Germanic/English name, besides Leo (from Gk. léōn) and Scorpio (Gk. skorpíos).

Aquarius = Water Bearer

nutte = IPA /no͞ot/
note = IPA /nəʊt/

Also, English NEAT "A bull, ox, or cow" < Old English nēat (IPA: /næːɑt/) < Old English nēotan “to use”; akin to Old Norse naut, Icelandic naut (IPA /nøyːt/), East Old Norse nöt (see Swedish nötkött "beef") with the same meaning.

In my life I have dared to dream and sometimes lived my dreams.... for a while. After all we live in the age of the water-carrier! (Aquarius) So yes ... I do mark that in this neck-of-the-woods newswriters do seem to seek out good English words wherever do-able. And when we have cleaned up English we shall shift onwards to rooting our greed and wrongdoing wherever they be!

Ah, yes, but we live in times of the internet - dare to dream big! :))

Also, the 17th and 18th Century bookish folk didnt give a monkeys about messing around with spellings in some misguided belief that they were aligning spelling to its correct conclusive form. As long as the anewed words aren't forcerred by weird and wacky ideas of spelling, and stick to accepted norms, then there should be no hardship in bringing words back into use.

It all rides on whether one wishes to be understood by all and sundry; choosing good English words and steering clear of latinate ones, with perhaps a sprinkling of good English words that have fallen by the wayside but are still in the wordbook is to me about all one can ask for. Making up modern spellings for words that are no longer in the wordbook i think would put the writing beyond the pale and make it not understood.
It does make my heart ache but I fear we should stick with what can be done for the time being, rather than bringing in requickened words that few would understand.

Unfortunately the word 'benote' exists and is used as another verb to describe annotation. I dont see any problem with us deciding a spelling variant of the OE word notian, taking into account plausible sound and spelling changes to get it from ME to modern English. Sikerly, we can decide upon one or the other? Else we have to try and convince the English speaking world to change their usage of the word ' note' and 'benote' which smacks of utter impossibility.

Might I put forward "benote", that is since "use" is a yoked (transitive) verb be can clip on "be" as a forefix, and this will help cast asunder the meaning from "note" as otherwise spoke. Quite whether folk would understand the meaning of "benote" as "use" is the big ask. But it would at least make the spelling less of a moot point.
Here I sit, a lonesome meed-getter, cast upon the midden of life, nought to nuttes!

On another moot-point, I thought about benoting "foreslay" (Vorschlag) instead of suggest, but in English it sounds as though I just killed someone before they slew me!

All well and good, Jayles and thank you for doing the research bit.

However the strongest contenders/ kempers for the spelling we should adopt are still 'noot or nute' Nutte whilst possibly the closest to the original would undoubtedly be said 'nut' as this is a widely used slang term for 'head butting' then I think it would again fall victim to ambiguity.

So the question still remains: ' nute or noot ' (pron - nyoot & noot) or both and adopt one for the word enjoy and one for use? Though Im aware some dialects will pronounce the spellings identically.

Jayles:

NOTE and NUTTE (M.E. note < O.E. notian < P.Gmc. *nutōnan “to employ, make use of”; M.E. nutte < O.E. nytt "use, utility, advantage”< P.Gmc. *nutjō; akin to German nutz) did at first mean "to use". By the time of Middle English, its meaning switched to mainly mean "enjoy".

BROOK < M.E. brouken “to use, enjoy, make use of, digest food” < O.E. brūcan < Proto-Germanic *brūkanan; akin to German brauchen.

The Norman-French verb use didn't make it into English until sometime between 1175-1225, and seemingly took a while to drive out note/nutte.

"A he seide þat Bruttes neoren noht to nuttes, ah he seide þat þe Peohtes weoren gode cnihtes." — Layamon's Brut, abt. 1275

I do think 'use' is nutte, too, and may have a good why and wherefore for staying in English; it doesn't meet the 'before 1066' cut-off. ;-)

"nought to nuttes" — of no use, useless

For myself I am quite happy to get rid of "utilize", "utilization" from today's English usage; that is quite enough. One must think of the end-user and deal with all the sundry uses of the word. Furthermore "brook" is so useful in the meaning of "allow" that for me one should not sully the meaning-in-being further.

@Aengelfolc: Yeah, that's true,there are many homophones/ selfclanks in English, but before I commit to the spelling 'nute' I just want to verify with you that the sound shifts are plausible to get to this proposed spelling from ME 'noote' obviously updating OE 'notian/nyttian/neotan' would likely lead to a '-u-' spelling, particularly for 'notian' pron. 'nootyan'. We have to all yeasay before we start to 'use' it - sorry, I mean 'noot/nute' it.

If I look up "brook" or "note" online I find many meanings but not "use".
Remember "use" is deeply embedded in modern English; it's not use trying to say otherwise. It's a useful word not useless and has many uses. There I've used up nerarly all my arguments, apart from "used to " and "get used to" . Much ground to cover here.

I don't think one should fuss too much over how it is said:

blue/ blew

plane/plain

rain/reign

main/mane

time/thyme

seem/seam

team/teem

there/their

And so on, and so forth.

So, why not nute/newt?

This is fairly interesting, showing the many of the true Old English words that exist in English dialect forms.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=FeAOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA353&lpg=PA353&dq=sheeder+female+cat&source=bl&ots=0bFh6zM3X2&sig=PK2bpXtVwNuppg_lj6yINbmhUw4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=X4RKT_aeDIHJhAfe2bmuDg&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=sheeder%20female%20cat&f=false

Yeah, I'd selfly do away with the redundant 'e' at the end, and because I've seen the variant of 'noote' in ME then had it lived on into modern times, then I suppose the ending 'e' would have been eclipsed by Early Modern English spelling reform. Nute is also an option as it's like the Dutch 'nut' , the only problem is it also sounds like the amphibian, or virtually like what you do to a tom cat when it's 'haming' about the sheeders ;)

Jayles: "the wind bloweth where it listeth".

You are right. I was not aware that you had learned this stuff in school. As you know, here, 'listeth' is from O.E. lystan (P.Gmc. *lustijanan; akin to O.N. lysta), and means "desire, pleasure, joy, delight". So, "the wind blows where it desires."

In today's English we have 'listless' from this O.E./M.E. word. It shares a root with O.E. lust, and P.I.E. root with lascivious (L. lascivia).

From the Bible, "lusts of the flesh" was written to mean L. concupiscentia carnis [I John ii:16]. In other Germanic tongues though, lust means "pleasure, desire", and not "uncontrolled or illicit sexual desire or appetite", as in English.

Gallitrot:

It is known that note (meaning 'use') is Germanic; what is not known is whether or not note (meaning "to write or mark down briefly"), which is taken to be from Latin, is of a Germanic or P.I.E. root.

Byspels of note meaning 'use' are:

Gothic: niutan, Old Norse: njōta, Old English: nēotan, Old Saxon: niotan, nioʒan (8.Jh.)--`Nutz'; nōʒ (8.Jh.) > Today's German: geniessen, nützen, Nutzen, nutzen, nütze (obd. nutz) adv., Genosse.

From O.E. nēotan comes also benotian "to consume". Here are two ways that note and benote are noted:

"...amang þam feo þe we on þysum dagum notiaþ." = (in today's English) "....among the coins we use today."

"hie hæfdon...hiora mete benotodne." = (in today's English) "they had used up all their provisions."

notian= to use, benotian = to consume, make use of; brūcan = to use, bebrūcan = to use for a good purpose

noote is good, or nute, maybe?

Im seeing the word 'note' being used for the verb use. Now Ive seen that the ME spellings offer both 'note' and 'noote'. However, I find a discrepancy in how the pronunciation would be in modern English. As we don't really have a dead cert that 'note' is from Old English or Latin then this leaves the edquickening of it open to anewing the spelling, especially to stop muddling it with today's use of 'note' - so is there room for 'noot'?

Gallitrot: stimme ein. I had never consiered the lot of those who inadvertently stumble on this site.
Angelfolc: "the wind bloweth where it listeth". (from the King James bible John 3:8) I was raised on this stuff, and as you know much of it dates back to earlier translations.
OE lystan I suppose. "Der Wind blaest, wo er will."

This ME wordlist has manifold busens(examples) of Germanic words that we no longer brook:

http://www.librarius.com/gy.htm

"William de Wyvil, and Stephen de Martival, [...] armed at all points, rode up and down the lists to enforce and preserve good order among the spectators."--1819, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe

Lists n. (used with a singular or plural verb) 1.an enclosed arena for a tilting contest.
2. the barriers enclosing this arena. 3. any place or scene of combat, competition, controversy, etc. < before 900; Middle English lista, Old English līst border; cognate with Dutch lijst, German Leiste (Old High German līsta).

Idiom -- enter the lists, to involve oneself in a conflict or contest: to enter the lists against the protective tariff.

"...I wonder what became of "wechsel" in English..."

German wechsel < OHG wehsal, wehsil (akin to O.Sax. wehsal, O.N. vīxl) < P.Gmc. *wīxsl(i)a-z, -n, *wixsla-z, -n

Trending people towards true English words is wholly worth attempting, seeing as I don't think anyone has tried wholeheartedly for 200 yrs or more.

Jayles, I appreciate you picking up on all my latinate word usage, but just to set it straight, I'm looking to get my point across to not just those of us in the know, but those who stumble upon this site. Plus, for swiftness' sake and whilst we're discussing issues then I don't like to overdo it with anewed wordhoard that can complicate communication between all who partake.

Jayles:

List ("a series of names or other items written together in a meaningful grouping) is not French, it is Germanic: List < M.E. list < O.E. līste; akin to OHG līsta (today's German Leiste), Dutch lijst (Old Dutch *līsta), O.N. lista < P.Gmc. *līstōn ""border, edging, stripe".

Developed also comes from the Teutonic at its root; "the common man" = the Everyman; "purposely" >> have a mind to, mean/meant to---willful is great!

"native" >>> inborn is good. Also, in-wrought. Meaning 'aboriginal' >> first(-folk); Meaning citizen >> burgher/burgess

"in the intervening centuries" >> in-between the years-hundred (?)

"renaissance" >> (new) awakening, new dawn, but I like quickening best.

The French borrowed it as Liste, and the Italians as Lista, all from the same Germanic root. Also, lists "place of combat, tournament arena".

My 2 Marks.

"targe" is still found in Shakespear (Antony and Cleo??) meaning "shield", I think.

"paled into insignificance" >> become as bleak nothingness???
"in the intervening centuries" >> in the in-between hundreds of years ???
"introduced en masse" >> brought over in hordes ???
"the common man" >> working folk??
"developed" >> unfolded??
"native" >>> in-born??
"purposely" >> wilfully ??
just off the top of my head...

Good, we seem to be of the same mind.
I find when I am writing that I have to guess the root of the words in my head, so, for instance, "in agreement" is French, but then I have to think of that long list of Frankish borrowings. "list" is as I thought French too, although Chaucer brooks "list" as a jousting fight. And then "change" and I wonder what became of "wechsel" in English >> wristle did not make it to ME, although we have "wrestle" and "wrangle" and "wrist".
In my remarks above, I wrote "renaissance" because "rebirthing" has another meaning in today's English.
All in all, it is like learning a new tongue, scanning wonted words and thinking anew.

HERITAGE = Eng. bequest, birthright

AIM = Eng. goal

TARGET < M.E. target (bearing from M.Fr. targuete "little shield" < O. Fr. targe + et < Frankish *targa and/or O.N. targa "round shield"). The Norman sway gave the Englisc word the "-et" ending. What's crazy (O.N. krasa) is that the O.Fr. was put in stead of O.E. targe, targa, akin to O.S. targa, O.N. targa, OHG zarga, O.Ice targa (from the same P.Gmc. root, *targô/ *targōn), which is a true Englisc word.

This Teutonic word was borrowed heavily by other tongues: Italian targa, Maltese tarka, French targe/target, Spanish/Portuguese tarja/darga, adarga, O.Cat. darga, Irish/ Gaelic targaid, Lithuanian darżas, Latin tergus, Wallach targa, among others.

CHANGE = Eng. shift, switch, make-over, warp, shape, asf., which indeed hangs on what one means.

"From my standpoint..." = Eng. "The way I see it...", " As I see it...", "From where I stand/sit...", "My take is..."

FOCUS = target, spotlight, fix (on/upon), fasten, heed, hone in (on), among others, which again, leans on one's meaning.

Loans and borrowings that weren't thrust upon English owing to overthrow or sieg, are likely welcome. Those words stemming from this kind of background, however, are rightfully unwelcome.

Jayles, I am with you. I think it begins by trending folks toward taking up true English words in their everyday speech.

USE = Eng. brook, note (O.E. nēotan, notian "to use"; akin to O. Fris. note, O.N. njóta).

The other note ("something written down") is from Latin notāre < L. notō < maybe from P.Gmc.*nutō, *niutan-, *nutja-, *nutō, *nauta-, *niutia-, *nuta-n, *niutian-, *nutjōn- “use, enjoyment”, or straight from Proto-Indo-European *neud- “to acquire, make use of”, but no one is steadfast about this Latin word's roots.

Jayles, they're my feelings entirely!

As you're aware, even all the Norman French borrowings would have paled into insignificance if they hadnt been strengthened and refortified with doublet and triplet borrowings from Early Modern French and Latin in the intervening centuries. Military and medical terms, had they not been introduced en masse to dumbfound the common man and keep him in his place during the Middle Elds, would fairly undoubtedly have developed more native nomenclature or inlandish-clepingwords had they not been purposely thrutched (oppressed).

Yes the whole spelling saga is on the Wikipedia page for spelling reform; look, I would like to rid English of many latinate words which double up on living or old English ones. To get folk to take this onboard is hard enough without mudding the waters with new spellings at the same time. To me, the key hurdle is what to do about the missing wordstock, that is, OE words which didn't make it into ME and so are not even listed in today's wordbooks. The other ask is what to do about norman-french words which have become deeply embedded in our tongue: words like "change", "point out". From my standpoint (mark "point"), some of these norman-ffrench borrowings could be just taken as is: it is the later renaissance and academic borrowings straight from latin that get right up my nose. So, in my book, we must get rid of "advantage" and "disadvantage" - there are good stand-ins to hand already, such as "freme", "gain", "drawback" "upside", "downside" and so on. No let-out for not using them. Every tongue has borrowings, we should keep the few celtic words such as "carry" as they are part of our "hand-me-down" (heritage), and so too words such as "coach" (hung) and "horde" , other words borrowed, often by seamen in their seafaring. Of course we can never get rid of all those latinates, forewhy there are tens of thousands of workplace (technical) words which come from latin. We just need to focus, target, aim, (oh give me an English word) at the oft-brooked latinate words like "vocabulary" (wordstock) and seek to bring forward their use among folk.

@Jayles, the Germans only got p*ssed off with the Rechtschreibung 'cause it was coming in too thick and fast. A few years ago, German said to me 'wow, you know the spelling reforms better than I '' that does not bode well for any reform when the natives don't get it.
The American spellings were only successful 'in part' because Webster fortuitously lived around the time of post independent patriotism. I actually think more of his spelling reforms would have had greater effect if he'd stuck to the words where it bore out that pronunciation was indeed no way affected by lobbing off the odd U here and there. Unfortunately, he got a bee in his bonnet about single and double letters which meant the logic of words like 'committing' became 'commiting' in his eyes, and everyone knows a mite is not something you want to get together with. However, in his defence, the man researched all his etymologies from English dialect origins through to the fashions of gentrification and affected speech. Unlike Dr S Johnson who was a pompous bigoted gobsh*te.

comprehensive ->> all-enfolding,
or perhaps "sweeping"
re spelling: several attempts at reforming spelling have been made; only the "American" spellings have stuck. Even the Germans rose up against spelling changes.

Regarding eth and thorn, I agree: they should be restored (ednewed?). In fact, I think that they should stand for separate sounds: eth standing for the 'hard' th-sound (z.B. 'these') and thorn standing for the 'soft' th-sound (z.B. 'things'). I think Icelandic does things that way.

Another possibility is to follow Tolkien's example. Tolkien, in his Elvish languages, used 'th' for the 'soft' th-sound, and 'dh' for the 'hard' th-sound.

Thinking about onefold, it seems to me that 'manifold' is a great English word that doesn't get enough work! It is a wonderful "catchall", I think.

numerous = manifold
varied = manifold
comprehensive = manifold

And so on...

anfaldly

BTW, I did not know what "qapla" meant until Gallitrot wrote that it is a word from "Klingon".

Interesting writing about yogh http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A22808243

I am all for eth (Ð, ð) and thorn (Þ, þ) coming back into English: þey rightfully belong þere.

I'm with Aengelfolc on this one, updating is necessary for the mammoth task of again flooding English with fremeful and useful words of native stock. Of course, we should concentrate on the resurrection of words lost in the late ME and EME periods, as their spellings require little reshaping. Y/ G for Yogh spellings are irrelevant at present, as we're stuck with an internationally recognised Latin structured alphabet, though, in time I believe Eth and Thorn would be highly useful additions as they offer nice clarification concerning pronunciation differences in words like 'think' and 'these', and would save me a fortune on SMS message abbreviation. The crux of the issue still remains the meeting of like minds determined to edquicken the unnecessary loss of wordhoard over the ages.

*sad wrongs done our tongue...

@Anwulf, I appreciate your example of 'qapla' being used as a just argument for not using made up words, but falls down on one key point. Klingon is an entirely fabricated language! Whereas 'Anewed English' , if you will, is based wholly on real words used by real folk. It serves only to update and surmise the pronunciation outcome of a wordhoard that has been neglected, ousted and fallen out of use for nearly 1000yrs. It also only attempts transduce the old shrift form into a widely intelligible Latin based one that native speakers can access. The learning of Klingon will always remain a whimsical social exercise with no other purpose for learning it than that of fan-dom. It cannot (unlike Old English based words) reconstruct, benefit, befit or behoove English cultural ideas of language identity or the sad fact wrongs done our tongue by 300years of tyrannical usurpation.

The yogh was a ME staf. Don't assume that the LWS dialect was standard. It wasn't ... otherwise we wouldn't hav some words that gainsay this "rule" about "g" = "y" before "e" or "i" or "c" = "ch" before or after "e" or "i". Nonetheless, there is no reasum to be beholden to a pronunciation that has died out. Many times one can be truthful to the spelling or the LWS dialect, but not both (sometimes neither) ... in those times which is better? I go with the spelling when I can do so ... anfaldly (simply) owing to the word is in the wordbook and I can give the link.

AFAIK, seyer doesn't stand aside from a book like Cowley's or maybe on the Anglish Moot (AM). As I said, if yu link to the AM, folks will say that yu'r making it up. If yu link to Wiktionary or to an OE (or ME) wordbook, then all they can say is that it is archaic or obsolete. Seyer looks nothing like its root ... it looks like someone pulled it out of thin air ... might as well note qapla'! (More folks kno that word!)

Sigor >> Danish Sejr >> Norwegian Seier >> Old English siġe (said, "/ˈsije/) >> So, why not write Seyer, Sieyer, Syer, Siyer or something like this? Unless... the yogh (ȝ) could come back, which could be written for y (/j/); it is from the Old English 'g' (Gyfu rune) after all. Well, I guess it could be mistaken for a small 'z', too.

Both gyfu and Latin g in Old English were said /j/ before "sung-bookstaves" (vowels) in the first stead > "year" was written as 'gear'; if was ȝif, and ear was ȝhere. It was the Old Norse sway that muddled the g (/j/) and g (/g/) in English, which made the way for hard g and y.

@ jayles ... 1.) Yes, sieg is far better known, but, as yu said, it has a dark side and it has the befuddling orthography ... does "ie" = "ee" or a 'ī' as in tie? That is why I would spell it as seeg. However, the word "sig" stands. I think "sigor" would be a good fit for "victor".

2.) True. But then folks understand victory and not sig. In that line of thinking, wh bother at all since folks understand the Latinates. The forefast "ed-" was unneededily besteaded by the Latin forefast "re-" in many words, to inhold edquicken:

edcwic (adjectiv) - revived, restored to life (edquick)
edcwician (verb) - to re-quicken, revive (edquicken)

3.) I yeasay. It's much better when one can link to a wordbook.

@Gallitrot ... That's why I note the spelling thane. The sometimes g=y of OE orthography is mostly unknown to most English speakers today so they see "thegn" and are befuddled. They're not sure if the g is serving to mark the vowel long as in sigh or if the g should be said in a consonant cluster or both ... which is why yur friend tried theegn. BTW, thein/þein is found in ME would be better than thegn to help folks say the word (or theyn) if not for thane. However, writers like thegn and it keeps popping up every now and then.

In other cases, the edquickened word is said with a hard g ... like gemoot.

Hey Jayles, wade in by all means...

Ed- is the correct Old English form of re- which is from French... and because they're both two letters long then you're not losing brevity in the process of shifting one to the other. And anyway, every new word or reintroduction if you will has a certain amount of 'gibberish' factor till it catches on, for instance in the last 10-20 yrs 'earworm', 'bling', 'google' all unintelligible to people before widely trending and becoming part of everyday speech. So 'edquicken' can happily run alongside 'enliven' 'reinvigorate' 'resurrect' etc till it either does or doesnt catch on. For me that's the beauty and eathness of this new fangled t'interweb witchcraft ;)

Far be it from me to weigh in here but ...
1) Sieg is perhaps better known than "sigor' ... try googling it... though to be fair it has a dark side to it.
2) Who is Ed? "edquikened??" However most people would understand "re-quickened".
I think you need to use words that are still in "the dictionary" to be understood by all and sundry. Otherwise it will all be gibberish.

I know where you're coming from with the made up words accusations scenario. However, I do think a fair amount of the old spelling in Old English would have to be updated for the word to be accessible in its edquickening phase. Sure, sigor isn't such a problem and would be easy to get the mouth round. But I know for a fact since a friend asked me how to pronounce ''thegn'' that he sounded like a right numpty trying ''theggin, theegna'' etc... Anglish may be open to accusations of being a 'made up' tongue, however it leaves itself wide open as all kinds of folk use hybrid German, Dutch, Swedish words...plus the director of the site doesn't even see Anglish as a gateway to the resurrection of original native words. I seem to recall it being written somewhere that the site was purely a social experiment. Lame! is what I say, frigging lame!

Almost always it is better to note a standing word ... even an old one (I call them old-logisms when folks ask me). At least you can giv them a link. If yu point them to the Anglish Moot ... they'll just say that yu're making words up and that it is nothing more than a con-lang (constructed language) like Klingon. (Even Qapla' has earned an entry.)

So if yu like "sigor" ... then go forth and benote it! Qapla'!

Actually, you might have struck upon something there. SIGOR has lovely little mnemonics about its spelling which remind people of the word 'victORy', and 'victOR' plus in the form sigor then no one in Britain would think of the oft used abbreviation 'cig' for a cigarette, which naturally is a baneful homophone next to 'sig'

... better to use 'hue'.

Using the word 'color' or 'colour' is a nod to the French, full stop - as they're both variants from the same language just with different spelling chronology. And let's be honest, I'm hardly going to use the Webster's spelling dictates am I?! XD

If yu want to note sigor, why change the spelling? Note it as is.

Anent color ... while color is a Latinate, the "colour" spelling is from Old French. Every time one notes "colour", one is giving homage to the French.

1824, A Complete and Universal English Dictionary, p814
SIG, used in compounds, is derived from sig, victory. Sax. Thus Sigward implies a victorious preserver.

1826, Etymons of English Words, p195
SIG, in forming the names of great warriors, … S. sig, victory, a victorious man; as Sigismund, protector of victory; Sigward, warden of conquest; Sigard, victorious disposition

I see no good grounds why sye and sig couldn't be used interchangeably or with slight variances in meaning. The main problem we face with all reintroductions is making the words trendy enough to catch on, and finding a universal spelling that can be agreed upon and adhered to. As daft as it may be, but Americans and British are never going to unify their spelling in words we already have because the differences emblazon nationalistic traits that each nation's folkhood are loath to yield to - so forever we're to be tortured with color and colour... that's where German really has done itself a lot of favours by standardising sounds to set combinations of letters, aside from them pishing about with the Rechtschreibung every few years, that is, but otherwise a great boon.

Actually, guys, if you were to suggest an updated spelling for 'sigor' what would it be?

2005, Diana L. Paxson, “Taking Up The Runes" page 172:
The Anglo-Saxon journey charm adapted for the ritual invokes "sig" power for every aspect of existence. / It is unfortunate that all the words surviving in English that could be used to translate sig have Latin roots, for it would seem that in the original languages, sig may have had connotations that are not present in words like "triumph" and "victory."

-
While the pronunciation should be seeg ... most folks will say sǐg ... like fig. I'm ok with that. There's a story behind the etymology of the nowadays "sig" it's not straight from OE sige which is why the pronunciation should be seeg like German Sieg. But nowadays orthography being what it is, English speakers will lean towards sig like fig if they don't know and most won't. Not a big deal to me.

I like the OE sige and sigor ... I think sigor would hav been the easier one to bring forward had it been needed. But I wontedly choose a standing word over edquickening an old one or making one up. Sig stands. So for me, sig it is!

At Ængelfolc ... Sige, siᵹe, and sy are found in ME. ... Seo streongðe & se *sige* wearð þæs cynges.
Machabeus..oferwan his feond, & beð for þi isette his *sigefesta* (victorious) dæda on ðam bocum on bibliothecan Gode to wurðmente.

The problem with the g (and the c) is that they hav had to do twofold work from the beginning. Even in New English, they're problems. Is the g hard as in get or soft as in general? Is the c hard as in can or soft as in Caesar? Without recorded media, how would folks from 1,000 years from now kno? So for the words that didn't make it to NE, we can't say with 100% gewiss that we kno how it would be said. It's a best guess.

But for our needs, I don't think it truly matters how the Saxons said it since we're not going to speaking with Saxons and so many other words hav changed over the years. The pronunciation for maegth (mægþ) in the OED is sunder than than the Saxon way ( Brit. /magθ/, /meɪθ/, U.S. /mægθ/, /meɪθ/). So even tho mægen is now main ... there's no reasum why we can't make a doublet out it by edquickening mægen as maegen (said like the name Maegen) for the word power (which is what it meant in OE!).

Yeah, cheers Aengelfolc, I'm well aware of the yogh, just can't be arsed seeking out the symbol everytime I want to write 'sige' ;) But my frain wasn't concerning sige, it is the significance of the word 'sig' which was given. Like I said, I'd be happier using 'sye' from 'sige', rather than Cowley's 'seyer' from 'sigor', now that I know of its existence.

Regarding the forsaking of 'sige' , you know how it goes, a whole clump of jumped up pompous idiots 'tween the 14th and 17th Centuries all extolling the virtues of 'victory' from some antiquated Latin word, not to mention its neat -y suffix making it eath to rhyme it in ditties and in flattering court song when supposedly professing the 'great victories' of some arrogant Norman tw*t of a king.

Gallitrot:

O.E. siġe was written with a yogh (ȝ) as siȝe in Mid.E. See page 547 in "A Middle-English dictionary: containing words used by English writers from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth century" by Francis Henry Stratmann, revised by Henry Bradley. The word is also found in the Middle English poem, Layamon's Brut.

The word is also found in many Teutonic-English names. As for why it was forsaken, or when, I do not rightly know. I'll have to do some digging!