Anglish

Anglish is a form of constrained writing in English in which words with Greek, Latin, and Romance roots are replaced by Germanic ones. (See etymology.)

Related Topics:
Constrained writing - English - Greek - Latin - Romance - Germanic - Etymology

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In 1966, Paul Jennings wrote a number of articles in Punch in Anglish, to commemorate the 900th anniversary of the Norman Conquest . He gave "a bow to William Barnes, the Dorset poet-philologist". The pieces included a sample of Shakespeare's writing as it might have been if William the Conqueror had never succeeded:

Related Topics:
Paul Jennings - Punch - Norman Conquest - William Barnes - Dorset - Poet - Philologist - Shakespeare - William the Conqueror

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:To be, or not to be: that is the ask-thing:

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:is't higher-thinking in the brain to bear

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:the slings and arrows of outrageous dooming

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:or to take weapons 'gainst a sea of bothers

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:and by againstwork end them?...

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(The fact that outrageous is actually of Romance origin (it is from Old French outrageus) seems to have escaped Jennings's attention.)

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The Australian composer Percy Grainger adopted a similar language, which he called "blue-eyed English", for his letters and musical manuscripts.

Related Topics:
Australian - Percy Grainger

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The name Ander-Saxon is used for scientific or technical writing and was coined in 1992 by Douglas R. Hofstadter as a pun on Anglo-Saxon, with a reference to science-fiction author Poul Anderson. Anderson introduced the form in his article "Uncleftish Beholding," a treatise on atomic theory written in Ander-Saxon. (Interestingly, "ander" is the German word for "other".) Here is a quotation:

Related Topics:
Douglas R. Hofstadter - Anglo-Saxon - Science-fiction - Poul Anderson - Atomic theory - German

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:The firststuffs have their being as motes called unclefts. These are mighty small: one seedweight of waterstuff holds a tale of them like unto two followed by twenty-two naughts. Most unclefts link together to make what are called bulkbits. Thus, the waterstuff bulkbit bestands of two waterstuff unclefts, the sourstuff bulkbit of two sourstuff unclefts, and so on. (Some kinds, such as sunstuff, keep alone; others, such as iron, cling together in chills when in the fast standing; and there are yet more yokeways.) When unlike unclefts link in a bulkbit, they make bindings. Thus, water is a binding of two waterstuff unclefts with one sourstuff uncleft, while a bulkbit of one of the forestuffs making up flesh may have a thousand or more unclefts of these two firststuffs together with coalstuff and chokestuff.

Related Topics:
Firststuffs - Motes - Unclefts - Seedweight - Waterstuff - Bulkbits - Sourstuff - Sunstuff - Chills - Fast - Standing - Yokeways - Forestuffs - Coalstuff - Chokestuff

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The techniques he uses include:

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• coinages ("firststuff" for "element");
• replacements ("motes" for "particles");
• calques from the original language ("uncleft" from "atom" – Greek a- not + temnein to cut)
• calques from German ("waterstuff" and "sourstuff" for the German Wasserstoff and Sauerstoff, themselves approximate calques of the neo-greek "hydrogen" and "oxygen" — ‘υδρ–, "water" and ’οξυ–, "sharp" + –γεν–, from a verb for creation or production).
 
Anglish: Bibliography ►