What is Anglish?

The aim of Anglish/New-English is:

English with fewer words borrowed from other languages.

But beyond this ambition, there is a wide range of personal interpretations of what constitutes Anglish (New-English). Some may only wish to write making the best of such true English words as are available, avoiding borrowed words where possible, but accepting them where needed. Others may wish to take out all those borrowed words, and where there is no existing alternative true English word, to invent a wholly new word to go in its stead. These are perhaps the two most widely differing views on the Anglish/New-English project, and there exist many possible interpretations between them, hanging on a writer's personal view.

Below are some of the more commonly asked questions regarding the Anglish/New-English project, but they are by no means exhaustive. Hopefully, the answers are informative enough to be useful, but short enough to be easily read.

What is the goal of the Anglish/New-English project?
The goal of the Anglish/New-English project differs from person to person, but mostly it is to explore and experiment with book-idiom English language (Ancillary World English - Ancwe). This exploration is driven for some by aesthetics, for others by cultural needs, and yet for others it is purely an interesting diversion or pastime. Language plays a big role in our lives, so to be able to play with that language, and shape it to our own needs or wants is very important. For this reason, writing or talking in true English is a positive end in itself, in as much as it provides an other outlet for this need.

But there is also the further idea that Anglish/New-English is a recognition and a celebration of the English part of modern Latinized book idiom English (Ancillary world English - Ancwe). For, although it has borrowed thousands and thousands of words throughout its life, there still exists an English core to book idiom English (Ancwe), the most important everyday words which no sentence or uttering could manage without. By stripping away the layers of borrowings, Anglish/New-English lets us better appreciate that core and the role it plays in our language.

How does one know which words are English and which are borrowed?
The best way to find out where a word comes from is to look it up in a dictionary. Most decent desktop dictionaries will include short etymologies for many of their entries, which give a little knowledge of where the word arose from, and how it was used or written in the past. Some online dictionaries have this knowledge as well, such as the Oxford English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Dictionary.com and Wiktionary. There are also dictionaries dedicated to word etymologies, which are a goldmine for knowledge about English words. The Online Etymology Dictionary is perhaps the best available online.

But these will only tell from where and when a word came into book idiom English (Ancwe), but not whether it should be thought 'borrowed'. Some immensely old and very basic words, such as 'cup' and 'mill', are indeed borrowed from Latin, yet nobody would say these words are not English. Conversely, words like 'thaumaturgy' and 'intelligentsia' are clearly not of English origin, and have been borrowed relatively lately.

Where to draw the line between English and 'borrowed' is yet an other area of personal choosing, and there are many views on this among Anglish/New-English proponents. A very broad rule says that anything borrowed from French, Latin and Greek in the last eight hundred years should be thought borrowed. A more discerning view would say that any word which was brought into English to fill a genuine need or gap in vocabulary should be kept, but those words borrowed to "adorn" or "enrich" the language but in reality push out existing words, should be weeded.

Are there truly that many borrowed words in book idiom English?
Yes. book idiom English (Ancillary World English - Ancwe) is renowned for having borrowed so many words from different languages over the last thousand years. The core of book idiom English is Germanic, but only about 25% of the words in book idiom English today derive from such a root, and that includes those of Norse, Dutch, German and others, as well as English. That may sound like many, one in every four words, but not so much when one thinks that Latin and French each account for 29% of the book idiom English vocabulary. Greek yields an other 6% of words, with the last 10% being from other languages, derived from personal names, or simply unknown.

However, as mentioned earlier, the core of the book idiom English language still mostly consists of English words, which makes an undertaking like Anglish/New-English possible.

When a word is taken out from book idiom English (Ancwe), where do replacement words come from?
There are many roots for words to replace those which have been removed from book idiom English (Ancillary World English - Ancwe). Sometimes, a word which is removed will have a commonly known English synonym already present. Words like 'quotidian' and 'illegal' can easily be switched for 'everyday' and 'unlawful' without losing meaning or intelligibility. When there is not a readily available English word to be used, a new word must be found or made. Some old or obscure words can be brought back to life and reused; new words can be calqued from Ancwe/book idiom English morphemes using the old word's pattern; other times wholly new words, "neologisms," can be put together from existing words and affixes. None of these methods are right or wrong, but each has its stead in making a wide and varied lexicon for Anglish/New-English, and each is used according to the context and particular needs of a word.

Where did the name Anglish come from?
It seems to have arisen from some articles published in 1966 in the British satirical magazine Punch. Writer Paul Jennings included some examples of the 'Anglish language'.

Is Anglish a new idea?
Definitely not. Modern ideas about New-English started around the mid-1800s with William Barnes, the Dorset dialect poet. He reasoned that if English words were nearer to everyday speech, then the language as a whole would be easier to understand for the average speaker of book idiom English. He published a book along these lines, and gave some suggestions for new words which could be used to replace some of the more difficult borrowed words.

But even before Barnes, there were a number of people who pursued a similar idea. Possibly the earliest of all was Orm, a monk from Lincolnshire, who wrote a collection of homilies around 1180. He explicitly tried to write only using language that would be understood by a normal English congregation of his time. His work is mostly in English, with very few Latin- and French-derived words. His book could be thought of as the first model of 'Anglish', though that might be pushing it a little!

I'm interested. Where do I go from here?
The best deed is to read what the Anglish Moot is about, and then take a look at some of the information and resources that the Moot already has. If you want to contribute, make a user account, and get writing!

How come this article is not written in Anglish/New English?
Not all pages at the Anglish Moot are written in New-English. Sometimes, particularly when mooting the Anglish project itself, it's perfectly acceptable to write in book idiom English/Ancwe. The idea is that articles are either about the Anglish project or in New-English, but they don't have to be both.

This article, though, assumes the reader has little or no knowledge of New-English, and so writing it in New-English would be rather selfdefeating.