Linguistic purism Linguistic purism or linguistic protectionism is the prescriptive practice of defining or recognizing one variety of a language as being purer or of intrinsically higher quality than other varieties. Linguistic purism was institutionalized ...

in English involves opposition to foreign influence in the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...

. English has evolved with a great deal of borrowing from other languages, especially

Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intel ...

, since the

Norman conquest of England The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conqu ...

, and some of its native vocabulary and grammar have been supplanted by features of

Latinate Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

and

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

origin. Efforts to remove or consider the removal of foreign terms in English are often known as Anglish, a term coined by author and humorist Paul Jennings in 1966. English linguistic purism has persisted in diverse forms since the inkhorn term controversy of the early modern period. In its mildest form, purism stipulates the use of native terms instead of loanwords. In stronger forms, new words are coined from Germanic roots (such as '' wordstock'' for ''vocabulary'') or revived from older stages of English (such as '' shrithe'' for ''proceed''). Noted purists of

Early Modern English Early Modern English or Early New English (sometimes abbreviated EModE, EMnE, or ENE) is the stage of the English language from the beginning of the Tudor period to the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transition from Middle E ...

include

John Cheke Sir John Cheke (or Cheek) (16 June 1514 – 13 September 1557) was an English classical scholar and statesman. One of the foremost teachers of his age, and the first Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge, he played a great ...

, Thomas Wilson,

Ralph Lever Ralph Lever, D.D. was an English Anglican priest in the 16th century. He died between 1580 and 1585. Lever was educated at St John's College, Oxford, receiving his bachelor's degree in 1547-48, before receiving his doctorate from Cambridge Un ...

Richard Rowlands Richard Rowlands, born Richard Verstegan (c. 1550 – 1640), was an Anglo- Dutch antiquary, publisher, humorist and translator. Verstegan was born in East London the son of a cooper; his grandfather, Theodore Roland Verstegen, was a refugee f ...

, and

Nathaniel Fairfax Nathaniel Fairfax (1637–1690) was an English divine and physician. Life Fairfax was born on 24 July 1637, the third and youngest son of Benjamin Fairfax, the ejected incumbent of Rumburgh, Suffolk, by his wife Sarah, daughter of Roger and Jo ...

. Modern linguistic purists include

William Barnes William Barnes (22 February 1801 – 7 October 1886) was an English polymath, writer, poet, philologist, priest, mathematician, engraving artist and inventor. He wrote over 800 poems, some in Dorset dialect, and much other work, including a co ...

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...

Gerard Manley Hopkins Gerard Manley Hopkins (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous fame placed him among leading Victorian poets. His prosody – notably his concept of sprung rhythm – established him as an innova ...

Elias Molee Elias Molee (January 3, 1845 – September 27, 1928) was an American journalist, philologist and linguist. Background Elias Molee was born in Muskego, Wisconsin, the son of John Evenson Molie and Anne Jacobson Einong. The original spelling of ...

Percy Grainger Percy Aldridge Grainger (born George Percy Grainger; 8 July 188220 February 1961) was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist who lived in the United States from 1914 and became an American citizen in 1918. In the course of a long an ...

, and

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalit ...

History

Middle English

English words gave way to borrowings from

Anglo-Norman Anglo-Norman may refer to: *Anglo-Normans, the medieval ruling class in England following the Norman conquest of 1066 *Anglo-Norman language **Anglo-Norman literature *Anglo-Norman England, or Norman England, the period in English history from 1066 ...

following the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conq ...

as English lost ground as a language of prestige. Anglo-Norman was used in schools and dominated literature, nobility and higher life, leading a wealth of French loanwords to enter English over the course of several centuries—English only returned to courts of law in 1362, and to government in the following century. In spite of this, some texts of early

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old Englis ...

engaged in linguistic purism, deliberately avoiding excessive Anglo-Norman influence. Layamon's ''Brut'', composed in the late 12th or early 13th century, espoused several features of Old English poetic style and used a predominantly Anglo-Saxon vocabulary.Ackerman, Robert W. (1966) '' Backgrounds to Medieval English Literature''. 1st. New York: Random House, Inc. ''

Ancrene Wisse ''Ancrene Wisse'' (also known as the ''Ancrene Riwle'' or ''Guide for Anchoresses'') is an anonymous monastic rule (or manual) for female anchoresses written in the early 13th century. The work consists of eight parts: divine service, keeping th ...

'', of the same era, allowed for French and Old Norse loans but maintained conservative spelling and syntax to keep with Old English. '' Ayenbite of Inwyt'', a Kentish translation of a French treatise on morality written about a century later, used

calques In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language whi ...

in avoidance of borrowing from French.

Early Modern English

Controversy over inkhorn terms—foreign loanwords perceived to be needless—persisted in the 16th and 17th centuries. Among others, Thomas Elyot, a neologizer, borrowed extensively from abroad in support of "the necessary augmentation" of English. Linguistic purists such as

opposed this borrowing in favor of keeping English "unmixt and unmangled". Thomas Wilson, a contemporary of Cheke, criticized borrowing from foreign languages as seeking an "outlandish English".

Modern English

With the influx of new industrial and scientific terms from Greek and Latin, linguistic purism saw renewed interest in the 19th century.

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

statesman

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...

observed in an 1825 letter that "a taste is reviving in England for the recovery of the Anglo-Saxon dialect".

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , ...

poet, minister, and philologist

coined several words to promote "strong old Anglo-Saxon speech", including '' speechcraft'' for ''grammar'', '' birdlore'' for ''ornithology'', and '' bendsome'' for ''flexible''. Poet

discussed Barnes in an 1882 letter to

Robert Bridges Robert Seymour Bridges (23 October 1844 – 21 April 1930) was an English poet who was Poet Laureate from 1913 to 1930. A doctor by training, he achieved literary fame only late in life. His poems reflect a deep Christian faith, and he is ...

, lamenting the "utter hopelessness" of Barnes's purism but nonetheless writing in support of it, claiming that "no beauty in a language can make up for want of purity".

emphasized the importance of Germanic elements of English during this period, stressing that a writer should not "seek abroad" for new words. The fifth rule of vocabulary in ''

The King's English ''The King's English'' is a book on English usage and grammar. It was written by the brothers Henry Watson Fowler and Francis George Fowler and published in 1906; it thus predates by twenty years '' Modern English Usage'', which was written by ...

'', published in 1917, suggests that writers should "prefer the Saxon word to the Romance". In his 1946 essay "

Politics and the English Language "Politics and the English Language" (1946) is an essay by George Orwell that criticised the "ugly and inaccurate" written English of his time and examined the connection between political orthodoxies and the debasement of language. The essay ...

criticized the extensive use of "foreign" words in English.

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal A ...

composer

, a contemporary of Orwell, invented a "blue-eyed English" that he perceived to be linguistically pure and preferred the use of English words in the place of traditional Italian music terms. One year after Grainger's death, philologist Lee Hollander emphasized in his 1962 translation of the ''

Poetic Edda The ''Poetic Edda'' is the modern name for an untitled collection of Old Norse anonymous narrative poems, which is distinct from the ''Prose Edda'' written by Snorri Sturluson. Several versions exist, all primarily of text from the Icelandic med ...

''—a collection of

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...

poems—that "Germanic material must be drawn upon to the utmost extent ... because of the tang and flavor still residing in the homelier indigenous speech material". Paul Jennings coined the term "Anglish" in a three-part series in ''

Punch Punch commonly refers to: * Punch (combat), a strike made using the hand closed into a fist * Punch (drink), a wide assortment of drinks, non-alcoholic or alcoholic, generally containing fruit or fruit juice Punch may also refer to: Places * Pu ...

'' commemorating the 900th anniversary of the

. Jennings's articles, entitled "1066 and All Saxon" and published in June 1966, envisioned an England in which the conquest had failed and included linguistically pure English passages; Jennings gave "a bow to

" as an inspiration. In 1989,

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

writer

Poul Anderson Poul William Anderson (November 25, 1926 – July 31, 2001) was an American fantasy and science fiction author who was active from the 1940s until the 21st century. Anderson wrote also historical novels. His awards include seven Hugo Awards and ...

released a similarly-written text about basic

atomic theory Atomic theory is the scientific theory that matter is composed of particles called atoms. Atomic theory traces its origins to an ancient philosophical tradition known as atomism. According to this idea, if one were to take a lump of matter ...

called ''

Uncleftish Beholding "Uncleftish Beholding" (1989) is a short text by Poul Anderson, included in his anthology "All One Universe". It is designed to illustrate what English might look like without its large number of loanwords from languages such as French, Greek, an ...

'' composed almost fully of Germanic-rooted words. In 1997,

Douglas Hofstadter Douglas Richard Hofstadter (born February 15, 1945) is an American scholar of cognitive science, physics, and comparative literature whose research includes concepts such as the sense of self in relation to the external world, consciousness, a ...

jokingly entitled the style "Ander-Saxon". The September 2009 publication ''How We'd Talk if the English had Won in 1066'' by David Cowley updates Old English words to today's English spelling, seeking mainstream appeal by covering words in five grades ranging from "easy" to "weird and wonderful" and giving many examples of use with drawings and tests.

Paul Kingsnorth Paul Kingsnorth (born 1972) is an English writer who lives in the west of Ireland. He is a former deputy-editor of ''The Ecologist'' and a co-founder of the Dark Mountain Project. Kingsnorth's nonfiction writing tends to address macro themes l ...

's 2014 '' The Wake'' is written in a hybrid of

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...

and Modern English to account for its 1066 milieu, and Edmund Fairfax's 2017 satiric literary novel ''Outlaws'' is similarly written in a "constructed" form of English consisting almost exclusively of words of Germanic origin. An online newsletter called ''The Anglish Times'' has regularly reported on current events without non-Germanic borrowed words since January 2021.

References

{{English dialects by continent Forms of English

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

English nationalism Germanic languages History of the English language

History

Middle English

Early Modern English

Modern English

See also

References