Anglish- A ramble to heal the cry of a forgotten language.
Ok, I must confess two things. One, that is not how I phrased the Subtitle, and two, I had to use an English to Anglish converter.
The introduction sentence is Anglish, the original language. My sentence I originally wrote is below using words from other languages that have been adopted into the English language. You can see the difference.
Anglish- A journey to recover the voice of a forgotten language.
So a few blogs back I wrote about the elimination of languages and the elimination of cultures. My mindset was Gaelic and Cherokee and Aboriginal languages and cultures. But English? I would have never even thought about it.
It wasn't until someone messaged me and said, "hey look into Anglish, it may be something you could convey to the interest of your readers' ', that I even thought about looking into it. Once I did, I was struck with the idea that the most spoken language in the world, by 1,452,000,000 people, is not the original English language. So here we go, another opportunity for me to be a voice to the forgotten voices of history and a disappearing culture.
English is originally a West Germanic language that was brought to Britain in the 5th to 7th centuries. Anglo-Saxon migrants came from Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands and settled in the British Isles. Old English was a reflection of various origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms established in different parts of Britain.
But after the Norman Conquest of 1066, words from other languages started replacing the Old English vocabulary. Languages such as Latin, Greek,French and many others started influencing the change in the English vocabulary.
Today only 20-30% of the English language is Old English. 28% of the words used today come from the French language and another 28% from Latinate. And then several other small percentages from other languages. And it appears that the trend of the changing English language continues as our societies and cultures continue to forget the origins of who we are.
However, there have always been those who speak out as a voice to call upon the remembrance of who we are and were. The remembrance of our Ancestors who sat at a fire speaking tales of the past to guide us to the future. Old English is no exception and that brings us to Anglish.
The word Anglish is attributed to first being used by journalist Paul Jennings in 1966. According to Dictionary.com, Anglish, is a version of the English language that uses only words and roots of Anglo-Saxon or German origin and excludes its borrowings from Latin and other languages.
It's a form of Linguistic Purism or basically the opposition to foreign influence in the English language. It is a movement to keep the language of Old English and the culture it came from alive.
It is very important that we remember our ancestors and cultures, not to just keep the culture alive, but to learn who we are. We are all different people from different lands and different languages. But we are all humans, and should love each other and respect the culture and differences each person brings to the world whether it be Gaelic, Cherokee or Anglish. I strongly believe that we can't know who we are, until we know where we came from. We have to learn what our Ancestors taught when they told the stories at the fire. And guess what, when they told them it wasn't in a language we know today, it was the original language of the culture. I think we would have to know that to know what they are speaking.
Anglish or Old English is not going to be easy to learn. Anyone who has tried to read a King James Bible can tell you that. But it is important to try, important to learn the language our ancestors spoke. There are several groups out there such as https://anglish.org with the goal of bringing Anglish to the attention of the world. I encourage you that if it is your ancestry, reach out to them and learn. Having a large part of this shell come from England, it is part of my ancestry, just like the Scottish, Irish and Scandinavian. It is a part of me. Now I'm curious to learn more about the Anglo-Saxons and the Old English they spoke. Now I want to explore the world of Anglish more. Now I have found another forgotten and unheard culture to help be the voice for.
Blessings
By Michael Walters
The Ancestor's Fire
Writing the voice of the unheard.
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