[HN Gopher] A Language of Beautiful Impurity
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       A Language of Beautiful Impurity
        
       Author : nafnlj
       Score  : 40 points
       Date   : 2024-10-07 21:51 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.edwest.co.uk)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.edwest.co.uk)
        
       | pavlov wrote:
       | By the title I assumed this might be about C.
        
       | kej wrote:
       | This reminds me of Poul Anderson's "Uncleftish Beholding" [1]
       | which is an attempt to explain atomic science without words
       | derived from French, Latin, and Greek.
       | 
       | [1] https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/110/docs/uncleftish-
       | beh...
        
         | capitainenemo wrote:
         | BTW, as the wikipedia page notes, Poul was unable to completely
         | remove french, since several words he needed had no modern
         | english equivalent derived from the anglo-saxon.
        
           | mistermann wrote:
           | The Experts have something to say about Poul's theory (I
           | would gleefully take his side of the argument though):
           | 
           | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
        
         | falcor84 wrote:
         | Wow, that's even harder to understand than Randall Monroe's
         | Thing Explainer [0].
         | 
         | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_Explainer
        
         | qsort wrote:
         | When you write a whole essay like that it's more than a bit
         | ridiculous, but the same idea on a smaller scale can work very
         | well rhetorically. For example, take this section from
         | Churchill's notorious speech:
         | 
         |  _We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing
         | grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we
         | shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender._
         | 
         | every word except "surrender" has an Anglo-Saxon root.
        
         | 082349872349872 wrote:
         | For the opposite experience, try Europanto:
         | http://www.europanto.be/cabillot1.html
        
       | tempodox wrote:
       | > In this world, lamentation is sorrowword, unanimous becomes
       | sameheart and acceptable is replaced with thankworthy. The US
       | Declaration of Independence would be the 'Forthspell of Selfdom'
       | while Alcoholics Anonymous renamed as The Unnamed Overdrinkers.
       | 
       | > In Anglish, theology would be godlore. rhetoric is speechcraft.
       | doctors would be healers, journalists newsmen, and status-
       | signalling would be rankmarking. A rodent is a gnawdeer while a
       | comedian is a laughtersmith.
       | 
       | Exquisite. What a loss that those aren't common now.
        
       | davedx wrote:
       | As a English native and Dutch speaker, many of the Anglish words
       | translate directly into Dutch, somewhat unsurprisingly.
       | "Gnawdeer" is indeed "knaagdier" in Dutch, a very cute word I
       | always find. :)
        
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