Anglo-Saxon linguistic purism is a kind of English linguistic purism, which favors words of native (Anglic, West Germanic) origin over those of foreign (mainly Romanic, Latin and Greek) origin. In its mild form, it merely means using existing native words instead of foreign ones. In its more extreme form, it involves coining new words from Germanic roots and/or reviving native words that are no longer used. The resulting language is sometimes called Anglish (after Paul Jennings 1966) or Saxonised English, among other names. The mild form is often advocated as part of Plain English – avoiding complicated Latinate/Greek terms – and has some influence in English usage. The more extreme form has been and continues to be a fringe movement with little broader influence.
Anglo-Saxon linguistic purism is discussed by David Crystal in the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. The idea dates at least to the inkhorn term controversy in the 16th and 17th century. In the 19th century, writers such as Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, and notably William Barnes, tried to introduce terms like birdlore for ornithology and speechcraft for grammar. It continued to be advocated in the 20th century, notably by George Orwell, who advocated what he saw as simple Saxon terms over complex Latin or Greek ones, and the idea continues to have advocates today.
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Old English adopted a small number of Greco-Roman loan words from an early period, especially in the context of the Christianisation of the Anglo-Saxons (church, bishop, priest), and from the 9th century (Danelaw) many Old Norse loans for every-day terms (skull, egg, skirt).
After the Norman conquest of 1066–71, the top level of English society was replaced by people who spoke Old Norman (a Romance language closely related to Old French). It evolved into Anglo-Norman and became the language of the state. Hence, those who wished to be involved in fields such as law and governance were required to learn it (see "Law French" for example).
It was in this Middle English period that the English language became exposed to an influx of Romance loan words (via Anglo-Norman) – see Latin influence in English. However, there were a few writers who tried to withstand the overbearing influence of Anglo-Norman. Their goal was to provide literature to the English-speaking masses in their vernacular or mother tongue. This meant not only writing in English, but also taking care not to use any words of Romance origin, which would likely not be understood by the readers. Examples of this kind of literature are the Ormulum, Layamon's Brut, Ayenbite of Inwyt and the Katherine Group of manuscripts in the "AB language".
In the 16th and 17th centuries, controversy over unnecessary foreign borrowings (known as "inkhorn terms") was rife. Writers were introducing many complicated words, mainly from Latin and Greek. Critics saw this as unnecessary and pretentious, arguing that English already had words with identical meanings. However, many of the new words gained an equal footing with the native Germanic words, and often replaced them.
Writers such as Thomas Elyot flooded their writings with foreign borrowings, whilst writers such as John Cheke sought to keep their writings "pure". Cheke wrote:
I am of this opinion that our own tung should be written cleane and pure, unmixt and unmangeled with borowing of other tunges; wherein if we take not heed by tiim, ever borowing and never paying, she shall be fain to keep her house as bankrupt.
In reaction, some writers tried either to resurrect older English words deliberately (gleeman for musician, sicker for certainly, inwit for conscience, yblent for confused) or to create wholly new words from Germanic roots (endsay for conclusion, yeartide for anniversary, foresayer for prophet). Few of these words remain in common use.
A noted advocate of Anglo-Saxon linguistic purism was 19th-century English writer, poet, minister, and philologist William Barnes, who advocated it to make English easier to understand without a classical education, proposing such words as sun-print (as an alternative to the Greek photo-graph).
In his 1946 essay "Politics and the English Language", George Orwell wrote:
Bad writers –especially scientific, political, and sociological writers– are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones.
A contemporary of Orwell, the Australian composer Percy Grainger, wrote English with only Germanic words and called it "blue-eyed English". For example, a composer became a tonesmith. Lee Hollander's 1962 English translation of the Poetic Edda (a collection of Old Norse poems), written almost solely with Germanic words, would also inspire many future "Anglish" writers.
In 1966, Paul Jennings wrote a number of articles in Punch, to commemorate the 900th anniversary of the Norman conquest. These articles posed the question of what England would be like had it not happened. They included an example of what he called "Anglish", such as a sample of Shakespeare's writing as it might have been if the conquest had failed. He gave "a bow to William Barnes, the Dorset poet-philologist".
In 1989, science fiction writer Poul Anderson wrote a text about basic atomic theory called Uncleftish Beholding. It was written using only words of Germanic origin, and was meant to show what English might look like without foreign borrowings. In 1992, Douglas Hofstadter jokingly referred to the style as "Ander-Saxon". This term has since been used to describe any scientific writings that use only Germanic words.
Anderson used techniques including:
Another approach, without a specific name-tag, can be seen in the September 2009 publication How We'd Talk if the English had Won in 1066, by David Cowley. This is based on updating known Old English words to today's English spelling, and seeks mainstream appeal by covering words in 5 Steps, from easy to "weird and wonderful", as well as giving many examples of use, drawings and tests.[1]
Since the 2000s, there are a number of online projects dedicated to Anglish among them the Anglish Moot on Wikia (since 2005).[2]