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Purism in the linguistic field is the historical trend of languages to conserve intact their lexical structure of word families, in opposition to foreign influences which are considered 'impure'. Historically, linguistic purism in English is a reaction to the great number of borrowings in the
English language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...
from other languages, especially
Old French Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th -4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ...
, since the Norman conquest of England, 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 spoken by the Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area around Rome, Italy. Through the expansion o ...
and Greek 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">Paul Jennings (British author)">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 List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents in English, native terms instead of loanwords. In stronger forms, new words are coined from Germanic languages, Germanic roots (such as '' wikt:wordstock, wordstock'' for ''vocabulary'') or revived from older stages of English (such as '' shrithe'' for ''proceed''). Noted purists of
Early Modern English Early Modern English (sometimes abbreviated EModEFor example, or EMnE) or Early New English (ENE) is the stage of the English language from the beginning of the Tudor period to the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transit ...
include John Cheke, Thomas Wilson, Ralph Lever, Richard Rowlands, and Nathaniel Fairfax. Modern linguistic purists include William Barnes,
Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ...
,
Gerard Manley Hopkins Gerard Manley Hopkins (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Society of Jesus, Jesuit priest, whose posthumous fame places him among the leading English poets. His Prosody (linguistics), prosody – notably his concept of sprung ...
, Elias Molee, Percy Grainger, and
George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...
.


History


Middle English

English words gave way to borrowings from Anglo-Norman 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 Normans, Norman, French people, French, Flemish people, Flemish, and Bretons, Breton troops, all led by the Du ...
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. Notwithstanding, 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 English pe ...
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 anchoresses written in the early 13th century. The work consists of eight parts: divine service, keeping the ...
'', 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 earlier, used calques to avoid 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 neologiser, borrowed extensively from abroad in support of "the necessary augmentation" of English. Linguistic purists such as John Cheke opposed this borrowing in favour of keeping English "unmixt and unmangled". Thomas Wilson, a contemporary of Cheke, criticised 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 statesman
Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...
observed in an 1825 letter that "a taste is reviving in England for the recovery of the Anglo-Saxon dialect".
Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...
poet, minister, and philologist William Barnes coined several words to promote "strong old Anglo-Saxon speech", including '' speechcraft'' for ''grammar'', '' birdlore'' for ''ornithology'', and '' bendsome'' for ''flexible''. Poet
Gerard Manley Hopkins Gerard Manley Hopkins (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Society of Jesus, Jesuit priest, whose posthumous fame places him among the leading English poets. His Prosody (linguistics), prosody – notably his concept of sprung ...
discussed Barnes in an 1882 letter to Robert Bridges, 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".
Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ...
emphasised 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'', 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 ...
",
George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...
criticised the extensive use of "foreign" words in English. Australian composer Percy Grainger, 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 emphasised 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 in alliterative verse. It is distinct from the closely related ''Prose Edda'', although both works are seminal to the study of Old Norse ...
''—a collection of
Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...
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'' commemorating the 900th anniversary of 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 Normans, Norman, French people, French, Flemish people, Flemish, and Bretons, Breton troops, all led by the Du ...
. 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 William Barnes" as an inspiration. In 1989,
science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...
writer Poul Anderson released a similarly-written text about basic
atomic theory Atomic theory is the scientific theory that matter is composed of particles called atoms. The definition of the word "atom" has changed over the years in response to scientific discoveries. Initially, it referred to a hypothetical concept of ...
called '' Uncleftish Beholding'' composed almost fully of Germanic-rooted words. In 1997,
Douglas Hofstadter Douglas Richard Hofstadter (born 15 February 1945) is an American cognitive and computer scientist whose research includes concepts such as the sense of self in relation to the external world, consciousness, analogy-making, Strange loop, strange ...
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's 2014 '' The Wake'' is written in a hybrid of
Old English Old English ( or , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
and
Modern English Modern English, sometimes called New English (NE) or present-day English (PDE) as opposed to Middle and Old English, is the form of the English language that has been spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England England is a Count ...
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.


See also

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Linguistic purism Linguistic purism or linguistic protectionism is a concept with two common meanings: one with respect to foreign languages and the other with respect to the internal variants of a language (dialects). The first meaning is the historical trend ...
*
Word family A word family is the base form of a word plus its inflected forms and derived forms made with suffixes and prefixes plus its cognates, i.e. all words that have a common etymological origin, some of which even native speakers don't recognize as be ...
*
Constrained writing Constrained writing is a literary technique in which the writer is bound by some condition that forbids certain things or imposes a pattern. Constraints are very common in poetry, which often requires the writer to use a particular verse form. D ...
*
Plain English Plain English (also referred to as layman's terms) is a mode of writing or speaking the English language intended to be easy to understand regardless of one's familiarity with a given topic. It usually avoids the use of rare words and uncommon euph ...
, a variety of English written specifically for clarity *
List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents in English This list contains Germanic elements of the English language which have a close corresponding Latinate form. The correspondence is semantic—in most cases these words are not cognates, but in some cases they are doublets, i.e., ultimately deriv ...


References

{{English dialects by continent Forms of English English English nationalism Germanic languages History of the English language