LL-L "Lexicon" 2009.11.08 (05) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 08 November 2009- Volume 05
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From: Danette Howland <dan_how at msn.com>
Subject: LL-L "Lexicon" 2009.11.01 (02) [EN]

Hello, everyone.

Sandy Fleming posed a thoughtful question:

I'd like to raise the question, what's the ethical or humanitarian point in
trying to clear the latinisms from English or Scots? It seems to me like a
project for people with too much time on their hands.

You could call it ethnocentrism or cultural conservatism, but I think there
have been some more practical reasons expressed by those who yearn for a
renewal of older modes of expression (or resistance, however futile, to
changes from outlandish influences).

My favorite example of prescriptive grammar is a little book published in
the United States by a man named Elias Mollee. It is called *Pure Saxon
English or Americans to the Front, *and as the title suggests, is a battle
cry for Americans to change their language by way of spelling reform and
greater reliance on self-descriptive germanic words. The book was published
in 1890.

>From the author's introduction here is a quote from a voice (or pen) of
another century:

  To improve our language in spelling and self-explanatory words, will have
more educational influence throughout the land than could be obtained from
the building of a hundred new colleges. Only a small per cent. of boys and
girls could attend them for a few terms; but a clear, self-explaining
language would be the grand National schoolmaster--the common American boy's
and girl's friend. Such a lanuage would be constantly explaining and
reminding and defining from childhood to manhood, in every place and
relation. No dictionary would be needed, Dentist would be called *
toothhealer*; aurist, *earhealer*; surgeon, *woundhealer*; botany, *
plantlore*; zoology, *deerlore*; astronomy, *starlore*; sternum, *breastbone
*; humerus, *armbone*; petiole, *leafstock*; peduncle, *flowerstock*;
phenogamia, f*ruitbearing*; mutton, *sheepflesh*; veal, *calfflesh*;
venison, *deerflesh*, etc. Ideas which American children and common people
can not understand now, are as clear as sunlight to our Gothic cousins, the
Germans, Dutch, and Scandinavians. This does not appear to be just to
American children.


He goes on to write:

...it is admitted that our unparalleled borrowing is the result of the
Norman-French conquest; that foreign words have been cruelly forced into our
speech by circumstances over which our forfathers had no control. Many words
have been introduced into the language by writers desiring to parade
classical learning. We may, therefore, with safety, say that the principal
causes of the flood of foreign terms into our tongue have been foreign
oppression and pedantry at home. The English-speaking people love the Saxon
element best; the nearest and dearest words are Saxon; the words of
childhood and the names for the most sacred and endearing relationships of
life are Saxon--father, mother, brother, sister, child, wife, husband, love,
and home. About seventy-five words out of every one hundred, as they appear
on the printed page, are Saxon, and in the Holy Bible over 90 per cent. are
Saxon. So thoroughly is this element loved by the English-speaking people
that no author, in whose composition Latin predominates, has succeeded in
producing a household treasure--a popular work.


Molee suggested that a self-descriptive language using common words to
replace borrowings from Norman, Latin, Greek and French would improve
education, save taxpayers' money and make for more beautiful writing, speech
and poetry.

However emotional, futile or misguided his stance may seem today, I admit
that I agree with his sentiments.

John Howland

Kenai, Alaska

•

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