LL-L "Lexicon" 2009.11.10 (01) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 10 November 2009- Volume 01
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From: DAVID COWLEY <DavidCowley at anglesey.gov.uk>
Subject: LL-L "History" 2009.11.09 (03) [EN]

Sandy - I well agree that there are problems with words in Molee's list,
such as 'deerlore'. Much the same can be said for some of William Barnes'
suggestions. Another criticism of Barnes is that in some cases he needlessly
 made up alternatives to current words which were themselves of OE origin!

(Sorry if the following looks like a plug, but I just wanted to help clarify
my position:)
The book (How We'd Talk if the English had Won in 1066) avoids  such 'made
up' words altogether, and is about updates of recorded, known words from Old
English. The words in the first Steps are the ones which would be most
likely to make sense in modern use as updated forms (like: fordo, onbeload,
unbefought, overmuchness, suchness), and were carefully screened to avoid
'funnies' such as 'deer' to mean 'animal' and so forth. The later steps list
words that really do sound much more different and odd in updated form, such
as 'arveth' for 'trouble', 'ambighter' for 'officer', 'thedely' and
'thanings' for 'social' and 'services'. One of the key aims is a fairly
light-hearted look at what English could have been - fun! But I also suggest
that some of those easier words could find their way back into English.
Personally, I'd be well pleased if even a handful of these were to get into
mainstream use. I know its easy to think its a non-starter, but its a fact
that new words can and do catch on all the time. It would probably only take
someone like Steven Fry to say 'I'm onbeloaded with an overmuchness of woes'
a few times for these words to get used and a bit later turn up in new
dictionaries. As I say in the book 'its up to you, speakers of English ...'

David

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
 Subject: Lexicon

Hi, David!

You may be interested to know, if you don't already do, that "suchness"
(alternatively "thusness") has been in current use in English-speaking
circles describing and discussing Buddhist concepts. Use of this word is
necessary to get close in meaning to Sanskrit and Pali तथाता *tathātā *(Chinese
眞如 *zhēnrú*, Korean 진여 *jinyeo*, Japanese 真如 *shinnyo*, Vietnamese *chân như
*). It simply describes the state of being such or thus. In German,
*Soheit*has been introduced for this particular purpose.

I am mentioning this because it is a case in which translating a term
denoting a "foreign" concept resulted in a supposedly new word consisting of
native morphemes, and it coincides (?) with your suggestion.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

•

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