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this morning at a lakeside swimming area: grumpy mother telling her young daughter not to go in the water because she just ate, wait 10 minutes. I wanted to yell out while swimming: "I just ate!". Idiot parent for believing that myth.
When I was kid, I wanted to troll stupid and grumpy parents when I got older. Maybe it's not too late to start?
Sorry, but in this I don't agree with you. I'm not a fan of extreme purism. May be, in everyday speech, too many foreign words aren't too good, but anyway in English it's too late to change anything - they have penetrated into its dictionary too long ago, so they already feel familiar.
You may be right about that. Most folks don't even know word etymologies. They think all the words they use in everyday speech are "English words." It would be pretty hard to remove all the Latin and Greek words from English. It certainly wouldn't be a priority of mine. Anglish is something of a trivial interest of mine in the grand scheme of things. Besides, the fact that Latin and Greek are European languages is worthy of consideration. Like I indicated, I'd much rather have them in the English language than non-European words.
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Originally Posted by Max96
English is basically a mixed language, at least vocabulary-wise.
Indeed it is. It's worthwhile to note, however, that the other Germanic languages have taken in quite a few Latin and Greek words as well (particularly for scientific speech), just to a much lesser extent than English has. Icelandic is truly the outlier here. It not necessarily the fact that English has borrowed from Latin and Greek that bothers me, but that fact that it's done so to such a massive extent.
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Originally Posted by Max96
And it's not bad and not good. It's just a fact like French is a Romance and Swedish is a Germanic language. Same with, say, Old Church Slavonic words in Russian (although both languages are Slavic, so OCS words don't feel very foreign to Russian), Polish in Ukrainian (although again, both are Slavic), Chinese in Japanese etc.
Maybe those who are English and interested in this subject would feel differently, but I don't care too much whether English words are of Old English origin or from another Germanic language (most notably, Old Norse). The only time it kind of bothers me is when another Germanic word is used instead of a perfectly good English one of the same origin... for example, "verboten" instead of "forbidden." But then, I guess, the former has a slightly different shade of meaning.
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Originally Posted by Max96
In terminology, the use of foreign words is justified, because at first, it helps to avoid ambiguity between the term and the word on which the term was based (for example, the word lens means lentil in Latin because of similar shape, also some words don't correspond their meanings, which may be confusing, for example atom means 'uncuttable' while now sceintists know that it's not uncuttable), at second helps the scientists from different countries communicate easier (there are very many terms, international terminology means that people have to learn less because many of them are the same or similar in many languages).
There is almost always a way to make up a word for a new idea using native root words. For example, "hydro" is just "water" in Greek. There's no good reason for English to have so many compound words using that root word when "water" would work just fine. It's worked just fine for the Icelanders.
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Originally Posted by Max96
Also, there are words of non-European origin that indicate the things (mostly plants) that very originally 'exotic' to Europeans, but now are familiar, such as sugar (of Indian, probably Dravidian origin), tea (Chinese), coffee (from the name of an Ethiopian region), potato (from Taino), tomato (from Nahuatl) - I don't think there is any need to replace them at all.
Ideally, these things should be referred to in European languages using European words. I don't think completely eliminating them is realistic, though. But they are relatively few in number.
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Originally Posted by Max96
At last, there are very old loanwords from non-European languages through Greek and Latin, such as channel/canal (of Sumerian origin) and paper (Egyptian) - do you treat them the same way as Greek/Latin words?
No, I don't treat them as Greek/Latin.
For me, it's not an all-or-nothing proposition. I simply see it as worthwhile to keep a language relatively true to its roots.
There is almost always a way to make up a word for a new idea using native root words. For example, "hydro" is just "water" in Greek. There's no good reason for English to have so many compound words using that root word when "water" would work just fine. It's worked just fine for the Icelanders.
I partly agree, that would make terms easier to understand. For example, in Russian the word for acid is 'кислота' from 'кислый', which means sour. Latin acidus also means sour, English just has borrowed it while in Russian there was made the word from the native root. And the word matches its meaning - all acids are sour because of hydrogen ions (it's, of course, not counting that most acids are dangerous). But for some words, which don't match their meanings, such as already mentioned atom, it's better to retain the foreign words.
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Originally Posted by snj90
Ideally, these things should be referred to in European languages using European words. I don't think completely eliminating them is realistic, though. But they are relatively few in number.
The tea came from China, and potatoes and tomatoes from America, isn't it logical to name it with Chinese and native American words? And I still don't understand your bias against non-European words.
I partly agree, that would make terms easier to understand. For example, in Russian the word for acid is 'кислота' from 'кислый', which means sour. Latin acidus also means sour, English just has borrowed it while in Russian there was made the word from the native root. And the word matches its meaning - all acids are sour because of hydrogen ions (it's, of course, not counting that most acids are dangerous).
The tea came from China, and potatoes and tomatoes from America, isn't it logical to name it with Chinese and native American words? And I still don't understand your bias against non-European words.
The Icelandic and German words for potato are "kartafla" and "Kartoffel," respectively, which are ultimately of Latin origin. So not only is it possible to use European words for new things, it's quite often done.
"Bias" is a bit of a negative word. I am in favor of various kinds of preservation, including linguistic and cultural preservation. Matters that concern Europeans are obviously of greater importance to me personally, but I think the various non-European peoples should also preserve their languages and cultures. Loanwords tend to work against the interests of preservation. You definitely see this in the case of English. I definitely find that English sounds nicer when it's spoken with native English words. When too many nonnative words are found in English, it gives it a more rootless feel.
Location: Northern Ireland and temporarily England
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