this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2026
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Anglish - english without loanwords
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This fellowship is open to anyone who is nosy about delving into anglish. This fellowship is anti-fascists.
I will not frem any more steers unless it unfold itself to be needed.
https://anglish.org/wiki/Anglish
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So, what /is/ the motivation¹? You didn’t mention this in your post.
It seems the exact opposite of Anglish is most useful. When I write something, I generally want to be the most widely understood. If I am writing something in English but know many of my readers know French as a first language, I would like to make heavy use of true friends (words that are similar both in spelling and in meaning).
It would be useful to have a translation tool that could bend a language toward another. E.g. we often use the English word “temporary” but the not English word “ephemeral”. “Ephemeral” is also French, so if my audience is French I could use ephemeral to ease their comprehension.
¹ IIUC, “motivation” is likely borrowed from French as it ends in
tion.(update) Found an English→Anglish translator, which is fun. But really I would like to find the opposite.. something that replaces pure English words with borrowed words.
Ultimately Latin origin, both parts, i.e. motiv- and -atio. Though according to this chart it might have come via other languages, but ultimately still Latin.
There can be many reasons for learning about anglish. For curiosity, for poetry, for exploring word smithing in english.
My motivation is to speak more poetically because I believe it is a way to communicate images much more effectively and to ground ourselves to our local culture.
I like to think that there are two directions in approaching language. Using language to be understood, and using language for personal understanding. The former is externally focused, whereas the latter is internally focused. In my language work I focus primarily on the internal and secondarily on the external.
My understanding is that most of us are too focused on the external to the degree that we neglect the internal. And I believe we can see this in how we move away from the poetic, move away from an embodied language. That we become alienated from ourselves.
By speaking less poetic, we end up using the same words but interpreting these words with entirely different images. Leading us into needless friction.
I'm not expecting this to be convincing, but at least that is my sincere motivation.