The History Of Anglish: Keeping a Language Alive.
My Journey into ancient civilizations and cultures has taken me to many places and beyond. I have discovered many things about my ancestry and also the ancestry of others.
One of the defining aspects of the ancient civilizations and cultures that I have discovered is the original languages of the culture. One issue of the original language is the effect of other cultures in changing or eliminating the original language.
So far in my blogs I have looked at how the Gaelic and Cherokee languages have almost become extinct. In another blog I also introduced my discovery of Anglish, the term used for bringing back the original English language. To add on to the Anglish blog, today I am looking at the origin of the English language.
Anglish.org tells us that the desire to remove foreign influence from the English language goes back to 1066 when the Norman invasion brought in the majority of foreign influence into the English language.
The foreign influence on the English language over the years has resulted in only 20 to 30% of the original English language is still spoken today. Most of the English vocabulary today comes from the French and Latin influence.
English is considered a West German language that was brought to Britain in the mid 5th to 7th centuries by Anglo-Saxon immigrants. These immigrants came from northwest Germany, southern Denmark, and the Netherlands.
The Anglo-Saxons settled in the British Isles and dominated the majority of Southern Great Britain. Old English was a reflection of these Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that were established.
Before the 5th century, the Romans had withdrawn from the area leaving the land occupied by the Celts. The Anglo-Saxons had been invited by King Vortigern and once they settled and interacted with the Celts, they started to speak British Latin, which was considered a vulgar Latin dialect. Once the Anglo-Saxons decided to permanently settle on the land, their Germanic language became rooted in Britain.
The Late West Saxon became the dominant language spoken. This dialect became the first standardized written English, or sometimes referred to as Classical Old English.
A significant influence on Old English also came from contact with the North German Languages spoken by the Scandinavian Vikings who colonized Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries.
Old English can be divided into 3 categories: Prehistoric or Primitive in the 5th to 7th century, Early Old English in the 7th to 10th Century, and Late Old English in the 10th to 12th century.
The English language became influenced from other cultures from the beginning of its establishment. In the 6th century,Christianity came to Britain and introduced more than 400 Latin words to the language. And, as noted earlier, the biggest initial influence and addition of new words to the English language happened with the Vikings invasion of England.
As we look at our ancestry and heritage, we can see the different influences that have impacted our cultures over the course of history. As our society continues to develop and grow, it becomes more difficult to maintain our cultures and customs and practice the languages and beliefs that were part of them.
The merging of cultures through war and conquest has changed the culture and languages of people. The destruction of land due to national disaster, global warming and the changing of the Earth over time has changed the culture and languages of people.
For many of us today, our ancestry can be made up of many cultures that have combined and merged. The biggest question is how do we keep the original culture alive during the merging of society and the changing of the world.
Our society keeps us busy working. Our society programs us to be involved in activities, programs, media, electronics and many other things when we are not working. Could this all be a distraction to keep us more aligned to what the elite of the world want us to be and to prevent us from discovering who we really are?
I think we all have a responsibility to find that piece of our culture, that piece of our ancestry and keep it alive. We need to keep who we are and not let society change us.
Anglish is one such effort to keep a culture alive in a changing society.
What is your effort to keep your culture alive?
Thank you for reading and your support.
Blessings!
By Michael Walters
The Ancestor's Fire
Writing the voices of the unheard
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