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Over the centuries, English lost many Germanic words. A lot of these were replaced by borrowings from French, while German, Dutch and Frisian often preserved their Germanic cognates. What would the lost English words look like if they still existed? Here are twelve of them: 17 comments
@DanielDeur Hahaha, never thought of that! 'Hey man, I'll belive here a little while longer, cause I'm waiting on my neve, you know!' @Odanaos These have been attested in earlier forms of Modern English, for example in the 18th century, or in a dialect.  @yvanspijk there’s this whole Ænglisc thing by an apparently somewhat questionable person but a fun read ("Uncleftish Beholding")  @yvanspijk On the other hand, all those Romance loans in English help with at least getting the gist of Spanish and Italian text. French went through much more radical sound changes. @yvanspijk amusingly "fang" gets used in Australian slang, though not for catch, instead to go very quickly. Eg "watch him fang it around the corners on the last lap" - I wonder if that might have come from Fangio, the legendary Argentinian racing car driver? @yvanspijk  @yvanspijk well, well, well, I never took English for the little family traitor it seems to be! 😆 @yvanspijk This is actually a lot of fun: "Oh, my neve, arm as you are, let your steaven belive in thild, for a stitch of frith is greater than your maw's shild!" @yvanspijk stomach reminds me of French words in Turkish. I am sure you understand: istasyon , şarküteri , ruj , jeton, fondöten, istatistik , otel, sütyen and so on… |
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@yvanspijk I absolutely love hypothetical reconstructions of words in modern languages! It's funny how some of these hypothetical English words sound a lot like what a Dutchman would invent on the spot if they were to forget the actual English word, like "neve" and "belive".