petermorwood:

spanishskulduggery:

thatswhywelovegermany:

scribefindegil:

jcatgrl:

meridok:

nekobakaz:

languagevillage:

selladaw:

haliahli:

Love this. #words #OE #English #linguistics

No, you don’t understand. This is an actual thing though.

“deerlore” for zoology and “toothhealer” for “dentist"…

**rubs hands** WORLD BUILDING RESOURCES!!!!

ironish brimstoneling

my brain hurts trying to read that wikipedia article but also everything is hilarious.

#this sounds like something scribefindegil would make up to taunt me

Will i hate to break it to you but i’ve been planning to have my Halflings speak in this dialect for literal months

Many of those Old English alternatives look suspiciously like German compound words.

flyhaven | Flughafen
farspeak | Fernsprecher
farsee | Fernseher

Why, dear English, did you give up the great tool of forming compound words?

Because of the influence of French on English most likely.

In the 11th century, William the Conqueror came to rule England though he was a Norman (French). Both during and after his reign, English words that had Anglo-Saxon or Germanic roots were sometimes replaced or supplanted by words with Latin, Norman, or Anglo-Norman roots instead.

Since then, English is a bit of a jumble. Since Latin was often used by the nobility and the clergy, you frequently have cases where English has multiple words for the same thing but organized in a hierarchy of formality.

Words like “house” which are Germanic in origin are commonplace and informal and part of everyday use. Words like “domicile” are Latin in origin and are understood to be more formal and are words we know but would rarely use unless we were trying to be fancy.

Pure coincidence, but the first Current word and second Alternative word results in something very like Stansted Airport.