Re: Gothic prestige and borrowing

--- In cybalist@..., x99lynx@... wrote:

> A good example of how much English had been powered up thanks to

its

> borrowing is Poul Anderson's essay "Uncleftish Beholding" which

describes

> "Atomic Theory" using "only Anglo-Saxon words" and is reproduced in

part on

> the web. The Journal of Irreproducible Results in 1979 noted

that "essay"

> was "legendary among physicists because of how well it illustrates

the total

> inadequacy of naked 'English' in communicating modern scientific

concepts..."

> Naked English here meant English without words borrowed from

Latin, Greek,

> French or Arabic.
>
>
> Steve

Are we talking about Poul Anderson, the Science Fiction writer? He is
of Danish descent (hence "Poul"), and, I believe, knows some Danish.
In one of his stories placed in the future he lets one group of space
colonists speak Neo-Danish. It seems he believes that that language
can actually be used for communicating?

And BTW, I glanced through some Old or Middle High German Minnesänger
(Troubadour) poetry and was surprised to discover that they used
almost as many Romance (Provencal and French) words as contemporary
English material?

Torsten