Are there such things as languages that are "pure" ? Every language has loan words, so what languages are there that have little, if any, loan words?
Also, what about languages that have borrowed words from related languages? For example, the Dutch borrow a German word for something; would the Dutch language still be "pure" considering that German and Dutch have the same parent language, and the word that was borrowed was Germanic in origin?
I was just thinking about something. I would rather express my thoughts in a language that was more "pure" than one that was not as pure. Yes, this means that I would rather express my thoughts in French than English because English has 60% French/Latin words in the language. However, there is something about my native language that I love, regardless of its words' origins.
Why the partiality towards "purity?"
He doesn't like mixed, so he's probaly a ethnic hater, the kind that hate the foreigners for their barbarity
Nah....I don't think so. Cmhiv has been here for a long time and he's never struck me as that type of person.
It just has that "cleansing" sound to it, as if something needs to be scrubbed
There is no such thing as a "pure" language. English it's self has words within the language that are either of Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, Brittonic or Goidelic Celtic, French Latin etc.
Thanks mjd.
Tanjwa (Is that made up? It sounds interesting), I come at almost everything in this from from a linguistic point of view. I am a pacifist, and I am a language/culture-lover, not to mention a Christian.
You are right, I am not a big supporter of mixed languages, but my own native language is about asmixed as one can get, and I love English. However, from a linguistic point of view, my favourite languages are ones that have evolved on their own with little help from outside sources. Examples are French, Russian, Mongolian, Latin, and the best example would be Icelandic.
Ogham is a pure language? what do you think cmhiv.
Ogham was not a language as far as I know; it was an alphabet used by the early Celts of Ireland.
cmhiv,
I'm just the oposite of you, I'd love a so mixed language that you couldn't even classificate it.
i think mixed languages are interesting. language purists are a little disturbing to me because they seem so anal. i think it's awesome when words like, i don't know, "perestroika" or "conquistador" are able to become legitimate words in the english language.
Hmm, I do not know why I am like this. I guess I should not [mind] all of the French words in the English language because French is my [favourite] [language] with English, but there is something about the [purity] of other [languages] that I have [studied], that I wish English [possessed]. This is why when I read things, I like to see how many words are Germanic and/or [Romance] [origin] (all of the words in brackets are not Germanic [origin]; well, most of them).
I just thought of why I am not in favour of mixed languages. It has nothing to do with mixed languages; I am rather fond of mixed languages (Afrikaans and Pennsylvania German being two of them), it is just that English is my native language, and I think that I would rather have my native language be more pure as I associate pure with "character" and "strenght." However, this is just linguistically; I do not associate pure with strenght in human beings (like the Aryans/Nazis do).
well, i can't help but imagine that you associate it with strength for other reasons such as supremacy, since languages don't particularly possess "character" or "strength"