Modern English without Norman French influence

"Anglo-Saxon" is a modern term. At the time it was just called Englisc, pronounced English, and it would continue to be called that up to the present day if it had never been influenced by French.

Thande is, of course, completely correct. The English were calling themselves 'English' and were known by others as 'English' long before 1066.

I'm not a language expert but I seem to recall being told that prior to 1066 English didn't contain curse words, the English cursed people but didn't swear in the way we do today; isn't there the old story that all the swear words that people call 'anglo-saxon' are infact post-Conquest words?
 
... I seem to recall being told that prior to 1066 English didn't contain curse words...

Seems highly unlikely to me. English 'shit' and German 'Scheisse', for example, are cognate - they're both descended from the same 'parent' word. It seems to me far more likely that the word has remained in use in English ever since it became more a language and less a dialect, than that it was borrowed from the Dutch or the northern Germans (i.e. Plattdeutsch speakers).

Not that I can remember any concrete examples off-hand, mind. It's a long time since I last tried reading Beowulf in Old English, which is the least religious Old English text that springs to my mind.

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The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology gives the Old English form scitan (pronounced roughly shitan) meaning, surprisingly, to defecate. So the word itself is apparently recorded in use before 1066. Mind you, it probably only became a taboo word later on.
 
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Valdemar II

Banned
Seems highly unlikely to me. English 'shit' and German 'Scheisse', for example, are cognate - they're both descended from the same 'parent' word. It seems to me far more likely that the word has remained in use in English ever since it became more a language and less a dialect, than that it was borrowed from the Dutch or the northern Germans (i.e. Plattdeutsch speakers).

Not that I can remember any concrete examples off-hand, mind. It's a long time since I last tried reading Beowulf in Old English, which is the least religious Old English text that springs to my mind.

Do their exist a language which doesn't use the word for excrement as a swearword.
 
Old English was like Fries but its doubtful it'd remain totally insular. It probally would take in a lot of French words anyway- Dutch and Swedish did this even though they weren't ruled by the French (well....note technically).

I guess though this is a example of one of those straight PODs that ignores other things happening. A result of no Norman conquest is normally said by many TLs to be a more Scandinavian based England- so even though at the time it wasn't TOO Scandinavian they could move closer together.
But then other things could happen over the years. You could even get some crazy Russian-British union. It is nearly 1000 years of history after all.
 
Its one of those strange arguements I've heard trotted out a lot and I'm not enough of a language expert to know the truth of the matter.

From my own old English, most of the insults seem to be more of 'putdowns' (such as 'your manhood is little according to your wife') than anything else.

Seems highly unlikely to me. English 'shit' and German 'Scheisse', for example, are cognate - they're both descended from the same 'parent' word. It seems to me far more likely that the word has remained in use in English ever since it became more a language and less a dialect, than that it was borrowed from the Dutch or the northern Germans (i.e. Plattdeutsch speakers).

Not that I can remember any concrete examples off-hand, mind. It's a long time since I last tried reading Beowulf in Old English, which is the least religious Old English text that springs to my mind.

***

The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology gives the Old English form scitan (pronounced roughly shitan) meaning, surprisingly, to defecate. So the word itself is apparently recorded in use before 1066. Mind you, it probably only became a taboo word later on.
 
Could well be the case. My experience of old Germanic languages is also limited, and focused mainly on Visigothic (I did a German degree and had a spare course slot to fill in my second year).

Although I get the impression that most of our current swearwords only became taboo over time, there's also the old Germanic poetic tradition of coining metaphors for things like swords and axes. Are there many examples of this carrying over into double-entendres and epithets? And I guess you can still accuse people of sleeping with their mother and/or livestock. But I reckon they'd still have had some word or other to yell out in frustration if they ever they walked into a doorframe or smacked a thumb with a hammer :)

Its one of those strange arguements I've heard trotted out a lot and I'm not enough of a language expert to know the truth of the matter.

From my own old English, most of the insults seem to be more of 'putdowns' (such as 'your manhood is little according to your wife') than anything else.
 

Thande

Donor
IIRC, Englisc used a lot of words which we now consider swearwords (hence the old thing about most swearwords being Anglo-Saxon) but they were not used as swearwords. I remember reading once that f--k was used in common conversation, analogous to modern 'make love'.
 

HueyLong

Banned
I'm not a language expert but I seem to recall being told that prior to 1066 English didn't contain curse words, the English cursed people but didn't swear in the way we do today; isn't there the old story that all the swear words that people call 'anglo-saxon' are infact post-Conquest words?

Perhaps it was in the Quebecois manner of cursing, for the most part? Tabernac, and what not?
 
IIRC, Englisc used a lot of words which we now consider swearwords (hence the old thing about most swearwords being Anglo-Saxon) but they were not used as swearwords. I remember reading once that f--k was used in common conversation, analogous to modern 'make love'.

I think that's maybe what I'm thinking of. From the examples of insults that warriors of the period were suppose to yell at each other, insulting people seems to have been a bit cleverer today (my fav was "You fail to please your wife, even as you stand before me she lies with her maid to satisfy her lust, something you can never do", apparently something one of the Nortumberian rebels is supposed to have said to Tostig chief Huscarl in 1065).
 
IIRC, Englisc used a lot of words which we now consider swearwords (hence the old thing about most swearwords being Anglo-Saxon) but they were not used as swearwords. I remember reading once that f--k was used in common conversation, analogous to modern 'make love'.


That makes sense. I've read that words such as 'pig', 'cow', 'sheep' and 'deer' are Englisc, while 'pork', 'beef', 'veal', 'mutton' and 'venison' are from Norman French.

Obviously, while very few would eat 'pig' now, it isn't regarded as swearing. However, when a slightly more taboo subject is being discussed, it may be that, given enough time, the 'common' Englisc word became regarded as vulgar enough to be considered 'swearing'.
 

Thande

Donor
That makes sense. I've read that words such as 'pig', 'cow', 'sheep' and 'deer' are Englisc, while 'pork', 'beef', 'veal', 'mutton' and 'venison' are from Norman French.
That's because (according to the old theory), the animals were encountered by the English peasants raising them, and the meat was eaten by the Norman overlords ;) Hence why English has different names for the animals and their meats, unlike most languages.
 
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