Anglicisation

Linguistic anglicisation (or anglicization, occasionally anglification, anglifying, or Englishing) is the

practice of modifying foreign words, names, and phrases in order to make them easier to spell,
pronounce, or understand in English.[1][2] The term commonly refers to the respelling of foreign
words, often to a more drastic degree than that implied in, for example, romanisation. One instance
is the word "dandelion", modified from the French dent-de-lion ("lion's tooth", a reference to the
plant's sharply indented leaves). The term can also refer to phonological adaptation without spelling
change: spaghetti, for example, is accepted in English with Italian spelling, but anglicised
phonetically.

The anglicisation of non-English words for use in English is just one case of the more widespread
domestication of foreign words that is a feature of many languages, sometimes involving shifts in
meaning.

The term does not cover the unmodified adoption of foreign words into English (e.g. kindergarten);
the unmodified adoption of English words into foreign languages (e.g. internet, computer, web), or
the voluntary or enforced adoption of the English language or of British or American customs and
culture in other countries or ethnic groups, also known as social and economic anglicisation.

Modified loan words

Non-English words may be anglicised by changing their form and/or pronunciation to something
more familiar to English speakers. Changing grammatical endings is especially common. The Latin
word obscenus /obskeːnʊs/ has been imported into English in the modified form "obscene" /obˈsiːn/.
The plural form of a foreign word may be modified to fit English norms more conveniently, like using
"indexes" as the plural of index, rather than indices, as in Latin. The word "opera" (itself the plural
form of the Latin word opus) is understood in English to be a singular noun, so it has received an
English plural form, "operas". The English word "damsel" is an anglicisation of the Old French
damoisele (modern demoiselle), meaning "young lady". Another form of anglicising is the inclusion
of a foreign article as part of a noun (such as alkali from the Arabic al-qili). "Rotten Row", the name
of a London pathway that was a fashionable place to ride horses in the 18th and 19th centuries, is
an adaptation of the French phrase Route du Roi. The word "genie" has been anglicized via Latin
from jinn or djinn from Arabic: ‫اﻟﺠﻦ‬, al-jinn originally meaning demon or spirit. Some changes are
motivated by the desire to preserve the pronunciation of the word in the original language, such as
the word "schtum", which is phonetic spelling for the German word stumm, meaning silent.[3]
The word "charterparty"[a] is an anglicisation of the French homonym charte partie;[b] the "party"
element of "charterparty" does not mean "a party to the contract".

The French word "homage" was introduced by the Normans after 1066,[c] and its pronunciation
became anglicised as /ˈhɒmɪdʒ/, with stress on the first syllable; but in recent times showbusiness
and Hollywood have taken to pronouncing "homage" in the French fashion, rhyming with
"fromage".[4]

Modified place names

Some foreign place names are commonly anglicised in English. Examples include the Danish city
København (Copenhagen), the Russian city Москва Moskva (Moscow), the Swedish city Göteborg
(Gothenburg), the Dutch city Den Haag (The Hague), the Spanish city of Sevilla (Seville), the
Egyptian city of ‫ اﻟﻘﺎﻫﺮة‬Al-Qāhira (Cairo), and the Italian city of Firenze (Florence).

Such anglicisation was once more common. In the late 19th century, however, use of non-English
place names in English began to become more common. When dealing with languages that use the
same Latin alphabet as English, names are now more usually written in English as in their local
language, sometimes even with diacritical marks that do not normally appear in English. With
languages that use non-Latin alphabets, such as the Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, Korean Hangul, and other
alphabets, a direct transliteration is typically used, which is then often pronounced according to
English rules. Non-Latin based languages may use standard romanisation systems, such as
Japanese Rōmaji or Chinese Pīnyīn. The Japanese and Chinese names in English follow these
spellings with some common exceptions, usually without Chinese tone marks and without
重慶, 重庆), Shíjiāzhuāng to
Japanese macrons for long vowels: Chóngqìng to Chongqing (
Shijiazhuang (⽯家莊, ⽯家庄), both in China; Kyōto to Kyoto (京都) in Japan.

Many English names for foreign places have been directly taken over from the French version,
sometimes unchanged, such as Cologne, Rome, Munich, Naples, sometimes only slightly changed,
like Vienna (Vienne), Venice (Venise), Lisbon (Lisbonne), Seville (Séville). The English city-name for
the Czech capital, Prague (Praha), is taken with spelling unaltered from the French name for the city,
itself descended from the Latin name for the city (Praga), which had been borrowed from an earlier
Czech name (pre-dating the /g/>/h/ shift).

De-anglicisation has become a matter of national pride in some places and especially in regions
that were once under colonial rule, where vestiges of colonial domination are a sensitive
subject.[5][6] Following centuries of English rule in Ireland, Douglas Hyde delivered an argument for
de-anglicisation before the Irish National Literary Society in Dublin, 25 November 1892: "When we
speak of 'The Necessity for De-Anglicising the Irish Nation', we mean it, not as a protest against
imitating what is best in the English people, for that would be absurd, but rather to show the folly of
neglecting what is Irish, and hastening to adopt, pell-mell, and, indiscriminately, everything that is
English, simply because it is English."[5] Despite its status as an official language, Irish has been
reduced to a minority language in Ireland due to centuries of English rule, as is the case in North
America where indigenous languages have been replaced by that of the British colonists. In the
process of removing the signs of their colonial past, anglicised names have been officially
discouraged in many places: Ireland's Kingstown, named by King George IV, reverted to its original
Irish name of Dún Laoghaire in 1920, even before Irish independence in 1922; India's Bombay is now
Mumbai, even though this is not the oldest local name (see Toponymy of Mumbai) and "Bombay" is
still commonly used in the city; Calcutta is now Kolkata and Madras is Chennai. Bangladesh's Dacca
is Dhaka. Many Chinese endonyms have become de-anglicised or otherwise replaced with the more
recent Hanyu Pinyin Romanization scheme: Canton is now more commonly called Guangzhou ( 廣
州, ⼴州), and Peking is generally referred to as Beijing (北京), although this reflected a name change
from Beiping (Peiping) to Beijing (Peking) with the de-anglicisation of the name taking place after
the name change to reflect a pronunciation change in the newly established Beijing dialect-based
Mandarin.

In Scotland, many place names in Scots Gaelic were anglicised, sometimes deliberately, sometimes
accidentally because of unfamiliarity with Gaelic. Often the etymology of a place name is lost or
obscured, such as in the case of Kingussie, from "Cinn a' Ghiuthsaich" ("The Heads of the Pine
Forest"). In Wales, a large number of place names were anglicised, with some examples including:
Caernarfon became Carnarvon, Conwy became Conway and Llanelli became Llanelly. Many of these
place names have since reverted, especially in the west of the country (as is the case for Llanelli,
Caernarfon, Conwy and Porthmadog), though in the east Welsh and English spellings of place
names are often seen side-by side even when very similar to each other, such as with Rhyl/Y Rhyl, or
Blaenavon/Blaenafon.

In other cases, now well-established anglicised names, whatever their origin, have remained in
common use where there is no national pride at stake. This is the case with Ghent (Gent, or Gand),
Munich (München), Cologne (Köln), Vienna (Wien), Naples (Napoli), Rome (Roma), Milan (Milano),
Athens (Αθήνα, Athina), Moscow (Москва, Moskva), Saint Petersburg (Санкт-Петербург, Sankt-
Peterburg), Warsaw (Warszawa), Prague (Praha), Bucharest (București), Belgrade (Београд,
Beograd), Lisbon (Lisboa), and other European cities whose names have been familiar in their
anglicised forms for centuries. However, the present local names sometimes appear as alternatives
on maps, and in public places (airports, road signs).

Sometimes a place name might appear anglicised compared with the current name, but the form
being used in English is actually an older name that has since been changed. For example, Turin in
the Piedmont province of Italy was named Turin in the original Piedmontese language, but is now
officially known as Torino in Italian.[7] The International Olympic Committee made the choice to
regard the city officially as "Torino" throughout the 2006 Winter Olympics. The English and French
name for Florence in Italy is closer to the original name in Latin (Florentia) than is the modern Italian
name (Firenze).

Personal names

Historic names
…
In the past, the names of people from other language areas were anglicised to a higher extent than
today. This was the general rule for names of Latin or (classical) Greek origin. Today, the anglicised
name forms are often retained for the more well-known persons, like Aristotle for Aristoteles, and
Adrian (or later Hadrian) for Hadrianus. However, less well-known persons from antiquity are now
often given their full original-language name (in the nominative case, regardless of its case in the
English sentence).

For royalty, the anglicisation of personal names was a general phenomenon, especially until recently,
such as Charles for Carlos, Karoly, and Karl, or Frederic for Friedrich or Fredrik. Anglicisation of the
Latin is still the rule for popes: Pope John Paul II instead of Ioannes Paulus II, Pope Benedict XVI
instead of Benedictus XVI, Pope Francis instead of Franciscus.

The anglicisation of medieval Scottish names consists of changing them from a form consistent
with Scottish Gaelic to the Scots language, which is an Anglo-Frisian language. For instance, the
king known in Scottish Gaelic as Domnall mac Causantín (Domnall son of Causantín) is known in
Scots as Donald, son of Constantine.

Immigrant names
…
During the time in which there were large influxes of immigrants from Europe to the United States
and United Kingdom during the 19th and 20th centuries, the names of many immigrants were never
changed by immigration officials (as demonstrated in The Godfather Part II)[8] but only by personal
choice.

French immigrants to the United States (of Huguenot or French Canadian background) often
accommodated those unfamiliar with French pronunciations and spellings by altering their
surnames in either of two ways: spellings were changed to fit the traditional pronunciation (Pariseau
became Parizo, Boucher became Bushey, Mailloux became Mayhew), or pronunciations were
changed to fit the spelling (Benoît, pronounced French pronunciation: [bənwa], became /bɛnˈɔɪt/). In
some cases, it could go either way (Gagné, pronounced [ɡaɲe], became /ˈɡæɡni/ or Gonyea), or
something only slightly similar.

Most Irish names have been anglicised. An example is the surnames of many Irish families – for
example, Mac Artáin now commonly spelt McCartan also Mac Cartaigh which evolved to become
the McCarthy. Ó Briain has often become O'Brien, Ó Rothláin became Rowland, Ó Néill became
O'Neill, Mac Cana became McCann and some surnames may be shortened, like Ó Gallchobhair to
just Gallagher. Likewise, native Scottish names were altered such as Somhairle to Sorley, Mac Gill-
Eain to MacLean, and Mac Aoidh to MacKay. Many Welsh names have also been altered, such as
"ap Hywell" to Powell, or "ap Siôn" to Jones.

German names of immigrants were also anglicised (such as Bürger to Burger, Schneider to Snyder)
in the course of German immigration waves during times of political and economic instability in the
late 19th and early 20th century. A somewhat different case was the politically motivated change of
dynasty name in 1917 by the royal family of the United Kingdom from the House of Saxe-Coburg
and Gotha to the House of Windsor. Incidentally, Saxe-Coburg was already an anglicisation of the
German original Sachsen-Coburg.

The anglicisation of a personal name now usually depends on the preferences of the bearer. Name
changes are less common today for Europeans emigrating to the United States than they are for
people originating in East Asian countries (except for Japan, which no longer has large-scale
emigration). However, unless the spelling is changed, European immigrants put up with (and in due
course accept) an anglicised pronunciation: "Lewinsky" will be so pronounced, unless the "w"
becomes a "v", as in "Levi". "Głowacki" will be pronounced "Glowacki", even though in Polish
pronunciation it is "Gwovatski". "Weinstein" is usually pronounced with different values for the two "-
ein-" parts (/ˈwaɪnstiːn/).

Ethnonyms

As is the case with place names and personal names, in some cases ethnic designations may be
anglicised based on a term from a language other than that of the group described. For example,
"Germany" comes from the Latin designation Germania, not the local name Deutschland.

See also

Look up anglicise or anglicize in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

 English exonyms of Arabic speaking places

English-speaking world

English terms with diacritical marks

Assimilation (linguistics)

Linguistic purism in English

Notes

a. A charterparty is a maritime contract between a shipowner and a charterer for the hire of a
ship or yacht.

b. i.e. a "split paper", or a document written in duplicate so that each party retains half.

c. Earl and nobles would pay "homage" to the king.

References

1. English in Wales: diversity, conflict, and change - Page 19 Nikolas pCoupland, Alan Richard
Thomas - 1990 "'Anglicisation' is one of those myriad terms in general use which everyone
understands and hardly anyone defines. It concerns the process by which non-English people
become assimilated or bound into an ..."

2. The British World: Diaspora, Culture, and Identity - Page 89 Carl Bridge, Kent Fedorowich, Carl
Bridge Kent Fedorowich - 2003 "Beyond gaps in our information about who or what was
affected by anglicisation is the matter of understanding the process more fully in terms of
agency, periodisation, and extent and limitations."

3. The Economist, 13 May 2017, page 53: "The ultimate concession is to give activists
representation on the board in return for keeping schtum."

4. " 'homage, n.'. OED Online. June 2020. Oxford University Press" . Oxford English Dictionary.

5. Hyde, Douglas (25 November 1892). "The Necessity for De-Anglicising Ireland" . Retrieved
2008-03-27.

. " "de-anglicisation", in Free Online Dictionary" . Retrieved 2013-10-21. "the elimination of

English influence, language, customs, etc."

7. Owen, James (March 6, 2006). "From "Turin" to "Torino": Olympics Put New Name on the
Map" . National Geographic. Archived from the original on 12 February 2008. Retrieved
2008-03-27.
. Messenger, Chris (2002). The Godfather and American Culture: How the Corleones Became "Our
Gang" . State University of New York Press. ISBN 9780791453582. Retrieved January 29,
2014.
a
"...arrives at Ellis Island in 1901 (film version) and accepts the change of his name to
"Corleone..." — pg. 214, ¶ 2.