We tend to use a plethora of foreign derived words in our daily conversation. You may have come across at least a few languages in your life, haven’t you? One of them is your mother tongue, and you may have had to learn the others (for some of you it could be solely English!). Whatever languages you have in your treasury, they are sure to have influences from some or the other language.

The unique approach I would like to talk about discusses the same – Taking interest in the foreign/regional influences on world’s languages.

Why this approach? Let me explain

For example – TV, routine, guarantee

These are words that we use, even though we could alternatively use native words for them. Using native words ultimately increases your knowledge.

In order to increase your knowledge, you can try experimenting this. ‘Using alternative words as much as possible’. Let me give you my example.

While speaking German, I was honestly not satisfied with using the word garantieren, which means to guarantee. It sounds too similar to English. Additionally, it came to English and German via French, most likely derived from the Spanish word garantizar. In a language as rich as German, there is indeed an alternative word (which is ‘typically German’) – Sicherstellen. It is easy if you break it down. Sicher – for sure and stellen – to put. Isn’t that what guaranteeing means? To ensure something.

Not only German, you can do this for English as well. Do you know what a Rainshade is? The meaning is actually easy – Umbrella! Umbrella comes from the Italian word Ombrella.

A few more examples – Some of you like to read books, and love literature. Well, instead of literature, there is an interesting word – Bookcraft. While others may like to watch TV. For TV, there is in fact a word called Farseer. The words Doordarshan (in several Indian languages), Fernseher (German) and even Television itself (tele-Greek and vision-French via Latin), all mean exactly the same!

The words Rainshade, Bookcraft, Farseer along with many others are a part of Anglish. What is Anglish? Basically English, but composed of only Germanic words, removing influences from Romance languages. English and German language lovers must check out Anglish!

One downside could be – This approach to learning new words could be tedious, especially if you’re not interested in culture or history. However, you can try this if your challenges are the same as me.

Even as a linguaphile, it is quite boring for me to look up words in a dictionary, and search what they mean. The literary language in the books does not make me joyous either. Hence I had to find something different to learn new words (in any language). This approach has enriched my vocabulary to some extent.

Just look at my first sentence of this post! The word plethora is derived from Greek vocabulary. Even as an alternative to the word vocabulary, you can use the word lexicon (which is from Greek as well).

If you’re into linguistics, you may find this approach helpful. You will be surprised by the amount of similarities between Old Norse, Old English, Middle English, Anglish, German and Germanic languages in general. Or else, you could delve deeper into Latin, Greek or even non-European languages for that matter!

This approach could also help you if you are into non-linguistic fields. It is because maximum terms in sciences – medicine or technology (even these two words!) are derived from Greek or Latin. In the legal field too, learning French and Latin turns out to be a lifeline, if you want to ‘advocate’ for something (the word advocate comes from them too!).

In the end, I present my opinion – Learn one language to enhance the other (or even others)!

END NOTE: So what do you think? Is this a good idea to learn languages? Let me know, and we can have a discussion.