Ressurecting archaic words (or borrowing words from other languages/dialects)

[Dan Q]

The thread of "phrases that piss you off" got me thinking about another linguistic question: what words are missing from your language? I've got a couple of examples (coming from my background in British English) to start you off.

Fortnight

This word, meaning "two weeks", is present in British English but absent in US English, and I periodically trip over its absence when talking to work colleagues (most of my coworkers are in the US). I'll just casually suggest that we "set up a fortnightly meeting" and everybody looks at me blankly.

This word is super useful and everybody should have it! I've seen people use "bimonthly" instead, but that's terrible because (a) it's not quite the same thing, except in a 28-day February, and (b) it's an ambiguous term ("bimonthly" also means "once every two months": perhaps if we all started using "fortnightly" for "once every two weeks" then "bimonthly" can solidify an unambiguous meaning of "once every two months").

Overmorrow / ereyesterday

Overmorrow means "the day after tomorrow", and I think it's just a beautiful word! Some languages still have this word (e.g. German-speakers might use übermorgen), but it's sort-of died out in English. So I'm trying to bring it back! If I say goodbye to you today - Tuesday - but I expect to see you again on Thursday, I'll quite-possibly say "see you overmorrow!" Such a goregous word.

Ereyesterday is the opposite: it's an archaic word meaning "the day before yesterday". I'm not such a big fan of this one - it sounds a bit clunky, and it's not quite so-useful in conversations: at least, not the ones I have! (Which I guess must involve setting up lots of two-weekly meetings starting in two days time?) But it's a fun one to keep your back pocket. Also a mouthful is nudiustertian (new-dee-us-ter-shon), which also means "the day before yesterday" but is perhaps even less-used.

Y'all / youse / ye

Here's a word that British English lacks, and that I've been adopting from other dialects! Linguistically, it's the second-person plural pronoun. In contemporary British English, we use "you" as both the singular and plural version of the second-person pronoun, but this introduces a problem. Suppose Alice is hanging out with Bob and Chris, a couple with whom she is friends. Alice says to Bob "Are you coming to Dave's party?" - who is the "you" in that sentence? In British English, it's impossible to say for certain: is it Bob, or is it Bob-and-Chris?

(Some British dialects include "you guys" for this purpose, but that just introduces new problems: e.g. it comes off as overly-casual and informal in some contexts, plus "guys" was traditionally a masculine-gendered term and is still interpreted this way in some dialects and by some listeners, so it's not a great universal choice.)

Many other languages - and many English dialects - have a solution, and I love it! The Southern USA uses "y'all", South Africa has "youse", Ireland has "ye". These words are highly-comprehensible (you can learn what they mean from context the very first time you hear them) and super useful! For the last few years I've used "y'all" routinely in my speech and I've loved having access to such a versatile word.


What words are missing from your first language or your dialect of English? Or what words are unique or almost-unique to a language that you speak that you'd like to offer for others to adopt into theirs?

[IndigoGolem]

One thing i've considered doing in my own speech is using "ain't" as a general person negative copula, so it can mean isn't, aren't, ain't (amn't), ben't. "Isn't" is two syllables, "aren't" is one but sounds very close to "are" in my accent, and "ben't" is pretty uncommon. And its use to mean "amn't" wouldn't have to change at all because English already requires a noun or pronoun before a verb, even when the verb is conjugated to indicate who/what is doing it.

I'm also in favor of giving the color of the sky its own word instead of lumping it in with blue. I like "celeste" here, but i think i've also heard it called azure.

[fablefound]

I say "y'all" a frankly embarrassing amount for someone from the Canadian PNW. I blame Hannah Montana.
Anyways, I'm a huge fan of "perchance." Which people make fun of me for saying but it's a nifty little word!
Also, I started using thou/thine as a bit but now I kinda can't stop. Whoops. There're probably other peculiar little words/phrases I say, but morning brain can't find them lol.

[Dan Q]

Anyways, I'm a huge fan of "perchance."

Me too!

I joke that my partner's husband was born a few hundred years too late: he's strongly opinionated on things like the English Civil War, various quirks of the order of succession of monarchs of the distant past, and so on. But perhaps the biggest giveaway is that he still routinely uses words like "wherefore" (instead of, y'know, "why").

Also, I started using thou/thine as a bit but now I kinda can't stop.

Thou/thee/thine are really curious to me because nowadays they only get used for the purpose of being especially formal... but their actual historical use was specifically to be informal! You'd use "thee" to talk to your friend, but "you" to talk to your boss. Some languages still differentiate in terms of formality in this kind of way (e.g. tous/vous in French), but English "lost" it, instead just using the formal "you" in every instance.

They're cool words, though!

[Zero Kirby]

Anyways, I'm a huge fan of "perchance." Which people make fun of me for saying but it's a nifty little word!

"Perchance" is a great word, I like to use it too. It's just fun to say!

I have a tendency to use "mayhaps" myself quite a bit. I'm not quite sure how archaic that word in particular is, but I definitely don't see it terribly often. I mean my spell-check right now is telling me it isn't one but I know I'm not the only one who's ever used it

[fablefound]

I mean, honestly? It's already come full circle for me and my pals. I'll thou and thine them all day, but I'd never talk like that to my boss... even though I work at a writing organization where it would be far from the weirdest thing anyone's said.

Also, love me a possible time traveller moment. If I'd had to live through monarchy, I'd have stayed super opinionated about it too.

Also-also, LOVE me a mayhaps.

[Cele]

I write so much about non-Eglish topics that using a massive amount of "untranslatable loanwords" is the norm. My English, on the other hand, is very "flat" in that I mostly write using whatever I see others using (perchance, mayhaps, y'all belong to my vocabulary thanks to the internet).

There was recently a conversation online about how to translate tietäjä into English, as "shaman" isn't exactly accurate and "cunning folk" wasn't very popular either. I guess this is one of the cases where you just don't translate.

Myself, I read a lot of oral poetry and other old tradition which forces you to learn the most bizarre outdated words. I really try my best to use dialectical words from my home because I think they're valuable to be preserved, and mainstream culture is mostly just in standardized language.

[Dan Q]

I joke that my partner's husband was born a few hundred years too late: he's strongly opinionated on things like the English Civil War, various quirks of the order of succession of monarchs of the distant past, and so on.

If I'd had to live through monarchy, I'd have stayed super opinionated about it too.

I've always been staunchly republican (note the small "r"; I'm talking "belief in a republic, not a monarachy", not the name of that US political party), but my aforementioned metamour has only recently switched his political outlook from more-monarchist to more-republican, I feel.

I think his sentiments echo that of many Brits: the late Queen Liz II was an astute and wise politician; limited obviously by the constitution (British monarchs don't hold any real power nowadays: they can theoretically veto a bill, but if they did so it'd likely be the last expression of power they ever had because it'd likely result in a constitutional crisis and the ending of our (symbolic) monarchy.

But King Charlie III has always felt like a more... pointless?... figurehead, whether as Prince of Wales or now as the king. That, combined with the more-recent fallout following the revelations about quite how much Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Jeffrey Epstein were best buds, seems to be doing a good job of souring the traditional British reverence for the royals, and I think there's an increasing number of folks over here who're pivoting to an anti-monarchic outlook.

I can't imagine us completely dissolving the monarchy in my lifetime. But I can hope!