Anglicizing

Anglicisation (or anglicization, see English spelling differences), occasionally anglification, anglifying, englishing, in this article refers to modifications made to foreign words, names and phrases to make them easier to spell, pronounce, or understand in English. It commonly refers to the respelling of foreign words, often to a more drastic degree than romanisation. One example is the word "dandelion", modified from the French dent-de-lion (“lion’s tooth”, because of the sharply indented leaves).

Anglicising non-English words for use in English is just one case of the widespread domestication of foreign words that is common to many languages, sometimes involving shifts in meaning. One example is the German word Felleisen (a backpack), a germanization of the French word valise (small suitcase).

This article does not cover the unmodified adoption of foreign words into English (kindergarten); the unmodified adoption of English words into foreign languages (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. (Examples being the action of the English crown in the Celtic regions of the United Kingdom, in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Cornwall; the policy on use of the English language as one of the causes contributing to the South African Wars (1879–1915); or the adoption of English as a personal, preferred language in countries where that language is not native, but has become for historical reasons the language of government, commerce, and instruction.)

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 more conveniently fit English norms, 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 understand 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 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 19 centuries, is an adaptation of the French phrase Route du Roi. The word "genie" has been anglicized via Latin from jinn or djinn 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.

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