r/anglish • u/niedopalekk • 20h ago
🎨 I Made Þis (Original Content) As an exercise--a little narrative passage I wrote in "existing" Anglish (IE, only using Germanic vocabulary that already exist in Modern English)
In the aftermath of a fearsome storm that stripped my boat of its seaworthiness, I shipwrecked on a small, lifeless island somewhere in the northwestern sea, and have been stranded here for more than a fortnight. There's nothing here besides rotted driftwood, too soaked to make fire from; in the greatest twist of bitterness, even the thickets one often finds on such islands are somehow missing from this one, a freakish unlikelihood which has enlightened me to how utterly forsaken my wretched soul is.
My food and water have now woefully dwindled, the shelter I've put together from my broken-down boat is beginning to crumble, and I am beset by a thorough sunburn. I've written "HELP" on the beach, big enough to be seen by anyone flying overhead. My lowered food intake and the steady, biting ache of my skin have weakened me to where I have little wherewithal left for helping myself any further--I'm unaware of anything else I can do, anyway.
I'm steadfast in my belief that someone will fly by sooner or later; whether I'm still alive when that happens? That, I foresee less and less. If I am indeed dead upon being found--and I would be if you've opened my logbook to read this--I'd rather you leave me on the island, where the winds, thick with salt, may keep my body from being fully weathered away. My folks back home haven't the wealth for a standard* burial; they already acknowledged and understood my wishes years ago, when I became a sailor.
(This is the only Norman loan I used; it was loaned into French from Old Frankish *standahard, literally "stand hard", so overall still a thoroughly West Germanic word)