Look up anglicize in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Anglicisation or anglicization (see -ise vs -ize) is a process of making something English. Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wiktionary (from wiki and dictionary) is a multilingual, Web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in over 150 languages. ... American and British English spelling differences are one aspect of American and British English differences. ... Motto (French) God and my right Anthem God Save the King (Queen) England() – on the European continent() – in the United Kingdom() Capital (and largest city) London (de facto) Official languages English (de facto) Government Constitutional monarchy  -  Queen Queen Elizabeth II  -  Prime Minister Tony Blair MP Unification  -  by Athelstan 967  Area...

The term most often refers to the process of altering the pronunciation or spelling of a foreign word when it is borrowed into English. People may also be anglicised – an immigrant to England becomes anglicised as he or she acclimates to the culture. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Immigration is the act of moving to or settling in another country or region, temporarily or permanently. ... Cultural assimilation (often called merely assimilation) is an intense process of consistent integration whereby members of an ethno-cultural group, typically immigrants, or other minority groups, are absorbed into an established, generally larger community. ... Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning to cultivate), generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance. ...

Loanwords

Non-English words may be anglicised by changing their form and pronunciation to something more familiar to English speakers. For example, the Latin word obscenus /obskeːnus/ has been imported into English in the modified form obscene /əbˈsiːn/. Changing endings in this manner is especially common, and can be frequently seen when foreign words are imported into any language. For example, 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). Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories corresponding roughly to the northern half of modern France and parts of Belgium and Switzerland from around 1000 to 1300 A.D. It was known at the time as the langue doïl to distinguish it from the langue... // An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. ...

Proper names

Place names are commonly anglicised in English. Examples include the Italian city of Napoli, known in English as Naples, the German city of München (Munich), the Danish city of København (Copenhagen), and the Dutch city of Den Haag (The Hague). Such anglicisation was once universal: nearly all cities and people discussed in English literature up to the mid-20th century had their names anglicised. In the late 20th century, however, use of non-English 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 they exist in their local language, sometimes even with diacritical marks that do not normally exist in English. With languages that use non-Latin alphabets, such as the Arabic, Cyrillic, and Greek alphabets, a direct transliteration is typically used, which is then often pronounced according to English rules. Naples (Italian: , Neapolitan: Nàpule, from Greek Νεάπολη < Νέα Πόλις Néa Pólis New City) Capital of the Campania region and the Province of Naples. ... Munich (German: , pronounced  ; Austro-Bavarian: Minga [1]) is the capital of the German Federal State of Bavaria. ... For other uses, see Copenhagen (disambiguation). ... Arms of The Hague Flag of The city of The Hague. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901&#8211;2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900&#8211;1999... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ... A diacritic mark or accent mark is an additional mark added to a basic letter. ... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing Arabic and various other languages, together with various closely related scripts that typically differ in the presence or absence of a few letters. ... The Cyrillic alphabet (pronounced , also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters) is an alphabet used for several East and South Slavic languages—Belarusian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Rusyn, Serbian, and Ukrainian—and many other languages of the former Soviet Union, Asia and Eastern Europe. ... The Greek alphabet is an alphabet that has been used to write the Greek language since about the 9th century BCE. It was the first alphabet in the narrow sense, that is, a writing system using a separate symbol for each vowel and consonant alike. ... Transliteration is the practice of transcribing a word or text written in one writing system into another writing system. ...

De-anglicisation has become a matter of national pride in some places and especially in regions that were once under colonial rule ^[1], where vestiges of colonial domination are a sensitive subject. As a consequence, anglicised names have been officially discouraged in many places: Ireland's Kingstown has reverted back to its original Gaelic name of Dún Laoghaire, China's Peking is now Beijing, and India's Bombay is now Mumbai (although Bombay is still commonly used by locals when speaking English). It has been suggested that Benign colonialism be merged into this article or section. ... // WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: 53. ... Beijing (Chinese: 北京; pinyin: BÄ›ijÄ«ng; IPA: ;  ), a metropolis in northern China, is the capital of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). ... “Bombay” redirects here. ...

In other cases, established anglicised names have remained in common use where there is no national pride at stake: this is the case with Munich, Naples, Rome, Athens, and other western European cities whose names have been familiar in their anglicised forms for centuries. The borders of Western Europe were largely defined by the Cold War. ...

Sometimes a place name can appear anglicised, but is not, such as when the form being used in English is an older name that has now been changed. For example, Turin in the Piedmont area of Italy was named Turin in the original Piedmontese language, but is now officially known as Torino in Italian. English-language media can sometimes overcompensate for this in the mistaken belief that the anglicised name was imposed by English speakers and is cultural domination. “Torino” redirects here. ... For other uses, see Piedmont (disambiguation). ... Piedmontese (also known as Piemontèis, and Piemontese in Italian) is a language spoken by over 2 million people in Piedmont, northwest Italy. ...

During the time in which there were large influxes of immigrants from Europe to the United States and Britain during the 19th and 20th centuries, the names of many immigrants were changed. Urban legend holds that this was often done by the immigration officials mishearing, but in fact it was more frequently an effort by the immigrants themselves to make their names more accessible to their new American or British neighbours [1]. This article is 150 kilobytes or more in size. ... An urban legend or urban myth is a kind of modern folklore consisting of stories often thought to be factual by those circulating them. ...

French immigrants to the United States (both those of Huguenot and 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 (Benoit, pronounced BEN-wah, became Ben-OYT). In some cases, it could go either way (Gagne, pronounced gon-YAY, become GAG-nee or Gonyea), or something only slightly similar (Bourassa became Bersaw). In the 16th and 17th centuries, the name Huguenot was applied to a member of the Protestant Reformed Church of France, historically known as the French Calvinists. ... French Canadian is a term that has several different connotations. ...

Surnames often changed within the United Kingdom. A good example of this can be seen in the surnames of many Irish families – for example, Ó Briain has often become O'Brien, Ó Rothlain became Rowland, and Ó Néill became O'Neill. Similarly, native Scottish names were altered such as Somhairle to Sorley, Mac Gill-Eain to MacLean, and Mac Aoidh to MacKay. This can also occur to historical figures - Christopher Columbus is the anglicised version of Cristoforo Colombo, an Italian name. Another important example is Confucius, which is a Latinization of Chinese K'ung-fu-tzu. OBrien is a common surname of Irish origin. ... The Four Provinces of Ireland. ... ONeill (also spelled ONeil) is a common surname of Irish origin. ... Motto (Latin) No one provokes me with impunity Cha togar mfhearg gun dioladh (Scottish Gaelic)1 Wha daur meddle wi me?(Scots)1 Anthem (Multiple unofficial anthems) Scotlands location in Europe Capital Edinburgh Largest city Glasgow Official languages English, Gaelic Government Constitutional monarchy  -  Queen Queen Elizabeth II  -  Prime... Christopher Columbus (1451 – May 20, 1506) was a navigator and maritime explorer credited as the discoverer of the Americas. ... Confucius (Chinese: ; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Kung-fu-tzu, lit. ...

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 Japan. For instance, Xiangyun might be anglicised to Sean as the pronunciation is similar (though Sean - or Seán - is Irish and is a Gaelicisation of the Norman French Jean).

Anglicisation of other languages

A more recent linguistic development is anglicisation of other languages, in which words are borrowed from English, making the other language more similar to English; such a word is known as an anglicism. With the rise in anglophone media and global spread of British and American culture in the 20th and 21st centuries, many English terms have entered popular usage in other tongues. Technology-related English words like internet and computer are particularly common across the globe, as there are no pre-existing words for them. English words are sometimes imported verbatim, and sometimes adapted to the importing language in a process similar to anglicisation. In languages with non-Latin alphabets, these borrowed words can be written in the Latin alphabet anyway, resulting in a text made up of a mixture of scripts; other times they are transliterated. Transliteration of English and other foreign words into Japanese requires the special katakana script, and so many words are derived from modern English that any katakana in a passage of Japanese has a high probability of being based on an English word or phrase. This article or section is not written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia article. ... Katakana ) is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet. ...

In some countries such anglicisation is seen as relatively benign, and the use of English words may even take on a chic aspect, being seen as modern and advanced. This is especially true in countries such as Japan, where many local companies have even taken to marketing products for the domestic market using English or pseudo-English brand names and slogans. In other countries, anglicisation is seen much more negatively, often as a threat to the perceived purity of the national language, and there are efforts by public-interest groups and governments to reverse the trend; for example, the Académie française in France creates French neologisms to describe technological inventions and encourages the use of those words in place of imported English terms. The Académie française In the French educational system an académie LAcadémie française, or the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. ... A neologism (Greek νεολογισμός [neologismos], from νέος [neos] new + λόγος [logos] word, speech, discourse + suffix -ισμός [-ismos] -ism) is a word, term, or phrase which has been recently created (coined) — often to apply to new concepts, to synthesize pre-existing concepts, or to make older terminology sound more contemporary. ...

Anglicisation of minority language groups

The adoption of English as a personal, preferred language is another form of anglicisation. Calvin Veltman, following the methods of analysis developed in Québec for establishing rates of language shift, uses the term to refer to the practice of individuals in minority language groups who cease using their mother tongue as their usual, preferred language and adopt English instead. When such individuals continue to speak their mother tongue, they are referred to as "English-dominant bilinguals" and when they cease to do so, they are referred to as "English monolinguals". Rates of anglicisation may be calculated by comparing the number of people who usually speak English to the total number of people in any given minority language group. Calvin Veltman is an American sociologist, demographer and sociolinguist at the Université du Québec à Montréal. ... Language shift is the process whereby an entire speech community of a language shifts to speaking another language. ...

External links

• The Necessity for De-Anglicising Ireland by Douglas Hyde

See also

• Americanization
• Anglicism
• Arabization
• Francization
• Gaelicization
• Germanisation
• English words with diacritics
• Loanword
• Polonization
• Romanization
• Russification
• Ukrainization