Celebrate National Language English Day on October 13th with Paranormal Romance Author C.D. Hersh…

While hunting for an October blog idea we came across the National English Language Day. This special day not only commemorates the day in 1362 when the British Parliament was opened the first time by a speech in English, rather than French. The day also celebrates the universality, uniqueness, and the evolvement of the English language over the centuries.

Now the most common language in the world, English was brought to Britain by Anglo-Saxon migrants in the 5th-7th centuries. From those humble beginnings the language has grown by leaps and bounds, incorporating words from other languages, words and concepts developed as new inventions, medicines and progress of industry, technology and medical discoveries developed. Consumer marketing also contributed to the growth of English adding words like: Cheerios, Sugar Pops, Grapenuts, Mars Bars and Snickers.

One of our favorite new-word categories includes imaginative writers like William Shakespeare, a brilliant actor, playwright, and poet, who lived in the late 1500s to early 1600s. Shakespeare is credited with coining, inventing and popularizing 1,700 words in the English language. Among those are: bedroom, downstairs, eyeball, gossip, hurry, jaded, kissing (one of our favorites for romance books and in general), rant, yelping, and zany. Green-eyed monster is one of Catherine’s favorite Shakespearian innovative phrases.

Shakespeare created these words by adapting existing words, adding prefixes or suffixes, combining words, or “borrowing” words from other languages. He sometimes changed nouns into verbs. For instance, the noun “elbow” became a verb. Today everyone knows what it means to “elbow” someone.

Our adaptation of English, which isn’t as common in other languages, is one of the things that has allowed English to grow so rapidly, often making it hard to keep up with the newest trendy words. This adaptability has made English unique and the most recognizable language on earth.

“How recognizable?”, you ask.

Ethologue, a research center for language intelligence, a primary official source for speaker data, estimates that around 1.53 billion people speak English, either as their mother tongue or as a second language. That’s enough people to make English the most common language in the world.

So, this October 13 celebrate English! Look up some of the unique words of the Bard. Thumb through the 250,000 words in and Oxford Dictionary. Read Shakespeare or Jane Eyre, then a bit of Fan Fiction or Sci-Fi to see how English has blossomed and grown or just hang around an old beatnik or teen and see if you can figure out what new words the people of their eras invented.

Last, but not least, write a poem or story and incorporate some of the “borrowed” words from other languages, using the invented words on the list below, or be like the Bard and create your own words.

The world of the English language is all around you, explore it and the share this blog with a friend.

Thanks for stopping by, and Happy National English Day!

Partial list of “borrowed” words from other languages:

French: ballet, entrepreneur, cuisine, adventure

Spanish: hurricane, tomato, avocado, taco, potato

Hindi: guru, shampoo, bungalow, pundit

Japanese: tsunami, karaoke, tycoon, sushi

Arabic: alcohol, algebra, sultan, zenith, safari, lemon

German: wanderlust, kindergarten, rucksack, hamburger

Aztec: chocolate, chili, coyote
Indigenous American Indians: moccasin, chipmunk, hominy, toboggan
Dutch: skipper, cookie, dollar

Greek: metropolis, theatre, philosophy

C.D. Hersh–Two hearts creating everlasting love stories.

Putting words and stories on paper is second nature to co-authors C.D. Hersh. They’ve written separately since they were teenagers and discovered their unique, collaborative abilities in the mid-90s.

As high school sweethearts, and husband and wife, Catherine and Donald believe in true love and happily ever after.

Their paranormal series is titled The Turning Stone Chronicles is currently out of print.

They are looking forward to many years of co-authoring and book sales, and a lifetime of happily-ever-after endings on the page and in real life.

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