What Makes Prose GOOD? Part 3: Rewriting Tolkien, Sanderson, and Rothfuss | Professor Craig Explains
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- Опубликовано: 27 авг 2024
- Watch part 1 here: • What Makes Prose GOOD?...
And part 2 here: • What Makes Prose GOOD?...
In this installment, we put one of your comments to the test! Jum Hed says "English flows a lot better when you remove the Romance words and keep it Germanic." But is that true? To test it out, I rewrote 3 paragraphs from Tolkien, Rothfuss, and Sanderson, taking out as many Latinate words as I could and replacing them with Germanic synonyms. So how do the paragraphs turn out? Watch on and find out!
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I thought 'ladder' was old english--from proto-German 'Hlaidri'.
Damn, you're right. Messed that one up! Went too fast, I guess. Thanks for the correction!
@@TheLegendarium It was a very informative video.
*Proto Germanic
*hlaidrijó
"Other spotting bands had kept themselves from that doom. They'd used great ladders that stretch to make it atop the flat-hills in highstorms. They'd lost many men though, for the hills lacked much shelter under storms, and you couldn't bring wagons or other shelter with you into the rifts. The worse threat, he'd heard, had been the Parshendi gangs on their rounds. They found and killed many bands of spotters."
^
This would be my German-ization. I think the more freedom we allow with phrasing, the more we can see the poetic potential and "flow" of Germanic words. Latin and Old English of course don't structure sentences the same way so the more adjustment we make to that aspect too, the more it "feels right".
Great video. I loved it.
I think the lesson is you can't just sub out words. It's about how the entire scene and passage is conceived and constructed. For Sanderson you basically have to rewrite the whole piece from a more Germanic perspective.
I don't know if what fantasy readers think of as "good prose" is something that "goes by unnoticed". It might be the opposite. Rothfuss in particular seems to want you to notice his prose. Tolkien's goal seemed to have been to write something that felt older and more formal. And Sanderson is writing modern stories for modern audiences and is probably going for accessibility over anything else.
I certainly don't necessarily think good prose has to be flowery or poetic. I've read modern legal thrillers or mysteries that weren't the least bit poetic, but the prose serves the story and flows really well.
YMMV but for my money? Rothfuss is pretentious, where Tolkien's writing is gorgeous.
I think that Sanderson isn't necessarily going for accessibility, though it is one of the concerns. By being very to the point and using everyday language he makes his worlds more grounded and closer to the reader.
Another good example of how prose can be used to highlight itself is the way it's used in The Locked Tomb by Tamsyn Muir (especially the first, book, Gideon the Ninth). It alternates between grandiose descriptions and then modern humor and obscure meme references turned into dialogue, all in a sarcastic tone by the unreliable narrative of the central character. The effect for me is you had a strong feeling of the character's personality, like they were a friend you knew. It also made the more horrific violence and gore happening in the story more palatable. The implications of how awful everything actually is wouldn't really hit you until later or on a reread. It's a weird and bizarre tone throughout.
The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells also does a similar thing with its prose. The main character's opinions shine through a lot and ends up making what would otherwise be a standard sci-fi mystery and survival action story a fun romp.
The main difference I noticed between the three is in description, not word usage.
Tolkien lovingly describes the environment in such detail that the reader could count the leaves on the trees.
The scene from Rothfuss is personal. We're given all the detail we need to understand the emotions at play.
Sanderson meanwhile provides just the facts. This is a paragraph that would be hard to summarize because the paragraph itself is already a summary compared to the one from Tolkien.
Oh, yeah, Tolkien describes plants and topography like crazy.
@@PeregrinTintenfish Yeah, Tolkien was following the conventions of Haggard, Burroughs, and Cooper, among others.
I honestly prefer stiffness it seems to denote an uncomfortable almost involuntary bodily reaction that comes from being in a position where you see no escape and can't will your body to take action, it denotes more the lack of motion or the trouble of acting to show her current lack of agency. Tension seems like it can be more ambiguous with its meaning and come from multiple causes.
Fun video, and a nice object lesson in the restrictions you place on yourself when trying for some form of linguistic purity in English. For me, flow is aided by having the widest possible selection of words to draw from, etymology be darned. The right word in the right spot doesn’t come from a shackled vocabulary.
That's why Jorge Luis Borges loved English so much. So many possibilities! Not just in vocabulary, but construction as well.
It does take skill to write well while maintaining purity. Having more words can be a good crutch, albeit somewhat at the cost of quality. The right words in the right spots do not come from a messy vocabulary.
I think it might be instructive to consider why a writer like Tolkien who not only used 90% Germanic words, but was also a professor of English and student of Germanic language and myth, chose the Latinate words he did use. In just about every case where you changed a Latinate word to Germanic, either some connotation was lost or changed, or the rhythm of the sentence was altered, and not often for the better. I'm pretty sure he didn't choose those specific words just because they were the first ones that came to mind, but because they were better suited for his considered purpose in each case. Sometimes it's as simple as there not being an alternative, as you pointed out, but sometimes word choice comes down to flow/rhythm and specific connotational information.
I'm sure you're already aware of it, but there's a great example of the clunky-ness that comes with forcing a change in word origins. It's called "Uncleftish Beholding", and it was written as a description of atomic theory from chemistry using only germanic roots. Much of the technical language of science is derived from Latin and Greek, so it makes a lot of interesting and inspired choices. It's also quite short, so it's worth giving a look, and you can find sample paragraphs all over the internet.
Ahh, that wonderful Andersaxon language
Great video. Liked and subscribed!
Perhaps de-latinating a passage is not a matter of vocabulary only, but of wider translation. It isn't strictly fair, but here's an attempt at Tolkienizing and Germanicing Sanderson:
"Other outriders did not meet those two dooms. They used great lengthening ladders to climb atop the cliffs in highstorms. They lost many men, though, as the heights gave scant shelter in the storms, and you could not bring wagons or other dwellings with you into the gulches. The greater threat, he had heard, were the Parshendi watchmen. They found and killed many bands of outriders."
More comprehensible? To our ears, probably not. However, the flow of the prose feels older and may be preferable to some.
I think this paragraph is just a hard one to follow already and it is especially hard without the word plateau to put us in the shattered plains. For one, the first sentence references something just mentioned.
Am I the only one who actually thinks "came into sight" is indeed more poetic than just "appear"? It turns it from just a fact into a momentary story / human experience.
I think you did a good job with that choice.
I favor fewer words if they convey equivalent meaning, regardless of their origin. Make the words work, as they say.
It’s so interesting that the Rothfuss rewrite actively lessens the weight of the scene. The connotation of what’s happening, as well as the woman’s discomfort, is far less clear. You still gather it, of course, but it loses the severity.
I told a friend about this series yesterday! How serendipitous
Hey thanks so much for sharing!
Really fun exercise… to watch you do… I wouldn’t even know where to begin trying to tackle something like this. But it is enlightening to know how word choices impact a story’s, or even a sentences, feeling. Similar to camera angles in film, average people (me) won’t give it a second thought, but that doesn’t mean the impact will be missed.
I was super inspired by this video, and was surprised by how rapidly I was able to distinguish vocabulary sources. The feel of words from proto germanic is not the same to the feel of words from latin. There are plenty of exceptions, especially from vocab that travels through frankish into French and subsequently into English. In these words I have switched from mostly Latin roots to mostly germanic roots each sentence, all without need of notes. I actually enjoy it because it colors my language so interestingly.
I wonder if there is a confounding factor: not just the chosen words but their arrangement, eg "They couldn't take..." versus "They could take no..." That is, the preference for Latinate words might correlate with a particular (clumsy) sentence structure.
Wow, your Germanifier machine was amazing! You should probably sell it for a profit!
"Other forward-bands had forbowed/forbown those two dooms. They'd noted great, outstretchendly ladders to make it atop the boardlands amidst highstorms. They'd lost many men, though, as boardlands gave arm shelter under storms, and you couldn't bring wains or other shelters with you into the clefts. The worse arveth, he'd heard, had been the Parshendi umgangs. They'd found and killed many bands of forwards."
This is a *highly* Anglicized version, with hefty revivals (forward 'scout' from OE forweard; forbow 'avoid' from OE forbúgan; note 'to use' from OE notian; boardland 'plateau' (compare 'tableland'); forthat 'because'; arm 'poor' from OE earm; arveth 'problem; difficulty' from OE earfoþ; umgang 'round, circle, circuit, patrol' from OE ymbgang; also mark the use of -endly from OE -endlic instead of -able).
This is much harder to understand for the modern English-speaker, I think, than a much more 'conservative' approach, mostly since it behooves a pretty deep knowledge of Old English vocab and of phonetic development between Old to Middle to Modern English, as well as a kind of creativity in coining words that OE and ME didn't have, often using extant words as models (like with 'board-land' instead of 'table-land'). What I notice, though, is how the flow becomes more 'Germanic', almost like Netherlandish (though they have their fair share of borrowings from French and Latin themselves).
Conservatively, without revivals that aren't readily recognizable to the modern speaker:
"Other forward-bands had avoided those two dooms. They'd used great, outstretchable ladders to make it atop the tablelands amidst hightstorms. They'd lost many men, though, as tablelands gave poor shelter under storms, and you coudn't bring wains or other shelters with you into the clefts, The worse worry, he'd heard, had been the Parshendi watchmen on their rounds. They'd found and killed many bands of forwards."
At the end of the day, however, I do very much prefer Germanic over Latinate/Hellenic words, half for aesthetic ends, half for more or less justice against the loss of many words and cultural symbols ever since the Normans came in and forced themselves upon (the) English. To me, the inborn words legitimize the tongue as something which can stand on its own, and these words also make it easier for more complicated concepts to be grasped by the average reader/listener/speaker (see 'whalelore' vs. 'cetology'; most folk would understand the first, if think it twee and odd, whereas the latter comes off almost wholly foreign, aside from the -logy suffix, and behooves 'expert' definition. I'll choose twee and odd yet easily graspable over over-affected and bourgeois any day).
YES I was wondering if you’d make any more of these - so glad there’s another one!
Simply stating that a sentence 100% composed of Germanic vocabulary flows better is something that you can't say when english doesn't have a 100% vocabulary range within its language. Neither do dutch or German. And it isn't so much about not including latin words, it is, in my opinion, taking effort to find more fitting words, and for me that is often these germanic words, that makes such prose better.
I think you have taken the original comment this video focused on a little too literally. It is not that a text directly transliterated into only germanic words will flow better, but a text written to only include germanic words sound better. And that is why your experiment works better with Tolkien and Rothfuss. Since the framework for the other words to be there is far better set.
And you can write to specifically include a greater number or even 100% germanic words. It's just that you can only go so far without using words that the reader won't understand. There are just some words of latin origin that can't be removed from the text. But the effort to seek out alternatives might lead you to find a more fitting word, latin or germanic. Example; "a nice house", an alternative can be "a fine house", both nice and fine come from latin and have no real germanic counterpart other than "a good house" but it doesn't convey the same meaning as either of the latin words, but the search for alternatives might lead to you finding a better word to use.
I do believe this is better practiced in editing rather than writing
You might find a non-native speaker's opinion interesting: I couldn't get through Lord of the Rings in English, I switched to my native language (Bulgarian) somewhere in the middle of the Two Towers. I'm not saying that I couldn't understand what I was reading, it was just hard to get through and was taking me considerable time which ultimately became annoying. On the other hand, I had no such issues with The Name of the Wind. My overall opinion on the book aside (definitely positive), the act of reading itself was an enjoyable experience and I found Rothfuss'es style quite pleasant.
I'm not knowledgeable enough to distinguish Germanic and Latinate words, it is something I rarely give much thought. I guess the reason is English words are mostly just 'foreign' to me. I haven't given much thought or analysed what the reason for LotR being that difficult to me is but I think it goes deeper than just choice of words. I'd be interesting to see move videos on this topic!
No matter what source you choose, latin, norse, germanic, Greek, or others, forcing 100% conformity will inevitably result in a compromise. However, I do really like the feel of mostly germanic writing. It makes it feel earthy and old where latinate feels airy and often academic. This reflects how the languages evolved. While French was utilized in the elegant speech of the English aristocracy for centuries and latin was the universal language of scholars and theology, English stayed rooted in the words of the simple folk, far from the kings, queens, and churchmen. The germanic words are the words of folk tales. The words of the farmer and the shepherd and the simple spearman. I like their short feel, full of earnestness and stout strength.
Bro put Norse and Germanic as separate..
@@gavinrolls1054 You're right. I could have been more technical.
Hardship works for "problem". Hindrance also works.
i was so happy when i saw this on my home feed, i love this series!
Glad you enjoy it!
Always love these type of videos from you. Very informative.
This was great! More prose videos!
As a scholar of the English language and an aspiring writer, I think the “flow” is constraints by the following of strong consonents. “Ng” , “st” ,”mn” and so forth. A quality promenantly appearant in the germanic words. Yet the Latin counterparts are more fluid and voweled
Cheers doc
Could you add a line to that chart for Robert E. Howard? Would like to learn to write in such a powerful style as his and what metrics make up his prose
Honestly this feels uncanny valley like. I've recently stumbled upon "Blindness" by José Saramago in the translated English copies, and since I have it in the original portuguese i had to check it out, and i was suprised to see how much "life" (if that's the right word) was taken out of it just by changing the words. They were, of course, the correct worse to use but it felt odd and out of place and like it should havent been there and that people were missing out because of the language barrier. After seeing this rewrite i felt the same and i hated it.
I prefer Sanderson's writing, simple and straightforward, plot matters to me the most, if I wanted fancy prose and stuff, I will just read poetry.
I’ve never read Sanderson but you took the words right out of my mouth regarding poetic writing.
When I read books with an overly poetic writing style it completely takes me out of the story and it becomes more of a chore.
Ursula K le Guin wrote an essay covering the flow and rhythms of prose -- I don't remember what it was called off the top of my head, but it was in her book The Wave in the Mind, and it covered Tolkien, Twain, Austen, and textbook writing. It doesn't go into Latinate vs. Germanic words, but it's still very interesting. She follows it with an essay on the rhythm of Tolkien's writing specifically.
From Elfland to Poughkeepsie.
Thank you so much
Do writers consciously think of Germanic and Latinate words when writing? I'm writing my novel and I don't think of the differences when choosing words.
No, most don't. And that's fine! It has a small effect on native English readers, but not enough that writers should spend TONS of time worrying about it. Just another tiny tool in a writer's belt.
I've spent a little bit of time setting out words by their source and reading them aloud to myself. Now using the feel of each kind of word is fairly easy. I cannot perfectly distinguish between the two categories, but as is possibly visible in this reply, there are distinct tonal differences.
Not necessarily. But what's the difference between a ghost and a spirit?
I think a lot of it is personal preference and perhaps, way of thinking too. I immediately felt uncomfortable with the Germanic changes and thought it is very noticeable. For me, this changed the flow and "musicality" of the paragraphs.
It seems to me that the main difference between Germanic and Latinate words in English is not so much a question of how poetic they sound, but rather how modern. If you're writing stories about dragons and wizards, modernity can quickly feel anachronistic. It can break the spell (pun intended). Jeopardize your suspension of disbelief. I think that's why people dislike Sanderson. If it feels like your neighbor from Albuquerque who works at Baskin-Robbins is telling you the story… On the other hand, if a text feels too old timey, that can be alienating also. It can become difficult to relate. It is a balancing act, for sure, but one that has more to do with Chronos than with Calliope, if you ask me.
7:38 could use ’seat’ instead of chair
It'd be interesting if there was an office suite plugin to suggest non-Latinate or non-Germanic words for a highlighted selection. Would make for some interesting writing exercises.
I want poetic prose, but flowing prose is key. It sounds like I should use Germanic words when they work but use Latinate words when no Germanic option suffices.
Video Request: Please analyze the first few pages of Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian.
I think seat is fine for chair.
Nice, that could definitely work
I was more annoyed than Sanderson used plateau in successive sentences as it sounded repetitive. Much like that alliteration...
An interesting, to me anyway, follow up would be how authors make up words. For example adding 'ium' to words to make them sound more archaic/Latin. 40k novels do this constantly. Wolfe plaus with this a little but often doesn't actually describe the actual object. Or Bakker who makes up words that look good on the page and doesn't bother with actual pronunciations.
Rift is such a quality word *chef's kiss*
Other look-out gangs had not come to those two ends. They'd used long stretching stairs to climb atop bluffs amidst highstorms. They'd lost many men, though, as the bluff tops gave no lee under storms, and you couldn't bring wagons or other shelter with you in the clefts. The bigger bane, he'd heard, had been the Parshendi outings. They found and killed dozens of look-out gangs.
Ambrose was leaning toward her, speaking softly. She had the rather dreading look of a woman who knows the doom of a lightsome no. One of his hands rested on her knee, while the other lay across the back of her seat, his hand resting on her neck. He meant for it to look sweet and loving, but there was a tautness in her body like that of a startled deer. The truth was he was holding her there, the same way you hold a dog by the scruff of its neck to keep it from running off.
The afternoon was wearing away when they stumbled into a fold that was wider and deeper than any they had yet met. It was so steep and overhung that it ended overmuch to climb out of it again, either forwards or backwards, without leaving their foals and bags behind. All they could do was follow the fold--downwards. The ground grew soft, and in stretches swampy; springs ran in the banks, and soon they found themselves following a brook that trickled and babbled through a weedy bed. Then the ground began to fall sharply and the brook growing strong and loud, flowed and leaped swiftly downhill. They were in a deep dim-lit cut overhung by trees high above them.
Nicely done!
No ladder?
In respect for you and your efforts, I have watched all three of your "What Makes Prose Good?" videos. I am an author, though not of renown. For a decade I've made my living recording audio-books. I've read aloud narrative voices good, bad, diverse, youthful and mature, so I feel qualified to offer a... well, not a rebuttal, but hopefully a useful response.
The first quality of bad prose: has the writer mastered the rules? An example I can never forget: "The dancer spun until her skirt rose to her waste." Yikes! Homophone confusion turns up often because automated spell-checkers miss them, and an error like that will send one's pages straight into the waste basket.
Second quality of bad prose: has the writer paid attention? Did he sleepwalk through his own work, allowing all manner of cliches and zombie idioms into his sentences? Orwell condemned such somnolent typing in his famous essay "Politics and the English Language." "We ordered him to tow the line." Here the writer employs a cliche so necrotic he fails to understand one puts one toes on a line in a formation, rather than pulling on a rope. Obviously this writer is not thinking.
Third: does the writer seek to communicate, or to impress and deceive? An academic might dress simple ideas in polysyllabic frippery to make them appear profound. "The intersecting interstices of our social contexts...." A propagandist will resort to vague passive tenses and euphemisms to conceal. "Mistakes were made." Who made this mistake? "Ethnic cleansing" sanitizes the murder of entire populations. Again, Orwell railed against such deceits. (For those unfamiliar with Orwell's essay, I've recorded it on my channel.)
Logically, good prose will seek the opposite! A good writer has mastered the rules so thoroughly, he can break them for effect. "A circular story -- the ouroboros has swallowed its tale." A good writer seeks to communicate efficiently, clearly, and employs fresh, vivid, memorable idioms. (I once called some particularly awful prose "a metaphor milkshake.") Is the writer awake, and does he aspire to keep his reader awake and entertained?
Has our author feasted on prose of quality, and poetry too, and honed a keen sense of aesthetics and beauty?
Bradbury, show us your nouns. “Above, like a great baroque peacock striding the bricks and asphalt, the freaks’ eyes opened out, to stare, to search office roofs, church spires, read dentists’ and opticians’ signs, check dime and dry goods stores as drums shocked plate glass windows and wax dummies quaked in facsimiles of fear.”
Lovecraft, I call you from your Providence graveyard to teach us adjectives. "“They were pinkish things about five feet long; with crustaceous bodies bearing vast pairs of dorsal fins or membranous wings and several sets of articulated limbs, and with a sort of convoluted ellipsoid, covered with multitudes of very short antennae, where a head would ordinarily be....”
Tolkien, thrill us with your verbs. "“Tall and proud he seemed again. And rising in his stirrups he cried in a loud voice, more clear than any there had ever heard a mortal man achieve before: ‘Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden! Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter! Spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered, a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises! Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!’ With that he seized a great horn from Guthláf his banner-bearer, and he blew such a blast upon it that it burst asunder.”
I caution against the brute measurement of Latin or Germanic/Saxon words. Saxon words tend to be shorter, and Shakespeare wisely teaches us, "brevity is the soul of wit... more matter with less art." But a good writer keeps Latin in his treasury of words too. Consider the unmemorable phrase, "a town far and lucky." Fine for a first draft, but on reading this aloud the writer might decide to fix the rhythm with iambs. "a FAR and LUCky TOWN." Better! But he might also make the words more evocative with alliteration, "a town far and fortunate."
So I would not ask, "does this writer employ more Latin or Saxon words," but "does this writer care enough to elevate his prose?" Is he putting in the work?
I'd suggest that your Oxford author meant not "justice" as the strength of prose, but "judgment." Efficient, clear, memorable prose demands judicious and meticulous discernment. Forgive me sir, I must call your methods reductive. There are no shortcuts to producing or even to measuring good prose.
I definitely prefer the Germania it just rings better,to me it made the rothfuss more readable as the original version just didn't sit right with me
From where exactly is the quote from Tolkien?
Would be cool to use ai to color code your writing to reflect predominant etymological background.
The old English word closest to chair is “stol,” I believe. Which is obvious in modern English, but “stool” has adopted important semantic differences from “chair”.
Exactly. I toyed with that one and 'benc' but discarded both for the reason you mentioned.
Please talk about sentence structure and clauses in your next video. As well as pacing and meandering. The way I judge prose is almost entirely on content - how fluff is there versus how much of what I actually want to know.
Surely seat is a Germanic word for chair
This is a cool idea, and one that I haven't really seen discussed elsewhere. Politely however, I think you're vastly overstating how much germanic vs. latinate words affect flow. I believe there's something to it, but it's much much less of an influence than pure sound and rhythm; than alliteration, syllable count, punctuation, etc. Not to mention actual word meaning: In the previous video you mentioned 'doom' vs. 'fate' and, imho, those are not direct synonyms. Close--but not 100% matches.
Great stuff-- this is just my own reaction--keep it up!
Be interesting to compare average number of syllables/word. That largely correlates with Germanic or Latinate. For me, the subs were best when they were shortest, with a couple of exceptions.
Could be interesting!
I didn't like the 100% germanic tolkien changes... It was way better as the original - so no improvement.
The changes to the rothfuss one i feel made it mostly better, i liked the changes more.
I agree the sanderson changes were weird and some of the changes sounded better but not all of them. Most of the paragraph was better in its original state in my opinion.
How about just use the right word?
Farnsworth's Classical English Style explains the uses of Germanic versus Latinate better than anyone.
In place of chair you can use stool
Yeah, considered stool or bench, but neither one worked in the situation. Can't drape an arm across the back of a stool, for instance.
@@TheLegendarium Indeed, but you could have modified it like how they would do in Old English (whale road for sea).
You could call it a backstool. A stool with a back. Or even a trunkstool
Could you use couch instead of chair since it is old English. Better to be old English than Latin or German???
Closest I could find was 'bench,' but it just didn't feel quite synonymous enough
"JUST YOOOOUUU WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIT"
I have no clue which words are Germanic or Latinate. This feels like a purely academic problem.
You think of a word? Think about a word that means the same, then go and look if it’s origins are Germanic or Latin
I think it's clear that Sanderson the worst writer of these. But it's also fine to keep Latinate words for the sake of aesthetic use.
Most people don't want prose that "flows;" most people want prose that sounds good.
Sanderson's prose is a snooze-fest. I've tried to read Mistborn three times and I can never get past the first 100 pages.
Wow. Latinate is so much better. I find it to have more expression.
"Wow. Latinate is eminently superior. I perceive it to contain enhanced expression." There, FIFY 😉
@@TheLegendarium hahaha. Damn. Relax.
@@fscottfitzgerald115 now you're doing it too. Though I don't know what you'd classify "hahaha" as.
Personally I think every change to every passage made them sound worse. Amazing video though.
Haha I love this
"Seat" would work instead of "Chair" I think.
Nice one, I like it!
That comment is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. The Romance and Germanic languages are all Indo-European so they are ultimately based on the same roots. You might as well say a grilled cheese sandwich is better with only one kind of cheese (it's not).
What a rude little man you are.
They share an ancient history, but in more recent history, the last two thousand years, they have been distinct. Most notably I think is their very recent history during the middle ages and the centuries after the Norman Invasion. During that time the common folk spoke english, but the aristocracy communicated with French and the educated people conversed in Latin. This gives the latinate languages an airy and academic sense while the words of old English feel earthy and strong, if a little simple. Of course, the few words we have from Semitic or Turkish languages often feel distinct too, but there aren't really enough of them for me to develop a sense of their style.
Though about 33% of Proto Germanic's vocabulary is of unexplained origin so...