The SF writer Poul Anderson wrote a very short story called
Uncleftish Beholding showing what English as a more purely Germanic language would look like. The whole story of 2-3 pages is at
alt.language.artificial .
The underlying kinds of stuff are the *firststuffs*, which link together in sundry ways to give rise to the rest. Formerly we knew of ninety-two firststuffs, from waterstuff, the lightest and barest, to ymirstuff, the heaviest. Now we have made more, such as aegirstuff and helstuff.
English is the result of Norman men-at-arms attempting to pick up Saxon barmaids and is no more legitimate than any of the other results.
* H. Beam Piper
