I take your point on the whole West Saxon malarky, but modern English grew out of Anglian/ Mercian Dialects and not West Saxon. I was also taught 'forforgietan' was ' foryeet'n' in Old West Saxon and had some Norse influence over the 'g' sound, thus we have 'yet' and 'get', 'yes' and 'guess' and likely a load more - ok, I also accept that a large amount of Anglian speakers probably found Norse dialects mutually intelligible. I don't quite buy into the idea that Bernard Cornwell puts forward in his Saxon chronicles that a Northumbrian would have effortlessly spoken with a West Saxon, and found Danish a complete conundrum ( especially when the originating Anglian dialects lived side by side their Norse kindreds in Northern Germany way before migration)... seems Cornwell may have been writing for a North American audience with no typographical knowledge of England and Northern Europe....but anyway I seriously digress :/

I still think despite your valid points and no doubt justifiable grounds for sundry spelling, that your method can only sway followers to re-use true English words if they have all the kit and trappings of an historical linguist. I think we're on the same page regarding the reintroduction or popularisation of OE words in a modern framework, but confusing the issue with odd spelling convention snubs within the average English speaker any kindling of their empathy towards their own native words.

BTW, can't find any record of Sig in modern or early modern English, never mind the elongated 'e' sound therein.

Cowley, does indeed give 'busen' as another option, pronounced ' bizzen', I suppose it must mimic 'busy' in some way.

Do you know what, I like 'sye' so much I've entered it into the Anglish word book... Cheers Anwulf.

Followed that link, interesting, I can accept that the word might have updated as 'sye' or even 'sey'... very possible that the -er ending wouldn't have lived on into modern times.

Cowley also offers ' forbus' as an updated replacement for ' for example' is 'by spel' testified as an Old English variant or is it based on the calque ' zum Beispiel' ?

Cowley offers 'seyer' as an update, as the 'g' was a 'y' sound in that position. The problem with writing 'sig' is that most modern English speakers would pronounce it as that.

Yeah, if we could alone put back or popularise ME words then that would be a great seyer (victory) in itself. Then I would seriously swap 'getting on my high horse' for 'mounting my pony'. The problem using off the wall spelling, and too many, unusual words all in one fell swoop is that folk tend to view you as being a little moon-addled. But personally, i think 'ingang' rocks!

Norman French really did borrow vastly from germanic sources, specifically Old Norse as this little weblink beautifully beshows:

http://viking.no/e/france/norman_on_words.htm

Hey Aenglefolc,

There are a couple of drugs out there for sepsqui...idibiddihibbiddy...doodah...... oh sod it, but I find this one for a few pounds taken at least twice a day helps just fine ;)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hastings-1066-Words-Wed-Wield/dp/0755213769/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329084247&sr=8-1

@Anwulf I'm utterly at one with you over the Latinish words of before 1066, though there weren't many when likening to today's Latin-sated English, the church wasn't averse in borrowing words when it wanted. To be fair, I'm not the slightest bit worried about Norman French words that do a useful job, or provide a useful doublet that ord-English or core English wouldn't have given us alonestanding. But I reserve the right as a native speaker to be able to linguistically make that choice for myself. If think a foreign word is clouding the issue, or complicating a simple matter, then I should have the right to cast it aside for one that is just as eath and even clearer to understand from our native stock.