A very difficult World language.

Butterfly the Anglo-Saxon invasion. Brythonic Britain survives but develops into a fragmented patchwork of Christian kingdoms in the shadow of Roman Britain. Then the Vikings come and establish Danelaw and their activity in the British elsewhere in the British Isles takes place as in OTL. But then a cross between Alfred the Great, Kenneth McAlpin and Brian Borumha from Dumnonia in the south West to conquer most of Britain, including OTL Wales but not the Gaelo-Picitish land to the north which develops into the Kingdom of Scotland. This figure, fighting off the Vikings establishes the capital of his expanding Kingdom at Caer Lundain, the old Roman capital. Britain South of the Forth is united under one Kingdom. Both Danelaw and later Viking rule over the Kingdom leaves Viking architecture and military technology widespread while the language absorbs thousands of Norse words. But because the language is so different from norse, Brythonic is not creolised.

Then those evil Frenchmen invade and the language absobs quite a few french words which obediently join the grammatical gender corresponding what they were in french. Then centuries later you have the empire and a former colony, Known as the Unol Dalethiau America (UDA), a british speaking superpower establish its influence.

By 2014, the language everyone has to learn Is quite different from its very distant continental cousins with lengthy words are neither legible nor pronounceable, a VSO word order and auxiliary verb based sentence structure that confuses most Europeans whose grammars work differently and last but not least, adjectives that appear not just in superlative form, the conjugated prepositions which have to be repeated hour upon hour in the french classroom and last but not least dreaded Treigladau which drive everyone from Stockholm to Palermo barking mad making them think how on Earth could these people have done this to them.

Would such a system be sustainable or would creolisation have to happen?
 
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Butterfly the Anglo-Saxon invasion. Brythonic Britain survives but develops into a fragmented patchwork of Christian kingdoms in the shadow of Roman Britain. Then the Vikings come and establish Danelaw and their activity in the British elsewhere in the British Isles takes place as in OTL. But then a cross between Alfred the Great, Kenneth McAlpin and Brian Borumha from Dumnonia in the south West to conquer most of Britain, including OTL Wales but not the Gaelo-Picitish land to the north which develops into the Kingdom of Scotland. This figure, fighting off the Vikings establishes the capital of his expanding Kingdom at Caer Lundain, the old Roman capital. Britain South of the Forth is united under one Kingdom. Both Danelaw and later Viking rule over the Kingdom leaves Viking architecture and military technology widespread while the language absorbs thousands of Norse words. But because the language is so different from norse, Brythonic is not creolised.

Then those evil Frenchmen invade and the language absobs quite a few french words which obediently join the grammatical gender corresponding what they were in french. Then centuries later you have the empire and a former colony, Known as the Unol Dalethiau America (UDA), a british speaking superpower establish its influence.

By 2014, the language everyone has to learn Is quite different from its very distant continental cousins with lengthy words are neither legible nor pronounceable, a VSO word order and auxiliary verb based sentence structure that confuses most Europeans whose grammars work differently and last but not least, adjectives that appear not just in superlative form, the conjugated prepositions which have to be repeated hour upon hour in the french classroom and last but not least dreaded Treigladau which drive everyone from Stockholm to Palermo barking mad making them think how on Earth could these people have done this to them.

Would such a system be sustainable or would creolisation have to happen?

Not sure what do you mean for "creolisation" but my guess is yes to some extent. I mean that sustained language contact tends to favor an analytic drift in language as far as I can tell.
 
However, if you want a "difficult" world language (difficult by English-speaking standards at least) a relatively easy way is to keep Classical Arabic prominent. :D
 
Butterfly the Anglo-Saxon invasion. ...

Would such a system be sustainable or would creolisation have to happen?

When two languages mingle, like Brythonic and French, I'd say two things would likely happen:

1) If there are a huge inflow of French immigrants, and they mingle with the Brythonic natives, then a lingua franca would be produced to facilitate conversations between the two groups. The resultant language would tend to have a vastly simpler grammar.

2) But if only a few French elites came to Britannia, and the mingling between the two nations occurred in the upper strata of the societies only, then probably the Brythonic grammar would remain unchanged, and French words, when borrowed into Brythonic, loses their original grammar context.

Neither would make the Brythonic grammar more complex...

To have the hardest world languages, I'd say make Cantonese the official dialect of China, have the writing system sticks to traditional Chinese, keep the language's written variety in line with classical Chinese, and discourage any latinization program, and make Chinese the lingua franca of this world.
 
To have the hardest world languages, I'd say make Cantonese the official dialect of China, have the writing system sticks to traditional Chinese, keep the language's written variety in line with classical Chinese, and discourage any latinization program, and make Chinese the lingua franca of this world.

Pfft, Cantonese phonology is so tame compared to the Mandarn one. Try Amoy phonology and its tone sandhi from hell

Or try Zhengzhang Shangfang's reconstruction of Old Chinese:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bqt3_02lxGo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZSIvf-YCtA
 
To have the hardest world languages, I'd say make Cantonese the official dialect of China, have the writing system sticks to traditional Chinese, keep the language's written variety in line with classical Chinese, and discourage any latinization program, and make Chinese the lingua franca of this world.

Nah, get the Navajo to somehow create an Empire spanning the Americas, such that when the Europeans turn up, they have no choice but to adapt.
 

Delvestius

Banned
However, if you want a "difficult" world language (difficult by English-speaking standards at least) a relatively easy way is to keep Classical Arabic prominent. :D

It's not that bad once you get the patterns. Most interesting grammar classes of any language.
 
It's not that bad once you get the patterns. Most interesting grammar classes of any language.

My students disagree :D .
However, Classical Arabic, while having a highly complex and rich grammar, is also highly regular.
The writing system can be a pain at times, but again, it is very logical when you enter in its system and almost integrally phonemic.
 
Why not latin and greek?
Worked for almost two millenias after all

Some people I know have found Latin easier than French and other modern Romance languages precisely because of the declensions. I am not one of them; Spanish to me is easier than classical Latin was in high school. (Pero el idioma latino nunca murió. ¡Se convirtió en español!) How difficult a language is depends on the learner. My college Spanish teacher (native speaker from Argentina) liked how "simple" English grammar was in comparison to Spanish and Portuguese.

The Navajo empire is an interesting idea. There's a reason Navajo was used as a code language in WWII!
 
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