linguistics

Honestly, the Basque sounds one of the most "ASBish" things out there. A ethnic group that survived the Celts, the Romans, the Germanic invasions, the Franks, the Muslims, the Reconquista, the Spanish, all major European wars...yet, they managed to preserve their distinct culture and especially...

Everybody knows about the Cyrillic script, the script used by the Orthodox Slavs in Eastern Europe, but few know that its position, although quite stable in the Balkans, was not as stable in... Russia? To illustrate the point I'll be making, I am going to get a generic central powers victory...

Between the 15th and 20th centuries Europeans expanded across the world, spreading their languages in the process. English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch and Russian are spoken in far wider of an area than they were a few centuries ago, whether it be in parts of Asia, Africa and Oceania or...

One thing that stands out to me about England and the English language is how relatively homogenous they are in terms of language. Yes, I know you have a variety of dialects and accents. But compare that to the continent or Asia, where (historically) travelling just a hundred km or so you find...

Let's say Louis the Pious lives longer and the Carolingian empire stays united until at least the 1600s, with territory including modern France, Lombardy, and Catalonia at the very least. Would this prevent French, Italian, Occitan, and Catalan from diverging? I've seen it written that 11th...

If the Roman Empire survived to modern times, what would be the predominant language(s)? Also, is it possible for 1 language to be spoken through the entire empire?

Hello all, I had an idea a while back regarding a kind of industrial revolution kicking off in China during the Song dynasty. Let's say they have everything, including a printing press, what happens to printed Chinese? Does a written standard come about like Martin Luther came up with his...

If the Merovingian dynasty had not fallen when it did, whether that be because of the Carolingians failing to take the throne or some other reason, and lived on for at least a few more centuries how could the development of the French language change from OTL? Granted I’m not sure French was as...

I think some simplification of the written language would have occurred, much like in Japan with the Kyuujitai, but would they have done some things differently? How would the spoken and written standards develop? The Qing Dynasty used a koiné as far as I know called "Guanhua" 官话 frequently...

Based on my observations It seems that Oil used to be two separate two Dialect Groups, one in the East of Seine that uses Avec which is similar to Franco-Provencal and in the West of Seine which uses Ot/Eut instead, what if the two sides became two different languages completely, it seems that...

So basically, I had this idea for the legacy of a Japanese attempt to be a "big boy" colonial power and colonize Africa. if this is in the wrong forum, please move it Support for the colony takes a major dive but it remains as a hang-on territory until WW2. To start off, I constructed a...

Despite the fact that they've been out of everyday use for quite some time and were once spoken in eras without modern recording, long-extant languages still remain with us in some form or another. Enough, in fact, so that dedicated learners can become fluent and immerse themselves in the works...

What if American Jewish migrants eventually have a patois or mixed language created from English and Yiddish as their main native language? What would that language be like(like how much English or Yiddish would penetrate the language, would it be written in Hebrew or Latin characters, what...

I've often heard the anecdote that a lot of researchers that study languages that contain clicks quickly find that incorporating clicks into their day-to-day language feels natural, and indeed, clicks do have meanings in English, though they are not used as consonants and more of connectors...

Upon the Waters: The History of Borealamerica and Beyond Written by Alexander Helios [1] Author's Note: A Brief Explanation Welcome everyone! Now I know what you must be thinking: another timeline about advanced natives? Wow, very original. But before you click out of this thread, bear...

Here's another one of these threads where you write something down and describe it, but for words or phrases. EDIT: Its no longer those. You can freely write down them as you want. Tretch - A disloyal or untrustworthy person, derived from Treachery/Treacherous. The word was created for the...

Your challenge is to prevent the extinction of at least one language.

You may or may not have heard of English as She Is Spoke, a notoriously bad Portuguese phrasebook (which can be read here) written by a man named Pedro Carolino but falsely credited to another one named José da Fonseca, who wrote a more more accurate phrasebook. The book contains gems like "I...

You've heard of creating alternate history about languages, but how about dialects, or even accents? The challenge this thread contains is to create a dialect found in an alternate history of your design. Your format is: Name Language Family Range Influences/Divergences History Number of...

I have posited this question before, but why didn't French or Anglo-Norman French become the dominant spoken language in England after the Norman Conquest and subsequent Plantagenet kings. With ties to the Continent, why didn't England and Scotland gradually become predominantly French-speaking...