Challenge: Most new languages in Western Europe

Max Sinister

Banned
In OTL, the most important Western European languages are English, French, Spanish (Castillian), German, Italian and Polish.

Challenge: Create as many new languages in Europe as possible, not by having other languages survive (like Cornish), but by making OTLs dialects into full languages (my definition: Dutch is a real language, Austrian is only a dialect, Swiss German is borderline).

Germany and Italy seem suited best for that... prevent their unification, and you could get several new languages...

POD has to be after 1000 AD. No ASBs or meteorites hitting Europe or other catastrophies.
 

Max Sinister

Banned
Nope, sorry. Only dialects of the big six languages.

Requisition to count as language in this thread: Several million people have to speak it as their first language.
 

Elidor

Thats kinda hard... but it's interesting.

We can have Europe become more city-state like in Orientation with civic pride based on the polis/county and not on the nation. Maybe the whole of Europe can become Holy Roman Empire-like, so a patchwork of small states will be the norm, and not the exception. Maybe, on top of that, the Norse make settlement throught the continent, so we will have many "Normandies" with thier own languages like Norse-Italian, Norse-Arabic, Norse-Hispanic, Norse-Greek,etc.

It'd be easier if America was included, as immigration led to countless new dialects and creoles.
 

Tyr

This seems very much to be a cultural/social thing so is hard to do...

The only way I can really think to do this is different tribal movements in the dark ages.
 

htgriffin

Random Thoughts

Can establish languages/dialects from outside or Europe count? Because Turkish, Mongolian, and Arabic are options to hold out deeper into the 'Contenent' than they did.

If Not... Venitian is likely to absorb the Romance Dalmatian Language, but the Serinissima's continued rule would promote not only it's own dialect but the coastal version of Croatian/Ragusan and perhaps Ionian Greek.

To disrupt the growing power of France is to insure a Provencial-speaking south, if the latter is not absorbed/subsumed into Aragon.

Pontic Greek remains unintelligable to those in Greece and Cyprus, moreso than the Muslim faith of the speakers that avoided deportation can account for. Avoid the Population Exchange, perhaps by evoking memories of the Trapuntzine Empire, and you could get a new tounge.

(Come to think of it, skilled diplomacy and lots of luck could have kept Tebizond independent for rather longer if noone else united Anatolia)

Ladino was already a distinct language when the Nazi's stomped it... as was Mozarbic 500-odd years earlier.

Scots came close. A spare Tudor or more appealing heir for Gloriana and it would have gone it's own way for certain.

Russian Unification was never a Sure Thing. Sane holds true for the adoption of the Muscovite dialect as a standard.

Low German, or course, can blame the use of Luther's Bible for it's loss of status from Bremen to Riga.

There are lots of arguments as to how close to Polish the various West Slavic dialects were....

HTG
 

Hashemite

Banned
OK, my first try is the following:

  • Venetian-Istrian (a mix of Italian, Croatian, Serbo-Croat)
  • Parisian :) (some French, German etc...)-just for fun!
  • Ionian Greek, Pelopponesian Greek
 

Verence

Max Sinister said:
In OTL, the most important Western European languages are English, French, Spanish (Castillian), German, Italian and Polish.

Challenge: Create as many new languages in Europe as possible, not by having other languages survive (like Cornish), but by making OTLs dialects into full languages (my definition: Dutch is a real language, Austrian is only a dialect, Swiss German is borderline).

Germany and Italy seem suited best for that... prevent their unification, and you could get several new languages...
Click to expand...


No unification of Spain thus the various modern dialects of Spanish could develop into seperate languages

Norway rules northern England (Harald Hardrada)so the language is a mix of Anglo-Saxon and Norwegian

Denmark rules eastern England (Swein Estrithson) so the language Anglo-Saxon/Danish

I have to say this isn't my area of expertise as I'm a historian not a linguist

University of Huddersfield Class of '99
 

Hendryk

Banned
Some possible languages if you cause France to disintegrate at some point in the last century:
Basque (in the Republic of Euskadi)
Breton (in the Grand Duchy of Bretagne)
Corsican (in the Republic of Corsica)--somewhat similar to Sardinian but still a language onto itself
Lotringendeutsch (in the Alsace-Lorraine Autonomous Region)
Occitan (in the Kingdom of Western Piedmont)
Reiselvlaams (in the Republic of South Flanders)--closely related to standard Flemish
 

Verence

Hendryk said:
Some possible languages if you cause France to disintegrate at some point in the last century:
Basque (in the Republic of Euskadi)
Click to expand...

Would that Republic consist of the Basque areas of France and Spain??
 

Rick Robinson

Interesting question! I can't add to the good suggestions already made, but a general observation.

There is a saying among linguists that a language is a dialect with an army and a Ministry of Education. But political fragmentation may or may not cause OTL dialects to emerged as standard languages. Italian is a perfect counter-example. In spite of fierce local patriotism and widely varied dialects, standard Italian emerged centuries before Italy was unified. And as htgriffin pointed out, Luther killed Low German.

So, politically fragmented regions with a strong cultural identity might still have a single standard language. As a flip side to the thread topic, if Iberia had remained more fragmented, would Portuguese have emerged as a separate standard language? Or would the Portuguese, along with Galicians, Asturians, Castilians, Aragonese, and Barcelonians, all have a shared literary language they called Spanish? (But not quite the same as the Castilian-flavored Spanish we know.)

Having said that, proceed with the discussion!

-- Rick
 

Tom Veil

Max Sinister said:
Nope, sorry. Only dialects of the big six languages.

Requisition to count as language in this thread: Several million people have to speak it as their first language.
Click to expand...

In that case, the first thing to do at the POD is to kill off the 95% of Europeans who didn't speak any of those 6 languages in 1000AD.
 

PoorBoy

How about Victor Emmanuel make everyone speak Piedmontese instead of Florentian Italian. And in the south, the Bourbons stick to the Neapolitan and Sicilian dialects. And in Rome, the Pope speaks Roman when not performing his official duties in Latin.

Remember, the Danes, Norwegians, and the Swedes can somewhat understand each other without resorting to speaking other languages. They just happen to belong to different countries.
 
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