What would the English language look and sound like if the Norse conquer England?

[Falecius]

There's a theory out there that post-9th century English actually descends from a Norse/Old English creole rather than from "pure" Anglo-Saxon, which would suggest that Norse had rather a large impact. I'm not competent to assess whether or not the theory is true, though.

I've read about it very recently. Leading contact-linguistics scholar Sally Thomason demolished it pretty convincingly.

 

[Falecius]

I somewhat disagree, there will still be some French influence, but not nearly as much as IOTL, so in that regard closer to OTL Dutch or German.
The Channel isn't a huge barrier .

(IOTL one can roughly range French influence on Western Germanic languages as the following: English (most), Dutch and German (least).)

Isn't Dutch slightly more French-influenced than Standard German (in terms of borrowings mostly; I understand that there may be also more grammatical convergences but they are not necessarily to be attributed to French influence)?

 

[DanMcCollum]

Isn't Dutch slightly more French-influenced than Standard German (in terms of borrowings mostly; I understand that there may be also more grammatical convergences but they are not necessarily to be attributed to French influence)?

Actually, you could argue that French was more influenced by Dutch, seeing as how Dutch developed from the Frankish language

 

[DanMcCollum]

I doubt it. Don't forget that their Norse relatives died out as well. The reason those letters isn't that the Normans made no use of them, although most likely continental influences (which would exist regardless, the Channel's not a big barrier to cultural interchange, and of course Church Latin yadda yadda yadda) played a role.

Also, for the record, the 'Norse' had already ruled large parts of England before in the previous centuries; Harald wasn't the first nor the last to attempt to conquer England. The effects on the language because of that are not insignificant, but not particularly notable since ultimately the languages are similar enough that it doesn't lead to radical changes. It's also wholly dependent on how long Norse supremacy would last. IOTL, it didn't quite.

Its interesting to point out that thorn actually survived into the Middle English period pretty much intact; what really took it down was the printing press. The original design didn't include thorn in the letter blocks (seeing as how they were developed in continental Europe where Thorn and its ilk were not used), and so printer substituted the letters 't' and 'h' (and sometimes 'y' ... hence why you sometimes see "ye olde shoppe" when people are trying to be old timey) in its ilk.

Its actually kind of interesting that it died out, especially since many other European languages that use a Latin alphabet still maintain distinct characters. Maybe all you need is less lazy London printers who carve a few Thorn blocks for their damned printing presses!

Also, as to the noticeable impact of Norse on English; I've read it before that the reason gender nouns vanished in English was due to the fact that many common nouns in Norse and Old English have opposing genders, and so the gender was dropped for ease of trade and communication.

 

[Falecius]

Actually, you could argue that French was more influenced by Dutch, seeing as how Dutch developed from the Frankish language

True, although I was referring to later times.
To confirm your point, when I happened to see texts in Walloon I had neatly the impression of a Romance-Dutch creole (which I know isn't actually the case however).

 

[Falecius]

Also, as to the noticeable impact of Norse on English; I've read it before that the reason gender nouns vanished in English was due to the fact that many common nouns in Norse and Old English have opposing genders, and so the gender was dropped for ease of trade and communication.

This sounds strange.
I understand that Norse languages have frequently merged masculine and feminine into a "common" gender that opposes to a "neuter" gender, which actually means that neither is a "gender" in the proper sense (but is, of course, in the linguistic sense). So it looks like that, to a point, there's some convergent trend in both Old English and Norse toward a simplified gender system, although I know nothing about the relative timing of the changes. I would also assume that phonetic changes that obscure gender markers such as endings are likely to be a powerful force behind this.
Note that, in German (and often in French), nouns are generally not marked for gender; it's the attached article that carries that marking (the exact opposite of what you see, for instance, in Semitic languages which have articles). I get the impression that gender was more often marked in the noun in Old English or Old Norse? If not, a simplified speech that avoids articles (think telegrams) would be fine for understanding in trading contexts.

 

[Cahaya Purnama]

There's a theory out there that post-9th century English actually descends from a Norse/Old English creole rather than from "pure" Anglo-Saxon, which would suggest that Norse had rather a large impact. I'm not competent to assess whether or not the theory is true, though.

link please

 

[Ameise]

I've read about it very recently. Leading contact-linguistics scholar Sally Thomason demolished it pretty convincingly.

When I last read about it, it was a terrible theory. The 'evidence' was basically ignoring the fact that Old Norse and Old English were both Germanic languages, and pointed to cognates as 'evidence' that it was creole, when in fact cognates should have been expected.

 

[False Dmitri]

When I last read about it, it was a terrible theory. The 'evidence' was basically ignoring the fact that Old Norse and Old English were both Germanic languages, and pointed to cognates as 'evidence' that it was creole, when in fact cognates should have been expected.

Regarding vocabulary, sure, but the leveling of English grammar was pretty severe.

Though I always wonder if the process might not have been happening already, much more slowly, before the Norse arrived; but the changes were not recorded because the literary language was 'frozen'. Obviously I'm speculating and should probably read more before I make additional comments.

 

[Maeglin]

Stamford Bridge and a Norse King wouldn't have made that much of a difference either way. It's only important here in terms of butterflying the Big One as far as language goes: the Battle of Hastings.

No Norman conquest means English loses the French-Latin imports, and hence has a smaller vocabulary. As described above, the thorn was more a printing press issue, but I suppose we can have home-grown printing presses, rather than French imports. English's pronouns are Norse anyway, but you might have a more prominent case system surviving into modern English, and a more regular grammar.

Latin will come in eventually, but more as an international language of learning and science. It's less likely to cross-pollinate everyday terms.

 

[Falecius]

Regarding vocabulary, sure, but the leveling of English grammar was pretty severe.

Though I always wonder if the process might not have been happening already, much more slowly, before the Norse arrived; but the changes were not recorded because the literary language was 'frozen'.

This is indeed an important bit of Thomason's point, except that in her view, some of the change trends are detectable in written sources.

 

[FleetMac]

Stamford Bridge and a Norse King wouldn't have made that much of a difference either way. It's only important here in terms of butterflying the Big One as far as language goes: the Battle of Hastings.

No Norman conquest means English loses the French-Latin imports, and hence has a smaller vocabulary[1]. As described above, the thorn was more a printing press issue, but I suppose we can have home-grown printing presses, rather than French imports. English's pronouns are Norse anyway[2], but you might have a more prominent case system surviving into modern English, and a more regular grammar.

Latin will come in eventually, but more as an international language of learning and science. It's less likely to cross-pollinate everyday terms.[3]

1) Unless, you know, English does the same thing German, Dutch, etc. did and create all-native neologisms as well as adopt borrowings from other languages (which those aforementioned languages still did, just without any OTL English's built-in class distinction in said borrowings).

2) Not "I", "we", "us", "it", "thou", "you"...really, it's just "they" and "are" which are taken from Norse. That being said, Norse did indeed introduce a large number of borrowings which are likely to be even more prominent in a more Nordic English tongue.

3) First of all, Old English already had a growing stock of Latin borrowings pre-1066 so it had already came. Secondly, while adoptions from Latin can and will happen, why would they replace functional, everyday vocabulary when it happened neither to English IOTL, nor to Dutch or German (also influenced by Latin, to a degree, and physically closer to Rome)?

 

[The Professor]

Its interesting to point out that thorn actually survived into the Middle English period pretty much intact; what really took it down was the printing press. The original design didn't include thorn in the letter blocks (seeing as how they were developed in continental Europe where Thorn and its ilk were not used), and so printer substituted the letters 't' and 'h' (and sometimes 'y' ... hence why you sometimes see "ye olde shoppe" when people are trying to be old timey) in its ilk.

Its actually kind of interesting that it died out, especially since many other European languages that use a Latin alphabet still maintain distinct characters. Maybe all you need is less lazy London printers who carve a few Thorn blocks for their damned printing presses!

Yeah, especially as Icelandic keeps them both.
I could see the thorn develop into a crossed T though on analogy with eth being a crossed D.

Also, as to the noticeable impact of Norse on English; I've read it before that the reason gender nouns vanished in English was due to the fact that many common nouns in Norse and Old English have opposing genders, and so the gender was dropped for ease of trade and communication.

This sounds strange.
I understand that Norse languages have frequently merged masculine and feminine into a "common" gender that opposes to a "neuter" gender, which actually means that neither is a "gender" in the proper sense (but is, of course, in the linguistic sense). So it looks like that, to a point, there's some convergent trend in both Old English and Norse toward a simplified gender system, although I know nothing about the relative timing of the changes. I would also assume that phonetic changes that obscure gender markers such as endings are likely to be a powerful force behind this.
Note that, in German (and often in French), nouns are generally not marked for gender; it's the attached article that carries that marking (the exact opposite of what you see, for instance, in Semitic languages which have articles). I get the impression that gender was more often marked in the noun in Old English or Old Norse? If not, a simplified speech that avoids articles (think telegrams) would be fine for understanding in trading contexts.

I see it as being due to the differing case endings on similar words, dropping them would cause the languages to correspond more easily in speech. Since the Norman Invasion merely appears to have not impeded (or even sped up) the process, the lack of one would merely cause the resultant language to be like Middle English with the Norman/French stripped out.

I would argue that ATL English will still have it's fair share of Latin adoptions anyway since that was the language of the Church and several had been adopted anyway

EDIT: ninja'd by FleetMac here

 

[Janprimus]

1) Unless, you know, English does the same thing German, Dutch, etc. did and create all-native neologisms as well as adopt borrowings from other languages (which those aforementioned languages still did, just without any OTL English's built-in class distinction in said borrowings).
(...)

Again I can make a slight remark here. French as a language of the upper class and thus a prestige language, has a longer, but also older history in English. It doesn't mean that German and Dutch didn't have a period, where the upper classes considered French as prestige language.

In Dutch French influence started to increase in the late middle ages, especially the Burgundian era was important for this.
Once French became the European prestige language, Dutch and German followed the European trend (including upper classes speaking French with each other) until the age of nationalism.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

I doubt it. Don't forget that their Norse relatives died out as well. The reason those letters isn't that the Normans made no use of them, although most likely continental influences (which would exist regardless, the Channel's not a big barrier to cultural interchange, and of course Church Latin yadda yadda yadda) played a role.

Except that the main reason eth and thorn died out in the continental Scandinavian languages was that the SOUNDS did, too.

English kept the sounds, and had to invent letter combinations to represent them.

I wouldn't be surprised if a Norse/Danish ruled England kept those letters.

 

[Driftless]

Complete Rube here...

If the everyday language of the ruling class is essentially different from the hoi polloi (Norman French vs Saxon English), how does that shape the development of that culture? Or, flip that idea on edge, how does society get shaped if the ruling class language is very similar to the general population (Germanic variant vs Germanic variant) ?

 

[Falecius]

Complete Rube here...

If the everyday language of the ruling class is essentially different from the hoi polloi (Norman French vs Saxon English), how does that shape the development of that culture? Or, flip that idea on edge, how does society get shaped if the ruling class language is very similar to the general population (Germanic variant vs Germanic variant) ?

Usually it is largely the other way round, as in, it is language evolution that is usually affected by societal make up, rather than language class distribution that influences societal development.
Of course, this oversimplifies more complex and intertwined dynamics (there instances for example of social classes whose prestige was/is closely connected with mastery of a given language. However, I'd argue that in most of those cases, it was hardly relevant since said language was/is not the maternal language for anyone, irrespective of social position.)

 

[FleetMac]

Complete Rube here...

If the everyday language of the ruling class is essentially different from the hoi polloi (Norman French vs Saxon English), how does that shape the development of that culture? Or, flip that idea on edge, how does society get shaped if the ruling class language is very similar to the general population (Germanic variant vs Germanic variant) ?

Culturally, you typically won't see too much change outside of politics (depending on what system the invaders bring to the table) and perhaps concepts of manners (i.e. why many English words are vulgar for objectively arbitrary reasons, whilst Romance synonyms are "nicer" ). Languages, above all, DO NOT CHANGE FROM ONE BRANCH TO ANOTHER. I'm not trying to be mean, but that's a misconception that gets me riled up every time. If you have Language A being suppressed/replaced in upper circles by Language B of the conquerors, you'll result in Language A getting influences from B without actually becoming B in any meaningful sense. If alterations in syntax, morphology, etc. do happen, you end up with a creole, not a switching of one language to another family (which isn't the same thing, but rather a dumbed-down new language which isn't really one or the other). If Language B is close enough to Language A, you end up with borrowings of vocabulary (as well as grammar, et. al.) but there's no threat of linguistic shifts between language families, since in that case they're already sibling tongues and already share tons of cognates and similarities.

Again I can make a slight remark here. French as a language of the upper class and thus a prestige language, has a longer, but also older history in English. It doesn't mean that German and Dutch didn't have a period, where the upper classes considered French as prestige language.

In Dutch French influence started to increase in the late middle ages, especially the Burgundian era was important for this.
Once French became the European prestige language, Dutch and German followed the European trend (including upper classes speaking French with each other) until the age of nationalism.

Noted. However, the point I was trying to make was that the lack of a Norman Conquest doesn't inherently mean English shall have a smaller vocabulary on the whole, it just won't have those OTL Normanisms during the post-1066 era. Who's to say that other French dynasties won't have a lasting influence on English, or the Flemings/Danes/etc.? And truly, things there aren't words for as of yet can come both from without (i.e. Latin) or within (making new sayings and "kennings") even in OTL Old English, which is likely to go on and/or grow even if William loses his bid for the Throne.

 

[Falecius]

Culturally, you typically won't see too much change outside of politics (depending on what system the invaders bring to the table) and perhaps concepts of manners (i.e. why many English words are vulgar for objectively arbitrary reasons, whilst Romance synonyms are "nicer" ). Languages, above all, DO NOT CHANGE FROM ONE BRANCH TO ANOTHER.

Languages definitely do not, but OTOH, people do.

 

[Devvy]

Hey....one of my rare forays into the Pre-1900 forum! Working from my knowledge of Icelandic here, which is pretty similar to Old Norse (or at least is the least contaminated compared to the mainland Norse languages!).

As South England is still going to be frequently trading with the Dutch and French, so French words especially, will creep in to "southern" English.

I'd like to think "Northumbrian" English will retain some more of the Breton vocabulary at least in slang; Yan, Tan, Tether, Mether, Pip et al, without the upheaval of the Normans wandering in (thoughts?).

A large grammar simplification is somewhat inevitable, and probably the retention of Eth/Thorn as they represent common sounds that can't simply be created by pressing letters together. Most of the other letters are doomed I think.

I think some of the grammar concepts might be interesting if they are still used, things like the lack of a definite article like "the", and the use of a suffix "-inn".