Or otherwise, the cultural center of the UK shifts from London to Yorkshire, or even worse: Hull.Newcastle pronunciation becomes the mark of high culture and the aristocracy.
Or otherwise, the cultural center of the UK shifts from London to Yorkshire, or even worse: Hull.
(I spent 4 months as an exchange student there. I thought I understood English, even British English from watching enough BBC, until a bus driver on my first day informed me that there is "Ner smerk'n 'n hur", pointing at a 'No Smoking' sign.)
Newcastle pronunciation becomes the mark of high culture and the aristocracy.
Or, a real stretch of a POD.... Have the relationship between Native Americans and the French and English fall out differently west of the Applachians, where French becomes the Lingua Franca of the frontier. More Acadian resettlement to the Great Lakes as well as the Lower Mississippi Valley might help? Perhaps the end product is a Franco-English creole?
Yet another different (but quite similar) version: I meen thair wer atemps ta yooz a fonetik speling uv Inglish in Amerika.A different version: I meen thair wer atemts too yooz a fonetik speling ov Inglish in Amerika.
I suspect that if there are enough Frenchmen around to make French the lingua franca of the frontier, there'll be enough Frenchmen to stop New France falling to the British, probably butterflying away the US as we know it.
Or: Ah meen der wur atems te yooz ey funatik spelin' off Inglish in Eymehuika.Yet another different (but quite similar) version: I meen thair wer atemps ta yooz a fonetik speling uv Inglish in Amerika.
Another thought..... Not just Frenchmen using their native tongue, but the multitude of Native American tribal groups using French as a common second language. Many of those tribal groups were based on different languages, so they had some difficulties in inter-tribal communications historically.I suspect that if there are enough Frenchmen around to make French the lingua franca of the frontier, there'll be enough Frenchmen to stop New France falling to the British, probably butterflying away the US as we know it.
There were stretches in American history were German was a very common language in several parts of the US. The anti-german backlash of World War 1 functionally killed that off.
Or, a real stretch of a POD.... Have the relationship between Native Americans and the French and English fall out differently west of the Applachians, where French becomes the Lingua Franca of the frontier. More Acadian resettlement to the Great Lakes as well as the Lower Mississippi Valley might help? Perhaps the end product is a Franco-English creole?
It does work both ways, people in Britain often have to use subtitles for American TV and Movies.My wife thinks the two dialects are mutually unintelligible. We use subtitles for British TV and movies.
Or otherwise, the cultural center of the UK shifts from London to Yorkshire, or even worse: Hull.
(I spent 4 months as an exchange student there. I thought I understood English, even British English from watching enough BBC, until a bus driver on my first day informed me that there is "Ner smerk'n 'n hur", pointing at a 'No Smoking' sign.)
It does work both ways, people in Britain often have to use subtitles for American TV and Movies.
(snip)
Or, a real stretch of a POD.... Have the relationship between Native Americans and the French and English fall out differently west of the Applachians, where French becomes the Lingua Franca of the frontier. More Acadian resettlement to the Great Lakes as well as the Lower Mississippi Valley might help? Perhaps the end product is a Franco-English creole?
To be technical, a creole isn't a mix of two languages ("Chiac" in eastern Canada actually is an example of that), it's a specific type of language that emerges in a context where two groups speak totally different languages but one has dominance over the other (usually via slavery). The subordinate group starts to speak a highly simplified form of the dominant language (pidgin) to communicate and then its children grow up with this and develop it into a full language, a creole. The vocabulary of the creole will normally be 95-99 % from the dominant language (though some words may change meaning) but the grammar will be very different.
Interesting! As you can tell, I'm no wizard with language origins and structures. Are there more-or-less current languages composed of 60-40%, or 75-25% of two distinct languages? From my limited knowledge base on the subject I could imagine vocabulary being somewhat more malleable, in that English has drawn loan words from many cultures over time. Do you see mashups of grammar and other structural language components?