Different languages change at different rates and English is at the changeable end of the spectrum while I think Spanish is more conservative. Also Spanish speaking America had less than a century between independence and radio and for the last 50 years the Spanish speaking Americas have been a semi-unified mass media market with Telenovelas. If for whatever reason you have the links between the Americas and European countries cut earlier and deeper and then have radio delayed you could get a Quebecois/Afrikaans like development in other languages.
Fate of Afrikaans if the Cape Colony had Remained Dutch?
- Thread starter frustrated progressive
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Different languages change at different rates and English is at the changeable end of the spectrum while I think Spanish is more conservative. Also Spanish speaking America had less than a century between independence and radio and for the last 50 years the Spanish speaking Americas have been a semi-unified mass media market with Telenovelas. If for whatever reason you have the links between the Americas and European countries cut earlier and deeper and then have radio delayed you could get a Quebecois/Afrikaans like development in other languages.
You are using contradicting arguments there, you say that the distance between independence and radio is important but apparently the American North and South being part of the same state doesn't change the linguistic development to be more convergent? Plus the US would have a unified mass media too at least within itself.
I do think it's possible for dialects to be more divergent and even more numerous in the Amercas but they would still be largely intelligible, given the lack of the adstratum situation in South Africa and the lack of continuous migration plus even more isolation.
This thread makes me wonder what a surviving New Netherland Dutch would be like. They say there's anecdotal evidence of people inm the Catskills speaking it as late as the 1950's.
Virtually all Spanish settlers in the Americas came from one single Spanish region, as for most of Colonial history only one single Spanish port could commerce with the Americas. That's the reason behind why the dialects are somewhat similar. They all share a lot commonalities with Andalusian Spanish in some way or another. On the other hand, people from all over the British Isles and Europe migrated to North America, what created a new Koine in more cosmopolitan areas and dialects reflecting characteristics from minor dialects of the main settlers in a particular area. Same can be said about Canadian French and Brazilian Portuguese.
Québec French (its standard register at least) is much less divergent from metropolitan French than Afrikaans is from Dutch. A written text from Québec may not differ at all from its European counterpart. When it does, it is only due to small vocabulary differences.
Dialectal forms of Québec French ("joual") did experience more divergence (and are much more difficult for outsiders to understand) but they have always been informal, and most speakers can switch to the standard register.
Afrikaans is another story, with a simplified grammar and spelling in all registers.
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I was making two points; the first was that independence cut off the flow of high status individuals circulating across the Atlantic, see the career of Benjamin Franklin or any pre-1776 Governor. Indepence cut that trans-Atlantic tie making divergence between American English and British English easier and stronger. But before they could get really far apart you had mass media tie them back together. Secondly inside the United States you had a major cultural and economic North-South divide including surprisingly distinct media markets which coupled with already distinct accents could have over time widened further in the absence of radio and then cinema.
In the case of New Netherland, there's evidence of a strong Zeelandic influence, which is different from Afrikaans (which has as part of its origins the traditional dialect of Zoetermeer. So Afrikaans is not as distant from Standard Dutch as what in the New World it would be. If you want a look, of course.
The thing about Afrikaans is that it is closer to standard Dutch than various Dutch dialects. I can understand standard Afrikaans pretty well. But I don't think I could understand someone speaking Twents, Zeelandic or West Flemish. Even in a small country like the Netherlands the local dialects differ quite a lot from each other and often are not realy mutualy intelligeble, but Afrikaans is with Dutch (well maybe not mutualy, since even though people who speak Dutch can understand someone speaking standard Afrikaans, people who speak Afrikaans have trouble understanding someone speaking Dutch).
Personaly if the Cape colony remains Dutch, I think Afrikaans would have the same status as the local Dutch dialects. Basicly in the 19th and early/middle of the 20th century the lower (and part of the middle) class people speak just the local dialect/Afrikaans, while the upper (and part of the middle) class speak standard Dutch. When more people get educated the lower classes start to understand and be able to speak standard Dutch and use it when neccessary (like for example at work, at school, when doing official bussiness), while amongst each other the speak the local dialect/Afrikaans. Then when in the middle of the 20th century populair culture becomes more prominent (like television) and don't forget personal mobility (basicly people being able to move to other places in the country and even abroad) the local dialects become lessand less prominent to the point that in the ealry 21st century many dialects (and thus probably Afrikaans) are dying out. In the end Afrikaans ends up basicly Dutch, but with a small amount of different words and phrases. Kind of like the difference between standard Flemish and standard Dutch Dutch.
Personaly if the Cape colony remains Dutch, I think Afrikaans would have the same status as the local Dutch dialects. Basicly in the 19th and early/middle of the 20th century the lower (and part of the middle) class people speak just the local dialect/Afrikaans, while the upper (and part of the middle) class speak standard Dutch. When more people get educated the lower classes start to understand and be able to speak standard Dutch and use it when neccessary (like for example at work, at school, when doing official bussiness), while amongst each other the speak the local dialect/Afrikaans. Then when in the middle of the 20th century populair culture becomes more prominent (like television) and don't forget personal mobility (basicly people being able to move to other places in the country and even abroad) the local dialects become lessand less prominent to the point that in the ealry 21st century many dialects (and thus probably Afrikaans) are dying out. In the end Afrikaans ends up basicly Dutch, but with a small amount of different words and phrases. Kind of like the difference between standard Flemish and standard Dutch Dutch.
I think it'd be a lot like the relationship between European and Brazilian Portuguese. Still the same language, but with a lot of notable differences.
If the Cape Colony stayed under Dutch rule, Afrikaans would never be considered a separate language, just a particular dialect of Dutch.