AH Challenge: Make the Dutch speak Deutsch.

Martin Luthor???

One way would be be for the Netherlands / Dutch to become part of the Lutheran world, instead of the Reformed and to use the langauge of the bible used / translated by Martin as the standard for their churches. If this were followed by very close economic and trade ties, then German becomes the language of commerce and education. Within two hundred years Netherlandish / Dutch would be the language of illiterate farmers.
 

corourke

Donor
One way would be be for the Netherlands / Dutch to become part of the Lutheran world, instead of the Reformed and to use the langauge of the bible used / translated by Martin as the standard for their churches. If this were followed by very close economic and trade ties, then German becomes the language of commerce and education. Within two hundred years Netherlandish / Dutch would be the language of illiterate farmers.

That's actually a really creative and interesting way to do it. In this TL, Dutch would really be seen as comparable to Swabian.
 
That would require rather drastic changes, really. The Dutch at the time where all for Bibles in their own language. Still, it could have been done.
 
Hmmm, Sometype of HRE lanague reform, like we see the German and French doing now? This would require a certain level of technology though... maybe an earlier invention of the telegraph, and all that followed it. (telephones, radios, televisions) These tend to cut down on dialectic differences.
 
Frisian is more distantly related to all, and quite a bit more Nordic.


I don't know how true this is, but I have heard that, as late as about 1900, Frisian and Geordie English (spoken around Newcastle and the North East) were incredibly similar.

As I say, I can't cite a source but I have heard that some of the dialectic words of Geordie are exactly the same, or very similar to those used on the Frisian Isles.
 

Thande

Donor
I don't know how true this is, but I have heard that, as late as about 1900, Frisian and Geordie English (spoken around Newcastle and the North East) were incredibly similar.

As I say, I can't cite a source but I have heard that some of the dialectic words of Geordie are exactly the same, or very similar to those used on the Frisian Isles.
That doesn't sound right to me. I thought the Frisians mainly settled in the South. Northumberland was pretty much completely Anglic until the Danes showed up.
 
That doesn't sound right to me. I thought the Frisians mainly settled in the South. Northumberland was pretty much completely Anglic until the Danes showed up.


Yes, this is what puzzles me about it.

But, as an example, I'm sure I've seen something about the Frisians using the word 'hyem' - meaning 'home'.

While the usage is not as common as it was once, this is recognisable as Geordie for 'home'.

I can't for the life of me remember where this was, unfortunately, so Im afraid I can't check the source.
 

Thande

Donor
Yes, this is what puzzles me about it.

But, as an example, I'm sure I've seen something about the Frisians using the word 'hyem' - meaning 'home'.

While the usage is not as common as it was once, this is recognisable as Geordie for 'home'.

I can't for the life of me remember where this was, unfortunately, so Im afraid I can't check the source.

The only thing I can think of is that perhaps Frisian was more 'archaic' in mode than Anglisc in the 400s (like Latvian/Lithuanian now) and so modern Frisian resembles Geordie (modern Northumbrian Anglisc) more than Suffolker because the latter has moved on more?
 
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