AHC: Bigger Hispanic America

[Northstar]

Thanks, but could you elaborate on Portuguese being the "third Spanish language"?
Does Portuguese as it is IOTL cease to exist or is it simply considered more of a very weird Spanish

I'm saying that nowadays, the Spanish they speak in the New World is very different to the Spanish (Castellano) that they speak in Spain.

My students here in Spain learn Castellano (Lengua Castellana). Many, many, words used by Spanish speakers outside of Spain are different to the ones they use in Spain. Here is a short list. There are more.

The other day, a friend of mine said something like, "Yo fui aca con mis panas y era la chimba." I would say " Yo fui ahi con mis amigos y era guay." In English, "I went there with my friends and it was fun." Google translate tells me in Portuguese it would be "Eu fui lá com meus amigos e foi legal."

Yo fui aca con mis panas y era la chimba.
Yo fui ahi con mis amigos y era guay.
Eu fui lá com meus amigos e foi legal.

Two of those are considered Spanish by us and one Portuguese, but, I mean, if you knew nothing about those languages would you know which was which?

Galician is considered to be a mix of Spanish and Portuguese. Here's the same sentence put through Google again:

Fun alí cos meus amigos e foi xenial.

I could easily see a world, 450 years after a POD, that sees these languages as different dialects, or linguistic efforts being made to standardise them, or whatever. Or that they're all just considered two, three, or even four 'versions' of Spanish. Remember that in 1550, the ñ - unique to the Spanish language - has only existed like 300 years (IIRC). Easy enough to get rid of the ñ and the Portuguese ã in that time. Paper's no longer that expensive.

Loads of possibilities.

Regards,

Northstar

 

[Northstar]

What about Gallego, Aranese and Catalan?

Exactly. I was just writing about that. Or at least Gallego/Galician.

I'm actually going to be using an etymological approach with my 6th grade* students when I go back to school in October. Going to do some cool activities like a version of telephone, but written, and starting with a Latin phrase.

Regards,

Northstar

*the Spanish equivalent of 6th grade, they're like 11 (turning 12 from January)

 

[Mitridates the Great]

1) England adopted mercantilism later than Spain (during the reign of Elizabeth), embraced it less thoroughly, and abandoned it earlier

2) What?

1) The success of an commerce-based economy in Middle and Modern Ages only can be achieved if the rest of the countries NOT tries to compete with you in the commerce (perhaps because they're based on mercantilism

2) If many countries tried to base their economies in international trading, you surely will obtain many bubble crisis because the traders and bankers of many countries will try to make speculative inversions.

 

[Taunay]

I'm saying that nowadays, the Spanish they speak in the New World is very different to the Spanish (Castellano) that they speak in Spain.

My students here in Spain learn Castellano (Lengua Castellana). Many, many, words used by Spanish speakers outside of Spain are different to the ones they use in Spain. Here is a short list. There are more.

The other day, a friend of mine said something like, "Yo fui aca con mis panas y era la chimba." I would say " Yo fui ahi con mis amigos y era guay." In English, "I went there with my friends and it was fun." Google translate tells me in Portuguese it would be "Eu fui lá com meus amigos e foi legal."

Yo fui aca con mis panas y era la chimba.
Yo fui ahi con mis amigos y era guay.
Eu fui lá com meus amigos e foi legal.

Two of those are considered Spanish by us and one Portuguese, but, I mean, if you knew nothing about those languages would you know which was which?

Galician is considered to be a mix of Spanish and Portuguese. Here's the same sentence put through Google again:

Fun alí cos meus amigos e foi xenial.

I could easily see a world, 450 years after a POD, that sees these languages as different dialects, or linguistic efforts being made to standardise them, or whatever. Or that they're all just considered two, three, or even four 'versions' of Spanish. Remember that in 1550, the ñ - unique to the Spanish language - has only existed like 300 years (IIRC). Easy enough to get rid of the ñ and the Portuguese ã in that time. Paper's no longer that expensive.

Loads of possibilities.

Regards,

Northstar

Oh so Portuguese would survive but it would be considered even closer to Castillian

 

[Mitridates the Great]

On the language question, Portuguese will certainly survive and it is doubtful that anyone believes that it is a dialect of Castilian or something like that. Let us remember that other languages such as Catalan, Galician and Basque survived. There is no reason why the Portuguese do worse. In any case I see Galicians shouting that Portuguese is a poorly spoken dialect of Galician as they do in OTL.

 

[durante]

1) The success of an commerce-based economy in Middle and Modern Ages only can be achieved if the rest of the countries NOT tries to compete with you in the commerce (perhaps because they're based on mercantilism

2) If many countries tried to base their economies in international trading, you surely will obtain many bubble crisis because the traders and bankers of many countries will try to make speculative inversions.

1) oh ok I understand your point now, lo siento

2) true but the advantage of the commercial system was that it wasnt countries engaging in the trading, but rather opening up to companies within that country, who are subject to speculative bubbles just as modern capitalism is, but that allows individual companies to rise and fall while the country, now less directly involved in economic ventures, carries on

 

[Taunay]

On the language question, Portuguese will certainly survive and it is doubtful that anyone believes that it is a dialect of Castilian or something like that. Let us remember that other languages such as Catalan, Galician and Basque survived. There is no reason why the Portuguese do worse. In any case I see Galicians shouting that Portuguese is a poorly spoken dialect of Galician as they do in OTL.

True

 

[durante]

The only reason of English "success" in this period is only because the existence of many countries who are using the merchantilism. So, probably many countries doing the same will drive to a many speculative bubbles, not to a success...

And also the question for the colonization is keep strategic points under control. Mantain some of this and the rest will be gained.

Ok so now interesting idea:

If Spain had allowed its colonies to freely trade with England and France....

There may have been significantly less impetus for England and France to start their own colonies!

(Netherlands is a bit different given the war of Independence)

 

[Mitridates the Great]

Ok so now interesting idea:

If Spain had allowed its colonies to freely trade with England and France....

There may have been significantly less impetus for England and France to start their own colonies!

(Netherlands is a bit different given the war of Independence)

Not necessarily.

England and France might decide anyway that they want to start their own colonies to control ALL the profits.

Because surely Spain will collect taxes on the land for the facilities set up by these companies -warehouses, commercial premises, etc- plus real taxes and others. This is something that will happen even if the treatment is exactly the same as it would be given to a Spanish company.

Surely someone in the board of directors decides that he prefers to spend his money on the colonial expansion of his own country than on supporting that of another country...

Apart from the fact that at that time in many cases the ones who possessed enough capital for that kind of big business... were the nobles. They were not characterized by their great commercial vision.

So we would also need those who have money to be encouraged to invest it.

 

[funnyhat]

. As for the language it’s easy to imagine a disunited and poor anglo-america getting influenced by successful post-independence Latam countries and eventually adopting Spanish as lingua Franca.

Why would they do that, when English was already their lingua franca?

They would need to be conquered by a hispanophone country for language shift to occur. The US had massive influence on many Latin American countries IOTL but this did not change their language.

 

[Taunay]

@holycookie @Galba Otho Vitelius @Gabingston
What's you guys' opinions on this?

 

[Northstar]

On the language question, Portuguese will certainly survive and it is doubtful that anyone believes that it is a dialect of Castilian or something like that. Let us remember that other languages such as Catalan, Galician and Basque survived. There is no reason why the Portuguese do worse. In any case I see Galicians shouting that Portuguese is a poorly spoken dialect of Galician as they do in OTL.

Right, so *some* people already claim that Portuguese is a poorly spoken dialect of Galician IOTL. No reason to think that *some* people won't claim that Portuguese is a poorly spoken dialect of Castellano ITTL. 😉

There's every chance - and I'd argue it would be very likely - that an Iberian Union that lasts 450 years to the present day, would develop its own version of Standard High German. Standard High Iberian, if you will.

There's also the fact that the Spanish and Portuguese of 1550 were likely more similar than the Spanish and Portuguese of 2022. Here's an old Spanish book. Notice anything funny about the spelling of "mujer" (second line down, right hand page)? The book was written (or is comprised of copies of various texts, from what I understand) between 800AD and 1200AD. In the book we see "woman" is written "muher" bur modern in Spanish it's "mujer" and in modern Portuguese it's "mulher."

The modern Spanish for "to leave" is "dejar" and the modern Portuguese for "to leave" is "deixar." These Spanish texts from 1554 spell "to leave" as "dexar." I'm sure there are many, many more examples of this. Essentially, both the first Spanish and first Portuguese texts were written between approximately 900AD and 1100AD (again, feel free to narrow this down, or link me to more research because I'm only 90% sure of my sources here and know it's debated) from Latin. That means that at the POD the history of these two languages is ~1000 years the same (remember both countries are still reading the Bible in Latin at this point too) and ~500 years of divergence. Even now, in 2022, after ~1000 years of divergence, Portuguese and Spanish are considered somewhat mutually intelligible. There's also debate as to how long it takes for one language to become two separate languages.

I think it's entirely possible that in a surviving Iberian Union, especially one in which Portuguese nationalism is much reduced (i.e. they're happy as Iberians), that we'd see:

1. A reduction in the divergence of Spanish and Portuguese.
2. Efforts to standardise Iberian - again, think Standard High Iberian
3. The languages of Iberia becoming a much closer dialectic continuum.

I think ITTL, we'd actually see the OTL's languages of the Iberian Peninsula considered as dialects of the same language, and OTL Spanish and Portuguese of the New World as dialects of a separate language.

Regards,

Northstar

 

[Taunay]

Right, so *some* people already claim that Portuguese is a poorly spoken dialect of Galician IOTL. No reason to think that *some* people won't claim that Portuguese is a poorly spoken dialect of Castellano ITTL. 😉

There's every chance - and I'd argue it would be very likely - that an Iberian Union that lasts 450 years to the present day, would develop its own version of Standard High German. Standard High Iberian, if you will.

There's also the fact that the Spanish and Portuguese of 1550 were likely more similar than the Spanish and Portuguese of 2022. Here's an old Spanish book. Notice anything funny about the spelling of "mujer" (second line down, right hand page)? The book was written (or is comprised of copies of various texts, from what I understand) between 800AD and 1200AD. In the book we see "woman" is written "muher" bur modern in Spanish it's "mujer" and in modern Portuguese it's "mulher."

The modern Spanish for "to leave" is "dejar" and the modern Portuguese for "to leave" is "deixar." These Spanish texts from 1554 spell "to leave" as "dexar." I'm sure there are many, many more examples of this. Essentially, both the first Spanish and first Portuguese texts were written between approximately 900AD and 1100AD (again, feel free to narrow this down, or link me to more research because I'm only 90% sure of my sources here and know it's debated) from Latin. That means that at the POD the history of these two languages is ~1000 years the same (remember both countries are still reading the Bible in Latin at this point too) and ~500 years of divergence. Even now, in 2022, after ~1000 years of divergence, Portuguese and Spanish are considered somewhat mutually intelligible. There's also debate as to how long it takes for one language to become two separate languages.

I think it's entirely possible that in a surviving Iberian Union, especially one in which Portuguese nationalism is much reduced (i.e. they're happy as Iberians), that we'd see:

1. A reduction in the divergence of Spanish and Portuguese.
2. Efforts to standardise Iberian - again, think Standard High Iberian
3. The languages of Iberia becoming a much closer dialectic continuum.

I think ITTL, we'd actually see the OTL's languages of the Iberian Peninsula considered as dialects of the same language, and OTL Spanish and Portuguese of the New World as dialects of a separate language.

Regards,

Northstar

It would be beautiful to see a language with both Portuguese and Spanish influence becoming the standard!

 

[Gabingston]

@holycookie @Galba Otho Vitelius @Gabingston
What's you guys' opinions on this?

OTL was already a Spanish wank, the most I could see them gaining from OTL's territory would be more of the American Southeast.

 

[Fulano]

I don't know why people say it wouldn't be possible. Castile had the upper hand in the continent for about a whole century, a century that they didn't really do much thanks to them having their hands full with other matters.
For a bigger Hispanic America they just needed to ignore everything east to the peninsula and to focus all their energies into their western territories. After all, how many Castilians died in Burgundian lands? How many died in Italy? How many in Germany? All of those men could have gone into the Americas and settle there, conquering new lands that were not discovered by them in this timeline.
Honestly, this would have never happened under the Habsburgs, but probably would have happened under a Trastamara or an Aviz Castile, a Castile that is not busy in Europe and has a lot of free time to consolidate their American lands.

 

[holycookie]

In theory, Spanish America could be the entire American continent, in practice it is impossible. Spain in the otl already controlled at its apex basically 2/3 of america which is quite impressive. For them to achieve even more, the country needs a larger population (much, much larger) something like 18 million in the 15th century. The country needs to completely ignore Europe (which is bad, because it allows France to be much stronger. that will be bad for spain in the future). Beat the uk in the maritime competition, prevent the portuguese from colonizing brazil or another part of america, have greater immigration to the new world (at otl it was around 2.3%, in this ttl it would have to be at least 5% to 8% ). it's a bad deal for spain, because the country will put all its bets on the new world and the moment that goes wrong, whether due to wars of independence or another reason, the country will be worse than otl spain.

 

[Taunay]

OTL was already a Spanish wank, the most I could see them gaining from OTL's territory would be more of the American Southeast.

I agree with you actually
The idea that Hispanic America could be even bigger seems not to make any sense, when you consider that IOTL it actually lost territory instead of gaining it
It was pretty lucky in just being able to conquer two massive native empires and settle even further into California and Argentina/Chile

In theory, Spanish America could be the entire American continent, in practice it is impossible. Spain in the otl already controlled at its apex basically 2/3 of america which is quite impressive. For them to achieve even more, the country needs a larger population (much, much larger) something like 18 million in the 15th century. The country needs to completely ignore Europe (which is bad, because it allows France to be much stronger. that will be bad for spain in the future). Beat the uk in the maritime competition, prevent the portuguese from colonizing brazil or another part of america, have greater immigration to the new world (at otl it was around 2.3%, in this ttl it would have to be at least 5% to 8% ). it's a bad deal for spain, because the country will put all its bets on the new world and the moment that goes wrong, whether due to wars of independence or another reason, the country will be worse than otl spain.

Thanks, I will save this comment

I don't know why people say it wouldn't be possible. Castile had the upper hand in the continent for about a whole century, a century that they didn't really do much thanks to them having their hands full with other matters.
For a bigger Hispanic America they just needed to ignore everything east to the peninsula and to focus all their energies into their western territories. After all, how many Castilians died in Burgundian lands? How many died in Italy? How many in Germany? All of those men could have gone into the Americas and settle there, conquering new lands that were not discovered by them in this timeline.
Honestly, this would have never happened under the Habsburgs, but probably would have happened under a Trastamara or an Aviz Castile, a Castile that is not busy in Europe and has a lot of free time to consolidate their American lands.

Portugal was present and would not allow Spain to colonize the entirety of the Americas (Also saying they just need more settlers misunderstands the Spanish colonial system. If they wanted more settlement they would have not difficulties emigration to the Americas for over 300 years, the economic system was based on exploiting an already existing native population, not on encouraging free white settlement)
Also ignoring Europe would screw them as it would strengthen France a LOT, maybe the French could even steal a Spanish colony

 

[Taunay]

And while Spanish emigration would help the colonies it would screw Spain even further than OTL. Quoting from this article: https://theclassicjournal.uga.edu/i...pse-to-the-beginning-of-its-new-world-empire/

An exodus of people from Spain followed colonization because the new colonies needed good Spaniards to fill the state and church offices and also “profit possibilities in silver mining stimulated Spaniards emigrating to America.”[32] A resurgence of the plague in the 1590s and lowered birth rates in the period coupled with the emigration to cause serious population shortages in Spain. Contemporary Europeans, outside of Spain, positively viewed American emigration as serving as a drain of sorts that allowed Spain to export “riff-raff and desperadoes” who would cause trouble.[33] Cellorigo had a starkly different take on the emigration, stating that “the most striking reason for the decline of our republic and the deepening of its problems is the shrinking of the population”—a perspective that is confirmed by modern studies.[34]

 

[Taunay]

OTL was already a Spanish wank, the most I could see them gaining from OTL's territory would be more of the American Southeast.

I agree but could you say why you think that OTL was a Spain-wank?

 

[Taunay]

Final ping
@Drex @Danifa94