AHC: Have a Widely Spoken Germanic Language That's Mutually Intelligible With English

Dutch sounds like German being spoken with an English accent. Just shift the vocabulary towards a more English vocabulary...
 
I'd never heard that about Dutch phonology, the pronunciation of their vowels and the "g" always seemed too different.

Regarding the vocab. issue, perhaps that concept involving more Spaniards moving to the Netherlands and leaving their mark on the Dutch language? The thing is, would they leave as big a splash on Dutch as the Normans did on English?
 
Dutch sounds like German being spoken with an English accent. Just shift the vocabulary towards a more English vocabulary...

have you ever heard our language?! Dutch does not sound like German with an English accent, Frysian is far closer to English.
 

Delvestius

Banned
Scotland becomes a satellite state of England rather than a full-blown union. She gets a colony in the River Plate where Scots is the main language.

Done.

Yeh guys it's called Scots. Just get it to be treated seriously by the linguistic community and bam.
 
Yeh guys it's called Scots. Just get it to be treated seriously by the linguistic community and bam.

The thing is, up until the Act of Union it effectively WAS treated as a separate language outside of the British Islands (it certainly was considered such in France and Norway!). Unfortunately demographic shifts post-Union effectively sealed the fate of Scots as a truly distinct language amongst the linguistic community, something that truly irritates me to no end...after all, Afrikaans is even more like Dutch than Scots is like English, and YET it's considered a separate language :rolleyes:
 

Delvestius

Banned
The thing is, up until the Act of Union it effectively WAS treated as a separate language outside of the British Islands (it certainly was considered such in France and Norway!). Unfortunately demographic shifts post-Union effectively sealed the fate of Scots as a truly distinct language amongst the linguistic community, something that truly irritates me to no end...after all, Afrikaans is even more like Dutch than Scots is like English, and YET it's considered a separate language :rolleyes:

As a linguistics major (and student of Arabic, which is arguably the language in which this type of amalgamation, regardless of social and geographical variations, happens to the greatest extent) I feel your pain :p
 
The thing is, up until the Act of Union it effectively WAS treated as a separate language outside of the British Islands (it certainly was considered such in France and Norway!). Unfortunately demographic shifts post-Union effectively sealed the fate of Scots as a truly distinct language amongst the linguistic community, something that truly irritates me to no end...after all, Afrikaans is even more like Dutch than Scots is like English, and YET it's considered a separate language :rolleyes:

The number of Scots speakers ranges from 200,000 to 1.5 million, I'm guessing varying depending on where you draw the line between Scots and Scottish Standard English. Not sure if that's enough for the OP's scenario without changing the timeline.
 

Delvestius

Banned
The number of Scots speakers ranges from 200,000 to 1.5 million, I'm guessing varying depending on where you draw the line between Scots and Scottish Standard English. Not sure if that's enough for the OP's scenario without changing the timeline.

Scottish Standard English is English. Just as British Standard English or American Standard English or Indian Standard English is English.

Lowland Scots is a distinct Germanic language that diverged from Middle English. While many argue that it's just a fucked up version of English, I feel that this is indeed a poor analysis... In order for it to be a dialect of (Modern) English, than it would of had to descend from Modern English. Seeing as Middle English is indeed not the same language as Modern English, but a progenitor, it is much more accurate to call it a separate language, regardless of the similarities and relative intelligibility.
 
An interesting article (although it might be a bit off an tangent) questioning if Middle English (and beyond) actually is part of the west germanic language family ... It basicly states that while Old English (Anglo-saxon) was West Germanic, Middle English was an linguistic successor to Anglo-Norse (spoken in Danelaw, and North Germanic) although with heavy influences from Norman (which in turn is Old French (Latin), influenced by Norse), hence linguisticly a part of the North Germanic language family more than the West germanic

(Norweigian ... google translate while not perfect works)

http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/-Engelsk-er-et-skandinavisk-sprak-7055551.html
 
Scottish Standard English is English. Just as British Standard English or American Standard English or Indian Standard English is English.

Lowland Scots is a distinct Germanic language that diverged from Middle English. While many argue that it's just a fucked up version of English, I feel that this is indeed a poor analysis... In order for it to be a dialect of (Modern) English, than it would of had to descend from Modern English. Seeing as Middle English is indeed not the same language as Modern English, but a progenitor, it is much more accurate to call it a separate language, regardless of the similarities and relative intelligibility.

Indeed, even the grammar of Lowland Scots is different from English (retention of strong/weak verb distinction being the best example I've got, it's not just a question of how "Germanic" its vocabulary is). Regarding vocabulary, Scots has less Norman influence than English. In fact, how much more Germanic vocab. does Scots have? It's gotta be more than the paltry third English has.


An interesting article (although it might be a bit off an tangent) questioning if Middle English (and beyond) actually is part of the west germanic language family ... It basicly states that while Old English (Anglo-saxon) was West Germanic, Middle English was an linguistic successor to Anglo-Norse (spoken in Danelaw, and North Germanic) although with heavy influences from Norman (which in turn is Old French (Latin), influenced by Norse), hence linguisticly a part of the North Germanic language family more than the West germanic

(Norweigian ... google translate while not perfect works)

http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/-Engelsk-er-et-skandinavisk-sprak-7055551.html

Interesting, if true. I can see the author's point but I rather consider Modern English a North Germanic/West Germanic hybrid (NOT a Germanic/Romance hybrid, however. Vocabulary doesn't make it so). Still, makes some sense.
 
@OP: Maybe you should consider an FH. English is the lingua franca after all, Germany imports many English words... I wonder whether the two languages could become similar enough one day if this trend will continue. Or at least as close as Dutch and German, would that count?
 
American. filler
Exactly.

Get the early US to declare it's language to be formally different from British English (massively expanding on the trivial differences between Webster's and Johnson's dictionaries, say) and the challenge is fulfilled.

Orson Scot Card has something like that happen in his Alvin the Maker series (fantasy rather than AH, really, but AH based).

I could see Andrew Jackson pushing for it, if it hadn't happened earlier.
 
Exactly.

Get the early US to declare it's language to be formally different from British English (massively expanding on the trivial differences between Webster's and Johnson's dictionaries, say) and the challenge is fulfilled.

Orson Scot Card has something like that happen in his Alvin the Maker series (fantasy rather than AH, really, but AH based).

I could see Andrew Jackson pushing for it, if it hadn't happened earlier.

As I said WRT Afrikaans, just calling a language "different" doesn't in fact make it so. In order for this idea to honestly work, there has to be a considerable level of isolation between the two dialects (I even hesitate to call them that, American and British English are NOT that different) as with Dutch and Afrikaans in order to be truly distinct. The trick at that point is hitting the "sweet spot" of being separate without losing intelligibility.

Another thing, when I say "intelligibility" that doesn't mean no speed-bumps or difficulty. I consider Spanish and Portuguese to be mutually interchangeable (at least in spoken form) but that's because I've been exposed to both languages. Something like what exists between those two languages is good enough for the OP.
 
I'd never heard that about Dutch phonology, the pronunciation of their vowels and the "g" always seemed too different.

Regarding the vocab. issue, perhaps that concept involving more Spaniards moving to the Netherlands and leaving their mark on the Dutch language? The thing is, would they leave as big a splash on Dutch as the Normans did on English?

Like was said before, taking another Germanic language and mixing a ton of Romance vocab in it is just as likely to result in something that's even less intelligible with English. In fact, I think that's probably more likely to occur.

Indeed, even the grammar of Lowland Scots is different from English (retention of strong/weak verb distinction being the best example I've got, it's not just a question of how "Germanic" its vocabulary is). Regarding vocabulary, Scots has less Norman influence than English. In fact, how much more Germanic vocab. does Scots have? It's gotta be more than the paltry third English has.

Eh, saying English vocabulary is 2/3s non-Germanic is a little misleading. A ton of that vocabulary is rarely-used medical and scientific jargon which takes up pages and pages in dictionaries, but is hardly ever actually used.


Just for fun, an experiment: bold German, italicized Latin:
I'd never heard that about Dutch phonology[Greek], the pronunciation of their vowels and the "g" always seemed too different.

Regarding the vocab. issue, perhaps that concept involving more Spaniards moving to the Netherlands and leaving their mark on the Dutch language? The thing is, would they leave as big a splash on Dutch as the Normans did on English?
Indeed, even the grammar of Lowland Scots is different from English (retention of strong/weak verb distinction being the best example I've got, it's not just a question of how "Germanic" its vocabulary is). Regarding vocabulary, Scots has less Norman influence than English. In fact, how much more Germanic vocab. does Scots have? It's gotta be more than the paltry third English has.

Interesting. Not sure what I was expecting.
 
Like was said before, taking another Germanic language and mixing a ton of Romance vocab in it is just as likely to result in something that's even less intelligible with English. In fact, I think that's probably more likely to occur.

It all depends on where it comes from and whether it carries the same semantic shift; personally I'm in agreement with you. To me, the key lies in keeping a similar grammatical structure and having its vocabulary (Germanic or otherwise) carry the same meaning. Case in point; "wife" mean's the woman one marries in English, but in Dutch it's a very rude thing to say.


Eh, saying English vocabulary is 2/3s non-Germanic is a little misleading. A ton of that vocabulary is rarely-used medical and scientific jargon which takes up pages and pages in dictionaries, but is hardly ever actually used.

I knew that most of everyday speech comes from Germanic sources, but that's still pretty enlightening :eek:

I don't think any alt-English language would necessarily benefit from totally eliminating non-Germanic vocabulary; what I DO think is that English could stand a downsizing in said foreign word-hoard by about 25% or so, along with retaining Germanic language "quirks"; forby, not breaking up compounds like "assistant district attorney" instead of the more Germanic "assistantdistrictattorney", use of even a modified "ge-" prefix, etc.
 
This seems kind of unlikely to me. Like trying to create dogs capable of mating with foxes by breeding dogs for red fur. (That bizarre analogy is the best thing I can come up with for trying to say what I mean.)
Absolutely.

The odds of two different languages evolving convergently like that are tiny - in all honesty, the end result would probably be less understandable than "uninterfered-with" Dutch. Still, English is the result of two different languages from two different language families merging and I'm hard-pressed to think how to get something to be similar to it without just having massive English influence
Regarding the vocab. issue, perhaps that concept involving more Spaniards moving to the Netherlands and leaving their mark on the Dutch language? The thing is, would they leave as big a splash on Dutch as the Normans did on English?
Like was said before, taking another Germanic language and mixing a ton of Romance vocab in it is just as likely to result in something that's even less intelligible with English. In fact, I think that's probably more likely to occur.
I disagree. Languages are constantly influenced by those around them. The proposed Hispano-Dutch hybrid language, perhaps called "Flandés" or "Flamenca", would be influenced both by English, and French, the latter of which would also influence English at the same time. Not only that but it would be a prestige dialect and this outside influence would be even stronger and be supplemented by Latin and Greek terms (only those used internationally). So isolated evolutions of obscure Dutch words and archaic or Basque/Arabic-derived Spanish words would fall out of favor most of the time.
 
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