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

Delvestius

Banned
I sure have, dearie. I've watched entire documentaries in Dutch (with subtitles) and couldn't help but think that I was hearing German with an English accent.

Lexically, its very similar to German. Phonetically, it's closer to English. Checks out in my book.
 

Beer

Banned
Hi!

An interesting discussion, but it seems many people here try to put the cart before the horse due to, pardon me, insufficient knowledge of the development of the Germanic languages So please stay with me for a moment:
In the beginning, the most obvious difference, among some others in syntax, etc., of the Germanic languages (which made them different from it´s parent tongue) is the First Germanic sound shift, which all Germanic languages share and made them distinct from Indo-German. (I use Indo-German since despite Indo-European is the most used term, IE is a misnomer. Since when is e.g. Basque, Hungarian or Finnic descended from Indo-German stock?)
A later divide intra-language tree is the second sound shift, which did not happen everywhere or only partially due to the circumstances of the times and was a major break for mutual understanding of the languages. Here is one possible PoD where English could come under the influence of the second shift ATL. This would make English closer related to the Central and Upper German dialects and would hinder much of the influx of the Romance vocabulary, since due to the development of grammar and speech patterns under the second shift, Romance words are less likely to take hold, no matter if the Normans come or not.
One problem we have is that the Germanic languages developed very un-treelike. Don´t get it the wrong way, but English developed like a bastard or hybrid and so became easier, while Icelandic or German preserved a lot more of the old grammar and vocabulary. Take sentence structure. In English, word order is very important for understanding. You cannot change much without changing the meaning as well. In German, on the other side of the intra-Germanic spectrum, word order is nearly irrelevant. The Verb has to be always the second main component (and the verbs can be parted, which is one reason why many verb parts can pop up at the end of the sentence) of a sentence, but beside that word order is free.
On the average, there are a dozen variants (sometimes more, sometimes less) how in German the word order of a sentence can be put together without any change in meaning. The only difference are subtle shifts in importance of the used subjects and objects. English once possessed this flexibility in word order, but lost it over time and the differences in development began to become greater. For instance, Shakespearian English is closer to German than modern English is. So all PoDs in the last say, 500 years can be forgotten, because the diffrences had already accumulated too much to bring development closer again.
The Middle Ages are the last time, where PoDs could change enough for the starting question to come to fruition.
 
Hi!
(I use Indo-German since despite Indo-European is the most used term, IE is a misnomer. Since when is e.g. Basque, Hungarian or Finnic descended from Indo-German stock?)
And since when are Telugu, Kannada, Tamil, etc descended from that same stock?

I mostly agree with the rest of it, but don't you think English would diverge enough even without any Norman invasion that it wouldn't be intelligible with Standard German? Hell, even some German dialects aren't all that mutually intelligible, or so I've heard. I'd think the separation of English and German would at least be on the level of German and Dutch. So, with no Norman conquest and closer links to the mainland, maybe English and German would be partially mutually intelligible at best.
 

Delvestius

Banned
I mostly agree with the rest of it, but don't you think English would diverge enough even without any Norman invasion that it wouldn't be intelligible with Standard German? Hell, even some German dialects aren't all that mutually intelligible, or so I've heard. I'd think the separation of English and German would at least be on the level of German and Dutch. So, with no Norman conquest and closer links to the mainland, maybe English and German would be partially mutually intelligible at best.

Indeed, the type of German that English is descended from was a low German tongue, already notably different from the dialects that would come to be Standard German. I do not think that no Norman invasion alone would be enough to make them mutually intelligible, because they weren't very close to that even beforehand.
 
Indeed, the type of German that English is descended from was a low German tongue, already notably different from the dialects that would come to be Standard German. I do not think that no Norman invasion alone would be enough to make them mutually intelligible, because they weren't very close to that even beforehand.

Very true; likely the language in question would either be from the Ingvaeonic branch (Frisian dialects, Low Saxon, etc.) or the Scandinavian languages. I've no expectation that the High German or East Germanic dialects would become intelligible TBH.
 
Very true; likely the language in question would either be from the Ingvaeonic branch (Frisian dialects, Low Saxon, etc.) or the Scandinavian languages. I've no expectation that the High German or East Germanic dialects would become intelligible TBH.
Personally I think my best guess would be an England that is not invaded by the Normans. The area that is now roughly the Netherlands independent, but more Frisian influenced that influenced by Holland/Brabant/Flanders. And some kind of close connection between alternate England and alternate Frisia (like a personal union or something like that), thus leading to both cultures influencing eacht other.

Well that or a Afrikaans/Dutch situation. An English colony that is closed of from England long enough to develop its own language/culture.
 

Beer

Banned
Indeed, the type of German that English is descended from was a low German tongue, already notably different from the dialects that would come to be Standard German. I do not think that no Norman invasion alone would be enough to make them mutually intelligible, because they weren't very close to that even beforehand.

Hi Delvestius!
You are mostly right, but you underestimate the impact the second sound shift had on the development of the German dialects and languages. While Low(from which you correctly said English developed), Central and Upper German dialects were already distinct by the time the second shift came, they were still mostly intelligible. This can be seen in such linguistic treasure troves like the "Rhenish Fan", where the influences the second sound shift had on all grammar and speech changes can be observed.
The dialects of this region were variably exposed to the shift. The southern dialects very much, those in the north just weakly.
Those (they count as Central German) dialects at the northern end of the fan have few problems understanding real Low German or Dutch, since the changes are few. But they have problems with understanding southern dialects like Palatinatian or Swabian in pure form.
On the other side, the southern dialects of the fan, which were strongly exposed to the second shift but count mostly as Central German as well, have few problems understanding the other dialects in the South. A Palatinatian and Swabian (which is Upper German) speaking in their dialects with each other, will have few stickling points in understanding, while both would be hard-pressed to understand a Frisian.

So if for whatever reason early English would come under the influence of the second shift (which OTL as an offspring of Low German English did not), the ATL English would drift much on the speech continuum and the development would be seriously different.
 
Hi Delvestius!
You are mostly right, but you underestimate the impact the second sound shift had on the development of the German dialects and languages. While Low(from which you correctly said English developed), Central and Upper German dialects were already distinct by the time the second shift came, they were still mostly intelligible. This can be seen in such linguistic treasure troves like the "Rhenish Fan", where the influences the second sound shift had on all grammar and speech changes can be observed.
The dialects of this region were variably exposed to the shift. The southern dialects very much, those in the north just weakly.
Those (they count as Central German) dialects at the northern end of the fan have few problems understanding real Low German or Dutch, since the changes are few. But they have problems with understanding southern dialects like Palatinatian or Swabian in pure form.
On the other side, the southern dialects of the fan, which were strongly exposed to the second shift but count mostly as Central German as well, have few problems understanding the other dialects in the South. A Palatinatian and Swabian (which is Upper German) speaking in their dialects with each other, will have few stickling points in understanding, while both would be hard-pressed to understand a Frisian.

So if for whatever reason early English would come under the influence of the second shift (which OTL as an offspring of Low German English did not), the ATL English would drift much on the speech continuum and the development would be seriously different.

But why would it come under the influence of the second shift when it's closer related to the Low German dialects and even further away from Upper German geographically? I don't think even a personal union could bring that about, there wouldn't be enough intermingling, and I'm guessing that unlike with Norman French, German rulers of England would shift to the local dialect within only a couple generations, since they would be able to understand it to begin with. (e.g. they wouldn't be isolated from their subjects the way French-speaking rulers were, and thus would adopt their tongue faster)

Personally I think my best guess would be an England that is not invaded by the Normans. The area that is now roughly the Netherlands independent, but more Frisian influenced that influenced by Holland/Brabant/Flanders. And some kind of close connection between alternate England and alternate Frisia (like a personal union or something like that), thus leading to both cultures influencing eacht other.

Well that or a Afrikaans/Dutch situation. An English colony that is closed of from England long enough to develop its own language/culture.

Heyyy, here's an idea, what if you just swapped out Dutch Afrikaaners for English Afrikaaners, with the exact same date of colonization?
 
Heyyy, here's an idea, what if you just swapped out Dutch Afrikaaners for English Afrikaaners, with the exact same date of colonization?

In the mid-17th. Century? AFAIK the English language of the time was essentially Modern English with some funny spelling conventions; I fail to see how it could seriously diverge enough from baseline under those circumstances (considering that they'd be followed by....more English-speaking British colonists :confused:). Furthermore, I steadfastly maintain that Afrikaans ISN'T a different language than Dutch, at least no more than Appalachian or Australian English is a different language is from RP English (i.e. they're not).
 

Beer

Banned
Hi Sucrose!

For the scientists it is not clear, esp. when comparing the dialects, why the second sound shift stopped at the so-called Benrath line. It is in the Dark of History why that situation came to be.
It might hinge on one, two tribes moving or not moving during the Völkerwanderung or something like that. So lets postulate that for an ATL where the thread starting question is answered positive, amng those Germanic tribes going to England is a heads-strong splinter of a Rhenish-Franconian dialect speaking tribe. These dialects are strongly influenced by the second shift. So now coming to England, they will influence the development of English.
 
That depends on one's definition of "creole": they gotta be full-fledged and established languages with complete and concrete lexical and grammatical foundations. A pidgin or patois of English like that spoken in Jamaica or the Philippines does not count.

That being said, a reformatted dialect of English with heavy foreign (e.g. Austronesian or African) influences on grammar could work; however those would likely be relatively recent developments and likely lacking in the requested scale of speakers. Perhaps an English-based equivalent of Haitian Creole could work; after all, they have dictionaries and courses in that language.

Jamaican Patois is a full-fledged language; there is a writing system for it and the Bible has recently been translated into it. It is not, however, intelligible with English - nor are any of the other English-based creoles. It is similar to Haitian Creole in that it draws its vocabulary mostly from the European language (English), but its grammar and pronunciation is strongly influenced by West African languages.

In this video, the two men are speaking Patois, except for a couple of brief instances. (It's very easy to tell when they're speaking English and when they're speaking Patois.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLas9oA1SFw
 
Since I don't think its been mentioned as of yet: Scots. If you want to make the language more tentrenched, just prevent the Stuart inheritance of the English throne. Voila; widely spolen Germanic language that is mutually understandable to standard English! And to those who would argue (incorrrectly in my opinion) that Scots is just a dialect of English, just remember the old adage that alanguage is just a dialect with an Army behind it.
 
make a German exodus to England during the Thirty Years' War.
Prussia, Bohemia and Denmark-Norway were all Protestant, along with England; if they lost severely, they would try an exodus across the North Sea.
 
Since I don't think its been mentioned as of yet: Scots. If you want to make the language more tentrenched, just prevent the Stuart inheritance of the English throne. Voila; widely spolen Germanic language that is mutually understandable to standard English! And to those who would argue (incorrrectly in my opinion) that Scots is just a dialect of English, just remember the old adage that alanguage is just a dialect with an Army behind it.

I think it has been mentioned, but yep, there ya go. Certainly a lot more plausible than keeping English mutually intelligible with a continental Germanic language.
 
I think it has been mentioned, but yep, there ya go. Certainly a lot more plausible than keeping English mutually intelligible with a continental Germanic language.

Well no, I still think it's possible for *English to be intelligible with another Germanic language on the Continent (or rather, perhaps in Scandinavia) if one goes back far enough, which the OP allows for.

That being said, if one uses a POD no later than about the 16th. Century or so, I think then you have a point.
 
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