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.
Which one of the many English accents are you referring to?
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.
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.
And since when are Telugu, Kannada, Tamil, etc descended from that same stock?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?)
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.
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.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.
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.
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?
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.
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.