AHC: Latin American Spanish dialects recognized as separate languages

[Cuāuhtemōc]

It seems odd that after 524 years of Spanish being in the New World, the language hasn't drifted into multiple new languages? One would figure that geography, politics, and influence from the native languages would've encouraged the development of daughter languages or creoles. You have Afrikaans as precedent and it took less time for it to become its own language. I don't care for the POD (though the later the better) but what it would take for the Mexican, Peruvian, etc. dialects to be declared their own separate languages?

 

[Amazon]

Spanish and Afrikaans are in very different social situations. Dutch South Africa was an independent settler colony with a single isolated population that became contrasted to English.

Meanwhile, Spanish governance in The New World continually privileged and depended on a ruling class of peninsular Spaniards. This continually updates the prestige dialect within any part of Spanish America. Changing this social structure must be a necessary part of a POD.

One option is if anyone from the crown of Aragon is allowed to a part of Spanish America and demographically dominates that area. But given how territorial Castile was about her colonies that seems unlikely.

Though in a way, it did change: sixteenth century Castilian is very very different from its modern form.

 

[funnyhat]

There are Spanish-based creoles spoken in some countries. Papiamento may be an example, although there is debate about whether it is based more on Spanish or Portuguese.

My understanding is that Latin American societies were once much more multilingual than they are today (both in terms of creoles and Amerindian languages). But upon independence, criollos of European ancestry generally emerged as the new ruling class and, by and large, showed little interest in supporting languages other than Spanish.

If the Latin American revolutions result in greater social upheaval, such that the colonial upper classes are totally overthrown (as was the case in Haiti, for example), you can have creole languages remain prominent.

 

[Emperor RyRy]

Easy, don't have the different Latin American nations post-independence want to be the "rightful heirs" of Spain/Europe in the New World.

There's a reason that Peru is largely native Spanish speakers despite the opposite being true ethically.

 

[Napoleonrules]

A language is a dialect with its own army to back up the claim. That's a truth, not just a funny saying. Chinese "dialects" by all rights ARE languages and there is absolutely no proof that all are even related to each other, with differences bigger than that between Bengali and Hindi/Urdu, and actually differences bigger than Hindi/Urdu and Portuguese! But if you're a linguist, anthropologist, or archaeologist saying that, you are not coming in to China. At all. Banned. That's one example. There's no reason South American nations could not, upon independence create standardized grammar and dictionaries that differ intentionally from Spain and declare the language a different name, the claim becomes self-reinforcing and while difference probably doesn't get any more different than Portuguese and Spanish (written the two languages are mutually intelligible, but spoken there is some significant difficulty, though not insurmountable). I'm surprised Putin doesn't make a declaration that Ukrainian and Belorussian are dialects of Russian (not exactly a fringe theory though).

 

[Deleted member 67076]

You'd do best to ironically spread the Spanish language to the majority of the populations in the various colonies early on.

For the most part, the colonials (of those that aren't from settler colonies) were largely speaking native languages until the introduction of modern education systems and mass media, which aided on standardizing and imposing a roughly "equal" Spanish that everyone got.

By making everyone speak Spanish early on, you allow more time for mutations and cut out the standardization factor.

 

[Eivind]

A language is a dialect with its own army to back up the claim. That's a truth, not just a funny saying. Chinese "dialects" by all rights ARE languages and there is absolutely no proof that all are even related to each other, with differences bigger than that between Bengali and Hindi/Urdu, and actually differences bigger than Hindi/Urdu and Portuguese! But if you're a linguist, anthropologist, or archaeologist saying that, you are not coming in to China. At all. Banned. That's one example. There's no reason South American nations could not, upon independence create standardized grammar and dictionaries that differ intentionally from Spain and declare the language a different name, the claim becomes self-reinforcing and while difference probably doesn't get any more different than Portuguese and Spanish (written the two languages are mutually intelligible, but spoken there is some significant difficulty, though not insurmountable). I'm surprised Putin doesn't make a declaration that Ukrainian and Belorussian are dialects of Russian (not exactly a fringe theory though).

And on the other hand you have "languages" like Norwegian, Swedish and Danish which are only considered as separate languages because they "have an army and a fleet" to back them up. Personally I am very sceptical about the claim that Chinese is the largest language in the world, as the differences, as far as I understand is too big to make all of them mutually understandable. A language like for instance English have spread relatively recently over a wide area, particularly in North America, and have not had enough time to diverge. Besides in the last century you have had the influence from mass media that, combined with standardized forms of the language have slowed the divergence of different dialects. Various versions of Chinese have diverged too far, so Chinese people who speak other "dialects" have to learn the standard version to understand it.

Anyone who have enough knowledge of Spanglish to say whether that is sufficiently different from Spanish to count as a separate language. As far as I understand, the basic structure of Spanglish is based on Spanish.

 

[Alt History Buff]

Sometimes colonization has the effect of standardizing a language.

In colonial America, English people would come and marvel that Americans actually spoke the same mutually intelligible language from Boston to Savannah. In Britain at the time, the regional languages were so strong that it was not uncommon not to understand a person from the next county over.

There may have been dialect differences but, for the most part, Americans could all speak the same language as the mix of English, Scottish, etc immigrants were mixed together and formed a conglomerate dialect that was far more uniform than in Britain.

 

[funnyhat]

Sometimes colonization has the effect of standardizing a language.

In colonial America, English people would come and marvel that Americans actually spoke the same mutually intelligible language from Boston to Savannah. In Britain at the time, the regional languages were so strong that it was not uncommon not to understand a person from the next county over.

There may have been dialect differences but, for the most part, Americans could all speak the same language as the mix of English, Scottish, etc immigrants were mixed together and formed a conglomerate dialect that was far more uniform than in Britain.

French observers noted the same in colonial Canada. The Canadiens were uniformly speaking French by about 1700, if not earlier, whereas in France itself, French did not become universally spoken for another two centuries.

 

[Eivind]

French observers noted the same in colonial Canada. The Canadiens were uniformly speaking French by about 1700, if not earlier, whereas in France itself, French did not become universally spoken for another two centuries.

But was the form of French they spoke the same as the one that later became standardized in France?

Standard French in France is the Paris dialect, is it not?

 

[funnyhat]

But was the form of French they spoke the same as the one that later became standardized in France?

Standard French in France is the Paris dialect, is it not?

The French spoken in colonial Canada was essentially the same as the French spoken in France at that time (17th-18th century). The isolation of the Canadiens from France after 1760 was what caused the two to diverge later on.

 

[Eivind]

The French spoken in colonial Canada was essentially the same as the French spoken in France at that time (17th-18th century). The isolation of the Canadiens from France after 1760 was what caused the two to diverge later on.

But what do you mean by the French spoken in France at the time? There was a lot of variation in how people spoke in France, In the south they spoke a language that was closer to Catalan and Italian than to the French spoken in France. Later France has followed a policy where children had to learn a standard version of French. As far as I understand, this was based on the Paris dialect.

 

[funnyhat]

But what do you mean by the French spoken in France at the time? There was a lot of variation in how people spoke in France, In the south they spoke a language that was closer to Catalan and Italian than to the French spoken in France. Later France has followed a policy where children had to learn a standard version of French. As far as I understand, this was based on the Paris dialect.

This has nothing to do with Occitan, the langues d'oil, Breton, Alsatian, Corsican, Basque, etc. Those are separate languages entirely, not varieties of French.

In the 18th century, French was spoken essentially the same way in both France and Canada. However, while only a small percentage of people in France spoke it, nearly all Canadiens did. Canada was much more linguistically unified than France was, which many observers noted at the time.

The reason why the Canadian French of today sounds different from European French is because they have followed separate courses of development after 1760, when Canada was conquered by the British.

 

[Eivind]

This has nothing to do with Occitan, the langues d'oil, Breton, Alsatian, Corsican, Basque, etc. Those are separate languages entirely, not varieties of French.

In the 18th century, French was spoken essentially the same way in both France and Canada. However, while only a small percentage of people in France spoke it, nearly all Canadiens did. Canada was much more linguistically unified than France was, which many observers noted at the time.

The reason why the Canadian French of today sounds different from European French is because the have followed separate courses of development after 1760, when Canada was conquered by the British.

So with French you mean how they spoke in Paris or northern France in general? I would have thought that there would have been large variations also in northern France?

 

[funnyhat]

So with French you mean how they spoke in Paris or northern France in general? I would have thought that there would have been large variations also in northern France?

In the 18th century, French was spoken in the Paris region, and by aristocrats/educated people elsewhere. The rest of the country did not speak it. Do not confuse the linguistic situation of today (where everyone in France speaks French, with some regional differences) with the situation back then. Once you left the Paris region, the vast majority of the population did not speak French.

In Canada, by contrast, virtually the entire population spoke French. Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot et al. spoke the same language as the Canadiens.

 

[pompejus]

Spanish and Afrikaans are in very different social situations. Dutch South Africa was an independent settler colony with a single isolated population that became contrasted to English.

If South Africa would have remained Dutch, Afrikaans would have simply been Dutch, even if it would have been the exact same language. Afrikaans differs less from standard Dutch than several Dutch dialects. You indeed need to change the social, or more correctly the political landscape of Latin Amerca for South American Spanish to develope into a seperate language. Or maybe you should change the European political landscape. What if Spain itself had been occupied for a long time by France or whoever. The problem is, I don't see it happening.