AHC: Make 2018 ITTL US English sound distinct/have word disparity with ITTL UK English.`

What PoD is required to make the languages diverge enough to make them not fully intelligible or at least distinct?
I know Quebec-French and French are distinct, but how could something similar happen with the United States and Great Britain's dialect.
 
More German or French influence?
Well there's an issue with that, UK English already had tons of german and french influence in it's vocabulary and German with it's grammar.
So I doubt either of these things would drastically change the language, due to well if they were a 'match made in heaven' and naturally blended, they would have already on the old world.
I mean I guess with mass french or german immigration and somehow avoiding the 'Become culturally anglo' pressure that happened OTL to Germans, italians and jews you could maybe get a mixed vocabulary.
 
Earlier colonization.
What PoDs would be required for this and a minimum of how much earlier?
OTL the Iberians mostly controlled the routes to the indian trade and south america, british, dutch and french endeavors in north america were spurred on in an attempt to find a way to avoid the iberian monopoly on trans atlantic trade.
Maybe have the british try and claim the cape of good hope and the routes to it?
Very implausible given british priorities at the time.
And even if you do get that, then they'd likely colonize south america and not north america, leading to a 'united states' in brazil, not continental US east coast we know today which would be a wildly different nation due to sheer butterflies.
 
Well there's an issue with that, UK English already had tons of german and french influence in it's vocabulary and German with it's grammar.
So I doubt either of these things would drastically change the language, due to well if they were a 'match made in heaven' and naturally blended, they would have already on the old world.
I mean I guess with mass french or german immigration and somehow avoiding the 'Become culturally anglo' pressure that happened OTL to Germans, italians and jews you could maybe get a mixed vocabulary.
What about combining those with American annexation of Cuba and/or more of Mexico?
 
What about combining those with American annexation of Cuba and/or more of Mexico?
Then that might work.
You could end up with Spanish, French and German vocabulary bleeding into pop culture and common usage making a frankenstein's language of sorts.
Although it'd require a less anglo-centric US with less push to culturally assimilate minorities, so I'm not sure what POD you'd use to prevent that.
Since if it's as per OTL policies, the WASPs will dominate and pressure others to assimilate.
 
Quebec joining the American Revolution and French being given co-official status in the Constitutional Convention?
That could work, but even then you'd also have to deal with the other languages of Spanish and the German immigrints.
Just because there is dual language, doesn't mean that other languages would be accepted: See Austria-Hungary for ethnicity and language.
Although you could probably get a language divergence with just Quebec, more settlers in the lousianna territory pre-purchase and pop culture exchange between the two languages.
 
how about more native american influence in the language
That sounds ASB given OTL policy towards natives and the fact that native americans suffered an apocalypse from disease just decades previously wiping out 90% of them, few at the time had a written language system and the policy was replacement, not incorporation.
You'd need some PoD to make US more accepting of natives and even then it'd be hard to have them recover to the point of having a large impact on language.
 
That sounds ASB given OTL policy towards natives and the fact that native americans suffered an apocalypse from disease just decades previously wiping out 90% of them, few at the time had a written language system and the policy was replacement, not incorporation.
You'd need some PoD to make US more accepting of natives and even then it'd be hard to have them recover to the point of having a large impact on language.
Yeah, more Hispanic, German, and/or French influence on the US would be more realistic.
 
This is OTL. If you disagree, get a dozen or so Brits and Yanks in the same room, suggest tabling a motion, and sit back to watch the chaos.
Indeed.

It's probably worth pointing out too that British English is extremely diverse itself to the point that the standard US Midwestern is closer to RP than RP is to Geordie or Glaswegian.
 
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