AHC/WI: Non-English world lingua franca

Welsh/Brythonic: Have the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain simply not happen, or have the Anglo-Saxons create a Kingdom(s) in Britain but go native like the Franks in France.
As mentioned, there's no reason to assume that Brythonic Britain will be an almost-superpower resembling the UK in any way. History isn't predetermined.
 
A TL where Islam continues to expand and eventually comes to dominate Western Europe during the Middle Ages seems both possible and reasonably likely to lead where you want. Arabic underwent a fairly impressive expansion OTL (going from limited to the Arabian Peninsula to the primary spoken language of the Middle East and North Africa, with at least some level of fluency prized in the rest of the Muslim world. ITTL, a Muslim Europe is likely to see the colonization of the Americas as OTL (if only from a Muslim ruler of Al-Andalus wanted to get a piece of the spice trade currently dominated by his more Eastern co-religionists). Combine with an expansion into Africa and Asia similar to OTL, and that's a region that compares favorably with the modern Anglosphere, with likely similar linguistic results.

Regardless, an invented language like Esperanto or an already dead language like post-Roman Latin isn't going to work. The big advantage of an existing language is that it has a naturally existing constituency to preserve and promote it. Even before English became the lingua franca, people from other countries still learned English. Why? To do business in England. Likewise, some English-speakers learn Spanish or Japanese or Chinese today, so that they have an easier time doing business with speakers of that language. Regardless, for a conversation, only one person has to learn the other's language. On the other hand, something like Esperanto runs into the problem that both speakers have to learn the same (artificial) language, because it's not either of their spoken languages. And since there are essentially* no native speakers of an invented language, there's little incentive to create the critical mass to let the language become an efficient lingua franca in the first place.

*Yes, there are a few Esperantists who raised their kids to speak Esperanto as a first language. Those kids are both so rare as to essentially be a rounding error, and also naturally fluent in some other language, because they have to be able to speak with the vast majority of their neighbors who aren't Esperantists.
 
I don't know, I think most people in the West differentiate between at least two Sinitic languages that are part of the Chinese umbrella, the two being Mandarin and Cantonese (although a lot of people think there are only these two).

As a Korean it's amazing how the southern dialects (which is how they're usually referred to, not languages) sound very similar to Korean. Some of their pronunciations of Chinese characters are essentially same or retained forms of pronouncing Middle Korean.
It does make me wonder how close Middle Korean would've been with Middle Chinese.
 
Danish is relatively easy.
You could go with surviving Danelaw becoming the center around which an eventual unification of the British Isles is achieved. Or Canute's Nordic empire survives (harder). Or Sveyn Estridsson takes England after Hastings after an alternate 1066 (say, both Harold Godwinson and William the Bastard die, and Sveyn comes out on top of the resulting scuffle).
As noted, all of these clearly prevent the historical path to British global power. However, the geographic advantages that made the British Isles powerful IOTL remains, so, the possibility remains for a global power based upon the *Danish-speaking British Isles. Now, the language involved would probably be remarkably different from modern Danish from OTL, although the ATL might keep referring to it as Danish.

Or could give Denmark a more succesful thirteenth century followed by an alternate *Kalmar Union. Dominium Maris Baltici uncontested, colonial ventures in Arctic Noth America, control of a surviving-reestablished *Vinland. Things can proceed from there.

(Of course, Denmark alone has too little of a population base. Still, the same would have been said of Sixth century's Central Arabia, or Early Modern England, in OTL.)
 
As a Korean it's amazing how the southern dialects (which is how they're usually referred to, not languages) sound very similar to Korean. Some of their pronunciations of Chinese characters are essentially same or retained forms of pronouncing Middle Korean.
It does make me wonder how close Middle Korean would've been with Middle Chinese.
No, the actual Standard Mandarin term is 方言, which in the specific case of Chinese linguistics is best translated as "variety" (although in Korean it would be pang'en which means "dialects"). So yeah, the actual term used is 汉语方言, "Chinese varieties." But I call them languages, because it's quite obvious that Min Chinese is only called a variety or a dialect because of yet, Fujian lacks an army and a navy.

They don't actually sound as close to Korean as you think, it just seems like it in comparison to Mandarin because Mandarin lost the majority of its final consonants. Korean for example underwent significant affrication for initial consonants except in the Pyong'an dialect (which fueled Pyong'an regionalism as early as late Choson times) that no southern variety underwent. A few examples:

帝, Middle Chinese *dèi > Korean cey (compare Mandarin dì, Japanese tei/tai)
拓, Middle Chinese *tɑk > Korean chek (compare Mandarin tà, Japanese taku)

Korean also had a shift where final /t/ turned into /l/:

節, Middle Chinese *tzet > Korean cel (compare Mandarin jié, Japanese setsu/sechi)
結, Middle Chinese *get > Korean kyel

And of course southern Chinese languages underwent their own shifts, like Hakka where final /k/ turned into /t/ (this ends up confusing a lot of linguists who work simultaneously with Korean and Hakka, because they make false equivalences with Hakka -k and Korean -l):

國, Middle Chinese *guək, Hakka some variation on gued (compare Korean kwuk)
翼, Middle Chinese *iək, Hakka some variation on rhid (compare Korean i̍k)
 
As a Korean it's amazing how the southern dialects (which is how they're usually referred to, not languages) sound very similar to Korean. Some of their pronunciations of Chinese characters are essentially same or retained forms of pronouncing Middle Korean.
It does make me wonder how close Middle Korean would've been with Middle Chinese.

In an purely linguistic perspective, admitting that such a thing as even a meaning, they would qualify as "languages" and are normally so described in most English-language specialist academic work.
Note that Chinese traditionally does not distinguish language vs. dialect with the same connotations of European languages.
Of course, Southern Sinitic varieties are, genetically-speaking, utterly unrelated to Korean. I would assume that Korean retained a pronounciation of the characters that pre-dates later innovations in Mandarin, so that Sino-Korean vocabulary and South Sinitic have a shared retention of some features of Middle Chinese phonology (syllable final-stops are, I would guess, the most visible element).
I am also under the impression that Korean grammar has no significant resemblances with any Sinitic language.
 
No, the actual Standard Mandarin term is 方言, which in the specific case of Chinese linguistics is best translated as "variety" (although in Korean it would be pang'en which means "dialects"). So yeah, the actual term used is 汉语方言, "Chinese varieties." But I call them languages, because it's quite obvious that Min Chinese is only called a variety or a dialect because of yet, Fujian lacks an army and a navy.[/URL

Sure, agreed. You're the ancient Chinese expert. :p

Pyongan indeed was considered quite a different region, an outsider, for the majority of the Joseon era - hence such a quick spread of Christianity in the late 1800s. For what I know this was the "Goguryeo-language vs. Silla-language" issue, where the former was wiped out in Korea and instead established in Japan, except the northwest due to a significant number of Goguryeo/Balhae refugees.
There's also the fact that most of the Korean language has moved beyond accented speaking, unlike Chinese or Japanese(except Kyongsang, due to their prolific number of Classical Chinese scholars and thus retaining some key identities of Middle Korean).
In an purely linguistic perspective, admitting that such a thing as even a meaning, they would qualify as "languages" and are normally so described in most English-language specialist academic work.
Note that Chinese traditionally does not distinguish language vs. dialect with the same connotations of European languages.
Of course, Southern Sinitic varieties are, genetically-speaking, utterly unrelated to Korean. I would assume that Korean retained a pronounciation of the characters that pre-dates later innovations in Mandarin, so that Sino-Korean vocabulary and South Sinitic have a shared retention of some features of Middle Chinese phonology (syllable final-stops are, I would guess, the most visible element).
I am also under the impression that Korean grammar has no significant resemblances with any Sinitic language.

  • Then why can't we qualify English in Britain and English in North America as separate languages? Or are they just "accents" are they're commonly referred to?
  • I may have trouble understanding how "言语 - 上言" is different from "Language - dialect" in terms of "connotations".
  • Yeah, Chinese grammar tends to be much more simple and "English-like". Japan tends to be closer to Korea in terms of grammar.
 
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For what I know this was the "Goguryeo-language vs. Silla-language" issue, where the former was wiped out in Korea and instead established in Japan, except the northwest due to a significant number of Goguryeo/Balhae refugees.
It's obviously true that there's significant Koguryo influence in Pyong'an, starting with toponyms (the Ch'ŏngch'on River is 99% a half-calque of the Koguryeo river Salsu where that huge battle was fought against the Sui). But I think you're referring to Beckwith's Koguryo: The Language of Japan's Continental Relatives? That's rather controversial among linguists actually, partly because he has his own way of reconstructing Old Chinese that goes against the standard rules. From Pellard's review,
In conclusion, Beckwith’s book is a valuable attempt to have a new look at the Koguryo fragments, within the broader scale of a global ethnolinguistic study of Ancient Eastern Asia. Nevertheless, its too many methodological shortcomings forbid us to accept Beckwith’s reconstructions and conclusions, although it is quite clear that some of the Koguryo place names indeed represent in all likelihood a language related to Japanese that was once spoken in the center of the Korean peninsula.

Also this isn't relevant but speaking of East Asian linguistics I always like Korean loanwords in Manchu, ie fulehe for "root".

There's also the fact that most of the Korean language has moved beyond accented speaking, unlike Chinese or Japanese(except Kyongsang, due to their prolific number of Classical Chinese scholars and thus retaining some key identities of Middle Korean).
This is really surprising, but there's some evidence that tones are starting to make a comeback in Seoul Korean. See The Blackwell Companion to Phonology Volume V "Laryngeal Contrast in Korean" by Young-mee Yu Cho around page 2666 (it's a big book).
 
It's obviously true that there's significant Koguryo influence in Pyong'an, starting with toponyms (the Ch'ŏngch'on River is 99% a half-calque of the Koguryeo river Salsu where that huge battle was fought against the Sui). But I think you're referring to Beckwith's Koguryo: The Language of Japan's Continental Relatives? That's rather controversial among linguists actually, partly because he has his own way of reconstructing Old Chinese that goes against the standard rules. From Pellard's review,
Mate, I ain't a linguist although I did download a few working papers on Chaoxianzu Korean; my knowledge is limited on the matter and the "Koguryeo vs. Silla" theory I read in a blog. Even in the blog they said there was too few evidence to conclude anything decisively.

Also this isn't relevant but speaking of East Asian linguistics I always like Korean loanwords in Manchu, ie fulehe for "root".
Wow, that's very interesting. But Manchus really are our "barbaric twins", considering one half of the Korean ethnicity is from the steppes. :D

This is really surprising, but there's some evidence that tones are starting to make a comeback in Seoul Korean. See The Blackwell Companion to Phonology Volume V "Laryngeal Contrast in Korean" by Young-mee Yu Cho around page 2666 (it's a big book).
I haven't read the book(obviously) but my guess is that the reasons for this is the influx of Kyongsang-dialect speakers; this is centred around Gangnam and other 'rich' districts around Seoul. There's also the fact that Kyongsang-dialect is much harder to 'break out' from than other dialects when trying to speak Standard Korean.
 
I haven't read the book(obviously) but my guess is that the reasons for this is the influx of Kyongsang-dialect speakers; this is centred around Gangnam and other 'rich' districts around Seoul. There's also the fact that Kyongsang-dialect is much harder to 'break out' from than other dialects when trying to speak Standard Korean.
Yes, I thought that too, seen as the researchers (I think there were four independent essays on this I think) agreed that this began around the 1960s, which is when economic development and consequent internal migration into the 수도권 began to really kick off en masse:

seoul2.png
 
Yes, I thought that too, seen as the researchers (I think there were four independent essays on this I think) agreed that this began around the 1960s, which is when economic development and consequent internal migration into the 수도권 began to really kick off en masse:
Old Seoul dialect is definitely different from its modern equivalent. Here's an example from the film Kentucky Fried Movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWNf6o5WqKY&feature=youtu.be
(the Korean literally talks about how he's pissed the director just wants him to say "random shit" in Korean.)
 
  • Then why can't we qualify English in Britain and English in North America as separate languages? Or are they just "accents" are they're commonly referred to?
Primarily because they remain, to a high degree, mutually intelligible. The grammatical differences are minimal. Vocabulary differs more, but not to the point to make understanding problematic (in most cases at least).

The Sinitic situation resembles more, in my understanding, the Romance situation - the degree of difference you see between, say, Italian, Spanish, and French. Italian and Spanish are remarkably similar in many respects but not mutually intelligible if not in a limited sense, while French, still very close in grammatical outline, sounds extremely different in speech because of phonological changes that make spoken mutual understanding almost nil. While the alphabetic writing is markedly different from Chinese characters and not really comparable, written understanding is also much easier between these languages than spoken one (this is also true of between American and British English actually, but the extent is A LOT more limited). However, had the standardidation process gone differently, you could see people looking at the them as "dialects" of the "Latin language" (a similar situation exists IOTL with Arabic).



The point however is that a "language" as a discrete object is, to a point, a scholarly artifact, a relatively arbitrary operation of cutting blocks out of a (spoken) reality that more closely resembles an endlessly varying continuum. The main cutting tool, of course, is writing. (Mutual intelligibility is used as a rough criterion, and it works, if you don't go looking into it too closely; but it can't be clear-cut, because, well, it isn't. It goes through a continuum as well).

As far as I can tell, linguists have never been able to reach a consensus about what a "language" (as opposed to a dialect, or other "languages") is. And the "army and navy" quip, while usefully highlighting this point, is just that - a quip, not a definition.



  • I may have trouble understanding how "言语 - 上言" is different from "Language - dialect" in terms of "connotations".



Me too, as I can't read characters. :eek: However, I was basing my claim on the following:

For millennia, Chinese used the word fāngyán ("local speech") to refer both to nonstandard forms of Chinese and to non-Chinese languages spoken within or around China. No distinction was made between a language and a dialect; there was standard Chinese spoken in the political capital and fāngyán spoken elsewhere. Later, under the influence of Western linguistics, Chinese began using the word yǔyán to translate "language" and fāngyán as a standard translation for what is known in the West as "dialect. " But since nonstandard forms of Chinese were already called fāngyán, these mutually unintelligible non-Mandarin varieties became "dialects" of a Chinese "language."
(Source. Yes, the author seems to have an axe too grind).
 
I think we can start using dialect and language more or less interchangeable on this board, this isn't a "alternatelinguistics.com" it's history. If you think one thing is a dialect and another person believes it's a language, let it gooooooooo, let it gooooooo, let it goooooooooooooooo. The difference between a dialect and a language is that a language has an army to back it up.

Oh, and for the record- Chinese "dialects" are languages or else Portuguese, Spanish, and French are still dialects of Latin. But of course, big army diplomacy wins, and the PRC says they are dialects so they are dialects. But they're really languages.
 
Nah, those are all too mainstream. I instead choose...

...Danish.

Cue one thousand years of people trying to say rødgrød med fløde.

As for the 言語 (yányǔ) - 方言 (fāngyán) distinction, I have a link that might be of interest. 言語, iirc, typically refers to spoken language, specifically, as 言 (yán) as a character generally refers to words or speech. This contrasts with words like 中文 (zhōngwén), which refers to written Chinese, or even more generally 文字 (wénzì), which refers to written language or a particular script.

方言 on the other hand can be decomposed as meaning "regional speech" or "local speech." For this reason, Victor Mair prefers the use of the term topolect. It's a term that's both more and less specific than the word "dialect." On one hand, it refers specifically to the spoken language used in a specific area. On the other, it doesn't specify the size of the area or even the relationships of the language to each other—the word 方言 has been used to refer to not just different Sinitic languages but also languages like Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese. If we try to translate 方言 as "dialect", we obviously run into a problem as these are clearly not dialects of anything, let alone of Chinese—but translating 方言 universally as "language" is equally problematic, since we can talk about the 方言 of Shanghai, which is not generally considered to be a separate language within Wu. "Topolect" splits the difference by just referring to it as "the speech of a particular region".

The point however is that a "language" as a discrete object is, to a point, a scholarly artifact, a relatively arbitrary operation of cutting blocks out of a (spoken) reality that more closely resembles an endlessly varying continuum. The main cutting tool, of course, is writing. (Mutual intelligibility is used as a rough criterion, and it works, if you don't go looking into it too closely; but it can't be clear-cut, because, well, it isn't. It goes through a continuum as well).

As far as I can tell, linguists have never been able to reach a consensus about what a "language" (as opposed to a dialect, or other "languages") is. And the "army and navy" quip, while usefully highlighting this point, is just that - a quip, not a definition.

This about covers it, and is part of the reason why the "language/dialect" division works so poorly. In the Chinese languages, these difficulties are compounded by less dialect levelling (at least historically, and there's that word again!) and the lack of the aforementioned cutting tool of writing—without an alphabetic standard (at least until pinyin), characters were all pronounced in local ways to a greater or lesser degree of mutual intelligibility with the other topolects.
 
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Cue one thousand years of people trying to say rødgrød med fløde.

As for the 言語 (yányǔ) - 方言 (fāngyán) distinction, I have a link that might be of interest. 言語, iirc, typically refers to spoken language, specifically, as 言 (yán) as a character generally refers to words or speech. This contrasts with words like 中文 (zhōngwén), which refers to written Chinese, or even more generally 文字 (wénzì), which refers to written language or a particular script.

方言 on the other hand can be decomposed as meaning "regional speech" or "local speech." For this reason, Victor Mair prefers the use of the term topolect. It's a term that's both more and less specific than the word "dialect." On one hand, it refers specifically to the spoken language used in a specific area. On the other, it doesn't specify the size of the area or even the relationships of the language to each other—the word 方言 has been used to refer to not just different Sinitic languages but also languages like Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese. If we try to translate 方言 as "dialect", we obviously run into a problem as these are clearly not dialects of anything, let alone of Chinese—but translating 方言 universally as "language" is equally problematic, since we can talk about the 方言 of Shanghai, which is not generally considered to be a separate language within Wu. "Topolect" splits the difference by just referring to it as "the speech of a particular region".



This about covers it, and is part of the reason why the "language/dialect" division works so poorly. In the Chinese languages, these difficulties are compounded by less dialect levelling (at least historically, and there's that word again!) and the lack of the aforementioned cutting tool of writing—without an alphabetic standard (at least until pinyin), characters were all pronounced in local ways to a greater or lesser degree of mutual intelligibility with the other topolects.

With all due respect to Victor Mair I am perplexed with the term "topolect" since it suggests that the Sinosphere's linguistic situation is sufficiently exceptional to warrant a specific terminology that is not used elsewhere, although I grant that it may be useful (and is occasionally used) in dealing with linguistics outside East Asia.
It is probably a problem of disciplinary insularity, which however strikes me: most Sinologists writing on the issue (as far as my reading went) fail to address it in comparative terms - while the situations of Arabic and the Islamicate world, and, I think, India, at least, both offer useful grounds for a more general analysis.
As far as I can tell, elsewhere "dialect" is used unproblematically to render the concept of "spoken language of a given area", even if perhaps a different terminology would be advisable given the negative associations it has in common usage.
The reluctance (or outright opposition) to call spoken forms related but distinct from the written standard "languages" where they should be defined such on "objective" linguistic grounds is not, as Mair seems to imply, specific of the Sinitic space. It exists in a major way in the Arab world and is hugely present within several European nation-states (particularly France, Germany and Italy).
The Chinese situation perhaps is closer to the (past) Italian one (wri very large of course) in that the written standard is a "living" language based on a particular location, as opposed (for instance) to the Arabic situation where the written standard is based on a Classical linguistic form that is, and has long been, roughly equally far removed from all the spoken vernacular forms, although I can see that all these description are very approximative.
But I am stopping here. This discussion is derailing the thread.
 
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