alternatehistory.com

Here is a challenge if there ever was one!

Supposing that, despite the advent of the printing press (which forced a sort of unofficial standardized spelling of words that led to later conventions), there was never any official standard for spelling the English language.

Also suppose that a number of central European characters that were either never extant in English or were phased out before 1800, such as the long or medial S (or the German "sharp S" that was derived from the short and long S written in tandem), had made their way into the language.

Givene ðe maßive differens in howe ðe ingliſh language uuould be ſpelte, uuat differens uuould it mäk in ðe hiſtorye of Anglofone peepols?

(given the massive difference in how the English language would be spelled, what difference would it make in the history of Anglophone peoples?)
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