Alternate English languages?

  • Thread starter Deleted member 67076
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Deleted member 67076

I've heard many things said on how English would be like if it did not have the influence of French via the Norman Conquest.

Would it be possible for any other language to have the same impact on English as French did, and if so, how would that English compare to OTL English?
 
well ... the obvious would be to make Harold Hardrada win Stamford bridge followed by throwing the bastard back into the ocean, which would remove most of the french influences (and many of the English/French wars), giving the English Language a much more Scandinavian view.
 
Or, you could have Harold Godwinson win the throne and just remove all outside influences to English altogether, allowing it to just evolve naturally on its own.
 
Godwinson wouldn't eradicate all foreign influences ... there were allready quite a bit of Norse from the Danelaw and quite a few Anglo-Norse Lords in the North.
 

Deleted member 67076

Is there any way that Spanish or Occitan could fill the role that French did with regards to influencing the English Language?
 
Godwinson wouldn't eradicate all foreign influences ... there were allready quite a bit of Norse from the Danelaw and quite a few Anglo-Norse Lords in the North.

Quite, there's some fair indication that the East Norse of the Danelaw was responsible for beginning the levelling in Old English that was accelerated by Norman and then Old French.

Is there any way that Spanish or Occitan could fill the role that French did with regards to influencing the English Language?

(Old-)Occitan perhaps if there's a sort of Aquitanian Conquest.

English was influence by the shere numbers of settlers and the prestige of the administration (Think how Frankish influenced Gallo-Romance).
 
Getting rid of the Norman conquest wouldn't have totally got rid of French. Even assuming there isn't a later French conquest.

If you look at Dutch you'll see a lot of French influence, largely just from proximity (though yes, some centuries of quasi-rule via feudalism and Burgundy and the like).
Even Swedish has a fair number of French words in it despite it having had very little French rule in the past.

You would probally have a less latin English without the Normans but it would still be substantially different to old English with there likely being a lot of latin words.
 
if we nuke the norman conquest, then at least in short-mid term, the international focus on the isles keep looking west across the North Sea (Scandinavia (Denmark and Norway specially, and old Frisia secondarily), instead of focusing to the south into France where one of the Kings other hats have amble interests.

Ofcause it could still restart if they marry into a French family inheriting some land there, but it would still be quite different since there would be few (if any) importation of settlers/bureaucrats/whatever from the French mainland to the isles.

The French in other Germanic languages are from a much later point, due to France being 'the' Nexus of the Renaissance
 
Getting rid of the Norman conquest wouldn't have totally got rid of French. Even assuming there isn't a later French conquest.

If you look at Dutch you'll see a lot of French influence, largely just from proximity (though yes, some centuries of quasi-rule via feudalism and Burgundy and the like).
Even Swedish has a fair number of French words in it despite it having had very little French rule in the past.

You would probally have a less latin English without the Normans but it would still be substantially different to old English with there likely being a lot of latin words.

Simply due to the Church there was already a lot of Latin (and to a lesser extent Greek too) in the administrative Old English varieties.
Even with no Norman Conquest they will continue to filter into the vernacular.

However if France becomes powerful as OTL then yes there will be some adoption of French words, perhaps via the Dutch varieties.
 
Have William Adelin survive and inherit Flanders, that will make english more dutch.

Or alternately Charles the Good outlives William Clito by a few days/weeks/months so that Thierry of Alsace is a better match for Matilda.
Since Stephen Blois of Boulogne would be his vassal he can use that to have himself made King with Matilda.

THis won;t lessen the impact of French but would bring in more Old Dutch relative to OTL
 
While any version of English will likely have considerable influence from French and/or Norse, it needs to be said that English borrowed many, MANY more words from a Gallo-Roman dialect than any other Germanic language (inclusive of Dutch, Luxembourgish, etc.). Furthermore, whilst French loanwords into such languages do exist, they entered the language due to proximity and prestige alone; the English language had its metaphorical arm twisted by Norman overlords into throwing away perfectly good word sets and SUBSTITUTING them with Norman French equivalents (hence the Germanic-Latin register difference).

There's no doubt that, barring a Norman victory, there would still be borrowed words from French into English, but it would be a much smaller, more evenly "spread" set of words as opposed to the overbearing number they contributed IOTL, and likely without that perceived "formality" that Anglo-Norman words hold due to a more diverse subject set.
 

Deleted member 67076

Wait, could it be possible for Spanish or Arabic to have considerable influence on the English language?
 
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