Confederate spelling

samcster94

Banned
The Confederacy likely would have taken a different direction linguistically. Canada OTL is slightly more Anglo and it exists. If the Confederacy lived, how would its language evolve and what would its accent be???
 
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The Confederacy had a weird obsession with spelling under the British style. Canada usually uses the Anglo spelling and they exist as a country in North America. If the Confederacy lived, how would its language evolve???

Did they? I know spelling wasn't really quite standardized yet in 1860 but I didn't know the CSA deliberately tried to copy the British. Source?
 
This is mentioned in Gurps AE 1 - Dixie introduces spellings like "calculater".
I was about to say that isn't a British spelling until I realised you were answering the op question not referring to the first line!
I suspect Dixie either slavishly imitates British and Canadian spelling or goes all out with reform. A lot depends how the remnant US procedes.
 
The Confederacy had a weird obsession with spelling under the British style. Canada usually uses the Anglo spelling and they exist as a country in North America. If the Confederacy lived, how would its language evolve???
Something turtledove played was how different was the low class to the high class language, that is why scipio become so important for the congaree, as he looks like a black but talks like a senator.
 
I wasn't aware that there was a "Southern style" of spelling.
I do recall reading that, before the Revolution, plantation owners were more likely to send their sons to be educated in England than wealthy Northerners. The South did maintain stronger relations with England, even after Independence, and plantation owners saw themselves as the equivalent of the English landed gentry; so the idea that they affected English styles isn't unlikely.
But, that's just the upper classes. I don't think my hillbilly ancestors used English spellings or any other spellings as most of them were illiterate.

I also recall from a Southern history class I took in high school back in the stone age, reading the observation of a Northerner that plantation owners' sons spoke in a refined manner like English aristocrats,but the daughters spoke like the slave women. This was attributed to the fact that boys received formal educations but the girls were raised by household slaves.
 
From the Official Confederate Dictionary, circa 1912:

"...here is an example of the noun 'Yankee' correctly used in a sentence: 'them darn Yaynkie scoundrellls awr the worrsst folks on Gawd's grean erth!"
 
I was about to say that isn't a British spelling until I realised you were answering the op question not referring to the first line!
I suspect Dixie either slavishly imitates British and Canadian spelling or goes all out with reform. A lot depends how the remnant US procedes.

It's most likely that both countries splinter. The precedent for secession has been set, so the West eventually becomes its own nation due to distance and travel time, and New England leaves due to political differences. In the CSA, governors like Zebulun Vance wouldn't even cooperate with Richmond when the nation's survival was at stake. Hard to see states not seceding later when independence is secured. There would have been controversy over something.
 
The contraction y'all would be recognized, spelling might be more Anglo to distinguish itself from the US, colour, labour, neighbour ect.
 

Vuu

Banned
You know what would be more interesting?

The language situation in the north. Prior to WW1 it's estimated that German was pretty much the most spoken language. I can see the South going full Anglo while the North goes pretty German, maybe to the point that English is replaced entirely or becoming a new language
 
You know what would be more interesting?

The language situation in the north. Prior to WW1 it's estimated that German was pretty much the most spoken language. I can see the South going full Anglo while the North goes pretty German, maybe to the point that English is replaced entirely or becoming a new language

That’s... not true. English was by far the most spoken language, in some regions German speakers did outnumber english speakers, but even most of them spoke English. It’s kind of like saying the south west is Spanish speaking. Sure, in a lot of places native spanish speakers outnumber English speakers, but most conversation is still taking place in English.
 
You know what would be more interesting?

The language situation in the north. Prior to WW1 it's estimated that German was pretty much the most spoken language. I can see the South going full Anglo while the North goes pretty German, maybe to the point that English is replaced entirely or becoming a new language

Where on earth did you get that idea? "At the peak in 1900, German immigrants and their children comprised 10.5 percent of the U.S. population." https://books.google.com/books?id=SgtyKzBes6QC&pg=PA304 So even if the South comprised one-half of the US population (which it didn't) and even if all German-Americans lived in the North (which is not true), it would be mathematically impossible for first- and second-generation German Americans to have constituted more than about 20 percent of the population of the North--and of course large numbers of the second generation spoke English as their primary language.

Even in Wisconsin "Around 1900, there were approximately half a million German speakers in Wisconsin, which was about 30% of the state's population." http://powervoyeur.blogspot.com/2008/11/german-americans-speaking-in-tongues.html Sure, one way of thinking about that is "that's a lot of German-speakers." But another way is that even in the most "German" states--let alone the North as a whole--English-speakers heavily outnumbered German-speakers.
 
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