Different American Language

I think the problem with the Great Vowel Shift is that it's mostly done by the late 18th century, and the earliest it could affect the American dialect is about half way through in the 1600's, at which point it is fairly recognizable.

So, USA and Britain stay enemies longer into the 19th century, and the USA turns to France instead. German influx happens with the liberal revolutions and people migrating. American English eventually turns unintelligible to British ears, and congress declares it its own language by latter parts of the 19th century.

I think any such declaration might be very much latter, probably consisting of part of a public school reform or something like that in the 1890's at the earliest, but otherwise, this might work.
 
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If the Brits were defeated in the Seven Year War then the French would control the 13 colonies and French would have (eventually) have become the linga franca of the Americas
I doubt the French would have the forces to defeat 1.5 million or so British colonists. A French victory in the French and Indian War would at best mean the British are kept behind the Applachians.
 
Could the Spanish thoroughly colonize most of the East Coast and conquer the rest? Could a state called "Los Estados Unidos" be like Canada, with, instead of a English majority and French minority, a Spanish majority and English, French, Swedish, and Dutch minorities?

You need a pre-1500 POD, and even that way, I don't see it happening.

Actually the Spanish governer of Florida tried it, something similar to the Mission system in California. There was a Jesuit mission here in Virginia for a couple of years (exactly *where* is unknown, somewhere on the James is a common guess). It didn't go well.

The plan was to garrison the harbors along the East Coast to prevent English and French piracy on the return leg of the galleon circuit. With better luck, better administration, and more resources, who knows?

Edit: The Spanish Jesuit Mission in Virginia 1570-1572: University of North Carolina Press 1953
 
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You need a pre-1500 POD, and even that way, I don't see it happening.
You could get that in 1492; if Pinzon hadn't suggested a change of course on October 6, the first Columbian voyage would have made landfall somewhere north of Cape Canaveral. So by the time America's formed up, the southern Mid-Atlantic coastline would have had a decently long history as a Spanish territory...
 
The difference between BE and AE is too small to style them as two different languages and the gap has been narrowing in the last decades, since AE has, through american literature, music and motion pictures (films / movies) an important influence on BE (to an extent, that Prince Charles has even complained about it).

Had there been a successful Scotish colony, maybe somewhere in modern Maine, the Scots spoken there would have influenced New England English more than a wee bit. More German and Dutch settlers would not necessarily mean, that any of those two languages would become a nationwide offical language, but it would have certainly had a lot of influence on how AE would sound and be spelled today, even up to the possibility of the development of an Americaans language.

A stronger presence of the French and Spanish on the other hand would also not have necessarily lead to an AE with more French or Spanish elements. In an overreaction to those influences, the germanic speaking settlers might even have decided to purify the AE of its french / spanish / latin elements and replace them with original anglo-saxon terms.

Had the Norse colonies in North America survived and flourished, then ancient Norse or the language it would have become over the centuries during its contact with the Native American languages might have had an important impact on any language spoken after the recolonisation by european powers after the rediscovery of America in the 15th century.
 
Well the founders of the nation originally wanted Latin and/or German to be taught instead of English,so if history had went another way we'd know one or both of them,instead if English.

Well except the founders only assumed that the elite would be educated. Public education was common in that era.

Dutch might've happened if the Spanish were sucessful in beating the United Provinces, it might've led to the Dutch to immigrate en masse to the Americas.

Or if New Amsterdam is somehow successful enough to become large city, it could be the future center of the US culturally and economically.
 
Pennsylvania goes with Penn's original plan, and is instead called New Wales! With increased Welsh immigration, and prominent Welsh-Americans like Thomas Jefferson, more words enter the English language from the fabulous Welsh language! More realistically: maybe a worse Revolutionary War or 1812 leads to the US blocking English immigration, in favor of more from other regions. But this is probably not too plausible either, they didn't much like other people then, even Germans creeped them out.
Well the founders of the nation originally wanted Latin and/or German to be taught instead of English
Wait, what? When were either of these things in serious consideration?
 
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