English language if 1588 Armada Suceeds

What might be the effects on the English language if the Great Armada of 1588 (or one of the later armadas launched by Philip II) succeeded?

Of course much would depend on how a possible Spanish conquest pans out.If it is more than just a change in monarchs or a religion and the British aristocracy is replaced similar to the Norman Conquest this may have major changes in the language. John Brunner in his Times Without Number has English as a "debased language spoken in a few villages" in his AH England.

Would English be something of a Spanish English hybrid?
 
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I don't think another *Norman invasion-type situation would happen quite so dramatically to English, as there's a much larger body of literate English-speakers (part of why the Normans influenced the language so much is that many speakers of Old English that could read and write were killed off or exiled IIRC). Shy of burning literally every single book in England and "re-writing" it so to speak, it won't change that drastically. And Spanish could never be the prestige language, that was already either Latin or French which would still stick around in importance.

Now, perhaps spelling conventions would be changed and perhaps the "th" sound would simplify to a "d/t" sound, but I don't see much else changing.
 
What might be the effects on the English language if the Great Armada of 1588 (or one of the later armadas launched by Philip II) succeeded?

Of course much would depend on how a possible Spanish conquest pans out.If it is more than just a change in monarchs or a religion and the British aristocracy is replaced similar to the Norman Conquest this may have major changes in the language. John Brunner in his Times Without Number has English as a "debased language spoken in a few villages" in his AH England.

Would English be something of a Spanish English hybrid?

If the entire Aristocracy got replaced, and Spanish became the language of nobility, i don't think that English would get replaced. The French that the Normans spoke added words and grammar rules to English, but it didn't replace what was already there.

England as a nation would probably become a sort of puppet nation to Spain, with the King either being of the Spanish kings own family, or a loyal Spaniard or Englishman, the Englishman is pushing it though.
 
I doubt it, just look at the OTL European possessions of the 'Spanish Empire': Southern Netherlands, Naples, Sicily, Milan and Sardinia.
In all those areas Spanish didn't have a huge influence. For instance in the Spanish Netherlands, from the Burgundian Netherlands, French was more important.
So IMHO TTL at best a bit more Spanish influence, but not much.
 
If the Armada has succeeded and England had been defeated, the conditions would have been probably:

* end support to Dutch rebels and support Spanish forces instead,
* end persecution of catholic population,
* force abdication of Elizabeth and put a catholic king/queen instead,
* cession of bases for Spanish forces in the Channel.

No occupation of England=no changes in England, at most the language of diplomacy would be spanish.
 
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I agree. Spain at the time was already greatly over extended. What they didn't need was to try to hold down another unruly country.
 
Turtledove didn't see much in the way of huge changes in Ruled Brittania, just some Spanish slang terms

Much as I don't like Turtledove or any of his stories, I think he has it right here. What Philip wanted was to enthrone his daughter Isabella, I believe - likely he would do this by claiming (inaccurately for at least two reasons) that during his time as Prince Consort of England when Mary was on the throne that he had been granted the full style of King and that on Mary's death her claim passed to him, before abdicating England in favour of his daughter. There would almost certainly have to be an occupation force to keep London placid, but the thing is that it wouldn't be a permanent occupation. After a few decades the law, the Inquisition and the Jesuits would've enforced Catholicism back and people would eventually accept it. At that point, the Spanish would withdraw their troops. Actually, they'd most likely have constantly reduced them to practically nothing as they were able to secure locations with Catholic English troops first but my point is, after a while the Spanish would be gone.

End result - you have a Hapsburg on the throne for a while and are allied to Hapsburg interests, but a couple of generations on the dynasty is something else, probably English again (via a marriage to a Catholic duke to settle the population, for example) and the two countries go their separate ways. England stays English, it just has more Spanish blood in the royal ancestry.
 
After a few decades the law, the Inquisition and the Jesuits would've enforced Catholicism back and people would eventually accept it. At that point, the Spanish would withdraw their troops. Actually, they'd most likely have constantly reduced them to practically nothing as they were able to secure locations with Catholic English troops first but my point is, after a while the Spanish would be gone.
But why should it be so easy for the Spanish to change England when it was so hard for England to change Ireland?
 
Turtledove didn't see much in the way of huge changes in Ruled Brittania, just some Spanish slang terms

My favorite parts of Ruled Brittania were the incredibly inventive (and funny) Elizabethan-style insults densely sprinkled through the book. They were several orders of magnitude more intelligent and witty than anything seen today
 
End result - you have a Hapsburg on the throne for a while and are allied to Hapsburg interests, but a couple of generations on the dynasty is something else, probably English again (via a marriage to a Catholic duke to settle the population, for example) and the two countries go their separate ways. England stays English, it just has more Spanish blood in the royal ancestry.

Well, England's Catholic now, which is going to have some huge effects on English culture and identity, not to mention its place in the European alliance system.

Having a Habsburg on the throne will...constrain things for a few decades, but honestly, I think England and Spain are natural enemies at this point-England is an island nation that wants to trade overseas more and have colonies, and this would pretty much necessitate intruding on the Spanish/Portuguese sphere of influence. By the mid-17th century, therefore, I think England will have found someone anti-Spanish to align with, probably the French. They'll support the French most of their post-1650 wars against Spain, in exchange for some nice Caribbean sugar islands and a chance to muscle into all those rich Indian ocean trade routes. However, if things go like OTL, by ~1690 France will be powerful enough that England will start seeing them as the main threat on the continent, and will probably try to ally with anyone who opposes them (Austria, maybe, or Spain if they haven't come under a Bourbon).
 
But why should it be so easy for the Spanish to change England when it was so hard for England to change Ireland?

For a start, because the reigns of government are there and there are no "wild" areas where government agents cannot penetrate. Ireland stayed Catholic because A - the English never really tried to convert it like they did England itself and B - any government commissioners sent to investigate Ireland and arrest people for offences etc tended to go missing. That simply didn't happen in England, and if it ever came close then there was no sea preventing them from forming an army and pacifying the area which largely prevented constant interference in Ireland.

Secondly, because England had become weary of religious change by 1588. Sure, there were still diehard Catholics and reformers, but figures suggest that at the start of Elizabeth's reign there were only 1,200 Englishmen who would openly call themselves Protestant, while the number of open Catholics has been estimated at somewhere between 1 and 10%, even after the Jesuits started infiltrating English borders. Very few people by this point remembered what it was like to have Papal supremacy for example, and reports of non-attendance and basically the early tenets of atheism were widespread in this era. In short, England changed religion so often in the 50 years before this point that a lot of people simply stopped caring what denomination they belonged to. A lot of them simply used the upheaval to lose interest in religion full stop. If England were to change religion a fifth time in 1588, there would be a period of resistance, violent and spiritual, while the fervent reformers fought back, and then once their spirit was crushed, the country would largely fall in line. I'm not saying that the reformers would stop trying to seize power or influence again, but basically the vast majority of the country would simply wait to see which side was going to win the war, and then pretend they supported them all along.
 
Well, England's Catholic now, which is going to have some huge effects on English culture and identity, not to mention its place in the European alliance system.

Having a Habsburg on the throne will...constrain things for a few decades, but honestly, I think England and Spain are natural enemies at this point-England is an island nation that wants to trade overseas more and have colonies, and this would pretty much necessitate intruding on the Spanish/Portuguese sphere of influence. By the mid-17th century, therefore, I think England will have found someone anti-Spanish to align with, probably the French. They'll support the French most of their post-1650 wars against Spain, in exchange for some nice Caribbean sugar islands and a chance to muscle into all those rich Indian ocean trade routes. However, if things go like OTL, by ~1690 France will be powerful enough that England will start seeing them as the main threat on the continent, and will probably try to ally with anyone who opposes them (Austria, maybe, or Spain if they haven't come under a Bourbon).

Oh, I don't doubt. However, I was only addressing the issue of whether there would be an influx of Spaniards to Hispanicise the English language.
 
For a start, because the reigns of government are there and there are no "wild" areas where government agents cannot penetrate. Ireland stayed Catholic because A - the English never really tried to convert it like they did England itself and B - any government commissioners sent to investigate Ireland and arrest people for offences etc tended to go missing. That simply didn't happen in England, and if it ever came close then there was no sea preventing them from forming an army and pacifying the area which largely prevented constant interference in Ireland.

Secondly, because England had become weary of religious change by 1588. Sure, there were still diehard Catholics and reformers, but figures suggest that at the start of Elizabeth's reign there were only 1,200 Englishmen who would openly call themselves Protestant, while the number of open Catholics has been estimated at somewhere between 1 and 10%, even after the Jesuits started infiltrating English borders. Very few people by this point remembered what it was like to have Papal supremacy for example, and reports of non-attendance and basically the early tenets of atheism were widespread in this era. In short, England changed religion so often in the 50 years before this point that a lot of people simply stopped caring what denomination they belonged to. A lot of them simply used the upheaval to lose interest in religion full stop. If England were to change religion a fifth time in 1588, there would be a period of resistance, violent and spiritual, while the fervent reformers fought back, and then once their spirit was crushed, the country would largely fall in line. I'm not saying that the reformers would stop trying to seize power or influence again, but basically the vast majority of the country would simply wait to see which side was going to win the war, and then pretend they supported them all along.

The Spanish did manage to reconvert the Southern Netherlands back to Catholicism and yes, it had been largly protestant in those days. Basicly they gave the people a choice: reconvert, leave the country or die. Many, many often rich and influential people left for the Northern Netherlands. Other reconverted (or became crypto-protestants) and yes many were killed. The Spanish can and will try to reconvert England. This will not be an easy task as the Spanish are horribly overstretched (especialy if Philip II decides to intervene in France like he did OTL and that seems likely). Still i can see a pretty big group of important protestants fleeing towards protestant countries like Scotland, the Netherlands and parts of Germany and Scandinavia.

The result will be that the England language changes slightly, perhaps a couple of Spanish words (but not much).
 
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