How an eventual early pan-Germanic standard language would have looked like?

In the event of the surge of a unified pan-Germanic entity in the 7th century or so which would have not adopted Latin but opted to build a standard language (Koiné) based on the most spread Germanic dialects, how it would have looked like?

Certainly not close to current German, possibly a mixture of Low German-Old English with Danish traits?

For example:

Boermingshaem (Birmingham)
Hamburh (Hamburg)
Koelen (Köln)
Londoen (London)
Kaenterburh (Canterbury)
Winskaester (Winchester)
Aerhujs (Aarhus)
Utrekt (Utrecht)

Ideas?
 

Deleted member 97083

If they're Christian, they'll just use Latin.

If they're pagan, they'll spread their native language, be it Frankish, Norse, Old English, Old Low German, or whichever conqueror, over the other Germanic tribes, and that language will assimilate the other ones like Attic did to other Greek varieties to form Koine.
 
If they're Christian, they'll just use Latin.

If they're pagan, they'll spread their native language, be it Frankish, Norse, Old English, Old Low German, or whichever conqueror, over the other Germanic tribes, and that language will assimilate the other ones like Attic did to other Greek varieties to form Koine.

I disagree.

Poles or Bavarians embraced Christianism quite early and never adopted Latin as their national language. And we have many other examples. If many Germanic kingdoms (specially the Franks) adopted Latin IOTL was more due to the relevancy of Latin/Roman dialects in their societies rather than a religious fact. That's why i.e. Bavaria never adopted it, while France did it.

And regarding the second point, I do not think that the classical Greek scenario would apply for a less literate Germania.
 
Maybe the if the Franks are screwed, and the Germanic pagans have more time to realize what they are up against and develop a unified religious front, perhaps a high Germanic could develop as an alternative to Latin.
 
More likely than not, some Germanic language would just be adopted as the standard, rather than making a new one.

And regarding the second point, I do not think that the classical Greek scenario would apply for a less literate Germania.

On that subject, I think the only people who would learn the main Germanic language would be the elite. As such, there's little need for making a new language, though creoles will develop anyways. You'd just see the language of the main group as the main language of the nation, adopted by the elites.
 
IMO, a Pan-Germanic Koine of that period that covers the West Germanic speech areas would look closest to (b/c based on) Old Saxon.

If North Germanic is included, then Old Saxon with maybe some Norse phonological and lexical influence.
 
Pan-Germanic standardisation in the 7th century is difficult because
A) if you keep the Roman-German successor states of OTL, then the elites will be spread thin across Romance-speaking territories and assimilating;
B) if you keep the Germanic groups not spread thin and assimilating, then this is most likely in scenarios where they remain outside of the Empire, or concentrated in a few pockets. Which might significantly delay their processes of state-building, which makes standardisation even less likely.
 
Well, I planned to use this for my ongoing (actually on hold due to being busy) TL about a pan-Germanic alliance led by Saxons and other Northern/West Germanic tribes. Of course, in this scenario, I would require a sort of built 'Germanic' standard which eventually overpowers Latin (more weakened ITTL due to an accelerated decline of Rome).

I have thought about an orthographic model, basically for toponyms, without using modern graphs like -c, -ch, -x, -y, -z and expanding the use of vocal clusters -ae, -oe, -ie, -eu which could be pronounced with flexibility depending on the dialect.

Examples: Boermingshaem (Birmingham). An English could say 'Berming(s)haam' similar to actual old pronunciation of the city, while a German could pronounce it as 'Börmings(h)heim'.

It also be good for the 'germanization' of Latin toponyms i.e. Mantvae (Mantova, Mantua), Genvae (Genua), Pareis (Paris), Turien (Torino) etc.
 
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