Linguistic Challenge

Hello everyone.

I was wondering how you could do to achieve greater uniformity of Arabic or even that the romance language spoken in France were not so different from that spoken in Spain, Portugal or Italy. Or how to have the Nahuatl language to become the principal of Mexico or Brazil tupi languages or even dutch or french being the main language in Brazil.

To summarize, what I'd want to know how you could change the outlook for major world languages world distribution and/or number of speakers.
 
You could start with a different Caroline Renaissance where, instead of recovering a classical Latin, you have the creation of a new standard closer to spoken Romance. I don't know what area could give the basis for it, probably Northern Italy-Southeast France (so it would look quite similar to Occitan in some ways).
Most of case declension would be lost, even if it's possible it is preserved in the writing like the plural endings are in OTL French (where they are seldom pronounced).
This could be obtained via a lesser impact of scholars from the non-Latin speaking British Isles. The other Western Christian cultural centres of the time were Italy (especially Benevento) and Northern Spain, that could end producing a
Historically, England and Ireland had preserved classical Latin exactly because the spoken languages were so different from it. Irish monks continued the tradition of knowing the classical latin grammar while it was evolving on the Continent, and so did the Angles in places like Lindisfarne.
If the Carolingian empire adopts a "Middle latin" official and cultural language close enough to both classical latin it could gradually become a unified Romance speak common to Italy, Spain, Portugal, France and Ladin areas, with local nuances and minor differences. Romanian and African Romances are likely to evolve independetly, while Sardinia, Sicily and Dalmatia might be only secondarily affected. Also this language would account for most of the Romance imports in "pidgin" languages like English, Lingua Franca and Maltese.
 
For arabic, introducing printing in the Middle Ages, say around 1000 AD, would stop or slow the process of dialectal diversifitation and allow for a much more widepread literacy in the classical language. I3raab is likely to disappear in spoken language in any case, but uniformity will be greater. This may also affect the situation of Latin in Europe if press is introduced there.
In general, the more widespread literacy is, and formal teaching of tradional grammar with it, the more chances you have to keep a greater uniformity and conservativeness in the standard language. There would still be dialects of course, but they will be closer to the written standard if their speakers are taught the written language in great numbers.
 
You could start with a different Caroline Renaissance where, instead of recovering a classical Latin, you have the creation of a new standard closer to spoken Romance. I don't know what area could give the basis for it, probably Northern Italy-Southeast France (so it would look quite similar to Occitan in some ways).
Most of case declension would be lost, even if it's possible it is preserved in the writing like the plural endings are in OTL French (where they are seldom pronounced).
This could be obtained via a lesser impact of scholars from the non-Latin speaking British Isles. The other Western Christian cultural centres of the time were Italy (especially Benevento) and Northern Spain, that could end producing a
Historically, England and Ireland had preserved classical Latin exactly because the spoken languages were so different from it. Irish monks continued the tradition of knowing the classical latin grammar while it was evolving on the Continent, and so did the Angles in places like Lindisfarne.
If the Carolingian empire adopts a "Middle latin" official and cultural language close enough to both classical latin it could gradually become a unified Romance speak common to Italy, Spain, Portugal, France and Ladin areas, with local nuances and minor differences. Romanian and African Romances are likely to evolve independetly, while Sardinia, Sicily and Dalmatia might be only secondarily affected. Also this language would account for most of the Romance imports in "pidgin" languages like English, Lingua Franca and Maltese.
I like it, and I think this would seriously affect the rest of Europe. I think that the adoption of a Middle Latin would cause a preponderance of that language, so that this would spread to eastern Europe or even could create a modern state long before it did in OTL
 
Since France's center was Paris, its language developed farther away from Italy, Spain, and Portugal and thus became less similar. If you move France's "center" closer to the Med you can easily keep it in line with the other three. Basing France's center in Provence, such as Marseille, would work. If you move the Pope to Avignon chances are it would become the new center of France and French will be very similar to the other Romance languages.
 
It seems that Occitania is the key. How about a surviving and strongest visighotic kingdom centered in Toulouse or even a strongest Aquitania leading the Reconquista.
 
I will change a little the subject.
If the revolution of Tupac Amaru in the late eighteenth century had not taken place, the position of the Quechua had been strengthened over time. Even the independence movement of early nineteenth century could have caused the imposition of Quechua as an official language of Peru. What do you think?
 
I will change a little the subject.
If the revolution of Tupac Amaru in the late eighteenth century had not taken place, the position of the Quechua had been strengthened over time. Even the independence movement of early nineteenth century could have caused the imposition of Quechua as an official language of Peru. What do you think?
The population of native americans at that time were very small, they are only recovering recently perhaps an early recovery of native americans will work..
 
The problem is that languages change and dialects diverge over time, and there's nothing you can do about that. You might get the 'standard' French to be further south, or have a more modern latin as standard Church language, but you're still going to have a northern French dialect which will be difficult for Southern Italians to understand by the twentieth century.

Writing and printing does not stabilize language. It may slow down language change, I don't know, but it does not stabilize it. This is obvious to me when I look at Shakespeare's plays, or listen to a New Yorker speak and compare it to my own accent.
 
The problem is that languages change and dialects diverge over time, and there's nothing you can do about that. You might get the 'standard' French to be further south, or have a more modern latin as standard Church language, but you're still going to have a northern French dialect which will be difficult for Southern Italians to understand by the twentieth century.

Writing and printing does not stabilize language. It may slow down language change, I don't know, but it does not stabilize it. This is obvious to me when I look at Shakespeare's plays, or listen to a New Yorker speak and compare it to my own accent.

There's no actual way to stabilize a SPOKEN language for a long time. But if literacy and printing are widespread, areas in constant contact will keep mutually intelligible languages for a long time, especially written standard languages. Of course, this could not be the case anywhere before an actual literacy policy with printing, or some process making books cheaper and widespread, as a prerequisite.
If the written standard is only shared by an elite, it can prove stable, but not common (it was the case for written Latin in Western Europe, and for liturgical-high culture languages in general, like Classical Arabic, Liturgical Syriac, Sanskrit and Church Slavic).
 
The population of native americans at that time were very small, they are only recovering recently perhaps an early recovery of native americans will work..
In 1900 around 60-70% of the population of Peru was monolingual or bilingual in Quechua. Its not a matter of greater indigenous population. What I meant was: Peru being totally separate and distinct of the exmetropoli (Spain), making the Quechua the official language of Peru. It is similar to Chilean theme.Some nationalist tendencies in Chile after the independence were directed to differentiate the national language enough to differentiate it from the Spanish and strengthen the nationalist ideals.
 
In 1900 around 60-70% of the population of Peru was monolingual or bilingual in Quechua. Its not a matter of greater indigenous population. What I meant was: Peru being totally separate and distinct of the exmetropoli (Spain), making the Quechua the official language of Peru. It is similar to Chilean theme.Some nationalist tendencies in Chile after the independence were directed to differentiate the national language enough to differentiate it from the Spanish and strengthen the nationalist ideals.

The point is that the Peruvian independence was somewhat imposed by the Libertadores for outside, since many local criollos were Loyalists. OTOH, independence was made by criollos, not natives, and to some extent, it happened AGAINST the natives. If a native movement manages to take the lead of the indepence movement, and maybe keep Peru and Bolivia united, it could officialize Quechua.
I think that in Chile some scholars even considered adopting Mapuche as the national language, but I see this as a doomed attempt unless with some major changes before
 
Over time, various Romance languages have had a preponderance over the rest, in many cases influencing them and allowing language transfer. For a long time, the Portuguese language acted as lyric language for excellence and you should never overlook the significance that the Occitan have had. This brings me to the following that I have already asked before, how to create a superpower in Aquitaine? A superpower that can act as a link between Paris, Rome and the Iberian Peninsula and avoiding a great differentiation of the romance languages. Would help a definitive move of the Pope to, say .. Avignon?
 
Over time, various Romance languages have had a preponderance over the rest, in many cases influencing them and allowing language transfer. For a long time, the Portuguese language acted as lyric language for excellence and you should never overlook the significance that the Occitan have had. This brings me to the following that I have already asked before, how to create a superpower in Aquitaine? A superpower that can act as a link between Paris, Rome and the Iberian Peninsula and avoiding a great differentiation of the romance languages. Would help a definitive move of the Pope to, say .. Avignon?

It would be too late, when the South was under Parisian domination already. And the Papacy would stick to latin, so doing little to promote the vernacular ot the city it happened to be. The Pope being in Rome did not make the Roman dialect to become much influential OTL. (Vernacular Roman literature, instead, mostly was about satyrizing the Papal rule at the beginning).

Averting the Albigensian Crusade might help, and/or having a succesful Aragonese intervention on behalf of the heretics. I'd assume that the heresy would be reabsorbed into mainstream catholicism, else the Occitans would be marginalized in any case.
Aragon managing to become paramount in South France gives you a best case scenario, especially if the go after Italy like OTL.
Occitan and Catalan are very closely related, so you can have a common court language.
Even better, avoid those areas getting Cathar entirely.
 
It would be too late, when the South was under Parisian domination already. And the Papacy would stick to latin, so doing little to promote the vernacular ot the city it happened to be. The Pope being in Rome did not make the Roman dialect to become much influential OTL. (Vernacular Roman literature, instead, mostly was about satyrizing the Papal rule at the beginning). QUOTE]

Well, I know, but I was looking after something that could create a great power that could maintain the linguistic union of the different romance states. I didn´t look after the imposition of Latin (but I also believe that the imposition of the Romance languages in the liturgy did not help to maintain cohesive European linguistic map), but a nexus of union between the three major Latino areas of western Europe.

We have lived too long with the supremacy of different languages. Greek first, then came the Latin, then came on ... then Spanish, then came the French, then came the English. I pretended that the "Aquitaine" could act as a link (but could also have led to precisely the opposite (Castilian acted more like a wedge, causing the differentiation betwen the Catalan / Occitan language and Portuguese)).

WI the Pope decided to take his sit to the north because the Emirate of Sicily have crossed the straight of Messina? or How would the Iberian peninsula look like if Aquitaine led the "Reconquista"?
 
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