Maximum amount of Latinate influence in English?

"More" would remain distinct and probably still spelled "more".
Pronounced roughly /'mo.ɾə/?

Well in the vowel sounds I proposed, I suggested that "an" and "am" are pronounced /ɔ/ or in the non-IPA pronunciation, "aw". If that is the case, it would be deh-sehn-DAWN-tuh.
Roughly /de.sen'dɔn.tə/ in IPA then?

I'm not sure, but x as /ks/ comes from Ancient Greek, so when those words are borrowed, the original pronounciation will be at least attempted at first, even if it might morph over the next 200-300 years into /z/ or /s/.
So kind of like Italian, where /ks gz/ > /s z/, e.g. English express vs Italian espresso. I wonder if Italian influence might cause x to be dropped in favour of simple s or ss even in spelling?

If old Spanish words with /ʃ/ in them were borrowed with x, this would cause x to represent /ʃ/ or /ks/ or /gz/ depending on the word, similar to Portuguese. If the above mentioned Italian influence causes loss of x as /ks/, that would leave x only being used to represent /ʃ/ in old Spanish borrowings. Maybe if /tʃ/ is retained, with ch being used for both /tʃ/ and /ʃ/, then x could be the go to spelling to disambiguate /ʃ/ from /tʃ/. So for example, Japanese Shogun might be rendered as Xogun.
 

Deleted member 97083

Pronounced roughly /'mo.ɾə/?

Roughly /de.sen'dɔn.tə/ in IPA then?
Yeah, exactly.

So kind of like Italian, where /ks gz/ > /s z/, e.g. English express vs Italian espresso. I wonder if Italian influence might cause x to be dropped in favour of simple s or ss even in spelling?
If the "x" stands on its own, like in "hyrax" or "Ajax", it might remain. But in "experience", "express", etc. it could definitely change to "s".

If old Spanish words with /ʃ/ in them were borrowed with x, this would cause x to represent /ʃ/ or /ks/ or /gz/ depending on the word, similar to Portuguese. If the above mentioned Italian influence causes loss of x as /ks/, that would leave x only being used to represent /ʃ/ in old Spanish borrowings. Maybe if /tʃ/ is retained, with ch being used for both /tʃ/ and /ʃ/, then x could be the go to spelling to disambiguate /ʃ/ from /tʃ/. So for example, Japanese Shogun might be rendered as Xogun.
I agree, that sounds interesting.
 
If the "x" stands on its own, like in "hyrax" or "Ajax", it might remain. But in "experience", "express", etc. it could definitely change to "s".
Maybe the choice to keep /ks/ or not could be dialectal? So, for example, conservative dialects might have exercise /ek.ser'si.zə/, while innovative dialects might instead have esercise /e.ser'si.zə/ (perhaps spelled essercise to show that the first s is voiceless). This could lead to interesting dialectal spelling differences similar to British English vs American English. One dialect of Anglé would have x representing /ks/ or /ʃ/ depending on the word, while another would have x always be /ʃ/, having s (or ss) where the conservative dialect has x for /ks/, and s /z/ where the conservative's x is /gz/.
 
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Without the Great Vowel Shift, the /ɪ/ sound might never evolve.
Could the long and short split still occur, but without diphthongization?

Perhaps it could lead to a vowel system something like:
a = /ə/; au = /a/
e = /ɛ/; ei = /e/
i = /ɪ/; ie = /i/
o = /ɔ/; ou = /o/
u = /ʊ/; uo = /u/

Alternatively, ou could be /u/ from French etymology and uo could be /o/, which seems similar-ish to Italian.
Also, not sure about /a/. It could be something else like ae or ah.
 
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Could the long and short split still occur, but without diphthongization?

Perhaps it could lead to a vowel system something like:
a = /ə/; au = /a/
e = /ɛ/; ei = /e/
i = /ɪ/; ie = /i/
o = /ɔ/; ou = /o/
u = /ʊ/; uo = /u/

Alternatively, ou could be /u/ from French etymology and uo could be /o/, which seems similar-ish to Italian.
Also, not sure about /a/. It could be something else like ae or ah.

Why not just use diacritics/accents instead of all the digraphs?
 

Deleted member 97083

Could the long and short split still occur, but without diphthongization?

Perhaps it could lead to a vowel system something like:
a = /ə/; au = /a/
e = /ɛ/; ei = /e/
i = /ɪ/; ie = /i/
o = /ɔ/; ou = /o/
u = /ʊ/; uo = /u/

Or ou could be /u/ from French etymology and uo could be /o/, which seems similar-ish to Italian.
Also, not sure about /a/. It could be something else like ae or ah.
In Middle English maybe, but even if so, I think the Spanish and Italian influence would bring the "short" vowels back to their original "long" sound by the 17th century.

If there is a Great Vowel Shift, it should be to Middle French phonology. But I don't think it's inevitable and having fewer vowels makes it easier to conceptualize the language.
 
Why not just use diacritics/accents instead of all the digraphs?
The digraph ie was already being used for /i/, while i on its own wasn't used for anything, so I though why not make a separate sound for i and carry it through to the whole system for consistency.

In Middle English maybe, but even if so, I think the Spanish and Italian influence would bring the "short" vowels back to their original "long" sound by the 17th century.

If there is a Great Vowel Shift, it should be to Middle French phonology. But I don't think it's inevitable and having fewer vowels makes it easier to conceptualize the language.
In that case, perhaps we could just use simple i for /i/, at least in words of Romance origin.
 
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Deleted member 97083

The choice between ie and i could be based on etymology, with maybe a dialectal pronunciation of ie as the previously suggested /iə/.
Also perhaps based on context and word placement. "Machine" would be spelled with "i". But in the last syllable of a word, it can be "ee" or "y" depending on the word. "Thee" vs "thy" for example. All pronounced as /i/

Where it is "ie" like in placenames it is pronounced as /'iə/.

Also the unstressed thing could work as well.
 
Also perhaps based on context and word placement. "Machine" would be spelled with "i". But in the last syllable of a word, it can be "ee" or "y" depending on the word. "Thee" vs "thy" for example. All pronounced as /i/

Where it is "ie" like in placenames it is pronounced as /'iə/.
I dunno, ee for /i/ seems to un-Romance to me. Alternating between final y and i, or y and ie I could see, or maybe between all three. So, "thy", "thi", "thie".
 

Deleted member 97083

I dunno, ee for /i/ seems to un-Romance to me. Alternating between final y and i, or y and ie I could see, or maybe between all three. So, "thy", "thi", "thie".
True. Although French influence would prefer ending with ie rather than i. So it could be "thie" for the nominative object 2nd person pronoun, and "thy" for the possessive subject 2nd person pronoun.

Also "thine" pronounced /'θin.ə/ for the possessive object 2nd person pronoun.
 
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True. Although French influence would prefer ending with ie rather than i. So it could be "thie" for the nominative object 2nd person pronoun, and "thy" for the possessive subject 2nd person pronoun.
Sounds good, I only threw in the single i just to cover all the options. Alternation between y and ie would be better, as you said.

Also "thine" pronounced /'θin.ə/ for the possessive object 2nd person pronoun.
So, would th be /θ/ initially and finally, and /ð/ between vowels? Or would the choice between /θ/ and /ð/ just depend on the word as in OTL English?
 
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For /ə/, I was thinking that Spanish words ending with e /e/ and a /a/ would both be mispronounced/quickly pronounced over time, leading to the lazier vowel sound /ə/ prevailing if it's not the stressed syllable. So both e and a are used for that purpose.

Then again, if linguistic gender is removed, the "a" could be rewritten as "e" for all uses of /ə/.
Continuing along the theme of gender loss, could final /o/ also become /ə/? That way, words borrowed from Spanish ending in vowels would symmetrically end in e /ə/, eliminating any residual gender that might otherwise survive in Spanish loans, especially adjectives.
 

Deleted member 97083

Continuing along the theme of gender loss, could final /o/ also become /ə/? That way, words borrowed from Spanish ending in vowels would symmetrically end in e /ə/, eliminating any residual gender that might otherwise survive in Spanish loans, especially adjectives.
Definitely. That would fit with the rest of the alt-English lexicon.

The only exception would be words that end in "-ón", where the /o/ is stressed. But since most of the Spanish influence would be military and aristocratic, there aren't many of those that would actually become loanwords in English.
 
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Would /ə/ be a phonemic vowel, or only appear unstressed on the end of words and in the cluster ie /iə/ for those that pronounce it such?
If it is phonemic, perhaps it could be spelled e, while /e/ is spelled with a diacritic, similar to French. Both é and ê are good candidates; perhaps both, with one used for stressed and one for unstressed?

If /ə/ is phonemic, the vowel system might look something like:
a = /a/; [ɔ] before nasals in some dialects; spelled á when irregularly stressed
e = /ə/; perhaps spelled è when irregularly stressed if it ever appears in such a position
ê = /e/; spelled é when irregularly stressed (ê marking an unstressed sound might be odd*, but perhaps /e/ can't appear unstressed, changing to /ə/ or maybe /i/)
i = /i/; spelled í when irregularly stressed
ie = /iə/, reduced to simple /i/ in some dialects; presumably spelled íe when irregularly stressed
o = /o/; spelled ó when irregularly stressed
u = /u/; spelled ú when irregularly stressed

*It's used this way in French, but French stress is entirely different. IIRC, in French, the final syllable of a sentence is stressed, with words not taking individual stress.
 
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