Plausible Alternate Standardizations of Language?

The standard American accent could go a lot of different ways since it was so dependent on migration and simply perception. A smaller NYC possibly makes Philadelphia or Boston the east coast's cultural capitol. A different Civil War or earlier Southern industrialization removes much of the stigma against southern accents. Or (heaven help us) have non-rhotic sounds catch on more outside of parts of New England.

Wouldn't a standard American English require a centralized public education system?
 
I meant only one accent spoken through the USA.

I don't think that's possible with a nation the size of the United States. Even with a very strong mass media, regional deviations in language are actually increasing throughout the nation. (see, "Introduction" Parnell, Thomas and Salmons, Joseph Wisconsin Talks: Linguistic Diversity in the Badger State [Madison, University of Wisconsin Press], 2013) Also, in nation's that have a centralized educational system, you still can see remarkable diversity of dialects and accents. Case in point, the French someone speaks in Normandy is going to be different than that spoken in Paris or Provence; and France actually has a central language institute which is meant to formalize and standardize language. You can also look at the great regional diversity in nations such as Germany or Italy. Note that these countries are generally more centralized than the United States and also smaller in population and geography.

I'm pretty sure that having the same accent spoken as the vernacular throughout the United States is, if not ASB, than just a few inches to the left of our nearest resident Spacebat.
 
Yes, ATL Standard Japanese would be indeed based on Western Japanese, particularly in Kansai, but I sensed that such standard dialect could be a mix of Kyoto and Osaka, and spoken by the elite in let's say Kobe.

Kinda depends on how thinks get divided up (or even if they do), but assuming the provinces don't get reformed, it'd be
North Settsu and Settsu dialects (Kobe/northern Osaka, divided by the sides of the Yodogawa) and Machikata (the dialect of the citizens of Heian-kyo). ;)
 
Oh, my bad, thanks for the correction.

Kyoto outranked Edo too, but Edo was more populous and had a better geography for water supplying (a heck of a flaw for Kyoto), not saying Kyoto couldn't be a capital, but an Oda Shogunate that last as much a Tokugawa and has a similar development of a Restoration could have Nagoya as a capital.

There's a potentially amusing bit of punnery in the idea that what became Nagoya ITTL became the capital. (The period name was Owari province, and owari is modern standard Japanese for "finish" or "end".)
 
Standard Chinese is based on the Peking dialect (the dialect of the Mandarins of the Qing dynasty and the officers of the PRC), should Nanjing remains the capital (either Ming or the KMT) its dialect may be the base of the standardization.
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Also, is standard Italian based in Piedmont or Rome?

Answer: NEITHER (It's actually based on the dialect of Florence and Tuscany in general)

Possible PoD: The prestige of the Tuscan dialect is attributable in part to the works of Dante, particularly the Divine Comedy. BUT, Dante almost chose to write in Occitan, because that was the troubadorial prestige language of the time. So, allohistorically, there's a decent chance "Standard Italian" might've ended up sounding a lot more like Southern Gallo-Romance.
 
The stereotypical "American accent" IOTL is arguably more based on the Philadelphia accent than that of New York, given that the former is rhotic and the latter (at least traditionally) is not.

I have actually read that the standard American accent is based off of Ohio's accent. Ohio is generally Midwestern but lacks any of the distinctions that make the accent sound goofy to outsiders. This just sort of became the normal way of speaking in the United States.

I think it'd be very interesting to see an American accent that developed with the New York accent as the basis. I wonder if there would be a move to have a revised dictionary that has written words show how the New York accent sounds (the Ohio/standard accent generally pronounces most letters with a few notable exceptions like the 'h' in what and the 'k' and 'w' in know).
 
Many prominent dictionaries will have IPA values for words in them. Dialect is also usually specified. Granted most people would not understand because most people are not aware of the disconnect between written and spoken english.
 
Had the Castilian kings moved court to Sevilla instead of Madrid, then the 'c/z' sound would have definitely shifted to the 's' sound instead of retaining the Latin/Italian 't' sound. So nación (English for nation), would be standardized as 'na-sion' as spoken today in Andalucia and Latin America instead of the more conservative 'na-thion' in Northern and Central Castile.
 
Norwegian exists because the Norwegian military does. Remember the saying- a language is a dialect with an army to back it up. If Norway stayed Danish instead of going to Sweden (as consolation for losing Finland) AND NEVER get independence then Denmark would say "Norway" speaks Danish. It doesnt matter if that is incorrect, who argues with the PRC saying Chinese "dialects" are dialects when a few probably arent even genetically related and only look Chinese in the way English looks Romance, and most definitetly they are separate languages.

Speaking of which, which Scandinavian dialect would be the standardised language if Scandinavia was united? Presumably the language of the capital, which I've always imagined would be either Copenhagen, Gothenburg, or maybe in the Skåne region instead. This, we'd speak of one "Scandinavian" or "Nordic" language, and a variety of dialects.

I have actually read that the standard American accent is based off of Ohio's accent. Ohio is generally Midwestern but lacks any of the distinctions that make the accent sound goofy to outsiders. This just sort of became the normal way of speaking in the United States.

I don't know about that. There's cases where you'll encounter a "neutral" American accent and it can sound as laughable as any other American accent can be.

I've always heard the Ohio/Midwestern thing as well, and it seems true enough.
 
Standard Pilipino could have been based of something like Chavacano, making it, like Haitian Creole, a Romance rather than a Malay language.

For this scenario, the Philippines would have to break from Spain earlier and on its own terms. Of course, it's just as likely for this country to speak Spanish proper.
 
While the authenticity of this is debatable, there is the urban legend that after the Xinhai revolution, there was a vote on the national language of China in which Mandarin won by one vote. Assuming the story is true, I'd say Cantonese could have once more become the most widely spoken language in China if there were even more Cantonese politicians in early Republican China. Even if the story is false, I can easily see such a vote happening, and Cantonese winning out by a small margin (Sun Yetsen was Cantonese, after all) in ATL.
 
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