WI Dutch was far closer to German?

many of the suggested look at dutch becoming more german, how about the other way round? After all dutch like language was spoken up till the weser until hochdeutsch was imposed on them. Could it be possible to make the german language be based on lower german or even dutch influences instead?

So german comes closer to dutch.
 
many of the suggested look at dutch becoming more german, how about the other way round? After all dutch like language was spoken up till the weser until hochdeutsch was imposed on them. Could it be possible to make the german language be based on lower german or even dutch influences instead?
I was about to suggest this as well. Moving a dialect on either end of a dialect continuum towards the opposite end doesn't seem as effective to me as having the entire continuum converging towards the middle.

Say that the Dutch never become part of the Burgundian lands, and therefor not the Spanish either. Instead the lands are just the western end of the mishmash of HRE statelets, with no particular Dutch dialect able to impose itself upon the others and thereby making the difference between Dutch and German seem greater. (That's what the dialect of Holland did, right?) By the time of the reformation, a reformer out of the Ruhr might spread his Bible based on the local dialect, which becomes the standard bible in the north-west, creating a beginning impetus towards a dialectal convergence. Religious wars and invasions might then further cement the the idea of unity across the region. Especially if some sort of political unification happens, or at least the creation of a proto-state, in the form of mutual alliances, within the empire.

This alone might not be enough to cause an eventual extra-large Germany, but the greater common history with northern Germany should certainly cause them to be seen and see themselves as closer to German. Maybe there is no one Germany, instead the area is split between two or more evenly matched states. An obvious division would be northern Protestant and southern Catholic, but greater fragmentation is possible. Just look at Scandinavia, which despite the close linguistic ties never managed to unite. If Germany ended up being just an idea like Scandinavia, it seems more likely to me that the Dutch would be seen as just another group among many that were never unified. The creation of an actual German state is a pretty good way to start to create (artificial) boundaries between the people who are citizens of it and those that are not. Just look at the Austrians.
 

JJohnson

Banned
Hey Guys,

What if the Dutch Language, already a Germanic language, was actually far closer to German than it already is. As it is I believe many Dutch speaking people can read understand some German and vice versa due to the closeness of their languages. However it's speech that truly shows the difference between the two.

WI the difference between Dutch and German was more like the relationship between Austrian and German, a much closer relationship though still with some minor differences.

How would this be possible? How would this affect the development of the Low Countries over time? I know it would likely have huge consequences but I'd be interested in even minor changes.

It depends on how you mean "close."

Linguistically, they didn't participate in the High German Consonant Shift, for whatever reason, if they had, that would bring them closer. Alternatively, if Dutch had kept more of its Old Low Franconian inflections:

dag (day)

Singular (nom, gen, dat/acc): dag, dages, dag
Plural (nom/gen/acc, dat): dage, dagen

Keep du, dij, dijns as an active pronoun for informal use.

Keep the pronunciation of "en" in word-final position instead of not pronouncing the "n" there.

Keep at least the Middle Dutch adjective/definite article inflections

Keep the subjunctive form alive, possibly by adapting the German umlaut of the subjunctive form of strong verbs.

And keeping the dental fricative (þ, ð) would be nice, as an English speaker. Also, retaining l (houden would be houlden or something similar) and intervocalic d (meej was mede, lui was luyden, etc) would help.

That would get you 'closer' to German, while still keeping it Dutch, and it would improve readability of German to Dutch speakers.

As for history, this might not do very much to the Netherlands, other than making some scientific, poetic, fiction, and political literature more easily accessible or translatable. Perhaps some scientific ideas from the area of Germany could've gotten to the Dutch, and from there, into the New Netherlands, and thus into the hands of the British, or at least into the Dutch colonies.
 
Very interesting.

Another option could be that a standard language ITTL instead of German and Dutch develops out of a Franconian dialect in the Rhineland, maybe the dialect of Cologne, Trier or Frankfurt. The closer to Dutch would help to keep Dutch in, but that may cause difficulties further removed from these dialects. Initially it probably would be more like a standard dialect, maybe for traders etc.

Actually the Burgundians didn't start that development, but they did encourage this. However with standard German being based on East Central German also didn't help to keep the 'divide' smaller.
 
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