Between the 15th and 20th centuries Europeans expanded across the world, spreading their languages in the process. English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch and Russian are spoken in far wider of an area than they were a few centuries ago, whether it be in parts of Asia, Africa and Oceania or in pretty much the entirety of the Americas. While a number of regional dialects and creole languages developed in the colonies depending on the circumstances, the only place where a European language fully diverged from the tongue spoken in the motherland was with Afrikaans in South Africa. With a rather small initial settler pool, a lack of consistent contact with the mother country from 1806 onward and influences from various other languages causing changes in grammar and vocabulary, by the 20th Century the Dutch spoken in South Africa was distinct enough from that spoken in the Netherlands to be considered a separate language. With this AHC, make it so that another Euro-descended population's language fully separates from that of the mother country. The most likely candidate IMO would be Canadian French, due to the isolation it had from France and the great changes European French underwent during that time, but I'm interested in seeing what other examples you guys come up with.
AHC: More European Colonial Daughter Languages
- Thread starter Gabingston
- Start date
There are three problems with this premise:
1) time: most colonies haven't been meaningfully separate from their metropole long enough to form a truly separate language
2) technology: with the rise of the telegram and later telephone and increased literacy it is increasingly easy for languages separated by space to remain similar
3) politics: there is little political incentive to recognize even very divergent dialects as different languages. It helps to maintain good relations with Europe even post independence.
1) time: most colonies haven't been meaningfully separate from their metropole long enough to form a truly separate language
2) technology: with the rise of the telegram and later telephone and increased literacy it is increasingly easy for languages separated by space to remain similar
3) politics: there is little political incentive to recognize even very divergent dialects as different languages. It helps to maintain good relations with Europe even post independence.
From what I've heard the Dutch and Afrikaners can understand each other to a good degree. The designation of Afrikaans as a separate language is probably as much political as it is linguistic. I don't imagine it'd be considered a separate language if the Dutch held onto the Cape Colony.
It’s not so difficult to keep Chavacano (a hybrid of Spanish and Filipino) alive and with more dialects. It would just need a less active occupation or a less genocidal occupation from the Americans and Japanese.
Chavacano still exists in Zamboanga, around the southwest tip of the Philippines. However the Cavite Chavacano (a city on the southwest tip of Manila bay) is a lot rarer now.
Spanish Filipino died out and got replaced by standardized Spanish.
Chavacano still exists in Zamboanga, around the southwest tip of the Philippines. However the Cavite Chavacano (a city on the southwest tip of Manila bay) is a lot rarer now.
Spanish Filipino died out and got replaced by standardized Spanish.
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On the other hand, Chavacano might have just melted back into Philippine Spanish if the latter had not become moribund as IOTL.
Ironically, it might have died out precisely because of independence: it was not as widely used across the globe - and therefore as useful - as English, but neither was it as much of a marker of Filipino nationhood as Tagalog and other native languages.
Is Afrikaans really another language?. I don't speak Dutch either but transcriptions of both languages are essentially the same thing as far as I have seen.
It seems to me that why it is considered a different language while say Ebonics, Gaelic dialects of English, Coast English(West African Pidgin) and Hong Kong Pidgin aren't even tho it is harder for a English man to understand either of those than it is for a Dutch to understand Afrikaans is because of the usual, "A language is a tongue with a state and army", South Africa is a different state, didn't get it's independence from the Dutch but from Britain through a process where the Dutch colonizers developed an identity distinct from the colonial states. It is the same reason Quebecoise, Cajun and Arcadian are treated as different languages sometimes.(Tho wait, the French dialects in North North America don't seem to be considered different languages so, my mistake).
There's also that again Cajuns and Afrikaans and coloureds recognize themselves as Cajuns and Afrikaner while an Igbo speaking Pidgin doesn't recognize themselves as a Pidginese. This second reason is probably why the various creole languages exist and are recognized as different languages because Haitians, Krios and Jamaicans exist. I don't really know how much these diverge from their base language but I assume way more than Afrikaans diverges from current or period Dutch. So unlike Afrikaans I'll probably consider alot of them, actually different languages tho not the ones that I have heard and understand, Liberal English/Creole and Krio(Sierre Leone English Creole) certainly is just a dialect of English by intelligibly, like Krio is just Coast English so that's it in OTL for one coast English timeline.
So you want to make more colonial languages, make those two stuff a reality. You don't even necessarily need colonization, Coast English was spoken across the Atlantic coast of Africa, if some coastal power to unifies that coast and then expand inland the language of the identity and the people that make up the core of that Empire will probably be Coast English.
Maybe if essentially every colony has been colonized two times over, like Dutch and Swedish populations established in Nee York and neighbouring areas before the British take it over, and it has to be before cuz later large migrant communities tend to be recorded as a dialect than as a language of its own like Texan German and the Amish varieties of German.
So maybe if Britain actually colonized recently independent Spanish Americas and the Dutch succeed in Brazil and the Kongolese succeed in Angola, you get different Hispanic and Lusophone languages.
Anyways for something that I actually consider a different language squarely and is also recognized as such, there's Tok Pisin of Papua, it emerged from English.
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It might have been a unifying language, or at least take the role of English in modern Philippines.
Filipino was made (in a super simplified summary) because Manuel Quezon and his cabinet wanted to reduce communication differences between the regions, except that kinda became a Tagalog dominated language.
English today is still used in laws, technical and higher education and that role might be replaced by Spanish.
Politically it isn't just a relations issue it is that the people themselves don't want to legitimize the language, because a legitimate language is tied to nation. Do you want to as a black man discard your strong ethnic identity to be seen instead as discount English/English rape baby?.
It's certainly a messy debate, the issue of national language.
Speaking of which, I heard that that's one of the reasons Haitian Creole remained its own thing instead of melting into French or English. Creole is perceived to be more "manly" than the European tongues.
It's not taught in Nigeria either. It's largely just a spoken language.
Its odd considering Boers never had any kind of animosity towards the motherland, unlike USA and Latin America(except Brazil i guess) , therefore less of a need to distinguish themselves ethnically.
Anyways, I bet Spanish dialects in Latin America are more divergent from Spanish than Afrikaans is from Dutch considering Spanish has been in Latin America since the 16th century.
