English with High German influence

[Otto Kretschmer]

Dunno if I posted something like this or not

In 1066 HRE invades England and conquers it. For the next 300 years English is under strong influence of HIgh German dialects.

How does it impact English? One thing that is certain is that it'll have a lot of High German borrowings. Is there a chance that English undergoes the High German Consonant Shift if German speaking nobility replaces Anglo Saxon one?

[Pabappa]

I dont think that it would trigger a consonant shift in English, no. By 1066 the shift was essentially complete, and so it would need to repeat itself in German in order to bleed into English. Same reason it didnt happen in any other language within the Empire.

But if youre removing the Norman conquest from the timeline entirely, you could pretty much do anything you want ... your effective point of divergence could even be pushed back in time a few more centuries if you propose that the dialect of English that became standard in your timeline was different from the one that prevailed in ours.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Why not try building it?

[Travis B.]

Word to the wise, though - England would have the most contact with northern Germany, which was largely Low German-speaking for quite some time (think the Hanseatic League and the influence that Low German had on Swedish and like).

[Richard W]

But if youre removing the Norman conquest from the timeline entirely, you could pretty much do anything you want ... your effective point of divergence could even be pushed back in time a few more centuries if you propose that the dialect of English that became standard in your timeline was different from the one that prevailed in ours.

And the idea of West Saxon remaining the standard certainly sounds plausible.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I think I saw somebody make a "West Saxon" language once, long ago, somewhere.

[Starbeam]

I think I saw somebody make a "West Saxon" language once, long ago, somewhere.

I think it was a guy named Herr Rataskor (?) on Incatena-era ZBB.

That said, I wonder what German-relexified English language would be like, instead of a French-relexified English one. Many terms are already similar, so I doubt it would be as drastic.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Oh, yes, I think it was "Herra Ratatoskr",or somesuch; the name looked rather Norse.

With High German influence, I'm not sure as much relexification would've occurred at all, since a large number of items of vocabulary would've been similar enough; the structure of the resulting English would probably end up more archaic by the standards of our language under the influence of such a closely-related one. The orthography would also probably tend a bit more conservative, likely preserving "soft c" as [tʃ], but introducing written "k"; terminal [x] would probably end up written "ch", and "j" for [j] would also be likely. The result of a loan-phone [y] would probably be the same as in our English, merging with /eu iu/ and producing /juː/ and shortened forms of it.

With soo mucce Infloowing froemm hych Ducce, ych think aur nijw Inglisce mycht bij written soemthing lyke this. Ych cannot bij trijwly sirten, hauwever.

[Nortaneous]

I had a West Saxon-derived conlang once - IIRC the premise was that most of England came to speak a descendant of Norman (which I never made) and descendants of late OE survived in outlying regions. The largest such region was Pembrokeshire, so the orthography came to be based on Welsh.

Sy wêrddseijyr nis ei ddy fritengys ddys eriawdyrs redydd, on foliynt is ebárd, bylwdd yn, ac bidd ei ddy is trwth im pionydd on ffàt dding from frainydd, bidd ei ddy argiwmynt on demynstrêsiyn deidd, on nauch ffàt minn, ffas ebárd vul yf ial cyndes yf giwt on sweddyrwng bidd, wass sedjynt ny eidydd.

The orthographic details (and a handful of other developments) could've been different, though:

Þe weerþseyer nis ei þe fritinges þis eriaouders redeþ, on folient is yebaerd, belouþ en, ac biþ ei þe is trouþ im pioneþ on fhat þing from fraineþ, biþ ei þ'argeument on demenstreesion deiþ, on naugh fhatt minn, fhas yebaerd ful ef yal kyndes ef ghiout on sweþeroung biþ, wass segient ne eideþ.

I've completely forgotten what this means, but we should expect alt-Englishes to be more distant from English than extant BrEng dialects, so this seems reasonable.