AHC American English more "North England"-esque

Localist Distributist

So, North England dialects as well as Scotts, generally are the most similar to Old English and Middle English. Further, Benjamin Franklin, Marriam-Webster and a group endorsed by Teddy Roosevelt, all have attempted to make English both more phonetic, less foreign-influenced, and more unique. So, my thought was, what if Scotts and the North England dialects had been the big influence on the US. But then I realized that I needed to figure out how. So, how can I do this without such a far-back POD I make the US structurally unrecognizable due to Revolution era butterflies? The only thing I could think of is North English emigrating to the US and getting jobs as schoolteachers.
 

Hominid

American English didn't arise because of schoolteachers or Merriam-Webster; it arose because people changed the way they spoke over many generations. So basically, more northern British emigration to the US could do it, regardless of their professions. Not sure how to accomplish this, but probably some event in Britain could trigger it.
 
The Professor

The Professor

It sounds a bit like you've confused the English of Shakespeare and KJV Bible (i.e. Early Modern English) with actual Old English (Beowulf etc) and Middle English (Chaucer etc).
 

Localist Distributist

Hominid said:
American English didn't arise because of schoolteachers or Merriam-Webster; it arose because people changed the way they spoke over many generations. So basically, more northern British emigration to the US could do it, regardless of their professions. Not sure how to accomplish this, but probably some event in Britain could trigger it.
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Could something regarding protectionism vs free trade accomplish that?
 

dcharles

Banned
Localist Distributist said:
So, North England dialects as well as Scotts, generally are the most similar to Old English and Middle English. Further, Benjamin Franklin, Marriam-Webster and a group endorsed by Teddy Roosevelt, all have attempted to make English both more phonetic, less foreign-influenced, and more unique. So, my thought was, what if Scotts and the North England dialects had been the big influence on the US. But then I realized that I needed to figure out how. So, how can I do this without such a far-back POD I make the US structurally unrecognizable due to Revolution era butterflies? The only thing I could think of is North English emigrating to the US and getting jobs as schoolteachers.
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So basically, what if the entire US sounded like the South?

I would just say you'd probably get that outcome if you limited immigration from non English places in general.
 
piratedude

piratedude

Brady Kj said:
What do people from Northern England sound like? Do they sound like people from Scotland?
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Technically there are multiple northern English dialects (which Scotts may or may not be considered a part of). The more famous and typically northern dialect that youd probably be told of is the Yorkshire dialect


For comparison, this is Scots
 

Brady Kj

Wow! Is most of northern England so much unlike the rest of the English-speaking countries? You could have told me that man was speaking Dutch, and I would have believed you!
 
Gabingston

Gabingston

Brady Kj said:
Wow! Is most of northern England so much unlike the rest of the English-speaking countries? You could have told me that man was speaking Dutch, and I would have believed you!
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It was colonized by The Danish, who famously sound like they're talking with a potato in their mouth (no offense, Danes, you guys have a great country).
 

Brady Kj

I didn't hear a Danish accent. I did however notice a lot of similarities to Norwegian, the only other Germanic language I know besides English. For example, the word for "children" was something like "bairne", while in Norwegian it's "barn". Yorkshirese seems to be some Germanic language that is eerily close to English.
 
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