4 ms·

I would have said English, but you are probably right - as long as we are talking about written language. As a Scandinavian I understand the other Scandinavian

I would have said English, but you are probably right - as long as we are talking about written language. As a Scandinavian I understand the other Scandinavian languages as well as English, German, French and a few other languages. But Dutch is hard to understand due to a lot of guttural sounds.

vidarh 5y ago
In terms of shared second language English would probably just remove the need for trying to find a middle ground. But as a middle ground understandable without knowing a second language, it loses out because so much of its vocabulary comes from French. E.g. chair vs. stol, stoel, Shtul, a word that even has close cognates in Slavic languages (but the Germanic is hanging on in English in "stool"). An English with French influence replaced with pre-existing Germanic-sourced English words with Dutch as fallback might be a fun experiment. Regarding spoken Dutch, I agree, it's painful to listen to. And I just got a horrible thought: A mix of Danish and Dutch pronunciation... I imagine it'd sound somewhat like death metal ;-)
- zozbot234 5y ago
  A Germanicized English would probably work well enough given that English has such a pidgin-like grammar anyway. You wouldn't have to deal with the whole part of simplifying the language, there's already a widely used standard for that.
  - ochrist 5y ago
    Something like this? http://www.i18nguy.com/twain.html http://www.i18nguy.com/twain.html
    - vidarh 5y ago
      That only changes the orthography, which while annoying is a lot less of an issue for mutual intelligibility than the vocabulary of English...
- bmn__ 5y ago
  > An English with French influence replaced with pre-existing Germanic-sourced English words https://anglish.fandom.com/wiki/What_is_Anglish%3F https://anglish.fandom.com/wiki/What_is_Anglish%3F
  - vidarh 5y ago
    Interesting, but really odd and seemingly with very different goals than what I had in mind. As a native Norwegian speaker, on one hand there are lots of words used there which are easier for me to understand than they would be for a native English speaker, but at the same time many are unnecessary reversions towards Old English or pointless changes where modern Germanic languages are closer to modern English. It seems like a reversion without any thought to how these terms have kept evolving in the rest of the Germanic sphere. E.g. "riche" on one hand sounds closer to "rike" or "Reich", but "state" has close cognates in most Germanic languages (stat, staat etc.) and stat/staat and rike/Reich have different connotations - we'd tend to use rike/Reich in contexts relating to monarchy or evoking history or tradition. E.g. kongerike/Königreich for kingdom (but also kongedømme), but stat/staat when talking about a modern state. And e.g. "Hof" as in "Speaker of the Hof", while it has close cognates, is an unnecessary leap given "house" has close cognates too (hus, Haus) which are used in the same context, and the "problem" there isn't the word "house" but the whole construction. Translating United States to Oned Riches also takes it further away from modern Germanic languages rather than moving closer to them (e.g. Forenede Stater, Vereinigten Staaten). Similarly, the month names in most Germanic languages are close to modern English. Meadowmonth for July is far harder for me to understand than July - in Norwegian it is juli. And "lawmoot" for Congress is harder too. Compare kongress, Kongress... At least if they wanted to go that way, e.g. landthing would be far more understandable for speakers of other Germanic languages as a reference to a parliamentary house (moot works fine for meeting, compare e.g. møte, but feels no simpler to me than meeting) Similarly "landtung" for "language" is weird. In e.g. Norwegian we have "tunge" for "tongue" and it can sort of be used that way, but "tale" is more understandable if you want to go that way, but "speak" as in "to speak" is a closer cognate to the words used for language in other Germanic languages (e.g. språk, Sprache) without sounding archaic. And "narrowing" for "strait" while in e.g. Norwegian it is "stred", or "landstretch" for "landmass" vs. "landmasse" in Norwegian. As an "alternate history English" it kinda works. As a "modern Germanic English" it's tiresome to try to read...

vidarh 5y ago

In terms of shared second language English would probably just remove the need for trying to find a middle ground. But as a middle ground understandable without knowing a second language, it loses out because so much of its vocabulary comes from French. E.g. chair vs. stol, stoel, Shtul, a word that even has close cognates in Slavic languages (but the Germanic is hanging on in English in "stool"). An English with French influence replaced with pre-existing Germanic-sourced English words with Dutch as fallback might be a fun experiment. Regarding spoken Dutch, I agree, it's painful to listen to. And I just got a horrible thought: A mix of Danish and Dutch pronunciation... I imagine it'd sound somewhat like death metal ;-)

zozbot234 5y ago
A Germanicized English would probably work well enough given that English has such a pidgin-like grammar anyway. You wouldn't have to deal with the whole part of simplifying the language, there's already a widely used standard for that.
- ochrist 5y ago
  Something like this? http://www.i18nguy.com/twain.html http://www.i18nguy.com/twain.html
  - vidarh 5y ago
    That only changes the orthography, which while annoying is a lot less of an issue for mutual intelligibility than the vocabulary of English...
bmn__ 5y ago
> An English with French influence replaced with pre-existing Germanic-sourced English words https://anglish.fandom.com/wiki/What_is_Anglish%3F https://anglish.fandom.com/wiki/What_is_Anglish%3F
- vidarh 5y ago
  Interesting, but really odd and seemingly with very different goals than what I had in mind. As a native Norwegian speaker, on one hand there are lots of words used there which are easier for me to understand than they would be for a native English speaker, but at the same time many are unnecessary reversions towards Old English or pointless changes where modern Germanic languages are closer to modern English. It seems like a reversion without any thought to how these terms have kept evolving in the rest of the Germanic sphere. E.g. "riche" on one hand sounds closer to "rike" or "Reich", but "state" has close cognates in most Germanic languages (stat, staat etc.) and stat/staat and rike/Reich have different connotations - we'd tend to use rike/Reich in contexts relating to monarchy or evoking history or tradition. E.g. kongerike/Königreich for kingdom (but also kongedømme), but stat/staat when talking about a modern state. And e.g. "Hof" as in "Speaker of the Hof", while it has close cognates, is an unnecessary leap given "house" has close cognates too (hus, Haus) which are used in the same context, and the "problem" there isn't the word "house" but the whole construction. Translating United States to Oned Riches also takes it further away from modern Germanic languages rather than moving closer to them (e.g. Forenede Stater, Vereinigten Staaten). Similarly, the month names in most Germanic languages are close to modern English. Meadowmonth for July is far harder for me to understand than July - in Norwegian it is juli. And "lawmoot" for Congress is harder too. Compare kongress, Kongress... At least if they wanted to go that way, e.g. landthing would be far more understandable for speakers of other Germanic languages as a reference to a parliamentary house (moot works fine for meeting, compare e.g. møte, but feels no simpler to me than meeting) Similarly "landtung" for "language" is weird. In e.g. Norwegian we have "tunge" for "tongue" and it can sort of be used that way, but "tale" is more understandable if you want to go that way, but "speak" as in "to speak" is a closer cognate to the words used for language in other Germanic languages (e.g. språk, Sprache) without sounding archaic. And "narrowing" for "strait" while in e.g. Norwegian it is "stred", or "landstretch" for "landmass" vs. "landmasse" in Norwegian. As an "alternate history English" it kinda works. As a "modern Germanic English" it's tiresome to try to read...