Re: Columbian Danish (was: political Zera)

(Im answering this message again since it seams the original was never
delivered)

Kristian Jensen wrote:

> Lars Henrik Mathiesen wrote:
> >> From: Kristian Jensen <kljensen@...>
> >
> >> I'm not up to par on Zera's history. But in *our* world, the Nordics
> >> in Greenland died out in the early Middle Ages. When Danes came back
> >> to Greenland, it was already after the Renaissance. I was picturing
> >> the same situation in Zera. Since Northern Jutland was in most places
> >> infertile bogland, it would have seemed ideal for Jutlanders to move
> >> to what is in our world Northern Canada -- not necessarily Greenland.
> >> The Danes, afterall, colonized Northern Canada as well in the world of
> >> Zera.
I'm not thinking on Viking descendants but reather on a later Danish
colonization.  BTW what stopped our timeline Danes to colonize further than
Greenland?  (If Danes have conquered Northern Columbia in Zera, something
should have been different)

> >I don't think straight-forward colonization normally leads to creole
> >formation. Settlers would probably deal with native groups separately,
> >and creoles seem to happen more when linguistically diverse groups are
> >forced to live together under an administration whose language none of
> >them commands, as in slave and imported labour camps.
>
> That sounds realistic. So perhaps not a creole, but some a variant
> of Danish not intelligible with European Danish. It seems to me
> afterall that the Danish language changes/evolves quite quickly. One
> only has to watch old Danish movies to hear how much Danish has
> changed over the decades. So if we go backwards in time, then
> Columbian-Danish certainly would have evolved from some form of
> Danish that is no longer spoken today.
>
> >And even then, I think the administration language tends to form the
> >lexical basis for the creole, with only minor additions from the
> >original languages of the speakers.
>
> What's the story with Afrikaans then? Dutch must have certainly been
> the administrative language at one time in S.Africa. But Afrikaans
> has sufficiently changed since then such that it is now considered a
> separate language from Dutch. Maybe something similar could have
> happened with Columbian Danish? Carlos?
Well, unlike South Africa in OTL, where Boers were isolated from the
Netherland under a British administration, European settlers in Northern
Columbian have been under Danish administration since the first settlements.
The official language of the Danish North-Columbian Territories is Danish
(how would it sound in Danish).  Of course, settlers could speak some
creolized dialect, with Inuit and Native Columbian influences.

> >On the other hand, I would assume that a trade language/pidgin would
> >arise, allowing the settlers to trade with the Inuit and Indian
> >peoples around them. And if something --- war, disaster --- then
> >happened to displace and mix up large number of natives, the trade
> >language might end up forming the basis for a creole.
> >
> >> I was refering to the generation of Jutlanders who are old -- those
born
> >> before the German occupation. Relative to Jutlanders who are born after
> >> 1975, these older generation Jutlanders speak an 'old' dialect. They
> >> are certainly NOT "speaking Danish" when I hear them. ;-)
> >
> >That's true. They speak the pure dialect, not the school/TV-weakened
> >version that the younger generations use.
Well, Modern Zera has something similar to TV... and I'm not sure how
similar Danish School system is from our timeline, but probably both are
trying to make one "official" Danish... but probably less Zealandish than
OTL Danish.  Well, at least in urban areas.

> >But I thought you were referring to the old belief that those dialects
> >are little changed since Viking times, and that West Jutland fishermen
> >are able talk to Scottish ditto when they meet at sea because their
> >dialects are still similar. (That's more probably due to a sort of
> >trade language, perhaps combined with a shared set of sea words ---
> >taboo replacements for words that will offend the sea).
>
> Oh yeah, I heard that one too. I have never taken that seriously though.
>
> -kristian- 8)
-- Carlos Th