English Language in a Victorious Hundred Year's War?

[M.R.L.]

Suppose the Hundred Year's War ends somewhat near OTL, but in a decisive English victory, what, if any would the effects on the development of English?

[istanbul]

Hmmm. Well the thing about England winning the 100 years war is that I imagine almost all focus and governorship would quickly shift to France, as it was richer, more prestigious and far more populated than England. England would probably be a backwater? This is hardly my area of expertise to be fair.

[westvirginiarebel]

No War of the Roses?

[tardis218]

Dec 15, 2015 23:40:52 GMT istanbul said:

Hmmm. Well the thing about England winning the 100 years war is that I imagine almost all focus and governorship would quickly shift to France, as it was richer, more prestigious and far more populated than England. England would probably be a backwater? This is hardly my area of expertise to be fair.

If this were to happen, English would be even more of a mix of European languages. For instance many of the scientific words we have today came from people such as Newton, with an England unable to fund such scientists, I see France or maybe even the Dutch as the next scientific nations of Europe. These words would spread to England, and most likely due to the strange spellings of the words, will just be spelled how they sound, or be pronounced how they're spelled. For instance if the word "gravity" came from the Dutch it have been zwaarte. Although, using Google Translate it does not sound like how it's spelled. It might be pronounced zwar-tay instead of the Dutch pronunciation. Then, we get to the words picked up from the native peoples in the British colonies. Due to England leaving a big gap, we would see countries who lost their colonies due to the British expand a lot in this TL, such as the Swedish and Dutch. The direct native words the British picked up in OTL could come to Britain in a second hand manner. With the words translated from the native language to a European language then to the English language. And of course, a whole slew of mispronunciations along the way. Well, that's my two cents on the subject.