OpenGeofiction
I’ve begun to sketch out a history for my tiny island nation, stranded off the coast of Archanta. I wanted to make it as insular as possible so the nation has never been colonised but has acted as something of an academic centre from the 18th century onwards.
This leads to the question of language. I have created my nation in English but with Anglo-Saxon saints and religion. Would it be realistic to have an old language of Mercian which has mostly died out but remains the language of the national religion and then to have Ingerlish as its replacement?
I would imagine that Ingerlish originated from foreign scholars and traders in the 18th century but by the time of the industrialisation of the nation in the 19th century had replaced Mercian in the realms of education and business. By the 20th century Mercian was broadly forgotten (except in very rural areas) and Ingerlish spoken by 90% of the population. Today there could be a resurgence of interest in Mercian but Ingerlish spoken as the official national language.
This would avoid the need for colonisation by Ingerland and allow me to use English in mapping and writing about the country but also to pepper it with mentions of the old language of Mercian.
Apologies for the long post, let me know what you think.
Discussion
Comment from Luciano on 7 December 2015 at 00:28
I have been worried about the global proliferation of English-speaking yet non-colonial countries in the world. It seems very implausible and complicated. I am pleased to see users worrying about it.
I think you might have a partial solution, although since Mercian is in the Anglo-Saxon line, you will still have the underlying problem: a Germanic-related language falling too far from the tree (since Germanic and hence Indo-European is supposed to be from northwest Uletha).
The idea of a country adopting English (in-world: Ingerish) without a colonial history is not entirely unprecedented. Certain countries use English widely as a kind of lingua franca despite having colonial roots in different empires (Panama, Philippines, Thailand, Korea), although ALL of those cases, these countries were in tight NEO-COLONIAL relationships with the United States, which is notably English-speaking.
Netherlands and Scandinavia are interesting, distinct examples, where I think the adoption of English as a broad lingua franca is facilitated by the close genetic relationship between the languages (I’m speaking of linguistic genetics not biological genetics).
Perhaps the adoption of English in Mercia could be understood in that latter vein. However, you still would have to explain the arrival of Anglo-Saxon in the Southern seas in the pre-modern era. Some (very) lost pseudo-viking types?
Speaking from the admin standpoint, and since your country is a fairly small island, I will hazard a different possible solution: Mercia could be moved to somewhere in the North Hesperic Ocean (thus “off the coast” of Ingerland). This, of course, pending approval by the other admins - and it’s a big project to move a country, although your object density is still fairly low.
Comment from Pawl on 7 December 2015 at 16:34
Since Anglo-Saxon = Old English, couldn’t the language have simply evolved from Old into modern English, as in the real world, but with religious authorities hanging on to archaic usage for its names and rituals?
But I agree with Luciano that locating an old Ulethan language in the pre- or non-colonial southern hemisphere is problematic. It’s mainly why I re-located my Welsh(Cambric)-speaking country from southern Archanta to NW Uletha.
Comment from Ūdilugbulgidħū on 8 December 2015 at 11:50
Mercia is looking really good - but its becoming clearer that it does have a long and detailed history that connects it with the other ‘Ingerish’ speaking countries. Because of the way OGF has developed so far, It seems that the origin of these languages was in NW Uletha. And if there was a country somewhere else in the world that had also spoken Ingerish for a long time, it would make this hard to understand and (in my opinion) be less believable. Unless, of course, there is a very good alternative reason which, as Luciano says, you would have to explain - and explain happening a long time ago. You would also have the issue of the transmission of the religion - though I think there are solutions to that - and in fact It could all be a license to create some intriguing narrative. But that wouldn’t be easy - your country is so far away from the sort of accepted area where Ingerish and christicism developed it might be a stretch to do this (that is, if you want it to be Christic religion).
The alternative, and I think the better option, is to relocate to Uletha, or thereabouts. There are places in the ocean west of Ingerland or Scandmark that I could see your country fitting into really well, but of course you would have to work out with admins whether that was possible and you’d have to be happy with it. Another possibility is in the VInn sea east of Swaldia. It will take a bit of thinking about. Either way I would think that (unless there are exceptional circumstances!) it is much more believable that a country was not colonised if it is in the area where colonisers originated, rather than where they spread to.
A totally different way to approach it would be to define the historic ‘Mercian’ as a non-Ingerish language, perhaps with a similar name to the NW Ulethan ‘Mercian’, but with no actual similarities in vocabulary, grammar and syntax. But you still have the religion and historic buildings/places issue, which looks to be fundamental to your country.
Comment from Myrcia on 8 December 2015 at 13:07
@Ūdilugbulgidħū @Pawl
Thanks for the responses. I think I probably will end up moving Mercia to Uletha. The main problem is that I am currently 30 degrees south and scaling issues would mean I probably have to move to 30 degrees north which puts me in a hot, dry climate which is wrong for my country.
Ideally I would like to be west of Ingerland by about 100 miles as that would give me a lovely, wet, maritime climate and a good spot in history and language terms.
I’ve messaged Luciano about this so we shall see.