Random Idea: Alt-History Languages

[Znex]

And what variety of "Chinese" was the dominant language of the Song Dynasty?

Late Middle Chinese, of course. Middle Chinese is the direct ancestor of most Chinese language families.

[Birdlang]

What about a Persian influenced NW Caucasus language? Or Georgian in Arabic script?

[zyma]

And what variety of "Chinese" was the dominant language of the Song Dynasty?

Late Middle Chinese, of course. Middle Chinese is the direct ancestor of most Chinese language families.

Well, like I said in a previous post, I wasn't sure if Middle Chinese or Old Mandarin was spoken during that era, since I was finding some conflicting dates. The answer isn't that obvious for most of us.

[Znex]

And what variety of "Chinese" was the dominant language of the Song Dynasty?

Late Middle Chinese, of course. Middle Chinese is the direct ancestor of most Chinese language families.

Well, like I said in a previous post, I wasn't sure if Middle Chinese or Old Mandarin was spoken during that era, since I was finding some conflicting dates. The answer isn't that obvious for most of us.

Yeah, looking again, it looks like there may be some overlap. I wouldn't think of Old Mandarin during this time as being very different from LMC though.

[Sasquatch]

What if the Norse explorers who landed in Newfoundland hadn't been run off by those mean, old Skraelings? What sort of language might have evolved as they interacted and interbred with the natives?

[alynnidalar]

North Germanic/Algonquian creole, YES PLEASE.

[DesEsseintes]

North Germanic/Algonquian creole, YES PLEASE.

Alternatively, use a descendant of MONOBA's Siwa as the lang of the Skrælingjar.

[Sasquatch]

Skrælingjar

That is the sexiest word ever.

[Sasquatch]

North Germanic/Algonquian creole, YES PLEASE.

Y'all may be interested to know what I've learned in my preliminary research. Seems the people the Norse encountered would have been the ancestors of the Beothuk /biːˈɒtək/ people. That sounds suspiciously close to Beowulf to me. At least close enough to be amusing.

[Thakowsaizmu]

So yeah... Russabic...

[DesEsseintes]

So yeah... Russabic...

It seems a lot of people offered suggestions on the first page of the thread. What are your thoughts on their suggestions? Do any of them suit your purpose? If not, why not?