Romance-Speaking Balkans?

What changes would it take to have the entirety of the Balkan region (former Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania) speaking languages descended from Roman-era Latin, bar for minority "holdout" languages in the isolated bits?
 
A stronger eastern Roman Empire which was able to repel the sclavenian/slavic invaders would help.
 
That's really hard : you'll need to butterfly away Slavic invasions, but such a PoD would need to butterfly away all the steppe migrations of the III/IVth centuries.

The best I can think of is a surviving WRE-state in Italy, Africa and Illyria managing somewhow to keep these provinces and to maintain a romance dominated presence.

Admittedly, a stronger medieval Latin presence in Balkans (meaning Venice domination of Adriatic, Byzantine-screw, butterfly Ottomans) could manage to have dominante romance language in former Yugoslavia and Albania (rather Italian or Frankish dialects, than native romance languages, still).

But the crushing majority? It would have needed that latine-speakers would have been in majority there in first place.

I don't think you can have both Rumania and Bulgaria as romance speaking : either moseo-romans manage to hold the southern part of Danube, or they're forced to gather north of it.
 
Wouldn't stopping Slavs at Danube be enough? After all Balkans were full of Latin population before Danube limes was broken.
 
Wouldn't stopping Slavs at Danube be enough? After all Balkans were full of Latin population before Danube limes was broken.

Balkans weren't exactly full of latin-speakers.
Greek was still dominating in most of southern and eastern balkanic aeras, and for the western parrt, illyric languages still managed to hold.

The most latin-settled aeras were either the coast and the Danube basin, while Illyrians as a distinct group are still mentioned at the same time Slavic peoples came in (while probably more on the highlands).

I don't really see how to stop Slavs : you could have ERE or a surviving WRE holding some slavic groups, but it was a whole migration we're talking about. Stopping one group of these isn't going to do much for making romance-languages being crushingly dominating.
 

Deleted member 67076

Would it not be plausible to the Slavic tribes move into the Caucus or further into Germany instead of the Balkans?
 
Would it not be plausible to the Slavic tribes move into the Caucus or further into Germany instead of the Balkans?

Map of Europe

Slavic people were, more or less, originated from what's now Ukraine and Belarus. While some migrated eastwards, the main groups followed the traditional way of migrations, being pushed by steppe peoples : East -> West, while Caucasus is a bit of dead end.

Danube forms a rather good natural way, first along the coast, then up to Hungary. If you add to that that other, as much important groups, migrated towards Germany OTL up to Elbe, then followed the river up to Hungary rather than trying to go in highlands, you see why it makes a bit more sense.

Furthermore, Balkans were quite depopulated, critically in the East, by plagues and previous migrations : there was simply more room there; while western Europe and other parts of ERE were more widely inhabited.
 
The most latin-settled aeras were either the coast and the Danube basin, while Illyrians as a distinct group are still mentioned at the same time Slavic peoples came in (while probably more on the highlands).

There were still Latin speaking populations in the region when Basil II reconquered the Balkans, iirc. I think I read somewhere that there's some evidence that the eleventh century Byzantine administration of the northern Balkans was conducted partly in Latin, but I could be making that up!
 
It all comes down to the Byzantines holding the northern frontier and preventing the Slavs from invading. The critical time period is the 6th to 8th centuries when the Slav migrations into the Balkans occurred. That either requires the Byzantines holding them back, or that the Eastern Germanic tribes on the Byzantine frontier survive and prevent the Slavs from overruning them.

The problem with the Byzantines holding the frontier is that they are very stretched during this time period. There is the ongoing ulcer of the Gothic Wars. The plague of Justinian. The Persian conquests. The Islamic invasions. These will constantly divert resources that could have been spent beating back the Slavs.

Therefore, I think that the Eastern Germans need to do it. So the Lombards can't invade Italy, and the Gepids need to survive. They'd be the buffer against the Avars and Slavs moving in.

A critical thing is to not have Italy be so inviting a target. Either Justinian needs to get along with the Ostrogoths, or he has to better support Belisarius in his initial invasion of Italy so that overwhelming force ends the war quickly, and the Ostrogoths accept Byzantine rule. The Lombards and Gepids stay in place and somehow defeat the Avars/Slavs; which probably requires a series of strong leaders.

I don't think you'd ever get Bulgaria to be majority Latin speaking. That will remain Greek; I don't think it was ever predominantly Latin speaking among regular people. But you could preserve a Latin presence in the lands of Yugoslavia/Adriatic coast that preserves an indeigenous Romance language.
 

JJohnson

Banned
If not Romance, what if East Germanic tribes, Goths, Burgundians, Vandals, had split and settled there (in addition to conquering Rome, Iberia, etc)? Would the Vandals moving to the Balkans instead of Africa be that big a change? Could those areas maintain Germanic-speakers to this day?
 
If not Romance, what if East Germanic tribes, Goths, Burgundians, Vandals, had split and settled there (in addition to conquering Rome, Iberia, etc)? Would the Vandals moving to the Balkans instead of Africa be that big a change? Could those areas maintain Germanic-speakers to this day?

Given that the barbarians tended to assimilate into local Roman culture, having the Thracian and Illyrian provinces taken over by Germanic-speakers might actually be the best way of creating a Romance-speaking Balkans.
 
It all comes down to the Byzantines holding the northern frontier and preventing the Slavs from invading. The critical time period is the 6th to 8th centuries when the Slav migrations into the Balkans occurred. That either requires the Byzantines holding them back, or that the Eastern Germanic tribes on the Byzantine frontier survive and prevent the Slavs from overruning them.

The problem with the Byzantines holding the frontier is that they are very stretched during this time period. There is the ongoing ulcer of the Gothic Wars. The plague of Justinian. The Persian conquests. The Islamic invasions. These will constantly divert resources that could have been spent beating back the Slavs.

Therefore, I think that the Eastern Germans need to do it. So the Lombards can't invade Italy, and the Gepids need to survive. They'd be the buffer against the Avars and Slavs moving in.

A critical thing is to not have Italy be so inviting a target. Either Justinian needs to get along with the Ostrogoths, or he has to better support Belisarius in his initial invasion of Italy so that overwhelming force ends the war quickly, and the Ostrogoths accept Byzantine rule. The Lombards and Gepids stay in place and somehow defeat the Avars/Slavs; which probably requires a series of strong leaders.

I don't think you'd ever get Bulgaria to be majority Latin speaking. That will remain Greek; I don't think it was ever predominantly Latin speaking among regular people. But you could preserve a Latin presence in the lands of Yugoslavia/Adriatic coast that preserves an indeigenous Romance language.

Even if the Gepids and Lombards get beaten, a Byzantium with a peaceful Italian province might be strong enough to keep the Slavs out on its own.
 
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