You don’t change language unless it’s beneficial to use in your daily life when interacting with your next door neighbors. You at best Peter your speech with German words and adopt new loan words for new things.
What if the Czechs were Germans?
- Thread starter Nephi
- Start date
You don’t change language unless it’s beneficial to use in your daily life when interacting with your next door neighbors. You at best Peter your speech with German words and adopt new loan words for new things.
If there are no Czechs around Slovaks are more Polish influenced, maybe they'll not change into "Mountain Poles" but standard Slovak may be more similar to Polish (to the degree, that it could be viewed as dialect of Polish) and would adapt Polish-based orthography (with "w" instead of v, with sz, cz, ż instead of š, č, ž and so on) Croatian and Slovenian orthographies also may be more Polish influenced-IOTL their orthographies were based mostly on Czech.
Unlikely the Slovenes didn’t become Croats, and the pre-Yugoslavian dominant Croatian dialect was extremely closely related to Slovenian. There’s no reason why the Slovaks would see themselves as Poles.
This is what I've written (although that it is not completly impossible-Polish highlanders and Slovak highlanders had the same customs, traditional housing, clothing etc. Main difference is that the ones living on Polish side of the border see themselves as Poles and these on Slovak side as Slovaks, so there is chance bigger than 0 that they could follow example of Kashubians and Silesians). What is almost certain is higher Polish influence on Slovak language.
The slovens might disagree with your logic - and their number far less. The slovaks would still be around and would still be slovaks. With all the butterflies they might not have their own independent country, a lot more of them might have assimilated to other groups - most likely to hungarians. But they would still be around and number likely 2-3 million at the very least and likely more. And im saying this as a hungarian.
Silesian Lutherans prefer to be part of Poland more than catholics.
Parts of Slovakia are actually Polish/Silesian speaking like Czadca, Spisz and Orava where gorals live that might cause them to assimilate.
I agree with you. Slovaks up in the mountains won't simply assimilate into a Hungarian or a German continuum no matter what happens. Stll, without fertile plains they'll most likely remain a regional minority inside a much bigger nation. Unless there's some kind Post-WW1 Wilsonian turn of events and then the international community creates an artificial need for a viable state for every single minority on the losing side of a war.
Just a thought. Does becommig Germans have to mean abandoning their language? After all, most Welsh speakers still identihy as British (though many Anglophone Irishmrn do not) and in East Prussia the Polish-speaking Masurians considered themselves German. Over on the Rhine, Alsatians spoke a German dialect but mostly considered themselves French.
Maybe if the Bohemian crown had gone to the Elector of Saxony in 1618 instead of the Elector Palatine, and he had successfully led them to independence. Might the Protestant Czechs have retained their language yet still thought of themselves as one nnation with the Protestant Saxons?
Maybe if the Bohemian crown had gone to the Elector of Saxony in 1618 instead of the Elector Palatine, and he had successfully led them to independence. Might the Protestant Czechs have retained their language yet still thought of themselves as one nnation with the Protestant Saxons?
Only in Austrian Silesia. Silesian Lutherans in Prussian Silesia almost entirely preffered Prussia/Germany over Poland.
Well, one thing that seems to have substantially accelerated language changes has been language policies in schools (at least, once primary education became largely universal). Students speaking a local language were often forbidden to use it in the classroom and, as children learn languages more easily, picked up the language of instruction by neccessity thus creating a large pool of people already fluent in both languages. It therefore becomes easier for the government to make the native language inconvenient and force those citizens not to use outside of their home. It's not hard to imagine the results of these heavy handed rules over a few generations.
Schoolteachers were expected to be the tip of the sword for assimilation policies and were instrumental in decimating Welsh, Gaelic (including on Cape Breton Island), Cajun French, Romansh, Kashubian and many others.
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True, it is the opposite there since there are closer ties between Cieszyn and Poland inc. in liturgy.
That is After Frederick the Great acquired Silesia, if he did not acquired Silesia, the Lechitic/Polish Silesian Lutherans and Catholics would prefer Poland but the Lutherans would have more drive to rejoin Poland ITTL, this is why the Poles can be given parts of Silesia by Rivals of the Habsburgs i.e. Wettins or Palatinate Wittelsbachs in exchange of support to the Bohemian crown and Maria Teresa also wanted to make a deal with the Polish Wettins ITTL.
In any case, Poland should aspire to acquire both Opole and Cieszyn in their entirety as it is the only logical step after the parts of Cieszyn and Opole that the Polish Crown gained.
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How does Poland acquire anything? In FtG's time she was a negligible quantity as far as military power went.
It is just possible that her *King*, Augustus the Strong, might somehow acquire parts of Silesia [1], but if so he'd be more likely to incorporate them into his own Electorate of Saxony rather tan into the PLC.
[1] However, his likeliest way of doing so would be if Charles VI died earlier (say early in 1720) and the 2yo Maria Theresa were passed over in favour of Augustus' daughter-in-law, Archduchess Maria Josefa. But in that event those areas would probably just remain Austrian rather than be added to Saxony/Poland. Indeed, AtG would be more likely to transfer a chunk of Poland to Austria rather than vice versa.
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Augustus the Strong would not have wanted to acquire Opole and Cieszyn as parts of Poland but it would be Maria Theresa who would force it to gain support in Silesia against Fred the Great, it is better if the Vasas acquire Opole and Cieszyn from the Palatinate rulers of Bohemia in exchange of alliance or the Vasas retain control of Opole gaining Cieszyn at a later date to secure Polish borders.