So, with a PoD after 450, how can the northern half of France (the OTL langue d'oïl area) end up speaking a language that does not belong in the Romance stratum, preferably a Germanic one?
A non-Romance-speaking northern France?
- Thread starter GauchoBadger
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Hmm... maybe Aetius dies at Rimini along with Bonifatius, leaving nobody to restore Roman authority in Gaul.
Perhaps similar to Britain? A reduction in population at the same time as nonRomance settlers come in who have an initial avoidance of large Roman settlements, causing fall back with isolated pockets.
The very north of France was germanic speaking even IOTL, city names like Dunkirk (Duinkerke - Dunechurch) are clear indicators of this. Ironically a good way to make northern Gaul germanic speaking would be to have a Western Roman Empirie, that can keep its' core mediterranean territories, i.e. Italy, Provence, the Iberian peninsula, north Africa and Dalmatia from being overrun by the barbarians. This would result in higher germanic population numbers and thus a higher population density in northern and eastern Gaul, which would not only make them a majority or at least a significant plurality in the region compared to the original Gallo-Roman population, but would also create a push factor for the remaining Gallo-Roman population there (if there's less free real estate available, more Gallo-Roman farmers would get displaced from their land by their new germanic masters. With fewer Gallo-Roman subjects to rule over, the Franks, Vandals &c. would see far less of a need to learn Latin, and northern Gaul would thus become germanic speaking.
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Perhaps we can have Romans give Northern France to the Franks rather than the Romans giving up Aquitaine to Visigoths.
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Aquitaine was given to the Visigoths IOTL, not the Franks. The Franks got OTL Belgium, but after they defeated Syagrius in 486 they took over most of Gaul and in the early 6th century conquered Aquitaine from the Visigoths, who had by then shifted the centre of their realm to Hispania, moving their capital from Bordeaux to Toledo.
Perhaps we can avoid Aquitaine being given up to the Visigoths and instead the Romans lose Northern France.
I thought the northern part of France was already too populated to significantly shift the linguistic border south. OTL I believe it already shifted south quite a bit, although it is a bit hard to exactly know what areas spoke Gallo-Romanic and which spoke a Germanic dialect. I Always thought the rest of northern France was basicly too heavily populated to switch its language to the Frankish language.
We have example of similarly populated regions switching languages fairly quickly, for example Arabization of the Levant, Mesopotamia and Egypt or the Turkification of Anatolia or Slavicization of the Balkans.
I think changing how early Frankish rule was could work towards it, though a 450 CE limit for the POD limits us insofar as other Germanic peoples are concerned(Alemanni and Burgundi specifically)
IOTL the Franks, Burgundians, Suebi and Vandals, crossing the Rhine into Gaul, were all able to carve out realms of their own of significant size within Roman and thus Romance speaking territory, thus becoming a tiny minority in the areas they controlled and having no choice but to assimiliate linguistically. If those tribes remain hemmed in north of the Loire, their population density in that region might be high enough to force their language(s) on the conquered Gallo-Roman population, the way the Anglo-Saxons were able to germanize the Romano-Britons. The higher germanic population density there would also have the knock-on effect, that there wouldn't be enough free real estate to accomodate all the germanic chieftain's retainers, thus resulting in the displacement of Gallo-Roman population from their property in the area, thus reducing the high Gallo-Roman population density and making germanization easier.
We can combine it with the longer survival of Gaulish in the Massif as well.
Or a faster romanization, after all, the Gallo-Romans displaced from northern Gaul have to move somewhere.
I don't think the idea that the Germans spread out was the main factor why germanization didn't happen, I think that the way they settled and what happened to some of them didn't allow as much germanization as it could have been.
Just a different Treaty of Verdun in 843 which would have attached Neustria to Saxony instead of Aquitaine.
Until the 9th century, Northern Gaul (Neustria) had a mixed lingustic profile Romance (Oeil Dialect) - Frankish, but after Verdun the remainders of Frankish died out in favour to Romance speaking. If Neustria would have been attached to Saxony (Northern Francia vs South Francia instead of IOTL East Francia vs West Francia), probably a West Germanic koine based on both Frankish and Saxon dialects would have emerged as a common national language if such division would have endured.
Until the 9th century, Northern Gaul (Neustria) had a mixed lingustic profile Romance (Oeil Dialect) - Frankish, but after Verdun the remainders of Frankish died out in favour to Romance speaking. If Neustria would have been attached to Saxony (Northern Francia vs South Francia instead of IOTL East Francia vs West Francia), probably a West Germanic koine based on both Frankish and Saxon dialects would have emerged as a common national language if such division would have endured.
While I think having Neustria be attached to Germany would help pushing the border of Germanic westward I don't think it would easily go beyond the Somme or upper Meuse as a local language.
And where do we place Lotharingia in this kind of division? Of course the early death of one of the 3 brothers might be the trigger for the different partition. The imperial title ITTL would of course remain firmly attached to the southern "Roman" Empire, so we never get the nonsensical term "Holy Roman Empire of German Nationality" later on.
It would depend on how this 'North Francia' develops.
If Neustria remains as one of the main social and political cores with their own nobility, probably the Romance Oeil will more or less keep its ground and the linguistic borders would just shift a little even if a bilingual situation in most of Neustria might be plausible.
If Neustria somehow drifts to a more peripheral role and Saxony becomes more central, it is likely that some kind of gradual linguistic imposition will take place.
An important key factor could also be how this alt-Francia deals with Viking raids, as an eventual depopulation of the Ile-de-France caused by Viking occupations like IOTL 885 could be fixed ITTL with a Saxon/Rhenish Frankish repopulation instead of Romance-speaking people from other parts of Gaul, something that could trigger a quicker linguistic substitution.
What about the plague or epidemics during the fall of Rome or Justinian Era where large population of Northern Gaul/Northern France would be affected mostly and population centers are wiped out by the disease? Would the post plague Northern Gaul fell into anarchy and subsequent raids that would allow Germanicization which would take centuries?