I agree that in order for a an area of continental Europe to give up its language, it would need to be fairly isolated and have a fairly weak identity. Additionally, it would need proximity to England.
I would argue that the most isolated part of continental Europe is Norway. For all intensive purposes, it could be an island as the only country with appropriate land routes there is Sweden.
Norway is at its weakest in all ways after it got DESTROYED by the plague in the mid-1300s. Its population was depleted by over 1/3 (to less than 350,000 people!), agricultural yields were worse every year, and it had lost a lot of its identity by being dominated by Sweden and Denmark over the past centuries. The population of Norway was scattered and non-urban.
At this point the Norwegian royalty opted to form the Danish-dominated Kalmar Union with the Danes and the Swedes. If this didn't work (say, Sweden never joins, Denmark suffers badly from the Plague and a war w/ some German state, and kill off the correct Norwegian nobility [if not ALL of them]), maybe England could come into to fill the power vacuum, incorporating Norway (and later Iceland) into a North Sea kingdom. British merchants could set up Hanseatic-esque trading posts in Norwegian and Icelandic fjords and literally colonize these lands which were almost as sparsely populated as coastal New England in the 1600s.
Eventually Norwegian would die out or be considered a dying dialect of Swedish or Danish spoken by agrarian communities. Norway (possibly "Northway" would be a full-fledged member of a United Kingdom analog in modern times where in the population would be overwhelmingly of British Isles ancestry.
What do you think?
I would argue that the most isolated part of continental Europe is Norway. For all intensive purposes, it could be an island as the only country with appropriate land routes there is Sweden.
Norway is at its weakest in all ways after it got DESTROYED by the plague in the mid-1300s. Its population was depleted by over 1/3 (to less than 350,000 people!), agricultural yields were worse every year, and it had lost a lot of its identity by being dominated by Sweden and Denmark over the past centuries. The population of Norway was scattered and non-urban.
At this point the Norwegian royalty opted to form the Danish-dominated Kalmar Union with the Danes and the Swedes. If this didn't work (say, Sweden never joins, Denmark suffers badly from the Plague and a war w/ some German state, and kill off the correct Norwegian nobility [if not ALL of them]), maybe England could come into to fill the power vacuum, incorporating Norway (and later Iceland) into a North Sea kingdom. British merchants could set up Hanseatic-esque trading posts in Norwegian and Icelandic fjords and literally colonize these lands which were almost as sparsely populated as coastal New England in the 1600s.
Eventually Norwegian would die out or be considered a dying dialect of Swedish or Danish spoken by agrarian communities. Norway (possibly "Northway" would be a full-fledged member of a United Kingdom analog in modern times where in the population would be overwhelmingly of British Isles ancestry.
What do you think?