AHC - French-speaking Scotland

Palomnik

With a POD after 1200 AD, the challenge is this: Make Scotland a Francophone country to the present day, with French as the first language of >90% of the Scottish population, and French as either the official language of the Scottish state and government or the lingua franca for the country.

Scots Gaelic (Gàidhlig) may be spoken to a greater or lesser extent than IOTL, and Scotland may be officially or de facto bilingual French and Gaelic. English may be spoken in border regions or among English immigrants, but should not constitute more than a minority language. Similarly there may be many other minority languages as IOTL (e.g. Irish, German, Spanish, Swedish, and more recent communities such as Chinese, Punjabi, etc), but these predominantly remain spoken only in the home, and are subordinate to French.

What this might mean in terms of politics and religion is up for debate. Would it butterfly away the Scottish Enlightenment? Would Scotland be Protestant or Catholic? Would there still be a Scottish monarchy? What would Scotland's relations with England be like?
 
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Marc Pasquin

Marc Pasquin

Palomnik said:
With a POD after 1200 AD, the challenge is this: Make Scotland a Francophone country to the present day, with French as the first language of >90% of the Scottish population, and French as either the official language of the Scottish state and government or the lingua franca for the country.

Scots Gaelic (Gàidhlig) may be spoken to a greater or lesser extent than IOTL, and Scotland may be officially or de facto bilingual French and Gaelic. English may be spoken in border regions or among English immigrants, but should not constitute more than a minority language. Similarly there may be many other minority languages as IOTL (e.g. Irish, German, Spanish, Swedish, and more recent communities such as Chinese, Punjabi, etc), but these predominantly remain spoken only in the home, and are subordinate to French.

What this might mean in terms of politics and religion is up for debate. Would it butterfly away the Scottish Enlightenment? Would Scotland be Protestant or Catholic? Would there still be a Scottish monarchy? What would Scotland's relations with England be like?
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What about King Francis II of france does not die and have a child with his wife Mary queen of scotland ? he ends up inheriting both kingdom which eventualy unite in a manner similar to to the UK OTL with French being the language of administration. It has a trickled down effect as the nobility and the merchant class learn it and scots and gaelic becomes deprecated "lower class" languages.
 

jakewilson

It's very easily workable so long as England, too, speaks French as their main language, which I think is plausible.
 

Falecius

Anglo-Saxon uprising combined with worse failure for John Lackland leads to th end of Norman rule in England (throw in a random invasion, say Danish, for the lulz). Anglo-Norman speaking noble find widespread hosting in Scotland due to alternate marital ties caused by some more lucky relationship between the Plantagenets and Mac Alpins.
Trickle down effect causes the French dialect of the new nobility to firmly establish in the Lowlands and then consolidating and spreading thanks to prestige policy.
 
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