AHC: Latin speaking Germany

With a POD of your choice, have all territory west of the Oder river speak a Latin/Romance language.

Some ideas for PODs:

  • Roman conquest of Germania
  • Surviving Frankish Empire
  • Catholic influence much stronger, resulting in a Latin-speaking Catholic world

Bonus points if there is little or no ethnic boundary between OTL French and Germans (perhaps more like the Scandinavian countries?)
 
Everything west of the Elbe is probably doable, but I'm not sure of the Oder. Perhaps if the Romans conquer to the Elbe, Latin slowly disseminates into the German tribes across the river over time and a corrupted dialect of Latin becomes dominant between the Elbe and Oder?
 
I'd go for roman conquest which lasted at least a hundred years. A settlement policy that is harsh enough could do the trick, I mean, there's a nation ITL which supposedly have learnt perfect latin (at lest better latin than franch or spanish) in a rapid course of 50 years. - I'm looking at you, Romania ;)

Perhaps the Romans conquering the Suebi is not far-fetched, and if after the collapsion of the Empire a German nation rises with the capital in Scwaben (Suebia), it could achive something with luck.

You would have a romance language: Suäbian, Suäbese? :)
 
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I'd go for roman conquest which lasted at least a hundred years. A settlement policy that is harsh enough could do the trick, I mean, there's a nation ITL which supposedly have learnt perfect latin (at lest better latin than franch or spanish) in a rapid course of 50 years. - I'm looking at you, Romania ;)

Perhaps the Romans conquering the Suebi is not far-fetched, and if after the collapsion of the Empire a German nation rises with the capital in Scwaben (Suebia), it could achive something with luck.

You would have a romance language: Suäbian, Suäbese? :)

Other than the fact that you'd have to cross the mountains to get to Swabia, I'm inclined to agree that this is more likely than, say, a Roman Frysland or a Roman Saxony. I'd imagine that Suäbese would end up sorta like a French-Romansch mashup with a goodly amount of High German influence (possibly with consonant shifts to really f**k with some Romance-linguist heads? :p).
 
I'd go for roman conquest which lasted at least a hundred years. A settlement policy that is harsh enough could do the trick, I mean, there's a nation ITL which supposedly have learnt perfect latin (at lest better latin than franch or spanish) in a rapid course of 50 years. - I'm looking at you, Romania ;)

The circumstances of the evolution of Romanian are... fuzzy. Its quite possible that the Romanized population followed the Legions when the border was drawn back to the Danube (which, by the way, was nearly 2 centuries after it was conquered) and then Latin-speaking people moved back into the defensible region as the Empire collapsed further.
 
DominusNovus:
But the Suebi also have a mountain for defense like the Dacians did, and we have huge romanized populations in the Po Valley and Gallia which could also be a force to resettle Suebia, should things not be working well enough for them. So it could work out.

Fleetmac:
As for the language, I just imagine what the High German Consonant Shift would have done to a decent romance language. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_consonant_shift

Here, I just invented a language for them:
"Cho më fa teflässer Äkusda-Findlichrüm al chömmerszio tael krann für cheramicha toftömann masszina." - I will go to Augusta Vindelicorum to trade wheat for pottery the day after tomorrow morning.
 
DominusNovus:
But the Suebi also have a mountain for defense like the Dacians did, and we have huge romanized populations in the Po Valley and Gallia which could also be a force to resettle Suebia, should things not be working well enough for them. So it could work out.

Not saying it couldn't. Just that Romania is a tricky example to draw comparisons from since we just aren't sure what happened there.
 
It's tricky, but can be done if we twist the definition of Germany :

In this exemple, by considering that Germans or their ATL equivalent never replaced and/or assimilated slavic, blatic and northern germanic peoples.

Some places as Trever had still an important Romance (Gallo-Romance? Germano-Romance?) presence after the fall of the empire, but they were both isolates and dominated by an elite that was either germanic or originally romance that adopted their uses.

An earlier conversion of Franks and other western germanic peoples, under arian variant, would prevent more easily this mix and could accentue differenciation of germanic/romans elites.

Eventually, Frankish rulers (as other arian peoples) would be forced to convert themselves by the social pressure (summarized : refusal of romances elites and the presence of a pro-orthodox faction amongst german elites), but you could see a more strong romance presence along the Rhine, enough to maintain a latin use.

I think it would be rather the same than Gallo-Romance speeches, but depending on the political outcomes, would end more or less germanized due to Frankish (or ATL equivalent) and maintain of germanic languages on both banks of the Rhine.

In short : either a really distinct dialect of *French (as Franco-Provencal) or a language of its own.

Eventually, either the "Rheino-Romance" speeches would be dominant in the regions where it exist (and not only in the cities and their immediates backgrounds or isolates), or it could end as a minoritary language (Sorab-scale).
 
An earlier conversion of Franks and other western germanic peoples, under arian variant, would prevent more easily this mix and could accentue differenciation of germanic/romans elites.

As a point of clarification, there wasn't necessarily anything inherent about Arianism that lent itself to being more acceptable to the Germans. It just happened to be the denomination favored by the imperial court when the Goths were converted.
 
As a point of clarification, there wasn't necessarily anything inherent about Arianism that lent itself to being more acceptable to the Germans. It just happened to be the denomination favored by the imperial court when the Goths were converted.

I disagree up safe the formal point : while the conversion to Arianism proper was due to that, its maintain amongst the germans even in heavily orthodox regions is largely due to a need of separation between roman and germans (especially the elites), itself for multiples reasons (prevent the appearance of a too important nobility that wouldn't be tied so much to the germanic kingship, preserve a germanic "identity" among the warrior elite that was a charge no longer assumed by roman elites as a whole.

Eventually homeist peoples saw the fusion between their elites really delayed, when catholic germans (Franks and Burgonds) had this since the VI century, making the gallo-romans imitating the "barbarians" (Bruno Dumézil used the word "Playing barbarians")
 
I disagree up safe the formal point : while the conversion to Arianism proper was due to that, its maintain amongst the germans even in heavily orthodox regions is largely due to a need of separation between roman and germans (especially the elites), itself for multiples reasons (prevent the appearance of a too important nobility that wouldn't be tied so much to the germanic kingship, preserve a germanic "identity" among the warrior elite that was a charge no longer assumed by roman elites as a whole.

And yet, when the Goths first converted in 376, it was under an Arian Emperor, Valens.
 
And yet, when the Goths first converted in 376, it was under an Arian Emperor, Valens.

While risking to repeat myself : While Goths (while not the only german to do so) converted to Arianism for such reasons, they maintained (as in after the conversion) it in order to maintain a greater separation between german and romans.
As such, yes, conversion of Franks to arianism (that was a possible outcome, critically with a more important visigothic influence in Northern Gaul, with part of Frankish aristocracy being arian itself) would have represented a factor for limitating and delay the fusion between gallo/germano-roman and german populations.
 
I think you need an early POD. A fourth century POD is too late in my opinion.
Other members of AH.com have pointed out (in other threads) that an Augustan conquest of Germania with a border at the Elbe River is nearly impossible.
Setting the Weser River as the border instead is ambitous but doable.
This gives you the possebility to have a strong Latin majority along the Rhine when the Empire begins to crumble a few centuries later.
It would also work wonders to keep the area between Rhine and Danube that was lost IOTL to the Suebs.

The OTL Medieval German East Migration origined along the Rhine.
TTL could see a Romance East Migration.

On the other hand:
A Roman border on the Weser might lead to a more densly populated (Germanic) Lower Saxony and furthermore probably to an already German Mecklenburg and Brandenburg by the begin of the middle ages.
But I guess that a strong Romance state centered around the Rhine could conquer Holstein and open the Baltic coast for TTL (Romance speaking) Hansa.
Coastal towns and the major population centers might turn Romance speaking because of the economical bonds with tje Hansa and because of influx of settlers from the Rhine area.

Everything east of the Oder and Pomerania could be majority Romance by the end of the medieval period, with Germanic enclaves in the Harz Mountains, along Havel and Spree and other less favorable places.
With the Industrial Age many of the last Germanics will be assimilated into the Romance speaking population. Religous unity might help with that.


I think your scenario is possible with a 1st century POD.

:)
 
While risking to repeat myself : While Goths (while not the only german to do so) converted to Arianism for such reasons, they maintained (as in after the conversion) it in order to maintain a greater separation between german and romans.
As such, yes, conversion of Franks to arianism (that was a possible outcome, critically with a more important visigothic influence in Northern Gaul, with part of Frankish aristocracy being arian itself) would have represented a factor for limitating and delay the fusion between gallo/germano-roman and german populations.

At which point, its the maintenance of said religion that matters, rather than the original adoption. So the point about the germans adopting an arian variant earlier on is moot.
 
At which point, its the maintenance of said religion that matters, rather than the original adoption. So the point about the germans adopting an arian variant earlier on is moot.

I didn't earlier adoption by Germans as a whole, but earlier adoption by Franks, that as you know, remained mostly pagans by the time they entered in Gaul while other germans were converted when entering Romania.

The historical decision that led Franks to convert to orthodox christianism, allowed to an easier fusion between german and roman elites.
On the other hand, for what concerned other germanic peoples that maintained arianism (for aforementioned reasons), this fusion was delayed (by a concious policy) and germans relativly minorised up to their conversion to orthodoxy.

If we want to prevent the germanisation of romance-speaking pockets in Rhineland, making Franks adopting arianism (any other unorthodox belief could do it, but arianism is by far the more plausible) instead of orthodoxy, could help by preventing partially the fusion of elites and keeping gallo/germano-romances peoples in these regions romance-speaking.

While not easy of its own, it's still doable : part of Frankish elites seems to have adopted arianism OTL before Clovis baptism (his sister, for instance), a more influential Visigothic kingdom could do it, a less successful Frankish hegemony on Belgica could lead to the fear of "lost itself" into the local population.
 
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