AHC/Linguistic WI: Romance Norway

Aluma

Aluma

That may be ASB, maybe even very ASB, but I'm curious because I've seen threads on Catholic Norway, romance-speaking Iceland and Denmark being annexed by a latin country as well so I wonder if it would be possible for the "land of the norse" to speak a latinised language(not necessarily be catholic mind you) and how it'd sound like.

This is of course not a Latin Escandinavia WI because I think getting Norway to go romance is hard enough, but bonus point if this Norway is able to widely spread it's language, be it through good ol' immigration & trading or something like a Alt-Kalmar Union.

Also like I said, because of how difficult this might be it's fine if you dont think this scenario is possible, but if you dont wanna discuss a POD I would still like very much if you could talk about how you think this hypothetical language would be like.
 

Otto Kretschmer

Banned
BrSonic said:
That may be ASB, maybe even very ASB, but I'm curious because I've seen threads on Catholic Norway, romance-speaking Iceland and Denmark being annexed by a latin country as well so I wonder if it would be possible for the "land of the norse" to speak a latinised language(not necessarily be catholic mind you) and how it'd sound like.

This is of course not a Latin Escandinavia WI because I think getting Norway to go romance is hard enough, but bonus point if this Norway is able to widely spread it's language, be it through good ol' immigration & trading or something like a Alt-Kalmar Union.

Also like I said, because of how difficult this might be it's fine if you dont think this scenario is possible, but if you dont wanna discuss a POD I would still like very much if you could talk about how you think this hypothetical language would be like.
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A good PoD would be Romanized Magna Germania which then expands northwards and romanizes Norway.

Linguistics depends on how much Germanic influence there is on Vulgar Latin. If it's strong, then the language may develop in the direction of French or North Italian languages, if not it may be like Spanish/Italian
 

Gloss

BrSonic said:
Ah my favorite solution & cause to historical problems, Britannia
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I mean I choose England because any other north sea polity would probably one that would more likely just expand through Denmark northwards which is boring, while a purely naval conquest of West Norway would leave a Romance enclave in Scandinavia.
 
Xenophonte

Xenophonte

Otto Kretschmer said:
Linguistics depends on how much Germanic influence there is on Vulgar Latin. If it's strong, then the language may develop in the direction of French or North Italian languages, if not it may be like Spanish/Italian
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And/or even it could develop in the Romanian way... But, anyway, it, the evolution and influence of the Latin in a Romanized Germany would depend, on the extent of its Romanization. Which would depend on the size of the Latin speaking immigration and assimilation and on the time of the Roman authority and administration over this proposed Romanized Germany.
 
Clandango

Clandango

This is a tough one. How early can we get a couple tens of thousands of monasteries speaking Latin languages in Western Europe? I would suggest having the monks enslaved by the Vikings to perhaps do all their writing in Latin, though back then I suppose the Danes and Norse would not need administrators brought to their homelands to do paperwork. How much of Norway has to have this language? Even today not all the country speaks the Danish inspired Bokmål, with many regions in the west going with Nynorsk, based upon local dialects among the communities tucked between the mountains and fjords. I would suggest having the Romans or some later group set something up in Denmark to act as the main traders in the Baltic, but go back too far back and there may not enough ports and infrastructure to take advantage of the amber, iron, fish, wheat, furs, wood, etc.
 
Xenophonte

Xenophonte

Would be possible that either during the Naval side of the Emperors Agricola or Severus, expeditions to the upper half of Britania, that some Roman ships might be blown off course and somewhat they and their crews would survive to reach some point of the Norway coasts? If, so, perhaps it would be a way to at least to get the bases of an Romance speaking population there...
 

Otto Kretschmer

Banned
IMO Norway is crappy enough dat even Norwegians themselves preferred to life somewhere else. The Romans considered Britain and Germany to be frigid wastelands, what would they have thought of Norway?
 
Aluma

Aluma

Clandango said:
How much of Norway has to have this language? Even today not all the country speaks the Danish inspired Bokmål, with many regions in the west going with Nynorsk, based upon local dialects among the communities tucked between the mountains and fjords.
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All of it! ...okay I'm kidding
I think to the same degree as say Spain or Portugal though
There are many minority languages? Heck yeah, galician and catalan for example, but you wouldnt imagine them without spanish and portuguese as the main ones
So it's fine if there are one region or another that doesnt speak romance but the goal is still the majority of the norwegian people using "norweghese"
 
Aluma

Aluma

Xenophonte said:
But, anyway, it, the evolution and influence of the Latin in a Romanized Germany would depend, on the extent of its Romanization
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Clandango said:
This is a tough one. How early can we get a couple tens of thousands of monasteries speaking Latin languages in Western Europe?
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I think romanizing the whole Germany might be too much, it'd take a lot of effort from the romans and by that point it'd be "WI Roman Germania"
But another idea: why not both?
We know the germanic tribes adopted arian Christianity so if they used writen & liturgic latin they could export that to Scandinavia
If one or two of these tribes(but not all of Germany) went full romance that could speed up the process as well
 

Falecius

BrSonic said:
All of it! ...okay I'm kidding
I think to the same degree as say Spain or Portugal though
There are many minority languages? Heck yeah, galician and catalan for example, but you wouldnt imagine them without spanish and portuguese as the main ones
So it's fine if there are one region or another that doesnt speak romance but the goal is still the majority of the norwegian people using "norweghese"
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Galician and Catalan are both Romance though.
 
Clandango

Clandango

Atterdag said:
Bonus points if this language is confined to Romerike, it just makes sense.
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No relation to Rome. I have family in Møre and Romsdal in a different part of the country, so I imagine there are multiple places with it. Hmmm, if you find enough regions with Rom, Rum, Raum, etc at the beginning of it and have them all be major sources of Vikings (or even have the people translate aviking/to wonder as to roam. It wouldn’t make much sense, nor change the language, but people might end up calling the Norse Romans. Normandy could end up being called Romandy/Romandie. They would need to think of a different name for the Franchophonic portion of Switzerland, as the region’s would be close enough that they can’t be easily differentiated. Might be people end up thinking the Vikings are descended from Roman river patrols who sailed down the Rhine and ended up in Scandinavia.
 
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