AHC: make New Orleans the largest or second largest French speaking city in the world

[John7755 يوحنا]

AHC: Make New Orleans (Nouvelle Orléans) the largest or second largest French speaking in the world, by 2000 onwards.

With a POD in 1800. It can be like a OTL Montreal but as long as the majority of its inhabitants speak some form of French.

Also what would be the effect of such a city on the U.S as a whole in modern times.

 

[LSCatilina]

A larger deportation of French Canadians, as not only Acadians but the whole of them?

Coupled with a possible British takeover in Carribeans as well (in the case of a crushing victory in SVY) making an earlier and larger Haitian migration in Lousiana possible?

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

I'm not sure how big a city you can have there, built on swamps etc. Surely we can do a bit better than the <600k of OTL, but how much better?

Then, we've got to compare it to French cities, and other French speaking cities.

Obviously Paris is #1, and wiil stay that way.

But Lyons and Marseilles are way bigger than New Orleans, and probably bigger than the latter has a hope of being. So you'd need to keep those cities much smaller than iOTL, and I have no idea how to do it.

You also have Tolouse, Lille, Bordeaux and Nice to worry about.

In addition, you have Montreal at 1.6 M (again bigger than New Orleans can reasonably hope to be), plus lots and lots of ex-colonial cities.

In fact, of the list
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=216789
all 25 (seemingly metro area, not just the city itself) cities are larger than New Orleans, and most are larger than New Orleans has any hope to be.

So....

Tough. Probably not reasonably doable.

 

[Terranoso]

You'd have to virtually depopulate many large cities in France. They may not grow very quickly, but the French have too much of a head start on New Orleans to make it reasonable by 2000.

 

[John7755 يوحنا]

I'm not sure how big a city you can have there, built on swamps etc. Surely we can do a bit better than the <600k of OTL, but how much better?

Then, we've got to compare it to French cities, and other French speaking cities.

Obviously Paris is #1, and wiil stay that way.

But Lyons and Marseilles are way bigger than New Orleans, and probably bigger than the latter has a hope of being. So you'd need to keep those cities much smaller than iOTL, and I have no idea how to do it.

You also have Tolouse, Lille, Bordeaux and Nice to worry about.

In addition, you have Montreal at 1.6 M (again bigger than New Orleans can reasonably hope to be), plus lots and lots of ex-colonial cities.

In fact, of the list
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=216789
all 25 (seemingly metro area, not just the city itself) cities are larger than New Orleans, and most are larger than New Orleans has any hope to be.

So....

Tough. Probably not reasonably doable.

From what I have read New Orleans was 3rd or 5th largest city in the U.S at varied times in the 1800s, so I wouldn't say it is impossible. As well, it could be possible to emphasize the port. Anyway to make the port more important than it was? Or more importantly keeping it's importance.

A situation where a larger amount of Haitians moving in might work.

French from Canada might work, but there is no guarantee that they will move to New Orleans. Most likely they will just build more cities/towns like Lafayette.

In 1860, New Orleans had a population of 168,675 compared to Marsielle in 1851 with 195,350, Toulouse 1851 95,277, Lille 158,000 in 1872, Nice 48,273 in 1861, Montreal 141,276 or Paris 1.6 million 1861.

Paris might be uncatchable, but the others are not.

 

[John7755 يوحنا]

You'd have to virtually depopulate many large cities in France. They may not grow very quickly, but the French have too much of a head start on New Orleans to make it reasonable by 2000.

Read the numbers I put on the reply to the other poster, only Marsielle and Paris where larger in 1860.

 

[John7755 يوحنا]

I'm not sure how big a city you can have there, built on swamps etc. Surely we can do a bit better than the <600k of OTL, but how much better?

Then, we've got to compare it to French cities, and other French speaking cities.

Obviously Paris is #1, and wiil stay that way.

But Lyons and Marseilles are way bigger than New Orleans, and probably bigger than the latter has a hope of being. So you'd need to keep those cities much smaller than iOTL, and I have no idea how to do it.

You also have Tolouse, Lille, Bordeaux and Nice to worry about.

In addition, you have Montreal at 1.6 M (again bigger than New Orleans can reasonably hope to be), plus lots and lots of ex-colonial cities.

In fact, of the list
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=216789
all 25 (seemingly metro area, not just the city itself) cities are larger than New Orleans, and most are larger than New Orleans has any hope to be.

So....

Tough. Probably not reasonably doable.

As well New Orleans is no where close to being a French speaking city atm, trust me on that.

 

[Minchandre]

Making it a major port of arrivals for immigrants will probably do a lot of the work - after all, that's how New York got to be the biggest city in the States, and Montreal the second largest in Canada, and several others (San Francisco before the earthquake, Vancouver, Buenos Aires, Sydney...)

That creates two problems:
1. How do we make New Orleans the biggest port of arrival for the US (or another state...), considering that it's thousands of kilometers further than the Eastern Seaboard from Europe
2. How do we keep it Francophone? Montreal's status as a major port of immigration means that, today, it's basically the least French part of Quebec (about half, as I recall).

I guess in both cases we probably would want an independent French Louisiana of at least moderate size (to sustain a city of a few million).

 

['Ezana]

Coupled with a possible British takeover in Carribeans as well (in the case of a crushing victory in SVY) making an earlier and larger Haitian migration in Lousiana possible?

From what I have read New Orleans was A situation where a larger amount of Haitians moving in might work.

Paris might be uncatchable, but the others are not.

Most Haitians (90-95%) speak Haitian Creole, not French, so more Haitian migrants would decrease the proportion of French speakers in the city. Only 5-10% of Haitians speak French, the vast majority of whom are wealthy enough that they have little incentive to leave Haiti. The only two mass migrations of Francophone Haitians--after the Revolution, and during Duvalier's regime--were usually aimed at wealthier areas than New Orleans. Many Francophone Haitians settled in France or Québec, while New Orleans was primarily settled by poorer Creole-speaking immigrants. So if you want Francophone Haitian migrants (who probably aren't a large enough demographic to help that much), you also need to make New Orleans attractive to wealthy/upper middle class Francophone immigrants.

Also, we should also take into account the large Francophone cities outside of France. Kinshasa, with ~9 million people if memory serves, is considered to be the second largest Francophone city in the world, so a POD growing New Orleans' population will need to somehow stop Kinshasa (as well as Abidjan, which is another big Francophone city) from growing (OTL Kinshasa is expected to overtake Paris), or from being colonized by French-speakers in the first place. I think a potential solution to the demographic problem of African Francophone cities is to have France and Belgium colonize less populous regions. For example, instead of colonizing Ivory Coast and the Congo, have them colonize Mali and Namibia, places which cannot sustain huge urban Francophone populations.

 

[John7755 يوحنا]

Most Haitians (90-95%) speak Haitian Creole, not French, so more Haitian migrants would decrease the proportion of French speakers in the city. Only 5-10% of Haitians speak French, the vast majority of whom are wealthy enough that they have little incentive to leave Haiti. The only two mass migrations of Francophone Haitians--after the Revolution, and during Duvalier's regime--were usually aimed at wealthier areas than New Orleans. Many Francophone Haitians settled in France or Québec, while New Orleans was primarily settled by poorer Creole-speaking immigrants. So if you want Francophone Haitian migrants (who probably aren't a large enough demographic to help that much), you also need to make New Orleans attractive to wealthy/upper middle class Francophone immigrants.

Also, we should also take into account the large Francophone cities outside of France. Kinshasa, with ~9 million people if memory serves, is considered to be the second largest Francophone city in the world, so a POD growing New Orleans' population will need to somehow stop Kinshasa (as well as Abidjan, which is another big Francophone city) from growing (OTL Kinshasa is expected to overtake Paris), or from being colonized by French-speakers in the first place. I think a potential solution to the demographic problem of African Francophone cities is to have France and Belgium colonize less populous regions. For example, instead of colonizing Ivory Coast and the Congo, have them colonize Mali and Namibia, places which cannot sustain huge urban Francophone populations.

Now Hatians speak Hatian creole but if moved en masse as many did after Haiti won its independence would see them be somewhat assimilated into the greater French culture of New Orleans.

Yes, I agree Africa is a huge problem for New Orleans, as you said, perhaps France owning Egypt, Sahara, Ivory etc would limit the possibility of French cities outside Europe or America with hugely significant populations.

From what I see the hardest part would be keeping New Orleans Francophone.

 

['Ezana]

Now Hatians speak Hatian creole but if moved en masse as many did after Haiti won its independence would see them be somewhat assimilated into the greater French culture of New Orleans

This could work if New Orleans already has a huge population of French speakers by the time of the revolution or if there is some other impetus for Haitians to assimilate (OTL they didn't really assimilate). According to wiki, the Haitian migration doubled the cities population, with a large proportion of the new immigrants probably speaking only Creole. Granted, the influx of Haitian immigrants also ensured that Francophones were the majority of the city's white population until 1830; maybe a white Francophone majority can encourage the black population to adopt the French language as a means of social advancement?

As for keeping New Orleans French, that would probably require some incentive for Americans to speak French in general (assuming that New Orleans is in the US in this scenario) so that the Americanization of New Orleans (which seems somewhat inevitable if it's part of America in this scenario) does not mean an abandonment of French. If you can get France to dominate Europe and maintain a colonial empire, then French will be the global lingua franca instead of English. Louisiana French speakers would have a huge incentive to maintain their language in such a scenario. Alternately, you could make the US collapse so that it can't take New Orleans, which is surprisingly easy looking at the scenarios on AH.com. From there, a lot of things could happen to New Orleans, but the major pressure to abandon French has been removed.

 

[Fardell]

Also, we should also take into account the large Francophone cities outside of France. Kinshasa, with ~9 million people if memory serves, is considered to be the second largest Francophone city in the world, so a POD growing New Orleans' population will need to somehow stop Kinshasa (as well as Abidjan, which is another big Francophone city) from growing (OTL Kinshasa is expected to overtake Paris), or from being colonized by French-speakers in the first place.

Would it possible to have a Flemish speaking Kinshasa?

 

[Flashman]

Would it possible to have a Flemish speaking Kinshasa?

That would require some quite large changes to Belgian history, and very probably a different Napoleonic Wars

 

['Ezana]

Would it possible to have a Flemish speaking Kinshasa?

That would require some quite large changes to Belgian history, and very probably a different Napoleonic Wars

Maybe, although you might not have to go as far back as the Napoleonic Wars. See this link. Apparently, there was supposed to be "Flemish and French parity" in the Congo, but French was favored from the beginning. This mirrors the linguistic situation in Belgium, where Flemish was stigmatized and French was used pretty exclusively in the public sphere. However, the very acknowledgment of Flemish in the charter means that there's at least a legal basis for a more widespread Flemish.

Despite that, there's still the issue that the colonial elites speak French, not Flemish. To circumvent that, you would need to have a large population of Dutch or Flemish speakers in the Congo. For instance, Leopold II could employ Dutch mercenaries to secure the Congo before the Belgian government takes over. These mercenaries could settle down and form a more local elite class. Maybe you could also get more Belgians to immigrate from Flanders as opposed to Wallonia. Flanders was much poorer, so there is a push factor; the issue is that the Congo is a lucrative colony, and as such, they would have to compete with profit-seeking Walloons to immigrate to the Congo. Another idea is that an increased presence of Flemish and Dutch missionaries could increase the profile of Flemish in the Congo. OTL there were plenty of Flemish missionaries, but they only spoke French in the churches. Dutch missionaries could help to raise the prestige of Dutch among the missionaries, meaning that Dutch/Flemish is more widely spoken by the missionaries, meaning that the average Congolese person will be more familiar with Dutch than French. All of these scenarios would result in a bilingual French/Dutch Congo, but the French aspect could be removed following independence, where some Mobutu analogue declares French to be an "elitist and colonial language" but keeps Dutch.

I'm just throwing out ideas, but basically I do think that Flemish could become more widespread in the Congo given some luck and the right POD, but the idea is large enough that it would probably require a separate thread to flesh it out. Getting back on topic, this would eliminate the Congo as a huge center of Francophone Africa, but unless other French colonies are butterflied, you would still have growing Francophone cities such as Abidjan to contend with.

 

[John7755 يوحنا]

Maybe, although you might not have to go as far back as the Napoleonic Wars. See this link. Apparently, there was supposed to be "Flemish and French parity" in the Congo, but French was favored from the beginning. This mirrors the linguistic situation in Belgium, where Flemish was stigmatized and French was used pretty exclusively in the public sphere. However, the very acknowledgment of Flemish in the charter means that there's at least a legal basis for a more widespread Flemish.

Despite that, there's still the issue that the colonial elites speak French, not Flemish. To circumvent that, you would need to have a large population of Dutch or Flemish speakers in the Congo. For instance, Leopold II could employ Dutch mercenaries to secure the Congo before the Belgian government takes over. These mercenaries could settle down and form a more local elite class. Maybe you could also get more Belgians to immigrate from Flanders as opposed to Wallonia. Flanders was much poorer, so there is a push factor; the issue is that the Congo is a lucrative colony, and as such, they would have to compete with profit-seeking Walloons to immigrate to the Congo. Another idea is that an increased presence of Flemish and Dutch missionaries could increase the profile of Flemish in the Congo. OTL there were plenty of Flemish missionaries, but they only spoke French in the churches. Dutch missionaries could help to raise the prestige of Dutch among the missionaries, meaning that Dutch/Flemish is more widely spoken by the missionaries, meaning that the average Congolese person will be more familiar with Dutch than French. All of these scenarios would result in a bilingual French/Dutch Congo, but the French aspect could be removed following independence, where some Mobutu analogue declares French to be an "elitist and colonial language" but keeps Dutch.

I'm just throwing out ideas, but basically I do think that Flemish could become more widespread in the Congo given some luck and the right POD, but the idea is large enough that it would probably require a separate thread to flesh it out. Getting back on topic, this would eliminate the Congo as a huge center of Francophone Africa, but unless other French colonies are butterflied, you would still have growing Francophone cities such as Abidjan to contend with.

Perhaps Abidjan becomes creole like otl Haiti?

 

[John7755 يوحنا]

This could work if New Orleans already has a huge population of French speakers by the time of the revolution or if there is some other impetus for Haitians to assimilate (OTL they didn't really assimilate). According to wiki, the Haitian migration doubled the cities population, with a large proportion of the new immigrants probably speaking only Creole. Granted, the influx of Haitian immigrants also ensured that Francophones were the majority of the city's white population until 1830; maybe a white Francophone majority can encourage the black population to adopt the French language as a means of social advancement?

As for keeping New Orleans French, that would probably require some incentive for Americans to speak French in general (assuming that New Orleans is in the US in this scenario) so that the Americanization of New Orleans (which seems somewhat inevitable if it's part of America in this scenario) does not mean an abandonment of French. If you can get France to dominate Europe and maintain a colonial empire, then French will be the global lingua franca instead of English. Louisiana French speakers would have a huge incentive to maintain their language in such a scenario. Alternately, you could make the US collapse so that it can't take New Orleans, which is surprisingly easy looking at the scenarios on AH.com. From there, a lot of things could happen to New Orleans, but the major pressure to abandon French has been removed.

One way I think French could survive in New Orleans and by extension Louisiana, would be if French would somehow become the language of trade and exchange for the Southern U.S, at least in Ark-La-Tex and Mississippi. Eventually these areas could be bilingual like otl Quebec. As well, not having a civil war and having a gradual abolition of slavery (rather than adrupt)might be best for New Orleans and Francophone U.S South.