AHC: Norman-speaking region in modern England

With a POD after the 11th century, have a substantial portion of England adopt Norman French as the vernacular language, and maintain the use of Norman to the present day.
 
I'm assuming the Channel Islands don't count

Technically speaking, the channel islands aren't even part of the UK.

Even taking them as an example, the fact that the norman speaking population did not replace one speaking another language (except in some parts) added to the isolation inherent to being islands makes it hard to have the same happen on Great Britain, at least in the same way.

You would probably need to have something like the harrowing of the north being followed immediately by a transfer of lower class norman enticed by cheap land and relaxed demands put on them compared to the mainland. If they manage to maintain a critical mass, they could maintain their culture for centuries.
 
I can't see it happening in England itself as Norman is the language of the minority conquerers.Now if somehow England keeps hold of Normandy and never loses it to France, but even then its not England proper.
You would need a large scale resettlement as mentioned above and no sane Norman peasant would go to Yorkshire northwards to settle even for cheap /free land (under theirown free will!).
 
The closest thing I can think of a workable PoD, is a less sucessful William of Normandy whom English realm doesn't expand outside Wessex, Sussex, East-Anglia.
It eventually means more dense Norman population and influence and strengthen the possibility of a Norman settlement in precise places that could last up to nowadays.

I think that English would nevertheless prevail in England, would it be only for feed the "nationalism" that appeared on each side of Channel and because Normans couldn't care less about imposing their language to peasantry.

Still, having isolated places using Norman as a minoritary language up to nowadays (like Channel Islands or Wales) could work. I'm thinking of Isle of Wight, by exemple : being strategically important, a continental settlement in order to control it could make sense.
I doubt you'll have more than that.
 
Being as I'm in guernsey at the moment I can tell you that it's almost died out. The main reason is WW2. Most kids were evacuated oop north and when they returned in late May 1945 they were speaking more like George Formby than a certain Son of a leather worker. There is a language society here and you can hear a little old dear join in on either Saturday or Sundays news broadcast doing the headlines in guernesiais. Similar situations exist in Sark, Alderney, Jersey etc. oh also the Jersey Norman is different to the guernsey one. (And boy do the two islands love each other, local derbies worse than Man U v Liverpool!)
 
Being as I'm in guernsey at the moment I can tell you that it's almost died out.

Almost. The OP asking "used up to nowadays", it's more than enough.
Besides, I'm pretty confident that a PoD with Willliam of Normandy taking only half of England have good chances to butterfly WW2.
 
The closest thing I can think of a workable PoD, is a less sucessful William of Normandy whom English realm doesn't expand outside Wessex, Sussex, East-Anglia.
It eventually means more dense Norman population and influence and strengthen the possibility of a Norman settlement in precise places that could last up to nowadays.

I think that English would nevertheless prevail in England, would it be only for feed the "nationalism" that appeared on each side of Channel and because Normans couldn't care less about imposing their language to peasantry.

Still, having isolated places using Norman as a minoritary language up to nowadays (like Channel Islands or Wales) could work. I'm thinking of Isle of Wight, by exemple : being strategically important, a continental settlement in order to control it could make sense.
I doubt you'll have more than that.

It'd be an interesting situation for sure, though I'm not sure how long that situation could last. The two states - Norman England and the Anglo-Saxon successor state of sorts - would be honour-bound to be enemies to the death, and eventually one of them would gain the upper hand and sweep the other from the country.
 
It'd be an interesting situation for sure, though I'm not sure how long that situation could last. The two states - Norman England and the Anglo-Saxon successor state of sorts - would be honour-bound to be enemies to the death, and eventually one of them would gain the upper hand and sweep the other from the country.

Then have the Anglo-Saxon state annexed by Scotland.
 
It'd be an interesting situation for sure, though I'm not sure how long that situation could last. The two states - Norman England and the Anglo-Saxon successor state of sorts - would be honour-bound to be enemies to the death, and eventually one of them would gain the upper hand and sweep the other from the country.

I was more thinking about a lasting agreement between William and Harald III, given his invasion is delayed OTL, ending with the probable planned divide of England.

But, yeah, it wouldn't be a stable arrengment. Short of anything plausible solution to have an higher Norman concentration however...
 
I can't see it happening in England itself as Norman is the language of the minority conquerers.

Minority conquerers have had great success getting their majority subjects to speak their language - The Arabs throughout the Middle East and North Africa, the Slavs throughout Eastern Europe, the Romans throughout Western Europe and Romania, the Turks in Anatolia, the Magyars in Hungary, the English in Ireland, and let's not forget the Spanish in Mexico, Central America and the Andes. The Indo-Europeans can be said to have been minority conquerors as well, spreading their languages over an already quite large, settled, agrarian population from Europe to India.
 
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