AHC: Yola Language Survives

For those of you who do not know, Yola was an Anglo-Frisian Language spoken in Southeastern ireland. I wish to know how it could survive to the present day as a language with a distinct, possibly Seperatist, national culture?
 
Hmm. Well you'll probably need for it to have its own version of the Celtic Revival. Perhaps Irish Home Rule is achieved in the mid 19th Century, and it's latched onto as an indication of being loyal subjects but culturally distinct.

Either that or have a Robert Burns type person emerge from the speakers of the language and popularise it.

Either way, the best you can really hope for is something like Scots or Ulster Scots. Culturally distinct certainly, but often neglected in favour of English for official purposes.
 
Reading up on the Yola language before, it occurred to me that Yola disappeared at pretty much the exact time the Irish population tipped from majority Irish speakers to majority English speakers.

I think that's the answer right there. As an isolated linguistic community surrounded by speakers of an entirely different language, Yola persisted as an English offshoot. When the surrounding Irish started speaking English instead, it broke the linguistic barrier and Yola was quickly subsumed into general Hiberno-English.

That's my guess.
 
Top