Celtic France

Celts were in France before the Germanic Franks invaded. So my question is, how could Celts have remained in France, kept Celtic culture and survived to present day instead of the Germanic France we have in our modern world?

Also, a side question, what would this France be called? After all the word "France" as we know it comes from the Germanic word Francia from the Frankish Empire.

Thanks as always for the amazing comments.
 
Well, at the time the Germanic Franks invaded present-day France, the Gauls were already Romanized/Latinized...

Where they? I thought they had at least some of their culture and language left. As far as I'm aware the Celts, especially French Celts as we would know them today, were some of the longest people to resist the Romans, next to of course the Germans.
 
Well, at the time the Germanic Franks invaded present-day France, the Gauls were already Romanized/Latinized...

Actually Celtic Gaulish language was spoken still on 6th century altough probably only by peasants.

Best way Celtic France is that you avoid Roman conquest. Perhaps even worse sack of Rome by Gauls on 300s BCE. But it is another thing would there be unified Gaulish nation.
 
Actually Celtic Gaulish language was spoken still on 6th century altough probably only by peasants.

Best way Celtic France is that you avoid Roman conquest. Perhaps even worse sack of Rome by Gauls on 300s BCE. But it is another thing would there be unified Gaulish nation.

Okay, so how would Gauls avoid Roman conquest? You say a Gaulic nation, Gallia. So how would a Gaulic nation be united?
 
Actually Celtic Gaulish language was spoken still on 6th century altough probably only by peasants.

Best way Celtic France is that you avoid Roman conquest. Perhaps even worse sack of Rome by Gauls on 300s BCE. But it is another thing would there be unified Gaulish nation.


Maybe Attila wins the Battle of Chalons, Gaul gets thoroughly ravaged, and much of the Romanised urban population flees to Italy and Spain, leaving the Celtic-speaking peasantry behind. .
 
De facto, France and so Celtic. Romans and Franks was too little, would displace the local population, and the Celtic influence can be traced in language and culture.
 
If you got the Gauls their own church, like the Coptic, Armenian, or any of the Syriac churches, it isn't too implausible their language could've at least survived, if not dominated the countryside. If the Franks and other adopt this faith, then perhaps the Germanic peoples would be Gallicised and by the Middle Ages the Gaulish nation is effectively reborn and Gallic Latin tongues are pushed to the margins. Your main problem is getting this division of the church and having it take root to that degree in direct opposition to Rome--Gaulish had absolutely no prestige and was considered a peasant tongue of barbarians. It wasn't even the case like with North Africa where Punic was still regularly used by the upper classes (and splits in the church helped continue its preservation), so this might take an even earlier POD to not have the prestige of Gaulish be so low. An earlier collapse of the Roman Empire not long after this church emerges would probably end the decline of Gaulish.

Maybe Attila wins the Battle of Chalons, Gaul gets thoroughly ravaged, and much of the Romanised urban population flees to Italy and Spain, leaving the Celtic-speaking peasantry behind. .

Didn't it work the other way around historically? The Migration Period emptied out the cities and sent Roman speakers to the countryside, where the Gauls rapidly assimilated.

De facto, France and so Celtic. Romans and Franks was too little, would displace the local population, and the Celtic influence can be traced in language and culture.

French has far more words of Frankish origin than of Celtic origin.
 
If you got the Gauls their own church, like the Coptic, Armenian, or any of the Syriac churches, it isn't too implausible their language could've at least survived, if not dominated the countryside. If the Franks and other adopt this faith, then perhaps the Germanic peoples would be Gallicised and by the Middle Ages the Gaulish nation is effectively reborn and Gallic Latin tongues are pushed to the margins. Your main problem is getting this division of the church and having it take root to that degree in direct opposition to Rome--Gaulish had absolutely no prestige and was considered a peasant tongue of barbarians. It wasn't even the case like with North Africa where Punic was still regularly used by the upper classes (and splits in the church helped continue its preservation), so this might take an even earlier POD to not have the prestige of Gaulish be so low. An earlier collapse of the Roman Empire not long after this church emerges would probably end the decline of Gaulish.



Didn't it work the other way around historically? The Migration Period emptied out the cities and sent Roman speakers to the countryside, where the Gauls rapidly assimilated.



French has far more words of Frankish origin than of Celtic origin.


There is a theory that parts of Southern France were already Italic and Greek before the Romans invaded france..
 
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