consequences of a surviving Romance language in britain

Doesn't that require a large scale migration from a Romance-speaking place? Which also implies an, er, significant population reduction in Britons? Alternatively you could go for a longer and more successful Roman province I suppose...but that's a long way back to do a timeline in any detail...
 
Well English does have a large part of latin based words in it, probably assimilated from the Normal language after the invasion, also the syntax is very similar.
 
Doesn't that require a large scale migration from a Romance-speaking place? Which also implies an, er, significant population reduction in Britons? Alternatively you could go for a longer and more successful Roman province I suppose...but that's a long way back to do a timeline in any detail...

Not if you Latinise the Britonnic language more...
 
There was a really interesting website with a fully fleshed out timeline and Latinized Britanic language for such a scenario I found a few years back, but have yet to find it again. :(
 
There was a really interesting website with a fully fleshed out timeline and Latinized Britanic language for such a scenario I found a few years back, but have yet to find it again. :(

That would be Brithenig, cornerstone langiuage of the Ill Bethisad project (which is itself not alt-history, but more of a parallel universe based around alternate languages & cultures). The main Brithenig website is down, but if you google "Brithenig" and/or "Ill Bethisad" you can find some material about it. (I you google "Henua" you'll see my own humble contribution </advert> :)).
 

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Geekis, that was Il Bethisiad (?), shit alternate history but good conlangs.

For British Vulgar Latin to survive you need a post-Roman state based round London, St Albans and Colchester, and it needs to last until 800AD. These cities probably fell in the second wave of Saxon expansion, in the mid to late 5th century. The Anglo-Saxon conquest was far from inevitable, and a POD is probably possible.

But that alone would not be enough, as all the evidence we have is that British was spoken all over that area at the time of the conquest- though Latin was certainly known to the Britons as evidenced by Latin loan words in Anglo-Saxon.

If the Aetius' heirs or "Magistrate" Aegidius had maintained northern France as a non-Germanic power, then the relations between these two kingdoms could have led vulgar Latin to replace British.
 
:confused:I have no clue what you're trying to say. Which may mean the person you're addressing doesn't either. [I, too, have a tendency to post terse comments that seem perfectly obvious to me, but not to others. Sigh.]

Oops. I meant that Boynamedsue (1) posted the same thing I had, without reading my post, and (2) did what so many people do on this site, and critisize Ill Bethisad (quite rudely, in his case) for being poor alternate history, when it's not supposed to be alternate history, and in my post that he didn't read, I explained that.
 
Oops. I meant that Boynamedsue (1) posted the same thing I had, without reading my post,
Ah. right.
and (2) did what so many people do on this site, and critisize Ill Bethisad (quite rudely, in his case) for being poor alternate history, when it's not supposed to be alternate history, and in my post that he didn't read, I explained that.
Umm... Certainly he was rude. However, I got the impression that he was stating (in ruder words) what you said - that it wasn't good AH, but WAS GOOD conlang. I didn't perceive that it was meant as a complaint about the project, but rather a warning to AH'ers who might see it, as to the strengths (and weaknesses) of the project. Of course, the wording was such that I can see why you saw it differently.
 
Mid- to late 6th Century, in fact, Boynamedsue. The British elite in the 6th century was, while culturally Celtic still fluent in Latin, as witnessed by Gildas, who wrote his little treatise (in a very precise, if oddly structured Latin, superior to that of contemporary Galloroman Gregory of Tours, which is a bit astonishing, since Gildas family hailed from the Christian, but never romanised Old North between Hadrian's and the Antonine Wall) for an audience of not only churchmen and scholars, but also for the nobility. Also note the German term 'Wealh' which evolved into modern Welsh denotes Romance-speakers. The Fall of the British Nations was indeed far from inevitable, and mostly attributable to infighting. Gildas sees the Saxons as contained and only as providing a common cause to British rulers to oust them, not a danger, and a generation before Romanobritish power at its height controlled much of western Gaul, much more than just the later Bretagne, and even areas in northwestern Spain.
 
That would be Brithenig, cornerstone langiuage of the Ill Bethisad project (which is itself not alt-history, but more of a parallel universe based around alternate languages & cultures). The main Brithenig website is down, but if you google "Brithenig" and/or "Ill Bethisad" you can find some material about it. (I you google "Henua" you'll see my own humble contribution </advert> :)).

Geekis, that was Il Bethisiad (?), shit alternate history but good conlangs.

For British Vulgar Latin to survive you need a post-Roman state based round London, St Albans and Colchester, and it needs to last until 800AD. These cities probably fell in the second wave of Saxon expansion, in the mid to late 5th century. The Anglo-Saxon conquest was far from inevitable, and a POD is probably possible.

But that alone would not be enough, as all the evidence we have is that British was spoken all over that area at the time of the conquest- though Latin was certainly known to the Britons as evidenced by Latin loan words in Anglo-Saxon.

If the Aetius' heirs or "Magistrate" Aegidius had maintained northern France as a non-Germanic power, then the relations between these two kingdoms could have led vulgar Latin to replace British.

That's the one. Thanks BenK & BNSue...now play nice you two! :p
 
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