Could Wallonia become germanised (or dutchified?)

[T-Mag 3004]

Regardless of if this map is accurate or not, it shows the Rhineland as romance, and I once read that the Rhineland only became germanised in the 15/16th century.

So how can we get the same to happen to Wallonia? I imagine the region has to be somehow held by the HRE, the Netherlands or Austria without the French coming in with their hard-on for annexing the region... Idk how to achieve this, but see how that changes things down the line.

Alternatively, only the majority of Wallonia becomes germanised whilst the rest remain romance speaking.

 

[kasumigenx]

The Germanization happened before the differentiation of the Gallo Romance languages.

 

[Teejay]

Regardless of if this map is accurate or not, it shows the Rhineland as romance, and I once read that the Rhineland only became germanised in the 15/16th century.

So how can we get the same to happen to Wallonia? I imagine the region has to be somehow held by the HRE, the Netherlands or Austria without the French coming in with their hard-on for annexing the region... Idk how to achieve this, but see how that changes things down the line.

Alternatively, only the majority of Wallonia becomes germanised whilst the rest remain romance speaking.

What is now the Rhineland, Southern Germany, Switzerland and Flanders were Germanised during the Völkerwanderung period.

 

[T-Mag 3004]

the Völkerwanderung period.

Ok, but is it possible to apply this to Wallonia?

 

[Teejay]

Ok, but is it possible to apply this to Wallonia?

I believe the huge forests in the Ardenne prevented Wallonia becoming Germanised like Flanders did.

What is now the Dutch-French boundary in the early middle ages encompassed half of the current Pas De Calais department down to about Étaples. The boundary has retreated over the centuries to approximately now where Dunkirk is.

 

[T-Mag 3004]

I believe the huge forests in the Ardenne prevented Wallonia becoming Germanised like Flanders did. What is now the Dutch-French boundary in the early middle ages was somewhat further west and south than it is now.

The image didn't show up for me, but I found this after a quick search.

 

[pompejus]

THe big problem here is France. France is too rich, strong and influential and Walloon to close to French linguistically. That is also the reason why such a large part of the Dutch/Flemish speaking area (as in the map above) returned to speaking French. I could see parts of Wallonia to switch to Dutch, if they are part of a (centralised) Dutch speaking country, if only a small part of Wallonia ends up Dutch early (like for example all of Brabant ends up Dutch during the 80-year war, including the Walloon parts). All of Wallonia is no doubt too big. The 19th century is too late even for a small part of Wallonia and OTL Dutch republic was too decentralised (which is why Friesland still speak Frisian).

Maybe if Wallonia remains German it could be done. That said, OTL Germany did not manage to Germaise the Poles. In the end you probably need some sort of German resettlement or something like that.

 

[WunWun]

Have the duchy of burgundy survive (and become independant/ part of the HRE). They will probably relocate towards the low countries, for that was the seat of strength and riches of the dukes. When the use of common language for administration becomes the norm, an eventual switch would happen towards dutch because of the economic and productive might of the cities of Flanders. This is far enough before the rise of nationalism to have serious effects on wallonia.

 

[ramones1986]

In relation to this thread, I've found this map not quite recently:

 

[Gloss]

Maybe make Flanders part East Francia and the HRE and later on have France be weaker and have more unitary German-Dutch states in the region, it shouldn't be that hard, Wallonia is a small region after all and the linguistic border could have been and in some places we know it was more in favour of Dutch and German(Arlon and Walloon Brabant for example).

THe big problem here is France. France is too rich, strong and influential and Walloon to close to French linguistically. That is also the reason why such a large part of the Dutch/Flemish speaking area (as in the map above) returned to speaking French. I could see parts of Wallonia to switch to Dutch, if they are part of a (centralised) Dutch speaking country, if only a small part of Wallonia ends up Dutch early (like for example all of Brabant ends up Dutch during the 80-year war, including the Walloon parts). All of Wallonia is no doubt too big. The 19th century is too late even for a small part of Wallonia and OTL Dutch republic was too decentralised (which is why Friesland still speak Frisian).

Maybe if Wallonia remains German it could be done. That said, OTL Germany did not manage to Germaise the Poles. In the end you probably need some sort of German resettlement or something like that.

I don't get it, how is Wallonia too big? The population isn't that large and on the topic of it being too close to French, so was Moselle Romance and that was Germanized and was extinct by the 11th century. Considering where the bulk of the population is I think that if the area north and west of the Meuse-Sambre rivers becames Dutch speaking it would leave most of the population in Wallonia on the other side of the linguistic border.

 

[pompejus]

I don't get it, how is Wallonia too big? The population isn't that large

Compared to the population of the Netherlands (even if we include Flanders) the population of Wallonia is too big to Dutchify. The Walloons would simply play a too important role in the Netherlands to be so oppressed that they would abandon their own language. Not unlike that the Walloons weren't able to switch most of the Flemish to speak French. Or just like the Germans weren't able to get the Poles to speak German.

and on the topic of it being too close to French, so was Moselle Romance and that was Germanized and was extinct by the 11th century. Considering where the bulk of the population is I think that if the area north and west of the Meuse-Sambre rivers becames Dutch speaking it would leave most of the population in Wallonia on the other side of the linguistic border.

Maybe it wasn't made entirely clear, but I was specifically speaking about the high/late medieval and (early) modern period. I believe you can get Wallonia to speak a Germanic dialect with a POD in the early medieval period with a different Migration Period. After that age France was basicly the major power in the region and French became (at least in the early Modern period, but I guess it happened earlier) the prestige language and the linguage Franca of Europe. At point it get realy hard for the Walloons to drop their dialect, which was related to French and if they drop it, they would switch it for French (like OTL).

It becomes especialy hard since noone realy cared about the local language in those days. There would be no incentive for the Dutch or German state to force their own language on the Walloons. That would only happen in the 19th century and than it would be too late.

 

[Gloss]

Compared to the population of the Netherlands (even if we include Flanders) the population of Wallonia is too big to Dutchify. The Walloons would simply play a too important role in the Netherlands to be so oppressed that they would abandon their own language. Not unlike that the Walloons weren't able to switch most of the Flemish to speak French. Or just like the Germans weren't able to get the Poles to speak German.

Wallonia would be less than 1/5 of the entire population of Benelux power as far as I can tell(today it is just above 10%), possibly even less so. Germans did manage to get many Poles to Germanize, just not as fast or exactly where they wanted(plus they tried more to resettle German than to assimilate catholic Poles). And the Walloons did get many Flemish people to speak French, with the biggest example of Bruxelles and its surroundings, over the course of a little bit more than a century.

Maybe it wasn't made entirely clear, but I was specifically speaking about the high/late medieval and (early) modern period. I believe you can get Wallonia to speak a Germanic dialect with a POD in the early medieval period with a different Migration Period.

I'd argue the complete opposite, you can't just push thousands more Germanic people in any given area, you need the language to spread organically as well, there is a reason why Moselles Romance declined or why German spread in Switzerland during the late middle Ages.

After that age France was basicly the major power in the region and French became (at least in the early Modern period, but I guess it happened earlier) the prestige language and the linguage Franca of Europe.

Well just avoid that then, quite easy with a POD during the late 9th century, and not that hard later on even late medieval(12th century for example) allows you plenty of time, considering how many large scale linguistic change happened all over Europe during this period, I'd go for a 11th century one if one wants to avoid Francization of Picardy.

Also some language related to yours being a big deal in some upper circles doesn't prevent linguistic assimilation, German spread in Arpitan areas in Switzerland despite the status of French.

It becomes especialy hard since noone realy cared about the local language in those days. There would be no incentive for the Dutch or German state to force their own language on the Walloons. That would only happen in the 19th century and than it would be too
late.

It wasn't solely a 19th century thing, it happened before as well even if not directly connect to nation building, some religious movement could get behind that as well, especially in the early modern era.

I imagine having Flanders, Calais and northern Picardy in a Eastern Frankish state from the start would help reducing assimilation to French and set up a situation where a reverse situation could happen like happened with Moselle Romance or Rhaeto-Romance and partially Arpitan.

 

[funnyhat]

The image didn't show up for me, but I found this after a quick search.

That's not the current language border. There are a few native Dutch speakers in the Cassel region but they are a small minority now. The language border now is right on the political border.

 

[T-Mag 3004]

Historical minorities on the verge of extinction remain in parts of France[7] and Germany, and in Indonesia,[n 1]

This map says the same

But you're kinda right.

 

[funnyhat]

It apparently was Dutch-speaking not all that long ago. This map shows the linguistic evolution of the arrondissement of Dunkirk from 1874 to 1972.

But it's changed since 1972. I don't think there would be any green areas (bilingual with Dutch majority) left on the map now.

 

[TruthfulPanda]

Have the Dutch Republic "win big" and kick out the Spanish from the south Netherlands c.1600.
This would make Dutch the Upper Code, replacing French.
Also, if the State Church stays Dutch-speaking only, this will reinforce the position of the langauge, making the Kirk a second venue for top down Dutchification.
Burghers and nobility speak Dutch and French as 2nd language, only peasants and urban poor remain monoglot Wallon speakers.
Come the industrial revolution the inflow of peasants - users of both languages - will be Duchified. With urbanisation this will produce a large Dutch speaking majority.
But still one should look at why Flanders did not Wallonify in spite of the the Upper Code being French for 4 centuries ...

 

[pompejus]

Wallonia would be less than 1/5 of the entire population of Benelux power as far as I can tell(today it is just above 10%), possibly even less so. Germans did manage to get many Poles to Germanize, just not as fast or exactly where they wanted(plus they tried more to resettle German than to assimilate catholic Poles). And the Walloons did get many Flemish people to speak French, with the biggest example of Bruxelles and its surroundings, over the course of a little bit more than a century.

I would say that the Walloons would be at least 1/5th of the population of a united Netherlands, even more if we include areas like French Flanders and Hainaut or Artois. 1/5th of the population would be pretty influential (especialy when the industrial revolution starts). It would be too big a minority to ignore. Espialy considering that the Dutch upper class spoke French for quite a while. Meanwhile, you can't compare it to the Francization of Brussels. As I said, French was a prestige language. Dutch was not and never will be a prestige language. It barely could compete with French in the Netherlands (as I said the elite spoke French). The Francization of Brussels (and for example Dunkirk) only happened in the 20th century, with the rise of mass communication.

Simply put, the Netherlands can't do it alone. You need something bigger like Germany. And, like I said, Germany wasn't completely succesfull in assimilating the Polesand most of the areas it actualy was succesful was caused by immigration of Germans to Slavic or Baltic speaking areas. This could in theory happen to Wallonia. You do need a very different Germany, since OTL it did not care about it (considering that Wallonia had been part of the HRE for centuries, up until the 18th century and it never switched to a German dialect0.

 

[Brunaburh]

Wallonia includes territories that were historically Germanic speaking, as does northern France, the maximum extent of exclusively Germanic seems to have included everything up to Quentovic and there were Germanic speakers to the West of that line. The high middle ages saw bilingual parts of Belgium change to Walloon (the county of Hainaut) and other areas go Germanic (around Kortrijk).

 

[Jürgen]

Well first it's importyant to get that while Wallons only makes up 1/5 of the population of Benelux, historical they made up 1/3, but massive larger Dutch and Flemish birth rate have resulted in the Wallons falling in percent of the population. As for whether Wallonia could be Dutchified.

Let's look at this map

The coal fields show roughly where the Belgium industralisation happened. If the UK of Netherlands had survived, we would also have seen the influx of poor rural Dutch to these regions (beside the Flemish who also migrated there), and with Dutch state pushing Dutch, we would likely see these workers keep speaking Dutch, the French speaking burghers of Wallonian cities and towns in the industrial region would likely have at some point be reduced to irrelevance, the French peasantry would likely stay more stubborn, but as the city grows, we would likely see the same process as happened to Dutch speakers in France (or German speakers around Arlon). I imagine that only in the region south and east of Dinant would we see French speakers stay in majority until modern day. I imagine that UK of Netherlands would likely stay home to less than a million French speakers of which slightly above half live in French majority area, while the rest mostly live in rural areas in the rest of Wallonia.

 

[Gloss]

Well first it's importyant to get that while Wallons only makes up 1/5 of the population of Benelux, historical they made up 1/3, but massive larger Dutch and Flemish birth rate have resulted in the Wallons falling in percent of the population. As for whether Wallonia could be Dutchified.

Let's look at this map

The coal fields show roughly where the Belgium industralisation happened. If the UK of Netherlands had survived, we would also have seen the influx of poor rural Dutch to these regions (beside the Flemish who also migrated there), and with Dutch state pushing Dutch, we would likely see these workers keep speaking Dutch, the French speaking burghers of Wallonian cities and towns in the industrial region would likely have at some point be reduced to irrelevance, the French peasantry would likely stay more stubborn, but as the city grows, we would likely see the same process as happened to Dutch speakers in France (or German speakers around Arlon). I imagine that only in the region south and east of Dinant would we see French speakers stay in majority until modern day. I imagine that UK of Netherlands would likely stay home to less than a million French speakers of which slightly above half live in French majority area, while the rest mostly live in rural areas in the rest of Wallonia.

When did Wallonia have 1/3? Today they even a bit more than 1/8.

Interesting idea, not sure if it would work as well in practice, does anyone know what the language border was in 1815?