Early Medieval France

Could northern France have gone Germanic linguistically? WI: The population of northern Gaul had been decimated by plague or migration during the later Roman period. Could the incoming Franks had then retained their original Germanic tongue? Then the southern provinces eventually become Romance speaking? Implications for future political and social development.
 
Linguistic changes in this time roughly (roughly!) track with the amount of foreign aristocrats I believe. You need to replace most of the Roman elites with Franks but you also need enough Frankish aristocrats to make the new language stick at a lower geographic level (splitting lots of land holdings).

So basically you need more Franks. Many more.
 
Then there would not be a France to begin with.

Well, there might still end up being a state calling itself "Francia" or "France", but it would probably be limited to the north, with southern France being *Occitan-speaking and calling itself something else (Aquitaine, perhaps?).
 
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