East Germanic survives

Valdemar II

Banned
Millions of Franks? Mind you, but the total world population of the time was maybe 200 million, and even if we're generous, that puts the total population of Europe at maybe 40 million (even that feels too high, actually). I mean, I would buy a Frankish total population of about oen million, but millions...? Where did you get that from.

Mostly calculation in late medieval times the area they lived in at this point (on both side of the Lower Rhine) had around 10 million people and I have a hard time seing it as much smaller than a third of that, especially because there's indication that the populations of the late around 1000 may have been higher than in late medieval times, thanks to the warmer climate.
 
Mostly calculation in late medieval times the area they lived in at this point (on both side of the Lower Rhine) had around 10 million people and I have a hard time seing it as much smaller than a third of that, especially because there's indication that the populations of the late around 1000 may have been higher than in late medieval times, thanks to the warmer climate.

What are would that encompass, in modern day terms? But well, if you say the estimate of 10 million is for say 1200 AD is valid, I would argue that it was maybe 4-5 million in the migrations period. So yes.
 
Back to the question of a surviving East Germanic language:
What about a small largely autonomous city in which the invaders' languages stays en vogue?
That could be in today's Marrocco, in South France or on the Adria.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
What are would that encompass, in modern day terms? But well, if you say the estimate of 10 million is for say 1200 AD is valid, I would argue that it was maybe 4-5 million in the migrations period. So yes.

More or less the Rhine valley from our times French borders to the sea plus central Germany between Old Saxony and Swabia. This is of course after the collapse of Roman autority, at most before where much of the westen Rhine bank was still Latin, the Franks at most had between 2-3 million people.

But purely demographic it's no accident that the Frank ended up the dominant Germanic nation.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
Back to the question of a surviving East Germanic language:
What about a small largely autonomous city in which the invaders' languages stays en vogue?
That could be in today's Marrocco, in South France or on the Adria.

The problem are that by having a urban population you're quite sensible to plagues, while rural population deal with it better, plus towns are immigration arras, there will keep coming Latin speakers in while every plague reduced the numbers of Germanic speakers, at some point the old laguage will just shift. To say nothing that a single invasion can kill the entire people off. Try look how language have survived or taken over in OTL. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes didn't take over Britain by settling in cities, while the Langobard moved in and settled their population in cities. If the Langobard had establish rural settlement in the Po valley, they would likely have kept their old language.
 
Most of the Balkans was settled by people who had not been there in 270. South Slavs, Hungarians. And the Romanians ... how did they survive where Romance speakers of Illyria and Moesia vanished?

WI Gepids fight off Avars?
 
Most of the Balkans was settled by people who had not been there in 270. South Slavs, Hungarians. And the Romanians ... how did they survive where Romance speakers of Illyria and Moesia vanished?

Actually, there probably wasn't much of a population exchange there, the Slavs and Magyars just placed themselves as the elite.

WI Gepids fight off Avars?

Not very likely, in my opinion. The Gepids weren't that numerous, after all.
 
Most of the Balkans was settled by people who had not been there in 270. South Slavs, Hungarians. And the Romanians ... how did they survive where Romance speakers of Illyria and Moesia vanished?

WI Gepids fight off Avars?

The Romanians are a certainly odd case of a Romance-speaking people who spent most of their time living in areas outside Roman rule. It is speculated that the ancestors of the modern Romanians survived in the mountains while the barbarians groups that passed by settled in the lowlands. That or they migrated north.
 
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