"Germany" united by the Dutch?

[saint polype]

The area of what would become the holy roman empire was settled by countless tribes with different (if often closely related) languages and dialects. Some of these would merge into modern-day german, others into modern-day Dutch, Luxembourgish or Alsatian.

Recently I learned that several dialects in the Dutch-german borderlands were almost indistinguishable. In fact, whether they are considered "variants of dutch" or "variants of german" depended entirely on which side of the border they fell (and I think some of them simply argue they were their own thing).

Which got me thinking - with a POD early enough, would it be possible for a powerful Dutch state to pull many more tribes and statelets into its orbit and create a Dutch nation almost or just as big as our germany? The Dutch language that results wouldn't have to be identical to OTL, but the "standard" of the new language would be dictated from the Dutch core, and the dialects in the nation would gradually be assimilated into it.

I'd imagine it to control the entire Rhine basin up to Switzerland and become an even greater, more coherent power than germany - even with its much tinier, indefensible, below-sealevel territory, the Netherlands became a very powerful nation with global reach. Adding Germany's industrial spine and population would certainly help.

 

[Clandango]

Then you pretty much have a unified Burgundy and it would be named as such.

 

[Theodoric]

Recently I learned that several dialects in the Dutch-german borderlands were almost indistinguishable. In fact, whether they are considered "variants of dutch" or "variants of german" depended entirely on which side of the border they fell (and I think some of them simply argue they were their own thing).

It's an interesting angle, but it's not that significant an area size-wise, the historically Dutch-speaking Germany being basically the area around Cleves and a decent chunk of the modern Ruhr industrial area. If you're willing to stretch things a bit maybe you can extend it southwards up to about Aachen. Everything to the South and East of that is and was firmly High German.

I mean, you can also do it the other way around. In much of the Eastern part of the Netherlands dialects of Low Saxon are spoken, which are different from both High German and Dutch in many ways (closer to English and Frisian). And now we've mentioned Frisian, that's basically a nation onto itself, stretching for much of the North Sea Coast at one point. Many Dutch-speaking areas like Holland and Flanders have Ingvaeonic substrates.

What I'm trying to say is that national borders based on linguistic area aren't quite the best goal if you want to expand the Netherlands.
But it's a possibility to have them expand further beyond the linguistically related tribal areas. It's been tried before. It was called the Frankish Empire.

 

[Salvador79]

Burgundy attempting to gobble up Switzerland? See how that went for Charles the Bold...

 

[Mikestone8]

Iirc, had Charles the Bold or his daughter Mary dies w/o issue, the Duke of Cleves was next in line of succession to the Burgundian lands. If he inherited, and went on to acquire Berg, Julich etc as he did OTL, you have a Netherland state with far more territory east of the Rhine. Could become a contender for leadership of Germany.

 

[The Undead Martyr]

A surviving Burgundy which conquers/inherits part of the Rhineland would be in a position to contest the Imperial/German crown should the Habsburgs die out. They will likely want to try and inherit one of the electors, Bohemia, Brandenburg, the Palatinate or Saxony.

 

[JackLumber]

The area of what would become the holy roman empire was settled by countless tribes with different (if often closely related) languages and dialects. Some of these would merge into modern-day german, others into modern-day Dutch, Luxembourgish or Alsatian.

Recently I learned that several dialects in the Dutch-german borderlands were almost indistinguishable. In fact, whether they are considered "variants of dutch" or "variants of german" depended entirely on which side of the border they fell (and I think some of them simply argue they were their own thing).

Which got me thinking - with a POD early enough, would it be possible for a powerful Dutch state to pull many more tribes and statelets into its orbit and create a Dutch nation almost or just as big as our germany? The Dutch language that results wouldn't have to be identical to OTL, but the "standard" of the new language would be dictated from the Dutch core, and the dialects in the nation would gradually be assimilated into it.

I'd imagine it to control the entire Rhine basin up to Switzerland and become an even greater, more coherent power than germany - even with its much tinier, indefensible, below-sealevel territory, the Netherlands became a very powerful nation with global reach. Adding Germany's industrial spine and population would certainly help.

Luxembourgish, Dutch and Alslatian are all German languages, these areas are not special linguistic snowflakes, Germany proper has plenty of linguistic diversity itself.
Just because these area don't identify as German doesn't mean they are not entholinguistically German and the fact that they are enthnolingustically German doesn't invalidate their separate identities nor does it mean they should become a part Germany.

 

[WunWun]

A more "Dutch" Germany is certainly a possibility. I had thought of a different treaty of Verdun

Spoiler: Shit map, only have paint where im at

With orange obviously being the dutch german state. Of course you'll butterfly pretty much all of Western European history

 

[funnyhat]

Luxembourgish, Dutch and Alslatian are all German languages, these areas are not special linguistic snowflakes, Germany proper has plenty of linguistic diversity itself.

I can see this for Luxembourgish and Alsatian, but standard Dutch is quite a bit different from German.

 

[JackLumber]

I can see this for Luxembourgish and Alsatian, but standard Dutch is quite a bit different from German.

So is low Saxon, are you going to argue the people that speak it are not German either?

 

[funnyhat]

So is low Saxon, are you going to argue they sent German either?

Actually I don't think it should be considered the same language as High German. And Dutch is more removed still - it is at the far end of the West Germanic continuum and mutual intelligibility with High German is not great.

 

[JackLumber]

Actually I don't think it should be considered the same language as High German. And Dutch is more removed still - it is at the far end of the West Germanic continuum and mutual intelligibility with High German is not great.

Yes low Saxon is a different language, that was my point and yet the people who speak it are German.
The only way one can describe what it is to be "German" and have an answer that really makes any sense is if you say Germany is a mainland west Germanic union and it simply doesn't contain all mainland west Germanic people's for various reasons.

 

[GohanLSSJ2]

Luxembourgish, Dutch and Alslatian are all German languages, these areas are not special linguistic snowflakes, Germany proper has plenty of linguistic diversity itself.
Just because these area don't identify as German doesn't mean they are not entholinguistically German and the fact that they are enthnolingustically German doesn't invalidate their separate identities nor does it mean they should become a part Germany.

If we're going there, we might as well go all the way and include other "variants" like Yiddish.

 

[JackLumber]

If we're going there, we might as well go all the way and include other "variants" like Yiddish.

I'm not terribly familiar with the history of Yiddish but it does seem like a very German language.

 

[chrnno]

French, Italian and Portuguese aren't mutually intelligible either but they are all part of the Romance languages group.

That said it is Germanic languages, calling it German just confuses the issue.

 

[JackLumber]

French, Italian and Portuguese aren't mutually intelligible either but they are all part of the Romance languages group.

That said it is Germanic languages, calling it German just confuses the issue.

Germanic Languages include North and now extinct east Germanic languages, I am specfically stating that the people speaking mainland (ie not english) west Germanic languages are entholinguistically Germans.

 

[chrnno]

Germanic Languages include North and now extinct east Germanic languages, I am specfically stating that the people speaking mainland (ie not english) west Germanic languages are entholinguistically Germans.

Just say West Germanic if that is what you mean or German dialects if you must. In common use German is the official language of the country Germany or people born there, so using one of the specific areas definition of it works against communication because people will interpret it as you saying Dutch(Alsatian, Yiddish or whatever) is part of German(official language of Germany) not German(language out of which current German also descends from).

It is a similar thing with Spain/Spanish where a part of a group got the names of the whole so causes confusion and issues.

 

[JackLumber]

Just say West Germanic if that is what you mean or German dialects if you must. In common use German is the official language of the country Germany or people born there, so using one of the specific areas definition of it works against communication because people will interpret it as you saying Dutch(Alsatian, Yiddish or whatever) is part of German(official language of Germany) not German(language out of which current German also descends from).

It is a similar thing with Spain/Spanish where a part of a group got the names of the whole so causes confusion and issues.

Because West Germanic includes English which is hardly german at all and because the Dutch, the luxembourgers and the Alslatians were all once considered as German as anyone and the only reason it's any different now has nothing to do with their "ethnicities" or their linguistic situation.

 

[Indicus]

This is a bit crazy, but, what if the Austrian Hapsburgs lose their throne in Austria, and so flee to the Austrian Netherlands, where they inherit Rhenish territories from which to expand into a unified Germany.

Yeah, it's not plausible at all.

 

[Zorqal]

Because West Germanic includes English which is hardly german at all and because the Dutch, the luxembourgers and the Alslatians were all once considered as German as anyone and the only reason it's any different now has nothing to do with their "ethnicities" or their linguistic situation.

I'm very confused by what you are trying to argue here. While German, Dutch, English, Yiddish, Alsatian, etc are all Germanic languages, they all are not German. German in terms of language is the language of Germany and cannot be used to describe Dutch or English. And saying that, English or Dutch are just as Germanic as German is.