How would Celtic languages fare under French England?

archaeogeek

Banned
I think Francification of England would be comparable with Flanders in the 19th century. An upper and middle class speaking French but the majority of the population still speaking English or at least the local language. I think the celtic (and other linguistical minorities) will be as strong as English as there will be no force of Anglificating them. The channel will probably prevent any part of England to truly turn French, but expect more French loanwords. Assuming a rise of nationalism still occurs, I expect lots of trouble in England for this country, comparable to Flemish, Hungarian etc OTL.

The channel was a highway in places though. That's actually my argument for reinforced breton, trade between Britanny and the west of Britain was pretty important, to the point where both France and England did a lot to kill or tax the textile trade out of operation.

But yeah, for English it would probably be loads of loanwords, and Flanders writ large.
 
A thought, though England had two successive French ruling houses (counting Stephen as last Norman rather than only Blois), it was never in any way considered a part of France; its kings insisted on the point, they may have had to pay homage for their French lands but resisted the suggestion, occasionally made, that they were somehow subject for England too. What of the parts of France that actually were for a time under English sovereignty? They might be a laboratory for the question.

I know nothing of how things were in Calais, though it seems possible that, English rule having lasted long past the time that French disappeared from English official usage, it did become somewhat Anglicised. For Gascony, the paltry evidence I can offer is that when the later Richard II arrived in England at the age of five or so, having been born and raised in Bordeaux, he spoke no English, and rather stood out among his royal and aristocratic cousins for that. So, no evidence of English speech as opposed to rule there, though really that was too early to tell. Perhaps someone else knows more about it, though I would imagine it would be a question for advanced scholarship.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
A thought, though England had two successive French ruling houses (counting Stephen as last Norman rather than only Blois), it was never in any way considered a part of France; its kings insisted on the point, they may have had to pay homage for their French lands but resisted the suggestion, occasionally made, that they were somehow subject for England too. What of the parts of France that actually were for a time under English sovereignty? They might be a laboratory for the question.

I know nothing of how things were in Calais, though it seems possible that, English rule having lasted long past the time that French disappeared from English official usage, it did become somewhat Anglicised. For Gascony, the paltry evidence I can offer is that when the later Richard II arrived in England at the age of five or so, having been born and raised in Bordeaux, he spoke no English, and rather stood out among his royal and aristocratic cousins for that. So, no evidence of English speech as opposed to rule there, though really that was too early to tell. Perhaps someone else knows more about it, though I would imagine it would be a question for advanced scholarship.

Gascony was a distant and wealthy but principality with, at its height, a population well comparable to Plantagenet England though; it was basically equal. TBH a Spanish situation where the languages of the isles become a bit like Catalan may be achievable, as they would have that prestige, but there would probably be areas where norman and english are conflicting; if anything this means a much less likely rise of the jacobins in a Plantagenet France with revolution scenario.
 
"Inglis is just a dialect of Scots" ;)

Yus. :D Actually, though, Jacobean advocates of Union either side of the Tweed sometimes made play of the (broadly true) idea that Scots was more "pure Saxon" than Frenchified literary English, and I think we'd hear a lot more of that trope if an "English revival" nationalism ever came about. I don't think it's a given that literary Scots would become more Frenchified: Scots will be going to France for their education and the French necessary for any Scotsman who hopes to belong to the elite will creep into Scots usage, but that was all happening already IOTL.

In regards to the question, Scots was already established in the centre of power. I think Domenic is right that even if it loses some official spheres, the status of English as a vibrant written language is beyond changing by this point, and literary Scots was recognised as part of a wider civilisation (although as AG says, Dunbar in his flighting with Kennedy ight ITTL say that a sophisticated Lothian man like himself can better command "Scottis" rather than "Inglis").
 
Top