If France had absorbed Belgium pre-Rev wars, how does this affect French lang. Laws?

As above:

Assume France gets Belgium (Austrian Netherlands) in a swap after the War of Bavarian Succession around 1780ish.

A large portion of the population speaks Dutch and one of Revolutionary France's primary aims was lingual unity.

With such a large portion of Belgium (now French Netherlands) speaking another language, does the Convention have to tone down their demands?

Would this indirectly aid in Bretons, Occitans, Alsacians, etc in keeping their native tongues, at least a while longer?

Thanks.
 

raharris1973

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interesting knock-on effect - I had not thought of that as a consequence of absorbing flemings en masse.

all that said was *French* ownership of Belgium ever on the table during the war of Bavarian succession, I mean the idea was that the *Bavarian* King was to get some or all of Belgium, right?

Plus France was enjoying fighting with Britain at this time, or licking its lips at the prospect of doing so soon.
 
French ownership of Belgium is French ownership of the Schedt, Antwerp, and a lot of places with the potential to be excellent port facilities right across the way from the British Isles. Thus, the British will do a lot, a whole lot, an almost unimaginable amount, to keep them out of the hands of the French.
 
French ownership of Belgium is French ownership of the Schedt, Antwerp, and a lot of places with the potential to be excellent port facilities right across the way from the British Isles. Thus, the British will do a lot, a whole lot, an almost unimaginable amount, to keep them out of the hands of the French.

How much can Britain really do, if the rest of the continent signs off on it?
 
Napoleonic Wars?

Or the Seven Years, or the War of the Austrian Succession, or the War of the Spanish Succession... There's a reason the line in the song is "o're the hills and o're the main, to Flander, Portugal and Spain" - and that it tracks for the full century of wars.
 
No comments about the language itself?

Would having a large non-french-speaking province, probably with a degree of independence, affect the centralized language policies of the Revolution?

On another note, let's bump it a little.

How about France also absorbed the Piedmont, or possibly the Dutch Republic (1806) another large area that doesn't speak French?

Assuming Revolutionary France survives beyond 1815, would France attempt to forcibly centralize language long term with so many minority language regions?

Thanks.
 
No comments about the language itself?

Would having a large non-french-speaking province, probably with a degree of independence, affect the centralized language policies of the Revolution?

On another note, let's bump it a little.

How about France also absorbed the Piedmont, or possibly the Dutch Republic (1806) another large area that doesn't speak French?

Assuming Revolutionary France survives beyond 1815, would France attempt to forcibly centralize language long term with so many minority language regions?

Thanks.
Actually there was much less Flemings than Occitanians. So it won't be such a problem. Before the Revolutionnary wars, Fleming were like 20 % of Belgians in large cities.
 
Or the Seven Years, or the War of the Austrian Succession, or the War of the Spanish Succession... There's a reason the line in the song is "o're the hills and o're the main, to Flander, Portugal and Spain" - and that it tracks for the full century of wars.

All examples of times when the rest of the continent really did not sign off on it, so not sure what your point is.

Also, that song was a recruiting song for the first of those wars, speaking about the specific theatres of that war: there's a reason there's a versus about Galloway and Marlborough. You might be thinking of the 20th century rework for the Sharpe series.
 
With the Occitans et al though it is easy to argue that they are speaking "Wrong" French.
With Dutch it is a lot more clear that it is a utterly different language.

Still, given even in Belgium as it stood French steadily advanced as the prestige language, seems likely to be even more so if the French end up controlling the place. Easy enough to ignore the people on the margins of society.
 
Would not having a large province likely to rebel if the French language laws were enacted something of a disincentive given France's other, more immediate problems?
 
All examples of times when the rest of the continent really did not sign off on it, so not sure what your point is.

Also, that song was a recruiting song for the first of those wars, speaking about the specific theatres of that war: there's a reason there's a versus about Galloway and Marlborough. You might be thinking of the 20th century rework for the Sharpe series.

I'm thinking of one of the Queen Anne versions ("Hark now the drums beat up again", not "Forty shillings on the drum"). That song went through several dozen versions based on contemporary events during the long 18th. It's a catchy tune - not all of the versions are even about soldering. I was offering it as one of the many little signs that really, the British ended up in wars in Flanders quite often, for the specific reason that having navigable estuaries and and large potential port cities that close to England in French hands was considered quite unacceptable. Having it part of the Austrian's dominions is one thing, having them connected to metropolitan France is quite another.
 
Annexing Belgium has so many knock-on effects, I doubt we can say something even about the French revolution.

In the 1780's, the Dutch Republic was also just about falling into revolution, with a relatively succesfull Prussian intervention heading off any more. Now, imagine the French (sortof on the side of the patriots) intervening against the Prussians to ensure a new Dutch government is pro-French (or just paralysed)? From Antwerp, they could probably be on time to head off the Prussians if they wanted to.

If not, fleeing Dutch rebels ('patriotten') could be heading to Antwerp/Brussels, agitating much closer to the Dutch heartland. Who knows if they'll manage to kick up an outright Dutch revolution when the French core shatters in a revolution? A Dutch revolution based not just on Holland, but on Holland and Flandres/Brabant might even happen, though the francophilia in the region might not be a real boost.
 
No comments about the language itself?

Would having a large non-french-speaking province, probably with a degree of independence, affect the centralized language policies of the Revolution?

It probably wouldn't have mattered. French was the language of the upper classes in Flanders. Flemish was the language of the common people. So the linguistic situation there really wasn't much different than in some other regions of France.

How about France also absorbed the Piedmont, or possibly the Dutch Republic (1806) another large area that doesn't speak French?

Assuming Revolutionary France survives beyond 1815, would France attempt to forcibly centralize language long term with so many minority language regions?

Thanks.

Piedmont was another region where French was a common aristocratic language. (Remember, this is a time period when the nobility all over Europe is speaking French.) Again, I don't think it'd be too different from other French regions.

The Netherlands, I don't know. I'm not sure if Napoleon really planned on keeping control of the Netherlands forever or if they were going to be a bargaining chip in the eventual peace negotiations.
 
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As above:

Assume France gets Belgium (Austrian Netherlands) in a swap after the War of Bavarian Succession around 1780ish.

A large portion of the population speaks Dutch and one of Revolutionary France's primary aims was lingual unity.

With such a large portion of Belgium (now French Netherlands) speaking another language, does the Convention have to tone down their demands?

Nope. Brittany speaks Breton; Gascony and much of southern France speaks Occitan, Corsica speaks Corsican, and much of Lorraine speaks Lothringian German or Alsacian German. Not to mention that in that time period Norman and Picard in the north can be considered independent languages, as can Franco-Provençial in the east. And that didn't stop the revolutionaries OTL from demanding lingual unity - the French of central France. One or two more languages (Walloon and Flemish) will not change anything.
 
First some clarification. The Habsburg Southern Netherlands' was not today's Belgium. It was roughly the area of today's Flanders: Everything north of Brussels and east of Bruges. The area west of Bruges went back and forth regularly between Austria and France. To the South of Brussels, you had the prinsbishoprick of Liege and Greater Luxemburg (Today's state of Luxemburg and the Belgian province of Belgian Luxembourg that is of roughly the same size). Both Liege and Luxemburg were independent states of the Holy Roman empire, not associated with Austria. So France would only get the Dutch speaking part of Belgium. Unless this is it risks taking on the HRE over a couple of states just because those states happen to speak a kind of French dialect.

Another point is that until WWI, Flanders didn't speak 'Dutch'. Rather every city or region spoke its local dialect which were basically Dutch in nature but were as different from the uniform Dutch of the Netherlands as one dialect from the other two towns over. This came out of history as the Netherlands needed one common language to hold their state together whereas Flanders for most of its time had been under 'foreign' administration and took on the language of the rulers for administrative and commercial purposes while keeping the own dialect for business amongst themselves.

Third thought: As I already remarked, France by time controlled various parts of the western Flemish border regions. It even has its own province of 'Flandres', which is roughly the strip between Dunkirk and Lille. This region has been part of France since the middle ages. Yet the population still holds on to their 'Vlaamsk' dialect. Today, all administrative duties are handled in French and so are most of the billboards and publications. Yet 'Vlaamsk' is officially taught in school under 'local history' just as Breton or Basque in other parts of the country. So yes, I believe if France were to control all of Flanders, this would be their model.

It has been suggested that France will push heavily for a uniform language and try to eradicate local tongues, but revolutions notwithstanding, by the time they would get serious, we would be well into the 19th century and well into romanticism. And with that the rich history of medieval Flanders would make a comeback and so would the language. It would not be standard Dutch of course but a mixing of local dialects with some French borrowed words thrown in. It will however still be Flemish, ...or 'Vlaamsk'
 
Actually there was much less Flemings than Occitanians. So it won't be such a problem. Before the Revolutionnary wars, Fleming were like 20 % of Belgians in large cities.

Are you sure? The language border has been fairly stable for centuries and I doubt that Hainaut, Namur, the west of Luxembourg and the south of Brabant (which aremostly in the Ardennes mountains) had that much more (four times?) the population than Flanders and central Brabant, which are in the much more fertile plain.
 
First some clarification. The Habsburg Southern Netherlands' was not today's Belgium. It was roughly the area of today's Flanders: Everything north of Brussels and east of Bruges. The area west of Bruges went back and forth regularly between Austria and France. To the South of Brussels, you had the prinsbishoprick of Liege and Greater Luxemburg (Today's state of Luxemburg and the Belgian province of Belgian Luxembourg that is of roughly the same size). Both Liege and Luxemburg were independent states of the Holy Roman empire, not associated with Austria.

Liège was indeed a distinct entity, but Luxembourg was under Austrian rule.

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As a Belgian I don't think France would had troubles absorbing Belgium. The nobility, bourgeoisie and the intelectual elite speak french. Flemish at the time is a dozen of dutch dialect. Walloon too is divided in several dialect. If France keep it all that would remain would maybe few weird accent and few old peoples still speaking the old tongues.
 
As a Belgian I don't think France would had troubles absorbing Belgium. The nobility, bourgeoisie and the intelectual elite speak french. Flemish at the time is a dozen of dutch dialect. Walloon too is divided in several dialect. If France keep it all that would remain would maybe few weird accent and few old peoples still speaking the old tongues.

Too be fair in the region, where the majority spoke Dutch dialects, the elite actually was bilingual. Sure they tended to prefer speaking French, but they could communicate with the common folk, if needed.

Furthermore the Belgian elite from 1830/1839 until at least after WWI was rather hostile towards the Dutch language anyway. For all the autocratic things done by Willem I of the (united) Netherlands, he was very good for the position of Dutch in the southern Netherlands (now Belgium) and the economic development there.
Still Dutch eventually managed to regain it's position in Belgium after a long emancipation struggle.

OTOH there also is the fate of French Flanders were the local Flemish dialect, like various other Patois in France was eventually marginalized. Still it's possible and likely that Flemish by the 20th century becomes and recognized minority language.
 
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