Just how linguistically diverse can we make the British Isles?

I'm thinking of the more linguistically diverse parts of the world, and what might make Britain more like them.

One thing that's clear is that fudging the survival of various languages to the near-modern era doesn't necessarily achieve much. The ultimate barriers are nationalism and the development of centralized states, both of which have contributed to driving most European languages into, or towards, extinction.

Rule from without up to modern times would be very helpful, but that's challenging for more than, say, Ireland and the small isles. Otherwise, surviving English kingdoms (geographically English, that is) or some sort of pseudo-Swiss federal arrangement would probably be the best bets.
 
Decentralization aids this no matter what. The more petty kingdoms there are, or else the more decentralized feudalism persists, the more languages last. So either Britannia is less unified, or its government/s are less centralized.
 
However, to make sure that Britannia remains disunited, there needs to not be a strong neighbour or common threat to either (a) unify the states against, or (b) conquer them and enforce a more linguistically-uniform policy of administration.
 

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However, to make sure that Britannia remains disunited, there needs to not be a strong neighbour or common threat to either (a) unify the states against, or (b) conquer them and enforce a more linguistically-uniform policy of administration.
There could also be a nearby kingdom or empire that keeps Britannia under tributary status rather than directly conquered, periodically returning to divide and conquer the fiefdoms.
 
There could also be a nearby kingdom or empire that keeps Britannia under tributary status rather than directly conquered, periodically returning to divide and conquer the fiefdoms.

Or several - France and the Nordic kingdoms are both a possibility throughout, whilst some German/Dutch state could do the same to a limited extent. Meanwhile, in the modern age, any foreign nation could do the trick via imperialism and controlling a few treaty ports.
 
IMHO the only way this happens is to prevent a united England. Geography is somewhat of an issue as most of England is not isolated enough by features to prevent a lot of diffusion especially beyond the 17-a8 century. In any case, look at France. The various languages of France, Occitan, Provencal, and others that were romance (leaving Breton out of it here), were quite distinct although mutually comprehensible to some extent. As France became a more unitary state "official" French became more and more the language of the country - and certainly the language of the literate. Similarly the various Italian dialects have become secondary to "official" Italian since unification (and that was late 19th century). The tendency is for a state to, usually, enforce one official version of the common language. Belgium and Canada are sort of exceptions in they are officially dual language. Countries that are geographically large, like India or China, can sustain a lot of languages being first languages with the "official" language being everyone's second language who is not native in it. As a unitary state England (and by this I am including Scotland and Wales) is small enough that the number of "other" languages that are local (excluding immigrants) are going to be small (not lots of them) and gradually become first languages only in more remote areas or as a result of efforts to maintain them.

If Scotland remains independent, or Wales, then those areas will very likely be Gaelic or Welsh speaking.
 
The tendency is for a state to, usually, enforce one official version of the common language. Belgium and Canada are sort of exceptions in they are officially dual language.

Belgium and Canada were both at one time headed in this direction but the process was halted before it was complete. Belgium was originally unilingually francophone by law, and the city of Brussels did become francophone but the Flemings in the rest of their region resisted and managed to make the country bilingual. Likewise, English was the business language of Québec for a long time and immigrants tended to learn it rather than French (and francophones absorbed large amounts of English words in their speech) until the Quiet Revolution reversed this trend, and also prompted Canada to become legally bilingual, to halt the rise of Québec nationalism.
 
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