On the evolution of romance languages and modern nationstates

[Prof_Chemical]

Is it known what point the romance languages stratified, ie ceased to be a fluid continuum? is it at the formation of nationstates? the translations of the bible? something else? am i right in thinking most of the continental germanic language continuum remained intact given that most of it was contained within one nationstate? im not asking that a person from lisbon understand someone from rome, rather that there be a gradual change if you traveled from these two points where intelligibility is mostly a function of proximity. What would of needed to play out differently for that to be the case?

 

[Brunaburh]

There was a continuum of mutually intelligible dialects with no gaps stretching across Portugal, Spain, France and Italy as late as 1920. The only places I can think of where non-mutually intelligible dialects touched were the southern half of the Portuguese/Spanish border, the town of Algherro and perhaps on the Spanish/Catalan frontier in southern Valencia.

 

[GeographyDude]

. . am i right in thinking most of the continental germanic language continuum remained intact given that most of it was contained within one nationstate? . .

I think Germany became a nation state amazingly late, like mid-1800s.

 

[funnyhat]

There was a continuum of mutually intelligible dialects with no gaps stretching across Portugal, Spain, France and Italy as late as 1920. The only places I can think of where non-mutually intelligible dialects touched were the southern half of the Portuguese/Spanish border, the town of Algherro and perhaps on the Spanish/Catalan frontier in southern Valencia.

It was probably even later than that. I was reading recently about a town in Provence where the first generation of schoolchildren to be native speakers of French (as opposed to Provençal) only emerged in the 1940s.

Universal public education created a population that was literate, but (usually) only in the national language, and then radio/television reinforced its prestige, while the regional languages were removed from the public sphere and declined. This process happened in many Western societies.

 

[FillyofDelphi]

I think Germany became a nation state amazingly late, like mid-1800s.

I think he's referring to the HRE...

 

[Prof_Chemical]

no i meant post franco-prussian war

 

[Prof_Chemical]

It was probably even later than that. I was reading recently about a town in Provence where the first generation of schoolchildren to be native speakers of French (as opposed to Provençal) only emerged in the 1940s.

Universal public education created a population that was literate, but (usually) only in the national language, and then radio/television reinforced its prestige, while the regional languages were removed from the public sphere and declined. This process happened in many Western societies.

would it be possible to have literacy,schooling newspapers etc in local languages, such that they remain relevant and in use?

 

[Prof_Chemical]

would it take a pan-nationalist movement? or a nationalism less assimilationist? or what?

 

[Prof_Chemical]

maybe a language other from the capital variety as the prestige language/mandarin or whatever?

 

[Prof_Chemical]

would it be alien space bats for church latin to be the stuff on the tv and all that?

 

[FillyofDelphi]

would it be possible to have literacy,schooling newspapers etc in local languages, such that they remain relevant and in use?

Considering the patterns for these are usually developed out of major centers of settlement and commerce, setting a cultural pattern and creating an incentive for outsiders to use the language of said commercial and cultural capitals (How can I buy things in town if the shopkeeper speaks French and I don't, especially if we're in an age of haggling? Or know world events if I'm not literate in the language of the major papers, who publish in the more widely spoken among the well-to-do and educated? To say nothing of getting a job) markets encourage the hemoginization of language

 

[EternalCynic]

Maybe we could have a situation where the Reformation goes sideways, and as a result most of continental Europe resembles India: a single decentralized federal state which mildly derives its identity from its overwhelmingly Catholic majority. Maybe Northern Germany and Scandinavia become "Pakistan", a predominately Protestant state that, as a result of the religious tensions surrounding its formation, becomes more and more fundamentalist over decades?

In this situation, Latin becomes like English in OTL India. It's the language of the elite, and all laws, higher education, and multinational corporations function in English. However, only 2% of Romanians (??) could speak Latin to a professional level. Those who grew up in a Romance vernacular environment can understand and speak some simple Latin. But the rest (the Germans, the western Slavs, to say nothing of Hungarians or Basques) are completely unable to understand Latin without specific education. It doesn't necessarily damage their loyalty to this European empire any more than Dravidians are less loyal to India.

And, just like India has a free-wheeling media in all of its vernacular languages, this European empire would see Latin-language newspapers, TV that are mostly consumed by the elite coexisting with Catalan, Tuscan, Low German, Slovak newspapers and TV with a generally vernacular, local audience.

 

[kratostatic]

Maybe we could have a situation where the Reformation goes sideways, and as a result most of continental Europe resembles India: a single decentralized federal state which mildly derives its identity from its overwhelmingly Catholic majority. Maybe Northern Germany and Scandinavia become "Pakistan", a predominately Protestant state that, as a result of the religious tensions surrounding its formation, becomes more and more fundamentalist over decades?

In this situation, Latin becomes like English in OTL India. It's the language of the elite, and all laws, higher education, and multinational corporations function in English. However, only 2% of Romanians (??) could speak Latin to a professional level. Those who grew up in a Romance vernacular environment can understand and speak some simple Latin. But the rest (the Germans, the western Slavs, to say nothing of Hungarians or Basques) are completely unable to understand Latin without specific education. It doesn't necessarily damage their loyalty to this European empire any more than Dravidians are less loyal to India.

And, just like India has a free-wheeling media in all of its vernacular languages, this European empire would see Latin-language newspapers, TV that are mostly consumed by the elite coexisting with Catalan, Tuscan, Low German, Slovak newspapers and TV with a generally vernacular, local audience.

This is really cool, and I've often wondered about an India-esque Europe in a TL. Unfortunately I think your PoD is simultaneously too late and too early. I thought that by the time of the reformation Latin was on its way out as a language of diplomacy and so on, but at the same time having a single government ruling all of Europe in any meaningful sense for any period of time seems wildly ambitious.

 

[EternalCynic]

^ I've thought of an idea where, say, China industrializes under the Ming (yes, a trope), and a Chinese trading company builds a Dutch or Portuguese-style maritime empire across the maritime Silk Road. That company reaches Europe and uses its superior gunboats and divide-and-rule tactics to dominate Europe's trade. A sense of European nationalism emerges, happily supported by the Vatican, which sees it as a way to suppress the Protestant heresy.

After several decades of yet more war, all of Europe that was loyal to Rome in 1054 is united under a single, Catholic Emperor, who generally has a hands-off policy towards Europe's pre-existing Kings, Dukes, Princes, etc. Britain and Scandinavia remain the last redoubts of the Protestant heresy. There are large Protestant minorities in northern Germany, Muslim minorities in southern Spain, and Jewish minorities everywhere. They all face varying levels of discrimination, and the largest reason they're tolerated at all is because the Chinese trading company demanded it to facilitate their trading activities.

After several more decades, a *fascist ideology emerges, that is mixed with a previously obscure Christian end-times prophecy to turn the Empire as insane as 1930s Japan. It then simultaneously declares war on the Protestant heretics, the Orthodox schismatics, the Saracen infidels, and the Chinese pagans. It is then reduced to rubble. The victorious Allied powers (in reality, just the Chinese, as all the other powers were also ruined) then reluctantly agree to retain the monarchy as well as a thoroughly reformed official Roman church under a democratic system.

So we have a single, predominately Catholic Empire in Europe which is a cross between OTL India and Japan, whose official language at the imperial level is Latin, but other languages are official at more local levels. But it faces plenty of social and economic problems...

 

[basileus]

There was a continuum of mutually intelligible dialects with no gaps stretching across Portugal, Spain, France and Italy as late as 1920. The only places I can think of where non-mutually intelligible dialects touched were the southern half of the Portuguese/Spanish border, the town of Algherro and perhaps on the Spanish/Catalan frontier in southern Valencia.

You forgot perhaps the Massa-Senigallia line in Italy. Northern dialects (Gallo-Italic, could have easily morphed either in an Occitan or in an Alpine Ladin continuum) aren't mutually comprehensible with central (i.e. Italian proper) ones, with the possible exception of Venetian which expanded on the mainland from the lagoons and developed independently.

 

[Teejay]

Maybe we could have a situation where the Reformation goes sideways, and as a result most of continental Europe resembles India: a single decentralized federal state which mildly derives its identity from its overwhelmingly Catholic majority. Maybe Northern Germany and Scandinavia become "Pakistan", a predominately Protestant state that, as a result of the religious tensions surrounding its formation, becomes more and more fundamentalist over decades?

In this situation, Latin becomes like English in OTL India. It's the language of the elite, and all laws, higher education, and multinational corporations function in English. However, only 2% of Romanians (??) could speak Latin to a professional level. Those who grew up in a Romance vernacular environment can understand and speak some simple Latin. But the rest (the Germans, the western Slavs, to say nothing of Hungarians or Basques) are completely unable to understand Latin without specific education. It doesn't necessarily damage their loyalty to this European empire any more than Dravidians are less loyal to India.

And, just like India has a free-wheeling media in all of its vernacular languages, this European empire would see Latin-language newspapers, TV that are mostly consumed by the elite coexisting with Catalan, Tuscan, Low German, Slovak newspapers and TV with a generally vernacular, local audience.

In Western Europe, the Romance speaking region is more similar to the Indo-Aryan language zone and the Germanic language region is similar to the Dravidian Language zone. Western Europe remaining wholly or overwhelming Roman Catholic would ensure Latin would be essentially the linga franca of the continent, co-existing with various regional languages.

 

[SenatorErnesto]

Although the ideas put forth are interesting and definitely in the right direction (we would need a vastly different European history); I still find it hard to put together.

India developed the way it does because Western Style nationalism made it that way; Ming making Europe turn that way would have to somehow install Western style colonial rule that then enforced this nationalism to create a India in Europe.

My bet though is still on it just not working; sadly as language death is a very real problem in the modern age but the steps leading to this problem were set a long time ago.

 

[Brunaburh]

It was probably even later than that. I was reading recently about a town in Provence where the first generation of schoolchildren to be native speakers of French (as opposed to Provençal) only emerged in the 1940s.

Universal public education created a population that was literate, but (usually) only in the national language, and then radio/television reinforced its prestige, while the regional languages were removed from the public sphere and declined. This process happened in many Western societies.

That's all true, but you start to get big holes in dialect areas in north/central France by that time, and Spain's urbanisation was beginning. I'd give 1920 as the start of the collapse of the dialect chain, but to a degree you could say it still existed as late as 1970.

 

[Brunaburh]

Is it known what point the romance languages stratified, ie ceased to be a fluid continuum? is it at the formation of nationstates? the translations of the bible? something else? am i right in thinking most of the continental germanic language continuum remained intact given that most of it was contained within one nationstate? im not asking that a person from lisbon understand someone from rome, rather that there be a gradual change if you traveled from these two points where intelligibility is mostly a function of proximity. What would of needed to play out differently for that to be the case?

One thing I forgot to mention, the discontinuities in Iberia came from situations of language change from Arabic. So where Arabic territory conquered by Aragon touched territory conquered by Castile there was a hard language frontier of non-mutually comprehensible dialects rather than a smooth gradation. The same happened at the Portugal Castile frontier.

Of course in practice people from either sides of these frontiers could understand each other due to frequent contact, and the dialects started to influence each other. So, in long conquered areas like the border between Aragon and Southern Catalunya, a very sharp transitional zone, sometimes just 15km thick appears. On one side we have pure Catalan, on the other purish Aragonese Castilian, but between the two are 3 villages speaking transitional varieties. This causes headaches for Spanish linguists because some of these dialects still exist, and Spain really does not like ambiguity in regional identity.

 

[Prof_Chemical]

so for hispania wed need to either avoid the arab conquest, or have the reconquest undertaken by one state. if moorish spain was left intact, would that create a hard language border?