Rhineland

This is just a question.

Lets say Napoleon gains some sort of peace around 1806 1808 that lasts. No continental system, no intervention in spain, no invasion of Russia.

Russia, Austria, Ottomans become embroiled in war, this diverts britain a bit - whatever.

Is it feasable that the peopel on the left bank of the rhine might develop to see themselves as part of france, speak french ?, see themselves as french , how long might this take.
 
Among the educated classes in the Rhineland, there were quite some liberals who preferred belonging to France for political reasons. Some would refer back to Cesar to prove that the Rhine was the "natural" border of "Gaul".

Yes, I do think it would work.
People would speak only French in all public affairs, including school.
There have also been bans on usage of German in public (not completely sure how long they were enforced). This is the key.
Otherwise, France would make no clear difference between the Rhinelanders and other citizens.

Under these circumstances it takes a lot of defiance to not eventually identify with France.
One might argue that defiance is an abundant resource there.
But without any clear perspective of a change in the situation, it's hard not to adapt.

Note that I'm assuming a scenario where French language is introduced by force, which seems most plausible.

In case German is admitted in public situations, then French language will not take over.
People may still be happy to be part of the Republique, but they wouldn't identify themselves as French.
 

Mostly bourgeois of the big cities, in a similar way (but smaller) that French was spoken in the Alsatian cities. Don't forget that French was the cultural, scientifical and diplomatic language in this era, and no one spoke hochdeutsh in Rheinland except for a few lawyers (hochdeutsh was the language of the law of the HRE). If you spoke the local dialect you won't be understod 50km away, while with French the wolrd was open to you.
 
Mostly bourgeois of the big cities, in a similar way (but smaller) that French was spoken in the Alsatian cities. Don't forget that French was the cultural, scientifical and diplomatic language in this era, and no one spoke hochdeutsh in Rheinland except for a few lawyers (hochdeutsh was the language of the law of the HRE). If you spoke the local dialect you won't be understod 50km away, while with French the wolrd was open to you.

This argument basically works everywhere in Germany and in many places beyond. You wouldn't state that Prussia was a French-speaking country, would you?
Using French as an "interlanguage" doesn't mean you would use it as your primary means of communication. Moreover, this is restricted to the educated, so perhaps 2% of the population.

And as to Dutch: The range of dialects between Dutch and German doesn't provide a natural line of distinction. In some sense you could even argue that Cologne features a Dutch dialect. In terms of identification, it's important what you think what your language is.
 
This argument basically works everywhere in Germany and in many places beyond. You wouldn't state that Prussia was a French-speaking country, would you?
Using French as an "interlanguage" doesn't mean you would use it as your primary means of communication. Moreover, this is restricted to the educated, so perhaps 2% of the population.

And as to Dutch: The range of dialects between Dutch and German doesn't provide a natural line of distinction. In some sense you could even argue that Cologne features a Dutch dialect. In terms of identification, it's important what you think what your language is.

Yes they still spoke germanic dialects, but that's the thing. There was no unified germanic language. The thing is that expanding french use, through some sort of "interlanguage" policy, will probably slowly replace the germanic dialects.
 
Alsatian - a Franconian dialect - was unintelligable to germans east of the Rhine, an extreme example, but the franconian dialects on the west bank were like foreign languages to people in berlin or vienna, so language neednt make them automatically feel german.
 
Alsatian - a Franconian dialect - was unintelligable to germans east of the Rhine, an extreme example, but the franconian dialects on the west bank were like foreign languages to people in berlin or vienna, so language neednt make them automatically feel german.

Actually, Rheinlandish dialects are Franconian or Dutch, but Alsatian is mostly a low allemanic dialect, with some Franconian in the north, and high allemanic in the south
 
The point is that it's German dialects, not just Germanic.
What is the difference between a German and a Germanic dialect? The difference is not so clear within the German-Dutch dialect continuum. Is Bavarian a German dialect? Yes, obviously. Is Swiss? probably yes. Is Dutch? no. Dutch is it own language within the continuum and not a German dialic. It clearly has the same status as German (unless you are willing to say German is a Dutch dialect too). So is Twents a German dialect? No, it is a Dutch dialect. So any dialect part of the German-Dutch dialect continuum spoken in a German speaking country (Germany, Austria, Switserland and Lichtenstein) is a German Dialect, while a dialect spoken in a Dutch speaking country (the Netherlands, Flanders) is a Dutch dialect. So what is Alsatian? A dialect spoken in France? Is it a German dialect? Or its own language? Well, I think this probably is a grey area.
 
@Pompeius:
You're very much right. Of course there is some leeway between the definitions of "language" and "dialect". But I don't agree with your approach by breaking ties at political borders, because then your just define the problem away. Moreover, it is generally accepted that there is a German speaking population in Belgium, so your rule of thumb "NL and BL vs. DE/AU/CH" doesn't apply.

I don't claim that taking an arbitrary village near the Dutch-German border, one could perfectly decide whether it should be classified as Dutch or German speaking. But I do claim that there is a intrinsic difference between German and Dutch, and by intrinsic I mean not just defined by orthographic manuals or political borders.

By contrast, defining Letzebüergesch as a language of its own is hardly more than a political fiat. From an intrinsic perspective, it makes much more sense to define Swiss German as a language of its own.

Now although we can't be sure in border regions or perhaps even some length around, it's relatively clear for the majority of places in the Rhineland that people talk more similar to people in Frankfurt than in Haarlem.

Moreover, another point was that the people would define their language as German. Also here, people have some sensible leeway. But it's misleading to state the Rhineland wouldn't have cared about cutural (or national) identity just because they were living in Babylonian confusion anyway.


... and another point as to my nitpicking at "Germanic":
Unfortunately it's very common in English to mix up "Germanic" with "German".
It's not exactly that we're arguing about the spread of Icelandic here ...
 
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