roman empire survives as a francophone state?

Deleted member 5719

how is this possible?

It's not possible, as a POD during the Roman era would mean no French language ever develops.


To have a vaguely recognisable French language, you probably need a POD no earlier than 850 AD, or even 950.
 
The Ottoman Turks are less succesful, and the Byzantines are able to consolidate coastal Anatolia, plus Greece and Epirus, thus building a new nation state of Romania. In the 18th century, French becomes a very popular language in the court, due to French hegemony on the European continent, and the French wife of the Emperor Constantine XIX. Eventually, French becomes the second language of the Roman Empire, alongside Greek.

How's that? :cool:
 
Nappy-wank? Nappy, not happy with merely ruling Europe as French Emperor, declares himself Roman Emperor and sets up court in Rome? :D
 

Deleted member 5719

Still be REALLY tough. Somehow you've got to have the legitimacy of Charlemagne's empire be centered on France, and... Wait a minute, how did Charlemagne's FRANKish empire move to Austria!? Maybe it's not hard at all.


Even then, let's have a look at what French looked like in 842:

“Pro Deo amur et pro Christian poblo et nostro commun salvament, d'ist di in avant, in quant Deus savir et podir me dunat, si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo et in ajudha et in cadhuna cosa, si cum om per dreit son fradra salvar dift, in o quid il me altresi fazet, et ab Ludher nul plaid numquam prindrai, qui, meon vol, cist meon fradre Karle in damno sit.”

The new Roman Empire's language could quite easily evolve in a completely different direction from today's French, depending on the languages of conquered territories, the status of Latin and the position of Arabic in Europe. In addition, the area that became the empire's powerbase would be key, and it probably wouldn't be Ile de France, more likely Provence, Toulouse, Orleans or Strasbourg, depending on what other territories were added to the empire.
 
Still be REALLY tough. Somehow you've got to have the legitimacy of Charlemagne's empire be centered on France, and... Wait a minute, how did Charlemagne's FRANKish empire move to Austria!? Maybe it's not hard at all.
Just have things go a little better for the Carolingians after the reign of Charles the Fat. If they can stay on the throne in France for the 10th century, the HRE will include all of France, Germany, Lotharingia, and probably Italy.
 
Even then, let's have a look at what French looked like in 842:

“Pro Deo amur et pro Christian poblo et nostro commun salvament, d'ist di in avant, in quant Deus savir et podir me dunat, si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo et in ajudha et in cadhuna cosa, si cum om per dreit son fradra salvar dift, in o quid il me altresi fazet, et ab Ludher nul plaid numquam prindrai, qui, meon vol, cist meon fradre Karle in damno sit.”

The new Roman Empire's language could quite easily evolve in a completely different direction from today's French, depending on the languages of conquered territories, the status of Latin and the position of Arabic in Europe. In addition, the area that became the empire's powerbase would be key, and it probably wouldn't be Ile de France, more likely Provence, Toulouse, Orleans or Strasbourg, depending on what other territories were added to the empire.

You are right that Old French could develop rather differently from OTL.
BUT a Gallic Latin dialect was already existend and could be told from all other variants of Latin well before 500. The Gallic specialities include
  • Nasalization also in stem syllables. In other regions, mostly suffixes were nasalized, which wore off soon anyway.
  • The distinction between nominative and oblique casus was maintained for male singular for some time, featuring the ending -us. In modern French, this explains the -s in "fils" and the -u in some participles like "lu" or "perdu".

There are certainly plenty of other items. So I guess "French" was unique and indistinguishable a long time before it would be recognizable for us as French.
 
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