What is a common thing or trope that always seem to happen?

[da Racontor]

All jokes aside I can't bring myself to understand why people like the Anglo Saxons so much. Like yeah whatever they weren't Fr*nch and that's all well and good, but I just don't get the appeal. I mean come on actual blood money was the bedrock of their society, they did plenty of vile shit off their own; If Williams harrying of the north was a genocide than so was the Saint Brices day massacre. I mean here's what King Ethelred himself had to say about it.


This along with all the weird racial theories associated with them.....Yeah honestly if you want a pre Norman British power who fought against foreign invaders to simp over than the native Irish are right their with absolutely no cringe genocide, racism or conspiracy theories. Brian Boru>Harold Godwinson.

I'm guilty of using a variant of it for sure. I tend to like having the people in ATL believe the Norman Yoke, and leave the reality vague.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I like it because it keeps the ATL Anglosphere from feeling too OTL.

I actually have been wanting to do a timeline that kinda inverses this for a while. Where Anglo-Saxon culture survives because they accept William the Conqueror as king. No "rebellion" no need to send an army.

Nah, that would be the 4th Crusade, I haven't seen Greeks mentioning that much.

What Greece is mad about is the fall of Constantinople.

I was under the impression that the Fourth Crusade was more of a religious complaint than a nation one. Not a lot of either around here though so...

 

[Viking25]

That we know of. Kind of hard to know what the fuck was going on when there was so much monastery sacking etc.

Still they weren't English so their good in my book /s

I was under the impression that the Fourth Crusade was more of a religious complaint than a nation one. Not a lot of either around here though so...

Nah, that would be the 4th Crusade, I haven't seen Greeks mentioning that much.

What Greece is mad about is the fall of Constantinople.

Sorry, I mean to talk about the Fall of Constantinople just fucked up and put sack instead of fall thought

I'm guilty of using a variant of it for sure. I tend to like having the people in ATL believe the Norman Yoke, and leave the reality vague.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I like it because it keeps the ATL Anglosphere from feeling too OTL.

I mean thats already kinda true in OTL. People in Victorian Britain(And the English civil war, The Idea of Charles as a Norman oppressor was surprisingly popular) loved the hell out of that theory in the form of Anglo Saxonism because it allowed them to both A Mythologise a glorious past like all the cool kids, B Bash Catholics and C Explain why they were actually racially superior and deserved to manifest destiny everybody else into submission(More of a American thing)

I actually have been wanting to do a timeline that kinda inverses this for a while. Where Anglo-Saxon culture survives because they accept William the Conqueror as king. No "rebellion" no need to send an army.

NGL that idea is fascinating.

 

[30PrincesAndAKing]

This will make England have a focus on Scandinavia, in addition to making the English language more Germanic with a lot more Danish. This has consequences with France reorganizing earlier without England to get in the way. But it would probably make England kind of see itself as a Scandinavian country and ignoring the continent quite a bit.

Thing is, the Norse rulers of this non-Norman England are likely to Anglicize within a generation or two. A Norman ruler of England has every incentive to look to the continent; the French lands were already more populated and fertile, they just didn't come with a crown or a (relatively) centralized bureaucracy (this is what England offered to the Norman rulers). This gives them incentive to retain their French roots, since they can use English resources to advance their ambitions on the continent (which is what the Normans basically did).

The same is not true for a Norse or Danish ruler of England; he would have every reason to look towards England itself. England had a larger population, was more fertile, and had a more temperate climate compared to most of Scandinavia at the time. And this is on top of the centralization that would make governance in England much easier than in Scandinavia. Given the languages are already nearly mutually intelligible at this time, there's really no incentive at all for Harald's heirs to retain their Norse roots. What's left for them in Norway once they have England?

What you'd probably see is a process similar to what happened to the Normans themselves; they adopt the language and culture of their new home while keeping some of their original cultural quirks. Old English would be affected, of course, but you wouldn't see a drastic Norsification of the language on the level of the Norman Conquest since the ruling class wouldn't feel a need to retain a separate language anyway. Probably.

 

[Viking25]

Thing is, the Norse rulers of this non-Norman England are likely to Anglicize within a generation or two. A Norman ruler of England has every incentive to look to the continent; the French lands were already more populated and fertile, they just didn't come with a crown or a (relatively) centralized bureaucracy (this is what England offered to the Norman rulers). This gives them incentive to retain their French roots, since they can use English resources to advance their ambitions on the continent (which is what the Normans basically did).

The same is not true for a Norse or Danish ruler of England; he would have every reason to look towards England itself. England had a larger population, was more fertile, and had a more temperate climate compared to most of Scandinavia at the time. And this is on top of the centralization that would make governance in England much easier than in Scandinavia. Given the languages are already nearly mutually intelligible at this time, there's really no incentive at all for Harald's heirs to retain their Norse roots. What's left for them in Norway once they have England?

What you'd probably see is a process similar to what happened to the Normans themselves; they adopt the language and culture of their new home while keeping some of their original cultural quirks. Old English would be affected, of course, but you wouldn't see a drastic Norsification of the language on the level of the Norman Conquest since the ruling class wouldn't feel a need to retain a separate language anyway. Probably.

When has a conquering foreign class actually succeeded in imposing its culture and assimilating a far numerically superior native population(Even the Romans didn't completely get rid of the cultures they conquered)? Its kinda just of one of those historical trends which is very hard to beat. I could buy a England conquered by the Norse would be less interested in the continent to some degree, but to the point of considering itself part of some Scandinavian super region? A little out their in my opinion.

 

[Gloss]

When has a conquering foreign class actually succeeded in imposing its culture and assimilating a far numerically superior native population(Even the Romans didn't completely get rid of the cultures they conquered)? Its kinda just of one of those historical trends which is very hard to beat. I could buy a England conquered by the Norse would be less interested in the continent to some degree, but to the point of considering itself part of some Scandinavian super region? A little out their in my opinion.

It happened many times in fact, from the Arabs, to Greeks in Anatolia assimilating local Anatolian populations. The Norse in fact influenced the English language a lot despite their brief and contested presence.

 

[Sarthak]

When has a conquering foreign class actually succeeded in imposing its culture and assimilating a far numerically superior native population

The Angles, Jutes, Frisians, Saxons, Arabs, Turks, Iranians (who wiped out the other Iranic cultures of the Iranian Plateau), Greeks, The Japanese to the Emishi, and much much more. It is far more common than expected throughout history.

 

[ordinarylittleme]

B Bash Catholics

I think this one in itself is a trend

 

[Gloss]

The Angles, Jutes, Frisians, Saxons, Arabs, Turks, Iranians (who wiped out the other Iranic cultures of the Iranian Plateau), Greeks, The Japanese to the Emishi, and much much more. It is far more common than expected throughout history.

The Anglo-Saxon and Turks had a very large migratory component. The Yayoi as well are the majority genetic component in the Japanese population(though recent evidence makes the exact picture more muddy even before we take into account the later Emishi)

 

[Viking25]

The Angles, Jutes, Frisians, Saxons, Arabs, Turks, Iranians (who wiped out the other Iranic cultures of the Iranian Plateau), Greeks, The Japanese to the Emishi, and much much more. It is far more common than expected throughout history.

The Anglo-Saxon and Turks had a very large migratory component. The Yayoi as well are the majority genetic component in the Japanese population(though recent evidence makes the exact picture more muddy even before we take into account the later Emishi)

I understand all those other ones and I apologise for making such a generalised assumption(Though in my defence a lot of these were as the result of Migrations which is a far different can of worms then lets say the Norman Conquest), but who did the Greeks assimilate? I mean they heavily influenced areas like Parthia, Egypt and Syria but these places remained culturally distinct from mainland Greece as a whole if heavily influenced by it and the people their didn't think of themselves as Greek. Are you talking about the Greek cities on the Anatolian coast or is it something else entirely?

 

[Aluma]

I mean... they did assimilate Greece itself~ does It count?
Like the myceneans sure did take it over from whoever came before them

 

[Gloss]

I understand all those other ones and I apologise for making such a generalised assumption(Though in my defence a lot of these were as the result of Migrations which is a far different can of worms then lets say the Norman Conquest), but who did the Greeks assimilate? I mean they heavily influenced areas like Parthia, Egypt and Syria but these places remained culturally distinct from mainland Greece as a whole if heavily influenced by it and the people their didn't think of themselves as Greek. Are you talking about the Greek cities on the Anatolian coast or is it something else entirely?

They assimilated the whole of Anatolia, which had something like 2-4 times the population of Greece itself.

 

[CASSICTOR2]

They assimilated the whole of Anatolia, which had something like 2-4 times the population of Greece itself.

Honestly they're acting like this is America who Manifest Destiny the whole west like it's some sort of easy achievement even though it's have a lot more difficulty and almost impossible to achieve.

Greeks population even before the 1921 removal of Anatolia were heavily Turks populated and even if for example without Armenian genocide, is really hard to assimilate them especially with a small population

 

[Viking25]

They assimilated the whole of Anatolia, which had something like 2-4 times the population of Greece itself.

After nearly a thousand years of control and an already exisiting population on the Aegean coast. Not very comparable to some of the other choices you pointed out, but Touche.

Honestly they're acting like this is America who Manifest Destiny the whole west like it's some sort of easy achievement even though it's have a lot more difficulty and almost impossible to achieve.

Greeks population even before the 1921 removal of Anatolia were heavily Turks populated and even if for example without Armenian genocide, is really hard to assimilate them especially with a small population

I think their referring to Byzantine/Roman Anatolia,

 

[Viking25]

I mean... they did assimilate Greece itself~ does It count?
Like the myceneans sure did take it over from whoever came before them

From what I can tell the Mycenaeans were more of a predecessor to the Ancient Greeks more than anything else. More of a Byzantine/Roman situation than anything else.

 

[CASSICTOR2]

I think their referring to Byzantine/Roman Anatolia,

Yeah you're right but it's so true for the this and modern age too my Viking friend 😉

 

[Gloss]

After nearly a thousand years of control and an already exisiting population on the Aegean coast. Not very comparable to some of the other choices you pointed out, but Touche.

You can always cherrypick differences in the exact details because every historical event is unique if you look more into it.

Ultimately though the idea that Norse people couldn't have had a strong demographic impact on the isles and couldn't have influenced the English language as much if not more than French did(especially given the peculiar pattern of simple word borrowing that happened historically) doesn't strike as something you can make a good argument for.

 

[Mitridates the Great]

The idea that people care about dark economic or legal arcana that they could only understand if they had a law degree, and they take them into consideration when making decisions such as where they are going to live

I think about how they try to explain the superiority of the United States as an immigration destination by appealing to the supposed enormous economic and institutional strength of their system compared to Europe... except that most immigrants were not in a position to understand that kind of of explanations.

Most went there simply because the alternative was worse or because it was the only chance for success they had, but it is doubtful that they thought at the level required to appreciate the legal and economic arcana.

 

[Gloss]

The idea that people care about dark economic or legal arcana that they could only understand if they had a law degree, and they take them into consideration when making decisions such as where they are going to live

I think about how they try to explain the superiority of the United States as an immigration destination by appealing to the supposed enormous economic and institutional strength of their system compared to Europe... except that most immigrants were not in a position to understand that kind of of explanations.

Most went there simply because the alternative was worse or because it was the only chance for success they had, but it is doubtful that they thought at the level required to appreciate the legal and economic arcana.

I wouldn't go so far, the bulk of immigrants would have been convinced by relatives or people they knew that migrated before them and these people would have at least experienced life in the US firsthand enough to relay this information.

You don't need to understand the entire system to understand parts of the system relevant to you personally.

 

[Mitridates the Great]

I wouldn't go so far, the bulk of immigrants would have been convinced by relatives or people they knew that migrated before them and these people would have at least experienced life in the US firsthand enough to relay this information.

You don't need to understand the entire system to understand parts of the system relevant to you personally.

Yes, my point is precisely to criticize that a common trope is for TL's people to go beyond that level and start talking and talking about the inherent political and economic superiority of the United States at the level that could be associated with a debate of academics in an Economic and Political Theory class.

People may decide to go to America because they keep getting letters from Uncle Paul telling them how great he lives there. What I find hard to believe is that they start to analyze the policies that make it possible for Uncle Paul to have such a good life in America...

 

[Viking25]

You can always cherrypick differences in the exact details because every historical event is unique if you look more into it.

Ultimately though the idea that Norse people couldn't have had a strong demographic impact on the isles and couldn't have influenced the English language as much if not more than French did(especially given the peculiar pattern of simple word borrowing that happened historically) doesn't strike as something you can make a good argument for.

....When did I say that? I simply said it was unlikely that the Viking Conquerors would somehow be able to assimilate the English so throughly that they would start considering themselves Scandinavians when the Normans and French were unable to achieve a similar result with a larger and far more developed homeland. Thats it.