WI:França NOT France

How could we make Occitan the official language of France instead of French, could a capital in Poitou, Barcelona or Toulouse work.
 
Why not Marseille, it's the second largest city in France, and it is on the Mediterranean coast
Because Marseille is in Provence, a region that did join France until the late middle ages. Poitiers would be a good capital due to its central location in France.
Scipio
 
The best way would be to have an Occitan speaking Feudal Lord take the French throne and do the same thing the Capetians did : impose its language to the Kingdom.

If you could have the Counts of Toulouse or the Dukes of Aquitaine take the French Crown rather than the Capetians, that could work. These two were the most powerful nobles of Southern France. On how to do that, I have no real idea...
 
The best way would be to have an Occitan speaking Feudal Lord take the French throne and do the same thing the Capetians did : impose its language to the Kingdom.

If you could have the Counts of Toulouse or the Dukes of Aquitaine take the French Crown rather than the Capetians, that could work. These two were the most powerful nobles of Southern France. On how to do that, I have no real idea...

The french wasn't imposed as the language of the kingdom until...Louis XIV/Louis XVI.
The Villers-Cotterets decree imposed the use of vulgar language french or occitan (see jurisprudence)
 
Hmm doesn't the north have more power because it has better soil with certain tech improvements?
 
Hmm doesn't the north have more power because it has better soil with certain tech improvements?
The main advantage of the franks were
-Better army
-Better access to the new medieval tradeways
-Better stability (yes, it's not a joke, they had one of the best stability in western world)
 
The main advantage of the franks were
-Better army
-Better access to the new medieval tradeways
-Better stability (yes, it's not a joke, they had one of the best stability in western world)


I think Occitan will fare better if Occitania is a part of Spain in the medieval era rather than France, it has an edge over Castillian because it is older than Castillan and can overwhelm it or prevent it's birth on reconquista and Occitan becomes the Spanish language
 
I think Occitan will fare better if Occitania is a part of Spain in the medieval era rather than France, it has an edge over Castillian because it is older than Castillan and can overwhelm it or prevent it's birth on reconquista and Occitan becomes the Spanish language

The problem here is the fatc that spanish and catalan states are busy to being heavily raided by the muslils until the XII, when Franks have ever established hegemony in Gaul. Aslo the differences with late hispano-roman (VIII) and occitano-roman are huge (without talking about the vascon-cantabrian superstrat in hispano-roman (f->h).

There's a possibility tough. Have a common state for hispano-asturians and vascons, making technically a common gascon/asturian cultural zone, eventually making it a realy different spanish language, with a more important vascon superstrat.
And make aquitain or provencal states anaging to have an hegemony in Catalunya (or even having a OTL Catalan state having hegemony on a part of Aquitania/Provence) and creating so a bigger zone for a common catalan/occitan language (as we discussed in a other thread)
 

archaeogeek

Banned
Bordeaux makes far more sense than Poitiers, since it was a far more important city in Aquitaine. Of course it would probably have the side-effect that we'd talk more about Aquitaine than France and France would be treated in modern history books as the "rebellious duchy".
 
Bordeaux makes far more sense than Poitiers, since it was a far more important city in Aquitaine. Of course it would probably have the side-effect that we'd talk more about Aquitaine than France and France would be treated in modern history books as the "rebellious duchy".

Then simple just have Eleanor not divorce Louis and persuade him to transfer the court to Aquitaine in Bordeu.
 
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archaeogeek

Banned
Then simple just have Eleanor not divorce Louis and persuade him to transfer the court to Aquitaine in Bordeu.

No, not that simple. At that point it's much too late, and the cultural attraction of Paris is already absolutely enormous; people at court in London swear by Paris even. You need a much earlier POD, probably one during the carolingian period or before. The real world is not a game of Europa Universalis, sorry.
 
I can't really see that happen. It would require two massive and early POD's : more powerful Christian states in Spain, and especially an earlier Catalan-speaking kingdom that would offer Aquitanian and Languedocian principalities a counterweight to the Capetians, or a massive shift in geographical power in the Frankish realm, probably before Charlemagne. Paris and Ile de France came to proeminence because they were commanding the whole Neustria, its trade routes, its fairs. And Neustria was one of the core areas of the Empire.
 
How about a *Southern France country develop on its own, with its own more Occitan tongue, Roman law system, etc., and have it conquer *Northern France somewhere past the year 1000?
 
Theodoric said:
How about a *Southern France country develop on its own, with its own more Occitan tongue, Roman law system, etc., and have it conquer *Northern France somewhere past the year 1000?

That could work, but I'm not sure. I'm no expert on Language evolutions.
For this scenario, I have a good POD though : have Louis III (ruled 879-882) and Carloman II (ruled 879-884) of France stay alive and father children.

Louis III and Carloman II were both co-rulers of France. Louis III was ruling Neustria, which is basically Northern France. Carloman II, for his part, had Aquitaine and Burgundy (Southern France). They died before their 20s and without children, weakening the Carolingian Dynasty in France and allowing the rise of the Robertians (later Capetians). But if they survived, you could end up with a divided France.

Then, for the Southern Part to conquer the Northern One, you could just have Louis III's bloodline die out : that would lead to Carloman II's bloodline being the heir to the Northern throne. In theory that could work.

Plausible?
 
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