Francophone Wales

Falastur

Lysandros Aikiedes said:
About as possible as when the Normans ruled England, Sicily and southern Italy, and the Principality of Antioch!
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Far less possible. Languages historically didn't tend to jump over sea boundaries - in the cases where they've spread rather than just diverging it's been because neighbouring settlements over a state boundary have been influenced by each others' language. There's very little impetus for the Welsh to start speaking French. Court French yes, but there's no real medieval precedent for a court adopting a foreign tongue to pass it to the common folk, otherwise England would have been Francophone centuries ago.
 

Lysandros Aikiedes

Falastur said:
Far less possible. Languages historically didn't tend to jump over sea boundaries - in the cases where they've spread rather than just diverging it's been because neighbouring settlements over a state boundary have been influenced by each others' language. There's very little impetus for the Welsh to start speaking French. Court French yes, but there's no real medieval precedent for a court adopting a foreign tongue to pass it to the common folk, otherwise England would have been Francophone centuries ago.
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Erm, thats kind of what I meant by my earlier comment. I meant that English eventually replaced the Norman French of the nobility by the 1300-1400's, while the Italo-Norman Crusaders in Antioch were far too outnumbered by their Armenian, Syrian and Greek subjects for their own language to make an impact.

The Normans transported their version of French as the administrative language after the conquest of England, but then they were led by their Duke with the full military resources of his duchy behind him. The Hautevilles were a minor noble family that entered Italy as mercenaries. By the early 12th Century, the Norman-ruled Kingdom of Sicily featured Italian, Arabic and Greek languages, with the latter two involved in administration.
 
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I think it would really only make sense if we managed to replace English with French and then simply had it out compete Welsh.
 

Falastur

Lysandros Aikiedes said:
Erm, thats kind of what I meant by my earlier comment. I meant that English eventually replaced the Norman French of the nobility by the 1300-1400's, while the Italo-Norman Crusaders in Antioch were far too outnumbered by their Armenian, Syrian and Greek subjects for their own language to make an impact.

The Normans transported their version of French as the administrative language after the conquest of England, but then they were led by their Duke with the full military resources of his duchy behind him. The Hautevilles were a minor noble family that entered Italy as mercenaries. By the early 12th Century, the Norman-ruled Kingdom of Sicily featured Italian, Arabic and Greek languages, with the latter two involved in administration.
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My mistake. I know in a similar thread recently a lot of people got misty-eyed about the idea of a united Norman Empire and I thought you were recommending that such a system could happen and it could make Wales Francophone. Total misunderstanding, my bad.
 
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