Q: Linguistic consequences of an early centralized HRE (with German standardized earlier)?

[Mario]

Which could have been the linguistic consequences of an early centralized HRE where (High) German would have been standardized earlier (as French or Spanish did)?

Could Dutch/Frisian be completely assimilated as Low German speaking areas did? Could the linguistic borders have expanded in areas like Wallonia, Swiss Romandy, Lorraine or the Italian/Slovenian Alps? Could the Czech language have been reduced to a status similar to Sorbian in Bohemia-Moravia? Would German have expanded more in the Baltic areas during the North Crusade? And in the Danubian basin during the conquest against the Ottomans?

 

[Analytical Engine]

Dutch is basically in the same continuum as Low German anyway, so quite possibly.

 

[Mario]

Dutch is basically in the same continuum as Low German anyway, so quite possibly.

And Frisian?

 

[Analytical Engine]

And Frisian?

That depends on how forceful this hypothetical Germany is about enforcing the Alt-Standard German language.

Potentially, it could be reduced to a level like Frisian is in Germany IOTL, or like Sorbian and Kashubian (the last remnants of the Wendish languages).

 

[The Undead Martyr]

German was actually fairly standardized OTL due to the HRE institutions, and to a lesser extent, Luther.

 

[Mario]

That depends on how forceful this hypothetical Germany is about enforcing the Alt-Standard German language.

Potentially, it could be reduced to a level like Frisian is in Germany IOTL, or like Sorbian and Kashubian (the last remnants of the Wendish languages).

Do you think Czech could be also reduced to the IOTL status of Sorbian?

 

[Analytical Engine]

Do you think Czech could be also reduced to the IOTL status of Sorbian?

Again, it depends on how thoroughly this hypothetical Germany enforces Germanisation.

German was, for a long time, the primary language of the cities, whilst the countryside was mostly Czech speaking.

 

[kasumigenx]

Do you think Czech could be also reduced to the IOTL status of Sorbian?

Strip Bohemia of Kingdom status and its nobility at an earlier point in time.

 

[The Professor]

A lot depends on how and who centralises the HRE. How likely is it that High German is used as the standard over any other in the 3 continuums?
Edit: and why not a variety of Latin or Gallo-Italian?

 

[Mario]

A lot depends on how and who centralises the HRE. How likely is it that High German is used as the standard over any other in the 3 continuums?
Edit: and why not a variety of Latin or Gallo-Italian?

I don't think any Romance language would be chosen when most of the HRE was West Germanic-speaking. Another scenario would be if that HRE had included West Francia or all Italy, then probably two kind of lingua franca (one Romance and another Germanic) could have been spread.

 

[kasumigenx]

I don't think any Romance language would be chosen when most of the HRE was West Germanic-speaking. Another scenario would be if that HRE had included West Francia or all Italy, then probably two kind of lingua franca (one Romance and another Germanic) could have been spread.

I think Burgundy getting eaten by Aragon or France was already happening ITTL and any remnant of that would be Germanized since France wanted control over Lyons because it is the ecclesiastical capital of Gaul or France.

 

[Salvador79]

Which could have been the linguistic consequences of an early centralized HRE where (High) German would have been standardized earlier (as French or Spanish did)?

Could Dutch/Frisian be completely assimilated as Low German speaking areas did? Could the linguistic borders have expanded in areas like Wallonia, Swiss Romandy, Lorraine or the Italian/Slovenian Alps? Could the Czech language have been reduced to a status similar to Sorbian in Bohemia-Moravia? Would German have expanded more in the Baltic areas during the North Crusade? And in the Danubian basin during the conquest against the Ottomans?

None of this can be theoretically excluded, though to be honest, none of it is a given, either. A centralising HRE would change the history of the continent deeply, cause its neighbors to react in various ways etc., so you couldn't even exclude a backlash and an actually smaller extent of standard German, either.
When does your HRE centralise?
And how exactly does it centralise?
The earlier you place your PoD, the more likely the above-mentioned solution of (some form of) Latin as the official language actually is: there are many ways in which the HRE could centralise politically without causing linguistic homogenisation towards some form of standard German.
If you want an HRE that is aware of the French and English models of centralisation (instead of going on its own distinct path) and consciously chooses a form of German as official language, then you have a short window of opportunity for that before the Habsburgs, who by the nature of their dynastic world empire would not choose this path at all, take over. Somewhere in the 15th century, then.

 

[DanMcCollum]

I don't think any Romance language would be chosen when most of the HRE was West Germanic-speaking. Another scenario would be if that HRE had included West Francia or all Italy, then probably two kind of lingua franca (one Romance and another Germanic) could have been spread.

Or, Latin is chosen because of the multi-lingual nature of the HRE in order to 1) support it's 'Roman' roots (ideologically, at least) and ties to the papacy and 2) so that major spoken language is favored over any other. Remember, that Latin was the official language of government in Poland for years for many of these very same reasons

 

[The Professor]

I don't think any Romance language would be chosen when most of the HRE was West Germanic-speaking. Another scenario would be if that HRE had included West Francia or all Italy, then probably two kind of lingua franca (one Romance and another Germanic) could have been spread.

Well, Latin was administrative language already. Recall that what you're talking about is making the court languages match the common languages and v.v. and making that the main administrative language too.

 

[kasumigenx]

None of this can be theoretically excluded, though to be honest, none of it is a given, either. A centralising HRE would change the history of the continent deeply, cause its neighbors to react in various ways etc., so you couldn't even exclude a backlash and an actually smaller extent of standard German, either.
When does your HRE centralise?
And how exactly does it centralise?
The earlier you place your PoD, the more likely the above-mentioned solution of (some form of) Latin as the official language actually is: there are many ways in which the HRE could centralise politically without causing linguistic homogenisation towards some form of standard German.
If you want an HRE that is aware of the French and English models of centralisation (instead of going on its own distinct path) and consciously chooses a form of German as official language, then you have a short window of opportunity for that before the Habsburgs, who by the nature of their dynastic world empire would not choose this path at all, take over. Somewhere in the 15th century, then.

Actually, the Habsburgs wanted to get rid of Burgundy and Italy from HRE IOTL and Clementia of Austria's dowry was supposedly Arles but that did not materialize due to the Vespers.

 

[dartingfog]

Pardon my lack of knowledge about the HRE, but weren't most of the important cities before the mid-14th century (Aachen, Mainz, Cologne, Worms) in the Rhineland? If so then medieval Ripuarian Franconian would seem a good bet for a standard language.

 

[AlanL]

Dutch is basically in the same continuum as Low German anyway, so quite possibly.

As a native English and fluent second language German speaker, I find Dutch - at least when spoken clearly by radio presenters & the like - more or less comprehensible. Possibly more so than some of the more esoteric versions of Swiss "German"

 

[WilliamOfOckham]

This has to hinge on a pretty complicated OTL baseline. What do we mean by “standardisation”? You give the example of French, but there was a ton of linguistic diversity in France all the way up until the Revolution, and even into the twentieth century - it’s only then that Occitan ceased to be the common (if not official) language of the south, for example. The language of the state and high literature does not necessarily represent the language of daily local life, and certainly doesn’t begin to replace the latter until the latter’s speakers find a good reason to do so. So we also have to ask ourselves what this “centralisation” entails - is it just a stronger Imperial monarchy, in which the will of the sovereign is eventually not checked at all by local nobles or cities (itself not the situation, even in France, until the Wars of Religion), or is it an HRE that somehow invents the Modern idea of monolingual nationalism a few centuries early? Or, going all the way in the other direction, is it just an HRE where Franconian literature happens to be appreciated in Lübeck and Bern just as much as it is in Cologne?

These are hard questions to answer without, well, writing a full-fledged TL, but they hopefully expand this WI to its rightful scope. All things considered, it would probably be much easier to speculate on the linguistic consequences of a more centralised HRE alone, leaving the idea of a “standardised” German as a potential effect, rather than a basic prompt.

 

[funnyhat]

I think the issue is more political: how do you keep the Dutch in the HRE?

They are likely to continue speaking Dutch in any event until at least the XIX century, but if they are part of a German state in the era of mass education, then they will likely shift to High German.