Nationalities that nearly were

[olm]

What about the three Baltic states? Was there ever a chance some or all of them could have found a common identity?

Well, you can always construct theoretical situations where maybe Lithuanians advance northwards and end up assimilating Latvians after few centuries or something, but there wasn't any point in history there your could say that such merger was realistic. Bigger threat was getting assimilated by Germans (like happened to Old-Prussians) or Russians (like happened to Votes).

 

[Gordy]

But there are counter-examples too. Russia remained and remains extraordinarily diverse despite the unambiguous nature of who was dominating who. Same goes for, until recently, China.

True but both are very large countries with ineffective governments. I imagine this limited assimilation by force.

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

Well, you can always construct theoretical situations where maybe Lithuanians advance northwards and end up assimilating Latvians after few centuries or something, but there wasn't any point in history there your could say that such merger was realistic. Bigger threat was getting assimilated by Germans (like happened to Old-Prussians) or Russians (like happened to Votes).

Like I said, only real possibility was the UBD, however, even if that had come about, it's hard to imagine a unified nationality would exist even now.

True but both are very large countries with ineffective governments. I imagine this limited assimilation by force.

I expect industrialization also plays a big part. Millions of young lads and ladies going to a city to work in factories, with their own regional identities becoming meaningless overnight, leaving the old areas underpopulated is a recipe for assimilation. Yet... the Irish, Lebanese, Armenian, Jewish etc identities have survived this and in a lot of respects prospered because of it.

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

I suppose Burgundian has to be a candidate too.

 

[Amallric]

But there are counter-examples too. Russia remained and remains extraordinarily diverse despite the unambiguous nature of who was dominating who. Same goes for, until recently, China.

I don't know. Modern domination of the assimilating kind, wasn't really enforced in Russia for very long. Before the second half of the XIXth century, it was mostly a pre-modern type of domination, "pay the tribute and we'll leave you alone". After the revolution policy changed toward empowerment of the minorities.

 

[Gordy]

I expect industrialization also plays a big part. Millions of young lads and ladies going to a city to work in factories, with their own regional identities becoming meaningless overnight, leaving the old areas underpopulated is a recipe for assimilation. Yet... the Irish, Lebanese, Armenian, Jewish etc identities have survived this and in a lot of respects prospered because of it.

Jews had and have their own religion. That tends to help.

Irish migrants often have disappeared in England. Look at Morrissey.

They disappeared in Ireland because Northern Ireland aside, there wasn't a big influx of migrants. Industrlalisation happened to some extent in Ireland but not to the point that floods of Englishmen came looking for work.

Now that did happen in areas of Wales and this had the knock-on effect of killing off Welsh as a first language. The Welsh identity never quite disappeared but not many of them vote Plaid Cymru.

 

[Boblof]

I know, it's a Finnic language. However British came about as a nationality and that was a combination of Celtic and Germanic speakers.

But then we are speaking of very long term assimilation. Celtic assimilation by Germanics predates the union with England by quite a bit. Gaelic speakers were always a minority in Scotland with the populous lowlands inhabited by English speakers and the northern and western islands inhabited by Norn speakers. Assimilation of Estonian speakers would arguably be even harder. The situation with Balts and Estonians I imagine would be similar to the situation with Sweden and Finland, after 800 years of Swedish rule in Finland about 15% of the population in Finland spoke Swedish.

Any assimilation of the Estonians by Balts would have to come about as a result of long term occupation and diffusion of Baltic-speakers in Estonia. You have to invent quite alot of alt-history to make that happen (and then the "nearly were" criteria wouldn't really be fulfilled). A pan-baltic identity really only need a pan-baltic nationalist movement to prevail over the lithuanian and latvian nationalist movements in the early 20th century and result in a pan-baltic state in 1917. Otherwise you can imagine that the medieval Lithuanians fared a bit better against baltic crusaders and expanded slightly northwards to take control of Latvia, assimilation of Latvians into a Lithuanian ethnicity could then be rather speedy, that wouldn't take very much alt-history either, it would be the destruction of a crusader field army away.

 

[Boblof]

I expect industrialization also plays a big part. Millions of young lads and ladies going to a city to work in factories, with their own regional identities becoming meaningless overnight, leaving the old areas underpopulated is a recipe for assimilation. Yet... the Irish, Lebanese, Armenian, Jewish etc identities have survived this and in a lot of respects prospered because of it.

I'm sorry to say this but the Irish imo were proprely assimilated, Irish gaelic was close to extinction by the time that it had it's revival ^^

And what industrialization ever thretened the Armenians? Also in what way is lebanese and Jewish an Ethnicity? Identities sure but ethnicity?

 

[trybald]

Obodrites. So close to founding of the third West Slavic Kingdom (next to Poland and Bohemia), then a few unfortunate deaths and freakish accidents t and it all went to dust.

 

[Gordy]

I'm sorry to say this but the Irish imo were proprely assimilated, Irish gaelic was close to extinction by the time that it had it's revival ^^

If that were the case then the Republic of Ireland wouldn't ever have existed.

 

[Cèsar de Quart]

LSCatilina in DeviantArt had made a series of maps and stories depicting a surviving Kingdom of Gothia, set in Septimania, parts of Aragon and Catalonia, speaking a form of Gallo-Romance very similar to Occitan, but called "Goth". Very interesting deviation.

In Spain itself, Valencia and Aragon tried to rebel in 1640 (very unsuccessfully) and had things gone in a different way, in the same years a plot hatched by the Duke of Medina-Sidonia could have sparked an Andalusian nation in Southern Spain, at the same time Portugal restored (as they call it) its independence. I say could because there's debate on whether the Duke wanted to be King of Andalusia, or else he was merely provoking a rebellion in order to force the king to remove his minister Olivares from office after being blamed for the rebellions in Portugal, Catalonia and Aragon (which also saw a similar plan imagined by the Duke of Híjar, although it had almost zero popular support).

A possible future that has always entertained me greatly would be:

What if Byzantium survived, that is, what if the Ottomans failed to grow and become a military elephant? What of its culture, its politics, its allegiances? It probably wouldn't be a very powerful nation during the Concert of Europe, but the Balkans would be a different place. Probably it would have very strong Italian and Eastern influences within, since by 1400 Italian merchants had all but colonised the remains of the Empire.

Also, Burgundy. The Impossible State also was the richest principality in Europe. It seems the Dukes of Burgundy had, along with the most well-planned matrimonial policy until the Habsburgs grew to prominence, a very pernicious habit of going to war all the time. Charles the Bold died, sure, but had Charles had a son, would we now talk about a Burgundian nation? A Burgundian revolution?

Have I said I love playing as Byzantium and Burgundy?

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

Jews had and have their own religion. That tends to help.

Irish migrants often have disappeared in England. Look at Morrissey.

You mean the guy who wrote Irish blood English heart? I take your point but that was a less than optimal example

 

[Arilou]

Italy could easily have been split (and arguably is) in a north-south way.

Given different circumstances the scandinavian countries could probably have become assimilated into one scandinavian culture.

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

I'm sorry to say this but the Irish imo were proprely assimilated, Irish gaelic was close to extinction by the time that it had it's revival ^^

And what industrialization ever thretened the Armenians? Also in what way is lebanese and Jewish an Ethnicity? Identities sure but ethnicity?

Nationality is about more than language. Obviously stats on this are impossible to come by, but I don't think there was ever a time in the last 800 years when there weren't a large amount of people in Ireland who considered themselves different than people form Britain. Perhaps not as different as we do now, but certainly not 'assimilated'. Even the Scots weren't assimilated.

I'm not sure what you mean about Armenians and Jews (and I think you may have misunderstood what I said)

Obodrites. So close to founding of the third West Slavic Kingdom (next to Poland and Bohemia), then a few unfortunate deaths and freakish accidents t and it all went to dust.

Had never even heard of them. Thanks for the tip

Italy could easily have been split (and arguably is) in a north-south way.

But do you think it could have evolved in a way that they would see eachother as different nationalities?

 

[Boblof]

If that were the case then the Republic of Ireland wouldn't ever have existed.

To me it seems as the religious differences had caused so much conflict and discrimination that popular support for a catholic state was inevitable. The Irish however still pretty uniformly spoke English and the difference between being a seccessionist and a loyalist doesn't seem to have been down to having gaelic ancestry or not, or to language (both the scottish plantation and the irish should both count themselves as gaelic right? and both sides speak english) but down to wether one was catholic or not.

Ofc religious differences often translates into "ethnicity" but for the sake of the question shouldn't they be kept separate? The irish example to me is one of thoose times where the occupiers culture clearly won out.

RRW earlier used Scotland as an example where the Gaelic population had been thorougly assimilated in his opinion, but the only substantial difference between Scotland and Ireland in this case is that while Scotland was on the winning side of the wars of religion and english civil war, Ireland was on the loosing side. Had Cromwell lost and the Roundheads had killed bunches of people in protestant Scotland and colonised the depopulated areas with loyal Irish catholics would you and RRW then say that the Scottish are clearly of a different ethnicity while the Irish were properly assimilated by the English?

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

To me it seems as the religious differences had caused so much conflict and discrimination that popular support for a catholic state was inevitable. The Irish however still pretty uniformly spoke English and the difference between being a seccessionist and a loyalist doesn't seem to have been down to having gaelic ancestry or not, or to language (both the scottish plantation and the irish should both count themselves as gaelic right? and both sides speak english) but down to wether one was catholic or not.

Ofc religious differences often translates into "ethnicity" but for the sake of the question shouldn't they be kept separate? The irish example to me is one of thoose times where the occupiers culture clearly won out.

RRW earlier used Scotland as an example where the Gaelic population had been thorougly assimilated in his opinion, but the only substantial difference between Scotland and Ireland in this case is that while Scotland was on the winning side of the wars of religion Ireland was on the loosing side. Had Cromwell lost and the Roundheads had killed bunches of people in protestant Scotland and colonised the depopulated areas with loyal Irish catholics would you and RRW then say that Scottish are clearly a different ethnicity while The Irish were properly assimilated by the English?

I'm not at all talking about ethnicity, but nationality.

 

[Boblof]

I'm not at all talking about ethnicity, but nationality.

I thought you ment in this capacity:

In English, the same word is used in the sense of an ethnic group

Otherwise why are we talking about language and assimilation at all?

 

[Cèsar de Quart]

Nationality is about more than language. Obviously stats on this are impossible to come by, but I don't think there was ever a time in the last 800 years when there weren't a large amount of people in Ireland who considered themselves different than people form Britain. Perhaps not as different as we do now, but certainly not 'assimilated'. Even the Scots weren't assimilated.

Robert Bruce called upon Irish and Welsh for help due to their shared ancestors and common language, and it was the Late XIIIth Century. This doesn't mean Welsh, Scots and Irish were the same nation, but that they were percieved as close and fraternal, and in the Middle Ages, before the appearance of nation-states, language was the easiest way to form identity. Of course' it's not always that simple.

In England itself there are several paradoxes. William Marshal, full Norman ascendancy, was called "Englishman" (meaning "Saxon"), probably because he had most of his land in England instead of in France and Normandy, and because he had adopted the custom of speaking English. In Scotland, several observers count two nations, the Scots and the Teutons (meaning, Gaelic-speakers and Scots-speakers).

In Late Antiquity, someone could easily be called a Goth for being Arian, or have a Germanic name because of his military profession, despite cioming from Roman stock. Nationality and ethnies are a very changing matter, both for how we percieve it and how we identify it.

But do you think it could have evolved in a way that they would see eachother as different nationalities?

Today, Austrians and Germans are developing different nationalities, I believe. And yes, there's the national idea of Borbonia Felix, the happy times of the Two Sicilies and the idea that Southern Italians were nothing like Northern Italians. Sicilians, especailly, had been a "nation" for a long time, only in the XIXth Century they were assimilated, and very slowly, to Italian mainstream nationality.

 

[DarthJF]

But do you think it could have evolved in a way that they would see eachother as different nationalities?

If Germans and Austrians could become different nationalities then North and South Italians could have become as well.

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

I thought you ment in this capacity:


Otherwise why are we talking about language and assimilation at all?

Not at all. For example, I'm not a Traveller. They are considered a different ethnic group than I am*. But we're both Irish. African Americans and Americans of Swedish descent are considered different ethnicities, but both have American as a nationality.

*pending upcoming ruling, but they are de facto recognised as such.

If Germans and Austrians could become different nationalities then North and South Italians could have become as well.

I suppose this is true. However, there isn't the religious factor in the same sense in Italy, that could make it slightly different. As I said earlier, each example is totally unique.