Are there confirmed cases where a country changed its language without being conquered?

Question

I thought about this question and wondered: Are there any known cases where a country switched to a different language other than because of being conquered? If some country ever did this I would be very interested in how exactly they implemented it.

What I could come up with:

Mongols that conquered China and to some extent Germanic tribes that conquered Rome took over the language of the country they conquered. But they simply assimilated with the native population, they didn't bring the new language back to their home country.
Danish used to be the language of the Norwegian upper-class. However, it was when Norway was in a union with Denmark, so essentially they were the same country. And Danish was the official language of that country while Norwegian wasn't (not that any of the Norwegian dialects was ever accepted to be the Norwegian language).
Hebrew in the modern Israel is essentially an artificial language. However, it was created to have a common language where previously was none, the Jews who came to Israel spoke many different languages. So it's not like the whole country switched from one language to another. Of course, many other countries went through a similar (even though less radical process), e.g. the modern German (High German) is only one of the many dialects that existed in Germany (and some still exist).

So Japan considered having the whole country switch to English. Did any country actually do something like this?

I know china has tried to enforce one dialect, but I don't know how well that's going. — DForck42, Oct 24 '11 at 17:48
@DForck42: That would be similar to Israel - creating a common language where there was none. Lots of countries went through this, e.g. Germany (High German is only one of the many dialects). But that's not really what I am looking for. — Wladimir Palant, Oct 24 '11 at 17:49
Considering China still has many dialects, I'd say not that well. They did redo the characters under Mao to simplify them, which is why there are Simplified and Traditional Mandarin today. I know it's a lot, but you could probably look at some of the countries that came out from under colonialism in Africa or SEAsia to see if they went back to their original language. — MichaelF, Oct 24 '11 at 19:15
China did redo its written language with new simplified characters, they also redid the spelling of the transliterated words using Latin alphabet forming Pinyin. Regional dialects and even minority laguages exist within China such as Mongolian, Tibetan. There is a movement to ensure everyone learns Mandarin (Putonghua - "Proper Speak") however this is in addition to, not instead of local languages. I taught at a school in Inner Mongolia where classes were all given in Mongolian and Mandarin was taught as a second language. — Rincewind42, Oct 25 '11 at 06:20
Communist China has exerted and continues to exert strong oppression against it's Tibetan, Monglian and Uighur minorities. In addition, there is internal invasion of those regions by Mandarin people planned by the government (and we know how numerous they are), so that those minority people are in minority in their own country. — Bregalad, May 15 '15 at 12:13
This seems hard to define, since "conquest" could be used in a narrow sense or a more expansive one. Were the Inuit "conquered" by the British? Did the Chinese communists "conquer" the territory we now call China? — , Apr 21 '18 at 23:08
@BenCrowell: Yes, Inuit were definitely conquered even though there was no military conflict. As to Chinese communists - that was a purely internal conflict, unlike China's acquisition of most of its territories for example. — Wladimir Palant, Apr 22 '18 at 08:02

score 54 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 14 '23 at 16:39

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Scotland has gradually changed to using English without being conquered by England. Now I shall temper that a little in that there have been English speaking people living in Scotland just as long as there have in England. The Anglo-Saxons settled south east Scotland as well as north east England. However, English didn't become the majority language for hundreds of years after that.

Scotland had several native languages such as Scots Gaelic, Pictish, a Brythonic language similar to Welsh, and also some Norse or Norn speakers. The Angles brought in Old English. Magnus Magnusson's book "Scotland, The Story of a Nation" has a map of this distribution on page 35.

Old English changed to Middle English and then split to become Scots and Modern English. By the late middle ages just three languages remained. Gaelic, Scots and a small minority English speakers. (Map of Languages in Scotland circa 1400)

After the Union of Crowns and latter Union of Parliaments, Modern English started to increase in use and Scots and Gaelic withered. However, the Union wasn't an invasion. Scotland was never conquered by the English. In fact the opposite. The Scottish king inherited the English crown.

Today almost nobody uses Scots. Instead they use Scottish English with a few hits of Scots. There is a small group of Gaelic speakers but no where near the number of just 200 years ago. Wikipedia gives numbers of 297,823 speakers (18.5% of total population) in 1800 and just 58,652 (1.2%) today. Thus I would argue that Scotland has changed it's language without being conquered.

Mongolia would be a contender for a second answer. Mongolia split from China during the early 20th Century. At that time they used a mix of Mongolian and Chinese (Mandarin) and a little Tibetan. They had there own Mongolian script for writing. However, today if you travel to Mongolia, you will see little use of the Mongolian script. It was replaced with Russian Cyrillic script. The strong influence of of the Soviet Union, which bordered Mongolia, brought about a change in the written language of the area. However, although the Soviet Union had a strong influence, Mongolia always remained a separate nation state and was never conquered by the USSR. Today Mongolian script is usually only seen in Inner Mongolia, within China. Outer Mongolia changed.

Taiwan would also make a third answer. This one maybe politically contentious depending on how you view the status of Taiwan. However, before 1949, Mandarin Chinese was a minority language on Taiwan. When the Republic of China government relocated to Taiwan in 1949, a large number of refugees from the Mainland settled there. Today Mandarin Chinese is the majority language. So officially, the language changed without invasion.

Some Taiwanese will not agree with my assessment as they consider Taiwan to have always been independent from China, assigned to Chinese control, and occupied after WWII. However that is a minority opinion. Others will disagree with me on the opposite argument that Taiwan is not an independent country and thus as part of China, doesn't count.

Singapore will be my fourth contender as an answer. The official languages are Chinese, English, Malay and Tamil. The Last two, Malay and Tamil, are the native languages of the area. English came in via conquest and colonial rule. However, Chinese is now the largest language in use (49.9% of total population) but Singapore has never been conquered by the Chinese. Rather a large influx of Chinese immigrants has changed the cultural balance of the country.

edited Mar 14 '23 at 16:39

Evargalo

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answered Oct 25 '11 at 06:51

Rincewind42

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Thank you, nice answer. The case of Scotland is similar to Denmark-Norway, technically Scotland and Britain were already the same country when the change occurred. As to Mongolia, its independence from Soviet Union was rather theoretical, and things like introducing Cyrillic script is something the Soviet Union would do on occupied territories (Moldova being another example). Finally, Taiwan is an interesting scenario that I know very little about. Looking through Wikipedia, the story seems complicated. What language did they speak before 1949? – Wladimir Palant Oct 25 '11 at 07:04
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Ireland & Irish is a very similar sitution. However the popular narrative is that Ireland was conqured by England, so it might not really apply. All depends on how you'd define 'conqured' – Amandasaurus Oct 25 '11 at 09:45
Taiwan had been a part of China for quite awhile, so I am not sure it counts here. It'd be similar to almost any other territory of China, although at this point since the pre-Communist government located there the culture definitely changed. My wife is from Taiwan so we have many interesting conversations on this. – MichaelF Oct 25 '11 at 11:40
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@ Wladimir Palant: While Mongolia was heavily influenced by the USSR, but it was not conquered by the USSR. It also was not a true part of the USSR. Mongolia is unlike ex-soviet states like Kazakhstan or Georgia which were fully part of the USSR. Mongolia can more be likened to the Easter European states or to North Korea. Very heavily influenced by, but not actually within, the USSR. – Rincewind42 Oct 25 '11 at 14:00
@MichaelF As I said in my answer, Taiwan's status is one of great political debate. The People's Republic of China and the Pan Blue Alliance parties of the Republic of China will agree with you, however a great many other people will disagree. The island has seen control by the Japanese (1895-1945), The Kingdom of Tungning (1662-1683), partial Dutch control (1544-1662), partial Kingdom of Middag (around 1540-1544). Only in the periods 1683-1895 and 1945-1949 was Taiwan part of China. However, the qualifier for an answer to the question - the language change to Mandarin was post 1949. – Rincewind42 Oct 25 '11 at 14:25
Good answer... could do with more sources perhaps, but as far as I'm concerned all the info is accurate here. :-) – Noldorin Oct 25 '11 at 19:38
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@Rincewind42: As I said - theoretically Mongolia was an independent country. Practically however, only very few countries of the Warsaw Pact were truly independent, most were treated like Soviet republics - that's simply a modern form of conquest. – Wladimir Palant Oct 26 '11 at 05:19
@Rincewind42: Very good point about "large influx of immigrants" - sounds like pretty much the only way a country's language could realistically change. – Wladimir Palant Oct 27 '11 at 13:13
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Good list, but it's missing the biggest example: The Roman Empire changed the ruling class' language from Latin to Greek during its existence. – Martin Sojka Oct 30 '11 at 11:41
@Martin Sojka, If you have references, add that as your own answer below. Personally, that's outside my area of expertise. – Rincewind42 Oct 30 '11 at 13:17
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@WladimirPalant: If the position of the Warsaw Pact countries counts as "conquered", then Scotland was "conquered" by England after the accession of James VI and I. That is, the weaker country could do whatever it wanted so long as the stronger country liked it. – Anschel Schaffer-Cohen Oct 31 '11 at 02:34
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@Anschel Schaffer-Cohen. I don't think Scotland can be compared to the Warsaw Pact countries during the cold war. During WWII Eastern Europe was conquered first by the Germans then conquered/liberated by the Russians. Soldiers marched through the streets. Scotland's position was quite different. Scotland could better be likened to Virginia and other Southern States in being voluntarily joined in a union that later became unwelcome but unable to secede. – Rincewind42 Oct 31 '11 at 05:07
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Tamil was never native to Singapore. Malay was arguably native - but when the British came there were perhaps only a few hundred inhabitants on Singapore. So Singapore before the British came in 1819 was scarcely a village, much less a country. (Though in earlier eras it had a larger population.) – Dec 19 '14 at 17:12
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Scotland not conquered? Multiple wars of independence, having your coronation stone literally taken by another people, and ceasing to actually exist as a kingdom notwithstanding? – Plumbing for Ankit May 18 '15 at 16:31
I would also take slight exception of "Scotland switched to English"... have you LISTENED to one of us? I can't understand my own father, half the time. – CGCampbell May 18 '15 at 17:19
@Axelrod If you read more than the first sencence you might find your answer. To repeat myself - Scots have been speaking English just as long as the English have been speaking English. There have been English speaking Scots in Scotland for hundreds of years before Edward Longshanks came through.
Secondly, English didn't expand in Scotland because of the wars. The spread of English to the highlands and islands happened largely during the late 18th century and into the 19th century, due to the social-economic changes, shifting populations, the Enlightenment, etc
– Rincewind42 May 20 '15 at 03:12
@CGCampbell Of course I've listed to one you "us". Every time I open my own mouth. – Rincewind42 May 20 '15 at 03:14
@CGCampbell The Scots have an accent. So do the Scousers in Liverpool. So do the Welsh. So do Jamaicans. Have you ever listen to a Texan drawl. However, do note that the words we write are nearly universally the same everywhere. Scotland today has three languages. Gaelic, Scots and Scottish English. Not everyone with a Scottish accent speaks Scots (though they all can understand) and those who speak Scots can universally write English to a high standard. – Rincewind42 May 20 '15 at 03:22
Old English was first introduced via invasion of the lowlands by the Saxons. All developments thereafter are a result of that and further invasions, be it from the Anglo Saxons, the Vikings, or the English. – Plumbing for Ankit May 20 '15 at 17:16
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Would Friesland count? – Mast May 26 '16 at 20:06
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Mongolia is irrelevant here -- 95% of the population speak Mongolian. All they imported from the Soviet Union was a writing system. – TonyK Oct 01 '16 at 01:26
@Rory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_invasion_of_Ireland seems sufficiently conquerish to me.. – Felix Goldberg Dec 04 '16 at 12:02
Regarding Taiwan and the Use of Mandarin, I suggest that you read "Formosa Betrayed" – KorvinStarmast Dec 05 '16 at 20:30
One could argue that in most of these cases the country was "culturally" conquered. – MickeyfAgain_BeforeExitOfSO Sep 12 '17 at 12:54
@Axelord No - not conquered. We won our Wars of Indepdence (comprehensively) and we entered into a Union of equal status with England. By your argument, England ceased to exist as a country. You are betraying your Anglo-centrism. – Statsanalyst Apr 22 '18 at 19:20
Citation and/or elabotation needed for "At that this they used a mix of Mongolian and Chinese (Mandarin) and a little Tibetan." (re. Mongolia). Swedish are using English a lot and they also have a number of inhabitants who can speak Arabic. Does it mean they have changed their language from "only Swedish" to "a mix of Swedish and Arabic and a little English"? – Jan Jun 24 '21 at 12:27

score 32 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 30 '11 at 13:49

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The Roman Empire, at it start under emperors Julius Caesar (44 BC) and Augustus (27 BC) had Latin as its main language, and the one spoken by its elites and leaders. At the end of it, with the capture of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453, the prevailing language of the elites was Greek. The main change came under emperor Heraclius (610 to 641), whose reforms upon taking the throne included the introduction of Greek as the official language.

answered Oct 30 '11 at 13:49

Martin Sojka

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You mean Byzantine Empire, right? Given that this empire didn't include Rome but was strongly influenced by Greece (which actually was part of it) this change is less surprising. – Wladimir Palant Oct 30 '11 at 15:59
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@Wladimir Palant: I mean the eastern part of the Roman Empire, which later (starting in the 16th century, a good 100 years after its fall) was commonly being called the "Byzantine Empire", yes. – Martin Sojka Oct 30 '11 at 16:13
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@Michael: I meant the 16th century. Specifically 1557, the year Hieronymus Wolf published his "Corpus Historiæ Byzantinæ". – Martin Sojka Oct 01 '13 at 14:04
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@Michael: As Byzantine is a late 16th century word in English, it appears that Martin is correct: https://www.google.ca/#q=etymology+of+byzantine – Pieter Geerkens Jan 10 '14 at 03:59
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The eastern half of the Roman Empire, and its Byzantine successor always had Greek as the main language of its populace. Even in the Levant and Mideast Greek was a lingua franca. Latin was only pasted onto the elites in the capital, and quickly relapsed once Rome no longer dominated. – Oldcat Aug 15 '14 at 22:41
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@Wladimir Palant the empire under Heraclius DID include Rome. – Anixx Sep 30 '16 at 23:06
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The Eastern part of the Roman Empire never stopped speaking Greece. When the switch to Greek occurred it was just a pragmatic acknowledgement of that reality. – Denis de Bernardy Oct 08 '19 at 10:08

score 15 · Answer 3 · edited Apr 21 '18 at 09:41

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How about the Holy Roman Empire?

Joseph II (Holy Roman Emperor, King of Germany etc) changed the language of the Empire to German in 1781 (Patent of Toleration), from Latin, and sometimes from local languages.

Here is the thing: there is some inherent, anachronistic assumption in the question about the language of a country. Before the XXth century, without public education, without media or even general literacy people spoke whatever they wanted. The language of a country was formalized only in things like the language of administrative offices, military command and such. 99% of the population didn't need to speak these at more than an elementary level (if at all).

edited Apr 21 '18 at 09:41

Lars Bosteen

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answered May 18 '15 at 12:22

Greg

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Greg - Did Emperor Joseph II change the offical language of the Holy Roman Empire by decree from Latin to German, or did he change the official language of his hereditary lands such as the Kingdoms of Hungary, Croatia, Dalmatia, and Slavonia, Rama, Serbia and Cumania, Galicia and Lodomerica, Bulgaria, Bohemia, etc., the archduchy of Austria, the duchies of Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, Milan, Brabant, Luxemburg, etc., etc., etc.? – MAGolding May 25 '16 at 20:20
He changed it for all the lands – Greg May 26 '16 at 08:15

score 12 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 20 '12 at 16:06

Of course, it happened many times when the country was conquered, later got its freedom and returned to the previous language, that it used before that last conquest. Sometimes the language even started to change before the real freedom came, as in Czech lands in 19th century, when they started to learn they own almost dead language.

The question is formulated obviously by a person, who lives in the mono-language culture. There are others, too. In the older Europe people very often used many languages - one at home, other in the village, third in the town, two more - with traders. For example, in Dagestan even now there are villages, where 2 languages are used that are no used in any other place. Of course, they also know 2-3 wider known Dagestan languages and Russian, too. How do you count these people?

And the picture in all old Europe was as that one. There were very many languages in France, in Germany, really in any country. They were no dialects, they were really very different.

Great points. There are also many cases where a country, upon regaining independence, undertakes efforts to revive the previous language but, either intentionally or not, does not completely eliminate the previous ruler's language. Good examples of this are Ireland, which has valiantly slowed or even stopped the decline of the Irish language but is not likely to drop English anytime soon, and Norway, which has introduced the Nynorsk dialect (or language depending on who you talk to) but did not ban or halt the use of the Danish-based Bokmal. — Robert Columbia, Dec 05 '16 at 20:40

score 11 · Answer 5 · answered Aug 15 '14 at 22:32

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Many countries have changed their official languages.

South Africa had two official languages (Afrikaans and English) before 1994 and now has 11.

Bolivia used to have only one official language (Spanish), but now it has 37 (yes, 37).

Rwanda went from having French and Kinyarwanda as its official languages to having English and Kinyarwanda, and now has English, French and Kinyarwanda.

In the U.S., Louisiana went from being French-speaking when it gained statehood to becoming bilingual and then in the 1920s actually banned French altogether, before trying to restore it in recent years.

You can find lots of other examples if you look around.

answered Aug 15 '14 at 22:32

JTM

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I wouldn't call that "changed" - that's adding more. – Oleg V. Volkov May 26 '16 at 19:55
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+1 for Louisiana and Rwanda; the other examples are less relevant. – Felix Goldberg Dec 04 '16 at 12:03
The Union of South Africa established in 1910 had English and Dutch as official languages. This was changed in 1925, where Afrikaans was added as a form of Dutch. In 1986, all mention of Dutch was scrapped. – Fedor Alexander Steeman Sep 12 '17 at 11:53

thorn · Answer 6 · 2019-10-08T09:48:51.913

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In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Ruthenian gradually became the main official language replacing Lithuanian. After the country became a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Ruthenian was superseded by Polish.

edited Oct 08 '19 at 09:48

answered May 15 '15 at 12:05

thorn

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Even more, the official language of Lithuania was Belorussian - the language of the conquered nation. (Belorussian is the contemporary name of Ruthenian). Only... Sorry, how an official language can change gradually? – Gangnus Jun 25 '21 at 10:55

Robert Columbia · Answer 7 · 2017-10-02T14:59:48.767

Turkey, under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, introduced a series of language reforms via the public education system that seriously impacted comprehension of older documents. The changes included massive vocabulary changes as well as a switch from the Arabic to the Roman alphabet. Since the taxonomy of languages is always up for debate, it can be reasonably argued that a change to the Turkish language at this magnitude constitutes a shift to a new language, even if that new language is also called Turkish.

This change differs from the more gradual changes that typified transitions between classical, medieval, and modern languages (e.g. Latin to French, Middle English to Modern English, Old Norse to Danish, etc.) because it was quick, deliberate, and official. This was not a slow social process of changes filtering out through towns and villages and across social classes over decades or centuries, it happened via government decrees and official public school curriculum updates.

score 8 · Answer 8 · answered May 20 '15 at 15:24

Ancient Aramaic was adopted as a "lingua franca" by most of the Mesopotamian states in the eleventh century. The Neo-Assyrian Empire, an Akkadian speaking culture, managed to conquer the Aramaean cities, a major center of trade, early on, which included internal exile for the Aramaean elite throughout the Assyrian empire. The meant the ruling class and clerical class Assyrians were likely to also speak Aramaic, making it easier for inter-city trade within and without the empire.

It's almost analogous to the Roman elite adopting Greek after the conquest of Greece, except commoners and nearby trade partners also adopted the conquered tongue as well, while the conquering Assyrians retained their own language as their primary tongue for a while. (And this would get weird when the Chaldeans took over, and energetically re-established Akkadian as the language of the empire.)

expect you mean "eleventh century BCE" – AllInOne Sep 29 '16 at 18:13 — AllInOne, Sep 29 '16 at 18:13

JMVanPelt · Answer 9 · 2015-05-19T18:19:26.470

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Although there were many languages spoken throughout the Byzantine Empire (or Eastern Roman Empire), its court and administration language switched from Latin to Greek over time.

edited May 19 '15 at 18:19

answered May 16 '15 at 01:39

JMVanPelt

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score 6 · Answer 10 · edited Apr 21 '18 at 09:36

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All of the countries under Roman rule gradually migrated away from common Latin into their own distinctive languages. One example is French, which is a modification and combination of Gaulish and vulgar Latin. England reverted to English as the official tongue of the court sometime in the 13th century after 300 years of French.

edited Apr 21 '18 at 09:36

Lars Bosteen

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answered Oct 25 '11 at 19:48

rerun

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Could you expand this answer? From all I know most Roman provinces didn't use Latin as their main language - so they didn't exactly migrate away from it. Do you have any particular example in mind? And England's case is interesting but your answer lacks any details and/or references. – Wladimir Palant Oct 25 '11 at 19:52
@WladimirPalant Changed Post – rerun Oct 25 '11 at 20:04
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I wouldn't count the Roman one. Every language on Earth changes gradually over time. – Nate Glenn Oct 25 '11 at 21:12
French was the language of the English nobility but English was always the language of the masses. Nationalistic fervour during the Hundred Years' War converted the nobles to English as well. – lins314159 Oct 26 '11 at 01:24
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Both French and English were originally brought into England via invasion and conquest. – Rincewind42 Oct 26 '11 at 01:55
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Even if Roman provinces used Latin they were in fact conquered by germanic tribes that mixed their languages with those in the region, forming the Romance languages. – Wilhelm Oct 26 '11 at 03:28
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@rerun: Your link concerning French clearly shows that it didn't come to England "naturally", England was actually conquered by the French. And France doesn't seem to be a valid example either - Latin mixed with the languages of the invading Germanic tribes there. – Wladimir Palant Oct 26 '11 at 05:23
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England reverted to english with out invasion. Latin was introduced by invasion but the derived languages are amalgamations. – rerun Oct 26 '11 at 05:30
French is actually from the Langue d'oil (north) as opposed to the Langue d'oc (southern). Both of those did evolved from Latin and Gaulish but the latter (oc) was replaced mostly by conquest -- so the link is fine but not direct. – Sardathrion - against SE abuse Oct 26 '11 at 15:04
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Downvote: Both cases seem to be poor fits for the questions. – Felix Goldberg Dec 07 '12 at 00:58

Evargalo · Answer 11 · 2023-03-14T16:25:06.283

Indonesian

When Indonesia got independant from The Netherlands after WWII, they adopted Indonesian, a variation of Malay, as the official language of their newfounded state.

In 1945, when Indonesia declared its independence, Indonesian was formally declared the national language, despite being the native language of only about 5% of the population.

This choice met several purposes:

Getting rid of Dutch, the language of the colonisator.
Unifying the country with a common language.
Promoting equality of citizens, by adopting a language without class distinctions, hence not Javanese, the most widly spoken language in Indonesia at that time.

With thousands of islands and hundreds of different languages, the newly independent country of Indonesia had to find a national language that could realistically be spoken by the majority of the population and that would not divide the nation by favouring one ethnic group, namely the Javanese, over the others.

Indeed, already three decades beforehand, the Youth Pledge defined Indonesian as bahasa persatuan, the language of unity.

Nowadays, more than 200 millions Indonesians speak Indonesian, even if

Most Indonesians, aside from speaking the national language, are fluent in at least one of the more than 700 indigenous local languages.

If the downvoter can explain what's wrong with this answer, I will gladly try to improve it... — Evargalo, Jun 25 '21 at 07:12

score 4 · Answer 12 · answered Dec 05 '16 at 00:33

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The Norman's adopted French as their language even though they were the ones who conquered.

answered Dec 05 '16 at 00:33

ed.hank

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And France itself changed to French at some point, instead of using only Latin for its official business. – ChrisW Apr 21 '18 at 18:53
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@ChrisW: French is just the result of Germans (ie the Franks) attempting to speak Latin. – Pieter Geerkens Jun 24 '21 at 21:27
@PieterGeerkens I think French was made to be a lingua franca to be understood across France, where previously they had only local dialects (and Latin). – ChrisW Jun 25 '21 at 16:37
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@ChrisW: Prior to ~1790, "French" was the language/dialect only of Ile du France (plus the courts off Europe). Bretons spoke Breton, Gascons spoke Gascon, Provence spoke Languedoc instead of Landuedoui, etc. – Pieter Geerkens Jun 26 '21 at 10:34
@PieterGeerkens Would you reference that statement? I'm referencing e.g. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthographe_du_fran%C3%A7ais#Histoire and https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordonnance_de_Villers-Cotter%C3%AAts marking an official change from Latin to French in ~1540. It's true (as I said) that there are regional dialects -- but these days everyone goes to school to learn French also. What happened in ~1790 (apart from the Revolution) that you see it as a watershed -- was there some introduction then of universal schooling in French? – ChrisW Jun 26 '21 at 10:48
@ChrisW: Pronunciation and spelling were all regional until the Revolution. Only then was there a concerted drive to standardize the pronunciation, spelling, and even vocabulary across all of France. This trend is still evident in Montreal for instance, where "le hot dog" is the usual vernacular but signage can only use the phrase "Le Chien Chaud", in a determination to halt encroaching English influence on les Habitants Canadiens. – Pieter Geerkens Jun 26 '21 at 10:52
@PieterGeerkens L'Académie française was founded in 1635 apparently. But given how they tried to rename months and so on, I guess it's not surprising there was a post-Revolutionary initiative to introduce, like, some Orwellian/orthodox newspeak -- this makes it sounds like they were into having a Great Cultural Revolution (like destroying al the olds). – ChrisW Jun 26 '21 at 11:08

score 2 · Answer 13 · answered Sep 06 '21 at 08:12

There are of course many language reforms being performed from time to time, as partially listed in other answers. I won't mention language change that happened after the country stopped being "conquered" and as a result of being "free", and focus only on majority languages (there are way too many minority languages being made official in some partial function). However, there are indeed some (recent) examples when there was really a change in language (as in "a language is a sociolinguistic construct, not a mere linguistic one"):

Montenegro officially changed its language from Serbocroatian to Montenegrin on 22 October 2007, but the language remained "the same" until some standardization changes in 2009/2010, which made it slightly different from standard Serbian.
Bosnia and Hercegovina (or better, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina) slowly (since the 1990s) introduced standard Bosnian language as one of the official languages
borderline example is Moldova, where the language has been (since the independence from the USSR) called on and off Romanian and Moldovan, depending on then current political situation (without any changes to the language itself)
Singapore's Chinese population changed its languages from Cantonese to Mandarin around the 1980s; this was quite voluntary, because Mandarin gave much better economic opportunities. (Before anyone comments, Cantonese and Mandarin are two different, mutually unitelligible languages)
China switched its written official language from Wényánwén to Pǔtōnghuà (these languages are considerably different) slowly from the beginning of the 20th century until after the communist revolution. The situation with the official standard spoken language has been considerably more complicated, but by the end of 20th century, Pǔtōnghuà has firmly become the spoken standard.
Malta replaced Italian with Maltese as one (the second being English) of the official languages in 1934 (it was however a part of the British Empire, but this still a nice example)
Kingdom of Hungary was still using Latin as its official language until 1836, then switched to Hungarian (it can be argued that it has been "conquered" during all the time, but this did not influence its language choice)
USSR adopted Russian as the official union language in 1990 (it was "only" a language of the Russian Federation, one of the union republics until then).

score 1 · Answer 14 · answered Aug 30 '21 at 12:51

One can consider the opposite case: switching the language when the country gains its independence. The new langauge certainly exists, but not all inhabitants of the country may master it, and it may lack written forms or significant representation in the culture and politics. One can consider former Soviet republics as examples, and probably Ireland.

Remark on Hebrew: It is incorrect to say that Hebrew is "an artificial language" (see Constructed language) and it was created from "none": Biblical Hebrew existed as a liturgical language, known to practicing Jews all over the world. The pronunciation was also relatively standard, since being codified by Masoretes. However it has undergone many innovations, such as:

developing vocabulary adapted modern realities (basic words like pen, pencil, monthly, etc.)
reconstructing some grammatical forms on the basis of of the parallel forms in the related languages (such as Arabic)
some grammatical changes due to being used by the speakers of Indo-European languages: notably switching to subject-verb-object word order, and transformation of perfect/imperfect tenses to represent past/future tense and active participle to represent the present tense.

score -1 · Answer 15 · answered Sep 30 '13 at 16:00

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I believe Alaska would also count. I can't imagine there were many (if any) English speakers living there before it was sold to the United States in 1867.

answered Sep 30 '13 at 16:00

ZeekLTK

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I would say that the purchase fits in the 'conquered' category with a little stretching. – Oldcat Jan 09 '14 at 22:37
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There would in fact be a lot of English and French speaking trappers living there. That was part of the reason the US ended up purchasing the land... – jwenting Mar 03 '14 at 09:50

score -1 · Answer 16 · answered Sep 12 '17 at 11:53

The Union of South Africa established in 1910 had English and Dutch as official languages. This was changed in 1925, where Afrikaans was added as a form of Dutch. In 1986, all mention of Dutch was scrapped, so it was Afrikaans only. In 1994, nine native languages were added.

score -1 · Answer 17 · answered Apr 21 '18 at 23:25

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100 years ago, France had many different local languages, such as Breton, a Celtic language. WP says that as late as 1950, there were about a million native Breton speakers. Today the language is for all practical purposes extinct.

answered Apr 21 '18 at 23:25

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From all I know, Breton is still far from being extinct. Either way, "minor" languages declining when the official language of the country is a different one is a rather common case. Usually, there is a history of conquest leading to the other language becoming more accepted throughout the country. – Wladimir Palant Apr 22 '18 at 07:57

score -1 · Answer 18 · answered Aug 30 '21 at 10:24

One fairly typical scenario for this is the conquest of a foreign country, followeed by the assimilation of the new elite into the conquered population. A good example are the Manchu in China who assimilated so well that their language had becomme extinct at the end of the (Manchu) Qing dynasty. Other examples would be the Mongols in Iran, Russia and Central Asia, or the Bulgars in the Balkans

Are there confirmed cases where a country changed its language without being conquered?

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