Romance Pannonian Language - History

History

The Romanized population of Pannonia (for which the historian Theodore Mommsen calculated a population of about 200,000 around the 4th century) survived Barbarian invasions (by the Huns, Goths, Avars and others), although they were reduced to few thousands by the 6th century, living mainly in fortified villages like Keszthely and Fenékpuszta.

There were other places in Pannonia where local population continued to speak forms of Vulgar Latin after the 5th century: Pécs, Sopron, Szombathely, Dunaújváros. Many Christian relics with inscriptions in Latin have been found in these towns.

But it was on the western shore of the Pelso lake (now called Lake Balaton) where a peculiar society of craftsmen formed, called the Keszthely culture, of which more than 6,000 artisan tombs and many products (including in gold) are left.

Romance dialects disappeared due to assimilation with German and Slavic invaders in borders areas of the Roman limes near the Danube river in Pannonia, Raetia (today Bavaria and Switzerland) and Noricum (today Austria), but in the area of Lake Balaton survived because the Avars needed a population of skilled artisans and crafstmen for their own needs.

After the Avars were defeated by Charlemagne and disappeared at the beginning of the 9th century, the Romanized craftsmen of the "Keszthely culture" were no longer needed and so quickly were assimilated: their language, Pannonian Romance, soon disappeared with them in the 10th century.