Man someone really should do a timeline based on this!
By the time of the otl Renascence (and probably something different ttl), would the Maghreb mostly speak a descendant of vulgar Latin or would that give way to Berber languages?
WI: North African Reconquista
- Thread starter Sevarics
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Man someone really should do a timeline based on this!
By the time of the otl Renascence (and probably something different ttl), would the Maghreb mostly speak a descendant of vulgar Latin or would that give way to Berber languages?
I think you can make an argument that a pretty Berberized African Romance Language with some Arabic influence could become dominant. St. Augustine's mother, Monica, was likely a Romanized Berber, so I think that many of the educated Berbero-Romans were Latinized (which can also be seen in Caecilius, the name of the last king of Altavo).
So let's say that Altavo is able to remain independent somehow. Maybe some of the heavily Romanized coastal Christians relocate to Altavo, boosting its population and providing even more of a Latinizing effect on the language of Altavo.
That's what I've read, yes. Or at least they both had similar vowel pronunciations
Sardinian is currently classified as its own group, but it and African Romance probably once formed a "southern romance" languages group.
Sardinian is a rather conservative language, it has deviated / developed less away from common vulgar Latin.
Similarities between African Romance and Sardinian may not stem from geographic proximity or any other such factors, but rather from African Romance having died out early (13th century?? or maybe 14th??) and thus also not having digressed as far yet.
was the any wide knowledge that North Africa had been Christinized at the time, it would be hard to have a Reconquista if most of the population though it had always been Islamic. I can see it happening though expansion of there North African bases, treating the public much better and a larger native Christian popularion, its not possible but you would have to make it so that the natives keep some Christian numbers, or make it so that the slaves taken were able to start converting some of the natives
The Romans definitely were Christian at the time of the conquest. Many Berbers were Christian as well. Catholic bishops continued to exist for several hundred years after the conquest and they even kept in contact with Rome through letters. Islamization wasnt instant.
Sicilian and Sardinia are actually not related at all (except both being a romance language), Sicilian is at the far end of the Italian continuum, but Sardinia (and presumably north African if it had survived) was in a completely separate group.
For example, Sicilian uses (I) and (I) as the plural forms of masc. and fem. nouns (like standard Italian (I) and (E)), but in Sardinian the plural is (S) and (S). While that might not seem much at fist sight the plural endings for the romance languages is probably THE most defining characteristic for each individual language.
I get all that but the timeframe that the Reconquista of North Africa would have to be after the Recoquista of Iberia was finished, and that would mean that any attack would have to be later the 1500's when I doubt there were many Christians at all.
However looking at the original post it seems to be talking about an internal Reconqusta, not one from Spain which is what I was talking about, so my bad.
For an internal one, the focus would have to be on the Berbers, which is quite possible since as you said there were a lot of Christian Berbers. The year it happened would play a major part, obviously the closer to the conquest it was the easier the Renoquista would be.
There are several things that would have to happened to make this possible. One is no Donatism heresy. It was huge in North Africa and splintered the Christian community and made Byzantine and Rome more hostile to them. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some writing saying the conquest was Gods punishment for North Africa. If the Berbers were more integrated into Orthodoxy, then the church would have been able to stay together, discounting the idea of a Byzantine attempted reconquest being more successful with greater support of natives.
If there was a stronger centralized and Orthodox Church, it is much easier for there to be monastical orders set up (Donatism beliefs seemed to be against them) A stronger Monastical order would allow a stronger church and a definite rallying point for the people, taking pride in there own people, bringing up there own saints etc.. This would be especially important when the Umayyad Dynasty started there oppression.
IOTL the Berbers fell under Khawarij banner, which treated people equal and was a good fit with the more nomadic and more egalitarian Berbers. However, if there was an area of support for local monasteries and monks, I would guess the people would fall under that banner, the banner of the local figures that had been around and important parts of the community for hundreds of years. And even if the revolts failed, rebels would definitely be around in the interior for years to come and keep an resistance up.
IOTL, Islam just chipped away at Christianity until it was too weak to resist, the fact they were tolerant for the most part helped them immensely. However if the Berbers had a stronger base, they would be much stronger and could possibly resist when a Almohad type forced conversion came along.