Language challenge grab bag

Starting in 1004 AD, make these languages be spoken by less than one percent of the worlds population in 2004 AD:
1 Chinese
2 English
3 Hindustani
4 Spanish
5 Russian
6 Arabic
7 Bengali
8 Portuguese
9 Malay
10 French
(OTL Top Ten)
 

Grey Wolf

Gone Fishin'
Donor
All of them at once ?

I have the feeling that all of them at once is mutually exclusive

Mega Mongols will get some

But a victory for one, will allow others on the periphery to survive and prosper

Grey Wolf
 
1- Chinese is wiped away beginning in the 13th century by the Mongol invasion, which in the space of some 50 years completes an unbelievable genocide on a scale never seen. Mandarin Chinese disappears
almost completely by the 16th century, northern China never regains independence, its surviving people is Mongolized. In Southern China, viceversa, Cantonese takes over as the evreyday language, absorbing the millions refugee.
2- England is conquered AND HELD by Knut and his descendands, who unify it with Denmark, and later with Norway , in a powerful sea empire who goes on to (re)discover North America, and with time falls more and more under French cultural influence. Old English is slowly replaced by a Latinized mix of Old Norse, Anglo-Saxon dialects and Norman French which never comes to be called English, but something like Britnorse.
3- The Muslim conquest of Northern India is not conducted by the Ghurids, but by a powerful Turkic Empire on the model of OTL Ottoman Empire. The Hindus are annihilated and shattered, Turkish becomes the sole language of Northern India.
4- Spain doesn't become a colonial power, full stop. That's sufficient.
5- The Khanate of Kazan absorbes Siberia and successfully resists the Russians keeping them west of the Volga with centroasiatic Turkish help. Russia hasn't the necessary strength and falls to the Poles during the Times of Trouble, fatally becoming a secondary player in later times.
6- The Europeans, unified under a "Christian" fanatic emperor in the 12th century, exterminate Arab tribes and arab speaking people with gruesome ferocity from Syria to Morocco during a fanatic "holy war" of annihilation. After the destruction of the Holy Cities in Arabia, forced conversions, the reemerging of ancestral languages and cultures and the prestige of the new masters limits spoken arab to the Arabian peninsula and parts of Iraq.
7-See #3. Bengali remains a local language, but with some million speakers only.
8- Portugal doesn't colonize Brazil, full stop. That's more than enough.
9- Due to religious factors (Malaysia, Sumatra and Borneo go Muslim while the rest of Indonesia is Hindu) and the mass migration of Hindus from India, the Indonesian region splits by the 16th century in two major malayan languages, one Arabicized, the other deeply affected by Hindu, Chinese and later Dutch, rapidly distancing one each other.
10- Due to the weakness of the monarchy after the Carolingians, France never fully unifies and remains a fragmented, regional reality, nor it can colonize very much abroad. Occitan remains dominant in the Midi, Breton is preserved, Franco-Provencal develops distinctly in a separate Burgundian state.
 
Chinese - This is hard. China gets fragmented long enough into the Modern Age for the 'one language' to be recognized as three languages. If you meant Mandarin, then Mongol Conquest as suggested earlier.

English/French: Stronger Netherlands, perhaps?

Castilian: Catalan gains greater prestige than Castilian when the two countries were united under one monarch. A son of Ferdinand and Isabella who survives to rule on his own and have issue, perhaps? Or maybe Columbus flies under the Crown of Aragon instead of the Crown of Castile.

Portuguese: Easy way - No Brazil. Harder way - Spanish Union.

Malay: Javanese is declared the Indonesian language instead.

The other languages...I have no idea.
 
No Roman empire. (2, 4, 5, 8, 10)

Ethiopia conquers west coast of Arabia, sacks Mecca. No Islam. (6)

Mongol empire equivalent/Gokturks/Xiongnu successors take over China. (1)

Industry doesn't start until 1940, in Europe. Thus, in 2004, Europe has a third or so of the world's population, while the rest of the world hasn't even started to industrialize and have exponential population growth (1, 3, 7, 9)

Following four are probably unnecessary with the later industry one, but would help:

Tibetans conquer Bengal. (7)

Turkic nomads take over western India. (3)

Turkic or Gothic nomads take over Russia. (5)

Thais push the Cambodians further south; Chinese push the Thais, and then Cambodians, even further south into Malaysia. (9)
 
Top