WI: Romanized Areas Remain Romanized

PlayerOne

I was looking through some old colang sites, specifically Romance colangs like Germanech and Breathanach, when a thought occurred to me: What if historically de-romanized areas such as North Africa and the Balkans retained a Latin language or maintained some semblance of Roman culture?

This doesn't necessarily mean that they can't be ruled by other people or retain Christianity even, the Romanians were dominated by other people for centuries, but they're still sticking around. The question I'm trying to pose is, what are the effects of, say, a partially Romance-speaking Britain?
 

Elfwine

The Romanians also don't really have much in the way of Roman culture.

But that aside, I think you need Romanization to have sunk in pretty deeply - which it very much didn't in say, Britain.
 

FDW

Banned
Keeping a Latin language in North Africa is simple, all you need to do is prevent Islam from becoming dominant in the area. (Not impossible even with a POD after 800 AD)

The Balkans are somewhat harder, because you've got all kinds of different groups coming into the area and fighting with each other a whole more.
 

Basileus Giorgios

Elfwine said:
But that aside, I think you need Romanization to have sunk in pretty deeply - which it very much didn't in say, Britain.
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Actually I read last night that there's evidence for a British romance language being spoken in the sixth century, from funerary inscriptions. Which was a surprise, to say the least.
 

Basileus Giorgios

Elfwine said:
But was it common?
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I think from funerary inscriptions it can be difficult to tell. The point the book -"Empires and Barbarians" by Peter Heather - is trying to make is that southern Britain was probably a lot more integrated into the Roman system than is often thought by most, including myself. Apparently the population of the British Isles in the fourth century was likely higher than at any time prior to the industrial revolution.
 

Elfwine

Basileus Giorgios said:
I think from funerary inscriptions it can be difficult to tell. The point the book -"Empires and Barbarians" by Peter Heather - is trying to make is that southern Britain was probably a lot more integrated into the Roman system than is often thought by most, including myself. Apparently the population of the British Isles in the fourth century was likely higher than at any time prior to the industrial revolution.
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Would be interesting to see how much support there is behind that, but I guess I should get the book to find out.
 

Basileus Giorgios

MNP said:
Both his books on Rome and Barbarians are quite good. Read them this past Spring.
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I love "The Fall of the Roman Empire", but initially found "Empires and Barbarians" pretty tedious, having got it for my eighteenth birthday three years ago. I've picked it up again this past few days and am enjoying it- Heather's dry wit quite often makes me chuckle aloud.
 

MNP

Basileus Giorgios said:
I love "The Fall of the Roman Empire", but initially found "Empires and Barbarians" pretty tedious, having got it for my eighteenth birthday three years ago. I've picked it up again this past few days and am enjoying it- Heather's dry wit quite often makes me chuckle aloud.
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You're that young? I thought you were mid-twenties at least.

Anyhow his theory of state formation and its relation to empires has really changed my thinking on the ultimate fate of empires and why they all seem to fall. I admit some of that stuff got pretty-eye glazing but I found it quite useful for my TL (since it covers the formation of the Rus' and the way the Vikings worked) so I was able to stick to it. Plus both books gave me more ammunition as to why Eurofed was so very wrong which was always a plus. :)
 

Basileus Giorgios

MNP said:
You're that young? I thought you were mid-twenties at least.

Anyhow his theory of state formation and its relation to empires has really changed my thinking on the ultimate fate of empires and why they all seem to fall. I admit some of that stuff got pretty-eye glazing but I found it quite useful for my TL (since it covers the formation of the Rus' and the way the Vikings worked) so I was able to stick to it. Plus both books gave me more ammunition as to why Eurofed was so very wrong which was always a plus. :)
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Nope, only twenty now, going into the final year of my undergraduate degree. I shall take the assumption that I was an older man with as a compliment! :p

Ha, quite. You say Eurofed "was"- has the guy been banned now? So many big figures have gone, of late!
 

Russian Sailor

Basileus Giorgios said:
Nope, only twenty now, going into the final year of my undergraduate degree. I shall take the assumption that I was an older man with as a compliment! :p

Ha, quite. You say Eurofed "was"- has the guy been banned now? So many big figures have gone, of late!
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I know this gets away from the purpose of this thread, but what happened to Abdul Pasha?
 

MNP

@Russian Sailor: Banned for continuous insults according to the wiki. He was at IDU last I heard but I don't know for sure.
Basileus Giorgios said:
Nope, only twenty now, going into the final year of my undergraduate degree. I shall take the assumption that I was an older man with as a compliment! :p

Ha, quite. You say Eurofed "was"- has the guy been banned now? So many big figures have gone, of late!
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He was the second sockpuppet of long-banned Irioth. Insta-ban for that.

To get back to the thread topic, Africa is one place I would think of when I think of places that could stay Roman. African Romance persisted for centuries, but even in the late Empire there were political difficulties according to that Heather book. I'm not sure how much cultural practices could survive the Arab Muslim conquest, but they along with the language seemed to until the total Arabization of the Berbers in the second millennium. Presumably a strong Romano-Christian type power (resurgent Italy, powerful Spain as in my own TL) would provide a local focus so that even if the Romance-speaking Berbers weren't in charge they'd still have incentives to keep the language/culture. In large I think they would help facilitate the spread of Muslim ideas into Europe more quickly and probably provide more competition for the eastern trade. Piracy might be slightly reduced in the western Med. but I don't think it would be that different.
 
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