The Jewish population has managed to survive and even prosper after the destruction of its culture and nation by the Roman Empire, leading to them to reclaim the area of Jordan-Palestine where Israel is now. Is such a scenario possible for other ethnicities, where they are sent to exile and are scattered far and wide but successfully survive the tides of time to prosper? POD is 0AD.
AHC: Other ethnicities "survive" like the Jewish people
- Thread starter mlp
- Start date
What allowed their survival as a cultural continuum (rather than one culture), is that they didn't wait to be expelled (with such exile being demographically quite limited) : you had Jewish communauties outside Palestine centuries before Romans understood how to use a sword without cutting themselves in the process : Egypt and Mesopotamia, in a first time.
I don't exactly remember the estimations, but IRRC, the Jewish communauties outside Palestine in the Ist century were demographically equivalent to the ones that remained there.
What you'd need to re-edit this situation would be a strong identitarian feature : monotheistic Yahwism was such, being not too much territorially (and critically dynastically) tied up, with deep identitarian reasons to not drown itself culturally too much and to keep contact with others communauties.
I'd imagine that a more triumphant Buddhism in India, could provoke the apparition of "transoceanic" Hindu communauties, present in the Indian Sea and beyond while keeping relations (commercial, cultural, others) with each others.
You won't need much, IMO, to make Armenians looking more like this : a stronger Arabo-Turco-Islamic cultural hegemony in the region, effectively cutting them from other Eastern Christians?
I don't exactly remember the estimations, but IRRC, the Jewish communauties outside Palestine in the Ist century were demographically equivalent to the ones that remained there.
What you'd need to re-edit this situation would be a strong identitarian feature : monotheistic Yahwism was such, being not too much territorially (and critically dynastically) tied up, with deep identitarian reasons to not drown itself culturally too much and to keep contact with others communauties.
I'd imagine that a more triumphant Buddhism in India, could provoke the apparition of "transoceanic" Hindu communauties, present in the Indian Sea and beyond while keeping relations (commercial, cultural, others) with each others.
You won't need much, IMO, to make Armenians looking more like this : a stronger Arabo-Turco-Islamic cultural hegemony in the region, effectively cutting them from other Eastern Christians?
The Turks?Got utterly wrecked by the Tang Dynasty,only to move west and eventually form multiple empires.
Dan Carlin made an interesting point in his Hardcore History podcast episode, Judgement Day at Nineveh. He was referring back to an interview he had with a professor in the middle east, who said that the Assyrian people were still around, and he pointed to the Jewish people, and even though they have become different ethnically, their Hebrew heritage stayed and allowed them to unite. All you need for any POD based on an ethnic group, say the Assyrians, is find something they universally hold dear, and find some way for them to keep it in their memories, and have a Zion-esque movement.
Cuāuhtemōc
Banned
They were resettled all over the Ottoman Empire. A group of them even founded modern Amman. Maybe Jordan be the place for a Circassian state?
jahenders
Banned
I think you've hit the nail on the head. Many old cultures/peoples could have survived if they retain a very strong set of binding tenets (preferably written), a strong sense of community, and stressed passing on their traditions to their children to the degree that Judaism did.
They might not be able to form a country, but they could establish neighborhoods or cities where they're dominant.
They might not be able to form a country, but they could establish neighborhoods or cities where they're dominant.
Interesting, didn't know that about Amman. That might be more plausible than what I imagined. (a state established in the Caucasus after a particularly chaotic collapse of Imperial Russia, with mass re-settlement from all those expelled Circassian communities)
From my understanding, a large part of the modern Assyrian identity comes from their continuity from ancient Assyrians. So there's one of the best examples.
Other examples in ATLs might be the Basques and Pictish (both have non-Indoeuropean languages) various nomad groups from central Asia, and Native American nations.
Other examples in ATLs might be the Basques and Pictish (both have non-Indoeuropean languages) various nomad groups from central Asia, and Native American nations.
Well, they're descended from ancient Assyrians, but since they don't worship the Anunnaki, don't speak Akkadian, and don't have awesome, overly long and vaguely evil-sounding names, I don't think they can qualify as "one of the best examples".
Last edited:
One group that interests me a lot is the Yue people of ancient southern China, who once were the majority population there but have long since been assimilated into Han Chinese civilization. It's believed that modern Cantonese people descend from them and that the Cantonese dialects are influenced by their languages. There's a population in Guangdong today called the Tanka people who are officially recognized as Han ethnicity by the Chinese government but have their own distinctive maritime-based culture - It's believed they more than other southern Chinese descend directly from displaced Yue minorities who were assimilated very late.
It would be interesting to see more Hellenic diaspora communities further east, as well. Outside of the Balkans and Anatolia, there are some Greek-speaking communities in Egypt, the northern coasts of the Black Sea, and the heel of Italy that likely have an ancient pedigree, but their survival is due to constant refueling from and contact with Greeks from the heartland. Communities in India and Central Asia claiming direct heritage from Alexander's empire would be interesting to see, especially if they maintained some form of Greek language. Imagine Indian "Yavana" or "Yona" communities speaking a hybrid form of Greek mixed with Indo-Aryan vocabulary and grammatical features, perhaps following some form of Hinduism incorporating hybridized Greek gods into their pantheon. Various other foreign ethno-religious groups survived in India, like the Zoroastrians, Syriac Christians, and Bene Israel Jews, so why not Greeks?
Indo-Iranian groups in western Eurasia, aside from the Ossetians, would also be interesting. The Scythians managed to spread everywhere from Hotan in China, where the Saka language was dominant until replaced by Uyghur, to Tunisia in the West, where the Alans arrived with the Vandals to carve out their barbarian kingdom in North Africa. The Scythians still have plenty of widespread descendants today, from the Ossetians in the West to the Pashtuns and the Xinjiang Pamiri Tajiks in the East, but it would be interesting to see Iranian-speaking communities in Eastern Europe and perhaps even Western Europe and North Africa.
As for other OTL examples on par with the Jews, I'd say that the Romani in Europe, the Parsis in the Indian Subcontinent, the Dungans in Central Asia, and the Tatars everywhere qualify.
It would be interesting to see more Hellenic diaspora communities further east, as well. Outside of the Balkans and Anatolia, there are some Greek-speaking communities in Egypt, the northern coasts of the Black Sea, and the heel of Italy that likely have an ancient pedigree, but their survival is due to constant refueling from and contact with Greeks from the heartland. Communities in India and Central Asia claiming direct heritage from Alexander's empire would be interesting to see, especially if they maintained some form of Greek language. Imagine Indian "Yavana" or "Yona" communities speaking a hybrid form of Greek mixed with Indo-Aryan vocabulary and grammatical features, perhaps following some form of Hinduism incorporating hybridized Greek gods into their pantheon. Various other foreign ethno-religious groups survived in India, like the Zoroastrians, Syriac Christians, and Bene Israel Jews, so why not Greeks?
Indo-Iranian groups in western Eurasia, aside from the Ossetians, would also be interesting. The Scythians managed to spread everywhere from Hotan in China, where the Saka language was dominant until replaced by Uyghur, to Tunisia in the West, where the Alans arrived with the Vandals to carve out their barbarian kingdom in North Africa. The Scythians still have plenty of widespread descendants today, from the Ossetians in the West to the Pashtuns and the Xinjiang Pamiri Tajiks in the East, but it would be interesting to see Iranian-speaking communities in Eastern Europe and perhaps even Western Europe and North Africa.
As for other OTL examples on par with the Jews, I'd say that the Romani in Europe, the Parsis in the Indian Subcontinent, the Dungans in Central Asia, and the Tatars everywhere qualify.
Last edited:
Punic-speaker were still around in the 500s, methinks. Ethnically, Persians are the same as they were 1500 years ago.
Also, what anout the Republic of Lakotah for the Sioux? Except, that is based in South Dakota and not the Sioux homeland of Minnesota...
Cuāuhtemōc
Banned
The problem is that those Punic speakers did not see themselves as any different from the Latin-speaking population. They, like the Greek-speaking people of the Eastern Roman Empire, saw themselves as Roman and any separatist state in Africa would hark back to Rome, not Carthage.