A Romance speaking/Catholic northwest Africa

With any POD, how do we get an indigenous Romance speaking and Catholic country in Northwest Africa? It cant be as a result of European colonization. The Roman territory was called Africa. Would this ALT country be called Africa or some derivative of it? What would the rest of the continent be called?
 
The best way to make it credible since even if the Spanish do invade northwest Africa, a romance language seems unlikely to emerge.You could have Roman Africa survive, If you have an Roman Africa that manages to last through the Visigoths and the Arab invasions don't reach Northwest Africa, chances are there could be some kind of romance language language in Africa.
 
OK, lets go for a Stronger Byzantine Empire that prevents the Arabs from getting further than Palestine/Syria area (Egypt probably independent) long enough for the wind to go out the sails so that languages can get entrenched over in North Africa.

Something along the lines of continued holding of Tunisia by the Byzantines for longer. Later it breaks away a la Ravenna, but ends up as an extension of the culturual sphere of Southern Italy and Sicily. I think this is just about enough to remain Romance Speaking, but I might be wrong.
 
The resulting language might be something more like a Maltese hybrid. If it's a Punic tongue, it might be one heavily shaped by Latin.

I think the best bet is to have the Arab conquest fall short, and have it remain under Byzantine control, until it drifts away into the Western orbit.
 
The resulting language might be something more like a Maltese hybrid. If it's a Punic tongue, it might be one heavily shaped by Latin.

I think the best bet is to have the Arab conquest fall short, and have it remain under Byzantine control, until it drifts away into the Western orbit.
Punic is largely dead by this point. While St. Augustine probably spoke it, it was local, rural and low-prestige even then.

Assuming the Arabs get stopped east the Egyptian border (either one), North Africa is going to be, in all probability Romance speaking and RC.
 
The resulting language might be something more like a Maltese hybrid. If it's a Punic tongue, it might be one heavily shaped by Latin.

I think the best bet is to have the Arab conquest fall short, and have it remain under Byzantine control, until it drifts away into the Western orbit.


Well Maltese is an offshoot of Arabic, so that's out of the equation.

Regarding the North African Romance languages, you'd probably see a coastal language with mild Punic influences and some Berber and Greek loanwords, and an inland one with a considerably heavier Berber influence.
 
Romance speaking with no Arab conquests? No. They will be Berber languages. There's little chance of a survival of Latin except perhaps along the fringes of Tunisia. The Berber expansion in the 5th-7th centuries made sure of that.
 
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