AHC: Farthest afield Romance nation

Isaac Beach

Banned
This refers to nations that weren’t settled in our traditional ‘colonial period’, and so constitute old-world languages of Italian, French, Spanish, Romanian, Romansch and Portuguese (the extant ones anyway). Iotl, Romanian is the most isolated of the Romance languages, being on the other side of the continent with Slavs, Germans, Magyars and Albanians in the way. But could an independent Romance language have sustained itself further afield? As far as I know the only truly extinct Romance language is Dalmatian; so I presume this would need an early POD either before or during the Fall of Rome. So how and where could you get this? Egypt? The Ukraine? Uuuuh... Sri Lanka?
 
This refers to nations that weren’t settled in our traditional ‘colonial period’, and so constitute old-world languages of Italian, French, Spanish, Romanian, Romansch and Portuguese (the extant ones anyway). Iotl, Romanian is the most isolated of the Romance languages, being on the other side of the continent with Slavs, Germans, Magyars and Albanians in the way. But could an independent Romance language have sustained itself further afield? As far as I know the only truly extinct Romance language is Dalmatian; so I presume this would need an early POD either before or during the Fall of Rome. So how and where could you get this? Egypt? The Ukraine? Uuuuh... Sri Lanka?

African Romance languages are extinct, but they're barely documented.

But they'd have to count for something. You might have a few oases in the northern Sahara shifting from a Berber language to an African Romance language by the Middle Ages, depending on how things go--that's pretty isolated (and also unlikely, I'll admit). Maybe even having an African Romance language being used as the official/court language in some West African countries (like Arabic OTL), although it's much more likely they'd use Latin.
 
Perhaps a Britonic-Romance language might form if the British Isles were more romanized. In the East, Greek was the prestige language so you would have to eliminate that factor before you get a Romance-speaking Anatolia, Levant, Armenia, or Egypt. They might be related to Aromanian and Romanian, or they might diverge even further.

For one that is more implausible given the many threads that have covered the topic already, but a Romance language spoken in the Canaries would fit the bill. If only the Romans had reason to colonize it in the first place...
 
What about roman Hibernia if Britain still falls to barbarians? It'd be fairly isolated, but it'd probably go back to their celtic language once the romans are gone.
 
For one that is more implausible given the many threads that have covered the topic already, but a Romance language spoken in the Canaries would fit the bill. If only the Romans had reason to colonize it in the first place...

The Canaries might have been the North African equivalent to Ireland, if Rome had gone out and conquered the rest of modern Morocco, or at least to the High Atlas, which they were capable of doing up until the 3rd century. If that had occurred, then the Canaries would have developed more, and a few centuries down the road would be a good target for a North African successor state, where upon conquest, the population would gradually Romanise. Odds are TTL's Canarians would have a ton of influence from the Romans and their Mauretanian successors to begin with.

In any case, a Canarian Romance language would likely resemble the Romance language spoken in Volubilis or Tingis more than anything else (from OTL), although likely more similar to that of Anfa or ports further south (never ruled by Rome OTL). It would easily be more distinct from Mauretanian Romance or other Romance languages than OTL Canarian Spanish is from Castillian or other dialects.

All of those Romans sailing between the Canaries, Mauretania, and Hispania as traders and such might lead to the settlement of Madeira too, although if the Canarians become more seafaring, they might end up like the Irish and colonise the island first. Maybe they'd even grab the Azores and Cape Verde too. If the Romans for some reason grabbed those islands, I'd expect their language to resemble Canarian Romance.
 
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