AHC: Form alternate/new ethnic groups of the world

[Otto Kretschmer]

Anglo-Russians
Population - approx 4 mln
Language: Baltic English, a distant relative of Modern English

History: They are descendants of English settlers who settled around Novgorod after the Norman conquest of England The first wave arrived just after William's invasion (mostly nobles, clergymen, their families and households), an even larger one after Harrying of the North although longhips from Rus' continued to sail to England and pick up people for decades to come. They led campaign in the name of Novgorod to subjugate Estonia, Latvia and Finland and formed the elite in those places although a large number of them lives in Russia as well. Their language is descended directly from Old English without any Norman influence and is very conservative, mainly thanks to Anglo-Russians' high literacy rate throughout centuries and a drive to maintain their ancestral culture.

 

[An Thuong]

The Dianians
Location: Throughout Western Europe and it's diaspora worldwide.
Religion: Dianism, mistakenly believed to be Satanism or Witch-craft.
Population: 42,000,000
History: Belief that Europe was plagued by a 'witch-cult' had begun to arise in the 16th century, and by the 19th century had become the subject of some fairly serious academic study. However, it wasn't until 1921 and the publishing of Margaret Murray's The Witch-Cult in Western Europe that this would be proved definitively.
A grand-conference of Dianians was held in Anglesey between the 23rd and 26th of April 1923 and days later, Beltane 1923, Dianians across the U.K. France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Spain performed their first public Beltane celebrations since the 5th century.
The World Dianian Communion announced itself to the world and it's more than thirty million members came out of the shadows to officially denounce the Christianity they'd been forced to affect for more than a millennium and declare their true faith; Dianism.
The WDC, headed by High-Priestess Florence Du Pont, respectfully critiqued Murray's mistakes and began publishing The Way of Diana, both an introduction to their theology and an account of their hidden history through the Christian era. Among other claims; the book asserted that the vast majority of those tried and executed in the Witch Hunts had not been Dianians. From the assessment of the Dianians, the Witch Hunts had rather been a way of silencing dissidents or settling personal scores.
The WDC and Dianians across the world received praise from some segments of society and requests for conversion to their religious order. However, they also received persecution in other areas. In Dixie twelve professing Dianians were lynched between 1923 and 1925, until the majority of the Dianians settled in the American South migrated West, particularly to Oregon.
However, for the most part the Laissez-faire attitude of the time allowed for the Dianians to live openly; and establish groves and altars.
Dianians were for the most part highly concentrated in certain areas; with many entire villages and towns across Western Europe and the Americas being Dianian. It became clear that as much as 25% of the county of Somerset were Dianians for instance.
Under Nazi Germany the reception to the Dianians would later be termed 'Schizophrenic'. The esoteric elements in the Third Reich were initially highly receptive to the Dianians, but the WDC was vocally critical of the Nuremberg Laws and the Reich changed it's mind almost overnight. The Dianians were increasingly regarded as a dangerous non-conformist sect and there was speculation as to whether the German Dianians, particularly concentrated in the Bavarian Alps, might well posses genuine magical powers which could undo the work of the Nazis (which to be clear, they do not.)
During the Holocaust some 50% of the German Dianians were slaughtered.
In the aftermath of the Second World War, in the environment of 'an increasing ambivalence towards Christianity', there was a slow uptick of interest in Dianianism. However, the Dianians, after one and a half millennia as a virtually closed group, were highly suspicious of outsiders. The conversion process is incredibly lengthy and typically requires invitation. For this reason the Dianians are typically considered an ethno-religious group.

 

[Byzantion]

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to create alternate or new ethnic groups from alternate timelines by creating possible Point of divergence for the ethnogenesis. You must discuss about the history of the new/alternate ethnic group.

This is the first ethnic group for the challenge.

Moorish American
Language: Andalucian (Modern Mozarabic)
Ancestry: Moorish (Mixture of Spanish, Arab and Berber) people who immigrated to the United States in 18th century
Religion: Islam
Culture: A mixture of Arab, Berber and Spanish customs with original customs.

Lusatia Tatars, Brandenburg Tatars, Pommern Tatars
A far Western group of Tatars split from the main groups and not unlike Polish Lipka and Lithuanian Tatars assimilated into the host countries cultures. In the Lusatian region of Thuringia and Saxony as well in Pommern and Brandenburg, Prussia, Tatars settled and were tolerated by the rulers. In the 18th Century the Prussian kings formed an uniformed Tatar cavalry unit. The Tatar Lancers had been feared by their adversaries. The Tatars were allowed to keep their distinct Sunni Muslim religion and enjoyed freedom. They had a good relations with their German and Sorbian neighbors.

 

[Otto Kretschmer]

Yahudi/यहूदी
Population: Approx 8 mln
Languages: Yahudi Greek, a descendant of Koine Greek with heavy Indian influence, Hebrew and as liturgical language

A Jewish group descended from Roman Jews who arrived in India in antiquity. Through high birth rate their population has exploded. Their languge has borrowed heavily from neighbooring Indo Aryan languages, including simplified morpholog, phonetics and vocabulary. They are known for blending elements of Jewish and Indian cultures.

A note - I don't know if it's plausible for Greek to survive for such a long time in India. Yiddish did survive for 800 years in Poland with little difficulty but given India's religious tolerance, assimilation in terms of language might be easier there.

 

[Light Jammings]

Taxumel
Population: Approx 500,000
Location: Throughout OTLCentral America
Languages: Spanish, Taxumel Maya
History: The Taxumel's origins are a bit unclear, but the widely accepted theory is that they were a group of Classic Maya migrating south fleeing the Tikal-Calakmul wars.
By 1000, they were at their height, with numerous city-states with a Maya elite and local commoner class. The League of Chocom formed in 1200 in what is now Costa rica.
The league disintegrated in the 1300s, and when the Spanish arrived, they resisted until the mid 1600s. As there was not much gold in Central america, there was never any slavery for mines a la Mexico and Peru, but many were subject to Forced labour on plantations. When the Spanish American countries declared independence, Tata-Mel (OTL Costa rica) successfully resisted Mexican invasion. Not much changed for the Taxumel until the American "seized" the country for the UFC. After decades of occupation, the UFC left the nation. Following the end of the cold war, Tata-Mel is a poor, but proud country.

 

[Aghasverov]

Lusatia Tatars, Brandenburg Tatars, Pommern Tatars
A far Western group of Tatars split from the main groups and not unlike Polish Lipka and Lithuanian Tatars assimilated into the host countries cultures. In the Lusatian region of Thuringia and Saxony as well in Pommern and Brandenburg, Prussia, Tatars settled and were tolerated by the rulers. In the 18th Century the Prussian kings formed an uniformed Tatar cavalry unit. The Tatar Lancers had been feared by their adversaries. The Tatars were allowed to keep their distinct Sunni Muslim religion and enjoyed freedom. They had a good relations with their German and Sorbian neighbors.

This seems entirely plausible.
As a side note, seems like I read somewhere that Charles Bronson was descended from Lipka Tatars

 

[Otto Kretschmer]

Scandinavian Jews
Population; 500,000
Location: half of them live in Sweden, 20% in Finland, the rest in Norway and Denmark
Language: Gjov, a descendant of Old French

A group of Jews who arrived in Scandinavia after being expelled from France in 9th century. Traditionally they used to be traders and artisans but a significant group of them headed north and became raindeer pastoralists. They speak a language descended from Old French with Norse influence, which is currently the most conservative Gallo-Romance language as it avoided most changes that occured in Old French after that period of time.

 

[Neoteros]

Brazilians

Ancestry: Irish Gaelic, Native American
Language: Brazilian Gaelic (descended from Old Irish, but half of the vocabulary is made up by Beothuk and Mi'kmaq terms)
Religion: Insular Christianity, Roman Catholicism
Population: around 500,000 in Brazil, another 500,000 as diaspora
Space: Newfoundland and Labrador plus Côte-Nord

History: Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands are settled by the Gaels rather than the Norse, with wandering monks like the Papar leading the way; they reach Vinland as well, but call it Brazil, after the mythical land of Hy-Brasil. First contact is harsh on the native peoples, but the lower numbers of the Gaels and their lesser technological edge when compared to the 15th century Europeans, not to mention the fact that they're monks and traders for the most part, allow them to recover before other peoples from the other side of the ocean come knocking as well.

Brazil therefore becomes one of the few places in north "America" where a people of European descent makes up most of the population and, even then, the Brazilian Gaels are just as mixed as the Brazilians of OTL; someone from the Gaeltacht would have a hard time understanding what passes for Gaelic on the fringes of the Atlantic, given the very liberal amount of words and even grammatical quirks of native origin peppering the local language. Ironically, Insular Christianity would survive in Brazil even after its decline in Ireland itself, with half the country's population still adhering to it.

Once they were able to contact the Iroquoian-speaking peoples to their south, well... let's just say that when a violent sport involving a ball and a stick meets another violent sport involving a ball and a stick, you do not need wars to settle disputes, if only because enough players die on the playing field that fielding an army becomes impossible.

 

[Otto Kretschmer]

Southern Samaritans
Population; 25 mln
Location: Madagascar
Language: Samaritan Aramaic, Hebrew as liturgical langauge

Descendants of Samaritans who settled first in Ethiopia then in Madagascar after their unsuccessful revolts against the Byzantine Empire.

 

[Sarufiyyun]

Tisquruna

Ancestry: A mix of Quechua, other Amerindians and Europeans, predominately Spaniards infused with Polynesian and Melanesian influences.
Language: Tisqusimi, a language descended from the Southern Peruvian dialects of Quechua but with extensive Spanish and Pacific Islander influences.
Religion: Roman Catholicism, traditional Andean religion.
Population: About 7.5 million in the Republic of Tisqusuyu (New Zealand); another 1.2 million live overseas.

History: Long story short: New Zealand is never settled by the Maori ITTL; Luís Vaz de Torres discovers the islands during his travels. The few Spanish who settle the island dub it as New Galicia. They are quickly outnumbered by tens of thousands of Quechua and Aymara slaves brought over from the Viceroyalty of Lima, made to live a brutish experience as harvesters of sugarcane. They are accompanied by thousands of Melanesians and Polynesians the Spanish kidnap and bring to New Galicia.The ancestors of the Tisquruna soon become wise to their numerical superiority and launch a rebellion against the colonial government in the late 1700s. New Galicia is redubbed as Tisqusuyu or the Island Quadrant in the Quechua language.

 

[Otto Kretschmer]

Gotland Slavs
Location: Gotland
Population: 60,000
Language: Gotland Slavic, a separate branch of Slavic

Slavic inhabitants of Gotland who arrived at the island around 600-650 AD. They speak a language than differs markedly from other Slavic languages as it's derived from an earlier branch of Slavic.

 

[sadurreira]

Prufejis
Language: Prufejese. The Prufejese word for their language "Prufejiś" comes from Latin profugus “That which flees, has fled, fugitive”.
Ancestry: Roman, Iranian, and Northern Indian. Genetic studies have shown that the Average Prufeji is around 51% European (30% Italian + 21% Balkan), 32% Northern Indian, and 17% Iranian.
Religion: Rālejnā, a religion centered around two Gods, Aizda (Isis) and Mātrau (Mithras). It is derived from a mixture of the many competitor religions of Christianity from the Roman era, but especially the Cult of Mithras and the Cult of Isis. Aizda and Mātrau are believed to represent good and evil respectively. Some Prufejis even believe that Aizda and Mātrau are dual natures of the same God (Sul), but this belief varies among different Prufeji communities.
Culture: A mixture of Roman and Iranian culture. They have a complex clan structure that dates back to Roman gentes and tribes. Prufejis are split into traibi (tribes) and jantā (gens). Traibi are organized by cities and towns, whereas jantā are individual families. Jantā are also split into romā (branches), which are even smaller families. Two kinsmen that are living in the same towns would be part of the same jante and rome, but they would be of different traibi. As for other aspects of culture, many Prufejis feel a strong kinship with each other. Their shared history of persecution and tales of Roman ancestry runs so deeply in their communities that many of them feel a strong connection to each other. Many Prufejis also claim descent from famous Roman figures. The former mayor of Mumbai, Goj Floye Taisfoniś, claimed to be a descendant of Constantine the Great whose ancestors passed through Ctesiphon. Another example is the Anglo-Indian musician Russell Plainbridge, who claims to be descended from Pliny the Elder. Russell Plainbridge is an Anglicized form of Rahel Plaiñe Brejiś.
History: The Prufejis originated from Roman pagans who fled persecution after Christianity was established as the official religion of Rome in the early 4th century CE. They were made up of a few thousand refugees from throughout the Roman Empire, but especially from the eastern provinces. Shortly after their departure from Rome, they settled in the western fringes of the Sassanid Empire, in towns such as Ctesiphon and Mosul. They lived peacefully here for another three centuries, until the fall of the Sassanids. When the Sassanid Empire was conquered by Muslim forces, the Prufejis became nomads, much like the Romani of Europe. They ventured further east, and eventually spread throughout the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Despite religious differences with surrounding peoples, the Prufejis have held on to some vestiges of the religions of their ancestors. Many of them are practicing members of Rālejnā to this day. In the past, this was often the cause of severe persecution by various governments. Many Prufejis were expelled from China in the days of the Ming Dynasty, due to being seen as outsiders. This is where many Prufeji communities in Japan and the Philippines came from.

 

[An Thuong]

Filosi
Language: Filosi Greek (as a liturgical language. A Greek dialect that is in many ways a 'fossil' of Ancient Greek). Hindi, English, Gujarati, Marathi and Kannada in every day life.
Ancestry: Predominately Greek, though with some ancestry from all over the former Roman Empire, Persia and India.
Religion: Elenism (Essentially their main focus was always on philosophy, but with the mythological underpinning of Ancient Greco-Egyptian polytheism. They have since adopted numerous customs and beliefs form Vedic traditions, such as meditation, yoga, vegetarianism and reincarnation.)
Culture: The Filosi culture has preserved many ancient customs. It's a scholarly culture with an emphasis on learning, debate and democracy. The Filosi have always been lovers of the arts and games. Filosi acting troupes and theaters have enjoyed several periods of popularity within India (especially from the 10th-14th centuries, and then again during the 18th-20th century). The Filosi Games have taken place every four years since the 17th century.
Location: Mostly India (especially Mumbai and the coasts of Maharashtra and Karnataka)
Brief History.
A group of some ten thousand philosophically inclined Roman citizens, the largest portion of whom came from Alexandria, leave the Roman Empire when persecution by the Christians gets gradually worse. These people live in exile first in and around Cstephion under the Sassanid Empire and then when it falls in India.
They became known as the 'Filosi' around the 10th century, named after the philosophy of their academies. They enjoyed a fairly decent standard of living in this period, living mostly in small fishing villages along the coast.
During Muslim rule the Filosi completely closed ranks and for the most part just kept their heads down.
During the British Raj the steak of the Filosi within Indian society rose dramatically, both because of their non-caste nature and skill as translators and due to British sentimentality for their classical origins.
During this time Filosi communities began to disperse, both to other Indian cities and also to other British Colonies, with Singapore, Durban, Hong Kong and Mombasa all housing large Filosi communities in the early 20th century.
It's said that there are six institutions every Filosi community needs: An Academy, a Library, A Temple, A Gymnasium, a Theater and a Bouleterion (a debating space).
Today the Filosi are a small but beloved minority group within India, like the Parsis with whom the Filosi community has a long-standing friendship (ever since both groups were early migrants to British Bombay).
The Filosi don't have internal caste, but do have an internal hierarchy, decided democratically. Each Filosi community around the world elects an 'Igetis', the Igetis in turn nominate one of their number (though always one of the Igetis of Maharashtra) to become their Exilarch, a title that originated from their time in Cstephion. The Exilarch also holds the seat in the Maharashtra State Assembly reserved for their minority.

Snap, apparently mediocre minds sometimes think alike too

Prufejis
Language: Prufejese. The Prufejese word for their language "Prufejiś" comes from Latin profugus “That which flees, has fled, fugitive”.
Ancestry: Roman, Iranian, and Northern Indian. Genetic studies have shown that the Average Prufeji is around 51% European (30% Italian + 21% Balkan), 32% Northern Indian, and 17% Iranian.
Religion: Rālejnā, a religion centered around two Gods, Aizda (Isis) and Mātrau (Mithras). It is derived from a mixture of the many competitor religions of Christianity from the Roman era, but especially the Cult of Mithras and the Cult of Isis. Aizda and Mātrau are believed to represent good and evil respectively. Some Prufejis even believe that Aizda and Mātrau are dual natures of the same God (Sul), but this belief varies among different Prufeji communities.
Culture: A mixture of Roman and Iranian culture. They have a complex clan structure that dates back to Roman gentes and tribes. Prufejis are split into traibi (tribes) and jantā (gens). Traibi are organized by cities and towns, whereas jantā are individual families. Jantā are also split into romā (branches), which are even smaller families. Two kinsmen that are living in the same towns would be part of the same jante and rome, but they would be of different traibi. As for other aspects of culture, many Prufejis feel a strong kinship with each other. Their shared history of persecution and tales of Roman ancestry runs so deeply in their communities that many of them feel a strong connection to each other. Many Prufejis also claim descent from famous Roman figures. The former mayor of Mumbai, Goj Floye Taisfoniś, claimed to be a descendant of Constantine the Great whose ancestors passed through Ctesiphon. Another example is the Anglo-Indian musician Russell Plainbridge, who claims to be descended from Pliny the Elder. Russell Plainbridge is an Anglicized form of Rahel Plaiñe Brejiś.
History: The Prufejis originated from Roman pagans who fled persecution after Christianity was established as the official religion of Rome in the early 4th century CE. They were made up of a few thousand refugees from throughout the Roman Empire, but especially from the eastern provinces. Shortly after their departure from Rome, they settled in the western fringes of the Sassanid Empire, in towns such as Ctesiphon and Mosul. They lived peacefully here for another three centuries, until the fall of the Sassanids. When the Sassanid Empire was conquered by Muslim forces, the Prufejis became nomads, much like the Romani of Europe. They ventured further east, and eventually spread throughout the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Despite religious differences with surrounding peoples, the Prufejis have held on to some vestiges of the religions of their ancestors. Many of them are practicing members of Rālejnā to this day. In the past, this was often the cause of severe persecution by various governments. Many Prufejis were expelled from China in the days of the Ming Dynasty, due to being seen as outsiders. This is where many Prufeji communities in Japan and the Philippines came from.

 

[sadurreira]

Snap, apparently mediocre minds sometimes think alike too

Damn, I didn't even notice that haha. I guess similar ideas are bound to pop up eventually.

 

[PrinceofApathy]

(This is 100% a plug for my timeline. I have no shame whatsoever. )

Meshuchrarim

Language: The Meshuchrarim speak a Portuguese based Creole known as Nosacon. It is very similar to Papiamento, but contains significantly more Hebrew admixture.

Population: At 640, 000 individuals, they compose approximately two percent of the world's Jewish population. 515, 000 of them live in the Dutch Dominion of Machseh, a territory carved out of the ITTL districts of Commewijne, Marowijne, and around half of Para. They make up a plurality of the Dominion's population at fourty-seven percent. The remaining 125, 000 live primarily in the mainland Netherlands, but also have communities in the United States, the Dominion of the Netherlands Antilles, and the Republic of Palestine; where they have a collective of farming settlements that are affiliated with the Yishuv.

Religion: Orthodox Judaism. Their nusach (pronunciation) is based off that of their former Western Sephardic Jewish masters, but has evolved significantly overtime to suit their African ancestry. Their practice is 100% in line with Jewish law, but is uniquely Afro-Caribbean in its own way. They are known for their ecstatic piety in their worship, intense singing, and a predilection for mystical and kabbalistic theology. In the past century, a degree of influence from Gospel music has crept into their ritual.

Ancestry: Primarily West African, with a significant degree of admixture from Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews respectively.

History: Their name literally meaning "manumitted ones", their history began when the Jewish planters of Jodensavanne freed their slaves in an attempt to boost their numbers and preserve their autonomy. This alliance led to a forging of ties with the Ndyuka Maroons, and the two waged a revolt against the Dutch colonizers. Over the centuries, tensions between the land claims of the Jews, Dutch, and the Maroons forced the Dutch to carve their colony of Suriname in two; and set aside a portion of land exclusively for the Jews and Ndyuka. Despite their status of free men, they were relegated to second-class status by the white Jews of Machseh. In the early portion of the twentieth century, they were joined by African-American converts. The Civil Rights Movement eventually reached the Caribbean, and they fought for their rights and won.

​

 

[Collin1212]

Техасцы

Language: modern day Russian and Ukrainian that is and odd mix of English words

Ancestry: English, Russian and Ukrainian

Religion: Christianity, some slavic folklore

Culture: Техасцы culture is very odd with it being and odd mix of military and fun loving. As such it was odd to walk into aТехасцы home and find Cossack sabers and cattle man revolvers with most Техасцы homes could be found near rivers and grasslands which is why most Техасцы homes are stuck together forming what's called a sich. And can be found near the Sabine and red rivers and northeast Texas or Техасцы as they call it thus their name. Most Техасцы lead an agricultural like lifestyle with them mostly taking up farming, and cattle herding with them holding yearly festivals.

Population: 550,000 Mostly located along the Sabine and red rivers, and in northeast Texas

History: Техасцы which literally translate to Texans come from the Ukraine back in the mid to late 19th century when the Russian czar in an attempt to "Russianize" the land began expelling various ethnic groups such as poles, tartars and the Zaporozhian Cossacks the latter of whom began making their way Texas upon hearing of vast amounts of empty land. As such they began to settle along the Sabine and red river and in northeast Texas becoming farmers, cattle herders, etc. These people while foreign yes would prove to become a very valuable ally to average Texan where the Cossacks would prove their worth during the wars with the native american tribes that roamed the plains and in one instance fighting in the Spanish American war. It was during these wars that the Cossacks would proceed to live up to their reputation in Europe with lighting fast raids on native american tribes and villages looting and killing and quickly retreat to their sich before the enemy could retaliate. During the late 20th century Cossack population in Texas would see a spike in numbers thanks to the refugees fleeing from the soviet government.

 

[Byzantion]

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to create alternate or new ethnic groups from alternate timelines by creating possible Point of divergence for the ethnogenesis. You must discuss about the history of the new/alternate ethnic group.

This is the first ethnic group for the challenge.

Moorish American
Language: Andalucian (Modern Mozarabic)
Ancestry: Moorish (Mixture of Spanish, Arab and Berber) people who immigrated to the United States in 18th century
Religion: Islam
Culture: A mixture of Arab, Berber and Spanish customs with original customs.

Lutheranya

After Martin Luther was martyred and a bloody war on the Reformation movement by the Catholic powers raged on with nowhere to go,thousands of them sought refuge in the Ottoman Empire. The Sultan thinking of a potential ally in case of war against the Catholic realms, let the refugees in and resettled them in several places in Anatolia were they had to pay protection tax. The Lutherans were permitted from doing any mission work. In case of war it was their duty to send auxilliaries for the Ottoman army. Many skilled craftsmen, intellectuals, nobles, knights and Landsknechts had joined the exodos and the small towns of the Protestants florished even though it was forbidden for them to expand. The Greek Orthodoxy was not happy about the ,heretics' from Western Europe though. The Protestant towns florished, the buildings lncluded many different styles from various German regions. While in Europe Lutherans died out like the Hussites, it was still alive in certain towns in Anatolia. The confessional emigrants became their own ethnicity. Lutheran troops fought in the Balkans, Hungary and elsewhere. Lutheran craftsmen, engineers and architects however also went to Constantinoples and made good business. With their Armenian, Greek and Kurdish neighbors the Lutherans had a mixed relationship but protected by the Porte they received their special privilege as guests. The Lutherans language evolved according to the written word of Luther´s original translated Bible while in the Holy Roman Empire it had been forbidden. So the German language evolved independentley to the rest of the German world.

Ancestry: German, Dutch
Religion: Reformed Lutheran Christians.
Language: Luther Deutsch
Population: 60.000
Culture: Married clergy, independent liturgy and calender, Low German Culture

 

[Otto Kretschmer]

European Armenians
Population: 9 mln
Language: European Armenian

Descendants of Armenians who settled in Eurooe in Early Middle Ages. They are Apostolic and speak a dialect of Armenian that is close to Classical Armenian.

 

[Hvalrossen]

Tarimers (Tarim Tibetans)
Triumphant Tibetans moved into the Tarim basin as conquerors. There they occupied the upper echelons of society. Ambitious people often had to learn Tibetan inorder to work in government. Eventually thru intermarriage the Tibetan speaking population grew. At first due to social climbers adopting the language and assimilating into the Tibetan ruling class. Monks were also required to speak Tibetan as most it was the main language of most monastaries. It was also common for urban young boys to undergo a short stint in monastaries, these stays exposed the boys to Tibetan. Later this practice would spread to the Tarim's well off rural population, and eventually to the population at large. Tibetan was by 1000 AD the majority language of the Tarim.
Language: Sino-Tibetan -> Tibetic -> Tarim Tibetan
Location: Tarim Basin
Religion: Buddhism

 

[Born in the USSA]

(Aboriginal) Lemurian*

Although nearly eighty percent of the size of Australia and today very densely populated, the Lemurian continent was the last to be discovered and settled by early peoples. Settled first by Polynesian groups during their expansion through the Pacific, Lemuria would later see significant populations established by Chinese and Tewantinsuyu explorers in separate, ultimately unsuccessful colonization ventures that would nonetheless shape the demographics of the continent and introduce strains of religious and political thought that continue into the present.

Discovery by the Spanish in the seventeenth century would mark the beginning of the Lemurian Colonial Period as the culturally fractious continent became a dynamic collage of native states, European colonies and free republics and city-states. With the last vestiges of colonialism cast aside in the twentieth century, the newly independent successor states faced the truly daunting task of establishing a unified society for the first time in the continent's history, predicated on full legal equality for the aboriginal Lemurians and with a focus on preserving native cultural history even as the new nation set itself on an ambitious agenda of modernization.

In addition to Esperanto and the historical colonial languages, the aboriginal Lemurians traditionally speak a variety of languages in the Lemurian language family, a group that shows the variety of influences on the region. Aside from the vast adherence to the imported Baha'i faith the Lemurians have traditionally followed a pantheistic belief commonly called the Kn'tiki Mythos. A blend Polynesian and Andean archetypes and myth structures combined with a coopted form of Buddhism, the Mythos is centered on the octopus-headed creator god Kn'tiki, a conflation of Tangaroa and Viracocha. God of the sea, magic and the underworld, the Lemurian conception of Nirvana involves exiting the cycle of reincarnation through time and space, becoming subsumed into Kn'tiki's dream as he rests on the sea floor waiting for the end of the world.

Ancestry: Polynesian, Chinese, Andean, various European admixture
Language: Lemurian language family, English, Esperanto, other languages
Religion: Baha'i, Kn'tiki Mythos
Population: ~450 million (57% of the broader Lemurian population)
*It's ASB but inspired by an idea that's consumed me for the past couple of days 😅

I had an intrusive idea of a @DValdron-style extra continent ASB story as I was trying to fall asleep last night. Basically it would be a Lemuria* story where a continent made up of a combined Zealandia and Kerguelen plateau is A). above sea level and B.) moved to the South Pacific Gyre. Despite the fact that the combined land area would be roughly double that of India and Lemuria is settled by diverse cultures over the centuries and carved up into a stew of colonies there are basically no drastic changes on the world stage until the twentieth century, when a set of nationalistic revolts break out and the vastly different successor states have to forge a unified government to keep from becoming a battle ground in the Cold War.

My main bit of fun would be that real life weird fiction writers from around the world would be massaged into Lemuria's modern history in other roles, with the group that would eventually come out on top in the new government an alternate version of the "core" Lovecraft Circle**, here a political clique rather than a writer's group. Lovecraft would have a lot of his racism knocked out of him earlier in his life by joining the Army like he wanted during World War I. Newly self-assured he spins his wartime writing into a career as a reporter and culture columnist, journeying to Lemuria and building a deep bench of friends who in real life became Cthulhu Mythos collaborators, so when the ravages of World War II break out and the continent breaks free of the foreign yoke what steps up to fill the void isn't Communism or an American-backed regime but rather a version of the ideology he describes in "Some Repetitions on the Times", except without any of his OTL lingering racism.

Any plot, as such, would be a story of the development of the newly unified society told in primary sources, from the roots of the Lovecraft Circle and the new Lemurian state to the aftermath of Lovecraft's death (in the fifties due to better medical care) on the regime's nuclear and space programs at the height of the Cold War.

*With the name as a pun on "phantom island" rather than named for the actual animal as in OTL.
** Plus this guy and Sonia Greene

Thanks! I'm not sure if I'll do anything with it yet but I've got tons of ideas. For indigenous place names I was thinking of cribbing from Lovecraft's Dreamlands, Howard's Hyborian Age and Smith's Zothique, since they're politicians and revolutionaries instead of writers TTL.

I had an idea for an initial settlement by Polynesians a la your own Mu timeline, but with later waves from China and Peru. Rather than being colonized by any one Great Power I like the idea of having it basically carved up like an unholy hybrid between the scramble for Africa, Princely States under the Raj and the spheres of influence in China, with a later influx of Russian Whites thrown into the mix. It's too far away to be conquered by Japan during World War II but they also manage to stick their oar in through the Green Dragon secret society.

Although the war ends just like OTL the Green Dragons linger in Lemuria as a destabilizing group of lost cause bitter enders. Naturally decolonization results in an intricate patchwork of different states, nations and culture histories, but with a tremendous amount of potential the Lovecraft Circle hopes to harness to prevent the continent from becoming a proxy war battlefield. And of course the best way to show you mean business is to have A) nukes and B) a space program.