AHC: have the most linguistically/culturally diverse eurasia

with PoD's after the birth of christ, fracture eurasia into as many language families, languages and cultures as possible. if a language/language family is too entrenched, have it fracture. what kind of world woud this one look like? how would china, india and europe split culturally and linguistically?

also, while this might not be possible (as this PoD is very late), is a racial fracture possible? could the right circumstances lead to unique physical differences developing inside areas that are concidered heterogeneous today (china, india, northern europe)?
 
"Culture" is a bit ambiguous, so let's keep things to languages.

The Roman Empire collapses as early on as possible. This allows the survival of Gaulish, the various pre-Roman Iberian languages of the peninsula, Dacian, and maybe even some of the Anatolian languages. East Germanic survives rather than being assimilated into the Romance-speaking population. This should preserve most of the pre-Roman linguistic diversity of Europe. The rise of the Abrahamic religions and the spread of Arabic and Persian under Islam are of course butterflied away, preserving Aramaic, Coptic, and Sogdian.

Meanwhile, more steppe peoples find refuge in the valleys of the Caucusus (like the OTL Ossetians) and the Siberian forests (like the OTL Yakuts). This saves Khitan and some other para-Mongolic languages, Ruanruan (a linguistic isolate), and some of the Yeniseian languages (like Xiongnu, probably). At the same time, the Turks are less numerous and more easily assimilated into the sedentary population, preserving Tocharian and a few more Eastern Iranian languages.

China also collapses during the Xin interregnum and permanently fails to unify, preserving a large number of Sinitic languages descended from pre-Han Old Chinese, the Austroasiatic language of Chu, the Austronesian language of Yue, and a number of other languages that we have no way of recovering.

Japan fails to unify, preserving the distinction between Western and Eastern Old Japanese (which end up as languages as different as Spanish and French) and also rescuing the Austronesian languages of southern Japan like Hayato and Kumaso. Korea also remains divided, saving the mainland Japonic languages.
 
Iranian and Tocharian Central Asia could create a more diverse C Asia and Eurasia.
central asia was always very diverse - I'm wondering about the more heterogeneous parts of the world (at least in the modern era) - china and northern europe, mainly
 
China also collapses during the Xin interregnum and permanently fails to unify, preserving a large number of Sinitic languages descended from pre-Han Old Chinese, the Austroasiatic language of Chu, the Austronesian language of (Min)Yue, and a number of other languages that we have no way of recovering.
Was the Chu actually speculated to be Hmong-Iu Mien? Oh, you'd actually forgot the Nanyue, who were Kradai-speaking...

Japan fails to unify, preserving the distinction between Western and Eastern Old Japanese (which end up as languages as different as Spanish and French) and also rescuing the Austronesian languages of southern Japan like Hayato and Kumaso.
If they were indeed survived, what specific Austronesian ethnolinguistic group, particularly from Taiwan, could both Hayato and Kumaso be related to?

Korea also remains divided, saving the mainland Japonic languages.
Would they sound like northern Kyushu dialect?
 
Have Christianity fragment in Northern Europe, preserving some regional languages due to being associated with certain sects (which no authority is able to eliminate). Perhaps the Noric language could survive this way, along with some East Germanic languages. IMO some assimilation of West Germanic speakers is essential for East Germanic languages to have a reasonable footprint.

The Middle East fragments into many languages. A unique Coptic language in Sinai, many Aramaic languages in the Middle East, a few divergent Greek dialects along the coast (and the unique Crimean Greek language).

More people migrating into the Tibetan/Sichuan/Yunnan Plateau. This hugely diverse region of the world could be a refuge for linguistic groups. The example of the Bamar, who originated in this language yet nowadays are dominate over much of Myanmar, is telling. Imagine if instead of the Bamar, it was a group of Tocharians instead? Although this would be very hard given a 1 AD limit, it's perhaps possible to get some Indo-Europeans in those mountains, even if they aren't recreating the success of the Pagan Empire. But if they weren't as successful, perhaps Burma would have Tocharian (not called that of course), Bamar, and Pyu peoples in addition to the Mon people of the South.

No Islam is key, but also the weakness of Christianity. Different Christian sects could preserve the Elamite language in Persia, at least some of the Caucasian Iberian languages, and some Anatolian languages (like Isaurian) in addition to likewise preserving the regional diversity of Indo-European and Caucausian languages alike. If the Tocharians don't migrate into the mountains of Central Asia, then Tocharian-speaking Christians could be a thing.

Malta and surrounding islands could easily be Punic speaking to this day, assuming different migrations in Late Antiquity. Although OP didn't specify North Africa, Malta could also speak an African Romance language akin to that of Carthage (perhaps speaking both a Punic language and an African Romance language!). No Islam means Hispania will be very diverse in terms of Romance languages, along with Sicily and the Balearic Islands, and places like Andalusia, Sicily, and the Baleares will speak Romance languages close to what's spoken in North Africa (and Sardinia). But indigenous Iberian languages could remain given fragmented Christianity, since it might let the Cantabrians and maybe a few other Celtic groups remain in Iberia.

Steppe migrations cause permanent establishment of new languages. Cuman survives in Cumania in Hungary but especially in Transylvania. Tatar languages are established as minorities throughout Europe.

Scotland could be linguistically divided between Picts, Cumbrians, Scottish Gaels, Norse-Gaels, pre-Indo-Europeans (on St Kilda?), and Scots speakers. The Faroes and/or Iceland perhaps could retain a population of Old English speakers relocated by the Norse, in addition to hypothetical settlement by Sami thralls (why not move some Sami there to tax them?) or even the Inuit/Dorset/similar culture.

Overall, linguistic diversity in a region as vast as Eurasia with as much recorded history is a huge question.

central asia was always very diverse - I'm wondering about the more heterogeneous parts of the world (at least in the modern era) - china and northern europe, mainly

Finno-Ugric languages (mostly Samic languages and the ancestors of Baltic Finnish languages) had a wider footprint in 1 AD than in later centuries--maybe some patches of Samic speaking peoples in Southern Sweden or the mountainous parts of those areas?

A POD at Jesus's birth is a lot of time, but I can't imagine the Finns doing better than their southern neighbours (Balts and especially East Germanics and Slavs). The best a Finnish tribal group could do (call them the "Tavastians" or "Savonians" or something obviously Finnish) is give their name to a region populated by speakers of some other language, aside from a scenario involving the mountains of Europe where perhaps these Finns who gave their name to the region also survive in language, which would be obviously Uralic like Finnish. In that case, they aren't much different than a hypothetical survival of the Noric people or other continental Celts. If the Hungarians could do something similar, then I don't see why an early enough POD couldn't allow the Baltic Finns to do so (although for maximum Baltic Finn wank, a Finnish North America is a possibility as late as the Kalmar Union).

Would they sound like northern Kyushu dialect?

Definitely not the Kyushu dialect of the Meiji era and beyond.
 
Not that impossible:
  1. Iberia: should we butterfly islam, we can see also Bétican, Lusitan, Tarraconese, Carpetan, Cartagense emerge. Catalan and Areagonese weaker. A surviving Visigoth in Old Castille, Celtogalician and a surviving Iberian language in Andorra/Cerdagne and Sierra Nevada. Also some Berber language in Andalusia.
  2. Fraunce: should France be fractured, you can have a surviving Arverne(Celtic) language in the Massif Central. Maybe Burgundiam language finds refuge in the Savoie (doubtful). But you could end up with four written languages : Francien, Gascon, Arpetan and Lengadocien for the Romance stock. Of course Breton can be stronger.
  3. Low Countries :perhaps Walloon be its own language rather than a dialect, and a stronger Frisian?
  4. British Isles: Celtic Ireland, Wales(incl. Severn Valley), Cornwall, Scotland. Cumbric in Cumbria and Galloway. Germanic: Norn in the northern isles and Man, Eiris in Dublin, Scots in Lothian, English in Northumbria, W. Mercia, E.Anglia and the Homr Counties. Wessex and Lancashire develop Britanno Romance languages.
  5. Germany: Varieties of Saxon, Swabian, Bavarian, Franconian and Thuringian develop into separate languages. Pommeranian survives as minority language in parts of Mecklenburg. Anglish in Schleswig. Ladin survives in Sudtyrol, with stronger Slovene in Carinthia and Styria
  6. Italy : Venetian, Lombard, Ligurian, Tuscan, Umbrian, Neapolitan, Sicilian, Sardinian... all of these are vibrant written languages. Also, Sicily hosts a Griko language, with parts of Calbria and Apulia as well. The Langobard language survives in the Dolomites. Maltese being a descendant of Punic survives on its archipelago.
  7. Intermarium: survival of Kashuvian, Silesian, Pruthenian, Sudovian. Butterfly holovaust, and have a Yiddish autonomy emerge in Brest Litovsk. Not much more to say here.
  8. Pannonia: maybe the Magyars are weaker... ->Pannonian Romance along the Balaton, with Cumans in the Danube-Tisza region, and a surviving Transylvanian Slavic language. Istrian as dialect of Venetian survives. Dalmatian mostly assimilated into Venetian apart form Ragusa and Cattaro. Morlach communties survive in Romanija mountains and E. Hercegovina. With islam butterflied away, you have Bogomils in Muslim-populated parts of Bosnia.. some of whom adopt Calvinism to complicate things a little more.
  9. Balkans: Vlach a more important language in E.Serbia, while Kosovo mostly Serb. Sofia as well Vlach. Albania develops a Romance of its own, while Gheg and Tosk retreat to the mountains. Venetian ruel over Greece results in Morean being a different written language than the Constantinople variant. West Macedonia speaks Aromanian. Cuman survives in Dobruja. Slavic in north Moldavia being a separate language.
  10. Scandinavia: perhaps a surviving Scanian? Have Finnish Swedish develop into a separate language, due to Duchy of Finland being independent?
  11. Russia: Have Novgorod and Muscovy never unite. The Uralic element in Novgorod is not that suppressed, and makes 30% of the populace. Have Permia retain independence. Pomor becomes separate language from Muscovite.
  12. Steppes: Crimea being home to Gothic, Khazar, Pontic. Yiddish colony of Odessa. Most of Wild Fields being Magyar, while the Don-Volga being Tatar(+Cuman?). Stronger Mordvin element....
 
A surviving Visigoth in Old Castille, Celtogalician and a surviving Iberian language in Andorra/Cerdagne and Sierra Nevada. Also some Berber language in Andalusia.
Visigothic was already moribund by the time the Visigoths converted to Catholicism. Tartessian was already extinct during Muhammad's lifetime, so there isn't an Iberian language that could survive in the Sierra Nevada.

Maltese being a descendant of Punic
Nope. Maltese is a dialect of North African Arabic (in the same sense that Moroccan Arabic is a "dialect").

Anyways, I'm not sure how much your post would do for a linguistically diverse Europe -- it actually doesn't seem like it would be that more diverse than OTL Europe in 1500.
 
Visigothic was already moribund by the time the Visigoths converted to Catholicism. Tartessian was already extinct during Muhammad's lifetime, so there isn't an Iberian language that could survive in the Sierra Nevada.


Nope. Maltese is a dialect of North African Arabic (in the same sense that Moroccan Arabic is a "dialect").

Anyways, I'm not sure how much your post would do for a linguistically diverse Europe -- it actually doesn't seem like it would be that more diverse than OTL Europe in 1500.
Not saying OTL Maltese is a descendant of Punic: ,it is in fact descendant of Siculo Arabic. But some variant of Punic could survive in Malta, thsu be called Maltese.
 
It's important to define what more diverse means, would having 11 ethnicities one of which compromises 80% of the population and the remaining ten 2% each be more diverse than having 5 ethnicities, each having 20% of the population?
 
Also the question of depth. E.g. is Europe for example more diverse with a huge number of mutually unintelligble Indo-European dialects but almost no other stocks, or a big division between a non-IE stock (e.g. Etruscan for example) and an IE stock (a la India), but intelligiblity within these? And similar ideas apply to culture, ethnicity.
 
If you can keep France from fully uniting former Gaul, you can get a bigger split between the local dialects so they become more recognized as distinct languages (Francien, Angevin, Orleanais, Berrichon, Walloon, Champenois, Burgundian, etc). I believe preventing Muslims from conquering Al-Andalus in the firs place can also help as then the local languages in the southern half won't be replaced by Mozarabic, then wouldn't be in turn replaced by the modern Iberian languages as they reconquered the lands. So in addition to Galician, Portuguese, Leonese/Asturian, Castillian, Aragonese, and Catalan, you might also get "Baetic", "Carteganan", "Lusitanian"(if Portuguese was around Porto and Lusitanian more around what is now Lisbon) as well as languages and dialects in the interior.
 
Not saying OTL Maltese is a descendant of Punic: ,it is in fact descendant of Siculo Arabic. But some variant of Punic could survive in Malta, thsu be called Maltese.

Speaking of Malta, Lampedusa and nearby islands spoke Siculo-Arabic until a few centuries ago, so there's still potential for their regional dialects to survive.
 
For China, maybe if no one succeeds in reuniting it completely after the 18 kingdoms period, and a Chinese state never manages to expand southward, you could have increased variability there.
 
Well, there's that old quote, "a language is a dialect with an army." Like the distinction between Dutch and Afrikaans vs Mandarin and Cantonese. The former pair would be a language-dialect pair if they were in the same country, the latter would be two languages in the same family if they were separate nations.
 
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