AHC: Indo-European migration into pre 1492 Americas

samcster94

Banned
Exactly what it says on the tin. What can be done to make a group of people speak an indo-European language in the Americas before 1492??? For obvious reasons, Old Norse is excluded as it is obviously Indo-European and was spoken in the Americas before 1492 and earlier European contact is excluded. South Asian colonization is allowed though, it just cannot be a European power.
 
The easiest way I can think of is a transatlantic crossing by a Romance-speaking North African nation in 1491 or so.
 
This already happened, Greenland are part of the North American continent, and it had a Indo European population for 500 years before Columbus.
 

Teejay

Gone Fishin'
Exactly what it says on the tin. What can be done to make a group of people speak an indo-European language in the Americas before 1492??? For obvious reasons, Old Norse is excluded as it is obviously Indo-European and was spoken in the Americas before 1492 and earlier European contact is excluded. South Asian colonization is allowed though, it just cannot be a European power.

An successful Scandinavian settlement say in the OTL New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island instead of Newfoundland. Such a successful settlement would be limited because of the neighbouring Native American tribes. Also the inhabitants while speaking a West Scandinavian language would look more like Native Americans, due to a lot of intermarriage. The big effect would be the introduction of European crops and Animals into North America and possibly American crops and animals into Europe.
 
Exactly what it says on the tin. What can be done to make a group of people speak an indo-European language in the Americas before 1492??? For obvious reasons, Old Norse is excluded as it is obviously Indo-European and was spoken in the Americas before 1492 and earlier European contact is excluded. South Asian colonization is allowed though, it just cannot be a European power.

The only way is to get seafaring Celts to cross the North Sea and make lasting settlements. The Celts reached Iceland in small numbers before the Norse, and there are plenty of legends suggesting the Celts did it, but no evidence.
 
Greek colonist, while exploring the Canaries crash into modern day Brazil, they get interested in the new land and start settling there. Very unlikely but the only other plausible scenario is if the Phoenicians started settling there, but they were Semitic as far as i remember. The Romans wren't particularly known for their shipmaking so i think that they are out of the question.
 
The easiest way I can think of is a transatlantic crossing by a Romance-speaking North African nation in 1491 or so.

They'd be very likely to, if we take Portugal as an example. A Christian (if your POD is post 4th century) Mauretanian polity based in Volubilis (perhaps the most likely capital for a post-Roman state in Mauretania) will have different priorities than OTL Islamic Morocco did. It's very possible that over the years, they might get sick of dealing with attacks on their caravans to the Sahel, or be faced with the Iberians cutting into their trade by bypassing the Sahara and going by ocean to West Africa. In which case, they'll need to go by ocean themselves to sail to West Africa, which will lead to Brazil. Technology-wise, if the Mediterranean stays Christian and stays relatively peaceful (maybe Byzantium gives up on reconquering the place), then there will be a lot more links between the north Mediterranean and the south Mediterranean which the Islamic conquest IOTL reduced. Maybe even "speeding up" technology by a century or so, so it is conceivable to have Iberians or North Africans landing in the Americas by the late 14th century.

We can imagine that after a Roman conquest of the Canaries (maybe alongside a Roman conquest of Mauretania) that the Romanised Canarians (we'll assume they end up speaking an African Romance language although native Canarian Berber languages would likely not be extirpated for many centuries) would end up great seafarers, and they'd colonise Madeira, the Azores, Bermuda, and eventually the Caribbean during the Middle Ages. I think the Canarians would be like the Polynesians in that they wouldn't cause great changes in the Americas. Although if our North African seafarers brought back cassava or sweet potato, it could cause some interesting developments demographically.

Greek colonist, while exploring the Canaries crash into modern day Brazil, they get interested in the new land and start settling there. Very unlikely but the only other plausible scenario is if the Phoenicians started settling there, but they were Semitic as far as i remember. The Romans wren't particularly known for their shipmaking so i think that they are out of the question.

The Canaries are over 4,000 km from Brazil, so they'd need to actually settle the place, which means conquering the native Canarians. There'd probably need to be an island hopping with Cape Verde too. We should also consider that the Romans might very well want to conquer these Greeks, moreso than they'd want to conquer the OTL Canarians.
 
This already happened, Greenland are part of the North American continent, and it had a Indo European population for 500 years before Columbus.
samcster94: "For obvious reasons, Old Norse is excluded as it is obviously Indo-European and was spoken in the Americas before 1492 and earlier European contact is excluded. South Asian colonization is allowed though, it just cannot be a European power."

OP asked for a Indo-European migration exept for old Norse and europeans in general.

This does restrict the amount of possible scenarios. If Indo-European expansion into the Americas cannot happen via Europe, then it will have to come from somehere else. Some possibilities i mangaged to come up with.
- Maybe Indo-Europeans can establish themselfes in North Africa? From there they may then colonise the Americas. North Africa has had Greek, Latin and Vandal settlements. Maybe if one of these manages to establish itself in a stronger and more lasting position,then they would later be able to spread to the Americas
- Indo-Europeans migrate into Subsaharan Africa and from there spread into the Americas. The Indo-Europeans could arrive there maybe via the Sahel, a flat steppe where the Indo-Europeans know for their horses could cross Africa.
- An eastward Indo-European migration in Eurasia. As these Indo Europeans reach the Pacific, then they may cross the the ocean and land in the Americas.
- Indo-Aryan eastward expansion. Similar as the previous scenario.
 
If the viking expansion gets stopped or rerouted, OTL Iceland remains home to Celtic monasteries. These monasteries eventually grow to fill the island (celibacy may not have been a universal practice for Catholic priests at the time, plus they might eventually bring in laymen laborers and their families), and at some point an adventurous Papar sailor goes further north than anyone has gone before. Perhaps he is an exile, perhaps he is searching for St Brendan's Islands of Paradise. He finds OTL Greenland at around the same time Erik the Red did in OTL. Later voyages from Greenland establish contact with the Americas, where small missions are established that eventually grow like Paparia did.
 
- Maybe Indo-Europeans can establish themselfes in North Africa? From there they may then colonise the Americas. North Africa has had Greek, Latin and Vandal settlements. Maybe if one of these manages to establish itself in a stronger and more lasting position,then they would later be able to spread to the Americas

That's OTL up to the 7th century. It took the religiously motivated Arab expansions to conquer North Africa and thoroughly destroy the centuries of Roman influence. The Berbers played a role in this, granted, but I think North Africa would end up with increasingly Romanised Berbers ruling over Romance-speaking peoples. A state in Roman Mauretania would be just as well-placed, if not better placed, than the Iberian powers, to launch the same sort of expeditions the Iberians did.

Now can you call it "Indo-European", no, you really couldn't, since North African genes would likely still dominated by Haplogroup E-M181, very commonly associated with the Berbers, even if many bearing that gene OTL tend to speak Arabic nowadays. TTL they'd speak various African Romance languages, and look indistinguishable from OTL's North Africans--basically they'd be Indo-European by language only.
 
That's OTL up to the 7th century. It took the religiously motivated Arab expansions to conquer North Africa and thoroughly destroy the centuries of Roman influence. The Berbers played a role in this, granted, but I think North Africa would end up with increasingly Romanised Berbers ruling over Romance-speaking peoples. A state in Roman Mauretania would be just as well-placed, if not better placed, than the Iberian powers, to launch the same sort of expeditions the Iberians did.

Now can you call it "Indo-European", no, you really couldn't, since North African genes would likely still dominated by Haplogroup E-M181, very commonly associated with the Berbers, even if many bearing that gene OTL tend to speak Arabic nowadays. TTL they'd speak various African Romance languages, and look indistinguishable from OTL's North Africans--basically they'd be Indo-European by language only.
Maybe some sort of caste system with priviliges given to a vaguely defined Indo-European population could lead to a over proportional dissemination of Yamnaya genes?
 
Considering how far back Indo-European languages go, this is a pretty easy challenge. Here's how I would do it.

First, we know that steppe invaders made it very far east in Asia. The Tocharians were obviously in the Tarim basin. Indo-European groups certainly migrated as far east as the Ordos region in modern-day inner Mongolia. There is even a hypothesis that China's earliest dynasty, the Shang, may have been an Indo-European ruling class. IMHO this is unlikely, but the Shang did indeed get a lot of their military technology - including the chariot - from Indo-European groups to the west of them.

Basically, presume that the Indo-Europeans do to China what they did IOTL to the Indus Valley Civilization. Northern China is invaded by an IE-ruling class of horse-based pastoralists, who impose their language and intermix with the locals. The resulting "Sino-Aryans" will still be mostly East Asian, but shifted a bit toward West Eurasian in terms of their looks. Their language however would be Indo-Iranian or Tocharian, with significant Chinese influence. This would become the founding dynasty which would form the nexus of *Chinese civilization. Then, presume this *China colonizes the New World at some point before 1492.
 
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Considering how far back Indo-European languages go, this is a pretty easy challenge. Here's how I would do it.

First, we know that steppe invaders made it very far east in Asia. The Tocharians were obviously in the Tarim basin. Indo-European groups certainly migrated as far east as the Ordos region in modern-day inner Mongolia. There is even a hypothesis that China's earliest dynasty, the Shang, may have been an Indo-European ruling class. IMHO this is unlikely, but the Shang did indeed get a lot of their military technology - including the chariot - from Indo-European groups to the west of them.

Basically, presume that the Indo-Europeans do to China what they did IOTL to the Indus Valley Civilization. Northern China is invaded by an IE-ruling class of horse-based pastoralists, who impose their language and intermix with the locals. The resulting "Sino-Aryans" will still be mostly East Asian, but shifted a bit toward West Eurasian in terms of their looks. Their language however would be Indo-Iranian or Tocharian, with significant Chinese influence. This would become the founding dynasty which would form the nexus of *Chinese civilization. Then, presume this *China colonizes the New World at some point before 1492.
Would be intresting with a additional large indo european language in the family. Would this linguistic similarity between china and the indo european sphere lead to more interactions between them?
 
Now can you call it "Indo-European", no, you really couldn't, since North African genes would likely still dominated by Haplogroup E-M181, very commonly associated with the Berbers, even if many bearing that gene OTL tend to speak Arabic nowadays. TTL they'd speak various African Romance languages, and look indistinguishable from OTL's North Africans--basically they'd be Indo-European by language only.

Which is basically the only field where "Indo-Eruopean" is usually taken to apply.
 
Would be intresting with a additional large indo european language in the family. Would this linguistic similarity between china and the indo european sphere lead to more interactions between them?
Probably not by much. We have no proof that Indo-Aryans interacted, says, with Greeks more than they did with, say, Yemenis. (Well, often they did interact with Greeks through Yemenis). If the Sino-"Aryans" speak something like Tocharian, it would not look particularly familiar to other IE groups in historical times. This may be different somewhat, if an Iranian language is involved since there would be limited intelligibility between China, Central Asia and Iran proper in that case (for a while) and trade might be eased as a consequence. But distances are still staggering.
 
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