AHC:Irish-like situation for Greece

[Cuāuhtemōc]

With a POD starting in 1453, make it so that the Greek language is spoken only by a small minority (10-15%) of Greek people by TTL 2016. Bonus points if Greece still manages to become independent from Ottoman Turkey and despite all attempts to revive Greek, Turkish becomes the de facto language.

 

[Morty Vicar]

Cyprus is pretty similar in many ways.

 

[Thoresby]

I think part of the problem is that while you had Turkish speaking Greek Christians they were always relatively rare. Remember Greece what is now Turkey were in 1000 a unified Greek Speaking Orthodox Christian zone. Then the Islamic conquests happen and generally Islamisation and Turkification were one and the same. So unless you can somehow make the Greek peninsular switch languages but not religion you're never going to have a separate Greece.

 

[BrutusWasInnocent]

If the Ottomans somehow manage replacing Christianity with Islam in Greece then Arabic would likely emerge as the dominant language.

The 15% that remains Christian would be the Greek-speaking population.

 

[funnyhat]

If the Ottomans somehow manage replacing Christianity with Islam in Greece then Arabic would likely emerge as the dominant language.

The 15% that remains Christian would be the Greek-speaking population.

Did you mean Turkish?

 

[EMT]

I've seen it claimed in the past on this board that it was the Ottomans' propping up of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and their preference for Christian subjects(in order to tax them) that kept Greece Orthodox and well, Greek. Perhaps Mehmed II doesn't prop up the Patriarchate?

Although IMO that'd be more likely to set up a large number of Greek-speaking Muslims rather than Turkish-speaking Christian Greeks.

 

[Arkenfolm]

Most Bosnians don't speak Turkish, do they? I don't see why it would be much different than the Greeks, even if the vast majority of Greeks are Muslims.

Best POD for this would be from before 1453, where Greece is Slavicised to a greater extant and no Byzantine emperor really reverses that, and the Sultanate of Rum conquers the Byzantines and Turkicises said Slav/Greek mixture. Maybe then Greek would end up a minority.

 

[funnyhat]

Most Bosnians don't speak Turkish, do they? I don't see why it would be much different than the Greeks, even if the vast majority of Greeks are Muslims.

I suppose the difference would be that Greece and Turkey are geographic neighbors, which could lead to greater movement/mixing of the populations, whereas Bosnia is quite remote from Turkey.