AHC: Make a non Indo-European language become the global Lingua Franca

The title is pretty simple, have a non Indo-European language become the global Lingua Franca. As in the role of English today.

This means you can’t have a European, Indian or Russian language dominate the world today.


POD can be as early as 1300AD.
 
Chinese is the obvious answer. A̶n̶d̶ ̶I̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶T̶S̶K̶.̶

Also, odd for you to separate European from Russian, I thought one belonged to the other.
 
As @Augenis said, Chinese (a southern dialect of Mandarin, not our modern Beijing standard) is by far the easiest answer. Followed by Arabic, even though this would require a little earlier POD -- a POD too late in Islamic history will result in Persian being the secular lingua franca, not Arabic
 
As @Augenis said, Chinese (a southern dialect of Mandarin, not our modern Beijing standard) is by far the easiest answer. Followed by Arabic, even though this would require a little earlier POD -- a POD too late in Islamic history will result in Persian being the secular lingua franca, not Arabic
Is 1300 really too late? You could have a less successful Ottoman state bringing Anatolia under the Mameluk sphere during the 15th century and later on you could have Arab rule be resumed in Iraq and have the Moroccans win in Southern Iberia extending the life of Granada a bit longer, from there you can start expanding, Persian during this time wasn't exactly completely thriving, a lot of areas were lost to Turkic speakers communities.
 
I feel like 1300 is a little late, since the dominance of the Roman Empire played a big part in the spread of Indo-European languages. You could feasibly have Etruscan (Tuscans), Punic (Carthage), Akkadian (Assyria or Neo-Babylonia), Aramaic (Achaemanids), or Arabic (Caliphates) assume the role of lingua franca at some point before 1300 depending on if their given patron civilization won out against their conquerors IOTL. However, if you're stuck on that as an early limit on the POD, Chinese or Turkish are the clear front runners
 
Esperanto is technically non-Indo-European (nor is it a member of any other language family), as it's a constructed language. Continuing on this theme, it's difficult but not impossible to imagine some sort of constructed language becoming the global lingua franca.
 
I feel like 1300 is a little late, since the dominance of the Roman Empire played a big part in the spread of Indo-European languages. You could feasibly have Punic, Akkadian, Aramaic, or Arabic assume the role of lingua franca at some point before 1300. However, if you're stuck on that as an early limit on the POD, Chinese or Turkish are the clear front runners
The Romans did little to spread Indo-European language, ultimately by 1300 the only non-Indo-European areas they removed was Punic in Southern Italy and European Mediterranean, Tartassian, pre-Indoeuropean Iberian and spread some Greek maybe, that's not much all things considered.

The real problem is that Indo-European languages were spoken by a bit more than 1/3 of the world population which by 1300(guesstimate) were going to be most likely if not dominant on the ascendance, China and the Islamic world are very good contenders although for the former you have to avoid Persian or Persianized Indian from taking over as the main language, but IMO the religious importance of Arabic coupled with a dominance of Arab territories should preserve that.
 
By 1300 it's too late to avoid Europeans dominating the globe.

China was messed up by Mongolians, and odds of any resurgent native Chinese dynasty becoming internationally active beyond tributary system in its immediate neighborhood would be extremely unlikely.
Treasure fleet wasn't even expedition of discovery, they sailed close to coast using well know trade routes.
Islamic world could avoid being ravaged by Tamerlane... but rather than Islamic expansion, it could also mean any Muslim state in Persia region that was OTL crushed by Timurids would grow a strong rival to Mamluks and any Turkish dynasty that would arise TTL in place of Ottomans, preventing either of them from becoming as serious threat to Europe. OTOH, Tamerlane could be ever more successful, wrecking entire Egypt and Anatolia as thoroughly as he Baghdad.
 
Not sure how plausible this might be but Hungarian is an option as it is not an Indo-Europen though a European language. You could potentially push back European dominance with the prevention of the prevention of trade that led to the desire for another route to India. This might be able to turn Arabic or Persian (I forget which was the most dominant at the time) into a maritime Lingua Franca in a bit of wank situation.
Was there a massive known plague (aside from the Black Death) that could destroy most of Europe allowing another power to rise in place of Spain/Portugal?
 
By 1300 it's too late to avoid Europeans dominating the globe.

China was messed up by Mongolians, and odds of any resurgent native Chinese dynasty becoming internationally active beyond tributary system in its immediate neighborhood would be extremely unlikely.
Treasure fleet wasn't even expedition of discovery, they sailed close to coast using well know trade routes.

Islamic world could avoid being ravaged by Tamerlane... but rather than Islamic expansion, it could also mean any Muslim state in Persia region that was OTL crushed by Timurids would grow a strong rival to Mamluks and any Turkish dynasty that would arise TTL in place of Ottomans, preventing either of them from becoming as serious threat to Europe. OTOH, Tamerlane could be ever more successful, wrecking entire Egypt and Anatolia as thoroughly as he Baghdad.
Suppose that the person who threw out the Mongols wasn’t as short sighted as Zhu Yuanzhang,and actually sanctioned private trade,then that would have made a massive difference.
 
By 1300 it's too late to avoid Europeans dominating the globe.

China was messed up by Mongolians, and odds of any resurgent native Chinese dynasty becoming internationally active beyond tributary system in its immediate neighborhood would be extremely unlikely.
Treasure fleet wasn't even expedition of discovery, they sailed close to coast using well know trade routes.
Islamic world could avoid being ravaged by Tamerlane... but rather than Islamic expansion, it could also mean any Muslim state in Persia region that was OTL crushed by Timurids would grow a strong rival to Mamluks and any Turkish dynasty that would arise TTL in place of Ottomans, preventing either of them from becoming as serious threat to Europe. OTOH, Tamerlane could be ever more successful, wrecking entire Egypt and Anatolia as thoroughly as he Baghdad.
1300 is too early for that, even before the Black Death, 2 centuries before colonialism etc. You have enough room to make half of Europe fall under long term Islamic control and enough for the other half not achieving the same kind of growth as IOTL.
 
Chinese is the obvious answer. A̶n̶d̶ ̶I̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶T̶S̶K̶.̶

Also, odd for you to separate European from Russian, I thought one belonged to the other.
Yeah, i should have said Central Asian.

What makes you think Chinese will be? How would Chinese come to be the lingua franca?
 
Yeah, i should have said Central Asian.

What makes you think Chinese will be? How would Chinese come to be the lingua franca?
Easy, if East Asia becomes the "heart of the world" instead of the North Atlantic. If China was a nation with worldwide influence and few competitors, Chinese would naturally become the language of business, politics and diplomacy worldwide.
 
The Romans did little to spread Indo-European language, ultimately by 1300 the only non-Indo-European areas they removed was Punic in Southern Italy and European Mediterranean, Tartassian, pre-Indoeuropean Iberian and spread some Greek maybe, that's not much all things considered.

The real problem is that Indo-European languages were spoken by a bit more than 1/3 of the world population which by 1300(guesstimate) were going to be most likely if not dominant on the ascendance, China and the Islamic world are very good contenders although for the former you have to avoid Persian or Persianized Indian from taking over as the main language, but IMO the religious importance of Arabic coupled with a dominance of Arab territories should preserve that.

Fair enough, I guess I oversimplified that a little bit. It doesn't help that Europe and India (2 of the 3 largest population regions in the world after China) already spoke Indo-European (the hint is in the name) since at least the 5th century BCE, so the POD will have to be pretty wild to cause that kind of cultural upheaval more than two millennia after the Indo-Europeans were well established. The only extinct branches of IE languages are the Anatolian and Tocharian languages, and these were both displaced by Greek or Turkish migrations well before 1300, so the only POD I could possibly conceive would be another migration of that scale into Europe, perhaps following a conquest by the Golden Horde (since the united Mongol Empire was already out of steam by 1300)
 
1300 is probably too late to solve Japan's internal issues and lead it on a path toward outside expansion (first into Ainu territory), but if somehow you had a successful Kenmu Restoration, maybe Japan might expand to Hokkaido (although more likely the empowered imperial court would spend their time smacking down domestic enemies). From Hokkaido, Karafuto, and Chishima, there might then be expansion into Kamchatka, then Alaska, then down the West Coast of North America, and maybe by the end of the 16th century plenty of settlements in the area. From there you need this nation to follow the path of the United States, but somehow even more lucky in the early days, and eventually expand to cross the Rocky Mountains (and defeat French/whoever fur traders and their Indian allies) to conquer the entire Mississippi basin (limiting European settlements to the East Coast and Caribbean). And like the United States, somehow remain one nation in the process. Maybe Japan colonises Australia while they're at it. Meanwhile, the Japanese have expanded deep into Siberia, meeting the Russians somewhere around Lake Baikal and the Yenisei basin. They've also colonised Taiwan, the Pacific nations, and the Philippines, and have dominance over much of Southeast Asia and a China divided between several competing dynasties (including a Manchu dynasty which has ceded several areas along the rocky coast of Outer Manchuria for Japanese settlement in exchange for economic/military assistance). Later, Japanese explorers and merchants play a major role in colonising Africa. Much of Mesoamerica is made up of Japanese client states, as is the Andes.

So the end result is that the economic power of these Japonic nations leads to Japanese becoming the world's lingua franca. Not particularly plausible (although maybe bits and pieces might work, and a Heian period or earlier POD would be much more plausible), but not entirely ASB either.

Other than Japanese, maybe have some South Indian state follow in the footsteps of the Chola, but wank them like with that medieval Japan wank above. Then you might get the Tamil language (or potentially another Dravidian language, but Tamil is most likely) as a lingua franca. Maybe have some sort of Hindu-derived religion emerge in this empire which encourages foreigners to convert (although it would probably still use Sanskrit as the liturgical language).

Or have a Finn-wank. Somehow have the Finnish language in medieval Finland exert itself more, and also have a Kalmar wank/united Scandinavia which colonises the Americas before anyone else. The colonisation is dominated by Finns, and eventually the New World (Vinland/Viinimaa) is recognised as a "New Finland", with European administrators expected to be fluent in Finnish. Eventually they revolt for their independence, eventually producing a state consisting of the territory of the modern US, Canada, and northern Mexico, plus some Carribean islands. Aggressively expansionistic, they reduce the rest of the New World states to client states, and have colonised large swathes of Africa and all of Australia. Their influence stretches globally, and the huge military-industrial complex of the Viinimaan tasavalta is the main force protecting Europe from the communist Soviet hordes (or perhaps the other way around?), after Vinlandic intervention in both world wars. Given the Vinlandic lead in the tech sector (including the Internet) as well as their nation's dominance in trade, industry, and global influence, it is highly recommended to learn Finnish in this world.

Overall, the prospects are pretty dim for a non-Indo-European language to be the lingua franca post 1300 AD. Nothing but an utter wank of some culture can possibly work.
 
Esperanto is technically non-Indo-European (nor is it a member of any other language family), as it's a constructed language. Continuing on this theme, it's difficult but not impossible to imagine some sort of constructed language becoming the global lingua franca.

I doubt it Esperanto is based on several European languages, people that I have asked tell me it sounds like Spanish. According to the Wikipedia "The sound inventory is essentially Slavic, as is much of the semantics, whereas the vocabulary derives primarily from the Romance languages, with a lesser contribution from Germanic languages and minor contributions from Slavic languages and Greek."
 
I doubt it Esperanto is based on several European languages, people that I have asked tell me it sounds like Spanish. According to the Wikipedia "The sound inventory is essentially Slavic, as is much of the semantics, whereas the vocabulary derives primarily from the Romance languages, with a lesser contribution from Germanic languages and minor contributions from Slavic languages and Greek."

Yeah it's still non-Indo-European because it's a constructed language. Only natural languages can be part of a language family.
 
  • What about Berber? Iberia is linguistically Berberified. Later if assuming that Iberia's political history till 1500 is similar to OTL, Berber speaking Iberians colonise the New World and beyond. Berber later becomes the lingua franca of the world.
  • Arabic using the Berber Iberia scenario, aswell as Arabic influence in the middle east, north africa, islamic scriptures.
  • Basqueification of Iberia following the collapse of the Roman Empire. Then something similar to OTL, allthough with a twist to prevent English or French dominance. Most intersting scenario to me.
  • Chinese. China annexes more territory and projects more power abroad.
  • Dravidian resurgence in the Indian subcontinent.
  • Maybe some Amerindian language? There are various language families in the Americas, but perhaps Mayan, Aztec or some Missisippi language would be the most likely candidates?
  • Turkic. More turkification and more expansion of Turkic people and institutions.
 
  • What about Berber? Iberia is linguistically Berberified. Later if assuming that Iberia's political history till 1500 is similar to OTL, Berber speaking Iberians colonise the New World and beyond. Berber later becomes the lingua franca of the world.
  • Arabic using the Berber Iberia scenario, aswell as Arabic influence in the middle east, north africa, islamic scriptures.
  • Basqueification of Iberia following the collapse of the Roman Empire. Then something similar to OTL, allthough with a twist to prevent English or French dominance. Most intersting scenario to me.
  • Chinese. China annexes more territory and projects more power abroad.
  • Dravidian resurgence in the Indian subcontinent.
  • Maybe some Amerindian language? There are various language families in the Americas, but perhaps Mayan, Aztec or some Missisippi language would be the most likely candidates?
  • Turkic. More turkification and more expansion of Turkic people and institutions.
Why would Iberia become berber speaking after 1300?

Basque becoming dominant is unlikely, at best you could have them be more presented overall and a even bigger influence on Castillian and Aragonese.

Dravidian resurgence seems unlikely, not even with Maharashtra, Orissa and other surrounding territories the population would still be smaller than the Indo-Aryan portion.
 
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