AHC: more languages like Maltese

If Islamic expansion is halted at the Atlas Range, both present day Morocco and Algeria could end up speaking a language not dissimilar from Sardinian:

AtlasRange.jpg


Maybe the early medieval Regnum Maurorum et Romanorum does better than in OTL? The history of Spain would become unrecognizable as a result, and Cantabria might, with a little bit of luck, end up speaking a Celtic language with heavy Basque influences.

Altava was one of about a dozen Christian Berber states in Late Antiquity North Africa.

Well, the only way it's going to survive as a Southern Romance nation, it's as a Christian nation - a Jewish state stuck between a Christian anvil and a Muslim hammer will not last long, even though "Mauretania" could become as tolerant of Jews as Poland was in OTL. Christianity could also spread from "Mauretania" to West Africa through trade, and the existence of black Christian kingdoms connected to Western Europe through the Southern Romance polity could alter our OTL views about ethnicity and race so much to make them unrecognizable. "Mauretania" could also be one of the first states to attempt the trip to America, too - or even just the circumnavigation of Africa, given their interests near the Gulf of Guinea.

However, unassimilated Berbers could end up becoming the local version of the Sami people, discriminated against despite their very close ties to the dominant ethnicity...

The Sami had very little influence due to their small numbers and the fact they lived in the middle of nowhere far from economic centers. The Berbers, on the other hand, would be Christian (aside from some Jewish Berbers who would be marginalised as the years went on presumably), and would be very powerful and numerous, and would play a key role in the politics of any North African nation (as they did in OTL with Arab states there).

Kind of getting off-topic here though.
 
I'm always curious of the migration patterns that would occur in a more intact and stable Ottoman Empire in the 19th and 20th century. Should it industrialize (especially if it keeps parts of OTL Bulgaria), one would presume that it would receive a significant flow of migrants from elsewhere in the Empire, Arabs among them: much like how the United States attracted European immigrants or even had blacks moving from the South to the North to work in factories. For at least a time, you could have Arab communities thrive and prosper in Rumelia. Or at least before eventually assimilating and adopting Turkish.
I don't think this is what this challenge is about. There are large Arab immigrant communities in OTL as well. Though I don't understand why the Ottoman Empire needs to keep OTL Bulgarian territory (well apart from fulfilling that old wank about the Ottomans winning the 1877-78 war and then replacing the native population with immigrants) since an Ottoman Empire that survives WWI would also include Arab lands.
 
The language would basically be Maltese (although could be seen as a separate language), but the nearby island of Pantelleria also spoke a Siculo-Arabic derived language which was replaced by Romance Sicilian by the 19th century. Probably Lampedusa and Linosa spoke Siculo-Arabic too at one point, but those islands were depopulated by the Barbary pirates, although they had a large number of Maltese settlers so if Britain decides to annex them to Malta as they almost did during the Napoleonic Wars, those islands will likely end up speaking Maltese.
 

Teejay

Gone Fishin'
If Islamic expansion is halted at the Atlas Range, both present day Morocco and Algeria could end up speaking a language not dissimilar from Sardinian:

In the area where modern day Tunisian Arabic this would be the case. However elsewhere various Berber languages would be language of the populace. In OTL it took the Banu Hilal migrations to turn the Maghreb from an overwhelming Berber speaking region into an Arab majority one (however with a considerable Berber speaking minority).
 
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