AHC: Proselytizing languages and localized religions

This is an extremely difficult challenge because it is so much easier to convert to a new religion than learn a new language. Most people over the teens can't fully learn new languages, even if it's in their religion, to the extent that they can learn a new religion that's in their language. How many Catholics can speak Latin? A lot of Jews barely speak Hebrew despite their mitzvahs.
 
Not so! You, and all the others who say this isn't possible are being very naive about this. Up to about puberty human beings are programmed to learn languages easily and naturally, and can learn several to a high standard. After puberty it becomes more difficult; you're more likely to have a definite accent, but a new language can be learnt. There are millions of people OTL whose regular daily language is not their mother tongue. It is even possible through lack of use to effectively forget your native tongue.

So language change is possible. Furthermore it can be forced. Language is the principal carrier of civilisation, and this can lead to conflict. Since the beginning of C19th the history of romantic nationalism, at any rate in Europe, has been one of language conflicy, with 'nationalists' attempting to reinvigorate or restore their local languages, and 'imperialists' trying to discourage them (or worse) in favour of sngle 'civilised' tongues. Think how successful the French state has been in stamping out local languages in France since the revolution. Think of Franco's and Mussolini's language policies. Look up 'vergogna' and 'Welsh Not'.

So it would be quite possible to start similar 'language suppression' policies much earlier as @ Intransigent Southerner has suggested - remember eg the Ancient Greeks thought that speaking Greek was the mark of a civiliSed person; those who didn't, merely babbled 'ba-ba-ba' - they were barbarians. The question is why, Language is one of the main ways to worship the gods. To enforce speaking a particular language while not worrying about how and who people worship seems contradictory.

Perhaps a Secular mindset develops much earlier in this world. Perhaps great rulers arise who think they are the epitome of civilisation - therefore everyone must speak like them. Perhaps poets and storytellers develop great epics which, they maintain, cannot be translated, the meaning is in the actual words themselves. Marketplaces develope where for trading to be fair and equal everyone must speak the common language. those heard speaking something different are punished by the market authorities. And of course as great empires develope, a single language is more administratively efficient, and the ruler wants everyone to speak a single language so he can more easily tell if anyone is plotting against him...
Education would have to be developed very much earlier. Children would be encouraged to report relatives, even their parents if they heard them using an old, forbidden language... Hm, it could be done

Once more, we know these points, however to say that a language is to spread without the factors I mentioned earlier (as some religions did/do) is not likely and possibly impossible. Languages can only spread to exterior groups by way of an unquantifiable ratio of influence of a particular settled people whose population through some unseen method manipulates tbe choices of exteriors. Likewise, a language can spread through a similar unidentifiable factor of ruling elite distributing its language to those below. Finally, a language can spread through the accommodation of religion or some sort of prestige history, wherein though it generally becomes antiquated.
 
However, evidence shortly after suggest that the rulers did conceive of these conceptions. Envision how different cities confiscated rival city’s idols or desecrated religious symbols with the intention of domination.
This is very different from Abrahamic conceptions of religion, and actually not much different from similar measures taken to enforce political dominance by policing language by states throughout history (e.g. the Manchu and British attempt to suppress the Chinese from using the word 夷 "barbarian").

So, do "converts" just not speak or what? It takes much more time to learn a language than what most people need to learn of a religion to get by in a forceful conversion.
I think you're vastly underestimating how pervasive religion was in premodern societies. A forced conversion of religion would affect every aspect of life and touch on instinctual patterns of behavior no less than a forced conversion of language would.

How many languages have you learned to fluency?
Not @A Most Sovereign Lady, but I'm trilingual. What you're implying is a bit strange because for the vast majority of history the vast majority of the world population has spoken more than two languages.

The challenge is not so much about how to spread languages, but how to get people to stop speaking their mother language. IOTL this happened generally through mass public education. How do you achieve this in ancient times?
Through hierarchical systems like the medieval Church, or Burmese monastic schools.

are not conceived of in the same way by society.
Yep, and this is because of how history has come around. There's nothing inherent in human psychology that suggests that languages should always be conceived as they are in modern Western society, and indeed the case of the Tariana show that languages can play a much more important role in social organization than we think.

Someone who has been converted to a different religion can get by until they've learned all the new practices just by not engaging in the old ones.
This is..... not how premodern religion works. Ritual is as much of a necessity as talking.

because it is so much easier to convert to a new religion than learn a new language. Most people over the teens can't fully learn new languages, even if it's in their religion, to the extent that they can learn a new religion that's in their language.
And most people over the teens, in the premodern contexts we're talking about, will never fully comprehend the religion they convert to. Do you think a Nahua peasant born in 1490 would really have "fully learned the Christian worldview"? But the Nahua are all Catholics now.
 
Once more, we know these points, however to say that a language is to spread without the factors I mentioned earlier (as some religions did/do) is not likely and possibly impossible. Languages can only spread to exterior groups by way of an unquantifiable ratio of influence of a particular settled people whose population through some unseen method manipulates tbe choices of exteriors. Likewise, a language can spread through a similar unidentifiable factor of ruling elite distributing its language to those below. Finally, a language can spread through the accommodation of religion or some sort of prestige history, wherein though it generally becomes antiquated.

I think I agree with you in that most of the factors conducive to this sort of enforced, as opposed to naturally occuring linguistic change , are modern: universal education, modern media and communications such as radio and television, modern legal systems and modern enforcment methods. The further back in time you go, the more difficult it becomes. The oldest factor, that a language is the carrier of and is promoted by a particular religion, is specifically excluded by the terms of reference of this challenge, making it all the harder.
 
Yep, and this is because of how history has come around. There's nothing inherent in human psychology that suggests that languages should always be conceived as they are in modern Western society, and indeed the case of the Tariana show that languages can play a much more important role in social organization than we think.
The Tariana thing is just exogamy. That's it, that's literally it. "Don't marry someone of the same ethno-linguistic group as yourself" fits within the "modern Western" conception of language just fine. You're proposing something very different and much, much more radical.

This is..... not how premodern religion works. Ritual is as much of a necessity as talking.
It really isn't. Language is far more pervasive than ritual, being, as it is, at the core of every single social interaction you have with another human being beyond the level of grunts and gestures. This is true for even the most ritual-saturated premodern societies.
 
This is an extremely difficult challenge because it is so much easier to convert to a new religion than learn a new language. Most people over the teens can't fully learn new languages, even if it's in their religion, to the extent that they can learn a new religion that's in their language. How many Catholics can speak Latin? A lot of Jews barely speak Hebrew despite their mitzvahs.

The divfficulty of learning doesn't matter. Unless the authorities are quite strupid (entirely possible of course!) it will be considered better to speak the correct language partially or badly, rather than the prohibited language well. It will take three generations, but your grandchildren will be speaking with a Received Standard accent. By then @A Most Sovereign Lady's 'social pressure' will have kicked in, and your old language will be moribund, if not already extinct. If the authorities have the means of enforcement of course.
 
And most people over the teens, in the premodern contexts we're talking about, will never fully comprehend the religion they convert to. Do you think a Nahua peasant born in 1490 would really have "fully learned the Christian worldview"? But the Nahua are all Catholics now.

I think you're missing the point of how more fundamental language is, as opposed to religion.

The divfficulty of learning doesn't matter. Unless the authorities are quite strupid (entirely possible of course!) it will be considered better to speak the correct language partially or badly, rather than the prohibited language well. It will take three generations, but your grandchildren will be speaking with a Received Standard accent. By then @A Most Sovereign Lady's 'social pressure' will have kicked in, and your old language will be moribund, if not already extinct. If the authorities have the means of enforcement of course.
The last line is quite telling.
Converting to a new language isn't impossible but it does require constant social pressure to do so.
Bear in mind the OP which also requires religious opposition, no multilingualism, and no language drift.
Most historical bi and trilingualism happens where languages have specific uses such as administration, trade, or religion.
 
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