AHC/WI: African Romance Survived

I think that's quite speculative to be honest : we don't know anything about Romance speeches in Mauretania, or even if they really emerged to begin with.
Now, without having much to support it, I'd rather think that if Romance speech was to root itself in coastal Mauretania, it'd be closer to Hispano-Romance speeches giving the social-cultural proximity with Betica.

Agreed, that would probably be the case, but perhaps there would be more similarities between the Romance of Tingis and Carthage than between certain regions of Iberia like Cantabria and Galicia.

While there is a known proximity with Sardinian phonology, and maybe Hispano-Romance phonology, I didn't saw Italo-Romance being mentioned.I was under the impression that the thin knowledge we have about it would make Afro-Romance more of a south/western Romance language, but I might miss something there : what does make you think about a possible connection to Italo-Romance?

IIRC Sicily had many contacts with North Africa, and immigrants from North Africa arrived there in Late Antiquity. Combined with their shared Phoenician heritage, and the similar history to Sardinia, as well as shared traits of Sicilian with Sardinian, Sicilian seems to have some influences or otherwise shared some traits with African Romance.


They were certainly more present, (Both neo-Punic and Berber) in African provincial culture than their counterpart in western Romania (Gaulish influence is not even superficial, and Germanic influence is mostly phonologic and vocabulary based in Gallo-Romance for instance). I'd expect Berber, in the case of a Berbero-Roman ensemble pulling a Merovingian in the VIth, to at least play the role of Germanic speeches in Gallo-Romance, with the distinction having another important language being spoken already in the region (and likely survived as Afro-Romance until the XIth to XIIth centuries). Now I agree that Neo-Punic might disappear earlier ITTL due to being itself importantly Berberized in Late Antiquity, but that would reinforce Berber influence IMO.

The Berber hinterland was huge, and in places like modern Morocco south of Roman rule, dominant. Seems like the Berber language area would be progressively eroded over the centuries as it was under Arab domination, although in much of modern Morocco, perhaps not at all (it all depends on economic and social conditions, really). Still would be interesting if the local Romance language ends up with many words starting with a-/ta- (Berber masculine/feminine) as a result of Berber influence.

There's no much vulgar Latin written sources tough : Merovingian Latin (as a form of Late Latin) for instance is more a decomposition of classical Latin rules than representative of the evolution of common speach (for exemple, Merovingian Latin uses variant of classical cases essentially as a decorative tool, while Vulgar Latin does reduce and systematise them).
Most of what we know of Vulgar Latin forms comes from partial epigraphy since the beggining of the millenium, sources written in classical Latin, some features of Late Latin and reconstruction from early distinguished romance languages (such as in the Oaths of Strasbourg).
What we know of Vulgar Latin at this point doesn't really help highlight the regional differenciations, because all speeches went trough the same development altough with various result depending of ad/sub-strates and contingential events. If you're interested this site provides with a lot of information.

I'm just basing things off the epigraphy, records where we can tell the speaker is using what they know of Latin (letter writers not using templates, there's one I've seen from Africa where the writer lapses into "Punicisms"), etc. I'd be curious of how the regional Latins were differentiating. Gallic Latin vs. Iberian Latin vs. African Latin and such.

Now, you're right that we can deduce something of African Late Latin trough Spanish sources, for exemple.
I don't agree with the author that Africano-Romance had such a marking influence into the making of Ibero-Romance phonology, but African Latin certainly did had an enormous prestige in Spain, as well as an Afro-Romance adstratum. Still, the comparison with Sardinian might be more fructuous at this point.
Eventually, for what matter Afro-Romance, we even have less exemples than usual, due to scaracity of aformentioned sources, a more important connection to late classical Latinity, etc. and the more important survivance of non-Romance speeches in Africa (and their possible substratic or adstratic influence on Africano-Romance) make it a bit distinct there.

That's an interesting paper to say the least. But wouldn't a lot of those supposed African Romance traits be more reflective on "Mauretanian Romance" as opposed to the African Romance of Proconsular Africa and Carthage (although some features noted there like /v/ and /b/ merging are noted all over Africa). And given how little we know of both African Romance and early Iberian Romance, it begs the question as to the nature of Vulgar Latin spoken in places like Baetica, the Balearics, and elsewhere in southern and southeastern Spain.

I have read that if we butterfly Islam then a strong North African romance language is pretty inevitable outside some black swan events to strengthen Berber.

It isn't just butterflying Islam, but also the events that come afterwards. A strong African Romance along the coast and in most of modern Tunisia/Tripolitania, probably, but a strong African Romance in the Atlas and such? That will depend on social conditions and the economic policies of the states which rule the region in the centuries after.

I do really think that after Islamic sustained conquest, the long term survival of African Romance is very unlikely--even Coptic hardly survived as all, and only liturgically. But I don't think that the entrance of Islam doesn't guarantee conquest of North Africa. The invasion can go poorly, or the nomadic people can reject Islam or eject the conqueror, or the conquest can be spread thinly, being so far from the Arab power base, that the Islamic veneer is shaken off in a time of political turmoil and never restored. The conquest of Egypt could've gone a lot worse, or the Arab conquests in the East could've been more fruitful into India--there are a lot of factors that could direct Arab attention elsewhere. Africa is the low hanging fruit, but there just as many other opportunities closer to home for the Arabs.

I disagree. There's attested records of Vulgar Latin in Africa well after the Islamic conquest, and Latin-speaking Christians are often mentioned in that period. The Pope was occasionally adjudicating disputes in that community into the 11th century, where we know there were several active bishops.

It's more surprising that indigenous Christians in the Maghreb went entirely extinct, whereas in many other places in the Middle East they survived. It seems that in addition to the usual erosion of the Christian community in the Middle East, the Banu Hilal, Almohads, and others in the early 2nd millennium probably finished them off for good. But it's easy to see with different events in that region, the indigenous Christians would survive, albeit being Arabised linguistically (like many Middle Eastern Christians), but we'd end up with a lot better records for African Romance (which might go extinct a few centuries later than OTL).
 
It's more surprising that indigenous Christians in the Maghreb went entirely extinct, whereas in many other places in the Middle East they survived. It seems that in addition to the usual erosion of the Christian community in the Middle East, the Banu Hilal, Almohads, and others in the early 2nd millennium probably finished them off for good. But it's easy to see with different events in that region, the indigenous Christians would survive, albeit being Arabised linguistically (like many Middle Eastern Christians), but we'd end up with a lot better records for African Romance (which might go extinct a few centuries later than OTL).

I read that it is possible Christianity died so quickly in Northwest Africa due to a lack of a monastic culture in the region.
 
Agreed, that would probably be the case, but perhaps there would be more similarities between the Romance of Tingis and Carthage than between certain regions of Iberia like Cantabria and Galicia.
Not necessarily, would it be only because pre-Reconquista speeches in the highlands are virtually unknown, but as well because contacts between Tingitana and Betica seems to be more obvious than between Tingitana and Africa proper.

IIRC Sicily had many contacts with North Africa, and immigrants from North Africa arrived there in Late Antiquity. Combined with their shared Phoenician heritage, and the similar history to Sardinia, as well as shared traits of Sicilian with Sardinian, Sicilian seems to have some influences or otherwise shared some traits with African Romance.
Punic influence by the Late Antiquity was gone, and more looking to Rome or Eastern Romania as centers of influence, being much more politically and economically (to say nothing of an important Greek influence) tied to these compared to Sardinia which tended to be relatively isolated and preserving some archaism (including Romance archaisms, but also Punic and African ties up to the Ist century AD at least) as well being a mandatory naval step between Italy and Africa.

The Berber hinterland was huge, and in places like modern Morocco south of Roman rule, dominant. Seems like the Berber language area would be progressively eroded over the centuries as it was under Arab domination
Thing is, Berber presence wasn't limited to hinterland, Yves Modéran having, for instance, pointed out the determining presence of "Inner" Mauri communities within the frames of Africa during the Roman and post-imperial period as a necessary presence between Africans (Romans)and the wider Berber world, especially in the immediate regions beyond the coastline.

Still would be interesting if the local Romance language ends up with many words starting with a-/ta- (Berber masculine/feminine) as a result of Berber influence.
That's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure it would be this usual in Afro-Romance : I think a good part would be, like other Romance language, phonologic and lexical with quite possibly, IMO, grammatical shifts. (A bit like Rumanian, but Slavic being replaced with Berber, and only up to a point giving the cultural importance of African Latin).
Still, I could see this kind of influence on dialectal Afro-Romance (especially peripheral) pretty well.

I'd be curious of how the regional Latins were differentiating. Gallic Latin vs. Iberian Latin vs. African Latin and such.
Political and economical regionalisation are generally considered the prime suspects, especially giving that peripheral Romance were the first to emerge as distinct languages.
But wouldn't a lot of those supposed African Romance traits be more reflective on "Mauretanian Romance" as opposed to the African Romance of Proconsular Africa and Carthage (although some features noted there like /v/ and /b/ merging are noted all over Africa).
That's possible, but it's really hard to say where Berbers parts of the invasion and settlement of Hispania were from, and probably came in mixed order. As noted above, I'm not sure we could consider a Mauretanian-Romance to begin with, which leaves then little room between particular Romance speech from this region from an Ibero or Afro Romance ensemble).

it begs the question as to the nature of Vulgar Latin spoken in places like Baetica, the Balearics, and elsewhere in southern and southeastern Spain.
We don't really know : Late Latin in Gothic Spain was, IIRC, less diverging than in Gaul and even there its particularities weren't systematically representative of Vulgar Latin but chancery habits (for instance, preservation of Classical Latin case, even if used randomly)

It's more surprising that indigenous Christians in the Maghreb went entirely extinct, whereas in many other places in the Middle East they survived.
On the other hand, their disappearance is relatively fitting the fate of Islamic West (which should really treated as its own thing) such as Mozarabic communities in al-Andalus which survived beyond the XIth essentially thanks to a neo-Mozarabic immigration from Christian Spain.
My two cents, and I don't claim this is a whole explanation at all, is that by comparison of Middle-East, Christians encountered a more important pressure to Islamize and Arabize to be a dynamic part of the general society, in face of a society dominated by an Arab elite (at least in al-Andalus and Ifriqiya, but Christian presence was limited already in Maghrib to begin with) from one hand, and the important Islamized Berber pressure from the hinterland which didn't existed comparatively in the Middle-East by comparison (altough I don't know about the religious impact of Turkic conquests there).
Eventually, Berbers were concerned by a quick prozelytism of various missionaries (orthodox or heterodox alike, and often mixed) which touched both the part of Berber world that was Christianized and the mass that wasn't, making the coalitions, alliance and network between Berber people more often than not tied to Islam with time.

I read that it is possible Christianity died so quickly in Northwest Africa due to a lack of a monastic culture in the region.
I'm not saying that there was no monasteries. Rather it didn't have a monastic culture as powerful as in Egypt which allowed the Copts to survive for a while.
One one hand, we don't know much about African monasticism.
One the other hand, absence of proof isn't proof of absence : I think that as a monocausal explanation, it's not convincing.

First, truth is we don't know how quick or not Islamisation was in Ifriqiya : for all we know it took a same time than for al-Andalus, meaning a general conversion in the Xth/XIth centuries, and the survival of bishops in North Africa until the XIIth does points that it wasn't happening overnight.
There is no much archeological data for North Africa monasteries (although you do have examples as for Ain Tamda), but there is in literary sources about these and monastic rules (especially St. Augustine's)

Now there is some elements of truth, or at least interesting clues, it should be contextualized : the problem IMO isn't really the lack of tradition from the Late Empire but the consequences on it that geopolitical situation of North African monachism after the religious turmoil that Vandals rulers enabled. Possidius claims that monks fled the kingdoms (or at least probably modern Tunisia, as it was where religious edicts were more enforced) and "scattered away". We know that desert hinterland of Tripolitania still had a vibrant monastic life, for instance.
In the end, it was possibly rather the lack of strong political centers that might have led to the absence of a strong enough Christian community : as much as the conquest against Christian or semi-Christianized Berbers was harsh, the consequences of the butchered Byzantine reconquest led to a fairly coastal ecclesiastical ensemble which (we know at least this) well survived into the XIth century.

Would have Byzantine Africa, or better yet, the Berbero-Roman North Africa that Byzantine conquest killed in the crib, have been more held together, more unified and less peripherised as it was IOTL by Constantinople's neglect, things might have been slightly different. But again, al-Andalus Christian community importantly decreased by the XIth and was revivified mostly by neo-Mozarabs as in migrants from Northern Spain, so...
 
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Marc

Donor
One of the keys in looking at language survival is the role of women in the society. While language transmission and therefore endurance isn't exclusively a female role, woman are the primary teachers for their children.
 
There were neo-punic speakers by the VIIth century ; it was certainly in strong decline before this, but calling it moribund? I think it's not a given. It's even possible that some speakers still used it by the XIth century, which would mean Punic surviving almost as long as Mozarabic speeches.
Arguably, Neo-Punic of Ifriqiya (which was written in punic script relatively late) seems to have been stronger than the rest of North Africa.


It's not as much the PoD is remote, that the appearance of a Berber-Romance ensemble or state is implying a very different ERE geostrategy in the early VIth century, different focus that the more obvious cause would be about what happen in Near and Middle-East. Furthermore, no Byzantine Africa means no Heraclius and some events in the VIIth. A quite different ERE would have significant chances to butterfly Islam, or rather butterfly significant things about it including its expansion over Romania.
By moribund I meant more something akin to "in terminal death"(more long term decline) rather than "just about to die", maybe I'm wrong even with this impression, what was the general trend since the 3rd century?
Agreed, that would probably be the case, but perhaps there would be more similarities between the Romance of Tingis and Carthage than between certain regions of Iberia like Cantabria and Galicia.
I think it's safe to say that outside general shared trait between Ibero-Romance and Afro-Romance and the general Berber influence, the variety in Tingis would tend to follow the very close Southern Hispanic centers, I guess it would be a halfway dialect, I guess the dialect continuum would form a circle in the West Mediterranean? Not sure if things work that way even between areas separated by seas but it would be an interesting concept, "you can follow this path clock-wise and have people understand every neighbouring dialect or variety all the way in an infinite loop"
 
By moribund I meant more something akin to "in terminal death"(more long term decline) rather than "just about to die", maybe I'm wrong even with this impression, what was the general trend since the 3rd century?
It's hard to determine, but in the Vth century, neo-Punic was still considered by St. Augustine as a scholarly language as much as a popular one : now there's the possibility that by Punic, Augustine meant a form of Berber with important punic particularities with speakers wanting to emphasize their "punicness",but considering he mentioned Carthaginian records and book, I'm dubious.
At the other end of the spectrum, it was hypothesized by Abdou Elimam, that neo-punic survived well into the Arab conquest and was a substrate of Maghrebi Arab, but it's not a widely supported thesis (and there's admittedly mixed conclusion in the linked summary)

I'd personally think the situation was rather in between : an important declining use of Punic by the Late Antiquity from an increasingly ruralized use while Latin was "digested" by the population (which I think can summarize the linguistic aspect of Barbarian Kingdoms) while Berber use advanced to the coastline (not unlike medieval Basque in the gulf corner). I doubt of the capacities of Punic to survive on its own even with this PoD (although it could be a cultural bridge of some sort in some aspects with Berber), but I don't see it as moribund as much as being on its way out.

I guess the dialect continuum would form a circle in the West Mediterranean?
Speculating a bit, I'd rather consider Hispano-Romance and Afro-Romance as possibly tied to as a "western-Romance" super-lingual group rather than forming a same dialectal ensemble.
As for Tingitana, it comes down to wichever political/economical/cultural center would have the upper hand on it, and I think it's safe to consider that whoever rule Hispania will on the coast (IOTL Visigoths did, in a relatively limited manner : giving that without Byzantine conquest of Africa, Goths would be able to pull a bit more weight...)
 
It's hard to determine, but in the Vth century, neo-Punic was still considered by St. Augustine as a scholarly language as much as a popular one : now there's the possibility that by Punic, Augustine meant a form of Berber with important punic particularities with speakers wanting to emphasize their "punicness",but considering he mentioned Carthaginian records and book, I'm dubious.
At the other end of the spectrum, it was hypothesized by Abdou Elimam, that neo-punic survived well into the Arab conquest and was a substrate of Maghrebi Arab, but it's not a widely supported thesis (and there's admittedly mixed conclusion in the linked summary)

I'd personally think the situation was rather in between : an important declining use of Punic by the Late Antiquity from an increasingly ruralized use while Latin was "digested" by the population (which I think can summarize the linguistic aspect of Barbarian Kingdoms) while Berber use advanced to the coastline (not unlike medieval Basque in the gulf corner). I doubt of the capacities of Punic to survive on its own even with this PoD (although it could be a cultural bridge of some sort in some aspects with Berber), but I don't see it as moribund as much as being on its way out.


Speculating a bit, I'd rather consider Hispano-Romance and Afro-Romance as possibly tied to as a "western-Romance" super-lingual group rather than forming a same dialectal ensemble.
As for Tingitana, it comes down to wichever political/economical/cultural center would have the upper hand on it, and I think it's safe to consider that whoever rule Hispania will on the coast (IOTL Visigoths did, in a relatively limited manner : giving that without Byzantine conquest of Africa, Goths would be able to pull a bit more weight...)
I really wonder about Augustine statement, do we even have that many written texts from that period that would support that view? At least if the figure given by another person on the number of attestations is indeed accurate.

Prior to Diocletian, was Punic still relatively widespread in cities? Also I'm curious about that comparison with Basque, although it might be off-topic.


Do you need to have dialectal groups to be closely tied to have a dialect continuum between them? I imagine the continuum would be broken with specifical geographical local barriers but in my mind even with distinctive dialects there is no real solid border between 2 dialectal groups but a blurry region.
 
I really wonder about Augustine statement, do we even have that many written texts from that period that would support that view? At least if the figure given by another person on the number of attestations is indeed accurate.
For Late Antiquity, we're essentially tributary from this kind of isolated statements, not just for Africa but roughly the lot of Romania. It's also difficult to really tie written language with spoken language (Gothic was written up to the VIIth, but was most probably no longer spoken as such in the late VIth century at latest) while the absence of written form can't be taken as a proof of disappearance. Asking for figures or such consideration as we could found on modern languages is a bit irrealistic to me.
Again, that Augustine tie the punic he's mentioning with old Carthaginian books, and Augustine considered himself as partly Punic, living in a relatively peripheral region of Africa and was a learned scholar : we can consider he didn't know what he was talking about, buuuuut....

Prior to Diocletian, was Punic still relatively widespread in cities?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
At least in Africa proper, probably not. In secondary cities and rural background...maybe more.

Also I'm curious about that comparison with Basque, although it might be off-topic.
Roughly that Berber language may have expanded geographically on areas where older forms were spoken in the past, a bit like Basque language expanded over Romance areas where Aquitain was spoken, without a direct continuation.

Do you need to have dialectal groups to be closely tied to have a dialect continuum between them?
At least culturally and politically : the peripherisation of Aquitaine probably did a lot into the distinction of Northern and Southern Gallo-Romance, even if it was built over a probable linguistical differentiation (and why Franco-Provencal still remains largely tied to Northern Gallo-Romance).

I imagine the continuum would be broken with specifical geographical local barriers but in my mind even with distinctive dialects there is no real solid border between 2 dialectal groups but a blurry region.
Of course, but you have what you can call a qualitative leap : at some point, sheer amount of differentiation alone can define a language and being helped/supported trough administrative/chancery uses.
 
Biblical terms still would have been largely Greek though, right?
Not much more than in Italy, that said : I was rather referring to broader conceptual language, which was partly either Germanized either neologized in other Romance languages, with Greek potentially being more of a source up to a point ITTL.
 
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