And All Nations Shall Gather To It - Volume I: The Abode of Peace

[Quinkana]

Yes, I think an Egyptian language akin to Maltese makes the most sense - given an extended period of Crusader rule - so we start with a base of Egypto-Arabic and then a large amount of Romance vocabulary. Although it looks like half of Maltese's vocabulary comes from Italian/Sicialian - I wonder if the amount will become as high in *Egyptian as well as who the majority of European settlers/rulers will be in this state.

considering that coptic would still be an ecclesiastical language tho considering that it defo should still be quite big (and the original stock of christians would be coptic orthodox and the bibles written centuries after the pod have coptic in it) it should have quite a bit of influence too.

like I see coptic being kept as is in Coptic orthodox (or coptic rite) influencing the language. Like we'd probably see Coptic and Latin be the superstrata and Arabic be the substrata of the new hypothetical language we would see in egypt.

 

[Quinkana]

btw what is happening with Cilician armenia rn? I defo hope they survive the turks and the mongols later on. They've always been a state that is very interesting.

 

[TickTock The Witch's Dead]

considering that coptic would still be an ecclesiastical language tho considering that it defo should still be quite big (and the original stock of christians would be coptic orthodox and the bibles written centuries after the pod have coptic in it) it should have quite a bit of influence too.

like I see coptic being kept as is in Coptic orthodox (or coptic rite) influencing the language. Like we'd probably see Coptic and Latin be the superstrata and Arabic be the substrata of the new hypothetical language we would see in egypt.

Also I imagine some Copts will make an active effort to revive the language under Crusader rule, something I don’t think the Crusaders will find issue with.

 

[Gloss]

Also I imagine some Copts will make an active effort to revive the language under Crusader rule, something I don’t think the Crusaders will find issue with.

They would basically fail though, language revivals rarely worked or were truly carried through.

considering that coptic would still be an ecclesiastical language tho considering that it defo should still be quite big (and the original stock of christians would be coptic orthodox and the bibles written centuries after the pod have coptic in it) it should have quite a bit of influence too.

like I see coptic being kept as is in Coptic orthodox (or coptic rite) influencing the language. Like we'd probably see Coptic and Latin be the superstrata and Arabic be the substrata of the new hypothetical language we would see in egypt.

Coptic would be the ecclesiastical language of Copts, but in Lower Egypt where few Copts lived there would be less such Coptic influence and either an Arabic influence Romance language or Romance influenced Arabic language would prevail, in the south insofar as Copts are the predominant Christian community a Coptic influenced Arabic would prevail, though the extent of Coptic influence would depend, it's possible Coptic only really influence religious vocabulary or simply existing Coptic influence is retained rather than expanded, it doesn't seem like the Coptic community had a distinct dialect historically.

 

[TickTock The Witch's Dead]

They would basically fail though.

Why? What should stop them? And wouldn’t the Crusaders allow it if it meant retaining their support?

 

[Gloss]

Why? What should stop them? And wouldn’t the Crusaders allow it if it meant retaining their support?

Language revivals have virtually never worked outside of Hebrew which was kept as a liturgical language by highly literate but linguistically diverse Jews and which was revived in a period where mass schooling was also available.
There is simply no way for a Coptic community that was mostly Arabic speaking at virtually every level and which was a minority in their own lands to convince people to speak a language that has already few speakers within its own community.
I've no idea what you and others think the linguistic situation of Copts was like, you seem to think it was like Ireland in 1840 when in reality it was like Ireland in 1920. Despite the stubborn resistance and identitarian aspect of the Coptic language, Arabic ended up dominating most literate spheres even within the Church and it seems like Coptic speakers by the 13th century were no different from Latin "speakers" in high medieval Europe.
Coptic could be revived just as much as Latin could, basically through selective loaning by learned people.

 

[TickTock The Witch's Dead]

Language revivals have virtually never worked outside of Hebrew which was kept as a liturgical language by highly literate but linguistically diverse Jews and which was revived in a period where mass schooling was also available.
There is simply no way for a Coptic community that was mostly Arabic speaking at virtually every level and which was a minority in their own lands to convince people to speak a language that has already few speakers within its own community.
I've no idea what you and others think the linguistic situation of Copts was like, you seem to think it was like Ireland in 1840 when in reality it was like Ireland in 1920. Despite the stubborn resistance and identitarian aspect of the Coptic language, Arabic ended up dominating most literate spheres even within the Church and it seems like Coptic speakers by the 13th century were no different from Latin "speakers" in high medieval Europe.
Coptic could be revived just as much as Latin could, basically through selective loaning by learned people.

In OTL Coptic stopped being as written by the 13th Century and stopped being as spoken by the 17th. There's still time for the Copts to revive their language especially when they finally have the freedom to convert others again they'll definitely try to bring back that language.

 

[Icedaemon]

I think people are focusing too much on the idea of having one language across a country. A more Maltese-like language springing from a Romance-Arabic creole might well be the language spoken most often in the cities around the delta, while Coptic might survive better than OTL and see more written texts formed in upper Egypt and more rural areas.

 

[St. Just]

I don't think Egyptian will end up like Maltese -- the conquerors are partly ideological, whereas the Normans that originally took and converted Malta were anything but.

Ergo, there will be pressure to drop Arabic -- and the native Christians most likely to be intermediaries between lord and subject, and most likely to become a national bourgeoisie, speak Coptic (as opposed to the Arab/Aramaic speaking Levantine Christians.)

 

[cmakk1012]

There are just so many Arabic speakers in Egypt at this point that it’s impossible that it’ll be dislodged as the majority language IMO. If the Crusaders were coming in with a single language, that might have a shot at overtaking Arabic—but they aren’t, so Arabic and Latin will be the most useful modes of communication between nobles and the latter will allow them to actually talk to their servants/merchants/peasants. Of course, Romance and Germanic Crusader languages will have a huge impact on Egyptian Arabic, so an alt-Maltese is the most likely end point.

Coptic is a dead language walking and the Crusaders have no reason to support it. They’d probably instead try to teach the Copts to speak one of the Crusader languages first.

 

[St. Just]

I mean, I think German will be predominant enough in Egypt that it could overtake Arabic (which I don't think was quite as widespread in the 12th-13th century as we're thinking -- it wasn't as rapid an assimilation as the semitic speakers in the Levant and the Maghreb).

 

[Sphenodon]

It really all depends on the trajectory Egypt follows in the centuries to come, doesn't it? We're nearly a millennium into the past at this point in the timeline, and considering the comparative time differential versus the duration since the Arab conquest of Egypt I don't see why substantial change in popular linguistics is infeasible - and for that matter, why it wouldn't be likely to follow a multitude of pathways rather than a single trajectory towards the predominance of a single ethnoreligious group.

I hadn't considered the notion of a Romance-Arabic creole language taking root among at least the descendants of the ruling classes of a Crusader Egypt before, but in the event it lasts for any speakable amount of time I could definitely see it being a thing. But unless Egypt remains under crusader control for a really, really long time, I don't see it coming to be the predominant language across all of Egypt. Look at the Baltics - in spite of roughly six hundred continuous years of political and religious dominance by Germans, you didn't see mass adoption of German as the primary language of the majority of the population outside of a few largely urban localities. Sure, the settlement of various groups of European Catholics is liable to impact demography somewhat, but are they really going to meaningfully outweigh the native population across most of the area?

I think the stage is set for a pretty diverse Egypt as things stand currently. I really don't think the extinction of Coptic as a spoken tongue is likely, and arguably likely to see at least some reversal; even if non-liturgical written use is pretty minimal at this point, I have a hard time seeing the native Christian clergy not having decent influence in at least Upper Egypt despite their heresy in the eyes of the Catholics (see: Armenians in the ERE), and with that I see some potential for the fostering of a small class of Coptic literati adjacent to ecclesiastic structures. You have the Greek minority, who I feel might do marginally better between coreligionist rule and the continued relevance of the ERE (unless something like a reverse Massacre of the Latins happens). You have the new Catholic Latin-Egyptians and their descendants, who might not (almost cetainly not) rule forever but I doubt will disappear entirely. And you have the Arabs, who regardless of their faith in the future I strongly doubt will simply vanish into the wind, and who may well come to lead Egypt again in centuries to come.

That's without factoring in the other communities present across Egypt (ex. Nubians in the south), and ones yet to come in its future ITTL.

 

[St. Just]

Germans did manage to Germanize Prussia and the Wendish territories among others, but their settlement was also very scattered. If Egypt becomes a big magnet (and why wouldn't it, Egypt is a money printer when its stable and not horribly run), then that might make a difference.

 

[TickTock The Witch's Dead]

Off topic but what’s the relationship between the Italian traders and Constantinople? OTL the Italians were dominant in Byzantine trade which caused a lot of resentment and tensions that lead to the Massacre of the Latins which itself was one of the causes for the Sack of Constantinople. Is the relationship any better here? Or are the Italians still so dominant that it’s going to lead to some serious issues later on?

 

[TrevorFromStarWars]

Off topic but what’s the relationship between the Italian traders and Constantinople? OTL the Italians were dominant in Byzantine trade which caused a lot of resentment and tensions that lead to the Massacre of the Latins which itself was one of the causes for the Sack of Constantinople. Is the relationship any better here? Or are the Italians still so dominant that it’s going to lead to some serious issues later on?

I don't think we've seen much between Italian traders, traders in general and their relationship with Constantinople or anywhere in particular?

 

[PecuTheGreat]

The last quarter of this video especially it touches on a proposal by some Crusader that got discoursed for Christian boys and girls to be educated in work/trade like mid wifery(for the girls) and educated in theology and evangelization as well to preach to Muslims in the Holy Land and be able to maintain themselves and support the armies with their trades.

They also explicitly say these evangelic men to marry Muslim women and convert them like that and maybe imply similarly with the women but the main focus on the women's evangelism is to Muslim women who won't have access to Christian male evangelics.

Edit

That possibly of a woman educated from birth to evangelize marry-converting a Muslim would be interesting, especially if her child tries to claim his descent from his mother's side than his father's side, using that policy as justification or something like that.

 

[TickTock The Witch's Dead]

I don't think we've seen much between Italian traders, traders in general and their relationship with Constantinople or anywhere in particular?

Yeah that’s something I’m interested in seeing.

 

[nimrod]

Just finished reading through this TL, so far. It's spectacular, one of the best I've read, especially given the difficult subject matter (it can be hard to fairly depict the Crusades, as a period it's prone to wankery.) Any chance we might get another map after the Third Crusade?

 

[Ricard (i.e. Rdffigueira)]

Hello, friends! Happy Holidays to everyone!

There's a long time since I've updated the TL, and I believe that, in consideration to the readers and followers, an explanation is needed. 2023 has been a very productive, but also very exhausting year in my work schedule, and this, coupled with the vicissitudes and necessities of raising two babies, left me with little energy to pursue writing, even if the flame of creativity is very much alive. Some months ago, I briefly attempted a foray into Fantasy writing, a literary genre from which I've been distanced for many years now, but one that was single-handedly responsible for introducing my teenager past-self into writing altogether. Now, I'm glad to be returing to Alternate History genre, and to my (humbly named) opus here.

Now, I do confess I've been struggling with a writer's block, and this mainly due to my general dissatisfaction with the direction the TL has been going over the last few installments, all the way back to the chapters involving the Byzantine invasions (rectius Crusades) of Egypt. While I think I did justice to the character of Manuel Komnenos, for example, some other narrative/creative choices vexxed me, such as the Almohad sudden and batsh*t intervention in the conflict (subject of relevant criticism from many readers). Then, after some three attempts of writing the second part of Chapter 68 from scratch, I decided to scrap it altogether and I realize that I do WANT to "retcon" the previous chapters of the TL. It will be the very first retcon of the TL, which, I believe, is something normal, considering the format and the scope of the work.

HOWEVER, I won't be doing this right now, I'll leave this task to the future, when I can also flesh down better the in-TL *Third Crusade.

What I've been wanting to do, for a long time now, is to skip some years in-TL, all the way to 1240 - the eve of the Mongol invasion of Hungary. And this is what I'll do, starting another thread, aptly catalogued as Volume II of the TL. I believe this should give us a sense of a fresh start, don't you think?

I also intend to do a full revision of chapters already posted to leave the writing style more coherent and to correct inconsistencies. Perhaps I'll be taking this assignment first, perhaps not.

Keep tuned, as always, and thanks for the continued support.

P.S. For any Tropers out there, please do contribute to expand the TvTropes page for the TL: [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/AndAllNationsShallGatherToIt]. Thanks in advance as well.

 

[Fortuna]

Take your time, real life comes first. Wish you the best of luck with your work, your family,and your writing.