Arabic as the default language in Europe

Here is a very "scientific" one:

Let us imagine that Charles Martel is not successful against the Muslim armies.

The result being that Western Europe will be mostly Muslim (for some time at least) and thereby Arabic speaking as the common denominator. After all, any good Muslim ought to read and write Arabic.

Now let us also imagine that Europe develops along the same lines a OTL and Christianity etc takes over (as OTL), but the language stays

Fast forward to 19xx.

What now? English is not the dominant language and never was.

Anyone in Europe can easily communicate with a lot more people (Indonesia is mostly Muslim and thereby also Arabic speaking).

With a common language, taught to all from birth nearly, will EU be more united? a common language does have an impact

Would US, imagining that only the language gets "exported", also be Arabic speaking?

The Bible in Arabic?

Just to inspire the discussion: One of the first books printed in South Africa is a Muslim prayer book. It is printed with Arabic lettering, but the language used is Afrikaans. How it looks I have no idea.

Is this into the ASB category?


Ivan
 
Well, it is not that part I am particular curious about.

I do admit to jumping into 19xx with a POD evolving over some hundreds of years, but hey, we have to start somewhere.

That's where I assume a Muslim conquest, etc etc.

Ivan
 
There are way too many butterflies here. Without a drafted TL or at least some chronological "pointers" it would be impossible to answer any of those questions. There won't be a US for example, and it depends on how Islam expands and society develops as to whether printing a Bible is even legal.
 
Here is a very "scientific" one:

Let us imagine that Charles Martel is not successful against the Muslim armies.

The result being that Western Europe will be mostly Muslim (for some time at least) and thereby Arabic speaking as the common denominator. After all, any good Muslim ought to read and write Arabic.

Well, depsite the scientific aspect, the POD is as much ASB as it's possible.

Let's admit that Charles Martel is beaten in 732. The raid on Saint Martin is sucessful. And what then?

The campaign of Abd al Rahman wasn't a campaign of conquest, but for plunder (pretty much like the one of 725).

You could argue that it could have lead to a conquest later : after all raids were used like this for Egypt, Africa, etc.

But Arabo-Berbers didn't had enough men to conquer southern Gaul, let aside Western Europe : maybe 15 000 or 20 000 at maximum conquered Spain (3.5 Millions). Gaul alone was populated by 8, maybe more millions.

OTL, the walis of Al-Andalus weren't even able to put more than one garrison on the other side of Pyrenees (Narbonne/Arbûna). Any tentative of conquest beyond were made at the behalf of local nobility support (as Avignon) and failed because...not enough men.

And they couldn't even hope being reinforced : the Berber Revolt of 740 defenitly cut Al-Andalus from its arabic bases and prevented the massive use of Berbers as an army force (80% of the conquerors of Spain were probably Berbers.

Now, having Western Europe using Arab is possible. But hard.

Let's admit that the half-spontaneous policy of muslims outposts in Western Mediterranea lives on (Fraxinet, Minturno, ...), that southern Italy and Sicily remains on Islamic hands, that the Fitna doesn't happen and let one strong islamic state in Spain, and that islamic states managed to have strongest and stabler institutions.

You'll probably need no Carolingian Empire (here a defeat of Charles Martel could be useful, more indirectly) and no expansion of western christianity in slavic lands.

Of course it would blow up part of the OP
Now let us also imagine that Europe develops along the same lines a OTL and Christianity etc takes over (as OTL), but the language stays

But will have the benefit to not being ASB. Really improbable, and a lot of "IF" but...

THEN, maybe Arabic could become a commercial language, replacing lingua franca in Western Europe. But probably being replaced by an Atlantic power language, if Arabs power are too Mediterranean focused.

It's the best I can see, at least.
 
Doubtful. Arabic rarely managed to hold countries not speaking an Afro-asiatic language already. It shared Sicily with Greek speakers at the time (A romance dialect may have survived there, but most came later) and shared Iberia with Mozarabic speakers. In addition after those areas were reconquered by Christians, Arabic disappears within a century, except Malta.

Sicily, Grenada and Malta are very small areas where there would not be nearly as many speakers to assimilate.

The best Arabic (Classical Arabic) could hope for would be a diplomatic/commercial and probably scientific language.

Even if an Arabic dialect did survive as a common language in Western Europe, it would split into dialects influenced by the local languages. These dialects would be descended from a Maghrebi dialect which would be difficult for speakers of the larger Muslim world to understand, and going back to the diplomatic/commercial/scientific position of Classical Arabic.
 
Here is a very "scientific" one:

Let us imagine that Charles Martel is not successful against the Muslim armies.

The result being that Western Europe will be mostly Muslim (for some time at least) and thereby Arabic speaking as the common denominator. After all, any good Muslim ought to read and write Arabic.

This is a pretty big leap. Like Lugal said, Arabic never did catch on north of the Afro-Asiatic language area.
 
Who's Charles Martel?

Arabic did pretty well in Spanish, if the number of loanwords is anything to go by.

If the Arabs control most of Europe and allow the dhimmi to keep their religion, I can see Arabic becoming the dominant language even though Christianity stays...
 
(Indonesia is mostly Muslim and thereby also Arabic speaking).

I'm sorry but that's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read, being Muslims does not mean you speak Arabic.

The primary language of Indonesia is the Malayo-Indonesian language, which is unrelated to Arabic and uses the Latin Script.

It does have some Arabic loanwords, but it has just as many from other languages as well, including Dutch.
 
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