Have a major language family "pull a Basque"

I think this wins the thread. I wonder who would populate all those islands if the Austronesians didn't.
Who do you think fills the gap in Oceania? Austroasiatic? Papuan? Something stranger like Dravidian or Japonic?
Papuan languages would expand west into more of OTL Indonesia, which they did to an extent in OTL anyway (Timor and other Papuan languages were a relatively recent expansion). Likewise Papuan languages would remain more prevalent in the Solomons than they were in OTL. There would probably be some expansion into parts of the Western Pacific (New Caledonia, Fiji etc), although much of Oceania would remain uninhabited by humans for a very long time.

More expansion of the Kra-Dai languages into Malaysia and western Indonesian languages is also likely. The Austroasiatic languages were in the process of being of displaced by Kra-Dai and other language families anyway, so its unlikely they would last in Indonesia even if they make it there.

Madagascar would probably be settled by speakers of Bantu languages (well, more so than in OTL).
 
I recently read a paper that suggested Tibetan and Burmese languages are the core of the family, and the Sinitic languages are an outlier. Surprising at first, but not more so than the situation with Austronesian. And someone on the linguistics blog that I folllow, and was shared at, suggested renaming the family Tibetan-Burmese.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibeto-Burman_languages

Apparently it was not jokingly.

"Van Driem argues that the Sino-Tibetan family should be called "Tibeto-Burman", but this usage has not been widely adopted. Others exclude a relationship with Chinese altogether (e.g. Beckwith, R. A. Miller)."
 
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Papuan languages would expand west into more of OTL Indonesia, which they did to an extent in OTL anyway (Timor and other Papuan languages were a relatively recent expansion). Likewise Papuan languages would remain more prevalent in the Solomons than they were in OTL. There would probably be some expansion into parts of the Western Pacific (New Caledonia, Fiji etc), although much of Oceania would remain uninhabited by humans for a very long time.

More expansion of the Kra-Dai languages into Malaysia and western Indonesian languages is also likely. The Austroasiatic languages were in the process of being of displaced by Kra-Dai and other language families anyway, so its unlikely they would last in Indonesia even if they make it there.

Madagascar would probably be settled by speakers of Bantu languages (well, more so than in OTL).

In addition Papuan languages got pretty far west despite already existing populations. You could pretty easily get them to colonize much of the archipelago west of the Wallace Line.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tambora_culture
 

Vuu

Banned
I have a hunch we'll soon see this in action with the Sino-Tibetan family - Mandarin will quite literally destroy each and every single other minor language (Burmese is basically the only other one that's major).

Hmong qualifies as well. Many native languages already do.

An interesting possibility is Dravidian. Mongolic is also rather vulnerable. Turkic as well, but it's extremely tricky. Then Finno-Ugric.
 
I have a hunch we'll soon see this in action with the Sino-Tibetan family - Mandarin will quite literally destroy each and every single other minor language (Burmese is basically the only other one that's major).

I was under the impression that the non-Mandarin Chinese languages are doing pretty well despite efforts to get rid of them? Also while a Mandarin-only Sino-Tibetan branch would technically qualify as an isolate, it's hardly a Basque analogue.
 
For the most obvious example, if Brennus sacks Rome hard enough, the Italic languages are probably considered rather minor. As well, if the Arabs are more successfull at assimilating the Iranians and Kurds, the Iranian languages might end up consisting only of the Ossettian, Baluch, and Pashtun languages. If, on the other hand, the Seljuk migration is prevented, and the Mongol/Khitai migrations are more successful, Turkic languages might be represented by only one language isolate.
 
I was under the impression that the non-Mandarin Chinese languages are doing pretty well despite efforts to get rid of them? Also while a Mandarin-only Sino-Tibetan branch would technically qualify as an isolate, it's hardly a Basque analogue.
Major non-Mandarin Sinitic languages are hardly in danger of extinction. And Mandarin languages are quite diverse between themselves.

For the most obvious example, if Brennus sacks Rome hard enough, the Italic languages are probably considered rather minor.
As well, if the Arabs are more successfull at assimilating the Iranians and Kurds, the Iranian languages might end up consisting only of the Ossettian, Baluch, and Pashtun languages.
The Iranic and Italic languages are both branches of Indo-European; that being said if you wish to broaden the challenge, it would be much easier to pull this off with Italic than with Iranic.
 
Major non-Mandarin Sinitic languages are hardly in danger of extinction.

I know, that's what I was saying.

The Iranic and Italic languages are both branches of Indo-European; that being said if you wish to broaden the challenge, it would be much easier to pull this off with Italic than with Iranic.

Agreed; just have some other group conquer Italy before Rome became a big thing, but leave one small area that still speaks an Italic language (or maybe have an Italic language survive in Sicily or something).
 
Amerindian language families are too easy (and some already qualify) but an even more oppressive US+Canada+Russia combined with bad luck in intertribal conflicts could probably have done this to the entire Dene-Yeniseian family. The only survivor would be maybe an Apachean language in the remote desert, although it would be very interesting to see the Navajo language still at least decently strong TTL (perhaps it would be by TTL's standards even if it is far more moribund and has a tenth the speakers).

PoD would have to be in the 17-18th century to screw over every single group of Athabaskan speakers in whatever way possible. Basically, they get screwed in the fur trade by other groups of people, they get driven out of their lands by other groups, they get particularly unlucky with disease, etc. before Euroamerican policies deal a killing blow to their languages.

An interesting possibility is Dravidian. Mongolic is also rather vulnerable. Turkic as well, but it's extremely tricky. Then Finno-Ugric.
Mongolic you could have different steppe migrations wipe out the Mongols except for a small population in, say, Qinghai. Modern Mongolia would be Turkic speaking.
 
Madagascar would probably be settled by speakers of Bantu languages (well, more so than in OTL).

More specifically it'd be a mix of probably swahili inflected Kalanga via Mwenemutapa descended on the west coast known as the Maroserena; Swahili in the Northwest facing coast; a more creolized Arabic (Like Nubi) found in the Northern Tsingy woodlands and Southeast Coast and then Arabic amongst the elite and clergy.

though id argue settlement wouldn't even happen until the 14th-15th century to any real degree.
 
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