La langue von Al-Quds

With some nice KoJ threads popping up a long standing question has cropped up in my mind. Obviously based on the title what in your opinion would be the language development of a surviving Kingdom of Jerusalem.

The usual idea is to have a heavily Arabic-influence French, or in some cases vice-versa but thinking on it not all 'peasants' and such coming to Jerusalem where French and some, if not most of the many either major or minor peasant crusades and/or pilgrimages would see many people of German origin emigrate to Jerusalem too. (If successful).

Obviously one issue you could bring up is the fact that the nobility were mostly French lords and such which got almost all the Crusaders the nice name of Franks to the Muslims in the area. The filtering down of language and possible standardisation would heavily favour any French-related dialect immensely so it begs another question of the weight of said favour especially with a non-French domination of the kingdoms European populace assuming French is still a major language force.

This is assuming the European-Arab ratio reaches somewhere around 40-60 or maybe 50-50 early enough for full language development.
 
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I imagine that if something like this were to happen, it would look a lot like the Norman conquest of England and that resulting language. Namely, that most everyday words would be Arabic with the religious words and fancier words being French. For instance, the word for cow would be derived from baqara, while the word for beef would be derived from boeuf.
 
I imagine that if something like this were to happen, it would look a lot like the Norman conquest of England and that resulting language. Namely, that most everyday words would be Arabic with the religious words and fancier words being French. For instance, the word for cow would be derived from baqara, while the word for beef would be derived from boeuf.
Doesn't that assume a constant Arabic majority especially with the aforementioned possible immigration from Europe. I'm kind of asking, assuming the European-Arab ratio reaches somewhere around 40-50 or maybe 50-50. Sorry if I wasn't clear.
 
Doesn't that assume a constant Arabic majority especially with the aforementioned possible immigration from Europe. I'm kind of asking, assuming the European-Arab ratio reaches somewhere around 40-50 or maybe 50-50. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

I just don't think that heavy European immigration would be likely. I mean, if the Normans didn't move to England enough to change the language of the more basic words, why would the French move much further to a much more inhospitable place?

Ignoring that, European immigration to that extent would mean that rather than fuse, I expect that French would just override the native language, and just become heavily bastardized. In that case arabic words would probably only be used for things for which the French have no word.
 
What incentives were given to peasants to emigrate in OTL? It's a question I've always had and, not knowing as much about the topic as I should, I've never been able to answer.

If we can look at what drew them in OTL, we can maybe find a way to get more of them :)
 
I just don't think that heavy European immigration would be likely. I mean, if the Normans didn't move to England enough to change the language of the more basic words, why would the French move much further to a much more inhospitable place?

Ignoring that, European immigration to that extent would mean that rather than fuse, I expect that French would just override the native language, and just become heavily bastardized. In that case arabic words would probably only be used for things for which the French have no word.
Actually most sources estimate that 15-20% of the entire population was 'Frank' i.e. European Christians following the Latin rites. So doubling those figures while is possible especially considering the against popular belief there would still be a sizeable Christian minority there before the crusades to the tune of around 30-40% of the population so another idea to juggle is the possible addition of the Greek, Armenian and a myriad of other languages to the mix. I'm asking how would all the European languages mix with Arabic considering there were more than French people in the Kingdom.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Jerusalem#Population

http://defendingcrusaderkingdoms.blogspot.ie/2015/03/the-demography-of-crusader-kingdoms.html

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Kingdom_of_Jerusalem#Demographics
 
Actually most sources estimate that 15-20% of the entire population was 'Frank' i.e. European Christians following the Latin rites. So doubling those figures while is possible especially considering the against popular belief there would still be a sizeable Christian minority there before the crusades to the tune of around 30-40% of the population so another idea to juggle is the possible addition of the Greek, Armenian and a myriad of other languages to the mix. I'm asking how would all the European languages mix with Arabic considering there were more than French people in the Kingdom.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Jerusalem#Population

http://defendingcrusaderkingdoms.blogspot.ie/2015/03/the-demography-of-crusader-kingdoms.html

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Kingdom_of_Jerusalem#Demographics
In that case you can look at the way North African speak French.

The pied-noirs also had a dialect called the Pataouètes, weird sabir of mostly French slang with Arabic and Spanish. Quite hard to understand to be honest
 
What incentives were given to peasants to emigrate in OTL? It's a question I've always had and, not knowing as much about the topic as I should, I've never been able to answer.

If we can look at what drew them in OTL, we can maybe find a way to get more of them :)
There were really no incentives given by any powers for their people to leave their lands and go upon a potentially suicidal journey to the holy land. It wasn't ever really objected to and if you wanted you could leave but it would be quite hard. People did take the journey though as seen in my aforementioned post.

In that case you can look at the way North African speak French.

The pied-noirs also had a dialect called the Pataouètes, weird sabir of mostly French slang with Arabic and Spanish. Quite hard to understand to be honest
This is great but only really shows a domination of French amongst other languages. I'm kinda wondering especially with the fact that a French peasant majority isn't assured among the immigrants what and how other languages could fuse with it and Arabic over time.
 
There were really no incentives given by any powers for their people to leave their lands and go upon a potentially suicidal journey to the holy land. It wasn't ever really objected to and if you wanted you could leave but it would be quite hard. People did take the journey though as seen in my aforementioned post.


This is great but only really shows a domination of French amongst other languages. I'm kinda wondering especially with the fact that a French peasant majority isn't assured among the immigrants what and how other languages could fuse with it and Arabic over time.
That's exactly why pataouète is a good example. Structures of power in Algeria were in the hands of metropolitan French, but pataouète is from the lower class neighbourhood were you had massive influx of Spanish and Italian immigrants
 
That's exactly why pataouète is a good example. Structures of power in Algeria were in the hands of metropolitan French, but pataouète is from the lower class neighbourhood were you had massive influx of Spanish and Italian immigrants
Interesting. It's hard to find anything about it though. Could you give me some reference? Also, it's classified as basically French, right?
 
Interesting. It's hard to find anything about it though. Could you give me some reference? Also, it's classified as basically French, right?
You have this as a reference but it's in French http://www.librairie-pied-noir.com/content/9-pataouete

And it's close enough to French, but it's like French Canadian. It's close enough in principle but almost not intelligible to a "classic" French speakers.
In that you have the words taken but also the grammar gets changed and syntax borrows heavily from other languages, even if some words stay the same

I only know of it cause my grandmother has a couple books (plays) written in pataouète because she grew up there. Nobody would actually know about it, let alone speak it anymore...
 
A sort of Maltese, replacing Tunisian with Levantine Arabic as a substrate, and Italian/Sicilian with Norman French, plus some Italian- (Genoese, Venetian, mostly related to navigation and high culture) and German-derived vocabulary. Possible later Turkish and/or Greek influence.
 
Heavily Arab-influenced French? Kind of like how Spanish is quite Arab-influenced?

Another thing to note is that Greek was spoken by the poor Christians, so it would have a bit of Greek vocabulary as well.
 
A Franco-Arabic mix would say Yerusalaame or such. Al-Quds was simply the name used in the Quran and Hadith for the city, so it wouldn't be compatible.
You're referencing the title right? It was a joke combination of modern day French, German and Arabic.

A sort of Maltese, replacing Tunisian with Levantine Arabic as a substrate, and Italian/Sicilian with Norman French, plus some Italian- (Genoese, Venetian, mostly related to navigation and high culture) and German-derived vocabulary. Possible later Turkish and/or Greek influence.
Heavily Arab-influenced French? Kind of like how Spanish is quite Arab-influenced?

Another thing to note is that Greek was spoken by the poor Christians, so it would have a bit of Greek vocabulary as well.
I actually looked into Maltese and it does seem like a good idea for this kind of language though I do wonder how it would deviate with a larger speaker base for one or more starter languages instead of the (seemingly) Siculo-Arabic dominated Maltese. The Greek is an interesting side note as well.

You have this as a reference but it's in French http://www.librairie-pied-noir.com/content/9-pataouete

And it's close enough to French, but it's like French Canadian. It's close enough in principle but almost not intelligible to a "classic" French speakers.
In that you have the words taken but also the grammar gets changed and syntax borrows heavily from other languages, even if some words stay the same

I only know of it cause my grandmother has a couple books (plays) written in pataouète because she grew up there. Nobody would actually know about it, let alone speak it anymore...
My browser translated it and it is an interesting find. Though if very few people speak or understand it because of the availability of the mother language it seems to me that it was more of a geographic dialect with a few loan word granted farther away from said mother language than American English is to British English.
 
It'll either end up like Maltese - a daughter language of Arabic peppered with enough foreign loanwords and grammatical influences that it's too different to be labeled a mere dialect or a daughter language of French with an Arabic and Greek substratum. Honestly it depends on the writer's preferences whether the native population, despite immigration from Europe, absorbs them and somehow gains prestige enough to become THE language of all social classes or the Crusader Euro lords impose THEIR language, granted with some changes throughout the centuries.
 
Also look at Sabir which was a Romance-based trade tongue in the Med based on mostly stripped down Italian/French with gobs of Arabic, Greek and some Turkish vocabulary.
 
It'll either end up like Maltese - a daughter language of Arabic peppered with enough foreign loanwords and grammatical influences that it's too different to be labeled a mere dialect or a daughter language of French with an Arabic and Greek substratum. Honestly it depends on the writer's preferences whether the native population, despite immigration from Europe, absorbs them and somehow gains prestige enough to become THE language of all social classes or the Crusader Euro lords impose THEIR language, granted with some changes throughout the centuries.
There's also Cypriot Maronite Arabic as another possible path. Basically a variation of Northern Mesopotamian Arabic heavily influenced by Greek, right down to the phonetics. As a result, while elements of it would seem relatively familiar to anyone familiar with Levantine or Iraqi dialects (especially Mosul and the old Baghdad Jewish and Christian varieties), or even conservative or archaic compared to others (except Yemen and Sudan), there's some phonetic convergence with the local Greek, itself pretty archaic in comparison with Greek spoken on the mainland.
 
This is assuming the European-Arab ratio reaches somewhere around 40-60 or maybe 50-50 early enough for full language development.

Note that the native Arab population is divided between Christians and Muslims. Perhaps you would see some Palestinian Christians assimilate into "Frankish" culture if the rulers TTL treat them a little better post-conquest.
 
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