Apart from the religious war, what happens with the culture?
The holocaust basically left all of Europe in the third world for perhaps centuries, with few exceptions. And at this point the only Western nations are mostly Latinos.
I think the language that benefited the most from this is Spanish, it came out practically intact with most of its nations not being bombed and it became a place that receives immigrants in droves.
On the other hand, the English were severely hit with the two main powers sent to the Middle Ages and only Australia remaining as a representative.
In a way he asked me at what technological level is the world. It would be nice to have little stories of people from this world.
And New Zealand, as well as India (although the Indians might eventually ditch the English as lingua franca, or at least gradually replace it with another... or they may not, because using one of their own local languages as lingua franca might annoy the other ethnic groups of the subcontinent), Ireland (although again, the Irish might revert back to being primarily Gaelic speakers eventually) and South Africa (at least the Anglo community would remain English-speaking, even if the Afrikaaners, Blacks and other ethnic/racial groups eventually abandon it).
Of course, without the worldwide influence of US (and British) media, the local versions of English (in Australia, NZ, India, Ireland...) might also turn into more and more separate dialects, but such a process would take decades at least.
English has taken a major beating but is still a major language.
On the other hand, I would expect the French language to lose its importance. The countries of former French Africa would probably gradually stop teaching French to their kids, because the economical, political and cultural (and military) influence of France is completely gone. And the new lingua franca(s) in West and Central Africa might be the Spanish and/or Portuguese, because Latin America is going to be the newest economical center of the western hemisphere, relatively close to West and Central Africa. And/or Arab, because of the Maghrebi growing influence in Subsaharan Africa. Probably a competition between Arab, Spanish and Portuguese actually.
And of course, France itself, as well as Wallonia and Quebec, have been throughly wrecked by WWIII. Only Switzerland (well, Romandy or
Suisse Romande) was untouched.
Spanish will do very well indeed, as Latin America is nearly intact (I believe that only Cuba and Panama were nuked), and Spain itself only took two nukes and is now poised to be one of the great regional powers by default in Europe (as the Spaniards have a bigger population and economy that Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland or Yugoslavia). Portuguese will also do well, with Brazil, Angola and Mozambique being all intact, and Brazilian economical influence being about to deploy itself in Africa thanks to geography.
German will become a minor language, as Germany and Austria are more or less a big dead zone, with small pockets of survivors here and there. And even if those survivors created a confederacy, in practice, transportation and communication difficulties (with mostly no electricity, no major roads, railways and airplanes) mean that those survivor German states might end up developing separate dialects that are significantly different, to the point of being labeled as separate (if close cousin) languages. And of course, German-speaking communities in the USA, Eastern Europe, Russia and Belgium would be mostly dead.
Likewise, Italian would be a minor language, with the Italian diaspora in North America being mostly dead, Italy wrecked (which might also lead to separate very distinct dialects emerging across the Italian peninsula). And the reconstruction of Italy will probably come with support/investment from Spain and Maghreb, which means that survivor communities in Italy who get contact with the outside world might end up learning Arabic and/or Spanish as a second language, leading to the dialects of Italy absorbing a lot of Arabic and Spanish borrowed words.
Balkan and Eastern Europe countries other than Yugoslavia would probably go through a similar process, with scattered communities developing dialects, and linguistic influence from Yugoslavia (ie. Serbian language), at least in places that get some trade with abroad.
Actually, since Yugoslavia is already a multi-ethnic and multi-religious federal country, I can see it slowly expanding, integrating communities of survivors (in Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania), and benefiting from the wealth of mineral resources in the Balkans, as well as an access to a wide coast in the Adriatic, Med and Black Sea.
Russian language would be abandoned by every diaspora (or school second language learners) outside of Russia, because Russia would be universally hated for the WWIII.
