WI: More Greek-Speaking Areas in the Mediterranean?

Historically, Greek was spoken in more areas outside of the Aegean such as Southern Italy, Sicily, Cyreneica, coastal areas of the Black Sea, the Nile Delta, and Cilicia, often used alongside with native tongues. Its use declined with the Byzantine Empire, but what if these areas remained Greek-speaking? Would they develop into their own languages? How might it effect the local histories?
 
Northern Pontic (Crimea and Azov coast Greek) could have survived relatively more easily than the handful of speakers into the XXth century.
 
How far did Greek go in Southern Italy during the early middle ages? You could have Apulia, Calabria, Basilicata and Sicily be majority Greek speaking(or in a state of diglossia with a heavily greekfied Romance language)
 
How far did Greek go in Southern Italy during the early middle ages?
Greek remained fairly isolated and non-majoritary on some urban points past southern Calabria and Puglie, and eastern coastal Basilecate and Sicily. Argubly, getting rid of Norman takeover of southern Italy would give Greek in these regions a less uncomfortable ground.
 
Southern Italy is the largest and easiest region to have stay majority Greek-speaking (I can’t say Greek-speaking at all, because a tiny, tiny few people still speak Griko!)

Byzantine retention of control could work—really anything that gets rid of the Normans. It would be interesting if it became an independent Greek-speaking state somehow. I could see them still converting to Catholicism ITTL
 
Southern Italy is the largest and easiest region to have stay majority Greek-speaking (I can’t say Greek-speaking at all, because a tiny, tiny few people still speak Griko!)

Byzantine retention of control could work—really anything that gets rid of the Normans. It would be interesting if it became an independent Greek-speaking state somehow. I could see them still converting to Catholicism ITTL
Wouldn't a Greek state in southern Italy be a bridge between the Greek world and the West?
Greek remained fairly isolated and non-majoritary on some urban points past southern Calabria and Puglie, and eastern coastal Basilecate and Sicily. Argubly, getting rid of Norman takeover of southern Italy would give Greek in these regions a less uncomfortable ground.
Was Greek growing there during Byzantine control? I wonder what would happen if the Arab don't take over Sicily for example.
 
Wouldn't eventually Greek start growing in Romance areas? I mean in centuries.
It didn't during the Byzantine holding of these territories, tough.
Now, it's quite possible in centuries of constant territorial control, of course, but so for each modern state with mass media and mandatory schooling you could think of.
 
Wouldn't a Greek state in southern Italy be a bridge between the Greek world and the West?

Depends on the PoD. If East Rome never loses firm control over the region then the Papacy almost certainly remains the Bishop of Rome only and there’s much less of a divide between East and West.

If Byzantium does lose control to Arabs or Ostrogoths or someone else and then local Greeks gain control things could get interesting. If the Papacy still gains power the Greek Sicilian state will pose a massive threat of Byzantine invasion so I could see them courting the Sicilians away from Constantinople.
 
It didn't during the Byzantine holding of these territories, tough.
Now, it's quite possible in centuries of constant territorial control, of course, but so for each modern state with mass media and mandatory schooling you could think of.
Well it's true the Byzantines controlled Sicily for 3 centuries by the time of the Arab takeover, although for the first century the state was still using Latin officially.

Well I guess it's natural for there to be a trend towards more use of Greek, do you think there are reasons for it to be relatively slow?

Depends on the PoD. If East Rome never loses firm control over the region then the Papacy almost certainly remains the Bishop of Rome only and there’s much less of a divide between East and West.

If Byzantium does lose control to Arabs or Ostrogoths or someone else and then local Greeks gain control things could get interesting. If the Papacy still gains power the Greek Sicilian state will pose a massive threat of Byzantine invasion so I could see them courting the Sicilians away from Constantinople.
I think it's hard for local Greeks to retake power by themselves, there would be surely be help from the North if not from Byzantium and it that case you get more of a Norman situation.
 
Well I guess it's natural for there to be a trend towards more use of Greek, do you think there are reasons for it to be relatively slow?
Large autonomies of western regions, either political and territorial (as exarchates, or urban centers within themes and Catepanate) or religious (Latin churches within Catepanate)
 
I think it's hard for local Greeks to retake power by themselves, there would be surely be help from the North if not from Byzantium and it that case you get more of a Norman situation.

Maybe it depends on from whom?

Hey, what if the Arabs actually did better initially, invading most of Greek-speaking Southern Italy? Then they collapse to a local revolt, which would be dominated by Greek speakers...
 
Maybe it depends on from whom?

Hey, what if the Arabs actually did better initially, invading most of Greek-speaking Southern Italy? Then they collapse to a local revolt, which would be dominated by Greek speakers...

That may just leave an even weaker Southern Italy to be conquered by foreign invaders such as the Normans.
 
George Maniakes is heavily wounded but not killed as in OTL and returns with his army to Italy. Thus in the late 1040s you have a rival Basileus in South Italy supposedly preparing to strike for Constantinople. By the time George recovers from his wounds he is hip deep in local problems to make another go east, while Constantinople is too disorganized to to directly interfere against him. George goes on successfully campaigning in South Italy then his son comes to accommodation with the Imperial center as katepano and then despot of Italy. By the time of Manzikert and the Comnenes, house Maniakes is effectively semi-independent and prospering liberating Sicily along the way, not unlike the Gabras in Pontus. They stay so through the 12th century, the Comnenes have larger problems closer to home to bring the area under direct imperial control. When imperial authority comes apart at the seams under the Angeloi the Despotate of the two Sicilies comes to being...
 
It's not pre-1900, but there are plenty of plausible ways to have a different breakup of the Ottoman Empire after WWI, with Greece maintaining control of portions of Anatolia.
 
George Maniakes is heavily wounded but not killed as in OTL and returns with his army to Italy. Thus in the late 1040s you have a rival Basileus in South Italy supposedly preparing to strike for Constantinople. By the time George recovers from his wounds he is hip deep in local problems to make another go east, while Constantinople is too disorganized to to directly interfere against him. George goes on successfully campaigning in South Italy then his son comes to accommodation with the Imperial center as katepano and then despot of Italy. By the time of Manzikert and the Comnenes, house Maniakes is effectively semi-independent and prospering liberating Sicily along the way, not unlike the Gabras in Pontus. They stay so through the 12th century, the Comnenes have larger problems closer to home to bring the area under direct imperial control. When imperial authority comes apart at the seams under the Angeloi the Despotate of the two Sicilies comes to being...

Write this as a TL, please, I’m begging you!

It's not pre-1900, but there are plenty of plausible ways to have a different breakup of the Ottoman Empire after WWI, with Greece maintaining control of portions of Anatolia.

The most they could get without verging into Turkish genocide territory would be all of Thrace, Constantinople itself, a strip of Ionia, and mayyyybe Trebizond and environs.
 
Historically, Greek was spoken in more areas outside of the Aegean such as Southern Italy, Sicily, Cyreneica, coastal areas of the Black Sea, the Nile Delta, and Cilicia, often used alongside with native tongues. Its use declined with the Byzantine Empire, but what if these areas remained Greek-speaking? Would they develop into their own languages? How might it effect the local histories?

Was Late Antiquity Cyrenaican still a descendent of Doric Greek, or was the "original" Cyrenaican dialect killed off in the Kitos War and later conflicts with the Berbers in the 4th-6th centuries, plus natural disasters like the earthquakes which afflicted the province? The original Crimean might have had similar issues too.
 
The most they could get without verging into Turkish genocide territory would be all of Thrace, Constantinople itself, a strip of Ionia, and mayyyybe Trebizond and environs.

I believe this is essentially the Megali Idea sans Trebizond, no? East Thrace, the Straits Zone, Smyrna District, maaaaaaybe the historical Doris-in-Asia included to get the mainland bit just across from Rhodes (and including the historical Greek polis of Halicarnassus). All those are where Greek-speakers tended to congregate and be shown in ethno-linguistic maps in any rate (how much/far is your interpretation, of course, but they were nonetheless there in general pre-Lausanne).

I still find it interesting as heck the "modern-day" territory of the Greek people, pre-Lausanne, was eerily similar to where they were concentrated pre-Alexander the Great's conquests.
 
I still find it interesting as heck the "modern-day" territory of the Greek people, pre-Lausanne, was eerily similar to where they were concentrated pre-Alexander the Great's conquests.

I never knew that, huh.

What makes that especially strange then is that said population only formed in relatively recent times. For instance, IIRC Smyrna only became Greek-majority again in the 19th century.
 
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