Originating on the Pontic Steppe in Eastern Europe 6,000 years ago, the Indo-European language family is far and away the most widespread language family in the world. First they spread out of their Eastern European urheimat across Eurasia from Iceland to Bangladesh, and then with the European Age of Exploration spread worldwide, to where in the present day around half of the world's populations speaks an Indo-European language natively. However, it didn't spread everywhere, and one of the places it didn't reach was Sub-Saharan Africa. With the exception of the Dutch daughter language of Afrikaans, there is no Indo-European language indigenous to Sub-Saharan Africa (and even calling that indigenous is stretching it), which is the subject of today's AHC. You will devise some way in which an homegrown Indo-European language could become natively spoken in Sub-Saharan Africa before the colonial era. I've got a few ideas for how this could feasibly happen myself, but I'm gonna pass it on to you guys first.
AHC: Indo-European Language in Sub-Saharan Africa Before Colonial Era
- Thread starter Gabingston
- Start date
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- Tags
- africa indo-european languages
There was trade between India and the eastern coast of Africa; maybe we could get some Indians settling down and bringing their language with them. If the settlers are from the Indo-Gangetic Plain, they'll be speaking an IE language.
There was also some presence of Iranians.
Which is why a "No Islam" scenario would be more likely for such a possibility of African Romance becoming prominent in the Sahel.
No. Not really. Bit same if you say Spanish is completely indigenous in Mexico.
R1b-V88 is found among Chadic speakers in the sahel- however this haplogroup isn't Indo-European, but old European, associated with WHG and EEF (the non-indoeuropean components of Europe). Migration estimated just before Indo-European invasion of Europe, or around 4000 BC.
So you did get movement on that scale and direction in OTL, at least while the Sahara was still green(ish).
ATL, two directions seem plausible: Spain and Egypt.
1. Indo-Europeans made it to Spain 2500 BC. Have some keep going immediately, and get across the Sahara before or during the Meghalaya event. They don't have to demographically dominate, just get get the sahel speaking Indo-European instead of Chadic.
2. During the Bronze Age Collapse, some Mittani or Hittites set out en masse towards Egypt, who employ them as mercenaries. They eventually conquer Cush as a new homeland.
2a. Iranic wipeout of Mesopotamia and Egypt circa 2200 BC. (Meghalaya event again). The language moves south from Egypt thereafter.
So you did get movement on that scale and direction in OTL, at least while the Sahara was still green(ish).
ATL, two directions seem plausible: Spain and Egypt.
1. Indo-Europeans made it to Spain 2500 BC. Have some keep going immediately, and get across the Sahara before or during the Meghalaya event. They don't have to demographically dominate, just get get the sahel speaking Indo-European instead of Chadic.
2. During the Bronze Age Collapse, some Mittani or Hittites set out en masse towards Egypt, who employ them as mercenaries. They eventually conquer Cush as a new homeland.
2a. Iranic wipeout of Mesopotamia and Egypt circa 2200 BC. (Meghalaya event again). The language moves south from Egypt thereafter.
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Well yes, because Spanish is still spoken in Mexico, not a new language, which Afrikaans is and which completely displaced Dutch. Of course Afrikaans has roots mostly in Europe, but it developed in Africa, and has loan words and influences from African languages. That's like saying Liberian Creole English is not indigenous to Liberia.
Afrikaans is relexified Dutch-Khoisan creole originally spoken by the Khoisan of the Cape.
vgh...
Banned
More recent research actually suggests that that subclade of R1b spread to Chad during historical times as part of the arrival of Baggara Arabs to the area ("Baggarization"). Even if the older hypothesis were still correct (doesn't seem likely but if more evidence appears who knows, that's science for you), it was never suggested that that subclade of R1b was directly from Old Europeans. Rather it diffused its way into the MENA area after the LGM, was present there at a low concentration on the population, and was brought across the Sahara by pastoralists during the mid-holocene (who also would have spread the Chadic languages, so goes the hypothesis) and then became dominant in Chad through founder effect. So no European Hunter-Gatherers or farmers rocking up in Chad going what's up
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vgh...
Banned
I would have imagined something like this, or maybe a home-grown Sahelian group emerging from Northwest African admixture into the population, like the Fulani, whose own beliefs are that they came about through mixture with people arriving from the north and which has some genetic evidence behind it too. They could appear around Mauritania/Senegal, maybe rumoured to be descended from Afro-Romance slave/ivory traders? (or is that too cliche and corny and you want Romanised Berbers? I don't know the region intimately enough). They would also have to not adopt a dialect of the locals but I don't see why that would be impossible, language transfer from two groups intermingling can go both ways.
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hey what wonderful idea mayebe not conquest but passing the influence would make latin go to ghana.
I made this thing in my timeline imo romanized berbers with no islam are quite inevitable this empire souther regions are more vassals as seen who pay tribute to the emperor, but the prestige of the Berber emperor carries Christianity along with latin for the rites so as some of these regions with more contact over the centuries being to Christianize and adopt latin in the local languages so here not only do we get latin influences to the sahel but also new flavors of Christianity
I mentioned in the opening post that I had two ideas for how an Indo-European language could become spoken in Sub-Saharan Africa before the colonial era. The first, Indian or Persian traders settling in East Africa has been mentioned, but I had a second idea for how an IE language could spread into Sub-Saharan Africa:
Roman conquest of Ethiopia/Eritrea, with settlement and Latinization or Hellenization following.