Re: yet another romance conlang

At 18:30 +0100 9.1.2000, Raymond Brown wrote:
>>I was under the impression that the Berbers remained outside the
>>influnence of Roman society.
>
>I find it difficult to believe that they all did.  Who then was living
>within the Roman provinces between Libya and the Atlantic?  Surely it was
>not only Roman settlers; there must have been a good number of pre-Roman
>natives surely.  And the Romans would certainly have traded with peoples to
>the south.
>
More exactly: what was the linguistic identity/-ies of the population of
the kindoms of Numidia and Mauretania which were incorporated into the
Roman empire?  We don't know exactly how extensive the Carthaginian/Punic
population and domain were, do we?  We do know from historical records that
a good proportion of the armies deployed by the Carthaginians in Sicily and
Italy consisted of Celtic mercenaries -- probably Celts from Spain --, but
there were also Numidians and troops of mixed Punic-Numidian blood.  Were
these Numidians subjects, allies or mercenaries of the Carthaginians?  I
guess there were not always any clear-cut divisions between these.  And to
what extent was the non-Punic population of Carthaginian Africa Punicized,
linguistically and culturall, before being Latinized, and to what extent
did it remain Punic after the Roman takeover? --  until it was eventually
Islamized and Arabized, that is!

>>OK - a goodly proportion, maybe the majority, kept themselves 'pure' from
>Roman 'corruption' - but surely not all.
>
>>Also that African Christianity suffered a
>>mortal blow due to the bad press of the Crusades in Muslim society, only
>>the Monophysite Coptic community surviving to present day in continuity.
>
>Possibly - I get the impression that the _Latin_ Christianity west of Libya
>had largely disappeared before the Crusades (did they move on up into
>Spain?).
It is a known historical fact that they moved over to Italy -- mainly on
ships belonging to the Byzantine imperial navy, which still ruled
unchallenged in the Med for some time.  The population of Romagna and
Basilicata should still be their descendants to a not so small degree!
Apparently a good deal fled to Italy already at the coming of the Vandals.


/BP

 B.Philip Jonsson  <mailto: bpj@...> <mailto: melroch@...>
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