Rome Ruled North Africa for 584 Years. So Why Is Latin Gone?

Rome ruled North Africa for 584 years, more than three times as long as it held Romania. Romania kept a language that grew out of Latin. North Africa didn't. The usual answer is that the Arabs came and Arabic replaced Latin. That's only part of the story. Latin didn't disappear when Carthage fell around 698. In the early 8th century, Umayyad coins struck at Carthage and Kairouan carried Islamic phrases written in Latin. In the 10th and 11th centuries, Christians in Kairouan were still carving Latin epitaphs. One gravestone gives its date twice: AD 1007 and 397 in the Hijri calendar. In 1154, al-Idrisi wrote that most people in Gafsa spoke "the African Latin tongue". He also called them "largely Berberised". Scholars call that language African Romance. It lasted at least until the 11th century and probably into the early 14th. Its traces are still inside Berber (Amazigh) today. You can hear them in words like afullus (from pullus*), *ikiker (from *cicer*) and *abekkaḍu*, "sin" (from *peccatum*). There's also a farming calendar that starts with *yennayer*, from Latin *Ianuarius*. The video starts with Carthage and Punic. From there it goes through Augustine, Latin Africa, the Vandals, the Byzantine return of 533 and the Arab conquest, then into Latin's long fade. Before giving my answer I sort the evidence into what's strong, what's likely and what's still debated. That includes the possible link to Sardinian and how long the language really lasted. Then I put North Africa side by side with Romania and Britain. My reading of why the outcomes differed is clearly marked as interpretation, not settled fact. A note on the number: 584 years runs from the fall of Carthage (146 BC) to the Vandal capture of the city (439 AD). That's a judgement call. If you count Byzantine rule up to around 698, it's 843 years, or 850 with Britannica's date of 705. It also wasn't Rome's longest hold anywhere, since Spain and Italy were held longer. Against Romania and Britain, though, North Africa is the long one. ▶ The mirror video, Rome Barely Ruled Romania. So Why Do Romanians Still Speak Latin?:    • Rome Barely Ruled Romania. So Why Do Roman...   Chapters 0:00 Rome kept Latin in Romania, but not here 1:09 Counting the 584 years 2:25 Carthage spoke Punic 3:01 Augustine: "the cradle is still warm" 3:39 Carthage and African Latin 4:37 The Vandals and Rome's return (533) 5:34 The Arab conquest, around 698 6:00 Latin on Umayyad coins 6:27 Latin gravestones in Kairouan 7:09 "The African Latin tongue" (al-Idrisi, 1154) 8:13 The Banu Hilal and Latin's slow fade 9:07 Latin words inside Berber 10:37 Yennayer: a Roman calendar in North Africa 11:29 What's solid, what's debated 12:15 Romania, Britain, North Africa: why the outcomes differed 14:30 Marhaba, and the answer