The history of la Limba begins with the Roman conquest of Carthage at the end of the Punic Wars.  When Romans began to establish colonia in North Africa they brought with them their Latin language.  This Latin evolved in ways both similar to and different from other areas of the Empire as Vulgar Latin began to break up into the dialects which would eventually become the modern Romance languages.  Due to its geographical location at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, Carrajena came to exhibit a micture of those features identified as Eastern Romance and those identified as Western Romance.  Sicilian, as would be expected, is usually identified as Carrajena's closest Romace relative, but some features of the language appear more akin to Ibero-Romance while others are quite similar to Romanian (especially the development of /kw/ and /gw/). 

During the Roman period, a number of Punic and Berber terms (mostly geographical or household in nature) were absorbed into the language.  With the coming of Christianity many Greek terms relating to the new religion were absorbed.  This stage of the language is referred to as North African Vulgar Latin.

In the immediate post-Roman period the region was ruled by the Vandals, a Germanic tribe which left few if any traces beyong personal names.  Most authorities beileve that the Vandals had abandoned their Germanic mothertongue during their sojourn in Iberia, hence the lack of  linguistic imprint.

After this brief period of barbarian rule the Byzantine Empire reasserted imperial control and a further influx of Greek administrative terms ensued. This period comes to and end with the Muslim invasions of the late 600's. 

After the fall of the Alexandrian Theocracy a large influx of Coptic refugees brought a few Coptic terms into the language and Arabic began its period of influence.  Arabic influence on Carrajena is at least as pronounced as upon Spanish.  The development of the definite articles shows definte Arabic influence as do the vocabularies of agriculture, science, government and the military.   This period of language development is undocumented, but is referred to as Proto-Carrajena.  It is during this time that the majority of sound changes and grammatical changes occured.  Most, but not all Arabic loans show the same pattern of sound changes as native words and earlier Greek borrowings.

When Roger II of Sicily conquered the area an influx of Sicilian, Norman French, Ventian and Catalan terms ensued.  This period also saw massive creation of learned and semi-learned borrowings from Classical Latin.  Greek and other Mediterranean languages continued to provide some borrowings.  The eariliest vernacular documents in Latin script date from this time and their language is referred to as Old Carrajena.

After the conversion of Talossa to Donatist teachings and the failure of the Pope's so called Albigensian Crusade to recapture the Talossan lands, contact between speakers of Carrajena and those of Occitan increased dramitacally and a number of borrowings happened in both directions. Some scholars concider this to be the beginning of Middle Carrajena.


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