Alternative history - a plea!

[raybrown@macline.co.uk (Raymond A. Brown)]

Interesting tho the recent threads on the 'British' Empire & the Federated
Kingdoms may be, as a Celtophile I urge you not to overlook one basic fact:
the existence of Brithenig & Padraic's Kernu mean that yet another group of
Celtic languages were killed off.

English is sometimes portrayed as the "big baddie" that killed off Celtic
langs.  Not so - the greatest 'killer' was spoken Latin.  There was a time
when north Italy was Celtic speaking, together with norther Spain, the
whole of Gaul/France and parts of what is now Belgium, as well as, of
course, the British isles.  Throughout this large area all the Celtic langs
eventually gave way to Latin & then the modern Romance langs.  Now Andrew &
Padraic have spread this to Britannia & Brittonic Celtic has given way to
Romance langs.  If any RomanoBritish fled to Amorica to escape either Saxon
or, what is now thought much more likely, Irish depredations, they'd have
taken their celticized Romance with them - hence no Breton (I suspect the
Romance they took would've soon be absorbed into the Romance dialects
already being spoken in the region).

Although as a linguist I find the Brithenig project intriguing and think
Andrew has blended the Celtic substrate influence with the 'hard core'
Romance of the language in a very skillful way, I bewail a world without
Brittonic Celtic.  *There* the _only_ survivals of the once widespread
Celtic langs will be the Gaelic langs!

Please, whatever you do with your alternative history, please ensure the
Gaels are treated more kindly *there* than they have been *here*.  Can you
avoid depopulating the Highlands & let the Irish keep their own language?
It's a small request to compensate for the loss of Welsh, Cornish & Breton.

Ray.




==========================================================
Written in Net English        Humor not necessarily marked

==========================================================