Re: Alternative history - a plea!

[John Cowan <cowan>]

Rhaifun Bryn yscrifef:

> 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).

Quite so, but probably not without leaving some interesting traces on
the *langue d'oil*, which I am not competent to reconstruct.
I have already spotted the "amur/afur" doublet in modern Brithenig,
with the first a borrowing from *langue d'oc*.

> 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!

Quite so.

> 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?

I'm not sure about the Highlands, but Gaelic is most certainly the
majority language in Ireland, and it is the official language after
independence.  Brithenig and English are also widely spoken especially
in the southern cities (Atha Cliath, Corcaigh, etc.), but the countryside
is firmly monolingual.

> It's a small request to compensate for the loss of Welsh, Cornish & Breton.

Absolutely.

-- 
John Cowan					cowan@ccil.org
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban.