Re: The Brzhona.

[Padraic Brown <pbrown@nova.umuc.edu>]

On Thu, 25 Jun 1998, Raymond A. Brown wrote:

> At 11:27 24/6/98, Frank George Valoczy wrote:
> [.....]
> >
> >Well.  I used Breton as the Celtic base; wheter this is Brithonic or
> >Gaulish, I don't know.  I'd figure the former (Brezhoneg).  I might have
> >made a rather large blunder,
> 
> No you haven't.  Breton is most definitely Brythonic/Brittonic, being
> closely related to Cornish.
> 
> The only controversial question is why they fled SW Britain to settle in
> Armorica; it used to be claimed that they were fleeing the nasty Saxons,
> but modern scholars think the activities of Irish pirates & raiders is a
> far more like cause.   There is no evidence that the Gallic language
> survived the Roman period at all.

That would seem to provide a more immament explanation for the
emmigrations.  I think they were operating at around the same time as the
Saxons, though (5th - 6th cen. or so), being after the Romans 'officially'
left the island. I would take _my_ tribe elsewhere with bloody Saxons on
one side and bloody Irish on the other! 

Wouldn't the Franks (or whatever other invading Germans) have been
responsible for the ultimate demise of Gaulish, and also the Gauls
themselves?

> 
> >>
> >> What impelled them to leave Brittany for the nascent Low Countries?  You
> >> said _most_ of them left; what about those that stayed behind?
> >>
> >
> >Having had that little taste of self-rule, they didn't particularly like
> >being ruled over by the French, who didn't really treat them all that well
> >either, so they took off to somewhere new.
> 
> I must confess I haven't read the 'alternate history' closely, but *here*
> Britanny wasn't finally brought under centralized French control until the
> Revolutionaries closed down the Breton parliament.

Of course, this may not be the case *there*, as the Revolution must
undoubtedly take a different course (no US model, for one and no Merkian
influence); perhaps Kemran intervention previous to this time (i.e.,
perhaps the ties between the two (Kemr and Britanny) are 'more' than just
cultural and linguistic).

> 
> Ray.
> 
Padraic.