John Cowan and Scott Horne on Brithenig

[John Cowan <cowan@locke.ccil.org>]

With Scott's permission, I am relaying a brief email conversation
between us.  I began it by saying "Ke ysl es-a?" (What island is that?)
on another mailing list, in context (Michael Everson had posted the
same thing in Irish and Welsh) without explanation.

Scott's address is <shorne@metaphasetech.com>.

Our first exchange (SH-JC) was:

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SH: It looks roughly like a Romance language.

JC: Right.

SH: Sardinian?

JC: Plausible (especially in a context of islands), but wrong.
    Here's three specimens:

JC: Agur ill mun inteir afew yn llinghedig e yn cant comyn. (Gen. 11:1)
    Can in Rhufein, ffâ si llo Rhufan ffeigant. (proverb)
    Yn nediwn seint yn llinghedig es yn nediwn seint yn cor. (proverb)

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This then led to a second exchange (SH - JC - SH2), as follows.
Note that in SH paragraphs Scott doesn't know about Brithenig,
whereas in SH2 paragraphs he does.

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SH: Hmmm, now I'm less inclined to suppose that it's a Romance
    language; it looks vaguely Celtic.  But you've confirmed that
    it's Romance.

JC: Exactly so.  It is a hypothetical reconstruction (by Andrew Smith
    <andrew@earthlight.co.nz>) of the Romance language that could have
    come into being if Latin had been preserved in Britain, rather than
    dying out in favor of Proto-Welsh.

SH2:Score one for you!  I had assumed it was a natural language.

JC:  The language is called "Brithenig"
    (stress final, unstressed vowels reduced).  There is a Web page at
    http://www.earthlight.co.nz/~andrew/brithenig/introduction.html .

SH2:Interesting.  A Romance language with three initial mutations.

SH: The second line must be an analogue of "When in Rome, do what the
    Romans do".  Since _ffeigant_ is third-person plural (and presumably
    present active indicative), _llo Rhufan_ must also be plural--
    if it means `the Romans' (or whatever).
    
JC: Just so.  Plural endings were lost and are now carried only in
    the articles, like French, but B. spelling is fairly phonemic.

SH2:Some French nouns and adjectives are marked for plurality in speech.
    
SH: (Alternatively it could
    mean `in Rome' if the phrase reads `what they do in Rome', but
    that seems unlikely in view of the contrast with _in Rhufein_.)
    I don't know what to make of the _-n_ in _Rhufein_; I'd expect
    some sort of open syllable.
    
JC: I don't either, unless it is an error, or there is influence from
    "Rhufan" < ROMAN-

SH2:The Web page on Brithenig gives _-in_ as a productive suffix, so
    this could be `dear Rome'.  But the _-e-_ seems unlikely if final
    vowels were lost.
    
SH: Likewise, the _-n_ in _Rhufan_ suggests
    that an earlier ending was lost.
    
SH: For the last line, I'll guess `A nation without a language is a
    nation without a heart'.
    
JC: Exactly!
    
SH: _Yn_ seems to be gender-neutral--or does
    this language lack gender?
    
JC: No, m/f gender is preserved, but unus/una merged due to the general
    slaughter of final vowels.  The definite articles, though, are
    ill and lla in the singular, and llo in the plural.

SH2:I would not have expected _llo_ from _illae_, _illî_, or _illa_.

SH: Not sure what to make of _agur_, since _e_ seems to be `and'.
    
JC: "Now", but I don't know why.  It may be a survival from Old British.
    
SH: (It reminds me of Irish _agus_.)  It probably isn't Slavic
    or Germanic.  _Afew_, however, may be Germanic.
    
JC: No, just the normal past definite singular of "afer" < HABERE.
    In B. this verb has remained a normal possessory verb, unlike its
    cognates in other Romance languages.

SH2:Spanish _haber_ is not possessory, but French _avoir_ is.
    
SH: Is this a living language?  The orthography looks recent; the use
    of _w_ limits it to the last several centuries.
    
JC: The "w" glyph may be a modern substitute for "uu", as in Welsh
    itself.
    
SH: Incidentally, I
    wonder what the value of that _w_ is.  Since _ff_ seems to be [f]
    and _Rhuf-_ seems to come from Latin _Rôm-_ (though this isn't
    certain), I'll guess that _f_ is something like [v].
    
JC: All correct (and following Welsh practice).  "w" is /w/ or sometimes
    /u/; "y" is /i/.
    
SH: At least part of the Bible has been translated into this language,
    so it must have (had) a fair number of monolingual speakers.
    
JC: In the hypothetical world, yes.  In the Primary World, we have only
    a few verses.
     
SH: Very puzzling.  The context of earlier e-mail suggests that it's
    spoken on an island off continental Europe, but we've already
    ruled out Sardinia.  Sicily seems doubtful, as do the Balearic
    Islands.  Corsica, maybe?  Not Madeira, and probably not the
    Channel Islands (where Norman French is/was spoken; I once saw a
    short text in Guernseyais, and it was nothing like this language).
    
    Well, it isn't necessarily spoken on an island.  I'll place it
    roughly in the Apennines.  How close am I?
    
JC: The island, of course is Lla Ysl Prydain.

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-- 
	John Cowan	http://www.ccil.org/~cowan	cowan@ccil.org
Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis um dies! / Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau,
Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau / Und trank die Milch vom Paradies.
			-- Coleridge / Politzer