Re: American dialect of Brithenig

[Sally Caves <scaves@frontiernet.net>]

Padraic Brown wrote:

> Dear Sal!  Look at the back of your K. Grammar .. what do you see?
> Adverts for current moving pictures!  

Hahahahahahaha!  ROFL!  Yikes, I didn't get this far in the Grammar!
This is wonderful!  "The Rescue of Soldier Ryan."  Hee hee hee...
okay, "The Witches of L'Ancrea" must be "The Witches of Eastwick,"
and "An Eidolonic Endangerment"... I'm sure we can all guess what
that means, once we refresh our knowledge of _eidolon_ from any
dictionary.  Good show, Patrick!!!  I'm blown away!  My comments
are loooooong:

> Obviously the World *there* can not
> be precisely the same as the World *here*.  Technology is somewhere
> "behind" *there*.  There are computers, probably some kind of
> "computerised network", but no or very few "PCs": they're large and
> expensive and generally found in Government, universities, research
> facilities and the like: no PC banking, no ATMs, no internet stock
> trading.  There are corporations (the ones thus far named are British
> Overseas Airway Corp., Royal Bank of Scotland, Royal Bank of Cambria, Bank
> of England, Bank of Dumnonia, Metropolitan Moving Pictures and Mama
> Martinez, a Spanish/Gypsy hole in the wall eatery in Esca) and they work
> for the greater part on paper.  Also look at the back of the Grammar, and
> you'll see a typical airline advert.  I don't know if there are any
> nuclear weapons as we know and love them *here*; but there are atomic
> weapons of some sort there. (One fiction/thriller story from *there*
> entails a terrorist organisation's plot to buy an atomic device from the
> Germans, and then plant and detonate it in downtown London; and the
> stunning consequences of same.)

Have you read (of course) William Gibson's _The Difference Engine_?
Do you conceive of New Caerleon as being a kind of nineteenth century
in the twentieth century?  Or perhaps the twenties or thirties in the
nineties?  What do the people of that America envision for the third
millenium?
 
> My guess is that technology *there* ranges from 10 to 80 years behind
> *here*.  

Yes.

> There is radio and television (and therefore juice), but these
> have not reached all places: tv is probably in colours by now, but is not
> HDTV, no VCRs no laser disc players, has a definable "broadcast day" and
> they're also expensive. There are automobiles, busses, trollies, trains,
> airships, aeroplanes, and diesel powered ships.  Automobiles are not
> excessively common (the American phenomenon of two cars in every garage
> doesn't exist), but are not rare as a month of Saturdays either.  People
> travel mostly by train (the vast majority of which are electric, unlike
> the US, anymore), which are ubiquitious in the land; trollies and busses
> are frequently found in Town and suburbs.  Foreign travel is accomplished
> by airship or passenger liners.  Aeroplanes are curiosities ruminated on
> by the military (RAF) or are the domain of a few rich (but idiotic and
> shortlived)  barnstormers (After all, who would want to go up in the air
> in something that doesn't naturally float!?).
> 
> Basically think of *here* without the contribution of the USA (with all
> its associated problems and triumphs); 

Exactly.  But what about the contribution of Japan?  Or is Japan still
in the eighteenth century?

> but some slack of which is taken up
> by other countries, most notably the FK and Germany.

> entertainment is found in pubs and house
> parties; and where (if you can get one into a place) a motorcar would be
> The Thing to See -- and where people would dress up in Sunday Best and
> pay sixpence to ride in it.

Okay... here is my BURNING question... have you given a thought to how
people would be dressed in this alternate America?  I wonder if fashion
and technology go along together (they seem to: all those bustles and
steam engine comparisons), or at least "leisure" or "pace" and fashion. 
If this
is an alternate America with a less developed technology and you were to
take a picture of downtown New Caerleon, what would the people be
wearing?
(Definitely a woman's question... definitely a Sally Caves question, who
likes to draw cities and people in strange dress).  I suppose, too, that
there would be few if any black faces in New Caerleon.
 
> Britain probably looks somewhat the same at it does *here* (the worst of
> transtemporal effects happen in the places _affected_ by Britain, like the
> US).  Technologically and materialistically same as above.  Pace of life
> *there* I think must be a little slower than *here*.  A good salary is in
> the 7000 to 11000 pound range.  This is enough to live decently with a
> good sized family and manage some nice holidays.  [Note that one can take
> a decent tour holiday of Europe (off season), all inclusive, for about one
> month's salary.  *Here*, you can buy a roundtrip airfare for that.]

A million other questions, but these will have to do for now.  You see,
I'm interested, eventually, in teaching a course on time travel and
alternate
history, and you've got a fabulous thing going here, all of you.  Have
you
also read Stirling's new "trilogy" (only two books out): _Island in the
Sea of Time_ (about how Nantucket just gets temporally cut off by some
phenomenon referred to as "The Event") and transported back in time to
1250 b.c.?  The islanders have to figure out how 7000 people are going
to survive with dwindling fuel, little farmland, no cattle or grain,
and how they are going to sail to, and trade with the pre-British 
inhabitants of Britain.  The second book chronicles their contact with
the Myceneans (one renegade fool, who wants to become a conquistador and
demagogue, escapes and takes "technology" to the Mediterranean).  An
engrossing read.  You have the potential here for a similarly engrossing
novel, and not only that, you've developed the language for it. 
Stirling
has done some linguistic research, apparent in a few phrases he tries
his hand at in PIE, but my impression was that he assumes that the stuff
with the asterisks was written in stone.

Sally
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