Re: American dialect of Brithenig

[andrew <hobbit@mail.earthlight.co.nz>]

On Sun, 1 Aug 1999, Sally Caves wrote:

> 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:
>
Long messages are good.  It means we are thinking about stuff and helping
make this secondary world more 'real'.  Some bits get me excited, other
bits, as people make guess, excitable!  So it is better for me when more
people contribute to give a more balanced picture of what *there is like.

There is also the add at the back of the first edition of the grammar.

Several of the "Witches" books have been adapted for stage performance,
along with Mort and Guards, Guards!  I know this because I have seen them
in my local SF bookshop.

War in the Heavens reminded more of the works of Charles Williams than
that other guy.  The only one I have is "The Sign of the Lion", all very
apt for "An Eidolonic Endangerment".  I think I would have rather liked to
have seen that than that other guy's latest work.

> Have you read (of course) William Gibson's _The Difference Engine_?
yes

> 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?
>  
If we accept Padraic's estimate then aspects of society range between 1919
to 1989.  The historical phenomenum we call "The '60s" on both sides of
the Atlantic may have been delayed in its impact.

> Exactly.  But what about the contribution of Japan?  Or is Japan still
> in the eighteenth century?
>
This is a question for the althistorians.  If Admiral Perry hadn't gone in
and broken Japan's splendid isolation, who would have?  Such an event
would have been inevitable.  And if Japan became expansive, then the King
of Hawaii might have a quiet word with his patrons, the British.

> 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. 
I like the idea of "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.
>  
I would suggest that that is a Sally Caves question looking for a Sally
Caves answer:)  It means wandering off and looking at the history of
dress - a really fun subject.  Presumably the Romano-British dressed like
Celts.  This would have influenced medieval dress until it gave way to
formal modern dress.  Would the old fashioned flamboyance of the Stuart
age given way to the prudery of the Plantagenets?  Maybe the Kemrese like
their working dress to be more colourful than on the other side of the
Fence.  Something to study...

> 
> 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
Thank you.  We will keep working on it.  It will provide another model for
you to present in your course eventually.

> 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
I have seen them in the bookshop.  Do you recommend them?

> 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.
Written on bark maybe, or in the opinions of linguists (which is pretty
tough stuff to carve in the first place), but stone?  You amuse me.

PIE conlanging is also a fun hobby!  I have been revising my material on
con-PIE verbs.

- andrew.
--
Andrew Smith, Intheologus 			hobbit@earthlight.co.nz

	Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos! is restored;
	Light dies before thy uncreating word:
	Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall;
	And Universal Darkness buries All.
			- Alexander Pope, The Dunciad, Book IV.