Re: American dialect of Brithenig

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

On Sun, 1 Aug 1999, Sally Caves wrote:

[Re: hodge podge of cultures *here* and *there*]
> 
> But that's what we were as well.  Mostly from the British Isles, with

That's true!  I also get the (possibly mistaken) feeling that the Colonies
*there* are rather more discreet.  John has laid out Brithenig speaking
colonies, Scots speaking colonies, English colonies, Irish/Swedish
colonies, etc.  The modern cities and states of *here* are more mixt.

> some German, Dutch, French colonies too.  If colonization of the
> Americas
> was happening *there* at roughly the same time as it did *here*, what's
> to
> keep the "British" as you've made them from making the same quarrelsome
> and territorial mistakes that the early settlers did?  The nature of the
> Brithenig Empire?  After all, this is a big, new territory.  Are the 
> Brithenig *there* so much more sensitive about the Native Americans?
> And somehow successfully repellant of the conquistadorial Spaniards?

I'd like to think they would be.  They were more "sensitive" towards the
Irish (apparently by leaving them more or less alone).  I don't know what
in particular might keep the British from stepping on their own fingers.
They are certainly a "different" Britain.

> 
>  In this century,
> > we've meddled in the affairs of others (namely WWI & WWII), in which our
> > enemies were utterly broken and which we built up again. 
> 
> Yes, granted, but this is a given after the long establishment of
> colonization
> and conquest.  The twentieth-century is built on earlier centuries. 
> What was
> different about settlement and colonization *there* in the seventeenth,
> eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries?  No American revolution?  Is that

There wasn't one.  Or at least there was a very different one.  My guess
is that either revolutionary fervor wasn't piqued in the first place; or
(more likely) Government took Steps to head off whatever problems may have
occurred.

> the
> clincher?  I guess I need to know more about early Brithenig history and
> philosophy... how much wiser they must be than our ancestors.

I think we _all_ need to know a bit more.  Only work on Brithenig history
I'm familiar with is Sellar & Yeatman ("Comprising all the parts you can
remember...") and is therefore not too helpfull. :)

> 
> I presume, too, that there was also no "White Man's Burden," and that
> India and other countries were left to themselves.

I fear they must have gotten involved in India in some way.  Andrew has
mentioned that one can get curry and chips in Caerleon.  Who knows about
Africa!?

> 
>  [I don't think the "Great Wars" of *there* are the same as
> > WWI and WWII *here*.  They're probably not much more than an extension of
> > the General European War that's been going on since the 7th century or so.
> > (Has Europe ever had a peaceful century?)  My sources for WW what-ifs are
> > the two alternate history lists on the net.  The concensus seems to be
> > that if the US keeps away from the 20th century chapter of Eurowar,
> > Germany might very well fight to a draw (if not win) WWI (thus no
> > Versailles, no reparations, no utter devastation of German economy, no
> > rise of Hitler, no WWII). That being the case, Hitler and WWII as we know
> > and love it can never be.  *There*, the second Great War of the century
> > must be rather different; and who knows who the players are and where it's
> > fought? Must the FK even get involved?]
> > 
> > *There*, there is no USA (as coarsely described above).  I'm not saying
> > that technology _can not_ advance, not that there _can not_ be a sexual
> > revolution or whatever else; only that they must evolve differently and
> > with different social impetus.  And that the rise of these events must use
> > a different curve.  In my never be humble opinion, in essence, No USA =
> > Very Different World.
> 
> But it was That World that made possible the USA.  That's the intricate
> problem
> with alternate histories!  How did the Brithenig Empire change that
> curve?
> And how early?

*This* world made possible the USA: one with a consolidated Britain with
one Metropolitan centre. The world that made possible the League is a
tripartite Britain with at least three centers.  The changes must begin as
early as the fifth century or so!  An althistorians maxim: the earlier the
Point of Departure; the greater the magnitude of change.

Padraic.

>  
> Sal
> -- 
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