Re: Welshness & Brithenig (was: reformed Welsh Spelling - comments?)

On Sunday, December 7, 2003, at 07:35 PM, Costentin Cornomorus wrote:

> --- Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:
>> On Saturday, December 6, 2003, at 08:07 PM,
>> Costentin Cornomorus wrote:
>>
>>> --- Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:
[snip]

>>> the others. They're enough to give it a Welsh
>>> feel and to make people think that B is,
>>> actually, Welsh; and people have made that
>>> mistake on more than one occasion.
>>
>> I have noticed  :)
>>
>> Strange how little is actually needed to give a
>> conlang the feel of some natlang or other.
>
> Mind you, it's all on the surface!
Absolutely!

[snip]
> Once you get down into the works, the differences
> are clear enough.
Indeed they are - but in this age of instant this &
instant that, people seem too often to go by surface
impression. I'm slowly working my way through about
70 assignments handed in by my students - those who
actually dig beneath the surface & find out what things
are really like seem few & far between  :=(

>> Well, with different (main) versions of revived
>> Cornish
>> you had plenty of orthographic variation to
>> play with :)
>
> Sure. Some from basket A some from basket B...
      :)

[snip]
>> I shan't take on the project as Andrew has
>> already come
>> up with Brithenig, and I don't want IB to
>> become another
>> Auxland with competing versions of Brithenig.
>
> No, of course not! It's merely a hypothetical
> query.
I realize that - but once an "alternative Brithenig"
is there, comparisons begin & even if I held that it
was merely an intellectual exercise, others might not
see it that way.  Maybe I was on Auxlang to long &
am over-concerned - but there it is.

>> Of course, I could have a parallel IB universe
>> - but that is silly IMO.
>
> Apparently that was tried recently and never got
> very far.
So I should hope.

> [snip]
[snip]

>> established himself as King of France also.  I
>> imagine the English nobility
>> would've maintained Norman French or
>> Anglo-Norman, supported by their
>> francophone subjects and that this would've
>> formed the basis of what became
>> in time the common language of the Anglo-Franch
>> realms.  Obviously that couldn't be part of IB
>
> No, but it would make for an interesting conlang
> in some other world!
Yes - the number of parallel universes is, I guess,
infinite   :)

> I don't know much about
> Anglo-Norman, but what I've seen looks pretty
> neat.
Vestiges of it still hang around in our quaint
constitutional packages like "La Reine le veult"
which is the formula for royal assent to Bills
of Parliament in order for them to become law.
Under George VI, the formula was "Le Roy le
veult".  The Queen can, in theory, veto a Bill
with "La Reine s'avisera" - but the last time this
was used was in 1707 when Queen Anne refused assent
to a Scottish Miltia Bill.

Ray
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