Re: Nur-ellen in the world of Brithenig (was Re: Nur-ellenuniverses)

Am 08/30 02:11  J?rg Rhiemeier yscrifef:
> Me govanen!
>
E helo anghor!


> Someone *will* have cobbled together a Kemrese national epic some time
> around 1900
> which no doubt will prominently feature Elves.
>
Probably with Elves, a guest appearance of the Emperor Arthur, and a
thousand elephants :)  If somebody finds out they can let me know.


> And what do the Cos Nustr think about them?  Do they hate them like
> everything else non-Brithenig, or do they worship them as the "noble
> elder race"?
Unless there are Elves sympathetic to lla Gos Nustr I would say that
they don't like them.  They wouldn't like anyone whose claim precedes
their own.


> (Thinking of Mertlad: pagan sites often tend to be overbuilt with
> churches when christianity moves into an area.  Why was the church of
> Tavrob`l built off the site?)
>
Hmmm.  Good question.


> The exact position is, as you probably already found out, where the
> River Trent crosses the 2-degree meridian.  The city (well, the old part
> of it) lies on the north bank of the river, just as the village of Great
> Haywood does *here*.
> It also happens to sit exactly on the straight line running through
> Stonehenge and the Avebury stone circle, i.e. on one of the country's
> most prominent ley lines.  Coincidence?
>
Currently under investigation by Gwlffigl Mulder.


> So M.Gw. might be a rather small town just east or just west of Yll
> Ffens
> (if that is the Br. term for the border), possibly known by a name which
It is.  It means the same in English as in Brithenig.  Crossing the
border is referred to as Troersar ill Yscaler, "crossing the stile".

> So what is the name of Tavrob`l in Brithenig, "Tafrobl", "Tafrobyl",
> or "Tref-di'll-busc" or something like that?  I think it depends on
> whether the Kemrese populace was aware of the meaning of the name or
> not.  If they were, they no doubt translated it; if not, the Brithenig
> name might be an arbitrarily distorted form of the Elvish original.  You
> are the expert here on how such a name would have evolved in Brithenig,
> not me; your suggestion?  (The name Tavrob`l is pronounced [tavrob@l],
> with stress on the _o_; the schwa /@/ is a very weak and short one (some
> Nur-ellen dialects would drop it and pronounce the name with a syllabic
> /l/); /r/ is an alveolar trill.)
>
My usual policy is to find out if a placename has a latin or a Celtic
name given to it and work off that.  Otherwise it would be Tafrobl /t@
'vro b(@)l/.


> If I understand correctly, you mean there are 400,000 Elves (to use this
> word as a term of convenience for this ethnic group) among 4 million
> citizens of Kemr.
Yes.

> Assume that about half of them actually speak Nur-ellen either as L1 or
> L2.
> Giving the cultural importance of the minority to Kemr as a whole,
> Nur-ellen should find quite favourable social conditions in Kemr, and
> one can assume that the number of Nur-ellen speakers it at least stable,
> if not increasing!
Yes.

> There might be quite a number of L2 or L3 Nur-ellen speakers *not* of
> Elvish origin, especially among environmentalists and other
> "counter-cultural" types.
>
Yes.

> I think the city of Tavrob`l (and its vicinity) has an above-average
> Elvish population, such that of its 200,000 citizens (I'll take this
> number as fixed unless there is a problem with having a city of this
> size at that location - but I don't see why it should be a problem at
> all, given that Birmingham and Stoke-on-Trent might not be there at
> all), some 50,000 are Elves, and given the strength of Nur-ellen
> cultural life in the city, most of them actually speak Nur-ellen.
>
The closest town I know of is Pengryg' (Pencridge) west of the Trent, so
there should be room for Tafrobl.  Urbanisation occured later in Kemr
than in other parts of Britain.


> I once made my own thoughts about it.  My impression was that it would
> seem fit if the nations on the Continent were smaller and more diverse
> than they are *here*, just as they are in the Isles.  So, among others,
> I had the idea that Bismarck's reunification of Germany never happened,
> but the country splintered into about half a dozen separate nations in
> the 17th century, each having promoted their dialect to the national
> language.  So the official language of Lower Saxony (bigger than the
> German state that goes by the name *here*) is indeed "Plattdüütsch"
> (except that they call it "Neddersassens" there; this would make
> "Saesonig" an ambiguous term), that of Bavaria is Bavarian, etc.
> However, Padraig said that there was (and still *is*) a German Empire.
>
Weren't some of those states encorporated in the German Empire with
their own governments, or at least their heads of state, still intact?
Maybe some of them could be autonymous.


> The fact that there is still a Kaiser in Germany does not necessary mean
> that Germany is still an aggressive, militarist country.  The Kaiser
> might by now be a mere figurehead, like the kings of Scandinavia, while
> it is a smoothly functioning democravy entertaining friendly relations
> with all its neighbours.
>
Now there's a thought!  Maybe descended from Kaiser Frederick I?  I
think that's the right name.

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

             Jesus Christ is raging, raging in the streets.