Re: imagining language(s)

At 9:51 pm +1200 7/5/00, andrew wrote:
>Am 05/07 06:50  Raymond Brown yscrifef:
[...]
>rathter than a province.  The British in this history might not be
>dependent on imperial forces to protect them and might have kept the
>Angles out.
>
>
>> Oh yes, and in this world, there'd have been no Brithenig either ;)
>
>No, but there might have been a Brythonic language with a Anglo-saxon
>superstrata spoken across southern Britain.
Alas, only if the Britons had a change of character, I think.  They were
never united and had this disastrous habit of bringing in outsiders to help
get the better of their neighbors.  That's how the Romans got involved in
the first place *here*; some guy called Catauellaunus IIRC was making a
nuisance of himself and Brits in neighboring 'tribes' called in the Romans
to sort him out.  A few centuries later king Vortigern called in Saxon
mercenaries to help him keep fellow Britons in check.  The trouble, the
Brits found out, is that these foreigners tend to hang around, are
generally more organized than the quarreling Brits & eventually take over
the place.

Indeed, if north Gaul became a semi-hellenized buffer state, you get bet
your last dollar that at some stage one Brit tribe or other would've got
the Hellenic Federation (or Empire) to intervene in internal quarels.

Maybe a Greek derived language with strong Brittonic undertones?  :)

Ray.

PS - I'm not getting involved in central Asia - I'll leave that to Jonathan
- it was his idea, after all   :)


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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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