Re: Language policy

On Sat, 23 Sep 2000, Adam Walker wrote:

>Have any of your conlangs been banned at any point in their histories?  If
>so how did that effect their evolution??
Kerno was, for many centuries, relegated to home use in Kemr. The
tongues of Church and lawcourts have always been Latin; the language
of government, education and business was Brithenig. This was the case
up to about the 1870s. Brithenig has largely been supplanted by Kerno
in the past century, at least in the western parts of the province,
which have never been Brithenig speaking. The eastern parts of the
Province speak Brithenig After a Fashion, and have largely been left
to it; rather than attempt to wage a kind of reverse linguistic
warfare. Even so, they must learn Kerno if they expect to do business
in the Province. Lawcourts and the Church are largely unaffected by
the changes; though Mass is increasingly done up with the 'peripheral'
parts in Kerno and the the 'important' bits in Latin.

Brithenig has had rather a large lexical effect on Kerno - and indeed
new words are continually borrowed. The greatest effect on the
language has been a kind of enforced splintering; since a literary
standard was never allowed to develop. Even now, there are two primary
dialects and a number of lesser languages around; and none of these
seem able to obtain any kind of supremacy. Also, there is no such
thing as a standard orthography; so spelling is largely a matter of
personal choice or regional preference. The orthography is also a
great cause of yelling and name calling amongst those as ought to know
better.

Padraic.

>Adam