Re: Nur-ellen in the world of Brithenig

Me govanen!

Padraic Brown tetent:

> On Sun, 10 Sep 2000, Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
>
> >> >Another question: what sizes are the cities of Kemr?  I guess that
> >> >Castreleon is around 500,000 or 600,000, which seems right to me for the
> >> >capital of a country numbering 4 million.  Aberddui would then count
> >> >some 300,000, with Esca and Tafrobl being around 200,000.
> >>
> >> Sounds about right to me.
> >
> >John apparenly says that Castreleon is bigger (about 900,000), so
> >Aberddui and Esca may be slightly bigger (400,000 and 300,000,
> >respectively) as well.  But keep Tafrobl at 200,000 or only slightly
> >more, it seems just right to me.  My idea is that Tafrobl is the fourth
> >largest city of Kemr.
>
> I wouldn't put Esca quite that high. No more than 275.000 or so.
> It's not a big place at all.
Yep.  Not that much bigger than Tafrobl which I'd fix at 220,000.

So we can perhaps fix these numbers:

Castreleon   900,000
Aberddui     420,000
Esca         270,000
Tafrobl      220,000

> > [boundary within the March]
>
> Like Dunein, the March still retains some of its native nobility. In
> the case of Dunein, it was at one time an independant country. When
> Kernow came to unite with Cambria; much of the political structure was
> retained, but transmuted into a provincial structure. A number of
> customs and a large portion of the legal system were retained as well.
Similar to the way Scotland got integrated into the UK *here*, I guess.

> Curiously, the languages is what whithered. Though that situation was
> dealt with in the last century which saw a revival of the local
> languages.
I guess that Kerno was officially held to be a dialect of Brithenig
until a few decades ago, while in fact it is a language of its own.  Are
Brithenig and Kerno mutually intelligible or not?

>       Similarly, the March still has minor kings floating about,
> though they were never an independant country. In this case, there are
> two kingdoms - rather like how Dunein is divided into four kingdoms.
> In the modern period, this is really a subprovincial division more
> than a division between kingdoms.
I understand this.  Did anyone ever fix the names of the two kingdoms?

What is the capital of the March, and what are the capitals of the two
kingdoms?
The northern one would have a dominant Elvish element and could have a
Nur-ellen name: _Lalorndor_ "elm country", capital Tafrobl.  The
Brithenig name may be an adaption or a translation.

Lalorndor would not be a kingdom, but a traditional democratic republic
with a parliament (I haven't fixed a Nur-ellen term for this yet) and an
elected governor (_kondir_).  There is of course lots of old ritual
connected with the proceeding of the political institutions.  While the
working sessions of the parliament are not much different from those of
any other modern parliament, sessions of ceremonial character (such as
the opening session) are held on Mertlad according to ancient
procedures.

This is something the Elves negotiated out of the kings of Kemr quite a
long time ago; Ill Terruin accepted mainly because he wanted to avoid
losing Lalorndor to Saeson.  Does this make sense?

> >It seems to represent some kind of political subdivision of the
> >province, but there are no labels on the map.  The northern part could
> >indeed be "Pays d'Ylyl" or something like that, though in that case the
> >line should rather slope towards the south-east.
>
> Along that river there? I think such a thing could be arranged.
No, I was rather thinking of a line running from a bit north of the
western end of the line that's on the map to the southeastern corner of
the province.  This is approximately the boundary of the area where
Nur-ellen is the dominant language.

> > [The name "Tafrobl"]
>
> They're not so smug that they'd translate a for'n name. For'n names
> only get mangled; though Tawrovels /'ta:wrovejs/ seems to survive
> rather well. "Forrest Town" would be il dunes y bhosckes /ij 'dun@s
> i 'vo:sk/. Curiously enough, Tawrovels would be interpreted as
> Handsome Bull in Kerno.
"Handsome Bull"... ROTFL!  This is a good one!

>       Not a bad name either way; and would be quite
> evocative of the Old Stories (y Dho Ayus, for example), since cattle
> and bulls especially figure somewhat prominently.
I am a complete loss on that matter.  Please enlighten me.

Syld,
Jörg.