Re: "New World": Little Russia (Malaja Rus'), Texas

--- Vasiliy Chernov <bc_@...> wrote:  [in reply to myself]

> Hmm... unfortunately, I don't know much about the Siberian dialects
> of Russian... It seems that they preserve unstressed [o] and have a
> different phrase intonation; I am not sure about the preservation of
> word-final voiced consonants. If there were many 'Old Believers'
> among
> the first wave of colonists, their language must have been more
> intensely influenced by Church Slavonic. The influence of Ukrainian
> in modern Siberian dialects is probably due to late migration
> influxes.
Well, right now my vision of the future Texas and America is basically
a caricature of an abstract irregular elephant.  I'm still trying to
make a highly paranoid flirtation appear somewhat credible.  (And using
extraneously florid metaphorical railing in the process.)

I had forgotten about the Old Believers.  And there are also the
Dukhobors.  I was really thinking more along the lines of Russians that
converted to Protestantism, in the form of German churches like the
Lutheran and Baptist communions.  It would indeed make sense that the
Old Believers and other religious nonconformists would have a strong
motive to make the trek east.  But Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox and
even some Ukrainian and Ruthenian Catholics made the trip, so it's not
a religious exodus in and of itself.

There were three main Russian migrations, called the Treks.  The First
Trek took place in the 1800s, much of which predated the Texas
Revolution.  Some went through Siberia and Alaska, but still others
ended up in Mexico or the eastern States of the young US republic.
Some of these settlers were apparently known even to Stephen F. Austin.
 The First Trek contained the largest groups of non-Orthodox Christians
and Jews.  Like the other Treks, people came not only from Russia
proper, but from what is today Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia and
Kazakhstan.  The Germans living in Russia came with the first settlers.

The Second and Third Treks took place during the 20th and early 21st
centuries respectively.  The history of Russian migration could be
compared to the real-world history of Irish immigration, which took
place in two waves (mostly Protestants from the 1700s, Catholics from
the 1800s).

Now this "a priori alternative history" I am working out with fear and
trembling.  The beginning of the story takes place in a Texan republic
experiencing unbelievable prosperity and world leadership.  And it
begins in the ambitious rural-suburban development called Bush City,
which is comfortably planted somewhere in the Hill Country north of San
Antonio, west of Austin.

> That's nice... I like the old orthography :)
I wouldn't have it any other way.  If I were a Russian, I'd want to go
back the old orthography.  Well maybe except for all the final
hard-signs.

> For what sounds, I wonder?
The umlauted vowels result from German and French influence, as back
vowels are fronted in a form of umlaut paralleling both languages.  I
also separate the two e's, the one that makes soft consonants and the
one that makes hard ones.  (I reckon the former is accomplished with
the letter Yat... ¿verdad?)

> Rather, I'd consider introducing some new letters for the sounds that
> could appear in loanwords ([d_Z', D, T, h, w, N]) or simply fill in
> the
> gaps in the system ([G], [d_z] - both present in New Greek,
> though...).
I'm thinking reintroduced OCS characters.  (But nothing like
reintroducing Greek Ksi, Psi or Omega.)  I could go so far as to
reassign the phonetic value [T] to Fita...

> Note also that _Malaya Rus'_ (or _Maloróssiya_) is the historical
> name
> of Ukraine (formerly, in the sense 'Russia proper' :-]). _Malen'kaya
> Rossiya_ is a bit cumbersome and doesn't sound like a real placename.
Oh okay, thanks.  I thought the moniker "Little Russia" for Ukraine was
today an anachronism at best and pejorative at worst.

> In today's Russian, there is a jocose way to refer to American
> states,
> like _Tekháschina_, _Oklakhómshchina_ - modeled on the traditional
> names
> of some Russian oblasts like _Bryánshchina_ (Bryansk Region) or
> _Smolénshchina_ (Smolensk Region).
And Bush City, called Bushchina?

(By the way, Bush City is named after a certain president and his son
the heir apparent.)

DeeDubYa.

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