Śaidahami and Šočyan dialects

[Atom]

Zomp, have you given much thought to the Kebreni and Verdurian dialects in Lebiscuri? I know there used to be sketches of dialects in the Verdurian grammar for Eralae, and I think some of that got moved to the Almeopedia, but the Kebreni dialects are AFAIK undescribed beyond being "highly divergent". Presumably in Lebiscuri they have become different again like English/Spanish/Portuguese in the Americas.

[zompist]

Not much yet, but I do want to get to these. To get to Śaidahami I will have to treat Modern Kebreni first, of course!

Offhand I would probably aim to describe Śaidahami and Šočyan dialects in the mid 3800s, when they've had 300 years to diverge from the Eretaldan forms. That's not long enough for mutual unintelligibility, but there should be some fun differences.

[Atom]

Where in Eretald did the majority of Verdurian speakers immigrate from to Šočyan? It would be interesting to reflect some smaller dialects in Lebiscuri, sort of like how US English is influenced by Scottish + West country dialects. Same with Kebreni.
I know quite a bit about the development of US English, not really sure about other models. I get the sense that Śaidahami is a bit Brazilian, in the way that it has more native influence and is much larger than the original home land. Funny to imagine Śaidahameu going around saying "Niriźe". I'm sure you'll have something more interesting there, I look forward to it!

[Raphael]

Somewhat related to this topic: Are there any hard-and-fast rules about to which extent discussing Almea+400 stuff is allowed here? I mean, we're probably not supposed to discuss extensive details of how --------- reacted to the ------- ----, and how that influenced their relations with -------------, especially regarding -------, right?

[zompist]

Somewhat related to this topic: Are there any hard-and-fast rules about to which extent discussing Almea+400 stuff is allowed here? I mean, we're probably not supposed to discuss extensive details of how --------- reacted to the ------- ----, and how that influenced their relations with -------------, especially regarding -------, right?

I'd say it's like an upcoming movie: try to avoid spoilers. I mean, it's designed with surprises and unexpected bits, and those should be left for people to discover when the material comes out.

(The language stuff will all be public, just with a delay. Come to think of it, I should get another web page up...)

[Raphael]

Thank you!

[bradrn]

Somewhat related to this topic: Are there any hard-and-fast rules about to which extent discussing Almea+400 stuff is allowed here? I mean, we're probably not supposed to discuss extensive details of how --------- reacted to the ------- ----, and how that influenced their relations with -------------, especially regarding -------, right?

…was this edited by zompist, or did you write it this way originally?

[Raphael]

Somewhat related to this topic: Are there any hard-and-fast rules about to which extent discussing Almea+400 stuff is allowed here? I mean, we're probably not supposed to discuss extensive details of how --------- reacted to the ------- ----, and how that influenced their relations with -------------, especially regarding -------, right?

…was this edited by zompist, or did you write it this way originally?

I wrote it that way originally.

[BGMan]

Where in Eretald did the majority of Verdurian speakers immigrate from to Šočyan? It would be interesting to reflect some smaller dialects in Lebiscuri, sort of like how US English is influenced by Scottish + West country dialects. Same with Kebreni.

Initially, it would have been the parts of the old country nearest the ports (West England near Bristol and Plymouth, which is why American English is rhotic; Andalusia in the case of Spain). Then when the colony is well-established, then it would shift to the poorest people in the old countries (Ireland for the English-speakers; Galicia for the Spanish-speakers). In the case of Portugal, later Portuguese immigrants to Brazil were definitely poorer than the initial founders, but there wasn't much of a regional difference presumably due to Portugal's small size. The French in Quebec were cut off from France after the British takeover, so they're all basically decended from French from near France's 17th-century ports.

We might initially expect Saidahami to follow the Portuguese model in regards to its ethnic Kebreni population as far as immigration goes. But since Kebri was both small and wealthy, and Saidahami did come to far outnumber Kebri, Saidahami would have had to gain Eretaldan population from sources outside Kebri. But there's a problem... it would have trouble attracting Eretaldan migrants from outside Kebri due to the hassle in learning Kebreni, whereas Socya -- or Brazil in our world -- would have less trouble. (Note that Germanic immigrants tended to favor the United States and Romance immigrants South America; today, within post-Cold War Europe, we've seen Romanians preferring Italy and Spain.)

I could easily see Saidahami developing a sort of Kebreni-Verdurian(-Bhogetan) creole or mixed language, which may or may not eventually elbow aside standard Kebreni. (If it does, Saidahami independence looks like an obvious choice for a breaking point.) Saidahami was already described as having a laissez-faire attitude toward native languages, in contrast to Socya's French-style assimilationist attitude, so this type of creole developing and taking off seems like a no-brainer. In this manner, we may see less of a Portuguese than a Dutch model, where Dutch remains an elite language and various creoles predominate among the population like Papiamento, Sranan Tongo, and Afrikaans.

[zompist]

Initially, it would have been the parts of the old country nearest the ports (West England near Bristol and Plymouth, which is why American English is rhotic; Andalusia in the case of Spain).

This is a good point, but I'd note that Kebri is kind of all ports. It's a small country where no place is more than 100 km from the sea.

But since Kebri was both small and wealthy, and Saidahami did come to far outnumber Kebri, Saidahami would have had to gain Eretaldan population from sources outside Kebri. But there's a problem... it would have trouble attracting Eretaldan migrants from outside Kebri due to the hassle in learning Kebreni, whereas Socya -- or Brazil in our world -- would have less trouble.

I'm not sure if you're following Almea+400, but I'd note that this was not a problem for Śaidahami or Šočya. They had immigrants from all over Eretald, from Xurno, from the DU (southeast Ereláe), even Téllinor.

I think you may underestimate (say) how much English an immigrant to the USA in the 1880s or 1890s would need. It was almost nil. There were existing communities to fit into, manual labor with minimal instruction, newspapers in a dozen languages, very little government bureaucracy (no income tax, no insurance forms).

(Oh, and people from Śaidahami are śaidahameu. No plural needed in Kebreni.)

I haven't got to Modern Kebreni yet, and there's a huge war that takes higher priority, but I'll get to it eventually.

[BGMan]

I'm not sure if you're following Almea+400, but I'd note that this was not a problem for Śaidahami or Šočya. They had immigrants from all over Eretald, from Xurno, from the DU (southeast Ereláe), even Téllinor.

I think you may underestimate (say) how much English an immigrant to the USA in the 1880s or 1890s would need. It was almost nil. There were existing communities to fit into, manual labor with minimal instruction, newspapers in a dozen languages, very little government bureaucracy (no income tax, no insurance forms).

(Oh, and people from Śaidahami are śaidahameu. No plural needed in Kebreni.)

I haven't got to Modern Kebreni yet, and there's a huge war that takes higher priority, but I'll get to it eventually.

For low-paid urban labor, that makes sense, although at least in the United States, rural farmers and urban business owners tilted toward Germanic-speakers, possibly because the English-language demands on them were higher.

Regardless, I would think native Kebreni-speakers in Saidahami are thin on the ground enough that a collapse similar to that of Dutch into Afrikaans is almost to be expected. It might be a good opportunity to cook up a Kebreni-based creole or two, a bit like your Hanying project. For Saidahami's farmers, maybe something like a Verdurian-based creole with a Kebreni acrolect, antibenefactive aspect and a strong Viminian accent.