[YG Conlang Archives] > [romconlang group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
--- In romconlang@yahoogroups.com, Padraic Brown <elemtilas@...> wrote: > > --- italocarune <italocarune@...> wrote: > > > Seeing as you are in Ill Bethisad, I thought > > I'd ask you a few questions about it. > > > > 1) Are there any undeveloped areas of Europe > > where a romance language could be spoken? > > Say, for example, the islands in the Tyrrhenian > > sea off Sicily (Vulcano, Lipari, Stromboli, > > Salinia, Filicudi, Alicudi, Panarea), or in the > > Adriatic? > > Realistically, I don't see how there can be any > room for any new major languages in Europe, > especially Romance ones. Small dialects no one > has ever heard of -- sure. How about something with as many speakers as, say, Rumantsch? > > 2) What's happening with Malta, politically? > > It is ruled by the Order of Hospitallers. It is > an independent country within the Commonwealth of > Nations. > > > The article in the IB wiki was very > > nonspecific. Is it > > a sovereign country? Is there someone working > > on it? > > Someone has indeed come forth to claim it from > me. Ah, well. Malta would have been nice. > > 3) What advice would you have for me, if I > > find a niche? > > Depends on what you expect fór a niche. If you > expect a major Romance language or a large > country or a profound impact on IB history -- > that might not be possible. That's fine. I'd be happy with a few islands. > If you'd be happy with a small backwater part of > one of the already existing countries; if you'd > be happy constructing a moribund language; if > you'd be happy with a very small island -- then > there might be some room to introduce new > languages into the Romance area. A very small island would be good. I'll look around some maps of the Adriatic and see what I can find for perhaps a few small islands. > If you're interested in some aspect of culture or > history or whatever then there might be an even > better prospect. At this point, IB seems to be > looking for depth more than breadth. How so? > > I'm trying to figure out if I could jump in > > somewhere. It would have to be Europe, since > > conlangs are really my strong point, and I > > don't know enough about non-IE languages (non- > > romance, really) to make one for anywhere else. > > A smallish corner of Europe could probably be > explored for a minor language. > > Let's hear what you have in mind and we'll see if > it can fit! Well, say the island of Elba and its neighbor Pianosa and any other mini-islands there were home to a dialect of Italian that got mixed up with Corsican (or French, whichever is dominant in Corsica) and spawned its own language, ending up with its own language? It wouldn't necessarily have to be its own country (though that would be nice, it's only a little bit smaller than Malta, after all), but it would be a nice little area to work on. Maybe it starts of as an administrative division of Italy, but eventually declares its independence. There are several alternatives I can think of, and different other languages they could mix with (the Isole Lipari that I mentioned above, Isola di Pantelleria, or possibly, moving further away, such islands as Cres, Dugi Otok, Kornat, and the like off the coast of Dalmatia).