Malê Rising - Page 44

Jonathan Edelstein · #**861** August 6th, 2012, 01:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ganesha

Jonathan, was the Hindi-Urdu controversy butterflied ITTL? If so, Sir Syed will probably remain an advocate for all Indians, rather than shifting into a proponent of the two-nation theory as he did IOTL. In real life, Syed's views shifted hugely from 1867-1870 as the Hindi-Urdu controversy convinced him that Hindus didn't have the best interests of all Indians at heart.

Hmmm. From what the linked article says, the roots of the controversy go back well before the POD. It also doesn't seem like one that can be easily resolved: the Hindus wanted Hindi, the language of the majority, to have coequal status, while the Muslims wanted Urdu to maintain the primacy it had under the Moghuls. In the United Provinces, where the controversy became heated during the 1860s, Hindus were a large majority but Muslims were greatly overrepresented in the urban population and had a strong incentive to keep Urdu as a language of government and the Urdu script as the official form of writing. Any controversy that involves a majority wanting to take away a minority's entrenched privileges is guaranteed to be bitter, and I don't see that the politics would work out better in TTL than OTL.

What could happen is for someone - possibly even Sir Syed - to get Gandhi's idea of creating a combined Hindustani language written in both scripts. If that idea comes from a conciliatory Muslim (a Belloist who believes that communalism should transcend religion?) and is adopted by one or two leaders on the Hindu side, then it might convince Sir Syed that inter-religious cooperation still has a future. The actual implementation of Hindustani will probably remain the province of starry-eyed idealists - getting people to speak a new language, even one similar to (and based on) their own, is never an easy proposition - but the very fact that the idealists are promoting language unity rather than language separatism might be enough to keep the Muslims fully on board with the *INC.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Admiral Matt

West Virginia's odd shape is due to it being formed of the counties that happened to be Union-controlled. That's something that could very easily go in a slightly different way, so there's good odds that this WV looks barely off relative to ours. Perhaps it has southwest (OTL) Virginia, or lacks the eastern panhandle.

I'd say that a missing eastern panhandle would be most likely. TTL's Civil War started off with the Confederates in a marginally better position (part of Missouri under a secessionist government); the Union more than made up for it later, but at the time of West Virginia's countersecession, the Confederacy might still hold the pro-secession counties in the east. If changes on that scale will show up on B_Munro's base map, that's the way to go.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Admiral Matt

In a more of a nitpick, Colorado will be the first state to permanently give women the vote, just as Wyoming was historically. New Jersey had granted and then rescinded the privilege after the Revolution.

Fair point. New Jersey had a householder franchise, and female householders could vote on the same terms as males; I believe this was also the case in Massachusetts during the 17th century, as well as some municipal governments in medieval Europe. This is one respect in which a householder franchise could actually be more egalitarian than universal male suffrage, although of course it is less so in other respects.

Anyway, I apologize for the delay in updating; I'm planning one more quick narrative update to the Egyptian timeline (in addition to the one just posted) to complete a story arc, and then I'll return to this one. Figure midweek for the French West Africa/Congo update, and the weekend for the Haiti-related interlude (part, but not all, of which will take place in Haiti).

B_Munro · #**862** August 6th, 2012, 06:20 AM

Map in a couple days: did the US still buy Alaska in this TL? And what is North German *Cameroons looking like?

best,
Bruce

Julius Vogel · #**863** August 6th, 2012, 08:23 AM

A new Indian national language? How interesting

Jonathan Edelstein · #**864** August 6th, 2012, 04:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by B_Munro

Map in a couple days: did the US still buy Alaska in this TL? And what is North German *Cameroons looking like?

The US did buy Alaska. The North German Cameroons in 1880 consists of the coastal strip between Calabar and Spanish Guinea, inland about as far as modern-day Yaounde. The northern part of OTL Cameroon is owned by Adamawa, and the eastern regions are still under indigenous rule.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Julius Vogel

A new Indian national language? How interesting

I've been told by Urdu-speakers that spoken Hindi and Urdu are very similar, although the literary languages are different (almost a mirror image of Arabic diglossia, in which the literary language is standardized while the spoken dialects are widely divergent). From what I understand, the aim of Gandhi's Hindustani proposal was to standardize both written languages along the lines of the spoken language - adopting both Persian-derived and Sanskrit-derived loanwords, establishing a common grammar, and creating a standardized spelling in both scripts. This seems doable at the official level, given the common base of the two languages, but getting people to adopt "standard Hindustani" in private life would be difficult.

In any event, even a Hindi-Urdu merger wouldn't be a true national language, as it would be a first language only in northern India. This India will still be a linguistically pluralist state, and English will still be the lingua franca for the country as a whole.

Ganesha · #**865** August 7th, 2012, 07:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jonathan Edelstein

I've been told by Urdu-speakers that spoken Hindi and Urdu are very similar, although the literary languages are different (almost a mirror image of Arabic diglossia, in which the literary language is standardized while the spoken dialects are widely divergent). From what I understand, the aim of Gandhi's Hindustani proposal was to standardize both written languages along the lines of the spoken language - adopting both Persian-derived and Sanskrit-derived loanwords, establishing a common grammar, and creating a standardized spelling in both scripts. This seems doable at the official level, given the common base of the two languages, but getting people to adopt "standard Hindustani" in private life would be difficult.

In any event, even a Hindi-Urdu merger wouldn't be a true national language, as it would be a first language only in northern India. This India will still be a linguistically pluralist state, and English will still be the lingua franca for the country as a whole.

It would indeed be very possible to combine Hindi and Urdu at an official level. In fact, I believe the Hindavi project in the 1920s sought to create a standardized register for the combined language, and there were a number of transliteration scripts to move the literary corpi of the two languages into a shared Devangari/Arabic space.

I'd expect that in a unified India (which you seem to be hinting at here) Punjabi will play a greater role than in OTL India, probably at about the same level as Bengali IOTL.

I'm looking forward to your next updates!

Cheers,
Ganesha

B_Munro · #**866** August 8th, 2012, 03:38 AM

Ok, first draft...sorry I took so long.

Bruce

Ganesha · #**867** August 8th, 2012, 03:56 AM

Looks great, Bruce! Thanks for all your hard work!

Cheers,
Ganesha

Jonathan Edelstein · #**868** August 8th, 2012, 01:57 PM

Very, very cool. I really appreciate all your work on this, and the notes are great. (EDIT: Just a couple of things, though: Gabon should be shown as French, and Serbia is de jure independent rather than being an Ottoman vassal.)

Update hopefully tonight; if not, then most likely tomorrow.

Kaiphranos · #**869** August 8th, 2012, 02:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by B_Munro

Ok, first draft...sorry I took so long.

Looks great! I'll have to take another look this evening when I'm in a real computer...

B_Munro · #**870** August 8th, 2012, 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaiphranos

Looks great! I'll have to take another look this evening when I'm in a real computer...

In a computer?

Newsflash: Kaiphranos apparently some sort of non-material electronic entity, details at 11.

Bruce

Julius Vogel · #**871** August 8th, 2012, 03:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by B_Munro

In a computer?

Newsflash: Kaiphranos apparently some sort of non-material electronic entity, details at 11.

Bruce

Best inform the responsible authorities ASAP

Kaiphranos · #**872** August 8th, 2012, 04:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by B_Munro

In a computer?

Newsflash: Kaiphranos apparently some sort of non-material electronic entity, details at 11.

Goshdarn cellphone touchscreen!

Ganesha · #**873** August 8th, 2012, 05:24 PM

Bruce, I don't quite understand the South American scheme. Are those blue-gray areas unexplored or are the boundaries simply undefined? And is Korea a Chinese vassal? What about Tibet?

Jonathan, I'm assuming the base reasons for the Sino-Japanese War are still there, right? After all, East Asia seems to be the region least affected by butterflies in this timeline.

France and Japan were quite close during this period, especially after 1868. With greater French support, perhaps Japan is even more successful than OTL. That could mean that Japan gains Port Arthur, which could either move up or butterfly the Russo-Japanese War. On the other hand, the basic French reasons for opposing Japanese control of Port Arthur are still there, so perhaps the Triple Intervention still happens.

Cheers,
Ganesha

Hnau · #**874** August 8th, 2012, 06:10 PM

Love the map, Bruce! Thanks so much for producing it!

B_Munro · #**875** August 9th, 2012, 01:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ganesha

Bruce, I don't quite understand the South American scheme. Are those blue-gray areas unexplored or are the boundaries simply undefined? And is Korea a Chinese vassal? What about Tibet?

Undefined boundaries and vassals, I think: I'm going off the 1856 base map there...

Bruce