The Alphabetic Bouts of Cartography: Discussion & Entries

Try saying that a little more nicely. It was legitimate criticism - why would a state that, given its borders, came out of British colonialism adopt an electoral method that doesn't work in pretty much the only country that uses it?

I didn't intend to offend, though in retrospect I could have worded my post better. Nevertheless, your post seemed to indicate that you were only looking at the OTL status of Kenya.
 
Try saying that a little more nicely. It was legitimate criticism - why would a state that, given its borders, came out of British colonialism adopt an electoral method that doesn't work in pretty much the only country that uses it?

The British functionally have a two-party system, and had one even more back in the '60s. It's what comes of using FPTP single-member districts, y'know.
 
Try saying that a little more nicely. It was legitimate criticism - why would a state that, given its borders, came out of British colonialism adopt an electoral method that doesn't work in pretty much the only country that uses it?

In all fairness, perhaps for the same reason that countries with that same background adopted a politico-economic model which didn't work in its main proponent - Tanzania, Ghana, South Yemen and Burma all adopted the communist model
 
Our POD involves greater Portugese success while Spain takes longer to unify, resulting in a weaker Habsburg empire and thus a stronger Ottoman Empire.

Cool.

The red arrows confused me at first, until I paid attention to the key better. :eek:
 
First, congratulations to viperhawkz, for winning the tenth round of the Alphabetic Bouts of Cartography, and the corresponding title "Jarl of J!"

Second: Round K is now closed! Get on over to the voting thread and vote!

Third and lastly: the topic for Round L is...

LANGUAGE

The color for this round is: 3DCFD4 (See attached sample.)

Entries will be accepted until 11:59 P.M. Eastern time, November 16th! (Or whenever I post the new topic/poll--next week's may be delayed slightly...)

ABCcolorL.png
 
And here's my map!

The NAL-SLC of Ill Bethisad is a somewhat quiet nation, not the big, strong superpower its equivalent the USA is here, but much more like its other equivalent, Canada. Like Canada, it has a lot of languages, but unlike Canada bilingualism is not sufficient, thanks to the many languages in the NAL. To get on well in the NAL, you need to know at least English and Brithenig, if not Riksmål and Dutch. Indeed, its largest city, New Amsterdam, has very little Anglophones, mostly Brithenig and Dutch. The nation's official languages are English (sounds and looks like Middle English), Brithenig (a more Latinic Welsh), Dutch (a little different from OTL), Riksmål (a merger of all Scandinavian languages, mostly Danish), Scots (The Germanic one), Ladino (A New World Jewish language), Castillian (Spanish with all the Aragonese and Catalan influence out), Algonquian, Cherokee and Inuttiut (all three native languages). Now do you see the problem with languages inherent within the NAL-SLC?

So, here's a map.

NALANG.png
 
Nice Ill Bethisad map!
I thought about doing a Tejas languages map from that universe...
You love the large Tejas in that universe, don't you?

And anyway, this is a long-shot attempt. Doubtlessly, others will enter with maps far better then me in quality, and they will be Lord/Lady of L.
 
Our story begins with Kerensky deciding not to launch a summer offensive in 1917, despite his allies' protests. With the Russians essentially staying on the defensive at all times and avoiding combat whenever possible (but still putting up some resistance against the Germans and preventing a full-scale drawdown for a Spring Offensive in the West), the October Revolution is quickly stifled, and the chaotic Russian Republic survives to see Armistice Day (September 9th, 1918). Versailles turns out differently, with two key differences for our purposes:

1. Kerensky doesn't want a strong Poland, and is able to push for much of the Polish Corridor/East Prussia to be turned into a League of Nations Mandate (as opposed to just the Free City of Danzig IOTL).

2. He sees the usefulness of a universal language in attempting to keep the lid on ethnic nationalism, and with the US, Britain, Russia and Italy forming a united front, France is forced to accept Esperanto as an official language of the League of Nations.

A little over a decade later, Esperanto has been a great success in three areas. First, it is becoming the dominant language in the Danzig Mandate, as League officials try to give Poles and Germans some sort of common identity. This isn't going very well, but at least they can understand each other now. Second, in Poland Esperanto has become a sort of patriotic affectation, especially in its birth city of Bialystok. And finally, the Russian Republic is trying to use it as a unifying force as well, though this is mostly occuring around the capital and in the Autonomous Regions. In some Central European and Scandanavian capitals the language has a small following, mostly among League diplomats and Socialist parties.

EsperantoPrevalence.png
 
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