Reconstructing British Romance

VT45

Banned
Has anyone ever tried reconstructing the dialect of Latin that was spoken in 5th century Britain? If so, has anyone tried extrapolating it forward in time to the present day? What would it sound like? If no one has ever tried extrapolating it forward, would anyone be interested in working on a conlang to approximate te language spoken by the British had the Anglo-Saxons adopted the language of the natives a la the Franks, Ostrogoths, and Visigoths?
 
I would be interested in seeing this. as far as I know, we have some fragments of text from the dialect, but I had not heard that we were able to master it.
 
Google Brithenig. That's the main British Romance conlang out there.

I've started my own British Romance conlang once, but haven't worked on it in a while.
 
I've just read some seriously interesting writing about late and early post Roman Britain in the Blackwell Companion to Late Antiquity. According to the article (I forget the author), Hadrian's Wall was only set up as a concrete frontier of the Empire under Valentinian I, whose prefect Theodosius set up miniature client states in southern Scotland, as well as in a new province called Valentinia in what is now Cumbria and Lancashire. These little states were intended as buffers to protect a Roman Britain now thoroughly on the defensive, and, most interestingly, were ruled over by Roman officials. In the following generation, as Roman rule in Britain withered following the revolts of Magnus Maximus in 383 and Constantine in 406, these officials were able to pass on their states to their sons, who were styled as "Roman Kings". A similar process seems to have gone on in Africa, again at the instigation of Valentinian, with the result that you see Romano-Moorish kingdoms in what is now Algeria and Morocco from the late fifth century onwards, and the Gallic general Syagrius may have been an example of the same trend- Gregory of Tours called Syagrius and his father "Roman Kings".

Thought I'd share that, I've been dying to do so ever since I read the article on Tuesday. :p
 
I think that Ill Bethisad's Brithenig is probably the closest anyone has come to reconstruct British Romance. It sounds like Welsh on acid.
 
Brithenig looks like it sounds very Welsh because of its orthography, reading it would feel completely different if it used a more Latinate orthography.
 
Brithenig looks like it sounds very Welsh because of its orthography, reading it would feel completely different if it used a more Latinate orthography.

Given the IPA guide, it sounds extremely close to Welsh as well, the two major clues that it's a Latin derivative being the kind of syllable stress it uses (ultimate or penultimate in most cases) and the core vocabulary (although in the latter's case, they look WAY different; Brithenig ffager vs. Spanish hacer, Brithenig canhar vs. French chanter, etc.). And bear in mind that it retains certain Brythonic grammar elements as well, namely the mutation system that no other Romance language has.

With that kind of heavy influence from Welsh, it's arguable (although I don't believe so) that Brithenig is more of a creole than a straight up Latin language. It most certainly wouldn't be that intelligible to French or Spanish speakers any more than Romanian would be.

EDIT: FWIW I consider Brithenig a good indicator of what British Romance could be. The IB-wiki also lists Kerno as a related Celt-Romance language, which honestly seems to have more Gallic influence than Brithenig does. That one could be interpreted as the language in use if Brittania were more closely linked to the mainland.
 

VT45

Banned
Brithenig might be a good start, but like others have said, it looks and sounds very Welsh. I think the Britons along the western rim might use it, but mainstream British Romance would definitely have more of a Germanic influence, since the Anglo-Saxons are still invading.
 
Well, that depends on how many Anglo-Saxons still arrive; if they come in numbers anything like OTL, they'll simply displace the British Romance language entirely with an Old English analogue. If they don't arrive in strong enough numbers to displace it, they likely won't influence the language any more than contribute some vocabulary that didn't exist previously in Brit. Romance (for example, my amateurish attempt to Latinize the O.E. word Weregild might be something like Gueryilde), and continue using their language separately.

Incidentally, here's the Our-Father of that language I listed before that's a sorta-mix between French and a Brythonic language;

a Phazeoir Nusteor que bias 'n y ceues;
foreth noef il tew nom;
gouenyes il tew camouil;
foreth fès la teva gouoluntáts en lâ derra cuomo 'ny ceues;
danos-el osdia le nusteor panèn cuotidièn;
dimeti y nusteor dheuz cuomo dimitemus ai nusteor dheutoeres;
et ne nus attrayer rhen al tentación, mays eliveránus des val.
Padraic.
 
I think that Breton even though it come from western Britian.

After doing some digging, that's apparently what Kerno was supposed to be; a Romance language that took its cues from Breton instead of Welsh, hence the Gallic flavor. But yes, Breton IOTL does seem to have been Romance influenced, however it's still at heart a Celtic language with window dressing, as opposed to the other way 'round.
 
I understand that. I was thinking in terms of how it was influenced by Romance. it seems that much of the influence was phonological.
So we take a late Latin which has been swimming in a sea of Keltic and mix in some western coastal Germanic. Maybe Norman French would be a good model. Add in a large amount of British vocabulary and maybe some grammar such as a progressive case which is very keltic. It is interesting that English which has very few old British lone words is the only Germanic language that uses a progressive case (ie: I'm going ect..) So it seems that British exported it once so why not again
 
It would depend on how many of them came. You either a big enough old English speaking population or an elite replacement. Either way the Enlish speaking group needs to speak English for several generations to have a large impact. This will be an interesting language.
 
Are you thinking of having a permanent English speaking area say in East Anglian? Will there be a later Norse overlay as in modern English?
 
There were Saxon Federates in Britain before the Romans left. The later Saxons could be assimilated by the earlier ones, as happened with most of the Germanic peoples who overran the Roman empire.

The Eastern dialects would have a lot more Saxon loanwords (and probably Norse as well) then the west. The language could actually split along East/West, or Northeast/Southwest lines creating two distinct Romance languages in Britain.
 
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