Andrew Smith’s Brithenig
Andrew Smith invents languages as a hobby. His language Brithenig asks the question what would have happened if there had been sufficient Latin speakers to displace Old Celtic in Great Britain. The result is a Romance language that underwent Welsh-style sound changes and borrowed more from Celtic languages than any other Romance language. In Brithenig, the story of the Tower of Babel begins
Agur ill mun inteir afew yn llinghedig e yn cant comyn. Sig ill pobl sumodefant di’ll llewent, ys ligarent yn lluin in Senar e llâ si ysteblirent.
Ys ddisirent a sew alltr, “Gwath, gwan a ffager yn fric e gogher llo hinteirfent.” Ys hýsafant llo fric in ill llog di’ll pedr, e yn aerell per ill kelchin. Affos ys ddisirent, “Gwath, gwan a eddiffigar yn giwdad per nu, cun yn tyr ke dang a llo chel, ke nu ffagen yn n�n per nu e sun ysparied rhen syrs feig lla der inteir.”
Another of his languages, yet unnamed, is created out of the “special cases” of dozens of language books; irregular parts of speech, irregular patterns, special rules, and so forth.
Not content with creating languages, he has also created an ‘alternate-present’ church called the “Church of Christ in Aotearoa New Zealand” that envisions what might have happened in the church if certain decisions had gone another way.
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