Why not ? Its exactly what we need more of ! More imagination ! I think we have had our share of memoirs and biographies. Máirtín Ó Cadhain gave us a very successful novel about people in the grave talking to each other. Let's get young people reading.
Séamus

Well said!

I have been thinking about how to generate her backstory and while Book II: Anusha of Oz is pretty much set for what I want (but she will participate in it) , Book III: Odyssey in Oz, could really let her come into her own. Perhaps her place of birth could be the descendants who arrived from Ireland's distant past and much of their culture from that time has survived in the little enclave. Since the Baum books make it clear that Glinda the Good only choses the finest maidens in all of Oz to be in her little army and members of her palace staff, Gittan-Nora could have been chosen initially as a member of Glinda's staff, then on to her army, to Head Attendant, to finally both as Head Attendant and Leader of the Finest Forty-because of her fidelity and ability/strength/etc.) A thought just came to me that Book III could be both the other two main characters (Trot and David) and a parallel with Gittan really coming into her own.

I do look forward to learning about your proud culture and past for this!

Most respectfully,

James

That's actually where my argument was headed. 40 canonical books, and despite the land of Oz not being all that big, there's no mention of this minority ethnic group. That makes it kind of iffy bringing it in now, and a very different matter from introducing recent arrivals such as Dorothy and the Wizard.

Unless of course some of the land has already been established as a pathwork of globally diverse ethnic groupings, so this is just one of many, but I don't believe that's the case. Otherwise it seems about as suddenly and unlikely as offhandedly throwing in a fully-operational heliport in the middle of the Emerald City....

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A language belongs to its native speakers, and when you speak it, you are a guest in their homes.
If you are not a good guest, you have no right to complain about receiving poor hospitality.

This changes things a little bit. Firstly, if she descends from an ancestor who left Ireland in the "distant past" and is learning English as a second language in Oz, then her phrasing etc. would likely be the same standard of English spoken by anybody else in Oz, if a little broken. It would likely not be Hiberno-English, as is spoken in Ireland.

Secondly, depending how long ago this ancestor left Ireland, it's likely their Irish could be vastly different to the standard spoken today. Anything over 100 years (roughly 3-5 generations, i.e. Gittan-Nora's Grandfather/mother-Great, Great, Grandfather/mother) and you're going to notice a difference. If you go back 400 years, to the 17th century, the ancestor would have been a speaker of Classical Irish, a distinctly different language from which Modern Irish descends. They are similar, but have both spelling and grammatical differences. Also, many words have come into the Irish language since the Classical Irish period, and many have either gone out of use since that time, or taken up a different meaning than that which they had then.

The further back you go, the more the language changes. Before Classical Irish, there was Middle Irish, this was used between the 10th and 12th Centuries. Before that, there was Old Irish which was used from about the 6th century to the 10th. And before that, there were no written records of the language, other than inscriptions on Ogham Stones, which portray an even older form of Archaic Irish. These would all have been very distinct, and indeed different languages from Modern Irish, getting further from it the further into the past you go.

My point is, if your character's ancestor broke away from Irish culture a long time ago, they, their language, and their general culture, would not necessarily have developed in the same way as Irish culture has historically since those times. Just look at the modern Irish language compared to Scots Gallic, for example. They are both derived from Classical Irish, and are so different in their modern forms, that they are both considered separate languages in their own right. Gittan-Nora, in this case, may be Irish by ancestry, but very different from anybody living in Ireland today.

The size of Oz seems to vary by book...................

And consitancy amongst the Famous 40 is non-existant............

James

That is certainly something to take in account. Given that the consistancy amnog even the Famous Forty is lacking it can make some things tough to tie down. Even the site timeline of Oz can give you a headache as it shows all the attempts by various authors to reconcile many aspects from the 40 books.

However, with the limits of what I am using, the first 14 books and some of the Ruth Plumly Thompson, I can say that prior to the enchantment of the magic barrier to protect Oz from invasion and being seen in 1910, then prior to that you could have people groups entering into Oz. Of course, it would depend on how far back.

That would be a fantastic thought-exercise to play around with. As people were brought to Oz through storms on the sea and not just tornadoes. Ade, willing to play around with some ideas regarding this?

Best,

James

You might be interested to know that in Early Irish literature there are instances of Saints and Druids creating similar sounding "enchanted barriers" which keep enemy hosts from seeing their side's army. I think the battle of Cúl Dreimhne is an example, off the top of my head.

Similarly, there are a lot of seafaring tales. St. Brendan the Navigator famously found land West of Ireland in the literature, leading some to speculate he found the Americas before even the Vikings or Columbus. Make of those claims what you will, but the stories exist. Who knows, maybe he actually found Oz.

Adrian.

WOW-that is amazing.....

Short of this side of Heaven, it will be neat to see if the discovery of the America's was indeed before the Vikings.

Having said that, for the backstory, would be curious to determine when a "landing" took place and how far back to go and the influence of the Quadling Country's native population on the survivors and if they kept any kind of records, kept pretty much to themselves, etc. Interesting concepts....

Thanks again, Adrian-looking forward to your continued thoughts.

Respectfully!

James

Adrian,

I am playing around with the idea coinciding with the Irish Diaspora. There is precedent in one of the Oz books that Dorothy was on a ship heading to Australia.

This would place Gittan's ancestors arriving in the middle part of the 19th century.

Thoughts?

James

I don't think it matters too much about how exactly historically realistic it is in some, it's nice to have an Irish speaking character in the book and to get the language correct, but you might as well use modern Irish as you can get questions answered on it and ensure it is authentic, where as that will be harder for the older forms. Although for Old Irish you'd have An Cionnfhaolach and Ade here.


Just to note, Classical Irish was the Caighdeán/Standard of its day, the average person still just spoke one of the modern dialects. Any writing from the period by somebody who wasn't a bard usually shows today's dialectal features. So let's say a boy from a rich family in Conamara, would have spoken Conamara Irish at home but learned Classical Irish in school. Apparently it took about a year before a student could pronounce Classical Irish reasonably well.

Classical Irish also had artificial grammar inserted to make it rhyme better than the spoken language.

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The dialect I use is Cork Irish.
Ar sgáth a chéile a mhairid na daoine, lag agus láidir, uasal is íseal