“I wanted to know more about how your city is the gateway to the province of Over-The-Eastern-River. What does that mean, anyway?”

“Well,” began the priest’s wife. “It’s more like this is the obvious place you go to when you are entering the province, and it was the first town built on this side of the river, and so we created this town to cater to those who were using it as a jumping off point further into the province. There are various ways that people came to explore the province. Most people came in vehicles, so we catered to off-road vehicles with four-wheeled drive that would be able to handle the rougher conditions. We spent a lot of attention on navigating the area and mapping it to build routes. We have sold and continue to sell products that help with construction or with temporary housing or construction offices, including a very healthy set of modular building factories to help speed along construction.”

“So you mean that this city specializes in those goods and services that are used in development, particularly rapid development.”

“That’s right,” said the priest. “We serve a lot of people who are just passing through, and give them a lot of help in getting them to where they want to go. I would say that this province is still a bit rough but it seems like it will be a Middle Bravian sort of province for the most part, with perhaps a bit of North Bravian settlement that is focused on the northern parts of it closest to the Eastern Forest region.”

“What does settlement tend to mean in Bravia?”

“Now, that is a tricky question to answer, but I will answer it at least as best as I have seen it,” said the priest. “This town was established from an existing town, where younger sons who wouldn’t be likely to inherit land or those who were assistants in various areas were able to get instant promotions in the new town, while still remaining close enough to the old town to keep up their family connections and add an air of civilization to this place. We were able to do that because we had an early advantage, though. In general, the first Bravians who travel here looking to make new settlements come in groups–usually a fairly large group of family members or neighbors, who are capable of providing the necessary jobs in a new settlement while hoping for natural increase and other migrants who hear of new opportunities to fill in the rest. After a settlement has been developed, word goes out about what sort of people are needed in an area, and those who have the skills but aren’t rising very fast because of competition are often the first to try out the new areas.”

“I think that’s one of the glories of Bravia’s system,” his wife piped up. “New opportunities provide the chance for many people to make a better place for themselves than would be the case in a stagnant world without such new spaces.”

“I have a scenario for you, do you mind answering what you think Bravians would do, hypothetically speaking, in it?”

“Go ahead,” said the priest.

“Let’s say that an area of two or three provinces opened up to Bravian settlement thanks to a war, with some existing Bravians already in trading posts. How would such an area become a Bravian province or group of provinces with full rights?”

“So you’re taking a scenario like _______,” the priest said.

“Yes, like that.”

“I’m guessing that the existing elite is going to lose a lot of its land and it will go first to the merchants of the trading posts and to their people. I suspect also that the lower classes will get a considerably better deal, providing they become loyal citizens, and that there will be some land left for settlement and people streaming from South Bravia to get there, at least for a while. As we currently have two provinces being aggressively developed, though, I suspect it will be a bit slower to grow than would be the case otherwise.”

“What do you think the end result will be?”

“Probably in the short term it would mean that the provinces would end up being majority pro-Bravian pretty soon, if not already, especially if the local common people are taken into account. In the longer term, the common people will probably become pretty acculturated like the Fremen within a few generations at most, while the higher classes also, hopefully, become acculturated as Bravians make up the majority of the population in cities and towns and increase in population in rural areas as well,” the priest’s wife piped in.

“Is that something we can expect elsewhere?”

“I think so,” replied the priest. “There are some ideas that Bravians can settle far better than most people. If you look at the ability of Bravians to relatively densely settle plains land, intensely settle port cities shielded by hills and mountains, settle the hill and mountain country themselves, and now with the Fremen settle swampy areas, to say nothing about the ability of the forest people to settle dark and thick forests, the end result is that a lot of terrains are very friendly to Bravian settlement that end up being sparsely settled by most peoples.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“I think a lot of it has to do with social structure and what profits people to settle and develop. In Bravia, any land that someone can settle on at all is at least potentially profitable so long as it is connected via a road, a river, or some other form of tie to somewhere else. We focus on internal development and any crossroads, no matter how obscure, has a decent chance of becoming at least a hamlet if not a small town, which means that there are a lot of areas where some sort of trade happens and where a substantial part of the population benefits from property rights and free exchange that is focused on what they want. Most countries don’t operate that way. The good lands are reserved for rulers and for elites, and everyone else has to serve them, instead of being served by businesses. That makes a great deal of difference,” the priest’s wife replies.

“Are you educated?”

“What do you mean? I’m a Bravian. Of course I’m educated.”

“I know your husband took studies in various matters and ended up pretty highly educated, but what about you?”

“In general, education is considered to be the responsibility of the family first as well as the faith. A family like mine had plenty of opportunities to educate their children with tutors, private schools, and the like, all of which is easy to find even in a provincial town like Porterville. There is a great deal of church education as well, as knowing the Bible in its original languages is a priority in the faith so knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic is relatively common. That is to say nothing about the community education in the local languages of Bravia as well as more practical affairs that can be found in every Amphoe grange facility. In Bravia there have been widespread concerns about state education as well as the corruption of elites who seek to control the spread of knowledge, but knowledge itself is highly sought after and easily attainable for all who have even a slight interest for it.”

“I concur,” said the priest. “Admittedly, a lot of formal education is in the hands of the church, and those who seek to become educated in theoretical matters tend to have to go through education that involves religious oversight, but when it comes to practical knowledge, it is easily accessible and widely appreciated, not least because it gives a broad amount of society the knowledge necessary to make a decent and honorable living through some sort of skilled labor. If you don’t have any skills, life is going to be tough here in Bravia, but such skills are easy to find for anyone who speaks any of the Bravian languages.”

“How many Bravian languages are there?”

“That’s a tough question to answer,” the priest said. “Originally, when Bravia was settled, there were three languages: High Bravian, spoken by the hill people, Middle Bravian, spoken by the settlers of the plains, and Low Bravian, spoken by the people who settled Port Bravia and other ports along the coast. Over time, we have come to accept the Forest people’s language as a language of Bravia. I’m not sure what language the Fremen speak, though I guess it is a form of Low Bravian, so we will have to see if that adds to the set of languages. Other than that, a couple of languages have formed out of blends since our founding: there is a royal and ecclesiastical Bravian that is spoken by the royal family and those in the church that is a mixture of Middle and High Bravian, with a lot of loan words from older prestige languages like Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, as well as French, Spanish, Persian, and other languages. In addition, there is a language spoken of in the rural communities of the coastal regions of Bravia that is called Low Middle Bravian that is a mixture between Low Bravian and Middle Bravian. At least so far, those are the languages we know of, but it is possible that with time other mixtures or other languages will be added to that depending on our growth.”

“Is learning the languages of Bravia mandatory?”

“That depends on who you are,” the priest said. “For those of us who are in the priesthood, it is mandatory that we speak all of the languages of Bravia, along with all of the biblical languages, because we could be posted anywhere, and that level of language study means that any priest is likely to know nine or more languages well enough to read and write, at least six of which are also going to be spoken by a considerable amount of people in Bravia.”

“For the rest of us,” the priest’s wife chimed in, “it is not quite so serious as that. I think that just about every Bravian probably knows Middle and Low Bravian well enough to get by, and most probably learn High Bravian and at least a smattering of biblical languages as well. Those who are involved in trade and diplomacy learn other languages besides this. Those who desire to go into politics or have family involved in politics probably also know Royal and Eccleasiastical Bravian well also. I would say that the ordinary Bravian knows at least two languages very well and anyone in my class probably has enough language skills to approach the priestly basic nine languages of fluency.”

“How do you guys do it?”

“Well, it happens that the languages for the most part aren’t very far apart. High Bravian comes from North Appalachian mixed with Pittsburghese. Middle Bravian is itself a mixture of Middle Atlantic and Middle Canadian, and Low Bravian comes from Northwestern, all of which are varieties of English that were spoken a thousand years ago and are at least close enough to each other to be cousins. Royal and Ecclesiastical Bravian and Low Middle Bravian are mixtures within these that are at least easy enough to understand for those who speak the other forms of the language. So that’s five right there that aren’t too hard. Admittedly, the language of the Forest people and the biblical languages are pretty tough, but that’s only four languages to learn so that’s not too bad, and two of them are related Semitic tongues and all have a strong body of literature and prestige” the priest said.

“I must admit that I only know two languages myself, my own native tongue and Low Bravian, and that is enough to make me fairly rare among my people with a knowledge of multiple languages at all.”

“I suppose that makes it easy to get by,” the priest’s wife says, “but hard to communicate with the world.”

“Well, Low Bravian has been helpful since it is spoken of widely around the Southern Sea, at least.”

“Yes, that is why we all learn it too, because it’s necessary to get by in trade and business, and Bravians are very big on that area of life, no matter the background.”

“I have to admit that I have noticed that in my travels here. Speaking of which, how well traveled are you?”

“Well, I’ve already told you of my travels, but I am definitely very well traveled for a Bravian,” the prieest said.

“As for me, I have spent my whole life living in Middle Bravia and then here in the border regions of Across-The-Eastern-River, but my family has traveled internationally some and my father has taken the rest of us on regular trips around the country and especially to the capital, so I am pretty well traveled as well.”