Cumbric


Cumbric is an extinct Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup spoken during the Early Middle Ages in the Hen Ogledd or "Old North", in Northern England and the southern Scottish Lowlands. It was closely related to Old Welsh and the other Brittonic languages. Place-name evidence suggests Cumbric may also have been spoken as far south as Pendle and the Yorkshire Dales. The prevailing view is that it became extinct in the 12th century, after the incorporation of the Kingdom of Strathclyde into the Kingdom of Scotland.

Problems with terminology

sets out the problems with the various terms used to describe the Cumbric language and its speakers. The people seem to have called themselves *Cumbri the same way that the Welsh called themselves Cymry and their land Cymru. The Welsh and the Cumbric-speaking people of what are now southern Scotland and northern England probably felt they were actually one ethnic group. Old Gaelic speakers called them "Britons", Bretnach, or Bretain. The Norse called them Brettar. The terms Cymru and Cumbri were rendered in Latin as Cambria and Cumbria, respectively. In Medieval Latin, the English term Welsh became Wallenses, while the term Cumbrenses referred to Cumbrians. However, in Scots, a Cumbric speaker seems to have been called Wallace – from the Scots Wallis/Wellis "Welsh".
The Latinate term Cambria is often used for Wales; nevertheless, the Life of St Kentigern by Jocelin of Furness has the following passage:
John T. Koch defined the specifically Cumbric region as "the area approximately between the line of the River Mersey and the Forth-Clyde Isthmus", but went on to include evidence from the Wirral Peninsula in his discussion and did not define its easterly extent. Kenneth H. Jackson described Cumbric as "the Brittonic dialect of Cumberland, Westmorland, northern Lancashire, and south-west Scotland" and went on to define the region further as being bound in the north by the Firth of Clyde, in the south by the River Ribble and in the east by the Southern Scottish Uplands and the Pennine Ridge. The study Brittonic Language in the Old North by Alan G. James, concerned with documenting place- and river-names as evidence for Cumbric and the pre-Cumbric Brittonic dialects of the region Yr Hen Ogledd, considered Loch Lomond the northernmost limit of the study with the southernmost limits being Liverpool Bay and the Humber, although a few more southerly place-names in Cheshire and, to a lesser extent, Derbyshire and Staffordshire were also included.

Available evidence

The evidence from Cumbric comes almost entirely through secondary sources, since no known contemporary written records of the language survive. The majority of evidence comes from place names of the north of England and the south of Scotland. Other sources include the personal names of Strathclyde Britons in Scottish, Irish, and Anglo-Saxon sources, and a few Cumbric words surviving into the High Middle Ages in southwest Scotland as legal terms. Although the language is long extinct, traces of its vocabulary arguably have persisted into the modern era in the form of "counting scores" and in a handful of dialectal words.
From this scanty evidence, little can be deduced about the singular characteristics of Cumbric, not even the name by which its speakers referred to it. However, linguists generally agree that Cumbric was a Western Brittonic language closely related to Welsh and, more distantly, to Cornish and Breton.
Around the time of the battle described in the poem Y Gododdin, c. 600, Common Brittonic is believed to have been transitioning into its daughter languages: Cumbric in North Britain, Old Welsh in Wales, and Southwestern Brittonic, the ancestor of Cornish and Breton. Kenneth Jackson concludes that the majority of changes that transformed British into Primitive Welsh belong to the period from the middle of the fifth to the end of the sixth century. This involved syncope and the loss of final syllables. If the poem ultimately dates to this time, it would have originally been written in an early form of Cumbric, the usual name for the Brythonic speech of the Hen Ogledd; Jackson suggested the name "Primitive Cumbric" for the dialect spoken at the time. However, scholars date the poem to between the 7th and the early 11th centuries, and the earliest surviving manuscript of it dates to the 13th, written in Old Welsh and Middle Welsh.

Place names

Cumbric place-names occur in Scotland south of the firths of Forth and Clyde. Brittonic names north of this line are Pictish. Cumbric names are also found commonly in the historic county of Cumberland and in bordering areas of Northumberland. They are less common in Westmorland, east Northumberland, and Durham, with some in Lancashire and the adjoining areas of North and West Yorkshire. Approaching Cheshire, late Brittonic placenames are probably better characterised as Welsh rather than as Cumbric. As noted below, however, any clear distinction between Cumbric and Welsh is difficult to prove. Many Brittonic place-names remain in these regions which should not be described as Cumbric, such as Leeds, Manchester, Wigan and York, because they were coined in a period before Brittonic split into Cumbric and its sister dialects.
Some of the principal towns and cities of the region have names of Cumbric origin, including:
  • Bathgate, West Lothian: meaning 'boar wood'.
  • Bryn, Metropolitan Borough of Wigan: from the word meaning "hill".
  • Carlisle, Cumberland: recorded as Luguvalium in the Roman period; the word caer 'fort' was added later. The Welsh form Caerliwelydd is derived by regular sound changes from the Romano-British name.
  • Glasgow, Scotland: widely believed to derive from words cognate with glas 'green' and the Welsh gae, 'field'.
  • Lanark, Lanarkshire: from the equivalent of Welsh llannerch 'glade, clearing'.
  • Penicuik, Midlothian: from words meaning 'hill of the cuckoo'.
  • Penrith, Westmorland & Furness: meaning 'chief ford'.
Several supposed Cumbric elements occur repeatedly in place names of the region. The following table lists some of them according to the modern Welsh equivalent:
Element Celtic rootMeaningPlace names
blaen*blagno-end, point, summit; source of riverBlencathra, Blencogow, Blindcrake, Blencarn, Blennerhassett
caercastrum fort, stronghold; wall, rampartCarlisle, Carluke, Cardew, Cardurnock, Carfrae, Cargo, Carlanrig, Carriden, Castle Carrock, Cathcart, Caerlaverock, Cardonald, Cramond, Carleith
coed*keto-trees, forest, woodAlkincoats, Bathgate, Dalkeith, Culgaith, Tulketh, Culcheth, Pencaitland, Penketh, Towcett, Dankeith, Culgaith, Cheadle, Cheetham, Cathcart, Cheetwood, Cathpair, Kincaid, Inchkeith
cwm*kumba-deep narrow valley; hollow, bowl-shaped depressionCumrew, Cumwhitton, Cumwhinton, Cumdivock
drum, trum*drosman-ridgeDrumlanrig, Dundraw, Mindrum, Drumburgh, Drem, Drumaben
eglwysecclesia churchEcclefechan, Ecclesmachan, Eccleston, Eccles, Terregles, Egglescliffe, Eggleshope, Ecclaw, Ecclerigg, Dalreagle, Eggleston, Exley, possibly Eaglesfield
llannerch*landa-clearing, gladeBarlanark, Carlanrig, Drumlanrig, Lanark, Lanercost
moel*mailo-bald; mountain/hill, summitMellor, Melrose, Mallerstang, Watermillock
pen*penno-head; top, summit; source of stream; headland; chief, principalPennygant Hill, Pen-y-Ghent, Penrith, Penruddock, Pencaitland, Penicuik, Penpont, Penketh, Pendle, Penshaw, Pemberton, Penistone, Pen-bal Crag, Penwortham, Torpenhow
pren*prenna-tree; timber; crossTraprain Law, Barnbougle, Pirn, Pirncader, Pirniehall, Pirny Braes, Primrose, Prendwick
tref*trebo-town, homestead, estate, townshipLongniddry, Niddrie, Ochiltree, Soutra, Terregles, Trabroun, Trailtrow, Tranent, Traprain Law, Traquair, Treales, Triermain, Trostrie, Troughend, Tranew; possibly Bawtry, Trafford

Some Cumbric names have historically been replaced by Scottish Gaelic, Middle English, or Scots equivalents, and in some cases the different forms occur in the historical record.
  • Edinburgh occurs in early Welsh texts as Din Eidyn and in medieval Scottish records as Dunedene, all meaning 'fort of Eidyn'.
  • Falkirk similarly has several alternative medieval forms meaning 'speckled church': Eglesbreth etc. from Cumbric ; Eiglesbrec etc. from Gaelic ; Faukirk etc. from Scots.
  • Kirkintilloch began as a Cumbric name recorded as Caerpentaloch in the 10th century, but was partly replaced by the Gaelic words ceann 'head' + tulach 'hillock' later on.
  • Kinneil derives from Gaelic ceann fhàil 'head of the [Antonine] Wall' but it was recorded by Nennius as Penguaul, and by Bede as Peanfahel, which appears to be a merger of Cumbric and Gaelic.
Derivatives of Common Brittonic *magno, such as Welsh maen and Cornish men, mean "stone", particularly one with a special purpose or significance. In the Cumbric region, the word "Man" frequently occurs in geographical names associated with standing stones and it is possible, albeit "hard to say" according to Alan G. James, if the Cumbric reflex *main had any influence on these.

Counting systems

Among the evidence that Cumbric might have influenced local English dialects are a group of counting systems, or scores, recorded in various parts of northern England. Around 100 of these systems have been collected since the 18th century; the scholarly consensus is that these derive from a Brittonic language closely related to Welsh. Though they are often referred to as "sheep-counting numerals", most recorded scores were not used to count sheep, but in knitting or for children's games or nursery rhymes. These scores are often suggested to represent a survival from medieval Cumbric, a theory first popularized in the 19th century. However, later scholars came to reject this idea, suggesting instead that the scores were later imports from either Wales or Scotland, but in light of the dearth of evidence one way or another, Markku Filppula, Juhani Klemola, and Heli Paulasto posit that it remains plausible that the counting systems are indeed of Cumbric origin.
Cumbric, in common with other Brythonic languages, used a vigesimal counting system, i.e. numbering up to twenty, with intermediate numbers for ten and fifteen. Therefore, after numbering one to ten, numbers follow the format one-and-ten, two-and-ten etc. to fifteen, then one-and-fifteen, two-and-fifteen to twenty. The dialect words for the numbers themselves show much variation across the region.
NumberKeswickWestmorlandEskdaleMillomHigh FurnessWasdaleTeesdaleSwaledaleWensleydaleAyrshireModern WelshModern CornishModern Breton
1yanyanyaenaainayanyanyanyahnyanyintyunonan, unnunan
2tyantyantaenapeinataentaenteantayhnteantintydau, dwy dew m, diw fdaou m, div f
3tetheratetherietedderaparateddertetuddertethermatethertithertetheritri m, tair f'tri m, teyr ftri m, teir f
4metherapedderamedderapederamedderteanuddermethermamethermithermetheripedwar m, pedair f
peswar m, peder fpevar m, peder f
5pimpgippimppimppimpnimphpipmimppipbamfpumppymppemp
6setherateeziehofaithyhaata—lezarhith-herteaserleeterachwechhweghc'hwec'h
7letheramithylofamithyslaata—azarlith-herleaserseeterasaithseythseizh
8hoverakatraseckeraoweralowera—catrahanvercatraoverwythetheizh
9doverahornieleckeraloweradowa—hornadanverhornadovernawnawnav
10dickdickdecdigdick—dickdicdickdikdegdegdek
15bumfitbumfitbumfitbumfitmimph—bumfitmimphitbumper—pymthegpymthekpemzek
20giggotJiggot————JiggitJiggetjiggit—ugainugensugent