Talk:Cumbric

Revival
Does anyone have any further information on the "revived" forms of Cumbric? Dewrad 13:52, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)
 * There is a revival movement located mostly online. There is a website however, called Cumbraek which is not very reliable as they de-evolve Welsh into 'Hypothetical' Cumbric. Here is a video from one of the online movements which seek to archive the language on the internet to preserve it for years to come: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEdNM1yWy7k 92.12.198.203 (talk) 21:02, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

The "Modern revival" section: this was all back in 2008/9 and it came to nothing, if it can be called a serious attempt in the first place. Very little seems to have been done and it quickly fizzled out. Is it really noteworthy any more? Paul S (talk) 22:54, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Someone has tried to reconstruct the language, largely based on analogy with Welsh, and called the resultant WordPress blog "Cumbraek", but with no dates available, I don't know when it was last updated - edit, the Facebook page was done so a mere two days ago, so still an ongoing affair: Culloty82 (talk) 22:21, 25 August 2021 (UTC) I've just moved the links into "external links" and deleted the section. I'll add a new section to this talkpage in case anyone wants to discuss below.--Northernhenge (talk) 09:45, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Sheep Counts
In Glanville Price's book The Languages of Britain he dismisses the sheep counts being remnants of Cumbric. He says that they were likely brought from Wales with immigrant workers. The children's rhymes are also dimissed as they stem from the sheep counts.

If Price's view is yet current (his book is a few years old) then reference to these counts ought to be removed.


 * Price's view may be current but it is not exclusively held to be true. There are many different theories concerning the origin of the sheep counting numbers, all with their own sources to back up their ideas, and a new book on the subject does not negate other theories, unless it can prove unequivocally that the other theories are wrong. Because no one has a time machine, no one can prove without a doubt that these numbers came from welsh immigrants, therefore his book states only one view and others are equally historically valid. That's how history (as a subject) works. Ammi 10:50, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Comments on the above.

The sheep counts are well know, and folklore attributes them variously to the Ancient Britons and the Anglo-Saxons. It is worth keeping the reference, if only to counter this common but most probably mistaken belief.

In parts of Welsh speaking Wales they had similar sheep counts based on Irish. They were sometimes used as evidence for the survival of pockets of Irish speakers descended from the Dark Age immigrants to Llyn (cognate with Laighinn) and Dyfed. However the scholarly view now is that the Hen Wyddelod referred to by the country folk were not the Old Irish of historians and linguists, but simply immigrant agricultural workers of rather more recent times, equivalent to the Welsh shepherds who took their numbers to the North of England.

Mongvras


 * I remember reading (though sadly I can't remember where) that all recorded sheep counts use forms like "3 on 15" for the number eighteen. Modern Welsh uses 'deunaw' ("two 9's"), and it is incorrect to say *'tri ar bymtheg' ("3 on 15").  This apparently shows that the sheep counts cannot have been imported from Wales since the form 'deunaw' replaced "3 on 15" in Welsh, and 'deunaw' has been in use for several centuries at least.
 * Now if only I could dig up the reference -- 62.245.36.95, 2005-10-22
 * Now if only I could dig up the reference -- 62.245.36.95, 2005-10-22


 * I'm not sure that this could be considered a definitive rejection of the idea that the counts originated in Wales. We can see from elsewhere that they are often characterised by rhyming schemes and formed on analogy - even if 18 was exported from Wales as deunau it may have been changed to fit in with the general scheme of 15+1 etc. Psammead (talk) 14:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

The sheep-count comparison with Welsh is slightly flawed, as the (Old) Welsh numbers quoted are in the masculine form. As the Welsh word for sheep (dafad) is feminine, it is quite likely that the Cumbrian word is also. Anyway, a Welsh person counting sheep would use feminine, not masculine, numbers. In modern Welsh, these are (1 to 5) un, dwy, tair, pedair, pump. In particular, note that the forms "tair" and "pedair" appear more similar to the "tethera" "methera" etc. examples of "sheep-counting numbers" than "tri" and "pedwar" do.

Aneirin —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.219.153.178 (talk) 20:33, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Derbyshire?
Anyone seen any evidence for Cumbric further south than the Dales? Cant find any. I'll check in a week then cut it if no-one answers.

Sheepcounts could come from modern welsh, but there's no proof either way.

boynamedsue

Fake Wasdale sheep count
Being the FIRST time I have ever done this I am quite prepared to believe this may be entirely the wrong place .... BUT Earwig Oh!!

I have just seen, for the second time, in the second locale, a supposed "Wasdale sheep count as, if memory serves... Yan, tyan, tuther, another, etc.

Do you, seriously, accept this as a count? "One, two, the other' (T'other {tuther}), 'another (Anudder), five."? AND a total inability to progress beyond FIVE. Come ON. As Mam used to say "Lie likely" i.e. If you are going to lie, at least make it believable.

Incidentally, I have just discovered that what I was brought up to believe was Cumbrian is, here-in, designated as Scots.

Brainake. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brainnake (talk • contribs) 19:30, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Date of demise
What evidence is there for persistence of the language into the 11th century? (Not a challenge, just a question.) Where would it have been last spoken (Cumbria?)? Does anybody know how long it might have lasted in the Scottish Lowlands? Quartier Latin  1968  20:49, 17 September 2005 (UTC)


 * There are references to "Brets" in the 1200s in SW Scotland, but this may be ethnicity, or a reference to Breton settlers. --MacRusgail 15:39, 21 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it might just be one of those things that's hanging around as a rumour. I've heard it said a lot of times that it survived this late in the Eden valley, but have never seen any proof.  It may be connected with the fact that there is a high proportion of Cumbric-derived place names in that area (Penrith, Carlisle, Cumrew etc).  It might also be because a number of places like Lyvennet, Ewe Close,  Arthur's Round Table and Pendragon Castle around the valley are connected with the Arthur/Urien legends.  (Pendragon isn't a Cumbric placename, btw, it's just medieval romanticism)... It all seems unlikely to be true, given the fact that the Angles penetrated Cumbria through the Eden valley and that the land in that area is far richer than elsewhere in the county.  I would imagine that it would be the first place they chose to stop.


 * The only tenuous evidence I can think of is the place name Caernarvon. The name was applied to a late 12th/early 13th century castle near Beckermet on the west coast of Cumbria.  As far as I know there are no pre-norman fortifications here, so it must have been coined around that time, for which I can think of only three explanations: 1) Cumbric was still spoken enough to invent the word; 2) it's named after the place in Wales; 3) the owner or someone knew Medieval Welsh and named it to sound cool.  To be honest, I can't see why the last two would apply as Wales was still quite independent at this time, and the owner was descended from a Flemish family of Cumbrian nobles.  But there are problems:  1) it's in an exposed area of high Norse and English influence; 2) the name's supposed to mean 'fort opposite Man' (caer ar Van) but there's an intrusive 'n' which can't be explained unless it was built at a place called 'Arvon' (caer yn Arvon), for which there is no evidence.  The only other possibility is that it was named after a more ancient feature: carn ar Van  'cairn opposite Man'.  --Psammead 14:42, 17 May 2007 (UTC)


 * A friend of mine from Cumbria told me that her grandfather, a shepherd, used to count the sheep in a language that "sounded like Welsh". I suspect this may have been a trace of Cumbric. Sorry, not very scientific but quite interesting! 219.89.82.248 (talk) 21:28, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Caernarfon in Caernarfonshire is Caer yn Arfon - the fortress in the area of Arfon. Arfon itself is land "On or Against Mon or Anglesey". Now at Beckermet the Isle of Man is clearly visible, but Man is Manaw in Welsh. Of course it could have been Man in Cumbric (hence the English name Man not Manaw (Welsh) or Mannin (Gaelic). In that case the name could be a Cumbric *Car-in-Arvan where *Arvan is the land opposite the Isle of Man. Mind you the date of the Castle makes me think it is too late to be named by a Cumbric speaking community in Beckermet. All very tentative.Barcud Coch (talk) 16:23, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry Psammead to have apparently ignored your proposed etymology. Seems plausible to me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Barcudcoch (talk • contribs) 20:41, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Connection with Taliesin?
I reverted this anonymous contribution but place it here in case there is the germ of a sliver of useful content. Gdr 17:40, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Some believe that traces of the language remain in the epics (or whatever they were) of Taliesin and that other Cumric guy well known in Wales whose name starts with an A. If you Google for "cumbric", a page with information about those speculations is the first result, and it is reflected on UseNet, and in several books.
 * Aneirin? Theelf29 16:00, 9 August 2006 (BST)

Scottish Words
Is Peat not perhaps Pit as in Pittenweem?
 * Does anyone use pen and pol as dialect words independently of their use in toponyms? If not, these are not really "words" as implied by the text. Paul S (talk) 10:46, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

And after scratching my head over "Vendace" for a long time, I've removed it. It probably is Celtic and cognate with Welsh gwyniad, but Gaulish via French vandoise rather than Cumbric. If it were Cumbric we would have to explain why we have w > v fortition instead of w > gw epenthesis which goes against Welsh and Cornish and against gos/gwas. Paul S (talk) 19:39, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Cumbri-mania
Hi, have been watching this page a while. Seems that someone who also has an interest in sub-roman Britain has been doing the same. Cumbric, as the term is used by linguists, meabs the language spoken in Cumbria and Southern Scotland from the time of Bede till it became extinct in the 11th or 12th century. An argument could be made that it extended into the Yorkshire dales, based on the place name Pen-Y-Gent. However, someone has been linking Bryneich, Ebrauc and Elmet as Cumbric speaking. Evidently these kingdoms were Brythonic speaking, but they werent seperated long from other Brythonic kingdoms before thyey fell, and would likely have bordered areas in which there was a British population governed by Anglo-Saxons. Therefore it seems unlikely that their language would have diverged massively from common British. In the seventh and eigth centuries, it is fair to assume that British language and culture disappeared or was isolated into pockets in these areas, thus isolating the North Britons and allowing their language to diverge from Welsh.

Please come back with arguments this week, and we can discuss the best changes- or no changes; if no response I will change the Cumbric refs to Brythonic in kingdom pages, and ammend this page to reflect doubts on the Greater Manchester claim.

Also, the list of Cumbric words has no source, and it is not clear whether they are reconstructions or loan words in Cumbrian dialect. Should go.

boynamedue.

Cumbria is part of an area North of the River Humber. Northumbria means Angles living North of the River Humber. So I don't know what tupe of language you are trying to talk about here becasue for over a thousand years tyey have spoken English. Before that the only real language would have been Latin.

have a read of this m8; Sub-Roman Britain. Cumbrian dialect is what you are on about. Cumbric is a type of Welsh, which was replaced by Cumbrian, Scots and Gaelic.Boynamedsue 14:48, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Anyone interested in the history of the English Celts i.e. Britons, should maybe also read this:          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-Roman_Britain#The_Anglo-Saxon_migration   (some more info proving that the popular expression for the English as 'Anglo-Saxon' is a big error). (This terminology was made popular by an American journalist).
 * "English Celts" is a contradiction in terms. It is usual to refer to the people living in what was to become England as Britons or Ancient Britons. As for theories about the Anglo-Saxon migration: they are ALL theories, none of them are facts. Hence there can be no "proving" one way or another. Finally, the modern use of the phrase "Anglo-Saxon" is analogous to the modern use of the word "Celt". --Swahilli 15:56, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Latin? Where did that come from? Even when the Romans were here very few people in Cumbria would have spoken Latin as a mother tongue. Brythonic was spoken for 1,500 years (or so) in Cumbria, and Cumbric was just the latest version of it. I imagine a number of dialects would have existed in Britain before the arrival of the Germanic peoples, so Cumbric was probably already on it's way to being established. It was replaced by an Anglo-Norse hybrid which developed into the Cumbrian dialect of English. The only Latin derived word I know in Cumbrian is eglus 'church' < Cumbric *ecles (Eccles, Ecclefechan) cf. Cymraeg eglwys < L ecclesia --Psammead 11:23, 07 July 2007 (UTC)

I sort of presume that Cumbric was as influenced by Latin as Welsh is. Welsh has hundreds of Latin loanwords. If the Poetry of Taliesin reflects in any way the language as it was spoken in what is today Cumbria then it too was full of Latin loans. Barcud Coch (talk) 16:26, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Whitby example of yan, tan, tethera
Have removed a sentence regarding this example proving a widespread penetration of cumbric in northern england. It is not certain that sheepcount has a cumbric origin, and even if it did, it could be an example of diffusion after the system had been borrowed into english.


 * I think the info doesn't seem that controversial that it should be deleted out-right. I've put it back in, but placed a Citation needed notice on it. Can somebody try to reference it? --Hibernian 03:57, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

There is NO evidence of any of this as 'Cumbric'. Start to try and reference what you ae talking about.

About the mention of 'widespread 'Cumbric' in northen England'...lets not fall into the trap of automatically calling any traces of 'Briton' language in the north 'Cumbric'. It's quite easy to find traces of brythonic language all over the north of England.

Surival in Whitby
Is this a true representation? The forms "yan" and "twea" appear more akin to local dialect forms of Germanic origin to me.Theelf29 13:25, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The various forms of these sheep counting rhymes are very interesting and it is by no means clear what is their history. Yan, Tan for example appear to be close to English forms, as has been suggested, with Yan being a fairly standard development of the old English form and Tan could be a form of Twain (two but as in Mark Twain which was actually a river all saying that the river as at Number Two Mark - i.e. Mark Two). It is clear that the Bumfit etc forms are similar to Welsh Pymtheg (mutatable to Bymtheg). I can see how mixed forms could develop my two year old Welsh speaking son (but passively bilingual due to the influence of English all around him counts, Dim, Un, Dau, Tri, Four, Fi, .., ..., wyth, naw. He understands the Welsh for four and five but uses the English, as they appear to be easier for him to say, he sort of skips over six and seven which are quite hard for him to say, and then resumes with eght (wyth) etc. I would assume that this is how a mixed Old English and Brythonic language admixed form could have developed.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.158.46.151 (talk) 02:07, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Reconstructions
I have removed the reconstructions paragraph for, as with most of this article - it just talks about the 'possible' with no references and many of the word that are annotatated as sme sort of 'Cumbric' in this article are in fact of English origin.

Someone put it back (or at least I could see it when I went to the page). I've taken it back out as there is no academic proof or real basis to this 'reconstruction'. Much of this article seems to be based on conjecture and not on real research. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.104.173.66 (talk) 18:29, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Similarly, I have changed one of the external pages' blurbs from 'known Cumbric place names' to 'possible'. Not only are the 'known' place names very few, the linked article seems to include a great number of unlikely derivations.  81.153.185.192 (talk) 21:06, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I (not the same user above) have removed the 'some possible words" section as there are 'reconstructed' (i.e. made up forms without a great historical basis) and have no historical accuracy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.158.46.151 (talk) 01:54, 14 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I've added an "unreferenced" template to the section, which seems to have reappeared. As a Welsh speaker I can fairly readily understand the examples given here, which rather undermines the argument in the main article regarding Cumbric's status as a seperate language and for it and early Welsh being probably "mutually unintelligible" by its final period. Without a source these reconstructions are not acceptable and even with a source its all very conjectural. Enaidmawr (talk) 18:31, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Was the language spoken in Lancashire?
The are many towns all over lancashire with Cumbric or Welsh names, was the language spoken this far south? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.192.246.56 (talk) 12:18, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

If you look up some of Andrew Breeze's placename stuff, you will see he finds evidence of names in Lancashire that appear to be a late Brittonic dialect. However, whether you want to call these Welsh or Cumbric seems a moot point as I am not sure that modern linguists or contemporary speakers would have understood there being any difference at all. As to how much and how late, I personally don't feel there is much evidence at all for an indigenous community of people speaking Welsh or Cumbric in Lancashire. For what it's worth Barcud Coch (talk) 16:31, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Scots and English words
Quote: Pen' - pointed conical hill (Welsh pen "head, top", Gaelic ''beinn'

Removed the reference to Gaelic beinn as this word is cognate with Welsh ban, not pen. The Gaelic cognate of pen is ceann; therefore not relevant here. For the same reason, removed mention of the second element of the P-Celtic (Welsh) / Q-Celtic (Gaelic) pair peth / cuid. -- Picapica (talk) 08:12, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Place names section & reconstructed cognates
None of the examples of placenames cite references. Several also include unsubstantiated Cumbric reconstructions with no indication that they are such (ie. using *). The etymologies for this section should surely be given known Welsh cognates (or perhaps Cornish/Breton ones), or formally reconstructed Proto-Celtic/Brythonic ones. As there is no agreed standard for reconstructed Cumbric and as most of it has not been thoroughly researched, should it really have a place in this article? Psammead (talk) 14:13, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree. This sentence in particular -- These come with estimated Cumbric root words that are not yet certain until the attempted revivals are completed -- does suggest ("estimated"? "revivals"?) that this whole section is part of an amateur original research project in progress rather than a report of any citable published findings. -- Picapica (talk) 09:23, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
 * If there are no objections in the next couple of weeks, I will remove the 'Cumbric roots' and replace them with more reliable forms and try to include only cited examples. I am also dubious about the inclusion of Cheshire placenames in this article, given that the county is still on the border with Wales.  Psammead (talk) 14:03, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I added older proto-Celtic or Brythonic (e.g. *penno- not *kwenno to avoid confusion) to the table. I chose *prenna- rather than *penno- noting Price's observance that the form Prenwensete suggests the word was feminine in Cumbric, unlike in Welsh. Perhaps this is "original research" though. Paul S (talk) 16:12, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Cumbric language
I removed the reference to 'Cwmbraic'. I doubt that this form exists and it appears to be an attempt at recreating a possible form of the name in the so called reconstructed Cumbrian (see comments below). It is based on the Welsh form Cwmbreg which is a legitimate form. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.158.46.151 (talk) 01:50, 14 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi, I'm new and having come across this entry, which I consider extremely problematic, I thought It prudent to engage in discussion before ploughing into a major revision. I'm a little confused regarding the status of this proposed Cumbric language: does it exist, or is it a euphomism for Welsh or Old Welsh rather than a full member of a Brythoneg Celtic language group? The claim is that Cumbric appears to be a complete language. But for example:

"Some linguists argue that the differences between Cumbric and Old Welsh are not enough to classify it as a language. Since, at some stages in its development and usage, it was probably mutually intelligible with Welsh, it is not certain whether and when exactly it should be classified as having existed as a separate language." Now : "...Some linguists argue that the differences between Cumbric and Old Welsh are not enough to classify it as a language." Which means that it is at most a dialect of Welsh and should be reffered to as such in the pages on the Welsh language.(By the way, who exactly are the legitimate linguists or philologists who have put proffessional reputations on the line to suggest a seperate language existence; there is an obvious absence of consensus does this not signal caution?) Further: "it was probably mutually intelligible with Welsh" I agree and this would make it a dialect of Welsh not a seperate language. And most perplexing of all: "it is not certain whether and when exactly it should be classified as having existed as a separate language." Then does this uncertainty not undermine the already speculative construct of a stand alone "Cumbric" language? There is a huge problematic definitional distance between a "whether" and a "when", and should it not read " ...classified as having perhaps existed..." in accordance with the justified speculation and appears contradictory to the articles opening which reads:- "Cumbric was the Brythonic Celtic language spoken in Northern England and southern Lowland Scotland, i.e. the area anciently referred to as the Hen Ogledd, and centred on Cumbria." According to other parts of this article itself - No it wasn't! Or at the very least there is inadequate information to substantiate the claim. Significally the ancient refference is of course Welsh. The justifiable doubt regarding full language status is expressed but seems to be immediately dissmissed as a subsequent paraghraph begins with the absence of doubt regarding the speculative - invented- status: "Although the language is long extinct..." . By the articles own stated position it probably never existed ("perhaps")to become extinct; or, in another view it has never become extinct as Welsh is a thriving modern European language, albeit in the modern geography of Wales and not in its old form distributed in what is now southern scotland and northern England. Additionally on this quote: "Although the language is long extinct it is arguable that traces of its vocabulary persisted into the modern era." How do we know? The examples presented are assumed to be cumbric automatically rather than used as the basis for etymological verification. What are we comparing the vocabulary with if the lang is extinct with no written sources available (none are claimed,and, sincerely,if wrong please correct me). The word "arguable" here is not sufficient to support the claim being made. The burden of proof is collossal and is not met with all due respect. Of course adding to that there does not appear to be enough evidence existing to evaluate the assertion of cumbric's existence for the claim to be falsifiable- therefore the claim cannot be made to stand as fact despite the claim being made - erroneously i beleive. "the region in which Cumbric was spoken" With all due respect the cart is before the horse again, Cumbric has not been demonstrated to have existed seperate to Welsh. "More concrete evidence of Cumbric exists in the place-names of the extreme northwest of England and the South of Scotland, 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 South West Scotland as legal terms." Well no as these have the more likely origin of Welsh, a language we know existed in Yr Hen Ogledd, and again despite caveats there is that pre-assumption of existence.The examples of place names is used as the strongest evidence however, as they appear to have clear etymological Welsh sources this suggests Welsh origin. Because we have Welsh examples to frame a refference from a concrete language and etymology rather than an appeal to a proposed dissapeared language, it is more reasonable (in fact only reasonable)to accept Welsh as the source. In my opinion. "...concrete evidence of Cumbric exists..." and "a few Cumbric words surviving into the High Middle Ages" This is only valid if we assume what we want to prove. Because they are cumbric names cumbric exists. How do we know they are cumbric unless we accept without scrutiny the original claim that they are cumbric? So I would claim that there is no concrete evidence and that this and other claims are unsubstantiated and therefore because they are claimed as fact - factually wrong. Essentially the critical problem here for the cumric origin (I am tempted to call it origin myth such is the paucity of evidence)is a stronger theory exists and has greater explanatory power. The burden here is essentially to prove that these words do not have Welsh etymological roots as the claim to Welsh origin is the only credible candidate. IMO "One of the main questions regarding the status of Cumbric, is whether it should be considered a separate language at all" Then why is there a page on wikipedia asserting the claim that it does exist? Quite apart form the statements obvious pre-assumed (again) existence of the term cumbric as in itself un-problematic the article fails to adress this crucial point, it goes without saying therefore that it fails the test. The article begins of course with this quote below and it is a fitting place to end my query. If:- "Cumbric was the Brythonic Celtic language spoken in Northern England and southern Lowland Scotland, i.e. the area anciently referred to as the Hen Ogledd, and centred on Cumbria." (Tecnically it could not have been as those countries did not exist, but I know what the writer means in the context) Then with all due respect the article has failed to justify this statement with fact, and even the speculative evidence is rather weak. i don't beleive that this claim is realistic, and cumbric if we want to persist with its usage with any meaningfull content(and I don't think, on this "evidence" ((or rather speculation))there is a meaningfull content)cumbric should be reffered to the Welsh language pages as at best a proposed dialect of Old Welsh and therefore part of the demography of the Welsh language post Roman britain. I look forward to responses before I edit.Pencerdd (talk) 01:05, 30 August 2008 (UTC)Pencerdd


 * Hi all, I've made some major changes to the text as I beleive that they are neccessary to clean up some of the inconsistensies and contradictions in the nomenclature and presentation and claims. I am of course fully prepared to debate and discuss all of these with all. but I have to say that even after this edit I beleive that we have to be very modest in how we present speculative information and to begin with a dfinite claim to the existence of a posited language is not acceptable even with the acknowledged caveats later in the text. "Cymbric was..." is a statement claiming fact, a claim that is unsupportable even by the previous edits content. And so with all due respect it has to go. Discuss?Pencerdd (talk) 18:42, 30 August 2008 (UTC)Pencerdd
 * Whichever way this debate goes, it needs to be properly referenced as per WP:CITE. For the time being I'm adding a  tag, as clearly either side needs to be referenced.  Personally I've no expertise in this area and no way of knowing whether Pencerdd's version or the previous version is more reliable - but WP does need to be based on consensus and not original research.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 18:03, 31 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Agree with Ghmyrtle. There's no way of telling which version is correct, as neither of them have cited any sources. Another thing Pencerdd will need to do is clean up the language and spelling errors introduced in his/her version. Whatever Cumbric is, it is not a "euphemism" for Old Welsh, "euphemism" has a particular meaning that is not at all applicable here. (It's also misspelled).--Cúchullain t/ c 20:02, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Having re-read the previous version along with Pencerdd's, I have to say that the previous version was much clearer (as well as having more correct grammar and spelling). I've now replaced Pencerdd's version with the earlier version, while keeping the tag and clarifying in the lead that the language is often seen as a dialect of Welsh.  Some of Pencerdd's changes were in my view unnecessary and made the article more difficult to read.  The question of whether or not Cumbric should be seen as a separate language is rightly raised at the start of the article and discussed throughout, and there is no need to repeat the question at every point thereafter.  But the article does need referencing throughout.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:54, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi again, I completely understand your concern for referencing Ghmyrtle, and it is noted but my edit was concerned with addressing the glaring conceptual errors, suppositions and inconsistencies of the previous page, and therefore were unconcerned with external material. I was assessing the claims made and the "evidence?" presented as part of the train of thought of the article. The main problem as I outline above is the initial claim "Cumbric was..." the article itself fails to demonstrate or support the veracity of this statement. Surely that is one of the fundamental purposes or justifications for inclusion in an Encyclopedia - that something should actually exist if a claim of existence is made? Particularly as cumbric appears unchallenged in other entries.

"The question of whether or not Cumbric should be seen as a separate language..." with all due respect is not the substantive point. It is whether it can be reasonably supported as actually having existed at all, whether as a language or a dialect of Old Welsh. Nature of the evidence is weak. Comparison with differentiation in Welsh and Cornish etymology, for example, is not evidence for imagined development of a posited cumbric, it is an explanation of how known languages have diversified and frankly should be removed as irrelevant!

Do doubters have to prove any source or reference in their support when the claim is itself unsupported by references to this extent? It does not meet the basic standard (at least as yet?) of "Encyclopaedic content must be verifiable". Criticisms of un-verifiability that are connected to the articles own inadequate internal rationale and presentational inconsistencies are categories of criticism that require no external resources for their substantiation. However, I do take your points about references, it's just so difficult so far to find anything on cumbric, in itself instructive.

So not only is cumbric's status absolutely unproven even by the argument of the article, it appears (on present evidence) unprovable - paucity of sufficient evidence. And I reiterate much of that which is presented in its defence as concrete evidence (philological and etymological) actually has an existing convincing explication as Old Welsh. Why the agenda of invented languages? I applaud your decision to refer to doubt as early in the text as possible yet it still seems like an exercise in myth-making with inadequate caveats thrown in. "More deduced than proven" is frankly indefensible "deduced" could imply: - from something proven or known; what is known here? It gives status to that which is unproven.

I assure you I fully understand the specific meaning of "euphemism" Cuchullain and its applicability here. Perhaps you did not understand how I was using the word or the nature of my criticisms. Allow me to explain. I was referring to how the word "cumbric" appears to be being utilised in the edit. Considering the paucity of supporting evidence a legitimate question is: Why is an invented alternative substituted for a pre-existing and obvious explanation with greater explanatory power? In an attempt to understand why the user persists with an irrational argument instead of a more rational one; perhaps “cumbric” is substituted because it is more agreeable for subjective reasons than “Old Welsh” therefore its usage is euphemistic. Its inclusion was intended to draw discussion not,unfortunately,incomprehension!But I understand why its inclusion is problematic but no more than what is already there IMO.

The problem with the present edit however, and regardless of my acknowledged spelling mistakes (damn keyboard), persists: It makes a positive claim for the existence of a language that is unsubstantiated by the evidence it presents in its own support! What exactly is the opposition of editors to that specific criticism? What of the content of my critique, rather than the presentation of my discussion? Discussion of spelling is important but I was rather hoping to engage on an hermeneutic level. I'm sure it was much clearer or coherent on a superficial level as an article (as my response was an attempted corrective rather than a more deserved rewrite), but its content and claims are suppositions dressed as proof. My edit was meant to draw attention to this -successfully I hope. The article in its present state remains, well, with all due respect to its originators- ridiculous nonsense! IMO. For the time being I shall not re-edit and do my best to seek further references. if none can be found to support cumbric's claims then eventually I beleive this page will need to be nominated for deletion or moved elswhere as a subsection of Old Welsh perhaps Pencerdd (talk) 04:18, 2 September 2008 (UTC)Pencerdd
 * Your views do need to be referenced from independent sources, otherwise they may well be considered original research. Clearly exactly the same principle applies to the views of the other editors who created the article. Hence the tag at the start of the article.  I have no problem with adding a sentence near the beginning questioning whether Cumbric existed, in your terms, so long as an independent reference can be provided for that view. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:50, 2 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Word. Pencerdd, you need to cite your sources or your edits can't be kept, whether you are correct or not - Inclusion in Wikipedia hinges on verifiability, not truth. Clearly the previous editors aren't off the hook, the same is expected of them, hence the tags. The spelling and grammar errors you introduced are a more minor problem. And as for "ephemism"; the conjectured Cumbric language is not by definition "a substitution of an agreeable or less offensive expression in place of one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant to the listener". That's only your personal supposition. Bottom line is, everyone needs to cite their sources. This is important here, as it affects various other articles.--Cúchullain t/ c 16:02, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi again, acknowledge and am in full agreement with you both regarding refferences. Am getting into the hang of how wiki. works. I'm trying to source some info. from someone with a proffesional interest via a friend at uni. of Wales as cumbric references (other than those refering to this article on Wiki. itself would you beleive) are so far at least, effectively invisible.Pencerdd (talk) 18:45, 2 September 2008 (UTC)Pencerdd

In attempting the justify the usefulness of the term "Cumbric" and hence the need for a Wiki Article of that name, I would argue as follows:

i) I believe that there are some signs from place-names that the usage of the Brittonic dialect in Cumbria (meaning those territories linguisitically Brittonic in speech between say 700-1200 which were geographically and politically separated from Wales and located in what is today North West England and Scotland south of a line drawn between Loch Lomon and the Firth of Forth)was different from that in Wales.

I would qualify that by considering that

ii) "Cumbric" and "Welsh" may have been mutually intelligible and thus by one definition of language v. dialect merely dialects of the same language. iii) the speakers of "Cumbric" and "Welsh" (i.e Cymraeg) appear from surviving literature and tradition to have considered themselves the same ethnic group.

I would say that when we want to talk about the language/dialect of these Scotch Cumbrians/North Welsh in particular rather than the whole range of "Welsh" dialectology e.g. Glamorgan, Pembroke, Montgomery, Arfon, Carlisle, Glasgow, "Cumbric" is a useful term and saves us from spelling out something like - "the dialect of those territories linguisitically Brittonic in speech between say 700-1200 which were geographically and politically separated from Wales and located in what is today North West England and Scotland south of a line drawn between Loch Lomon and the Firth of Forth.

My reservation is that "Cumbric" is an ugly hybrid word neither English nor Welsh (much like Brittonic and Brythonic). Cwmbreg is equally hideous by the way imho.

I have no trouble with "Cymraeg yr Hen Ogledd, neu Gymraeg Ystrad Clud ayyb." if we were writing/speaking Welsh.Barcud Coch (talk) 19:25, 17 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with Barcudcoch, "Cumbric" is one of a number of adjectives in this linguistic field which corrupt both languages within English's flexible neologising. Brythonic is another such corruption albeit in common usage.


 * (Welsh) Brythoneg = (English) Brittonic (Brythonic is an unnecessary corruption of both languages)
 * (Welsh) Cymraeg = (English) Cymric (both refer to the language of the Cymry (the Britons after the loss of much of Lloegr/modern day England to the Angles, Saxons Jutes etc.)). Both 'Cymraeg' & 'Cymraeg yr Hen Ogledd/Cymraeg Ystrad Clud' might more properly in English be considered 'Cymric' & 'Old Northern Cymric/Strathclyde Cymric.' During the time Cymric was spoken in the 'Old North' the Cymric adjectives 'Brythoneg' & 'Cymraeg' were still interchangeable (as seen in the poetry of Aneirin.) So 'Cumbric/Cymric' could equally be referred to as 'Brittonic.'
 * Perhaps it's not helpful to point it out where this article is being edited, but the word 'Welsh' is derogatory, and many Cymry might love to see the back of a word branding them as 'Romanized Foreigners' when they aren't foreigners at all but the indigenous Britons. It was really only after the loss of their territories in Lloegr that the words 'Cymry/Cymraeg' [English = Cymry/Cymric] came to fully replace 'Brython/Brythoneg' [English = Briton/Brittonic].
 * Homoproteus (talk) 14:27, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

My God. Go to the Rhondda and tell them that the word "Welsh" is derogatory and you'll be lucky to get out alive. The etymology of a word does not define it forever... otherwise "wife" would be an incredibly offensive word to refer to your other half. "Welsh" in English and "Cymraeg" in Welsh, and let sense prevail. Cumbric has a place here because it is the prevalent term in English, in so far as this topic is discussed in respectable scientific circles.

'Welsch' still is a slur in German, referring perjoratively to the Romance-language-speaking peoples and their sphere of influence. Germans these days will avoid using the word and will refer to Welsh people as 'Walesisch' instead. That is, Wales was originally named such because the inhabitants were considered 'Welsh' but now Germans call the inhabitants 'Walesisch' because they come from 'Wales'. - Joe

Brythonic is a great word, it tastes like licking the edge of an Iron age ssword.

And if you're so keen on keeping English and Welsh apart, use "England" not "lloegr" when you write in the Saxon tongue.

boynamedsue 78.149.86.180 (talk) 23:30, 30 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I use 'Lloegr' in contexts refering to the region of modern England before the English arrived. What else can one call it? South Eastern Britannia? Pre-Anglo-Saxon England is an oxymoron, and the English only got here in the 5th Century. Homoproteus (talk) 15:12, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

There's great confusion in the article about consistency within the British language(s). Just as there was huge variation in English in different parts of Great Britain until the advent of universal education and broadcasting, it's reasonable to suppose that the use of the pre-English language varied greatly over comparatively small distances. Yet the article is on the one hand happy to assume that Welsh and Cumbric were consistently different from each other, and on the other that Cumbric was internally consistent (eg in the discussion of initial vocalisation of consonants). Some discussion of this is needed. Diomedea Exulans (talk) 16:59, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Recent change
The article has been changed to include this "There are also some historical pointers to a continuing separate ethnic identity. David I, before he was crowned king of Scotland was invested with the title Prince of the Cumbrians in 1124. William I of Scotland between 1173-1180 made an address to his subjects, identifying the Cumbric speakers as a separate ethnic group. This does not prove that any of them still spoke Cumbric at this time." The part about 'identifying the Cumbric speakers as a separate ethnic group. This does not prove that any of them still spoke Cumbric at this time' makes no sense, how can one address 'Cumbric speakers' and then argue that they didn't speak Cumbric? The earlier version was a lot better as were the references to 'Koch' who is, without doubt, an expert in this field.EoinBach (talk) 01:48, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. William I refers to Cumbrians rather than Cumbric speakers.Barcud Coch (talk) 16:35, 14 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, such a reference is not good evidence of Cumbric ethnicity let alone language, and is dismissed as such by Dauvit Broun, one of the authorities used in the article. The reference to "Cumbrians" as a group is not necessarily ethnic, and is unique in contrast to references to "Galwegians" (Gaelic-speaking inhabitants of western Scotland south of the Forth) which are habitual. This article, both the old as well as the new version, has some problems with WP:OR, WP:UNDUE and WP:NPOV that need to be resolved before the article could be respectable, but as Cumbric language is only a theory rather than a fact it might be better named "Survival of British dialects in southern Scotland and northern England" or something of that kind. Deacon of Pndapetzim ( Talk ) 08:38, 16 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I have tried to indicate that William I's reference does not indicate necessarily (though it might) survival of Cumbric speech. However in terms of ethnicity I'm sure you would not argue that the reference to Scots, Norman French etc (don't have the article in front of me) meant anything other than the existence of these ethnic groups. Regarding the continuing debate over the existence of Cumbric as a language - I note that Simon Taylor in Place Names of Fife which I was recently reading prefers "British". That's fine as long as we refer to Welsh also as British. The term Cumbric is in part geographic and part political to distinguish from Welsh with its geographical and political connotations. However, I also feel there are indications from place names and perhaps the legal terms (slight as they are) to suggest that Cumbric was not identical to Welsh. Now this might be dialectal in that Pembrokeshire Welsh is different from Gwynedd Welsh and I am prepared to consider an argument that say Clwyd Welsh was closer to Cumbrian Welsh (tautologically speaking) than either to Pembroke of Glamorgan Welsh in terms of dialect. Though I'm prepared to consider an argument that it wasn't. Ultimately "Cumbric" is a term to specify we are talking about the particular conditions and history of the British language in S. Scotland, N. England as opposed to the British language in Wales rather than using an inconvenient circumlocution.Barcud Coch (talk) 18:22, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Barcudcoch: I think we use "Cumbric" because it is established amongst linguists (and has been ever since Jackson). Although Cumbric may have been Welsh, pure and simple, it may just as easily have been even more divergent than Cornish.

The Fife placenames would not be Cumbric as this term explicitly excludes languages spoken north of the Clyde-Forth, so British is used to refer to the Brythonic of the Picts.

- Actually, Fife is quite a crossroads linguistically. For instance, I would be surprised if "Kirkcaldy" were not a name of the same origins as Carlisle, Carluke etc., i.e. decidedly Brythonic rather than Pictish. However, the same could not be said of such places as Markinch or Cupar, which are probably of decidedly Pictish origins. Taylor makes a strong case for Gaelic etymology of Markinch, but recognises the close similarities between Gaelic, Pictish and Brythonic in the words involved. Cupar is decidedly not Gaelic but, nonetheless, shows a P-Celtic form considerably at variance with the modern Welsh cognate (cymer), though it is possibly more similar to Breton (kemper). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.219.153.178 (talk) 20:48, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

However, your treatment of the William I ref is correct, in this case we have to report the doubts surrounding the subject, given the obscure nature of "Cumbric"

boynamedsue 78.149.86.180 (talk) 22:59, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Not sure why we need to mention the Black Death. It's possible but there is no evidence at all for this statement that I can find. Barcud Coch (talk) 17:09, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Equivalence with Old Welsh / [rk] to [rx]
[k] to [x] mutation occurs within the Scouse accent of Liverpool and the Wirral peninsula, situated nicely between Cumbria and Wales. Perhaps what we see in English as an accent eventually became fixed as an apparent linguistic difference in Welsh/Cumbric due to literacy arriving after the groups diverged; A case of 'same word, different accent'? 82.219.197.3 (talk) 21:53, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Literacy did not "arrive" after the groups diverged. Scouse in its currently recognisable form, as distinct from the rest of Lancashire, in other words, is not older than the 19th Century. Paul S (talk) 00:28, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

When did the forms differ?
The article presumes that a difference emerged between Welsh and Cumbric only after the Battle of Chester. However, I believe there is little evidence of the extent of morphological difference before the Anglo-Saxon invasions, and it is surely at least as likely that there were substantial differences between the Brythonic languages/dialects of different areas from early times (compare the substantial dialectal differences even today between the Welsh spoken in different parts of Wales (Scots Gaelic, Irish Gaelic and Basque also attest considerable local differences within comparatively confined areas)). The presumption should be evidenced or removed. Diomedea Exulans (talk) 19:37, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

It is a presumption. There are no texts in Cumbric to compare forms with Welsh. From place name evidence it is difficult to prove differences. In Cumbria (Medieval Cumbria that is) certain words are used more in place names than in Wales - bar & glyn seem to be more frequent (though that could be for topographical reasons. Also, the practice of placing Gwas- before a saint's name goes more with Gaelic practice than Welsh (Gille-, Maol-) but that is much later. There is no evidence for this claim immediately after 616 as far as I can tell. Barcud Coch (talk) 22:58, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Cumbric placenames - Lindow and Penketh
Lindow and Penketh are included in a list of placenames derived from Cumbric. Where is the evidence that these names are specifically from Cumbric? It would seem far more likely that, considering Cheshire's proximity to Wales, that, to my mind, these would have origins in a dialect closer to Welsh than Cumbric. As such, unless evidence be provided to show, for example, any possible sound shift which categorically cannot be Welsh in origin, I propose these names be removed. Theelf29 (talk) 14:17, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

== I agree. Though it may be difficult to demonstrate any differences between Welsh and Cumbric on the basis of place-names - and, if there were any isoglosses, they are beyond recovery, by geography alone it is difficult to see why the names should be considered anything other than Welsh. Barcud Coch (talk) 19:07, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Counting systems of possible Cumbric origin
In the section of the article entitled "Counting systems of possible Cumbric origin", the Modern Welsh numerals given are, I understand, the masculine versions. I read somewhere that these "Cumbric" sheep counting systems are more likely to reflect the feminine numerals (tair, pedair iirc). Would it not be an idea to include these as well, if not also numbers from earlier forms of the Welsh language as attested? Theelf29 (talk) 10:50, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Name
I wish whoever keeps adding Cwmbraic to this article would stop. While imagining what the Cumbric language might have looked like should it have survived to modern times is a project in its own right. Suggesting that "Cwmbraic" was the name of the language used by Cumbric speakers is very misleading and risks this article (which has a B rating) degenerating into a crank article which will not be taken seriously by any serious linguistic or historical minded readers. My objections to the use of Cwmbraic where it is not specifically stated that this is an invented form by a very narrow group of enthusiasts are as follows

- there is no historical - manuscript - evidence for it. - while some South Walian dialects do use a "w" in the first syllable which is a very lip rounded [u] in these dialects, what is the evidence that Cumbric had this vowel and not the schwa vowel of the North Walian dialects? None. - why is the last syllable -aic presumable [aik] - what is the evidence that the final "g" should be hardened into a 'k' and why the diphthong -aik when the ending used to denote languages in modern Brythonic languages is -eg, or -ek e.g. Brezhoneg, Kernewek, Cymra-eg, Ffinneg, Ffrangeg, Saesneg, Almaeneg, etc etc.

Barcud Coch (talk) 19:04, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
 * There is the placename element month- for "mountain" as opposed to *minth- or *munth- we might expect if Cumbric had a Welsh schwa. No manuscript evidence but if this article were to limit itself to that range, it would be scarcely more than three words long. "Cwmbraíc" is, though, no more than conjecture by a (very) small group of enthusiasts and does not merit inclusion. Paul S (talk) 12:30, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Revival attempt
I can see there's been discussion of this already, and obviously the fact a small group of people are attempting it deseves mention given that for any extinct language thats an automatic question.

But what i'm wondering is... Is there any reasonable basis to this revival or not? Because if its 'bad linguistics' should we be wording it any differently than stuff like mystics using 'bad science?' E.g. is there any textual evidence to back up this 'revival'?

If not then we really need to add something at the end of each bit, warning about this, or btter find a qoute from an academic critising it.

Sorry I'm a bit tetchy about this after becoming involved with a celtic devon group and finding they had no interest in evidence and (yes moderatly slowly) finding out about the real remains of celtic culture in britain, but only in skipping straight to calling it a 'revival', creating websites, articles and the like worded as if the research had already been done... telling people to learn a language called 'old devonian' which a) there was no written evidence of, b) there wasn't even any historical references to a language of that name  and c) even choosing the closest: southwestern brythonic (still hypothetical) the 'reconstruction' seemed to have been performed in a weekend by someone trying either deluded to howdifficult such a task would be, or trying to make a quick buck.

Whilst cumbric at least satisfies b) I think the other need to be mentioned: What evidence is it based on? And if very little that should be emphasised. What method is it the reconstruction based on? And if a bad one, that should be emphasised. 81.155.67.41 (talk)
 * I can't help noticing that the Cumbric revival websites cited here have been inactive for nearly a year now. Possibly this tiny movement has disappeared. Paul S (talk) 01:03, 8 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't know that I've ever seen a serious treatment of Cumbric that mentions the "revival". This may be something that ought to be removed, or reduced to a single sentence.--Cúchullain t/ c 03:25, 8 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I think the section merits inclusion because 1) a book on the subject has been published, and 2) the attempted revival has been mentioned in the media. As well as this news story, issues 140/141/142/144 of Carn mention both the attempted revival and this Wikipedia article. Issues 142 and 144 can be read here. The "official" websites aren't working (for me, anyway) but I did find this blog.
 * ~Asarlaí 03:53, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It's still fairly unimpressive. As far as third party coverage goes, we have a local news story and some mentions in a magazine that appears largely based on this article. I propose we cut it down to a sentence or two that is based entirely on what appears in the third-party sources, and merge it into a different section.--Cúchullain t/ c 13:38, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Done. I've added the tabloid news article and the note from Carn. I don't think much more can be said about this group.--Cúchullain t/ c 14:40, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Absolutely nothing appears to have happened regarding this "revival" since 2010. All websites are down and have been for some time now. Some members were reported to have followed Carn's advice and started to learn Welsh. Would anyone object if the little paragraph were just trimmed away? Paul S (talk) 19:38, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't know that it needs to be removed, it's only two sentences and they don't make the "revival" appear more significant than it was.--Cúchullain t/ c 20:06, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I've just moved the links into "external links" and deleted the section. I'll add a new section to this talkpage in case anyone wants to discuss below.--Northernhenge (talk) 09:45, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Joseph Lucas
I have found literally no sources besides Wikipedia, Wikipedia mirrors, and a forum post or two, that even bother mentioning Joseph Lucas in relation to Cumbric, even to dismiss his statements about Cumbric survival. I see our passage about that was added by Paul S over a year ago. The statement is original research, in that it uses Lucas' own book to advance a position that Lucas doesn't advance (ie, Lucas doesn't say that his own claims are "unsubstantiated"). Until someone can find a reliable, secondary source indicating that the claim is notable, even if it's notable as an incorrect idea, I'm removing the passage. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we may be putting undue emphasis on the importance of Lucas' counting system, but I'll leave that for further discussion.--Cúchullain t/ c 17:08, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Lucas was much more interested in sheep anyway. 80.176.90.118 (talk) 16:08, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Irrelevance of the Battle of Chester
The Victorian schoolbook view may be that in 616AD (or 604) the Northumbrians defeated Gwynedd and Powys and thenceforth POOF! everyone in the vicinity of the battlefield became Anglo-Saxons, but that simply isn't true. What about the fact that Cadwallon temporarily occupied half of Northumbria a few years later? Wikipedia's own entry on the battle even says that the view of the severed connection is outdated. Paul S (talk) 11:33, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The Battle of Chester doesn't need to be here. However important it was it wasn't the only thing that separated Wales from the North. On another note our article on the battle needs some pretty substantial improvement.--Cúchullain t/ c 13:35, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * This is ridiculous - the article did not say - or even suggest - that "everyone in the vicinity of the battlefield became Anglo-Saxons". The fact remains, that the battle is often mentioned as being significant in regards to the separation of Welsh from Cumbric. No one to my knowledge has proposed that this battle was the single event that divided the Welsh and Cumbrians - just one of the major events. Here are two non-Victorian discussions of the battle, with references to Cumbric:


 * Price, Glanville. Languages in Britain and Ireland, Wiley-Blackwell, 2000, p. 73.
 * "It is by no means clear when the Welsh were likewise cut off by land from the Britons of the north as a result of the expansion into Cheshire and south Lancashire of the Angles of Mercia, who had probably first entered England via the Humber estuary. Traditionally, a significance similar to that of the Battle of Dyrham has been assigned to the defeat of the Britons at the Battle of Chester in AD 616 or thereabouts, but it is far from certain that this lead to permanent occupation of the area. However, there seems little doubt that a substantial wedge had been driven between the Welsh and their northern kinsmen by the middle of the seventh century or not much later."
 * Filppula, Markku, Klemola, Juhani, Paulasto, Heli. English and Celtic in contact, Volume 13 of Routledge studies in Germanic linguistics, Routledge/Psychology Press, 2008, p. 9.
 * "In the north of Britain, the Anglo-Saxon conquest proceeded similarly along major waterways such as the Trent and Humber. Settlements in the north and the Midlands led to the establishment of the Anglian kingdoms of Lindsey and Mercia, respectively.....Mercia conquered large areas both from their West Saxon cousins in the south and the Welsh in the west. Jackson refers here to the often-expressed view according to which the Mercians also managed to reach the sea in the north and thus break the land connection between the Welsh and the Britons of the North. He does not, however, find any solid evidence to substantiate this claim; even the victory at the battle of Chester in 613 or 616 was won by the Northumbrians, not by the Mercians (Jackson 1953; 210-211) In any case, the Anglo-Saxo advance to the north proved to have significant consequences for the later development of the Celtic languages, as it meant an areal separation of the Welsh and Cumbric dialects of Late British."
 * Koch, John. Celtic Culture, ABC-CLIO, 2006, pp. 3177-318.
 * "Caer (Chester), battle of (c. 613×616), pitted the Anglo-Saxon dynasty of Bernicia (Brynaich) against the principal dynasty of early Powys, the Cadelling. The Britons were crushingly defeated and a major atrocity was perpetrated by the pagan English king, Æthelfrith, against the monks of Bangor Is-coed. This battle has long been understood as a decisive event in British history, and more particularly the history of the Celts in Britain, but the standard interpretation has changed since the mid-20th century. It used to be thought that this battle marked the permanent arrival of the Anglo-Saxons at the Irish Sea in the vicinity of the estuaries of the rivers Mersey and Dee (Dyfrdwy), thus cutting off the Britons of the north (see Hen Ogledd) from those of the west and geographically defining Wales (Cymru) as a distinct cultural area, as well as marking the separation of the Welsh and Cumbric languages. It is by now generally understood that Æthelfrith was in no position to consolidate his victory; he was killed in battle a few years later, and his dynasty altogether eclipsed until 635. There is almost no archaeological evidence for Anglo-Saxon settlement within the pagan period in Cheshire or Lancashire (i.e., the region between Chester and the Pennine range) and, furthermore, the main lines of communication between north Britain and Wales had probably been across the Irish Sea rather than over the Roman road network via Chester (see roads). Nonetheless, the circumstances of the battle do illuminate the reasons why the Britons and the Anglo-Saxons tended to polarize into antithetical identities rather than coalesce into a single hybrid people and church establishment."
 * I think that, even if its significance has been downplayed since the latter 20th century, the reference to the battle should remain in the article. Cagwinn (talk) 17:42, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it would behoove us more to improve the Battle of Chester article and this section of this article before restoring the mention as it was. Obviously Chester was an important event, but it wasn't the only event that led to the separation of Cumbric from Welsh.--Cúchullain t/ c 13:02, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * All three of these sources, even Koch who is beholden to Welsh nationalism, seem rather to support the view that the Battle of Chester wasn't what separated Cumbric from Welsh. What purpose, then, its continued inclusion? Paul S (talk) 21:29, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It's really unnecessary for you to slander Koch - I can tell you personally that he is not "beholden to Welsh nationalism", or any other such nonsense like that. Several modern scholars have seen fit to discuss the battle in context of the emergence of Cumbric, so it deserves mention in this article. Cagwinn (talk) 23:26, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * How about we use Cagwinn's sources to rewrite the relevant section to what the scholars actually do say about the situation? And of course the comment about Koch is silly and unproductive.--Cúchullain t/ c 23:34, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not "slandering"; he is part of the whole Atlantic-Celtic thing which does look like nationalist history, which is relevant because there tend to be shades of opinion based nationalism or at least nationality. At one extreme we have the "Cumbric nationalist/revivalist" tendency who are anxious to distinguish the language from Welsh and want it to have lasted as long as Cornish; at the other we have Welsh nationalists who see nothing but the potential theft of Aneurin and Taliesin by English and Scots and insist that Cumbric is simply a dialect of Welsh which quickly disappeared, exterminated by the evil Anglo-Saxons. You could say that without the Battle of Chester present day Wales and Yr Hen Ogledd might not have been severed from each other, but you could say that about an awful lot of previous events, too. I don't see that it needs to be given pride of place and again, I'd point out that if the link was broken then it was surely un-broken by Cadwallon. Paul S (talk) 01:24, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Wow! Just my opinion, but with such a distorted view of reality, I really don't think you should be editing any Wikipedia articles on Celtic subjects, Paul S. Cagwinn (talk) 17:00, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Can we get back to improving the article, rather than going on about our personal opinions on scholars' motivations? Cagwinn has provided several sources we can use to rework that section; more are available.--Cúchullain t/ c 17:16, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry; I get a little over anxious sometimes to point out that the old fashioned view of sub-Roman Britain isn't necessarily the right one, because it does still appear to the be default in many cases. You can see the extreme positions on Cumbric on this very talk page, though! Paul S (talk) 12:20, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
 * How about we use Cagwinn's sources to rewrite the relevant section to what the scholars actually do say about the situation? And of course the comment about Koch is silly and unproductive.--Cúchullain t/ c 23:34, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not "slandering"; he is part of the whole Atlantic-Celtic thing which does look like nationalist history, which is relevant because there tend to be shades of opinion based nationalism or at least nationality. At one extreme we have the "Cumbric nationalist/revivalist" tendency who are anxious to distinguish the language from Welsh and want it to have lasted as long as Cornish; at the other we have Welsh nationalists who see nothing but the potential theft of Aneurin and Taliesin by English and Scots and insist that Cumbric is simply a dialect of Welsh which quickly disappeared, exterminated by the evil Anglo-Saxons. You could say that without the Battle of Chester present day Wales and Yr Hen Ogledd might not have been severed from each other, but you could say that about an awful lot of previous events, too. I don't see that it needs to be given pride of place and again, I'd point out that if the link was broken then it was surely un-broken by Cadwallon. Paul S (talk) 01:24, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Wow! Just my opinion, but with such a distorted view of reality, I really don't think you should be editing any Wikipedia articles on Celtic subjects, Paul S. Cagwinn (talk) 17:00, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Can we get back to improving the article, rather than going on about our personal opinions on scholars' motivations? Cagwinn has provided several sources we can use to rework that section; more are available.--Cúchullain t/ c 17:16, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry; I get a little over anxious sometimes to point out that the old fashioned view of sub-Roman Britain isn't necessarily the right one, because it does still appear to the be default in many cases. You can see the extreme positions on Cumbric on this very talk page, though! Paul S (talk) 12:20, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Equivalence with Old Welsh
This whole section is messy and often misleading. I propose that it's replaced with either a bulletted list of points with evidence, or each proposed difference is given a heading and a brief discussion for the evidence placed below. I have outlined the problems with the section below.


 * I have already made two changes to this section: (1) I have removed the Cumbric reconstructions which have no basis in fact (see discussion above) and (2) I have replaced 'apparent lack of aspiration' with 'spirantization' - aspiration is a completely different process.
 * rx/rk - Jackson (cited) says that the change rk > rx "may have been somewhat later in Cumbric" (his italics). He does not say that it did not happen.  The evidence from mercheta and kelchyn appears to show that it did.
 * syncope - the place name Mounth is outside the Cumbric area and irrelevant to the discussion. In any case, the change assumed in Mounth is not the same as the change suggested by Jackson in galnys.  Where the same change occurs in apparently Cumbric derivations (eg. Mindrum) it may be the product of English influence and not Cumbric at all.
 * -mont - the argument for lack of spirantization from -mont is false. If these are from Cumbric (which is far from certain) they show that spirantization did occur but that at some later point it was devoiced and hardened.
 * devoicing - devoicing of final consonants is a common feature of Brythonic languages, but internally it would seem to defy some of the fundamental principles of the languages. That isn't to say it's impossible, but other explanations are available.  For initial consonants there is plenty of evidence to the contrary (eg. Bathgate, Devoke, Derwent).
 * Carlisle - modern pronunciations can hardly be considered as evidence for anything. The early forms Luel, Karlioli, Cærleoil all show some kind of rounded vowel.  That caer was added after Bede's time is also contentious given that Bede had earlier used the obviously Latin Lugubalia - he may have seen the caer as supplementary having been aware of the original form.

I'll give people a while to respond and go from there. Psammead (talk) 12:39, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes. Agreed.
 * We aren't sure what kelchyn and mercheta mean - or even if the latter is really Cumbric at all. This isn't safe ground. What's the proto-Celtic from which Welsh cylch and merch are derived? Are they geminate consonants, because they do give rise to spirants in Cumbric - Lamplugh (note: this is my "original research")
 * syncope between a nasal and dental - is this a feature of Northern English and/or Lowland Scots?
 * I agree - see the placename Tarnmonath
 * all we can do is cite the sources
 * nevertheless, someone thinks so. You'd have to find contradictory arguments apart from your own.
 * Paul S (talk) 20:16, 12 March 2011 (UTC)


 * a fair comment on the meaning of mercheta and kelchyn, though the same can be said of the majority of evidence for Cumbric. There is other evidence of the change, however (eg. Powmaughan).  The Welsh merch and cylch derive from PC *merkess and *kelk-, they were never geminates.  How are you deriving Lamplugh?
 * the syncope of mynydd is probably the result of English word-initial stress. Tarnmonath, which must be 10th C or later, appears to show that the final syllable remained full.
 * re Carlisle - for the caer part I was really pointing out that the suggestion that it was added after was irrelevant to the argument and, unless it can be backed up by citation, has no real place here. When the element was added is a separate discussion.
 * There is an obvious problem with the whole question of Cumbric - namely, that it is by-and-large an amateur topic of discussion. A few academic works are available, but they are often several decades old and rarely concerned only with the Cumbric region.  Because of this it is worthwhile including the work of amateur enthusiasts (and I assume most people contributing to this article are exactly that, myself included).  However, it is still important to make sure that the amateur work is backed up by citable, respected sources.  A lot of the information I've come across online about Cumbric is based on a few assumptions which have never been tested against the facts (eg. early place name records) or academic theory.  Psammead (talk) 15:46, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Lamplugh's 2nd element is from *plocc- according to the Scottish Placename Society. Paul S (talk) 16:01, 13 March 2011 (UTC)


 * That's a bit of a weird one. The SPNS website gives the 2nd element as *bluch "bare, bald" < British *bloucco-/a- which is cognate with W. blwch, Co. blogh and Br. blouc'h (though the stem would actually give W. **bluwch).  Only the Br. form has a meaning approaching 'bare, bald' (actually 'hairless') which is apparently from Vulgar Latin *piluccare (the source of Eng. 'pluck').  The W. means 'box' and W. plwch means 'a space, while, quantity' and the Co. doesn't appear to exist at all.  All in all, not a very convincing derivation.  Ekwall gives the second element as W. plwyf 'parish' which has problems of its own.  Anyway, I agree with your original point - spirantization of geminates was one of the fundamental changes in Brythonic languages.  Psammead (talk) 22:59, 13 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Cornish blogh "bare, bald" does seem to exist - see O. Padel, Cornish place-name elements, English Place-Name Society, 1985, p. xix, 23, 344 and Padel, O, "Welsh blwch 'bald, hairless'", in: BBCS 29/3, 1981, pp. 523-526. Maybe, if you guys have no specialized knowledge of Brittonic linguistics, you should leave the editing of articles pertaining to it to those of us who have conducted the necessary research? Just an idea - feel free to ignore me. Cagwinn (talk) 01:25, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Regardless, that section does need substantial work. The real issue is not whether Old Welsh and Cumbric were separate "languages". It is that there are some features of what scholars call "Cumbric" that differ from what scholars call "Old Welsh".--Cúchullain t/ c 12:45, 14 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Cagwin: all of what I've written above is based on research from a number of sources. Padel is the source used by the SPNS - what I was saying was that it doesn't appear to be backed up by others, nor does the derivation of modern forms < *bloukk- conform to the general standard of the prehistoric language used by Jackson, Morris Jones, MacBain, the Prifysgol Cymru and others.  In any case, that's tangential.  What we need to ascertain is whether the content of the section can be backed up by independent sources or at least confident examples.Psammead (talk) 15:50, 14 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I cannot fathom why you are looking to the SPNS website for accurate etymological information - it's completely unreliable! I don't have Padel's article handy, but SPNS' reconstruction *bloucco-/ā looks like a typo to me (perhaps they meant to write *blo/ucco-?). Cagwinn (talk) 16:59, 14 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I wasn't looking at the SPNS website for accurate etymological information. In fact, the only reason I looked at it was to see what their justification for giving *plocc- as the second element of Lamplugh was, because I've never come across it or anything like it in Brythonic before.  Turns out, they've changed their minds on the whole thing but what's on the website is no more satisfactory.  The point of my response was to show that I don't think a lot of their etymological skills.  It may well be that the Welsh and Cornish words existed (the name Blwchbardd surely can't mean box-bard, can it?!) but I have found no independent verification for them in any of the dictionaries or texts I have.  If it was a typo, it doesn't excuse them as blocc- wouldn't give Welsh *blwch & Br. blouc'h anyway - even less if they had -a.  If it is from VL *p'lucc- (which can at least be justified by cognates in other languages and the fact that the Breton meaning is 'smooth, hairless, bald' rather than 'bald, bare' (like moel)) it seems a pretty bizarre word to describe an enclosure.  All in all, I think we're on the same page with this:  don't trust the SPNS.  Psammead (talk) 20:26, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * And whatever, the likely sources for the name are mostly geminates, which is the point I was trying to make in the first place; geminates do seem to spirantise whatever else may or may not have happened. We've gone rambling a bit, now... Paul S (talk) 12:09, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


 * To further confuse matters, I have just been reading Glanville Price's article on Cumbric in "Languages in Britain and Ireland", Wiley-Blackwell, 2000, p. 120ff, and he suggests (p. 123) that the 2nd element of Lamplugh (which was recorded as Lamplou and Lanplo in the 12th century) is cognate with Welsh plwy(f) "parish" (=Neo-Brittonic *plēb, from Latin plēbem). Cagwinn (talk) 16:42, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I've been looking at the section and trying to back each point up with sources. I could do with some help on the following:
 * James' article 'A Cumbric Diaspora' is mentioned regarding voicless consonants, but none of his own examples are given. If anyone has the article can they offer some suggestions with his derivations?
 * I can't find a reliable source for the derivation of Rutter Falls though I've come across it on websites before. Does anyone have one?
 * With regards loss of -w- in words like Niddrie, Carlisle - I've never come across this suggested in any published work. Can anyone provide backup?  The only derivation I've found for Niddrie is Gaelic and, again, I don't believe the modern pronunciation of Carlisle is evidence enough of the loss of -w- in Cumbric.  Unless sources can be cited it should be removed.
 * I was going to add 3 additional points - the use of 'penn' in Pais Dinogad, the definite article in -n and the possible lack of W -ydd. All of these are mentioned in published works.  Let me know thoughts.  Cheers Psammead (talk) 17:08, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Peis Dinogat is in Welsh, not Cumbric. Why is penn there relevant? Paul S (talk) 18:58, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


 * According to Koch (see reference in the article) the poem has been shown to be set in Cumbria - he gives the suggestion and it seems worth including. All I'm trying to do here is relay information from other sources, preferably with some kind of balance of opinion so readers can make up their own ming.  If you can give me a reliable source with a counter argument let me know, because I don't really believe it either. Psammead (talk) 22:11, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * PS - There is currently a paragraph about the fact that all the evidence for Cumbric comes to us through other sources. I was going to suggest it would make more sense in the 'evidence section though.  Psammead (talk) 22:15, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Set in Cumbria yes, but the version we have now is in Welsh. Maybe it's a translation, but who is suggesting that it preserves any original Cumbric? Is rhyming helya with llaw allowed in Old Welsh? That's otherwise the only feature that looks odd and suggests there was an original, presumably in Cumbric. Paul S (talk) 12:41, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't have an etymological dictionary to hand, but if modern hela (helya in the poem) had an ancestor helyaw, then that would make sense. Nor would it be surprising: final -aw got reduced in unstressed syllables. This is why the plural of llaw is dwylo (<dwy law). Doesn't really tell us anything about Cumbric, as distinct from Old Welsh, though. garik (talk) 14:18, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * As far as I've been able to discover, it didn't. helya is presumably either an error for hely or hela or the same as OW helcha. It's origin, *selgo- isn't an i-stem and so according to Morris-Jones couldn't have a verbal noun in -aw either. Neither does it look as if llaw < *lɔːβ < *lāmā would ever have been without the w. The dwylo monophthongised -aw only occurs in the second syllable of two syllable words, and is too late a change anyway. Paul S (talk) 20:45, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Welsh helya (Old Welsh helcha, helgha), like Cornish helghya is a verbal noun containing the suffix -sag- "to seek", so it can be reconstructed as Brittonic neuter *selgo-sag-om (see Schumacher, The Historical Morphology of the Welsh Verbal Noun, Maynooth, 2000, p. 145; pp. 165-166. The Archaic Welsh (and perhaps Cumbric) form was something like *helghag and the AW/Cu form of llaw was probably the same as Old Breton, *lom. For a brief discussion of the problem of this particular rhyme, see:
 * Isaac, Graham R., “Meter and Performance in Early Welsh Poetry”. In: Küper, Christoph (ed.), Metrum, Rhythmus, Performanz, P. Lang, 2002, p. 319. Here is a snippet:
 * "But no parallel to the present rhyme between helya and law is known in the corpus of medieval Welsh verse, earlier or later. Two accounts of this aberrant rhyme are available in literature. The first, introduced by Thomas Parry, suggests that helya, the usual verbal noun of the verb 'hunt', here stands for an alternative form helyaw, with a different suffix. While this suffix -aw is itself very common, it is nowhere attested with this particular verb. The fact that we have an otherwise unattested rhyme here means that an unusual explanation is needed, but to solve the problem by emending the text to produce an equally unattested form is not very attractive. The other explanation was proposed by me in an earlier work, in which I point out that the Middle Welsh form helya would have been *helghag /helγhaγ/ in Old Welsh, and that there may have been a generic rhyme between this /helγhaγ/ and law. I now reject this view. A rhyme between /helγhaγ/ and law would be just as unattested as between the words in their manuscript forms. More importantly, the verb ‘hunt’ is attested in ninth-century sources as helgha and helcha, with no trace of the final guttural, whereas the form ysgwyd ‘shoulder’ in line 6 of the poem shows the metrically significant development of the prosthetic vowel before clusters of s + occlusive, a development which is agreed to belong to the eleventh century. The linguistic chronology is clearly wrong for this explanation of the rhyme. I now rather suggest that the apparent rhyme of helya and law can be understood by taking account of the performance of the poem. The rhyme is in fact a regular one in -a, if the offset of the diphthong -aw in law was attached by sandhi to the vocalic anlaut of the first word of the next line, ef.” Cagwinn (talk) 00:51, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It's an interesting discussion, but we're being diverted again here. The fact is that Koch cites this as a possible example of Cumbric dialect so it ought to be included.  Any citable argument to the contrary is welcomed for the sake of balance.  The point of Wikipedia is to present information in an encyclopaedic way to give readers an overview of the topic.  I can understand your original point, Paul S, but the same argument can be applied to all the evidence of Cumbric, as it comes to us through other sources.  All we can talk about here is possible points of divergence from OW and give evidence for/against. Psammead (talk) 10:35, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * That's why I was so interested in helya/llaw and the lack of a rhyme - the possibility that this poem, unlike other "Aneirin" material, postdates the separation into Welsh and Cumbric and arrived in Wales later than the rest so that when it was transcribed the Welsh scribes weren't sure what to do with some of the unusual (Cumbric) features. Is Koch saying that Peis Dinogat is unusual, or just that it shows Northern dialect features of Brythonic? Paul S (talk) 11:25, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, I wasn't trying to suggest that llaw would ever have been without the w. As I clearly said, "final -aw got reduced in unstressed syllables", which excludes non-cliticised monosyllables like llaw, and includes the second syllable of all two-syllable words, like dwylo. My point was merely that if  there was some variant pronunciation /'heljau/ of helya, whether historical or dialectal (or even folk-etymological), then that might explain the rhyme. Rather speculative, granted, and you'd probably expect helya to be written helyaw (though the spelling is odd whatever we assume). In any case, as Psammead says, this is a diversion. Just wanted to make myself clear. garik (talk) 15:20, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * As far as I'm aware the contents of the books of Aneirin and Taliesin are both held to date from various periods - they're collections rather than singular works. Some of the material, it has been argued, may date back to the time of the poets themselves.  If that material was composed in the north, according to Jackson's chronology, it would have been composed in Primitive Cumbric and it's possible they were originally written in the north before being brought to Wales and transcribed (though we can't know for sure).  Koch himself says that trying to deduce anything about Cumbric from the poems is largely pointless because (a) it's impossible to pick 'Cumbric' elements apart from other archaic or unusual elements and (b) because the known written Old Welsh/Breton/Cornish were so similar as to be almost the same language and the literary language would no doubt have been different from the popular language.  But he picks out the penn element of PD (and that element alone) as being possible Cumbric because (a) it's set (and composed??) in Cumbria, (b) because the usage of the word is otherwise unknown in Welsh of any period and (c) [I infer] because the repeated use of the word can't really be explained as an error or anything else - it was presumably copied directly from an older source.
 * Can anyone provide reference details for the items I noted above, or examples from 'Cumbric Diaspora'? It's been a week now since we got this convo going so I was going to put the edit up soon.  That way we can discuss any changes/additions/etc when it's on the page.  Psammead (talk) 17:02, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Never heard of any such thing re spread of the Cumbric language as such, only the suggestion that the counting score was spread by shepherds from the region being employed elsewhere in England (and Scotland?) Paul S (talk) 16:22, 21 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I think a very comprehensive source for developments in Cumbric is Alan James "Dating Brittonic Place-names in Southern Scotland and Cumbria"

Alan G. James in volume 5 of Journal of Scottish Name Studies. If I recall correctly the suggestion that Lamplugh has a blwch as a final syllable is Oliver Padel's and the idea that it has plwyf is Eilert Ekwall's. Whaley cites Padel's view in Dictionary of Lake District Place names and Ekwall's is in his Dictionary of English Place Names. 92.18.172.254 (talk) 22:48, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Cheshire place names
This has been discussed briefly above, but nothing came of it. I propose deletion of any Cheshire place names in the "Cumbric Placenames" section as these lay outside the defined Cumbric region and are irrelevant to this article (see Koch, Jackson). If no one objects I'll do this in a week. Psammead (talk) 10:13, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Be careful of what constitutes "Cheshire". I would object to deletion of whatever lies within the modern administrative county, as this pokes further North than the historic county - possibly out of the Old Welsh and into the Cumbric speaking region. Paul S (talk) 11:15, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Also - Liscard: why on Earth would we have Irish spoken in the Wirral? Are we blaming it on the Dublin Norse somehow? Paul S (talk) 11:54, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a fair point. The boundary ought to the be Mersey, as I think that's the most southerly delineation among the literature.  The Dublin Norse were obviously prominent in the Wirral, based on other place name evidence - I see no reason why Irish couldn't have been spoken there.  It's obviously plausible enough for Mills to suggest it.  Psammead (talk) 08:55, 24 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I wonder whether the whole place-name section shouldn't be deleted? The etymologies are not certain and not based on any reputable source. They keep being changed and until there is a reputable scholarly source why don't we get rid of this section? 22:36, 8 September 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.18.172.254 (talk)

Loss of /w/
Someone called Tony Walker on this page "Counting Sheep" argues that the counting score giggot < *wikanti- is further evidence. Has anyone we can cite noted this possibility? Paul S (talk) 11:39, 30 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I have not come across any discussions of giggot specifically, but the words in the "Cumbric" counting system (if they are not in fact late borrowings from Welsh) are so corrupt, I wouldn't want to put too much weight on any particular spelling. Internal /w/ does seem to be lost in the words for "four" and "six" (but not in the word for "nine"), but the initial wi- in Brittonic *wikanti became a ū- in Welsh, Cornish and Breton, so it would be unusual if it had survived as wi- (and then became gwi- and finally gi-) in Cumbric.
 * Two articles mentioning the counting system:
 * Glanville Price, Languages in Britain and Ireland, p. 124.
 * Markku Filppula, Juhani Klemola, and Heli Paulasto, English and Celtic in Contact, p. 104.
 * Bryham Kirkby, Lakeland words, p. 163 - more complete listing of the scores
 * Rev. T. Ellwood, "The Ancient British Numerals with their Affinities" in: The Reliquary, p. 225ff. - contains a few more scores not listed elsewhere
 * Cagwinn (talk) 17:59, 1 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Have to agree with Cagwinn here. I've never actually come across much discussion beyond quick mentions of the scores anywhere but the internet and in newspapers/magazines which probably get their sources from the internet anyway.  This for me is where things get into incredibly shaky ground.  To say giggot is < *wikanti requires inventing a whole range of sound laws for Cumbric, which aren't evidenced anywhere else in Brythonic.  I personally don't believe the words share anything more than a vague resemblance.  Interesting to note, however, that Cornish Jennifer = Gwenhwyfar/Guinevere shows a change of gw > /dʒ/, which might support the modern pronunciation but since we have no reason to believe the word ever started with a gw- it's nowt more than an interesting note. Psammead (talk) 19:36, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not arguing, by the way, that giggot is anything like the original form; just that the initial g is explained by /w/ loss; it seems hard to account for it otherwise. Paul S (talk) 10:30, 31 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The Price source given by Cagwinn mentions that giggot might "possibly" be related to ugain, but goes no further. I don't think it's really enough to merit inclusion on that basis, as it doesn't mention anything specific about -w- - it seems to be stretching the citation a bit far.  The Lakeland Dialect article/post looks to me like a personal theory, he doesn't seem to be repeating someone else's work.  The argument seems entirely circular to me.  Psammead (talk) 19:49, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Oldham
There is a district of Oldham (historical Lancashire) called Glodwick, the derivation of the name being from a cognate of of the Welsh clawd, meaning dyke, + Latin-derived vicus. Presumably this would be placename of Cumbric origin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Urselius (talk • contribs)


 * Do you have a reliable source for this? Ekwall says it has been likened to Gloddaeth but refrains from giving any derivation.  I'm not sure what gloddaeth means but it's presumably an abstract noun based on glawdd "lustre, splendour".  It only seems to be the name of individual houses in Wales and not a place or district.  I doubt that the second element is vicus or any derivation thereof, since -w- doesn't appear in any of the old forms.  The spelling "-wick" was probably based analogically on other places pronounced "ick" in the area.  If the first element is clawdd as you suggest, the second may be the diminutive -ig.  In any case you'd need a citable source and it would probably be worth adding that it was an uncertain derivation.  Psammead (talk) 11:48, 13 April 2011 (UTC)


 * "Glodwick (the S.E. part) : Glodic 1190-8 HS LXVII. 211, Glothic 1212 LI,

de Glothiche 1246 LAR, Glodyke, Glothik 1323 LI, Glotheyk 1307, 1347 LF, Glothyk 1347 LR ; Glodyght 1474 VHL V. 93, Glodethe, Glodyth 1540 DL, Glodight 1587 DL, Glodith, Glodighte 1591 DL, Glodwicke 1633 DL; now [glodik]. Glodwick is in a fairly high situation ; at Glodwick Lows an elevation of 725ft. is reached. There are old quarries in the district. The place is near a Roman road.


 * The variation in the early forms is most curious, and is perhaps best explained

if we may assume that the name is not English. There is a Welsh place-name which at least looks rather like Glodwick, viz., Gloddaeth (Carnarvon) : Glodeyth 1353 Rec.C. This name, I suppose, consists of Welsh clawdd " ditch ; fence, hedge " (early Bret, cloed, clod, cloz, Ir. clad) with lenition after certain preposi- tions, and aeth " furze." Glodd- would exactly correspond to Engl. Gloth- ; as regards Glod- we may compare the material adduced under Haydock, De. Welsh aeth goes back to earlier (*akto-). This would hardly have given E. -ight or -ic, but there may have been a derivative with ^-mutation : cf. the examples given under Ightenhill, Bl. The most difficult task is to explain the interchange of -ic (-ik) and (later) -ight, etc., in the forms of Glodwick. Glodight may be fairly easily derived from a Brit, name similar to Welsh Gloddaeth, but Glodik, Glothic are hard to account for. Sound-substitution may have taken place."


 * PUBLICATIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
 * ENGLISH SERIES, No. XI, 1922


 * THE PLACE-NAMES OF LANCASHIRE

The page number is difficult to work out from the online version.Urselius (talk) 21:20, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

In a blatant violation of "this is not a forum", I'd like to point out that either Breeze or Coates (can't remember which) makes Oldham itself a partially Celtic toponym. However, isn't southern Lancashire and Yorkshire south of the dales expressly outside the scope of Cumbric? Cumbric refers to the tongue spoken in northern Britain after the fall of York, Cheshire and Lancashire split the Welsh of the Gogledd Hen from those of North Wales. If we include place names from South Lancashire as Cumbric, we should also put the Wigan, Leeds and even North Derby/Notts clusters in here.

Boynamedsue (talk) 15:53, 18 July 2011 (UTC)


 * When the Welsh became lingustically separate from the Cumbrians is moot. In the 10th century, after Viking incursions had destroyed the power of Northumbria, large areas west of the Pennines came under the control of the Strathclyde British. One contemporary record describes Loidis (Leeds) as being on the border between the Britons and the Kingdom of York (Jorvik). If Strathclyde were in control of Leeds then there was no competing power to dispute their control as far as the Mersey. It is hard not to see this, apparently peaceful, development as a re-assertion of a British cultural element in the population of the area.Urselius (talk) 14:06, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
 * If indeed the Life of Cathroe means Leeds when it says "Loidam Civitatem". Some people think it means Carlisle, but that's a little unlikely for me. Paul S (talk) 19:04, 29 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I think this has been discussed elsewhere. Different scholars place the boundaries in different places, effectively anywhere from the Mersey (or even the Welsh border) to Stainmore Pass.  Since the term Cumbric is defined as the Brythonic language spoken in region X at a particular period, it would probably be useful to have a section which discusses in more detail the various definitions of that region and some of the problems of applying it.  Psammead (talk) 12:32, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Rearrangement
I've taken the liberty of rearranging some elements of the article to flow better. There was a lot of repetition and the "place names, scots/english and counting" sections seem to fit best under the "evidence" heading since they are already discussed there. I've not made too many changes, except to help the article flow and to remove things which were repeated. Psammead (talk) 11:14, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Penrith & Penruddock
Me again. I've undone the revision by Colacho under the place names Penrith and Penruddock, vis:


 * Penrith, Cumbria. From "Pen rhudd" or "pen rhyd", meaning 'the top of the hill' or "the top of the ford"
 * Penruddock, Cumbria. Nearby to Penrith, it comes from the words pen (head or top) and ruth with the suffix oc, meaning 'top of the little hill'.

"The top of the hill" is not a translation of either of the Welsh forms given for Penrith. Mills and others give the meaning as "chief ford". "Top of the ford" is not semantically impossible but needs citation. The revised derivation for Penruddock contains fake Cumbric cognates (see discussion above): there is no such word as **ruth in Welsh or Cornish nor anything like it meaning 'hill'. The existing derivation "little red hill" is not particularly convincing either, but does appear in Lee's Place Names of Cumbria. (rhuddog means 'reddish' in Welsh and 'robin' in Welsh and Cornish, but none of my sources suggest 'reddish hill' or 'robins hill'. The suffix -og isn't a diminutive in Brythonic, even though toponymists repeatedly treat it as one). Psammead (talk) 08:57, 9 July 2011 (UTC)


 * From the GPC - Pen(1) 2.a: "top, summit, roof, highest point, also fig.; source (of stream, river, etc), (river-)head; head (of bed, grave, table, etc)." The suffix -og (earlier -oc/-auc) certainly was used as a diminutive in Brittonic languages (and was even borrowed by the Irish). Why are you pretending that you know more about Celtic linguistics than you actually do? I really don't understand the mentality. Cagwinn (talk) 14:26, 9 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Colacho clearly believes *ruth to mean 'hill' since s/he uses it in both derivations. There's no such word.  I've only ever come across one reference to W. -og as a diminutive outside toponymy, in an old grammar by Thomas Rowland.  The only possible extant example I know of is ffolog, which isn't really a diminutive at all.  CB -eg/k isn't used as a diminutive and I've never heard it described as such with reference to known British personal and place names (Eburacon, Catacos, Tigernacos, Dubacos etc.). Macbain says the Gaelic dimin. -ag < OI -óc is the OI word óc "young", though how convincing that is I don't know.  Psammead (talk) 14:31, 10 July 2011 (UTC)


 * The "ruth" bit is spurious. but as I mentioned, there's nothing controversial about the rest. If you have only come across one old source regarding Brittonic -āko- being used to form hypocoristics, may I suggest that you have a lot more reading to do on the subject and should refrain from editing articles on Brittonic subjects until you are properly educated? Just an idea. MacBain is not a serious source - but you would know that already if you had conducted a serious study of Celtic historical linguistics. Sorry if I am coming off as obnoxious, but it's people such as yourself who diminish the quality of Wikipedia (which is already low to begin with). Cagwinn (talk) 17:11, 10 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I stand by the edit, regardless. I don't claim to know everything about Brythonic linguistics but I do know some things.  My reasons for reverting this edit were (a) because neither pen rhudd nor pen rhyd mean "top of the hill", (b) because the edit included invented Cumbric forms, which have no place in this article unless they are from cited sources and (c) because *ruth "hill" has no Brythonic cognates in any case.  My personal opinions on -oc are irrelevant to that decision, nor do they appear in the article itself.  I have no problem with pen rhyd meaning "top of the ford" but it was easier to undo than to rewrite the section.  I have been making concerted efforts to tidy this article up, both in terms of its content and its format, by ensuring that only citable information is included.  If it wasn't for people like me the misinformation above would still be included in this article.  Psammead (talk) 10:46, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Your revert was a good one, Psammead, thank you. Cagwinn, you could clear it all up quickly by just adding a reliable source rather than being a jerk.--Cúchullain t/ c 13:14, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Cumbric Region section
I've added a fledgling section to discuss in more detail the various definitions of the "Cumbric Region", which differ widely. I have only put a few up for a general picture, but please expand. There have been discussions on this page about areas of Cheshire, Derbyshire and Yorkshire being included so it would be interesting to have some sources for those (if there are any). Psammead (talk) 09:36, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

West Brythonic classification
Cagwinn: okay, that's the citations, that's all I really wanted. It bothers me a little that people automatically assume that Cumbric was close to Welsh when the evidence I've found seems to suggest otherwise, but since this would be "original research" I can't object further. The Equivalance with Old Welsh section elucidates on some (possible/likely) differences between Cumbric and Welsh; what similarities do we have actually attested or deduced, features that specifically mark the language out as more Welshy and less Southwestern? Paul S (talk) 20:35, 15 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Part of the issue is that the phrase "Western Brythonic" isn't used all that often. The sources just tend to note the similarities between Welsh and Cumbric and the features that make them distinct from one another. The two were similar enough that Cumbric features in the poetry could be retained in Welsh copies without difficulty. On the issue of relatedness, every source I've seen that gets into it to any depth indicates that Welsh and Cumbric were more similar to one another than to the Cornish/Breton of the period.Cúchullain t/ c 21:31, 15 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The poetry in question is so old it might be called Brythonic; Koch calls it "archaic neo-Brittonic" for instance. I'd just like to see some stuff on the specific similarities, if indeed they exist. Paul S (talk) 21:41, 19 January 2012 (UTC)


 * There is a difference between Neo-Brittonic and Brittonic; the poetry in question does not date to the Brittonic period (which is effectively over by the mid-late-6th century).Cagwinn (talk) 02:21, 20 January 2012 (UTC)


 * But then I suppose there's less of a difference between Brittonic and archaic Neo-Brittonic. Is it argued that we could definitely not have had a Cornish or Breton version of Y Gododdin drawing on the same original source? Paul S (talk) 15:56, 28 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Archaic Neo-Brittonic was closer to Brittonic in some respects and closer to Old Welsh/Cornish/Breton in others. For instance, the lack of Brittonic final syllables and a-/i-affection of vowels in the new final (formerly Brittonic penultimate) syllables, makes it more like the later medieval languages. If an early 7th century Ur-Gododdin was brought to Cornwall or Brittany, then yes, we could have ended up with a Cornish or Breton version of the poem. Cagwinn (talk) 16:54, 28 January 2012 (UTC)


 * So then how is it possible for people to go on citing it and other very early works as evidence for the closeness of Welsh and Cumbric? Paul S (talk) 19:38, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

the area anciently known as Cumbria
The link to modern Cumbria is inappropriate because it's not the old used of the word. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.103.145 (talk) 16:45, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Skiddaw
I have added a 'Citation Needed' template to the recent addition about Skiddaw in Place Names. My own sources prefer a Norse derivation, but it is usually left as 'uncertain'. The whole fragment is in need of reworking to comply with Wikipedia's standards. I have left it as-is for the time being, but suggest it is deleted if a citation is not provided soon. Psammead (talk) 13:43, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Apparently this refers to the supposed "shoulders" derivation on the Skiddaw page. Looking at earlier recorded forms, it's hard to see the supposed Cumbric *sceidou(?) being more likely than the Norse. Paul S (talk) 18:18, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The suggested Norse derivation is from a word skut which is found in Kinder Scout and Scoat Fell in Cumbria. In that case it would likely be Skouthou with a different vowel in the first syllable and no explanation of how we get to a -d- rather than a -t-. Coates suggested the name might be Cumbric which Whaley notes. An Cumbric skuidh du "black shoulder" (forgive the ad hoc orthography) which would correspond to Ysgwydd Du in Welsh - there is no Ysgwydd Du in Wales for an actual mountain but there is an Ysgwydd Gwyn and various other Ysgwydd hill names. Cumbric Skuidh Du (the on glide schwa in Welsh was a later development) would give Skidh daw if the /ui/ was borrowed by Old English /y/ and later unrounded as normal to /i/ Jackson discussed Forster's explanation of luitgoed to Litchfield where this exact feature is seen. The dh d -> to d is also not unlikely. So I think that Skuidh Du to Skiddaw presents no obvious phonological problems, unlike the suggested Norse derivation. However, this is my theory and it is not published so it can't be cited so there is no citation from published material to support this  92.18.172.254 (talk) 21:55, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
 * But then you would have to find evidence for Br. ei > ui in Cumbric alongside the change in Welsh (but absent in Cornish) and there is also the alternative Norse skyti. Paul S (talk) 01:42, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I've deleted the Skiddaw entry, I don't believe it's adding any valuable information to the article, it's only confusing matters and the list is not intended to be exhaustive so it doesn't need to be there. It has been suggested that the whole section should be deleted. It has got out of hand and half of the names don't have cited sources or are so dubious as to be of little value. I think it's important to have a section on place names with a few clear examples as PNs are the only major source of evidence for the language. However, perhaps just a handful of known or very probably examples should be given within a paragraph. Or perhaps certain elements such as car-, tre-, pen-, blen- should be given with a few good examples to give a flavour of the language. Nicolaisen would probably the best source as he names Cumbrian as well as Scottish examples. Psammead (talk) 21:34, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
 * If it is indeed Cumbric, is it not easier to derive Skiddaw from an equivalent of the plural ysgwyddau, ("shoulders") with no "black" at all? That fits the topography (Skiddaw is a large massif with several ridges and subsidiary peaks) and is consistent with the local pronunciation "Skidda" ('skɪdɘ). As the /w/ after /g/ seems to have been lost in some varieties of Cumbric (gos/gwas) the late Cumbric word for shoulder could plausibly have been (y)sgydd (as Welsh would spell it), which would account for the ui~i issue (ie it went *skuidh-*skwidh-*skidh in Cumbric, before it was taken into English). Walshie79 (talk) 00:25, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Move request

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: no consensus. --  tariq abjotu  17:34, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Cumbric language → Cumbric – The term "language" here isn't necessary and may be confusing to readers. "Cumbric" is just the conventional term for the form of the Brittonic language as it was spoken in the north of Britain; it would have been mutually intelligible with the form spoken in present-day Wales, ie, Welsh. Fortunately, there are no other articles titled "Cumbric" to confuse it with, and "Cumbric" is suitably precise to identify the topic and is more concise per WP:AT. Cúchullain t/ c 15:56, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Survey

 * Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with  or  , then sign your comment with  . Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.


 * I disagree - since Cumbria is also the name of a region in northern England, "Cumbric" can have other usages besides the linguistic one. Since other Neo-Brittonic articles are qualified by the the addition of "language" (ie, Welsh language, Cornish language, Breton language, I feel that it should be retained here for both consistency and to avoid ambiguity. Cagwinn (talk) 18:59, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
 * We only add disambiguation when it's needed to distinguish existing articles with the same names. With Welsh, Cornish, and Breton, we have other articles they need to be distinguished from (Welsh people, Cornish people, etc.) There are no other articles that could cause confusion for "Cumbric", which is only ever used for this topic, and which is already a redirect to the longer name.--Cúchullain t/ c 19:27, 21 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose per Cagwinn, "Cumbric" like other adjectives, refer to the region -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 23:50, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
 * For one thing, Cumbric already redirects here, so anyone who types it in or clicks on it already comes to this article. Second, "Cumbric" doesn't refer to anything else. The language is the only entry in the Oxford English Dictionary, for instance. Appending "language" is just unnecessary and potentially confusing verbiage.--Cúchullain t/ c 02:48, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Do a Google Books search - "Cumbric" is/was used for more than just the language (I have seen "Cumbric kingdom", "Cumbric race", "Cumbric islands" and "Cumbric hill", for instance). Cagwinn (talk) 04:23, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
 * We only disambiguate for currently existing articles. Those other uses are so obscure that there will never be articles for them; for the most part "Cumbric" is still a reference to the language. Considering that the shorter name already redirects here, the current title fails the conciseness and precision points of WP:AT. Additionally, calling this a "language" may present unnecessary confusion for readers (the article itself calls Cumbric a variety).--Cúchullain t/ c 14:04, 24 June 2013 (UTC)


 * John Koch's Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia similarly avoids the confusion by listing the topic under just "Cumbric" (p. 515)--Cúchullain t/ c 14:06, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Weak Agree While I don't feel it very important, I note that Nahuatl which can only refer to a language, has that simplex title - it isn't "Nahuatl language". I'd emphasise (as apparently the only person in the discussion who actually lives in Northern England) that Cumbric does only refer to the language, it being a term coined by Jackson for this purpose. The adjective is "Cumbrian". Paul S (talk) 20:32, 24 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose Far from the current setup being confusing to readers, the proposed new title would confuse readers. Although the language may be the most important meaning, and the only one important enough to have a Wikipedia article at present, it is not quite the only one.  Whether it strictly speaking counts as a separate language from Welsh or Brittonic may not be crucial. PatGallacher (talk) 21:20, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Again, we only add disambiguation when there are existing articles to distinguish it it from. There are none for "Cumbric", and other uses of the term, such as they are, are so obscure that they'll never be articles.--Cúchullain t/ c 14:01, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Does what you are saying have a clear basis in WP:TITLE? PatGallacher (talk) 01:04, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, as I said in the proposal: two of the naming criteria at WP:TITLE are conciseness and Precision. Conciseness means "The title is no longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects." Per WP:PRECISION, "titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that". Additionally, disambiguation is only used "single term is ambiguous—when it refers to more than one topic covered by Wikipedia articles" (my emphasis). In our case, there is no other article called "Cumbric" and there never will be, as there are no other uses of the term that are remotely common.--Cúchullain t/ c 12:56, 26 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Weak agree. The more concise name is preferable, but a redirect from the "other" name will remove confusion regardless of the outcome of this discussion. Dusty |&#x1f4ac;|You can help! 15:12, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Any additional comments:
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

No evidence of Saxon presence
There is no evidence of a Saxon presence in Northern Englannd. There were Angles, but eventually they became "broken men" living in the edges of Celtic villages. So much for a German Northern england. The arival of Scandinavians, who were farmers and traders, but the vikings, who were Scandinavian pirates hardly existed in Northern England. Our Celts were Gauls from France i.e. the Parigians of South Yorkshire. The myth of a German Anglo-Saxon Northern England is that, just a Germanist myth. DAVE — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.254.56.195 (talk) 19:27, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Classification within Celtic
Are we to assume kwamikagami's problem is with the division of Celtic into Insular and Continental rather than, say, into P-Celtic and Q-Celtic? I have my own problem with the classification as "West Brythonic" since it seems to be something all the authorities do without supplying any reason for it, but that's a separate issue I won't return to. Paul S (talk) 15:48, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The reason for the division is that it is believed that Cumbric shared more traits with Welsh (the main West Brittonic language) than it did with South-Western Brittonic languages like Cornish and Breton.Cagwinn (talk) 15:56, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes it is, but nobody ever seems to have any basis, other than geographical proximity, for having this belief... I've yet to see a comparison of features shared between (perceived) Cumbric and Welsh showing how this groups them together and sets them apart from Cornish. Paul S (talk) 19:41, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

(and ) Not quite. I have no problem with Insular, but I don't think we should dismiss P-Celtic either. I summarized my understanding of the issue at User_talk:Cuchullain. Our various Celtic articles note two competing hypotheses on classification, Insular Celtic and P-Celtic. Despite a century of debate, there is no consensus on which is correct. Our sources cover both, and several of our articles cover both, and while an author such as Eska (2010) may say they prefer one, they acknowledge that they can't exclude the other. Therefore it is appropriate for us to list both in the tree of the Brittonic languages, where they overlap: IE > Celtic > Insular or P-Celtic > Brittonic > Cumbric. The tree in the box is to summarize the classification as well as to provide navigation links for our readers, and this does that. Cagwinn calls it "vandalism", and despite having the concept of vandalism repeatedly explained to him (by another editor, not me), he continues to insist that it's vandalism. It's quite ridiculous. — kwami (talk) 18:32, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Use of the Name Element Gos-
I've added this section as the use of "Gos-" seems like quite a distinctive feature of Cumbric, and is mentioned as such in Koch's Celtic Encyclopedia. It's fairly basic, but I'm not aware of much discussion on the matter beyond brief mentions and I didn't want to wander into the realms of original research. Psammead (talk) 11:58, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Removal of Paragraph and Section "Cumbric Region"
The 2nd introductory paragraph is historical/geographical information not really relevant to the discussion of the language and the remarks about placenames are repeated anyway. The "Cumbric Region" section also seems a digression not really relevant to the discussion of the language as well as being too discursive and even a bit POV-laden. It also says The definition of that area is therefore essential to any further study of Cumbric before essentially concluding that it doesn't seem possible to define the area... Pythian-Adams is a historian specialising in the Mediaeval and Tudor periods and so his criteria seem unlikely to have anything to do with delineating a region according to its language in an earlier phase so lengthy quotation of him also doesn't seem to have much value in this article, even though he mentions Cumbric. I've moved Koch and Jackson's definitions of the boundaries of Cumbric from this to the "Problems with Terminology" section. Paul S (talk) 00:19, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Needs maps
Needs maps showing the two quite different extents proposed by the two major sources cited (use a gradient for the uncertain eastern border in one of them). The textual descriptions of the language's theoretical range aren't very meaningful to people not intimately familiar with British geography (especially since they're a mixture of usage - landmarks, modern counties, old traditional counties, etc.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:01, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, you're probably right about this, but it's hard to find one that fits the bill. I don't trust a linguistic map in 1100 which seems to have been made specifically to 'big up' Gaelic at the expense of other languages, including Cumbric. I've found a "Just before the Vikings" map that might serve. Paul S (talk) 11:23, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Added one of the Hen Ogledd maps for now. Paul S (talk) 11:40, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Replaced it with my own map which mentions most of the locations in the text and has the principal (supposedly) Cumbric-speaking early mediaeval kingdoms - Alt Clut, Elmet, Gododdin, Rheged. Paul S (talk) 21:39, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, belated, for taking that on.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:55, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 1 October 2015

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved. Listed for well over two weeks and unopposed. Nominator makes a strong argument, too. Jenks24 (talk) 08:42, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Cumbric language → Cumbric – As I argued in the previous RM, simple "Cumbric" is the better title for this variety on several levels. First, it's unarguably the WP:COMMONNAME for the subject ( vs., and sources such as ). It's also the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC: while it was suggested before that the term "Cumbric" can refer to other topics, this isn't the case as far as I can tell. "Cumbric" is an invented conventional term for the form of the Brittonic language spoken in northern Britain in the early Middle Ages, and it only ever refers to this topic; the only entry in the OED is for this subject. In fact, Cumbric already redirects here and there's no other article it could conceivable point to. This makes including "language", as we do for ambiguous titles like Welsh language and Irish language, unnecessary. It's also poorly advised, as it has the potential to confuse readers: it's not clear that "Cumbric" was a language, a dialect, a variety, etc., as it was apparently mutually intelligible with contemporary Welsh. This is a case where the "language is unquestionably the primary topic for the name", so we should follow WP:NCLANG and put the article at the base name. Cúchullain t/ c 15:27, 1 October 2015 (UTC) --Relisted. George Ho (talk) 02:49, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Hasn't this been proposed and rejected once already? Paul S (talk) 13:26, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It was proposed two years ago and closed as "no consensus". The policy reasoning still stands.--Cúchullain t/ c 13:49, 4 October 2015 (UTC)


 * NOTE WP:CWW the target location contains material that was merged into this article, so cannot be directly deleted WP:MAD. It will need to be displaced to preserve edit history, suggest Cumbric (language) -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 03:29, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Edit history has now been displaced -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 02:07, 6 October 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Pennywell.
The article for Pennywell, near Sunderland, Tyne & Wear states that 'The name Pennywell is of Celtic origin and is thought to mean "wellspring at the top of the hill".', and I'd like also to add a personal interpretation of Pen-y-gwal, 'end of the wall'. Could this name be considered 'Cumbric'?

It is within close proximity to another Cumbric toponym, Penshaw and the Brythonic (though not necessarily Cumbric) River Wear.

There is also a hamlet so-named in Midlothian, also a region with evidence of Cumbric toponymy.

I should also note that for both, the solution of Old English penning-wel, 'penny well' should be further explored.

JoeyofScotia (talk) 11:21, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Cumbric. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120322012011/http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/new_website_launched_for_people_who_want_to_talk_in_cumbric_1_568605 to http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/new_website_launched_for_people_who_want_to_talk_in_cumbric_1_568605

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 13:42, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

"Extreme northwest of England"
In the "Available Evidence" section, discussing the secondary evidence of Cumbric from place-names, I have changed a reference to the distribution of such names in England from "extreme northwest" to simply "north". The basis for this change is that; Cumbric names in England simply aren't limited to the "extreme northwest" of the country. The article acknowledges the presence of Cumbric-derived place-names in the northeast (Penshaw, Mindrum, Troughend), Yorkshire (Pen-y-Ghent) and Lancashire (Mellor, Culcheth, Pemberton). JoeyofScotia (talk) 13:14, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Clarifications
It seems that the article makes references to compare Cumbric to "British". Such as in the first Citation 14: " 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", and at the end of Citation 17: "Kinneil derives from Gaelic ceann fhàil "head of the [Antonine] Wall" but it was recorded by Nennius as Penguaul (Welsh pen gwawl) and by Bede as Peanfahel, which appears to be a merger of British and Gaelic."

This should be examined for clarity and accuracy, as it is utterly impossible that the "British language" or even the word "British" as it is today existed at the time of Cumbric. Old Irish/Gaelic pronunciation of "Briton/Breton" should not be taken as "British". The Romans had collectively called the area Brittania in maps and records, from which the modern word "British", and the terminology of "Brittonic language" in general descends from (as that would be the oldest still existing instance of the root word in use).

In the 600s AD, there was with certainty no "British" being spoke in the British Isles, as not even the Anglo-Saxons' Old English was completely in the form that would evolve into modern English at that time (The Saxons were still writing their runic script then). The writer may have perhaps meant "Briton/Brittonic" which would be more appropriate.

English is not even in any direct relation to the native Brittonic and Celtic languages of the British Isles at the time. English is primarily from the Germanic language group, with assimilations and conversions of local Brittonic and Celtic languages over time.

It is further impossible to know or prove what existed there before the separate Brittonic languages, likely thanks to either the Roman Occupation, the conversion to Christianity, and/or the commonplace sacking and burning of settlements over the centuries between Scotland and England. The evidence simply no longer exists, archaeological or documentary, for this area before the 7th Century, outside Roman records of the region. It had also been common in Britannia for locals to re-use vellum; to strip the hide of ink/dye and repurpose it with different writing. Such may have been the fate of some early recorded material of this region.

Furthermore, in regards to the Citation 14 noted above, the article contradicts itself later on, at the second set of sentences under the header Equivalence to Old Welsh: " Jackson also calls it a dialect but points out that "to call it Pr[imitive] W[elsh] would be inaccurate",[9] so clearly views it as distinct in some meaningful respect." which is in direct objection to the first Citation 14, as the author being cited there notes in the same source, that he himself finds it inaccurate to label Cumbric Primitive Welsh.

204.111.79.10 (talk) 08:22, 23 August 2020 (UTC)


 * The term "British Language" is used as an alternative to to "Brittonic language" to describe the Celtic language used south of the Forth/Clyde line before, during and immediately after the Roman period.


 * I have checked in google scholar using the search term "British Language", counting only results that were published after 1945 and which clearly refer to this language not something else. I stopped the search after I got 10 ghits, on the assumption that for every use of "British language" in this context, there are likely to be 5 using just "British" (a term too general to productively search). Among those using "British" in this way were Kenneth Jackson, perhaps the greatest scholar of language in post-Roman Britain, and Katherine Forsyth, the scholar who revolutionised the study of Pictish from the nineties onwards. --Boynamedsue (talk) 06:33, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Deleted the Modern Revival section
I've just moved the links into "external links" and deleted the section. I couldn't find additional external sources - the existing ones are very close to the project or simply comment on its existence. Giving it a full section seems to be wp:undue prominence but I couldn't think of anywhere else to put it, hence moving the links and deleting the comments. (This has been discussed previously above. I've added a note in the above discussions to point here.) --Northernhenge (talk) 09:45, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Agreed. It's misleading to speak about 'revival' for Cumbric. Unlike languages like Cornish and Manx, which were revived based on the actual previous form of the language, there is no known form of Cumbric so no 'revival' is possible. Any 'revival'of Cumbric is merely inventing a new language, not reviving an extinct one. Jeppiz (talk) 12:02, 22 August 2022 (UTC)