Hello from Manchester- Mammcenion!

[BritishCelt2017]

Hi, I am relatively new to Brittonic Polytheism, but I have studied Gaelic and continental practices before. I aim to restore the historical Cumbric Language and I have about 250 words of the language so far. I must also make it known that I am a re-constructionist in the strictest sense of the word, as I am atheistic in nature, but as a historian I strive to preserve the Brittonic ways from a secular point of view, though sometimes I feel a very deep connection to the world and to local Celtic Deities. 

Hope to be communicating with you all soon!

-Anglo-Celt

[lorna]

Hello and welcome to Brython

As someone based in Lancashire I'd love to know more about the Cumbric language. All I know about is the various counting systems. I'd be interested to hear about how you have found the 250 words. Is it possible you could share them here or through a link? How do you think Cumbric links with Welsh? Is it necessary to be fluent in Welsh to learn Cumbric?

[BritishCelt2017]

I've had to trawl through about 500 scholarly works on the subject (you can find all of them easily on Google Scholar by typing in Cumbric) and sorting through them to find the most accurate and trustworthy pieces of work. There is also the website called 'The Old North'. I'm not exactly fluent in Welsh but I know enough to be able to recognise when a word that is being claimed as Cumbric is a cognate or not. Personally I have a list of words I consider the most trustworthy, and a list of other words less so. Here is my most trusted list:

a -and
aeth-went
ala-water
allain-blades
anghei-escape
ar- your
baith-boar
ban-the
blain-summit, end
bugeil- herdsman
cadeir-chair, seat
cair-village, town
carn-stone pile
ced-wood
celinn- holly
chwerthin-laughter
chweru-bitter
cogow-cuckoo
coruc-coracle
creig-rock
cul-narrow
cumm- valley
dalgh- catch
dat- father
de- your
Derwenid- Derwent river
didhugeith- bring-
din- fort
dol- river, dale, valley
drumm- ridge
dukh- fetch
durnog- fist
duv- black
e- with
eglis- church
elei- out
emdulyaw- war
eni- in
ev- he
galnys- murder
geilt- wild
gelwi- called
goghuic- dogs
gos- servant
grougyar- grouse
gwir- men
haysaetir- hay farm
helgh- hunt
hidh- stag
hwidogaith- whistle
is- his
isguid- shoulder/spear
iw-is
kelchyn- cycle
lad-lion
lannerki- clearing
lath- lance
law- hand
ledi- killed
lew-killing
linn-lake
liwig-animals
lonen-deer
lory-club
luein-fox
luguwaljo- Power (of Celtic God Lugus)
mal-like
mel- bald
mercheta- daughter
mim- sound
ne- it
ni-not
nit-none
o-of/from
ognaw-incite
oll-if
or-at
paladar-spear
pan-when
penn-head
pisk-fish
prenn-tree
pull-pool
raidir-waterfall
riw-slope
ros- headland/moor
ruo-red
te- went
tir- land
trev- settlement
trin- battle
truin- nose
vei- strong
vikian- small
vinidh- tall
vre- hill
vreith- speckled
withich- wether
y- on

There's about 101 words here.
As for historical sources, I consider the poem 'Pais Dinogad' to be the text closest to pure unaltered Cumbric. (Welsh scholars took the pieces originally composed in Cumbric and translated them into the surviving manuscripts we have today)

[lorna]

Thank you

Quite a few words seem similar to Welsh such as 'a', 'cadeir', 'din', 'duv', 'law', 'penn', 'pull', 'trev'. 'Geilt' for 'wild' (as opposed to the Welsh 'gwyllt') is Irish isn't it?

I recognise 'vreith' from Pais Dinogad - fascinating lullaby. How it ended up in Y Gododdin is a complete mystery!

How are you working to reconstruct the Cumbric language from what is already known?

[Heron]

Many of the words in that list appear in glossaries of Middle Welsh texts. I've alway thought of Cumbric as the dialect of early Welsh spoken across the Old North and so probably at least in North Wales at a later date when Gwynedd was taken back from the Irish by Cunedda (or whatever historical events contributed to that legend). I've never thought of Cumbric as having developed into a separate language like Cornish and the fact that Pais Dinogad is contained in 'Y Gododdin' suggests that its written form was pretty much the same across the area where Welsh was spoken apart, of course, from variations in scribal practice and the variable spelling that occurs in medieval manuscripts in English as well as Welsh. Scribal practice in rendering individual letters differently also contributes to such 'variations' (e.g. 'u' or 'v' for modern Welsh 'f' as you note)

The question of 'translations' into surviving manuscripts is usually a matter of updating Old Welsh forms into the Middle Welsh of the period when the manuscripts were copied. With 'Pais Dinogad', for instance, that verse only survives in the 'complete' manuscript of Y Goddodin which is entirely in Middle Welsh transcription and not in the earlier Old Welsh transcriptions which are incomplete. So it is difficult to know what 'Pais Dinogad' (as 'Peis Dinogat' or something earlier) would have looked like in an earlier version. The fact that some of the Gododdin verses may well have originated in Middle Welsh rather than Old Welsh makes it even more difficult to be certain that this is not a later interpolation, though the verses (interpolated or not) have been tentatively dated to the 7th century.

[BritishCelt2017]

Dec 26, 2017 16:08:25 GMT -1 Heron said:

Many of the words in that list appear in glossaries of Middle Welsh texts. I've alway thought of Cumbric as the dialect of early Welsh spoken across the Old North and so probably at least in North Wales at a later date when Gwynedd was taken back from the Irish by Cunedda (or whatever historical events contributed to that legend). I've never thought of Cumbric as having developed into a separate language like Cornish and the fact that Pais Dinogad is contained in 'Y Gododdin' suggests that its written form was pretty much the same across the area where Welsh was spoken apart, of course, from variations in scribal practice and the variable spelling that occurs in medieval manuscripts in English as well as Welsh. Scribal practice in rendering individual letters differently also contributes to such 'variations' (e.g. 'u' or 'v' for modern Welsh 'f' as you note)

The question of 'translations' into surviving manuscripts is usually a matter of updating Old Welsh forms into the Middle Welsh of the period when the manuscripts were copied. With 'Pais Dinogad', for instance, that verse only survives in the 'complete' manuscript of Y Goddodin which is entirely in Middle Welsh transcription and not in the earlier Old Welsh transcriptions which are incomplete. So it is difficult to know what 'Pais Dinogad' (as 'Peis Dinogat' or something earlier) would have looked like in an earlier version. The fact that some of the Gododdin verses may well have originated in Middle Welsh rather than Old Welsh makes it even more difficult to be certain that this is not a later interpolation, though the verses (interpolated or not) have been tentatively dated to the 7th century.

Heron, don't get me wrong, I hate people who claim to have just 'reconstructed something without evidence so I strive to have evidence to back up everything that I claim. Some of the words in the list do correlate to Welsh words, however, that is to be expected, since they are both Brittonic languages as well as Cornish and Breton which have cognates too, much more than the pronouns below. 

E.g. English: I, You, He, She, We, You(plural) They

Welsh: Mi/I/Fi, Ti, Ni, Fe/Fo/Ef, Hi, Chi/Chwi, Nhw/Hwy
Cornish: My/Me, Ty, Ef, Hy, Ny, W(h)y, Y
Breton: Me Te, En, Hi, Ni, C'hwi, Int
Cumbric*: Mi, De, Ev, Hi, NI, Hait, Hwi.
(My reconstruction)

I'm doing this research on my own and have been doing for nearly two years, its difficult when you only have yourself and have to research into things to teach yourself concepts and ideas in order to further your own. My reconstructions of the pronouns have pages and pages of reasoning in my notebook talking about how I concluded with the words I got (I do this for most of my reconstruction work- if not, I provide other scholar's reasoning) 
For example, the Cumbric word for You (plural) 'Hait' is derived from the Cumbric number six, 'Haite'. I wrote this when I was just beginning my research nearly 2 years ago, it's only a theory but the Celtic languages words for You Plural all seem remarkably similar to their words for 6 in their language. So my theory is, In Celtic (Brittonic) languages, for You to become You plural it may refer to a group of 6 or more, or a group of people numbering up to six. 
e.g. 
                    Six                     You Plural
Cumbric*:    Haite                 Hait
Welsh:          Chwech              Chwi
Cornish:        Hwegh               Hwi
Breton:         C'hwec'h            C'hwi

Etymologically they are all incredibly similar, but until a professional linguist comes along, it is still just a theory. I followed other patterns and ideas to form the other words I have with evidence, but I will divulge them another time as it is late and I need to get to bed and have some sleep. I promise you, I don't ever propose any theory without evidence to back up what I am saying. 

[BritishCelt2017]

Dec 24, 2017 11:19:20 GMT -1 lorna said:

Thank you

Quite a few words seem similar to Welsh such as 'a', 'cadeir', 'din', 'duv', 'law', 'penn', 'pull', 'trev'. 'Geilt' for 'wild' (as opposed to the Welsh 'gwyllt') is Irish isn't it?

I recognise 'vreith' from Pais Dinogad - fascinating lullaby. How it ended up in Y Gododdin is a complete mystery!

How are you working to reconstruct the Cumbric language from what is already known?

I mentioned about cognates in my reply to Heron and yes, the 'geilt' is Irish, but also happened to be the Cumbric word for it as well, in my list of sources on my computer I have 'geilt' down as potentially a Gaelic loanword through contact with the Dal Riata Irish in Scotland. It is not impossible, as in Irish there are words of Brittonic origin (Which could be either Welsh, if the Irish borrowed words from them in the Llyn Peninsula, or Pictish or Cumbric, those two regions bordered the Dal Riada Sttelements in Scotland. There is also a very, very very slim possibility the Irish picked up Brittonic loanwords from the Brittonic inhabitants of the Isle of Man before or during Gaelicisation. There are some obsolete Irish words with Brittonic origin, e.g. 'Prapp'- Quick (P Celtic origin) and Prappad- Fast movements/ quickly (pluralised Prapp). Allas- Sweat which may come from Welsh/Cumbric 'ala' water. Muichet which means Swineherder and Buchet which means cowherder are P celtic in origin and are similar to Haesaetir- the word I give in Cumbric as Hay farm. Remove the 'ir' element and you get Haesaet- potentailly meaning Hayfarmer. A farmyard role like pig and cow herding- they all seem to have the name of the thing they farm 'Hay/Pig/Cow' (Haes/Muich/Buch) [In Welsh: hamaethasant/Mochyn/Buwch] plus 'et' at the end. Compare the Welsh given earlier in that sentence and the Irish equivalents: Fierme/Muc/Bo. The Welsh is etymologically closer than the Irish, indicating Gaelic taking Brittonic loanwords. It's not too outlandish to suggest that Brittonic could take Gaelic loanwords. 

As I mentioned in my comment to Heron, cognates/ similar words occur in other celtic languages. Welsh has similar words to Cornish and Breton. Regarding the words you picked out  'a', 'cadeir', 'din', 'duv', 'law', 'penn', 'pull', 'trev', the Cornish and Breton equivalents are below:


Cornish: ha, kador, din, du, leuv, penn, poll, trev
Breton:  ha, kador, kastell, du, dorn, penn, bolenn, tolpad-kêrioù

As they are all Brittonic it is expected that they would have similar vocabularies, a few people think that if a reconstructed language has similar or the same words as another close language, that the reconstructor simply took words from the modern language and applied it to the reconstructed language. You are right to be wary of such reconstructions, but many are unaware that languages which derive from common sources have similar or the same words for the same things. 
Here's a comparison list from the Old North Website (I added Cumbric reconstructions on - of the words I had reconstructed from that list)



I hope this has helped you to understand my sources for reconstruction and reasons for similarities in the Celtic languages

[lorna]

@ British Celt - Thanks for these updates. The similarities are interesting. In your answer to Heron you didn't make clear whether you think Cumbric is a dialect of early Welsh spoken in the Old North and later North Wales, or a separate language in itself. I get the impression you believe it is a separate language. I'd be interested to hear your reasoning on this. I always thought it was a separate language too until I read Heron's comment.

[BritishCelt2017]

Dec 28, 2017 11:17:02 GMT -1 lorna said:

@ British Celt - Thanks for these updates. The similarities are interesting. In your answer to Heron you didn't make clear whether you think Cumbric is a dialect of early Welsh spoken in the Old North and later North Wales, or a separate language in itself. I get the impression you believe it is a separate language. I'd be interested to hear your reasoning on this. I always thought it was a separate language too until I read Heron's comment.

It's difficult to prove either way at this stage in archaeology. So either of us could be right- in any case, the speech we call Cumbric has some definite deviations to Welsh, e.g. I mentioned before the pronunciation and use of V in cumbric, whereas welsh uses F.   
You are right in thinking that I believe at some stage, Welsh and Cumbric were separate.