Cumbric is an old Celtic language, related Welsh, which as you might imagine was spoken in Cumbria, and across what was called the Old North of England, or Yr Hen Gogledd in Cumbric, along the borders with Scotland. it is lost now, although there are groups who are trying to revive it, but it lives on in the names of places… as so often happens with old, dying or dead languages. I was reminded of this when I saw a lullaby written somewhere… but where i do not know as I can’t find it now!
Some examples of well-known places are Bathgate which means boar wood, Carlisle with old word caer ‘fort’ in it, Glasgow comes from ‘glas gau’ which is a green hollow and Penrith, which means major ford. There was some lingering use of this ancient tongue in the way shepherds would count their sheep, and although there are many local variations the one which is most commonly known by outsiders is ‘yan, tyan, tethera, methera, pimp’, the numbers from one to five. The language lingered on, certainly until the tenth century, but maybe even longer in quiet villages, away from towns and bigger areas of population. The nursery rhyme, ‘Hickory, dockery, doch’ is a corrupted version of the last eight numbers in the Cumbric counting system, ‘hovera, dovera, dick’ – and in case you are wondering what seven and eight are, ‘sethera’ and ‘lethera’! Oh, and while I’m mentioning Cumbric and nursery rhymes, where do you think Old King Cole was king of… although he may have spelt his name Coel!
There is a very interesting blog about this:
Lois Elsden 