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Cumbraek: Difference between revisions
→Internal History
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===Internal History=== | ===Internal History=== | ||
No detailed alternate history has been developed to explain how Cumbric continued to be spoken until the present day. Such an outcome would require the existence of some kind of culturally distinct community who identified themselves as Cumbrian as opposed to (or in addition to) Scottish or English. Historical evidence suggests that a distinct Cumbrian identity continued into at least the 13th century and it was presumably the emergence and strengthening of the Scottish and English national identities as a result of continued animosity which eventually forced Cumbrians to realign their cultural affinities . | No detailed alternate history has been developed to explain how Cumbric continued to be spoken until the present day. Such an outcome would require the existence of some kind of culturally distinct community who identified themselves as Cumbrian as opposed to (or in addition to) Scottish or English. | ||
Historical evidence suggests that a distinct Cumbrian identity continued into at least the 13th century and it was presumably the emergence and strengthening of the Scottish and English national identities as a result of continued animosity which eventually forced Cumbrians to realign their cultural affinities. However, the border region was unstable up until the 17th century and the Marches were inhabited by powerful families who paid little attention to national identities. In the Western March, which covered Dumfries and Galloway and old Cumberland, a Cumbrian identity could feasibly have continued and flourished as a way for the Marchers to mark themselves out as a distinct group, thereby avoiding too strong an alignment with either Scotland or England. The noble Marcher families or Reivers, engaged in constant raiding amongst themselves, were in many ways similar to their Cumbrian forebears of the 6th and 7th centuries, who were immortalised in poetry and legend. They would have perpetuated the heroic ideals of bravery, loyalty and generosity and perhaps reinvigorated ancient customs, employing bards to sing praise poems as they feasted in their bastle houses. With the Union of the Crowns in the 17th century this situation began to change and Cumbric gradually lost out to English and Scots. | |||
==Phonology and Orthography== | ==Phonology and Orthography== | ||