Cumbraek: Difference between revisions

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 ===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.
+Cumbraek's predecessor, Common Brittonic, was spoken across much of Great Britain from prehistory up until the coming of the English and Gaels in the 5th century. That language underwent substantial phonological and syntactic changes in the first half of the first millennium AD, resulting in an entirely new form of Brittonic which subsequently diverged into the languages of Cumbraek, Welsh, Cornish, Breton and (arguably) Pictish.
-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.
+In the 6th century, the emergent Cumbraek was spoken across much of central Britain between the Forth-Clyde isthmus and the Humber-Mersey line and it was within this linguistic sphere that the ''Priv Verdh'' ("great bards") Aneirin (Cu. ''Aneyrin'') and Taliesin (Cu. ''Talyessin''), among others, composed their great works of literature. But within a relatively short space of time the political advance of English-speaking kingdoms pushed the Cumbraek heartlands back towards the Kingdom of ''Al Clout'' (later Strathclyde), the influence of which waxed and waned over the coming centuries though it remained the strongest pillar of Cumbraek's continued existence. Pressure from the English language to the east and from Gaelic in the north and west eroded at the peripheries but Cumbraek remained very much a living and reasonably thriving language.
+In the 11th and 12th centuries Strathclyde was absorbed into Scotland and its southern portion annexed by England, at which time Cumbraek ceased to be a language of law and power but remained vital in the mouths of ordinary people. Events of the following centuries, including the 'Davidian revolution' and wars between Scotland and England, initially threatened Cumbraek's survival but the constant uncertainty of life in the borderlands encouraged the people of that region to disassociate themselves with national politics and to think of themselves as a distinct group. In the west, particularly among the middle-ranking local nobility, the surviving Cumbrian identity and language were used to assert this sense of distinctness and, as a result, Cumbraek was revitalised. The Reiving culture which developed in the borders, based on family ties and cattle raiding, appeared to be reflected in the poetry of the ''Priv Verdh'' and a new but considerably less sophisticated period of the bardic craft developed.
+The heroic lifestyle of the Reivers was brought to an end following the Union of the Crowns in 1603 but Cumbraek remained in increasingly limited use up until the end of the 18th century, at which point it ceased to be spoken. However, a number of late texts and antiquarian interest prior to and following its demise meant that Cumbraek was able to be preserved.
 ====Phonology, Grammar and Lexis====