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From: lilandbr@scn.org (Leland Bryant Ross)
Subject: Re: Feathery bumpit (a number system for counting sheep)
Message-ID: <Dzt5ux.Mns@scn.org>
Sender: news@scn.org
Reply-To: lilandbr@scn.org (Leland Bryant Ross)
Organization: Seattle Community Network
References: <54eg8u$sjm@news.enterprise.net> <5408bh$e27@hermes.ucd.ie> <542ove$f8b@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> <546umt$4t1@panix2.panix.com>
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 01:37:44 GMT
Lines: 34


In a previous article, hibou@enterprise.net (Donald Fisk) says:

>rcpj@panix.com (Pierre Jelenc) wrote:
>>The reference I have (unfortunately a magazine clipping without source) is
>>for the similar set of numbers used by women to count their stitches while
>>knitting. It goes:
>
>>1 yan		11 yan dik
>>2 tan		12 tan dik
>>3 tethera	13 tethera dik
	etc.		etc.
>>10 dik		20 jiggit
>
>>This was attested in northern England, Lancashire if I remember right.
>
>It's thought by one author (Glanvill Price, IIRC) that these numbers
>are all that's left of Cumbrian, a P Celtic language spoken up until
>the dark ages in northern England.

On what (if any) grounds is Cumbrian (Cymru-an, n'est-ce pas?) held to be 
"a P Celtic language spoken ... in northern England" rather than merely
            ^^^^^^^^ 
"Welsh as once spoken in a part of the island where English has now 
supplanted it"?  This strikes me as a sort of retrojection of the 
"Bosnian language" phenomenon *sans* even the *political* rationale.  
Unless, of course, Cumbrian is better attested than I imagine, and shows 
marked dissimilarity to contemporaneous Welsh...

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