Random Cumbrian Musings on Language

[auriol]

Many of you know that I was brought up in Cumbria, a dull-sounding county made up in the early seventies from a bit of northern Lancashire and what many locals still refuse to refer to as anything other than Cumberland and Westmorland

Comments

[dorianegray]

I first encountered Yan Tan Tethera as a child, in Joan Aiken's "The Cuckoo Tree". I don't think I ever really believed it was anything real - I still don't know it as anything more than a counting system.

It's pretty cool to learn that it's more than that, and that someone I know is familiar with it.

[briccy]

The ability to gain free ice cream seems pretty damn useful to me :D

[jetlagjen]

I wonder how many of the random dialect words I know are actually Yan Tan? Yam? Gripe? Fettle? Marra? Scop? I honestly have no idea.

[auriol]

All of those originally were part of Yan Tan to the best of my knowledge. As the dialect has largely died out, certain words have continued, along with works like Deek, Clarty, Stotting, Lowp, Nebby and Yat.

Scop is 'to throw', isn't it, off the top of my head?

It's amazing what you forget.