Cumbrian Language in its Cultural Context

Development of the Consonants.

The finer details of the development of consonants - those surrounding the slight backing of /s/ or the slight affrication of /k/, for instance - are often inaccessible to philologists, and I will discuss this point further at the end of this chapter. We can, however, discuss broader trends through spelling evidence.

The biggest difference between northern and southern consonants has historically been in palatalisation. I explained this briefly towards the beginning of the book, but palatalisation is a change that causes a consonant to be articulated closer to the palate than it was before the change. Before the various groups constituting the Anglo-Saxons migrated to Britain, a few of their dialects were affected by varying degrees of palatalisation in the velar plosives /k/ and /g/.

This made its way into most of the Old English dialects, as well as the Frisian languages to a lesser extent, and was governed by a number of rules. Proto Germanic /ɣ/ (which became /g/ in most other Germanic languages) and /k/ would become /j/ and /t͡ʃ/ respectively when followed by a front vowel. /ɣ/ was also affected after front vowels, unless it was followed by a back vowel. /k/ was only affected after /i/ and /iː/, unless it was followed by a back vowel. /sk/ clusters became /ʃ/ at the start of a word and after a front vowel - again, unless a back vowel followed. Finally, Proto-Germanic /ggj/ clusters became /dʒ/.

This resulted in such modern words as church, cheese, sheep, ship, bridge and ridge in standard English.

In Cumbrian, there are numerous forms unaffected by palatalisation scattered throughout older texts and place names.

Some examples are kirk (‘church’) /kʊrk/, Keswick (place name, equivalent of ‘cheese-wick’) /ˈkezɪk/, brigg (‘bridge’) /brɪg/ and rigg (‘ridge’) /rɪg/, among numerous others. All of these appear to be regular developments from the Old English forms cirice, cēse, scēap, brycg and rycg.

There are also forms cognate with English words that have been loaned in from Old Norse and thus do not show palatalisation, such as kowp (‘to exchange’), garn (‘yarn’) and garth (‘yard; 75