Cumbric Language - Problems With Terminology

Problems With Terminology

Dauvit Broun sets out the problems with the various terms used to describe the Cumbric language and its speakers. The people seem to have called themselves *Cumbri the same way that the Welsh call themselves Cymry (most likely from British *kom-brogi meaning 'fellow countrymen'). It is likely that the Welsh and the Cumbric speaking people of what are now Southern Scotland and Northern England felt they were actually one ethnic group. Old Irish speakers called them "Britons", Bretnach or Bretain. The Norse called them 'Brettar'. In Medieval Latin the English term Wales and the term Cumbri were Latinised as 'Wallenses' of Wales or 'Cumbrenses' of Cumbria. The usual English usage was to call them Welsh. In Scots a Cumbric speaker seems to have been called 'Wallace', from the Scots Wallis/Wellis Welsh.

In Cumbria itaque: : regione quadam inter Angliam et Scotiam sita Cumbria: a region situated between England and Scotland.

The Latinate term Cambria is often used for Wales; nevertheless, the Life of St Kentigern by Jocelin of Furness has the following passage:

When King Rederech (Rhydderch Hael) and his people had heard that Kentigern had arrived from Wallia (i.e. Wales) into Cambria, from exile into his own country, with great joy and peace both king and people went out to meet him.