This page opens with a brief overview of the ancient Celtic languages after which the question of borrowings from these languages is considered in terms of both Standard English and dialectic forms. The section concludes with an examination of sheep scoring numerals and their suggested origins.

The Celtic Languages

Celtic, the language of the inhabitants of Britain and the first about which there exists a definite knowledge, belongs to the Western Branch of the Indo-European languages and existed in three forms: Gaulish, Brythonic and Goidelic.

• Gaulish: was spoken in northern Italy and France during the time of Roman Republic but died out around the 6th century AD

• Brythonic: was the language of the Celtic inhabitants of Britain and is the ancestor of Welsh, Cornish and Breton. Even with the spread of English following the Anglo-Saxon invasion, it continued to be spoken for quite a length of time in southwest Scotland, Cumbria, Cornwall and Devon, as well as in Wales. However, by the close of the Middle Ages it had died out in the two northern areas. Cornish on the other hand continued to be used as a first language until the beginning of the 19th century.

• Goidelic: was the Celtic language originally spoken in Ireland but spread to the Isle of Man in the 4th century AD and to Scotland in the century following. It is the language from whence came Erse (Irish Gaelic), Manx and Scottish Gaelic.

The main feature which distinguishes Brythonic from Goidelic is the development of the Indo-European /kw/. This becomes /p/ in former and /c/ in latter. This situation continues to the present day as can be seen from the following examples.

Hence the the Brythonic Celts are also known as the P-Celts and the Goidelic Celts as the Q-Celts

Celtic loan words

In relation to borrowings from the Celtic languages, Stalmaszczyk (1997) suggests that Celtic words taken in to English may be grouped into three categories

Commenting on the above Stalmaszczyk observes that only the Brythonic loans might be considered to be genuine Celtic borrowings. He goes on to observe that the examination of Celtic words in English raises three principle questions:

1. When was the item adopted?

2. How many such words were borrowed?

3. What is the linguistic source of the borrowing ?

In relation to questions 1 and 2, the following table shows the estimated number of borrowings and the approximate period during which they occurred.

With regard to question 3, Stalmaszczyk cites Serjeantson (1935) in support of the view that, before the latter half of the 16th century, there were very few words of either Irish, Welsh or Gaelic origin present in Middle English. Nevertheless, as time progressed, more such words were absorbed into the language. However, it is estimated that the final total of such adoptions amounts to no more than 300. The following are some of examples.

In terms of Brythonic loan words, however, few were adopted by the Anglo-Saxons. Other than river names and place-name elements such as comb (valley)and torr (rocky peak), only twenty or so words taken into Old English can be reasonably considered to have Brythonic etymologies. Furthermore, not all the such borrowings survived and those that did did so only in dialect. Brock, which appears in the dialects of all northern counties of England, has already been mentioned. Other examples are:

Sheep-scoring numerals

Early in the last century it was considered by some that this method of counting was of Celtic origin. For example, writing in 1927, J.R. Witty claimed that the scores had been in use in Cumberland, the Pennines and Yorkshire for around fifteen hundred years. He provides examples of several varieties according to geographical location. For example:

Other examples may be viewed by clicking here

In an attempt to to establish the provenance of the scores Witty compares them with other counting systems, examples of which are listed below.

He concludes that the scores are clearly not Germanic in character and that their similarity to the Celtic forms suggests they must be lexical survivals. However, M V Barry re-evaluating the situation forty years later challenges this view.

Barry's (1967) approach to the issue was to review the available material written about the scores. Having assembled a collection of 104 publications, eighty of which were written either as articles or in book form during the 19th century, he provides a summary of the facts known about these counting systems and examines the theories relating to their origin . The following is an outline of Barry's observations:

Facts

• Most of the available examples were obtained third or fourth-hand and none had actually been provided directly by a shepherd. Attempts to obtain first hand examples have proved unsuccessful. Even an appeal by the late Harold Orton in the pages of the Transactions of the Yorkshire Dialect Society failed to elicit information of any sort.

• Mapping out the geographical locations of the scores reveals four main nuclei: The Yorkshire Dales, the area of Wasdale, Coniston and Furness, on the the plain to the east of York and on the fringes of the North Yorkshire Moors. There is also a scattering of isolated examples around the main nuclei, a few examples in the Lake District and another eight examples of of uncertain provenance located across Yorkshire.

• With regard to the frequency of the recording of the scores, dates are available for 31 of the examples identified: 5 were recorded in the 18th century, although not before 1745; 24 fall within the 19th century; but only two were written in the 20th.

• The scores are claimed to have been used not only for counting sheep but also for such activities as marking school attendance records, reckoning money and counting stitches in knitting. They also feature in children's counting rhymes. Although Barry could find no information for 59 of the examples collected, he was able to categorize the remainder as follows:

Because it is seemingly impossible to trace anyone who uses or has used the scores for counting,. Barry is inclined to believe that they have been out of use from at least the mid-1870s.

Origins

To date, nothing has been conclusively established. Barry takes the view that the scores are linguistically linked to the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages. Moreover, he considers that they contain Welsh elements (as opposed to Breton or Cornish). He bases this notion on the observation that all Celtic languages, with the exception of Welsh, follow the pattern: 1 to 10; then 1+10, 2+10, 3+10, etc. up to and including 19 (9+10). Welsh on the other hand takes the form of: 1 to 10; 1+10, 2+10 etc. up to 14; and then 5+10, 1+5+10, 2+5+10 etc. Compare the following:

If it is accepted that the scores are of Welsh origin the question remains as to why they are found in the areas mentioned above. Barry consider three theories: the Survival Theory, the Importation Theory Type 1 and the Importation Theory Type 2.

The Survival Theory
This is the earliest theory and suggests that the scores are a linguistic survival from the time when the Britons lived in the region. Barry notes that British place-names do exist in the areas where the scores are found which suggests the presence of isolated Celtic communities among the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian settlements. There is also some evidence of Celtic survival in the Lower Dales, the North Yorkshire Moors and on the Yorkshire Plain (Jones, 1965: 1966 cited by Barry).

However, there are a number of problems with this theory. inter alia:

• There is a distinct lack of evidence for the existence of the scores prior to 1745.
• Given that the scores are perceived as having a common origin,the differences between the various forms are difficult to explain.
• Considering that little of the Brythonic language survives in place-names it seems extraordinary that it should survive in an entire sequence of numerals.

From the linguistic perspective, although nothing is known about Welsh numerals prior to the 13th century, the Welsh for 18 (deunaw) is well corroborated thereafter, whilst the employment of the form tri-ar-byntheg has been rare. Some manifestation of deunaw in the scores might be supposed if imported during the medieval or post-medieval periods. However, tri-ar-byntheg appears to be the basis of the customary form.

 

The Importation Theory, Type 1
This theory, for which there is no longer a great deal of support, proposes that Strathclyde Britons carried the numerals into the north-west of England. Whilst it is true that the former area was occupied the British and that, from the 13th century, droving roads passed through Carlyle and over to Penrith and Kirby Stephen, this theory encounters the same objections as those raised in relation to the Survival Theory. Indeed, Barry considers that the objections are even greater on the grounds that:

• There is a dearth of examples around the Strathclyde area
  
• There is an absence of numbers exceeding 10
• Those forms that do exist appear to be more corrupt than those of North-West England.

 

The Importation Theory, Type 2
This posits that the scores were imported into the north-west of England from Wales. Some landowners possessed estates in both Yorkshire and North Wales and droving from the former did exist from from the 16th century onwards. Accordingly, Barry proposes that labour could have been transferred between the two in both directions. As such, in-coming Welshmen and Yorkshiremen returning home could have brought the Welsh method of counting with them. Moreover, it has been suggested that Welshmen may have been attracted into the West Riding woollen industry following the downturn in the fortunes of their own at home. However, Barry was unable to uncover any evidence in support of such a notion and, in any event, such a situation would not explain the concentration of the scores around the North Riding and Furness areas.

There is a further proposal that contact may have arisen out of the employment of Welsh labour in the Yorkshire lead mines. Such a notion is supported by the fact that, of all the examples of the scores, those of Pately Bridge and Greenhowe Hill bear the greatest resemblance to Welsh. Notwithstanding, Barry is of the opinion that further investigation is required before any firm conclusions can be drawn regarding the Welsh origins of the scores.

Thus, as things stand, the scores may be a corrupt form of Welsh rather than a survival of a Brythonic counting system. However, it may be argued that, as Modern Welsh is directly descended from the language of the Britons then, even as a corrupt form of that language, the scores are part of our ancient Brythonic heritage.

Sources

Barber, C. (1993) The English Language - A Historical Introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Barry, M. V. (1967) Yorkshire Sheep-scoring Numerals. In Transactions of the Yorkshire Dialect Society 12, 67, 21.

Baugh, A C and Cable, T (1993) A History of the English Language, Fourth Edition, London: Routledge.

Burchfield, R.W. (Ed), (1989) The Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, Vols I and II, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Crystal, D (1988) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, London: Guild Publishing

Crystal, D (1995) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hughes, G (2000) A History of English Words, Oxford: Blackwell

Jones, G. R .J. (1965) Early Territorial Organisation in Northern England and it s Bearing on the Scandinavian Settlement. In The Fourth Viking Congress, 1965.

Jones, G. R .J. (1966) The Cultural Landscape of Yorkshire - The Origins of our Villages. In Yorkshire Philosophical Society Transactions, 1966.

Leith, Dick, The origins of English. In Graddol, D., Leith, D and Swann, J. (1996) English history, diversity and change, New York: Routledge.

Serjeantson, M. S. (1935) A History of Foreign Words in English, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Strang, B M H (1970) A History of English, London: Methuen.

Stalmaszczyk, P. (1997) Celtic Elements in English Vocabulary - A Critical Reassessment, Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 1997, XXXII: 77- 87

Wakelin, M. F. (1977) English Dialects: An Introduction, Revised Edition, London: The Athlone Press, University of London.

Witty, J R (1927) Sheep and sheep-scoring. In Transactions of the Yorkshire Dialect Society 4, 28, 41

Wright, J. (1898 -1905) The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols, Oxford: Oxford University Press