page 13
Ydych chi’n deall fi? — ‘Do you understand me?’ in Welsh
Oo I get to ramble about language and linguistics right now! So this part of the comic all takes place in Bewcastle, up in Cumbria, one of the most north-western points of Anglo-Saxon settlement/dominion/maybe at this time. The monastery is populated (mostly) by Anglians, and therefore they would be speaking Old English, more precisely Old Northumbrian, a distinct dialect to the south of England. Because writing a whole comic in Old English would be…. niche…. and I don’t have the patience to learn the language (yet), of course I’m using English — but I didn’t want to lose the flavour of the different dialects! And it so happens that Old Northumbrian over time became the basis of the Lowlands Scots dialect/language (this video is a great recap and also a wonderful eg of a strong Scots accent)! So if you’ve noticed that the characters are using ‘ken’, ‘dinnae’ etc, its because I’m trying to write the characters with Scots accents to reflect the different dialects.
Ok, but why does Oswulf speak Welsh? So I mentioned that Bewcastle was one of the most NW of the AS settlements (if it even was a settlement– I’ll write up more on the setting at one point). But that doesn’t mean the NW wasn’t populated, but rather it was held by the native British — the descendants of the Romano-British with Brythonic and Celtic ancestors (although this whole thing about ethnicity and identity is ~*debated*~ and I don’t know enough to throw in my two cents). And the native British didn’t speak the Germanic-derived English, but rather a Brythonic language which is the ancestor of Welsh! In fact Cumbria had its own dialect, Cumbric, although it is now extinct, and we don’t really know many of its words. But it’s safe to say that in this neck of the woods, there would be quite a lot of people speaking Cumbric, and I imagine that even the AS would know some basic phrases to communicate with local farmers and small petty kings.
Also, speaking of Cumbric means I get to share one of my favourite anecdotes: Pais Dinogad. It’s a poem in Welsh found in the Y Gododdin manuscript — well, less a poem, more of a nursery rhyme/lullaby! It is for ‘Dinogad’ and his mother tells him of his father’s hunting. and it dates from the seventh century! It’s kind of touching being able to imagine a mother humming and rocking her baby, just a little insight into families and personal private moments. And, interestingly, because the rhyme mentions the Derwennydd falls, we know its actually talking about Cumbria, not Wales itself! We don’t know the tune but here are a couple of different versions with the text set to song: 1 2
