Welsh Counting

[David L. White]

> In a message dated 12/3/00 3:45:11 PM Mountain Standard Time,
> roz-frank at uiowa.edu writes:

>> Can anyone provide other bibliographic references concerning this
>> shepherd's counting vocabulary?

        The matter is treated in Klehmola(2000) "The Origins of the Northern
Subject Rule:  A Case of Early Contact", in "Celtic Englishes II, where it
is argued that both things are indeed the result of Brittonic sub-stratatal
influence.  From this work it appears that the major work on the subject is
Barry(1969) "Traditional Enumeration in the North Country", FoL 7:  75-91.
        According to Klehmola, even Barry has to admit that "the swing
toward importation [from Welsh] may have become more dogmatic than the
available evidence can justify, and indeed this has found support
principally because of the diffculties of the survival theory rather than on
acount of any positive information which has been put forward".
        Since "the difficulties of the survival theory" are critically
dependent on the evidence of Old Welsh, we must ask what exactly this is,
and more to the point whether it is enough to exclude both of the following
possibilities:
        1) That during Old Welsh times what might be called the northern and
southern Brittonic systems of counting were in competition, with only the
southern happeneing to be attested in Old Welsh, which is so scantily
attested that it is often treated for practical purposes as close to
non-existent.
        2) That the northern system might have been imported into Wales and
Welsh with the same migration (of sorts) from northwestern England that
brought Taliesin and the Gododdin.  That there were extensive Dark Age
contacts between the two areas is not controversial.

        Futhermore it may be noted the counting system in question, though
it is called the "sheep-counting numerals", is in fact used primarily by
women and children in the home environment.  This is suspicious, and
indicative of Brittonic survival, for two reasons:
        1) Dying languages typically survive longest in the home
environment.  For a counting system often used in counting games to survive
as a fossilized relict after the dying language had died out even here would
not be surprising.
        2) For English women and children to have much contact with Welsh
miners, on the other hand, or to borrow their counting system from them,
_would_ indeed be surprising.  Both opportunity and motivation are notably
lacking.

                                                        Dr. David L. White