Mr. Carr on the Northumbrian Dialect, &c. 357 



without adopting some better defined terms for portions of 

 this extensive territory than those commonly in use. 



By the East Anglian is meant the popular tongue of Suf- 

 folk and Norfolk, with perhaps part of Lincolnshire. By the 

 Mid- Anglian or Mercian, that of the midland counties, with 

 the greater part of Lincolnshire, and perhaps South Lanca- 

 shire. These designations are sufficiently well known. By 

 the North Anglian is commonly meant the popular speech of 

 Yorkshire and the greater part of Durham. 



The above are all Danic-Anglian variations of the wide- 

 spread Anglian tongue. 



And closely allied to the last, namely, the dialect of York- 

 shire and Durham, is the Norse-Anglian dialect of North 

 Lancashire, Cumberland, and Westmoreland. 



The Scandinavian element is here not identical, though 

 cognate. The Cumbrian English, in the mouth of an edu- 

 cated countryman, is to my ears exceedingly manly and 

 agreeable. 



The old Northan-Humber-land comprised, as is well 

 known, the whole territory lying northward of the great 

 tideway of the Humber, even to the Fiith of Forth. And to 

 prevent confusion, it is very desirable that the Anglo-Saxon 

 name should be restored when we speak of that large Anglo- 

 Saxon territory, and that we should not apply to it the modern 

 English contracted designation of Northumberland, but re- 

 serve this for the reduced, though still extensive, tract of the 

 earldom or county of Northumberland, lying between Tyne 

 and Tweed. 



Li this portion of country the Danes never permanently 

 established themselves. Their language is hardly perceptible 

 in its topothetical nomenclature. Names of localities to the 

 north of Tyne are almost always purely Anglian, except 

 where they exhibit traces of the Cymro- Celtic tongue of our 

 British ancestors, of which the present language of Wales is a 

 remnant. This is true however only until we come to the 

 Tweed, for when we have crossed this ever-important bound- 

 ary, not only do the ancient Cymro-Celtic names become yet 

 more frequently recognizable, but the nomenclature of another 

 Celtic people, the Scots, whose language was Erse or Gaelic, 

 begins to claim attention, though of comparatively recent in- 

 troduction into that part of our island. 



But in the county of Northumberland the Angles seem to 

 have occupied the land, and to have been left in possession of 

 it with but little intermixture with any other people, except 



