How Revitalised Cumbric is derived — stage by stage — from Modern Welsh through four formal frameworks
The navigation bar of this site contains links to several frameworks and systems — CDRS, BCDRS, MWRF, OWRF, NBTRF — that may not be immediately self-explanatory. This page explains what they are and why they are all here.
Every word in the Revitalised Cumbric dataset was derived through a formally specified, multi-stage process. That process is called the Brittonic Revitalisation Pipeline. It begins with Modern Welsh — a living language with a large attested vocabulary — and transforms it, stage by stage, into Revitalised Cumbric. Each stage is governed by a dedicated framework with its own rules, and all four frameworks operate under the umbrella of a single governing abstract model. The pipeline above shows the full sequence.
You do not need to understand this pipeline to learn or use Revitalised Cumbric. But for anyone who wants to know why a word looks the way it does, or how confident the dataset is in any given form, the pipeline is the answer. Each stage is fully documented in its own page, linked from the navigation bar.
The CDRS defines the formal rules that any revitalisation pipeline must follow — acyclic structure, deterministic transformations, convergent stabilisation, and operational output at every stage. It does not specify linguistic content; it specifies what a valid pipeline must look like. The Brittonic pipeline is one instantiation of this model.
Full CDRS specification →The BCDRS applies the CDRS model to the Brittonic language family. It specifies that the pipeline runs across three ordered strata — Middle Welsh, Old Welsh, and Cumbric — and defines the relationships between the three frameworks that govern each transformation. Every word in the Revitalised Cumbric dataset passed through this architecture.
Full BCDRS specification →The MWRF takes Modern Welsh as its input and systematically derives a complete, operational Middle Welsh language state. Modern Welsh is well-attested and has a large living vocabulary; the MWRF applies corpus-based regression modelling, comparative Brittonic data, and morphological restoration to recover the earlier Middle Welsh forms. The output is a complete Middle Welsh system — not merely a set of historical curiosities, but a language that can be studied and used in its own right.
Full MWRF specification →The OWRF takes the output of the MWRF and drives it further back in time, applying phonological regression modelling and archaic morphological restoration to produce Revitalised Old Welsh. This is the stage that produces the column the NBTRF draws on directly: the Old Welsh forms that are the immediate predecessors of Cumbric. Old Welsh is exceptionally well documented for its era, making this transformation both well-evidenced and reproducible.
Full OWRF specification →The NBTRF is the terminal framework of the pipeline and the primary subject of this website. It takes Revitalised Old Welsh and applies northern Brittonic divergence modelling, toponymic continuity preservation, and phonological differentiation to produce Revitalised Cumbric — the language of Yr Hen Ogledd, the Old North, preserved in the place-names of Cumbria, Strathclyde, and the Pennines, and in the yan-tan-tethera counting rhymes. This is the framework that produces every entry in the Polyglot™ Revitalised Cumbric dataset.
Full NBTRF specification →Because the entire pipeline is formally specified and rule-governed, it is also formally revisable. Any peer-reviewed academic work that bears on any part of the pipeline — a new analysis of Cumbric place-names, a revised understanding of Old Welsh phonology, a contribution to Middle Welsh morphology — may be submitted to Penrith Beacon Communications | PBC for evaluation. The governing group reviews each submission on its merits and adopts changes where peer-reviewed evidence supports them and they are deemed both reasonable and necessary.
This means the pipeline is not frozen. It is a system with systemic fidelity — every output at every stage is grounded in the best available evidence at the time of publication — and with academic openness, so that the best available evidence can improve over time. Those who learn Revitalised Cumbric can trust what they learn; those who study it can contribute to what it becomes.
To see all seven Celtic languages alongside Revitalised Cumbric across all 307 entries, visit polyglot.kingarthursroundtable.com. To contribute academically, see the Contributors page.