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Cumbraek Language – Er Skoot Win (United Kingdom)

image by Dan, 22 May 2025

Description of the Flag

Description of the Flag

Cumbric, a Brythonic language related to Old Welsh, was spoken in Yr Hen Ogledd (English: ‘The Old North’), an area in northwest England and the Scottish Lowlands, until the 13th century.

In 2007 Neil Whalley began work on ‘Cumbraek’, a constructed language based on the surviving fragments of Cumbric and incorporating elements from other Brythonic languages. His website can be found here: cumbraek.wordpress.com

ER SKOOT WIN – THE FLAG OF CUMBRAEK

Whalley’s site features a flag named ‘Er Skoot Gwin’ (English: ‘The White Shield’). The flag comprises a yellow field defaced by the round shield for which the flag is named. The shield, white and bordered in red, depicts four snakes emerging from three concentric circles. Three snakes face anti-clockwise. The topmost snake is turned clockwise, to face the snake next to it.

The device is adapted from the Govan Sun Stone, a 10th or 11th century grave-marker discovered in Govan, modern Scotland, once part of the Old Northern Kingdom of Strathclyde.

According to Whalley, the four snakes (Cumbraek: ‘pedwar sarf’) symbolise:

‘the four Brythonic languages growing from a common source. Welsh, Cornish and Breton are symbolised by the serpents facing anti-clockwise, their symmetry representing their individual developments from Common Brittonic to the present day. Cumbraek is represented by the fourth snake: its twisted body and clockwise direction representing the different path that Cumbric/Cumbraek have taken.’

The colours of the flag were ‘inspired by the 12th stanza of the 7th century poem Y Gododdin’:

‘Men went to Catraeth with the dawn
Their mettle shortened their lives
They drank mead: golden, sweet, ensnaring
For a year many a minstrel was glad
Red were their swords
May their spears never be cleansed
Lime-white shields and square-pointed spearheads
Before the retinue of Mynyddog Mwynfawr’

‘Er Skoot Gwin’ is the flag of the Cumbraek language, not a flag for The Old North. I am unable to find evidence of the flag existing offline. Sadly, one is no more likely to see The White Shield flying as to hear Cumbraek spoken.

Dan, 22 May 2025