Blindcrake NY 149 348

Blindcrake NY 149 348  Blenecreyc 1268, Blencraic 1610, Blanecreck 1241, Bleyncreyk 1260, Bleyncrok 1273.  PNCu p 267 suggest this is Welsh Blaen + craig  "rock  front/ top"  Alan James agrees that it is the Cumbric equivalent  blajn creig  (James, 2016).  Diana Whaley agrees (Whaley, 2006).  Locally "blind" is "blin" and the blajn has been assimilated with English blind in the modern spelling.  There is a Blaencraig in Montgomeryshire.

Topographically, Blindcrake sits against rising ground where the ridge culminates in open areas of craggy limestone called Clints Crags and Clints Park. The name fits.

Interestingly craig seems to show the diphthong /ei/  rather than the plain /a/ that we see normally in "crag" and there are hints of a diphthong in Bleyn-  which often appears as Blen-.  If so this puts this as a late borrowing into English as Old English had no diphthongs with off glides, only on glides, and /ei/  didn't develop until early Middle English, i.e.  11th Century (Minkova, 2013: p 205).  Minkova doesn't give a precise date that I can find, but /ei/ in English came about from vocalisation of /γ/ after a front vowel, e.g. drey ß  dræg,   day ß dæg. It was related to the vocalisation of /γ/ with back vowels, e.g. draw n ß dragan, interestingly MacAfee dates this second related change in Scots to  12th-13th C (MacAfee & Aitken, 2002). While Cumberland dialect tends to go with Scots, this seems very late for Blajn Creig to be borrowed into English. Does this imply a Cumbric speaking population around Cockermouth in the 1100s? It's not impossible because Cumbric speakers were further north around this time around Lanercost and Carlatton for example, and of course in the Peebles area, but it's surprising given other parts of West Cumberland around this time were heavily Anglicised in the pictures we get from the early charters from Holm Cultram e.g  Seaton to Flimby. Though there may be some Cumbric still around Brugh by Sands from personal names in the Charters even up to 1200 (G E Gilbanks, 1900). Languages recede like the tide, leaving pools that eventually dry up, but that can survive for a while unconnected to other areas that speak the language, e.g. the Irish Gaeltachtaí.

The final -k (from Brittonic -g) is explained by the tendency in West Germanic languages to devoice final consonants (Minkova, 2013: p84).

PNCu also says that in the parish was Blencraykmore.  It is very tempting to see this as Cumbric blajn creig mōr "big Blindcrake" but it could easily be English Blindcrake Moor.