The Iceland Bus

This e-book explores the linguistic connections between Cumbria, Iceland and Scandinavia. The English Lake District was peopled by Celts who spoke a language like Welsh, and traces of their speech can still be heard, such as yan-tan-tether counting. Angles and Saxons then moved into Cumbria and Scotland with their own Germanic speech, and the region was incorporated into Northumbria. Later Norsemen came from two directions - westwards from Yorvik, but also from the sea. These colonists spoke a West Norse dialect that still provides hundreds of common nouns and even more place names in Cumbria. The Iceland Bus also took colonists in the other direction, as most of the first women colonists of Iceland came from Britain.