Loegrish language

Loegrish is a Brythonic Celtic conlang, closely related to Welsh, Cornish, Breton, and Cumbric. It originated in what is now England, south and east of the Severn and Humber rivers with the exclusion of Cornwall and Devon (i.e., the region known in Middle Welsh as Lloegyr). As of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain in the fifth through seventh centuries, Late British in this region was mostly replaced by the ancestor of Old English, though it remained widely spoken in several areas, such as the Fens, the Chilterns, Kent, and Wessex. Loegrish died out in 1745 with the death of Jacob Seward, who was the last known native speaker in England until the revival of the language that begun in the nineteenth century. The revival has met with little success; only about 200 people claimed to speak the language within the United Kingdom as of the most recent count by the Celtic League. The first known native speaker since the revival was Jacob North, born in 2014. Outside of the United Kingdom, small Loegrish-speaking communities have survived in several regions of the United States. These communities altogether number about 6,500 people.

Dialects

Loegrish is split up into five main dialects, as follows:

• Kentish, spoken in Kent and neighboring areas
• Chilterns Loegrish, spoken in the region around the Chilterns; used as the standard
• Fennish, spoken in the Fens
• West Country Loegrish, spoken in Hampshire, Wiltshire, Gloucester, Dorset, and Somerset
• Delaware Loegrish, spoken in the Delaware River Valley and across the northern United States

Chilterns Loegrish

Chilterns Loegrish is chosen as the standard for Loegrish due to the fact that the Chilterns were the location of the only independent Loegrish-speaking state to ever exist, the Kingdom of Saint Alban. It is also easily intelligible to speakers of all dialects. Jacob Seward of St Albans was a speaker of Chilterns Loegrish.

Ohio Loegrish

Loegrish was brought to the Delaware Valley in the seventeenth century by emigrants from the Chilterns and the Fens escaping ethnic persecution. The language was originally spoken all up and down the river valley, but it was quickly abandoned in favor of English except high in the Pocono Mountains. Small communities went west later on; there are small Delaware Loegrish-speaking communities in remote regions of the Northwest and Midwest regions of the United States.