Ea gets the pronunciation properly given to it in veal and mead; so that bread is breed, head, heed, dead, deed, etc., etc.; but when this diphthong precedes R, as in bear, wear, etc., it becomes dissyllabic like fear, as commonly pronounced, and mare too becomes mee-ar.
Ei becomes ay, either and neither becoming ayder and nayder, sometimes owder and nowder.
The broad I in bite, write, etc., the Cumbrians deepen almost as is done by well educated people in the southern counties, with notable exceptions however, the first personal pronoun being made Ah; Igh, shortened and gutturalized by the Scotch, being sounded like Ee, night being neet, light, leet, etc., and find and bind pronounced like wind, viz.—finnd, binnd.
The double O is generally pronounced eù, or more exactly yuh shortly, fool being feùl, school, scheùl, etc., in one short syllable. Do and too are often pronounced according to this rule, but almost equally often are made into dee and tee, while the preposition to is for the most part changed into till or tull.
With Ou and Ow Cumberland speakers are somewhat capricious, round being made roond, town, toon, etc., but found and bound become fūnd and būnd, ought, owte, nought, nowte, etc.
O with the sound of the short U is treated in a very arbitrary manner—one being called yan, none, nin, and oven, yubben.
Qu is generally softened into wh, aspirated distinctly—quick being pronounced whick, and quite, white, and Quaker, with old people, is Whaker.
Y is sometimes converted into G, as in garth for yard, garn for yarn; and again that habit is sometimes reversed, as in yatt for gate.
The corruptions or variations of consonants are not so marked as those of vowels. The most notable are the hardening of Th into Dd, making father, fadder, mother, mūdder, etc.; and the dropping of the two last of the three letters in the definite article, well illustrated by the Whitehaven boy’s reply to an enquiry as to what ships had come in:—“T’ ’Enry, an’ t’ ’Ebe, an’ t’ Ant, an’ t’ Atlas, an’ t’ Aurora;” i.e. the Henry, the Hebe, the Ant, the Atlas, and the Aurora. Then we may notice the discarding of the final letter from all words ending in ing, and changing that syllable in all present participles to an, the participle of pass being in Cumberland more like the French passant than the English passing; also the final age being made ish, as in cabbish for cabbage, manish for manage, etc.; the final ous too undergoing the same change, as in faymish for famous, parlish for parlous, etc.; also idge as in poddish for porridge, or primarily, potage.
V is often converted into B or Bb—evening, eleven, Whitehaven being called ebenin’, elebben, Whitehebben, etc.