Yan tan tethera

Sheep-counting systems ultimately derive from Brythonic Celtic languages, such as Cumbric; Tim Gay writes: “[Sheep-counting systems from all over the British Isles] all compared very closely to 18th-century Cornish and modern Welsh".{{cite journal |last=Gay |first=Tim |title=Rural dialects and surviving Britons |url=https://reader.exacteditions.com/magazines/1291/search?q=yan |journal=British Archaeology |date=July 1999|issue=46 |url-access=subscription |page=18}} It is impossible, given the corrupted form in which they have survived, to be sure of their exact origin. The counting systems have changed considerably over time. A particularly common tendency is for certain pairs of adjacent numbers to come to resemble each other by rhyme (notably the words for 1 and 2, 3 and 4, 6 and 7, or 8 and 9). Still, multiples of five tend to be fairly conservative; compare bumfit with Welsh {{Lang|cy|pymtheg}}, in contrast with standard English fifteen.

{{Unreferenced section|date=May 2023}}

Like most Celtic numbering systems, they tend to be vigesimal (based on the number twenty), but they usually lack words to describe quantities larger than twenty; this is not a limitation of either modernised decimal Celtic counting systems or the older ones. To count a large number of sheep, a shepherd would repeatedly count to twenty, placing a mark on the ground, or move a hand to another mark on a shepherd's crook, or drop a pebble into a pocket to represent each score (e.g. 5 score sheep = 100 sheep).

Their use is also attested in a "knitting song" known to be sung around the middle of the nineteenth century in Wensleydale, Yorkshire, beginning "yahn, tayhn, tether, mether, mimph".{{cite journal|author=R. S. T.|year=1863|title=Knitting Song|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=40wAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA205|journal=Notes and Queries|series=3rd Series|volume=4|page=205}}

The counting system has been used for products sold within Northern England, such as prints,{{Cite web|author=St Jude's Prints|title=Yan tan Tethera|url=https://www.stjudesprints.co.uk/products/yan-tan-tethera|access-date=13 March 2020|website=St. Jude's Prints|language=en}} beers,{{Cite web|date=31 March 2019|title=New Beer - Yan Tan Tethera|url=https://www.greatnewsomebrewery.co.uk/new-beer-yan-tan-tethera/|access-date=13 March 2020|website=Great Newsome Brewery|language=en-GB}}{{Dead link|date=April 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} alcoholic sparkling water (hard seltzer in U.S.),{{Cite web|author=Yan Tan Hard Seltzer|title=Yan Tan|url=https://yantan.uk/|access-date=9 March 2022|website=Yantan.uk|language=en}} and yarns,{{Cite web|title=Yan tan tethera|url=https://www.etsy.com/uk/market/yan_tan_tethera|access-date=13 March 2020|website=Etsy|language=en-GB}} as well as in artistic works referencing the region, such as Harrison Birtwistle's 1986 opera Yan Tan Tethera.

Jake Thackray's song "Old Molly Metcalfe"{{Cite web|title=Old Molly Metcalfe Song|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiXINuf5nbI|access-date=2 March 2023|website=Etsy| date=28 July 2009 |language=en-GB}} from his 1972 album Bantam Cock uses the Swaledale "Yan Tan Tether Mether Pip" as a repeating lyrical theme.

Garth Nix used the counting system to name the seven Grotesques in his novel Grim Tuesday.{{Cite web |date=1 January 2004 |title=Grim Tuesday by Garth Nix |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-439-43655-7 |access-date=21 November 2024 |website=www.publishersweekly.com}}

The word yan or yen for 'one' in Cumbrian, Northumbrian, and some Yorkshire dialects generally represents a regular development in Northern English in which the Old English long vowel {{IPA|/ɑː/}} <ā> was broken into {{IPA|/ie/}}, {{IPA|/ia/}} and so on. This explains the shift to yan and ane from the Old English {{Lang|ang|ān}}, which is itself derived from the Proto-Germanic {{Lang|gem-x-proto|*ainaz}}.{{cite book|last=Leith|first=Dick|url=https://archive.org/details/socialhistoryeng00leit|title=A Social History of English|publisher=Routledge|year=1997|isbn=0-415-09797-5|page=[https://archive.org/details/socialhistoryeng00leit/page/n55 45]|url-access=limited}} (Alternate {{ISBN|978-0-415-09797-0}}){{cite book|last=Griffiths|first=Bill|title=A Dictionary of North East Dialect|publisher=Northumbria University Press|year=2004|isbn=1-904794-16-5|page=191|authorlink=Bill Griffiths (poet)}} Another example of this development is the Northern English word for 'home', hame, which has forms such as hyem, yem and yam all deriving from the Old English {{Lang|ang|hām}}.{{cite book|last=Griffiths|first=Bill|title=A Dictionary of North East Dialect|publisher=Northumbria University Press|year=2004|isbn=1-904794-16-5|page=79}}

Note: Scots here means "Scots" not "Gaelic"

• Counting-out game
• Lace tells

{{reflist}}

• Rawnsley, Hardwicke Drummond (1987) "Yan tyan tethera: counting sheep". Woolley: Fleece Press {{ISBN|0948375175}}

• [http://www.kervarker.org/fr/grammar_02_konta.html Breton numerals]
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=KFBDGWjCP7gC&dq=justus+tethera&pg=PA61 Carol Justus's use of this numbering system to explain pre-decimal counting systems]
• [http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/fulltext/sheep.htm The Sheep Counting Score – By Walter Skeat, 1910]
• [http://clwbmalucachu.co.uk/cmc/cheat/cheat_numerals.htm Modern Welsh decimal system and older vigesimal system in full]

Category:Sheep farming in the United Kingdom

Category:Languages of the United Kingdom

Category:British English

Category:Celtic words and phrases

Category:English words and phrases

Category:Numeral systems