Editing Bernicia (section)

== Etymologies ==
Bernicia occurs in [[Old Welsh]] poetry as ''Bryneich'' or ''Byrneich'' and in the 9th-century ''[[Historia Brittonum]]'', (§ 61) as ''Berneich'', ''Birneich'', ''Bernech'' and ''Birnech''. Academics agree the name was originally [[Britons (Celtic people)|Celtic]]. This name was then adopted by the Anglian settlers who rendered it in [[Old English]] as ''Bernice'' (Northumbrian dialect) or ''Beornice'' (West Saxon dialect).{{sfn|Breeze|2009}} The counter hypothesis suggesting these names represent a [[Common Brittonic|Brythonic]] adaption of an earlier English form is considered less probable.{{Citation needed|date=April 2022}}

Local linguistic evidence suggests continued political activity in the area from the time of the Roman retreat from Britain and before the arrival of the Angles. Important Anglian centres in Bernicia bear names of British origin, or are known by British names elsewhere: [[Bamburgh]] is called ''Din Guaire'' in the ''Historia Brittonum''; [[Dunbar]] (where Saint [[Wilfrid]] was once imprisoned) represents ''Dinbaer''; and the name of [[Coldingham]] is given by [[Bede]] as ''Coludi urbs'' ("town of Colud"), where ''Colud'' seems to represent the British form, possibly for the hill-fort of [[St Abb's Head]].<ref>Rollason, ''Northumbria 500–1100'', p. 81.</ref>

Analysis of a potential derivation has not produced a consensus. The most commonly cited etymology gives the meaning as "Land of the Mountain Passes" or "Land of the Gaps" (tentatively proposed by [[Kenneth H. Jackson]]).<ref>Jackson, ''Language and History in Early Britain'', pp. 701–5; Rollason, ''Northumbria 500–1100'', p. 81.</ref> An earlier derivation from the tribal name of the [[Brigantes]] has been dismissed as linguistically unsound.<ref>Jackson, ''Language and History in Early Britain'', pp. 701–5; Jackson, ''The Gododdin'', p. 81.</ref> In 1997 [[John T. Koch]] suggested the conflation of a probable primary form *''Bernech'' with the native form *''Brïγent'' for the old ''civitas Brigantum'' as a result of Anglian expansion in that territory during the 7th century.<ref>
Note 566 in {{cite book | editor= John T. Koch| editor-link = John T. Koch | title = The Gododdin of Aneirin: text and context from Dark-Age North Britain | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=IIxiAAAAMAAJ | access-date = 18 October 2011 | year = 1997
| publisher = University of Wales Press| isbn = 978-0-7083-1374-9| page = 216}}</ref>