Modern Sudric: Basics and Layering

[Pedant]

So, in the same veins as my Kad'k project, I was curious as to whether anyone would be interested in a variation on the Sudric language from Reverend W. Awdry's The Railway Series? The corpus is far, far smaller, of course, but there's enough there to start work on a language. It doesn't even have to be a carbon copy of Manx with some dialect features thrown in, although of course that's an option...
So whaddya say, folks? Worth a go?

EDIT: Well, call it premature, but I thought I'd get a start at it anyway...
Basics and Layering

[Pedant]

Ah, what the heck, I’ll give it a go anyways.
So, first off, what we know about the island’s (and language’s) history:

• The modern language bears much resemblance to Manx.
• The Romans were driven off the island after setting up a small camp near Ballahoo in the east. At this point in time it would not be unreasonable to suggest the presence of some early Insular Celtic language on the island.
• Irish missionary colonization was more successful, starting in the 5th Century with a man named Luoc and continuing into the 6th Century--during which time Primitive Irish, and then Old Irish, would have been spoken. The natives may have spoken a Brittonic rather than Goidelic language, more similar to Welsh than Irish; whether this survived much in the new vernacular (there are a great many hills on Sodor, and a stronger connection to the British mainland, to say nothing of the fact that no great colonization besides a few “men from the Iona School” was ever mentioned in the histories) is somewhat up to debate.
• The next we hear of any foreigners on the island is in 800, with the arrival of the Norse to plunder the island of what resources it had (maybe some kippers, I’m not sure). These continued--alongside sporadic settlement-- until 979, with the arrival of Godred MacHarold (alias King Orry). The The Norse held Sodor from the late 10th to early 13th Centuries. It would not be unreasonable, given the predominance of Norse place names, to assume that some words trickled down into the main language.
• The island was claimed in 1263 by Alexander III of Scotland, and was passed back and forth between the Scottish and the English until 1333, when King Edward III of England gave them to the Montacute Family. The islands have remained under English rule since then (officially it’s attached to the Duchy of Lancaster, under the direct protection of the Crown but “ruled” by the Earl/Duke of Sodor from the Norramby family). Again, it would not be unreasonable to assume that the edict of Sir John Stanley limiting contact between Man and the northern and western Celtic languages (Scottish and Irish) would not have much affected goings-on between Sodor and Man, which are after all in the same Bishopric, and this in turn might account for certain similarities in the languages. They were, however, from the earliest days of English occupation ruled over in quite different ways, one by a governor and the other by a local lord; it may be that Sudric changed more than Manx proper during this time. It is uncertain as to whether or not the Sudrians (thanks to their seemingly unwavering loyalty once they got a noble in charge that they actually liked) would have been considered part of the same sphere as even their cousins on Man in terms of Celtic heritage, but one can assume so. (The Irish Uncial script, however, doesn’t seem to have much been used in the past couple of centuries, and one can only ponder whether subsequent moves to revive Sudric will use the alphabet as opposed to the somewhat plainer but more understandable standard Latin script.)
• The island’s famous railways started up in 1806, and have kept on growing to this day. But by the first time we actually see the railways, as far as we know everyone on them speaks English--or at least no distinction is made between English and Sudric. At this time in history the Manx language was slowly being eroded by English, but this appears (the phrase is very obscure in terms of how long the decay has been going on for) to have taken longer on Sodor, perhaps on account of its larger size. If Sudric is present in the modern day, it would make sense that many words have been equally borrowed from Early Modern English--much of the vocabulary perhaps related to mechanisms and imperial trade (far-away animals or plants or people, for example, or elements of the railway lines).

On to LAYERING:

• Without any doubt the language has sufficient relation to Manx to be recognized as a sister language. There may be one or two features which have developed over the centuries, however, that might mark Sudric as a tongue of its own and not a mere dialect. There may also have been borrowings of words from Manx at later points as the two languages diverged, perhaps as a point of ethnic pride.
• Given the slower (and primarily religious rather than ethnic) settlement of the island, more Brittonic words (here from a substratum I shall deem Old Sudrian are likely to have mixed themselves into the language.
• A great many religious words are drawn from Old Irish.
• Old Norse seems to have had some influence in place-names across the island; it would be unreasonable to assume some other words, if only in earlier dialects, also made their way through to Sudric proper. Syntax, too, has been somewhat affected;
• English, naturally, has had the most influence on the language in the past few centuries; even the original morphology has been simplified (compared to its sister Manx) in favour of a more English grammar--and, somewhat uniquely, there are auxiliary verbs that mirror English, although drawn from a number of languages.

Keep in mind that this is only my own version of the language. What Reverend W. Awdry would permit in terms of changes is well beyond me, as he died a year after I was born. But I do hope the language itself bears up under scrutiny, at least to some degree.

VOCABULARY
Balley /‘ba:lə/ “farm, estate (arch.)” (Cf. Manx balley)
Boffer /‘bɔfəɹ/ “(railway) buffer” (English buffer)
Crosh /krɔ∫/ “(religious) cross” (Old Irish croch /krɔx/)
Erl /‘a:ɬ/ “earl” (Middle English erl)
Eyss /e:s/ “eight (8)” (PB *üiθ)
Fell /fɛl/ “mountain” (Old Norse fjall)
Goey (gooee, goiem, goien) /goɪ̪/ “to pray” (OI guidid)
Lorn /lo:ɹn/ “fox” (Proto-Brittonic *lowern)
Sammin /‘sa:mən/ “treaty” (ON samning)
Share /∫e:ɹ/ “better, best” (M share)

[Zythros Jubi]

Why does the word for eight come from Proto-Brythonic, if this is a Goidelic language?

[Pedant]

Why does the word for eight come from Proto-Brythonic, if this is a Goidelic language?

Simple enough to answer! Certain Brythonic as opposed to Goidelic elements survive in the language, and one o those elements of basic numbering. It’s one of those things that tended to be passed down; it’s just a shame there weren’t too many other elements with similar qualities.