Lack of Cornish Bible Bilingual Letter About Decline

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Lack of Cornish Bible Bilingual Letter About Decline lack of literature lack of nearness Cornish of Devon suppression Bible of druids by however, learned trans. Ten Christianity frst qualifed scholar noticed similarity named the people Welsh from antiquarians Commandments and MP and Vice to analyse Cornish between P- and Q- who spoke these Farmer in linguist, rather than native lay parts of Genesis and Warden of trans. part of strangers Father of seriously Celtic languages languages Celts Sancreed the coming to Celtic Studies speakers Matthew Stannaries gentry Passio Christi Kernow William apathy Edward Wella Rowe Lhuyd 1660 - 1700 1st language Cornish Scawen Observations: 1709 speaker but did not teach 16 reasons for 1660 - 1709 1600 - 1689 loss of his children Cornish due to the decline of John Anstis sends contact pub. Archaeologia 1707 prejudice and lack of the language Vocabularium wrote 350 prestige end of with Britannia inc. Brittany Cornicum to Lhuyd page miracle descripton of KW, 1678 plays Yowann Chi an Hordh, vocabulary, suggested Cornish trans. of Pascon invited to Cornwall by KW-EN dict. now lost was language of Civil no distinct the Gentleman Agan Arluth KW "An lavar coth yu lavar gwir" William War spies Scholars: medieval alphabet wrote to Gwavas passion public loss of poem apathy records in 1676 - 1741 Civil War coll. rhymes and a could not learn Thomas John trans. Lord's Prayer, John Oliver James Henry Thomas letter inc. Psalm 100 language as a boy as learnt as an adult to Boson Keigwin Pilchard Son of N Apostle's Creed and in KW, still sung in his mother forbade the do business with the Tonkin Pender Jenkins Usticke Tonkin merchant Boson parts of the Bible 1645 - 1719 1641 - 1716 servants to speak it to fshermen church him with John "Na wrewgh why eva re" Nicholas Boson wrote vocabulary and Boson 1655 - 1730 wrote Pilchard 36 lines of collected grammar based on 1624 - 1708 helped 1666 trans. Lord's Prayer, trans. Ordinalia, KW in poems, inc. trip to Penzance/ for his children to teach Curing Rhyme Lhuyd study wrote Jowan Apostle's Creed, Ten Gwreans an Bys, rhyming Ha my ow Land's End them all the point of Pascon Agan Arluth, KW UK folk tale Commandments, Chy an Hor grammar in one story letter of thanks from couplets mos w/ several Hymn 166 1735 regional Charles I wrote Nebbaz Gerriau variants wrote dro tho Carnoack oldest extant inscription for complete Gwavas's account led to the myth of her KW poem as the last KW speaker despite hurling ball him noting that women a decade younger spoke some and understood her basically commonplace book 1768 plagiarising 1790 inc. dictionary, Eus taken to meet Antiquary Keusand place names Dolly Pentreath wrote Archaeologia and rector Cornu-Britannica w/ by guide 64 page grammar William Redruth surgeon and vocabulary Borlase 1754 1696 - 1772 pub. The Antiquites Daines 1778 of Cornwall inc. Barrington William written to vocabulary of Cornu- 1728 - 1800 bilingual letter about Pryce wrote Mineralogia British language decline of KW, but 1725 - 1790 Cornubiensis w/ KW conversed mentioning 4/5 other mining terms 1777 abused heartily speakers in KW Dolly William spoke with KW Pentreath Bodinar "Cornaock ewe all neceaves speaker John 1692 - 1777 "kronnek an hager du" gen poble younk" Nancarrow, 45 "me ne vidn cewsel Sawznek!" poor fsh-seller, trickster and got famous for fortune teller speaking KW, got painted by John Opie.
Recommended publications
  • An Introduction to Cornish Place Names
    . * AN INTRODUCTION TO CORNISH PLACE NAMES \ BY P. A. S. POOL, M.A., F.S.A. Second (revised) edition 1971 Obtainable from: ' The Author at 37 Morrab Road, Penzance, Cornwall Price 6p V ‘V CORNISH PLACE NAMES P. A. s. POOL C.ORNISH is a Celtic language, closely akin to Welsh and Breton, which remained the ordinary spoken language of most Cornish people until about 1500 and of a steadily decreasing minority until the late 18th century, its last survival being confined to small areas of the Penwith and Lizard peninsulas in the far west of Cornwall. Dolly Pentreath of Mousehole, who died in 1777, was not, as is commonly believed, the last to speak Cornish, but was certainly one of the last native speakers, and by 1800 at the very latest Cornish had finally died out as a spoken language, its revival as such being then more than a century in the future and totally unforeseen. It never- theless survived in traditionally remembered sayings and phrases, in hundreds of dialect words, but principally in thousands of names of places. Not only every village and farm, but also every field and prominent natural feature had its own name, and in the far west where the language survived the longest these names are nearly all Cornish, the few English ones being mostly modern. Generally, the further east in Cornwall one goes, the earlier Cornish gave‘ place to English and the smaller is the proportion of Cornish names, until in Tamar-side parishes they are a small minority. In the east, Cornish names often contain certain words as they were spelt at an earlier stage in the development of the language than those in the west, re- fiecting the earlier date at which use of the language ceased; thus nans, valley, is almost invariably found in names as nance in the west and mmt (the earlier form) in the east.
    [Show full text]
  • Dolly Pentreath
    Dolly Pentreath Dorothy Pentreath (16 May 1692 – 26 December rather better cottages just opposite it he had found two 1777), known as Dolly, was a speaker of the Cornish other women, some ten or twelve years younger than Pen- language. She is the most well-known of the last flu- treath, who could not speak Cornish readily, but who un- ent, native speakers of the Cornish language, prior to derstood it. Five years later, Pentreath was said to be 87 its revival in 1904, from which time some children have years old and at the time her hut was “poor and main- been raised as bilingual native speakers of revived Cor- tained mostly by the parish, and partly by fortune telling nish. Although it is sometimes claimed she was the last and gabbling Cornish.”[3] monolingual speaker of the language – the last person In the last years of her life, Pentreath became a lo- who spoke only Cornish, and not English – her own ac- cal celebrity for her knowledge of Cornish.[5] Around count as recorded by Daines Barrington contradicts this. 1777, she was painted by John Opie (1761–1807), and in 1781 an engraving of her after Robert Scaddan was published.[1] 1 Biography In 1797, a Mousehole fisherman told Richard Polwhele (1760–1838) that William Bodinar “used to talk with her 1.1 Early life for hours together in Cornish; that their conversation was understood by scarcely any one of the place; that both Baptised on 16 May 1692,[1] Pentreath was probably the Dolly and himself could talk in English.”[6] second of the six children of Nicholas Pentreath, a fish- Pentreath has passed into legend for cursing people in erman, by his second wife, Jone Pentreath.[2] She later a long stream of fierce Cornish whenever she became claimed that she could not speak a word of English un- angry.[7] Her death is seen as marking the death of Cor- til the age of 20.
    [Show full text]
  • A Poetics of Uncertainty: a Chorographic Survey of the Life of John Trevisa and the Site of Glasney College, Cornwall, Mediated Through Locative Arts Practice
    VAL DIGGLE: A POETICS OF UNCERTAINTY A poetics of uncertainty: a chorographic survey of the life of John Trevisa and the site of Glasney College, Cornwall, mediated through locative arts practice By Valerie Ann Diggle Page 1 VAL DIGGLE: A POETICS OF UNCERTAINTY VAL DIGGLE: A POETICS OF UNCERTAINTY A poetics of uncertainty: a chorographic survey of the life of John Trevisa and the site of Glasney College, Cornwall, mediated through locative arts practice By Valerie Ann Diggle Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) University of the Arts London Falmouth University October 2017 Page 2 Page 3 VAL DIGGLE: A POETICS OF UNCERTAINTY VAL DIGGLE: A POETICS OF UNCERTAINTY A poetics of uncertainty: a chorographic survey of the life of John Trevisa and the site of Glasney College, Penryn, Cornwall, mediated through locative arts practice Connections between the medieval Cornishman and translator John Trevisa (1342-1402) and Glasney College in Cornwall are explored in this thesis to create a deep map about the figure and the site, articulated in a series of micro-narratives or anecdotae. The research combines book-based strategies and performative encounters with people and places, to build a rich, chorographic survey described in images, sound files, objects and texts. A key research problem – how to express the forensic fingerprint of that which is invisible in the historic record – is described as a poetics of uncertainty, a speculative response to information that teeters on the brink of what can be reliably known. This poetics combines multi-modal writing to communicate events in the life of the research, auto-ethnographically, from the point of view of an artist working in the academy.
    [Show full text]
  • The Death of Cornish
    THE DEATH OF CORNISH P. A. S. POOL Price: 4op THE DEATH OF CORNISH (1600- 1800) by P. A. S. POOL, M.A., F.S.A. President of the Royal Institution of Cornwall Hon. Research Fellow, Institute of Cornish Studies 1975 Obtainable from the Author at 37 Morrab Road, Penzance Peter Dalwood, 5 Chapel Street, Penzance The County Museum, River Street, Truro AUTHOR'S NOTE This booklet contains the text of my Address to the International Congress of Celtic Studies at Penzance in April 1975. Some addi• tions and corrections have been made, and full references given, but the spoken form has been retained. My best thanks are due to Professor Charles Thomas, Director of the Institute of Cornish Studies, for inviting this contribution, and to Mr. Oliver J. Padel, Research Fellow, for his most helpful comments on my text. I am deeply grateful to Lord St. Levan and to the Royal Institution of Cornwall for use of the portraits of Dolly Pentreath and William Gwavas, and to Mr. R. D. Penhallurick for drawing the map. Above all, I am conscious of my debt to the late Robert Morton Nance, so much of whose research is included in these pages, and whose life's work made it possible for me to end a survey of a tragic phase in the history of Cornish on a note of hope rather than despair. Abbreviations used in footnotes: CWBF O.J. Padel, The Cornish Writings of the Boson Family, 1975. JRIC Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall (NS, New Series). OC Old Cornwall (Journal of the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies).
    [Show full text]
  • "Bringin' the Dunkey Down from the Carn:” Cornu-English in Context
    “Bringin’ the Dunkey Down from the Carn:” Cornu-English in Context 1549-2005 – A Provisional Analysis Alan M. Kent (Open University, United Kingdom) 1. Introduction They do tell ’ow Jan ’ad a lil dunkey an kept’n spragged out up Carnmenellis; everybody knawed there was only furze an browse up there, so somebody said to Jan, “Ere. Jan. ’Ow ee come kaype yer dunkey up Carnmenellis? There edn much for’n aate up there, you.” “No,” said Jan. “Edn much for’n aate you – but ee got some ’ansome view!” (Tan- gye 1995: 19f.) In the three previous volumes of The Celtic Englishes, there has been com- paratively little discussion of Cornu-English. Aside from some perceptive re- marks from Payton, in a chapter mainly devoted to the ideology of the Cornish Language Revival (1997: 100-122), no new significant scholarship has emerged. My purpose in this chapter is to offer provisional corrective – metaphorically, bringing Jan’s dunkey down from the Carn – and offer a reassessment of the state of Cornu-English speech and writing within a historical context from 1549 – roughly the period that the English language began to rapidly replace Cornish in the territory of Cornwall, through its subsequent development as the primary linguistic group, to an examination of its current status. I write as an observer and commentator, but also a practitioner of Cornu-English writing. The section quoted at the start of this chapter is from a typical Cornu-English story titled “The Wrasslin’ Match” by Michael Tangye, a prize-winning story in the Dialect Prose competition from the 1994 Cornish Gorseth,1 yet we note that narratives such as this, are for the most part, relatively unchanged from their nineteenth-century counterparts.
    [Show full text]
  • A Brief History of the Cornish Language, Its Revival and Its Current Status Siarl Ferdinand University of Wales Trinity Saint David
    e-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies Volume 2 Cultural Survival Article 6 12-2-2013 A Brief History of the Cornish Language, its Revival and its Current Status Siarl Ferdinand University of Wales Trinity Saint David Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.uwm.edu/ekeltoi Part of the Celtic Studies Commons, English Language and Literature Commons, Folklore Commons, History Commons, History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons, Linguistics Commons, and the Theatre History Commons Recommended Citation Ferdinand, Siarl (2013) "A Brief History of the Cornish Language, its Revival and its Current Status," e-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies: Vol. 2 , Article 6. Available at: https://dc.uwm.edu/ekeltoi/vol2/iss1/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by UWM Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in e-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies by an authorized administrator of UWM Digital Commons. For more information, please contact open- [email protected]. A Brief History of the Cornish Language, its Revival and its Current Status Siarl Ferdinand, University of Wales Trinity Saint David Abstract Despite being dormant during the nineteenth century, the Cornish language has been recently recognised by the British Government as a living regional language after a long period of revival. The first part of this paper discusses the history of traditional Cornish and the reasons for its decline and dismissal. The second part offers an overview of the revival movement since its beginnings in 1904 and analyses the current situation of the language in all possible domains.
    [Show full text]
  • BRENDAN Mcmahon Tradition and Cultural Resistance in Cornwall
    Tradition and Cultural Resistance in Cornwall BRENDAN McMAHON Before the collapse of Roman rule in the fifth century, what is now Cornwall was part of the canton of Dumnonia, an administrative district which had its centre in Exeter.1 Out of the ruins of Roman Britain Dumnonia, comprising Cornwall, Devon and parts of Somerset, arose as one of several successor states resisting Saxon encroachment, though it was eventually to be absorbed by the kingdom of the West Saxons. Many of the Dumnonian people fled overseas to Brittany where their successors still speak Breton, a Celtic language similar to Cornish. The West Saxon King Ine completed the conquest of Devon in the eighth century and Exeter was taken from the Celts, though resistance continued and the English were checked at the Battle of Kehil in 721 or 722.2 The Cornish King Gereint died in battle and was commemorated by the poet Llywarch Hen.3 Later kings, usually described as “shadowy”, include Huwal, king of the west Welsh, who attended Athelstan’s great court in Exeter in 928 AD, as mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and “Ricatus”, known only from a single inscription at Penzance, which Philip Payton describes as “a semblance, an echo, an assertion of Cornish kingly independence”.4 Though Athelstan fixed the border at the Tamar he was not able finally to incorporate Cornwall into his new English state, and the “echo” continued to sound up to the eve of the Norman conquest in the far west. Although in ancient times Cornwall had trading links with the Mediterranean, it now ceased to exist as an independent political entity, though it did retain a separate cultural identity.
    [Show full text]
  • University Microfilms, a XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan
    THE SAINT'S PLAY IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND Item Type text; Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Del Villar, Mary, 1917- Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 10/10/2021 05:55:34 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/287462 70-15,517 DEL VILLAR, Mary Harmon, 1917- THE SAINT'S PLAY IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND. University of Arizona, Ph.D., 19 70 Language and Literature, general University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED THE SAINT'S PLAY IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND by Maryrdel Villar A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 19 7 0 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA. GRADUATE COLLEGE I hereby recommend that this dissertation prepared under my direction by Mary del Villar entitled The Saint's Play in Medieval England be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy q i t-A /O Dissertation Director V Date After inspection of the final copy of the dissertation, the following members of the Final Examination Committee concur in its approval and rec©mmen<L<bts acceptance:*" , , O.UTiiX. £i nan tb**«r* **1-1 a rt -i #1 O •* q' t Is""'approval ^itS acceptance is contingent on the candidate's adequate performance and defense of this dissertation at the final oral examination.
    [Show full text]
  • Orthographies and Ideologies in Revived Cornish
    Orthographies and ideologies in revived Cornish Merryn Sophie Davies-Deacon MA by research University of York Language and Linguistic Science September 2016 Abstract While orthography development involves detailed linguistic work, it is particularly subject to non-linguistic influences, including beliefs relating to group identity, as well as political context and the level of available state support. This thesis investigates the development of orthographies for Cornish, a minority language spoken in the UK. Cornish is a revived language: while it is now used by several hundred people, it underwent language death in the early modern era, with the result that no one orthography ever came to take precedence naturally. During the revival, a number of orthographies have been created, following different principles. This thesis begins by giving an account of the development of these different orthographies, focusing on the context in which this took place and how contextual factors affected their implementation and reception. Following this, the situation of Cornish is compared to that of Breton, its closest linguistic neighbour and a minority language which has experienced revitalisation, and the creation of multiple orthographies, over the same period. Factors affecting both languages are identified, reinforcing the importance of certain contextual influences. After this, materials related to both languages, including language policy, examinations, and learning resources, are investigated in order to determine the extent to which they acknowledge the multiplicity of orthographies in Cornish and Breton. The results of this investigation indicate that while a certain orthography appears to have been established as a standard in the case of Breton, this cannot be said for Cornish, despite significant amounts of language planning work in this domain in recent years.
    [Show full text]
  • Towards a Grammar of Middle Cornish
    Towards a grammar of Middle Cornish Lauran Toorians De Fakkel : http://laurantoorians.com/?page_id=128 Version 1.1 - April 2014 Introduction During the years 1987-1991 I have been working in the department of Comparative Linguistics at Leiden University. My assignment was to write a grammar of Middle Cornish (which was to be my PhD-thesis) and in the mean time I was teaching courses in Middle Welsh, Middle Breton and Middle Cornish. Unfortunately, time and money ran out before the grammar was finished and even though I continued the work during the following two years, the grammar – and so the thesis – remained unfinished. As other assignments occupied me and my interest in Celtic studies shifted away from Cornish grammar, the unfinished grammar remained untouched for many years. This only changed when I was invited as guest-professor for Celtic Studies to Vienna (Winter 2003/2004) where I taught a course in Middle Cornish which inspired me to at least brush up the material I had. On various occasions it has been suggested to me to hand in the work as it stands and to get my doctorate, but two reasons withheld me: 1. The idea that I had done only half the job; and 2. The notion that a published, incomplete grammar would not easily be taken up by others to be completed. Having a website of my own allows me to find at least a partial solution to this latter problem. By publishing my material on this site it becomes available to all interested. Thus the material was first published on the internet in February 2011.
    [Show full text]
  • Broadhurst, K. Cornish Language
    h t t p s : / / d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 4 7 9 6 7 / Q H K F 3 7 9 1 N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 0 V O L U M E 6 T H E D E A T H A N D S U B S E Q U E N T R E V I V A L O F T H E C O R N I S H L A N G U A G E Kensa Broadhurst University of Exeter Abstract Cornish is the vernacular language of Cornwall, the most South-Western part of Great Britain. It is widely believed the language died out in the eighteenth century with the death of Dolly Pentreath, the so-called last speaker of the language. What caused the language to become extinct, and why do minority languages fall into disuse? After the subsequent Cornish language revival at the beginning of the twentieth century, what lessons can the language community learn from linguists who have researched language extinction and revival? I. Introduction po dres dispresyans heb dyskans. Gwell My a vynnsa skrifa a-dro dhe’m hwithrans yw gans nebes tus kewsel an yeth rann yn kever mernans yethow yn ollgemmyn vrassa rag achesonyow politek po erbysek, ha mernans an yeth Gernewek yn ha wosa termyn hir an poblans a dhalleth arbennek. Yn ow breus vy yma meur a dhe dhos ha bos diwyethek. Rag an nessa dhyskansow rag an gemeneth henedhow gwella yw kewsel an yeth rann kernewegoryon dhe dhyski dhyworth fatel vrassa hepken ha wortiwedh, an yeth wra hedhi mernans an yethow.
    [Show full text]
  • Standardising Cornish : the Politics of a New Minority Language
    Standardising Cornish : the politics of a new minority language SAYERS, Dave <http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1124-7132> Available from Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive (SHURA) at: http://shura.shu.ac.uk/10586/ This document is the author deposited version. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it. Published version SAYERS, Dave (2012). Standardising Cornish : the politics of a new minority language. Language Problems and Language Planning, 36 (2), 99-119. Copyright and re-use policy See http://shura.shu.ac.uk/information.html Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive http://shura.shu.ac.uk Standardising Cornish: the politics of a new minority language Abstract The last recorded native speaker of the Cornish language died in 1777. Since the nineteenth century, amateur scholars have made separate attempts to reconstruct its written remains, each creating a different orthography. Later, following recognition under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 2002, Cornish gained new status. However, with government support came the governmental framework of “New Public Management”, which emphasises quantifiable outcomes to measure performance. This built implicit pressure towards finding a single standard orthography, for greatest efficiency. What followed was a six year debate among supporters of the different orthographies, usually quite heated, about which should prevail. This debate exemplified the importance of standardisation for minority languages, but its ultimate conclusion saw all sides giving way, and expediency, not ideology, prevailing. It also showed that standardisation was not imposed explicitly within language policy, but emerged during the language planning process. (Cornish language, standardisation, language reconstruction, New Public Management) The county of Cornwall comprises the southwest tip of mainland England, with a population of half a million and a history of heavy mining.
    [Show full text]