Kernewek (The Cornish Language)

[Menydh]

What is the Cornish Language?

The Cornish Language (Kernewek) is the direct descendant of the ancient language spoken by the Celtic settlers who inhabited Cornwall (Kernow) and most of the British Isles long before the Roman conquest. Cornish is a member of the Celtic family of languages comprising Irish, Scots and Manx Gaelic, Welsh and Breton. Even today the similarities with Welsh and Breton are very striking indeed.

In 1967 the Gorsedd of Cornwall (Gorsedh Kernow) and the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies established Kesva an Taves Kernewek (The Cornish Language Board) whose aim was to promote the study and use of Cornish. In 1979 Kevsa an Taves Kernewek launched Kowethas an Yeth Kernewek (The Cornish Language Fellowship) to further the development of the language and to promote activities in Cornish for the benefit of the ever increasing number of people who wished to learn it and in particular who wished to use Cornish in everyday life. Following the successful growth of Kowethas, in 1985 the two bodies formally separated but continue to work in the closest harmony for the benefit of the Cornish Language.

Cornish is from the 'P' Celtic family. The P and the Q is used to differentiate between British (Brythonic) and Gaelic because of words like 'Penn' in Cornish would become 'Ceann' in Gaelic. A placename example would be Kintyre in Scotland being essentially the same name as Pentire in Cornwall. The other name for the 'P' Celtic languages is British or Brythonic.

How much literature is there in the Cornish Language?

The largest amount of literature is from the Middle Cornish period. However, there are snatches and a vocabulary from Old Cornish. Late Cornish is mainly made up of oddments of poetry, letters and songs. Luckily, these days writers are producing a large amount of quality work in Cornish.

Where is the Cornish Language spoken?

In the year 1200, Cornish was spoken my most people over most of Cornwall. By 1600, it had been pushed west to Bodmin by Anglicisation. A hundred years later in was not found very much east of Truro and by 1777, when the last monoglot speaker (Dolly Pentreath) died, it was confined to West Penwith and areas of the Lizard peninsula. Speakers of Cornish with native knowledge of the tongue could still be found up until the late nineteenth century.

Did Cornish ever die out?

There was a keen hunt in the eighteenth century to find the 'last' speaker. But this was no-more than an ego-trip by some linguists. By the time the last native speakers were dying out, the revival had begun. So essentially, the language never actually died out.

To what extent is Cornish used today?

The revival of Cornish learning had progressed enough by 1970 for people to actually start speaking the language in everyday situations again, with some bringing up their children using it. By 1980 a confident group of Cornish speakers had emerged who improved their conversational skills by meeting together at Cornish Language Weekends and in pubs. By 1990, the amount of Cornish speakers had swelled to the hundreds, and to the thousands if you include those who knew some conversational aspects. Now in the 21st century, Cornish is used in a wide range of places with more bilingual signs appearing all the time. For example in town welcome signs as below or more recently in shops like ASDA.

How many people speak Cornish these days?

No exact census has been taken of Cornish speakers. It is also difficult to say an number because it depends on the level of fluency. Estimates put the number of fluent speakers of Cornish at around three or four hundred people. The number grows if you wish to include those who can converse in Cornish, but would not consider themselves fluent. This figure could be put at a couple of thousand. The number grows even more if you wish to include everyone who has learnt some Cornish and would be able to give you some phrases, or understand basic sentences. We are now talking in excess of five thousand, and possibly verging on ten thousand.

What is the Cornish word for 'Cornish'?

Kernewek

What is 'Cornwall' in Cornish?

Kernow

Where can I go to hear Cornish?

Kowethas an Yeth Kernewek (The Cornish Language Fellowship) hosts annual Cornish Language Weekends, usually around Easter. To find out more, contact Jane Ninnis. You can also enjoy Celtic music from across the six Celtic nations as well as hear Cornish if you attend Lowender Peran. Or you can visit the highlight of the Cornish cultural year, the Cornish Gorsedh, held every September.

How can I learn Cornish?

Contact us through this website, or you can find more information on the English page of the Cornish News website.

Where can I find more information about the language?

Read the pages relating to the work of the Cornish Language Board.

http://www.cornish-language.org/english/faq.asp

[Menydh]

A Brief History

Before the late sixth Century there was no difference between Old Cornish and Old Welsh. Then the Anglo-Saxons pushed further westward and the two groups of the Ancient Britons were separated in the year 597. This separation resulted in the evolution of two distinct languages, a third language evolved from the Britons who went to live in Brittany.

By 1066 Cornish was spoken throughout Cornwall, by the late 17th Century only a few speakers were found in the far west. In the 15th and 16th century the Cornish Rebelled against the English Government and as a result were slaughtered loosing many thousands of native speakers. The introduction of the English Prayer book was terrible for the Cornish as many people in Cornwall knew no English and had understood the Latin. The Cornish rebelled against this but were brutally crushed. Many Cornish who went to England to fight, learned English and when they returned stuck to speaking English, preferring to be seen as English rather than Cornish.

Cornish was dying because of the attitude towards it by the English. Sad but true, English society viewed the Cornish Language as a quaint peasant language and one that should not be spoken by anyone of any standing within society. This attitude was prevalent within Cornish itself. Cornish speakers refused to pass on the Cornish language to their Children insisting they learned only English and even in some cases they changed their name to a more English sounding one. For instance Trellil became Thomas.

In the late 17th Century a group of scholars wrote and studied to preserve as much of the language as they could. The works of one of them can be viewed on this site by looking at the Bible pages. We all owe them a great debt. The last native speaker of Cornish was John Davey who died in 1893 after the seeds of the revival had begun.

But the Cornish Language is a survivor. Its reported death was a classic example of media spin. Dolly Pentreath was one of the last native speakers of Cornish but not the last. There have always been people within Cornwall that have had knowledge of Cornish. Today more people speak Cornish that at any time in the last 250 years.


Current Cornish

The revival began 100 years ago. The first Handbook of the Cornish language was published in 1904. In order to overcome erratic spelling within the language a new spelling system was devised called Unified. This was the main form of the language revival until the 1980’s when Dr Ken George created a new phonemic spelling system known as Kemmyn in order to overcome the problems within the Unified system. The Cornish language Board decided to switch to this radical spelling system. Others preferred to stick to Unified, whilst others preferred to work with Modern Cornish, the spelling of 18th Century Cornish, when it had last been used as a community language. (Unified and Kemmyn were based on Cornish C. 1500).

The story does not end there for Nicholas Williams a Celtic Language Professor at Dublin University developed Unified Cornish Revised (UCR) in order to solve the problems within Unified and also as a replacement for Kemmyn that he felt was a serious mistake. However in the 16 years since Kemmyn was officially adopted it shows no sign of being abandoned and if you wish to read about the arguments of orthography I suggest reading Cornish for the 21st Century, which counters Nicholas Williams’s arguments that he made in his book Cornish Today. Unified is still being spoken by many of those who preferred not to switch to Kemmyn whilst a number have adopted UCR. Unfortunately whilst appreciating the merits of UCR I do find a major drawback is that there are only two books published in UCR, the other UCR material are all textbooks. Please note that for those people wanting to studying Cornish Language Board exams they are all in either Kemmyn or Unified. They do not recognise UCR.

So, which is the best system to use? Essentially they are all Cornish, sound virtually similar, but look radically different. In Kemmyn ‘Why’ is spelt ‘Hwi’ and ‘Whee’ in Modern. Seems confusing doesn’t it? Thankfully there are a number of books and CD-Roms to help you learn, but none of them give you all the information you need, which is which to use.

Eurotalk’s Learn Cornish has both Kemmyn and UCR as does Teach Me Cornish published by Cambridge Educational & Sain – although the later improved edition published by Cambridge Educational does only offer Kemmyn. Neither actually say why there are more than one spelling system nor do they give you the advice necessary to help you choose. A serious mistake in both CDs. (Eurotalk is only helpful for the serious beginner as it is little more than a small interactive dictionary, Teach Me Cornish is more advanced, but probably slightly harder to use, I would recommend Teach me Cornish as it gives you more to work with and is cheaper too!)


http://www.cornishlanguage.co.uk/ystory.htm

[Gil]

Great stuff, thanks

[Frankiz]

Interesting!

[Frankiz]

Cornish and Breton are closer than Cornish and Welsh or Breton and Welsh, even if these three languages are close britonnic languages anyway.

A few examples of the similarity between Cornish and Breton :

gwenenenn gwenanenn bee
kador kado(e)r chair
keus keuz, fo(u)rmaj cheese
yn mes er-maez way out
koedha kouezhañ, kouezho to fall
gaver gavr goase
chy ti house, home
gweus gweuz lip
ganow genoù, beg mouth
niver niver number
perenn perenn pear
skol skol school
gwiwer kazhkoad, gwiñver squirrel
sterenn ster(ed)enn star
megy butunat, fumiñ to smoke
hedhyw hiziv, hidi, hiriv today
whybana c'hwibanañ, c’hwitellat, sutal to whistle

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Frankiz

Cornish and Breton are closer than Cornish and Welsh or Breton and Welsh, even if these three languages are close britonnic languages anyway.

That makes sense if you look at the history of the Breton people.

The main difference of Cornish and Breton with Welsh seems to be in the graphical representation of sounds.

Mynydd in Welsh is Menez in Breton, and Meneth in Cornish. Yet the pronounciation is roughly the same in the three languages.

[Gil]

And Mynnyd = Merlin

[Menydh]

Well, it means mount, mountain. But.. merlin?

[Rusalka]

I thought Merlin's Welsh spelling was Myrddin actually, and it's a kind of bird, one of the hawk family or something like that. It was used as a personal name in Medieval Wales. He is called Myrdin in the Armes Prydein.

Dysgogan Myrddin kyueruyd hyn.
yn Aber Perydon meiryon mechteyrn.

Which very roughly translates as "Myrddin foretells the prophecy of Britain".

[Gil]

Mynnyd is the Kernow version of Myrddin Emrys. Yes, it also means mount, mountain and burial mound (don't ask me why).

Cheers

[Menydh]

I've been searching hard for that spelled form, mynnyd, but I haven't been able to find it related to 'mount'. It looks like a misspelled form of mynydd.

If you read the second post on this thread, under Current Cornish, you will be able to see that there are various attempts to standaridize the spelling of the phonems.

Disentangling the text there, we get a Unified system, which I assume it is like Batua, modern day Basque. Batua in the Basque Country was necessary because the language changed much, not only from one territory to the other, but even from one village to the next and from one family household to another.

Then there is Kemmyn, which seems to be a revision based on Welsh phonem spelling. It looks like an attempt to bring Cornish spelling to a more pure form of Brythonic, assuming Welsh as closer to Brythonic before the Anglo-Saxon invasions.

Finally they mention UCR (Unified Cornish Revised). They don't say much though the name suggests a revision of Unified.

Now, the translations that I've been able to find for 'mount' are: in Kemmyn, menydh; and in UCR, meneth. I haven't been found the translation in Unified. But since UCR is a revision of Unified, I think that we can safely assume that the Unified form must be closer to the spelling of meneth and not to that of menydh. Therefore mynnyd doesn't sound like a plausible candidate, and it would approach the Welsh spelling, mynydd, much more than in Kemmyn.

http://www.cornishlanguage.co.uk/gerva.htm

Kemmyn is a phonemic system in that the words are written as they are spoken, so this makes it much easier to learn.

Unified is a more traditional form but harder to learn. People still use this system because it is a good form, based on traditional spelling.

Unified Cornish Revised is a better version of Unified based on serious Celtic studies.

Modern Cornish (also known as Late) is the last genuine form of Cornish, the form of the language used last.

This page here helps to further complicate it: http://www.kdlcornish.freeserve.co.uk/kernewek.htm

[Menydh]

One note of interest on the word mynydd/menydh/meneth/menez. In Basque it is mendi.

Now, the etymology of the word must be Latin mons, montis.

Interestingly enough, Latin did have an influence over these languages in Classic times. However, it is also especulated that Latin was influenced by other languages in Ancient times. It was influenced by Gaulish and by Etruscan.

So in the end you can never be 100% certain of the exact etymological origin of a word.

[Marcus Marulus]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

One note of interest on the word mynydd/menydh/meneth/menez. In Basque it is mendi.

Now, the etymology of the word must be Latin mons, montis.

Interestingly enough, Latin did have an influence over these languages in Classic times. However, it is also especulated that Latin was influenced by other languages in Ancient times. It was influenced by Gaulish and by Etruscan.

So in the end you can never be 100% certain of the exact etymological origin of a word.

It doesn't have to mean that it is a loanword form Latin into Celtic or vice versa. Maybe it is an old Indo-European root, common to Italic and Celtic. Italic and Celtic are close to each other in any aspects, both lexical and grammatical, so that some linguists postulate a Celto-Italic family of languages.

[Cirrus]

Originally Posted by Plethon

It doesn't have to mean that it is a loanword form Latin into Celtic or vice versa. Maybe it is an old Indo-European root, common to Italic and Celtic. Italic and Celtic are close to each other in any aspects, both lexical and grammatical, so that some linguists postulate a Celto-Italic family of languages.

My Breton dictionary says that the word -Menez comes from the Celtic "Mon-iyo-"