List of Some Modern Books and Articles Relating to Cornish
1. The Ancient Cornish Drama. Edited and translated by Mr. Edwin Norris. Oxford, University Press, 1859. 2 vols. 8vo. [This contains the Trilogy known as the Ordinalia (see p. 27), followed by notes and a most valuable “Sketch of Cornish Grammar,” and the Cottonian Vocabulary, arranged alphabetically].
2. Pascon agan Arluth: the Poem of the Passion (see p. 26). [With a translation and notes by Dr. Whitley Stokes.] Philological Society’s Transactions, 1860-1. 8vo.
3. Gwreans an Bys: the Creation of the World, a Cornish Mystery. Edited, with a translation and notes, by Whitley Stokes. Philological Society’s Transactions, 1864. 8vo.
4. Lexicon Cornu-Britannicum: a Dictionary of the ancient Celtic language of Cornwall, in which the words are elucidated by copious examples from the Cornish works now remaining; with translations in English. The synonyms are also given in the cognate dialects of Welsh, Armoric, Irish, Gaelic, and Manx, showing at one view the connection between them. By the Rev. Robert Williams. Roderic, Llandovery, 1865. 4to.
5. A Collection of hitherto unpublished Proverbs and Rhymes in the ancient Cornish Language: from the MSS. of Dr. Borlase. By William Copeland Borlase. Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, 1866. 8vo.
6. A Cornish Glossary. By Whitley Stokes. [Additions of about 2000 words to Williams’s Lexicon, with some corrections]. Transactions of the Philological Society, 1868-9.
7. Beunans Meriasek: the Life of St. Meriasek, Bishop and Confessor. A Cornish Drama. Edited, with a translation and notes, by Whitley Stokes. Trübner & Co., London, 1872. 8vo.
8. The Cornish Language. A Paper read before the Philological Society, March 21st, 1873. By Henry Jenner. Philological Society’s Transactions, 1893.
9. Traditional Relics of the Cornish Language in Mount’s Bay in 1875. By Henry Jenner. Philological Society’s Transactions, 1876. 8vo.
10. The History and Literature of the Ancient Cornish Language. By Henry Jenner. A Paper read before the British Archæological Association at Penzance, August 19th, 1876. British Archæological Journal, 1877. 8vo.
11. Copy of a MS. in Cornish and English from the MSS. of Dr. Borlase. Nebbaz Gerriau dro tho Carnoack. By John Boson. Edited by W. C. Borlase. Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, Nov. 1879. 8vo.
12. An English-Cornish Dictionary. Compiled from the best sources. By Fred. W. P. Jago. Luke, Plymouth; Simpkin, Marshall, & Co., London, 1887. 4to.
13. A Glossary of Cornish Names: ancient and modern, local, family, personal, etc. 2000 Celtic and other names, now or formerly in use in Cornwall... By the Rev. John Bannister. Williams & Norgate, London; J. B. Netherton, Truro, 1871. 8vo.
14. Articles in the Revue Celtique.
Vol. i. p. 332. “The Bodmin Manumissions.” By Dr. Whitley Stokes.
Vol. iii. p. 85. “Cornica.” Durdala, Dursona; Cornish in the Vatican [John of Cornwall’s Merlin]; Cornish Life of St. Columba [mention of a letter from Nicholas Roscarrock to Camden, referring to such a work]. By Dr. Whitley Stokes.
Vol. iii. p. 239. “Le dernier écho de la Langue Cornique.” By the Rev. W. S. Lach-Szyrma. [An account of the present writer’s Paper on “Traditional Relics of Cornish in Mount’s Bay,” with additions.]
Vol. iv. p. 258. “Cornica.” Fragments of a Drama. [Text and translation of the Add. Charter fragment (see p. 25)]. Cornish Phrases. [From Andrew Borde (see p. 30)]. By Dr. Whitley Stokes.
Vol. xiv. p. 70. “Les Glosses de l’Oxoniensis posterior sont elles Corniques?” p. 301. “Les mots Druic, Nader, dans le Vocabulaire Cornique.” By Prof. J. Loth.
Vol. xviii. p. 401. “Études Corniques I.” [On the pronunciation of d, t, s, z, j, etc.]. By Prof. Loth.
Vol. xxiii. p. 173. “Études Corniques II. Textes inédits en Cornique moderne.” [Genesis iii., St. Matth. iv., ii. From the Gwavas MS., with a French translation and notes]. By Prof. Loth.
Vol. xxiii. p. 236. “Études Corniques IV. Remarques et corrections au Lexicon Cornu-Britannica de Williams.” By Prof. Loth.
Vol. xxiv. p. 1. “Études Corniques V. Les Dix Commandements de Dieu.” [The versions of Boson and Kerew in the Gwavas MS., with a French translation and notes]. By Prof. Loth.
Vol. xxiv. p. 155. “Notes aux textes inédits en Cornique moderne.” [Notes, in English, on Prof. Loth’s edition of Genesis iii., St. Matth. iv., ii., in vol. xxiii.]. By Henry Jenner.
Vol. xxiv. p. 300. “Some Rough Notes on the present Pronunciation of Cornish names.” By Henry Jenner.
15. Articles in Archiv fur Celtische Lexicographie.
Bd. i. p. 101. “Glossary to Beunans Meriasek.” By Dr. Whitley Stokes.
p. 161. “Collation of Norris’s Cornish Drama.” By Dr. Whitley Stokes.
p. 224. “Cornique Moderne.” [The dialogues of Andrew Borde, and William Bodenor’s Letter; with restored texts, translations, and notes.] By Prof. Loth.
16. Grammatica Celtica e monumentis vetustis tam Hibernicae linguae quam Britannicarum dialectorum Cambricae Cornicae Aremoricae comparatis Gallicae priscae reliquiis. Construxit I. C. Zeuss. Editio altera. Curavit H. Ebel. Berolini, 1871. 4to.
Footnotes
0a Cf. “Ista sunt nomina corrodiorum et pensionum in Anglia et Cornubia quæ sunt in dono Regis Angliæ.” Harl. MS. 433, f. 335, temp. Ric. iii.
0b The Bretons of to-day habitually speak of Brittany as “notre petite patrie,” and France as “notre grande patrie,” and none have fought and died for France more bravely than these. As soldiers (and still more as sailors) they are to France what the Highlanders are to Britain, and avenge the atrocities of 1793 in the same noble fashion as that in which the Gaels have avenged the horrors of Culloden and its sequel. Loyalty is in the blood of Celts, whether to clan, or to great or little Fatherland.
0c “If that learned wise man should see this, he would find reason to correct it in orthography, etc.”—Nebbaz Gerriau.
6 The Britons of the Kingdom of the North (Cumberland and Strathclyde) probably spoke the progenitor of Welsh, which they perhaps brought south with them, displacing the South British in Gwynedd and Powys, and later in South Wales, when they also drove out the Goidelic intruders.
7 In September 1903, at the end of the Congress of the Union Régionaliste Bretonne at Lesneven in Finistère, the present writer made a speech in Cornish, perhaps the first that had been made for two hundred years, and rather to his astonishment he was fairly well understood by the Bretons. It is true that all were educated men, but only one of them had studied Cornish.
10a Descript. Cambr., vi.
10b Cf. “Where the great vision of the guarded mount
Looks toward Namancos and Bayona’s hold.”
12 Clarendon’s account of the Cornish troops in the Great Rebellion gives the impression that there was no lack of piety among them at that time.
17 Probably the well-known Sir John Maynard, whose MSS. are now in Lincoln’s Inn Library. He represented a Devon constituency at one time.
19 In Tonkin’s notes to Carew’s Survey (Lord de Dunstanville’s edition) passages which occur in Pryce are referred to pages of “my Archæologia Cornu-Britannica.”
39 The motto of Harris of Hayne, “Car Dew dres pub tra,” is mentioned in Boson’s Nebbaz Gerriau, and is part of stanza 23 of the Poem of the Passion.
50 The remarks added here in brackets are those of the present writer.
54 In compound words the accent is always on the qualifying part, and if that is a monosyllable and comes last, the accent is therefore on the last syllable. This is common in place-names.
55 It seems likely that in the very peculiar intonation of Zennor, Morvah, Towednack, and the country part of St. Ives the true intonation of Cornish may be best preserved. But this is mere conjecture.
56 The modern Cornish pronunciation of the word “trade,” in its local and rather contemptuous sense of “ropes’ ends, dead mice, and other combustibles” (as Cornishman once denned it), shows the sound of this vowel fairly well.
57 Care must be taken in this case to avoid that ŷ sound given to the English a in London twang (e.g. lȳdy for lady).
59a The combination ao in Irish is pronounced t. Thus caol, narrow, is cul in the Highlands and kîl in Ireland.
59b The word bewnans, life, formed from the root bew, was often written bownans in late Cornish and probably pronounced boonans. Similarly bowjy (=bewgh-chŷ), cow-house, must have been bewjy. This last, which is one of the surviving Cornish words, has its ow at present sounded as in now. This change has happened not infrequently in place-names.
63 The word en, in, in quite late Cornish, was apparently sounded et, which is a solitary case of the disappearance of n in a monosyllable.
64 Cf. the s or z of azure, treasure, sure, pleasure, sugar, in English.
65 Dr. Whitley Stokes, in a paper of additions to Williams’s Cornish Lexicon (Philol. Soc. 1868), gives it as his opinion that the th of the MSS. should not be written dh at the end of a word, and that Williams, in doing so, was wrongly following Welsh analogy. But there is an evident tendency in late Cornish to end words in z for s, v for f, g for k, and a considerable number of words which Williams ends in dh end in the corresponding z in Breton, so that one is more inclined to follow Williams in this matter, though there is a good deal to be said both ways.
70a C before a broad vowel, k before a thin vowel, and q before a w.
70b The ch and j are used for an earlier t and d in a few words, through intensification of the thin sounds of the latter. See Chap. I. § 2.
73 See Chap. IV. § 2.
76 There is also a doubtful form mescatter, from mescat.
78 The change of initial of the masculine plural is by no means universal in the MSS., but it is not infrequent, and is the rule in Breton (with a few exceptions), so it seems fair to conjecture that it was the Cornish rule also.
80 Note how a masculine ending in a affects the initial of the adjective as if it were a feminine.
81 It sometimes happens (as Dr. Stokes points out) that if the first noun is feminine, the noun in the genitive has its initial in the second state, in fact it is treated as an adjective qualifying the preceding noun, e.g. bennath Varya, the blessing of Mary; carek Veryasek, the rock of Meriasek; fynten woys, a well of blood, but as this also happens at times when the first noun is masculine (e.g. cledha dan, Cr. 964), it probably only means that mutations were rather loosely used. The last two are “genitives of material.”
86 Note that when a syllable is added to a word ending in gh, the g is omitted.
94 Idn, to qualify a noun; omen, used by itself. Thus, idn dên, one man; Ŏnen hag Ol, One and All. Wǒnnen is an alternative form of the latter.
96 It has been held that this apparent singular, which is used after numerals in Welsh and Breton also, is really a genitive plural. In the Gaelic languages, in which the case-inflections of nouns still exist, the genitive plural is usually (though not universally) the same as the nominative singular, except in Manx, where it is only distinguishable from the nominative plural by its article, but except in the cases of da, two, fichead, twenty, ceud, a hundred, and mile, a thousand, which precede nouns in the singular, the plural follows numerals in those languages.
119 There is, however, some blight confusion in late Cornish MSS. between this use of re, and the auxiliary form with wrîg. The difference of sound in cases of verbs beginning with g or c would be very slight.
133 Spelling assimilated to that of this grammar.
135 It will not be necessary to add the pronouns to every tense.
136 The remarks on the use of the different forms of this tense apply mutatis mutandis to the other tenses. See also Chapter XIV. § I.
140 See Chapter XIV.
144 Kegy, kehegy (in St. Meriasek), are ke, kehe, with jy or gy (=dî), the personal pronoun added.
149 Older yn. When this is followed by a possessive pronoun of the first or second person the n is dropped, and the possessive pronoun takes the form which follows a preposition ending in a vowel, e’m, e’th. When the definite article would follow the two coalesce and en=en an.
153 na=ni + a (nag before a vowel), ought only to be used with interrogatives, but the later writers of Cornish did not always do as they ought.
154 In Jordan’s Creation, 1. 599, “Myhall sera thewgh gramercy,” though Keigwin and Dr. Stokes both read my hall=I may, one is inclined to find this form of swear, and to translate it “Michael! sir, grammercy to you!” Compare the English use of “Marry!” (for Mary!) or “Gad!” (for God!) without by before them. It is written all in one word and spelt the same as the name of St. Michael in the same play. It is no more of an anachronism to make Eve swear by St. Michael than (in Res. Dom., 1387) to make St. Thomas swear by St. Mary.
156 Vengeans y’th glas! is used by the wife of the smith who makes the nails for the Cross in the Drama of The Passion (1. 2716).
164 The spelling and mutations corrected.
165 The spelling and mutations corrected.
166 The spelling and mutations corrected.
167 The spelling and mutations corrected.
180a Probably the apparent eight syllables in line 6 of the Poem of the Passion may be accounted for in this way, and one should read levarow as larow; cf. in the Breton of Treguier, laret for lavarout, and the late Cornish lawle for lavarel. In English the first would be no rhyme.
180b It may be that the Cornish ear for rhymes was like the French, and that the explanation is to be sought in a theory like that of the rimes riches and the consonne d’appui of modern French. In French chercher—rocher is a better rhyme than aimer—rocher (in each case with the accent on the last syllable).
181 The numerals denote the number of syllables to each line. In the original a long z is used for dh and th.
188 The spelling of one of the original MSS. has been preserved here, except that, in order to avoid confusion as to the number of syllables, the final mute e is omitted. In this ee—î, ea=ê, oo=ô.
189a “I have only to add that the metre of Christabel is not properly speaking irregular, though it may seem so through its being founded on a new principle, namely, that of counting in each line the accents, not the syllables.” (Preface to 1816 edition of Christabel.)
189b Spelling adapted to that of this grammar.
196 Cf. the Arabic article al prefixed to place-names in Southern Spain, and to nouns of Arabic derivation in Spanish.