A Handbook of the Cornish Language / chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature

These fragments may be classified as follows:—

Songs and Poems.

1.  Lhuyd’s Elegy on William of Orange, 1702.  Sixty-three lines of verse in rhyming triplets, in modern Cornish, with occasional archaic turns.  A copy occurs in the Gwavas MS.; it was printed by Pryce, with a Latin version, as part of a correspondence between Lhuyd and Tonkin, and by Polwhele in his fifth volume, with the same correspondence.  There is a copy with an English version by John Keigwin in the library of Sir John Williams, Bart., of Llanstephan.

3.  Song on James II. and William of Orange, by John Tonkin of St. Just, a tailor, who appears to have been a solitary Whig in a nation of Jacobites, as with very few exceptions the Cornish certainly were.  It begins, “Menja tiz Kernuak buz galowas,” and consists of fourteen four-lined stanzas of modern Cornish, probably composed in 1695, to judge by the historical allusions.  It is in the Gwavas MS. only, and has never been printed.

4.  A song of moral advice by the same writer, beginning “Ni venja pea a munna seer,” and consisting of seven four-lined stanzas, only one of which, beginning “An Prounter ni ez en Plew East,” has been printed (from the Borlase MS.) in the Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall for 1866.  The complete song is in the Gwavas MS., and has never been published.

5.  A song beginning “Pelea era why moaz, moz, fettow, teag” (Where are you going, fair maid? he said).  This consists of six four-lined stanzas, the second and fourth lines of each stanza being the burthen:—

“Gen agaz bedgeth gwin (or according to Borlase, Tonkin, and Gwavas, pedn du) ha agaz blew mellyn”

(With your white face, or black head, and your yellow hair)

and

“Rag delkiow sevi gwra muzi teag”

(For strawberry leaves make maidens fair).

6.  A song on the curing of pilchards (not a very poetical subject) by John Boson.  Twenty-six lines of rhyming couplets beginning “Me canna ve war hern gen cock ha ruz” (I will sing, or my song is, of pilchards with boat and net), and describing the process of bringing the fish ashore and putting them into bulks and making “fairmaids” of them.  There is a copy with a translation in the Borlase MS., which was printed in the Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall for 1866, and Davies Gilbert printed it at the end of his edition of Jordan’s Creation in 1827, but without any translation.

Verses and Epigrams.

1.  Nine short sayings in verse, printed in Pryce and Davies Gilbert, and copied by Borlase from Tonkin.  The first, “An lavar goth ewe lavar gwir,” etc., occurs also in Lhuyd.

2.  Epigram on the verdict in the suit of Gwavas v. Kelynack, respecting tithes of fish.  Eight lines by W. Gwavas.  It occurs in the Gwavas and Borlase MSS., and in Pryce and Polwhele.

3.  “To Neighbour Nicholas Pentreath,” by Gwavas.  Six lines.  In the Borlase MS., and in Pryce and Polwhele.

4.  “Advice from a friend in the country to his neighbour who went up to receive £16,000 in London,” by John Boson.  In the Borlase MS., and in Pryce and Polwhele.  Eight lines.

6.  “Verses on the Marazion Bowling-Green.”  In the Gwavas and Borlase MSS., and in Pryce and Polwhele.  Six lines by Gwavas.

7.  “Advice to Drunkards.”  Four lines, by Gwavas.  In the Gwavas and Borlase MSS., and in Pryce and Polwhele.

8.  A Cornish riddle.  Five lines.  In the Gwavas and Borlase MSS., and in Pryce, Gilbert, and Polwhele.

9.  “Advice to all men.”  Written by Gwavas to form part of his own epitaph.  Four lines.

10.  “Another” [of the same sort], three lines, also by Gwavas.

11.  “A concluding one,” four lines, also by Gwavas.  These last three, copied from the same page of the Gwavas MS., all occur also in the Borlase MS., and in Pryce, Gilbert, and Polwhele.

12.  “A Fisherman’s Catch,” given by Capt. Noel Cator of St. Agnes to T. Tonkin, 1698.  In the Borlase MS., and printed in the R. I. C. Journal, 1866, and in Mr. Hobson Matthews’s History of St. Ives, Lelant, Towednack, and Zennor.

13.  Six lines of moral advice, found among the papers of J. Boson after his death, and given to Gwavas.  In the Borlase MS., and R. I. C. Journal, 1866.

14.  Certificate of Banns from W. Drake, Rector of St. Just, to Thos. Trethyll, Vicar of Sennen.  Two versions, one in the Gwavas MS. and one in Pryce, the latter being also in the Borlase MS.  Drake died in 1636.

15.  Verses on a silver hurling ball given to W. Gwavas.  Seven lines by Thos.  Boson, 1705.  In the Gwavas MS.  Unpublished.

17.  Prophecy, attributed to Merlin, of the burning of Paul, Penzance, and Newlyn.  Two lines.  In the Borlase MS., and often printed in Cornish histories and guide-books.

18.  Elegy on the death of James Jenkin of Alverton.  Four verses of three lines each, by John Boson, 17 Feb. 17 [11/12].  In the Gwavas MS.  Unpublished.

Proverbs, Mottoes, and Maxims.

1.  From Scawen.  Fourteen proverbs.  In the Borlase MS.; printed in the edition of Tonkin’s abridgment of Scawen’s Antiquities Cornu-Britannick, 1777, and in Davies Gilbert’s History, and in his edition of the Poem of the Passion.  Also in R. I. C. Journal, 1866, with sixteen others from the Borlase MS.

4.  Maxims, proverbs, etc., about thirty in number, in the Borlase MS., in Pryce, and in Davies Gilbert’s edition of The Creation, under the title of “Sentences in vulgar Cornish.”  Some of them are also in the Gwavas MS.

Conversations and Phrases.

1.  About seventy sentences, in the Borlase MS., in Pryce, and in Davies Gilbert’s edition of The Creation, under the title of “Things occurring in common discourse.”  There are some additional ones in the Borlase MS.

2.  About a hundred and fifty phrases, sentences, and idioms, copied by Dr. Borlase from Lhuyd’s MSS.  Some, but by no means all, are in Lhuyd’s Grammar.

3.  A considerable number of similar phrases scattered throughout Borlase’s Cornish Vocabulary at the end of his History of Cornwall.  These are to be found, evidently copied from the Vocabulary, in a manuscript which belonged in 1777 to Henry Brush of Carnaquidn Stamps (on the road from Penzance to Zennor), which place belonged to William Veale of Trevaylor, who married the daughter of Gwavas.  The MS. is now in the possession of a descendant of Henry Brush.

4.  A few expressions and phrases scattered through the Gwavas MS., in the letters of Boson, and in letters and notes of Gwavas.

Epitaphs.

1.  On James Jenkins, by John Boson, 17[11/12], in the Gwavas MS.  Four lines.  The Borlase MS., quoting the very letter in which it occurs, says that it is on John Keigwin, which is a mistake.

3.  On Capt. Stephen Hutchens, in Paul Church, 1709.  The only Cornish inscription in any church.  Probably by John Boson.  Two lines.  Frequently printed in guide-books, etc.

4.  On William Gwavas, by himself.  In the Gwavas MS., and in Pryce, Polwhele, and Davies Gilbert.  Partly in English.

These four are also in the Borlase MS., and are printed in the R. I. C. Journal, 1866.

5.  On Dolly Pentreath, by --- Tompson of Truro, engineer.  Printed by Polwhele, and later in Blight’s Week at the Land’s End, and other guide-books.  A variant occurs in John Skinner’s Journal of a Tour in Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall, 1797, in Add. MS. 28,793, f. 62, in the British Museum.

Letters.

1.  William Gwavas to Oliver Pender, 11th August 1711.  Partly in Cornish.

2.  Oliver Pender to W. Gwavas, 22nd August 1711.  Mostly in Cornish.

3.  John Boson to W. Gwavas, 5th April 1710.  Nearly all in Cornish.

4.  An unsigned letter, including a version of the “Old Hundredth.”  Partly in rhyme.

5.  Note, addressed apparently to one going to America, by William Gwavas, 1710, on the back of a copy of the Creed in Cornish.

These five are in the Gwavas MS., and have never been printed.

Translations.

Passages of Scripture.

Genesis i.  Two versions, one by John Boson and one probably by John Keigwin.  Both are in the Gwavas MS.  One, Boson’s, with his name to it, is in the Borlase MS.  Boson’s was printed by D. Gilbert at the end of his edition of the Poem of the Passion, and in a much revised form by Canon Williams at the end of his Lexicon.  Keigwin’s version was printed by D. Gilbert at the end of his edition of Jordan’s Creation.  There are many verbal variations from the Gwavas copies in the printed editions.

Genesis iii., translated by William Kerew, in the Gwavas MS.  Published by Prof. Loth in the Revue Celtique, April 1902.

St. Matthew ii. 1-20, translated by W. Kerew, in the Gwavas MS.  Published in the Revue Celtique, April 1902.

St. Matthew iv., also by W. Kerew, in the Gwavas MS.  Published in the Revue Celtique, April 1902.

The last three were copied from a MS. of Matthew Rowe of Hendra in Sancreed, by H. Usticke.

Proverbs xxx. 5, 6.

Psalms ii. 11; vii. 11; xxxv. 1, 2.

These are in the Gwavas MS., probably translated by W. Gwavas himself.  Unpublished.

The Hundredth Psalm, of the Sternhold and Hopkins version, literally translated line for line, followed by an unsigned letter partly in rhyme.  In the Gwavas MS.  Unpublished.

There are ten versions extant besides the modern one of Canon Williams.

1.  In John Davies’s Llyfr y Resolusion (a translation of Robert Parsons’s Book of Christian Exercise), printed in 1632, and again in 1684.  Translated from the Latin.

2.  In Scawen’s Antiquities Cornu-Brittanick, circ. 1680.  Printed in Tonkin’s abridgment in 1777.  The same version is given in Bishop Gibson’s additions to Camden’s Britannia in 1695, and by Polwhele.

3, 4.  Two versions in John Chamberlayne’s Oratio Dominica in diversas linguas versa, 1715, one of which is evidently meant for the version in Scawen and Camden.

5, 6.  Two versions by John Keigwin, one said to be in Ancient Cornish and the other in Modern.  Both are in the Gwavas and Borlase MSS., and were printed by Pryce and D. Gilbert.

7, 8.  Two versions, one by John and one by Thomas Boson, in the Gwavas MS.  Unpublished.

9, 10.  Two versions by W. Gwavas, in the Gwavas MS.  Unpublished.  One of these, nearly identical with Keigwin’s Modern, is said in a note to have been collected from J. Keigwin, Thomas Boson, Captain Thomas Tonkin, Oliver Pender, James Schollar, and T. Tonkin.

The first four are without the εκφωνησις at the end.  All except the first are from the English.

The Apostles’ Creed.

1.  In the Llyfr y Resolusion, 1632, 1684.

2.  In Scawen and in Gibson’s Camden.

3.  In Hals’s History of Cornwall.

6.  By Thomas Boson, in the Gwavas MS.  Unpublished.

7, 8.  By William Gwavas, in the Gwavas MS.  Unpublished.

There is a modern revised version in Williams’s Lexicon.

The Ten Commandments.

1, 2.  By John Keigwin, one in the Gwavas MS., and both in the Borlase MS., and in Pryce and D. Gilbert.  One of these in a revised form is in Williams’s Lexicon.

3.  In the Gwavas MS., but without name.  Unpublished.

4.  By John Boson, in the Gwavas MS.  Printed with notes by Prof. Loth in vol. xxiv. of the Revue Celtique.

5.  By William Kerew, in the Gwavas MS.  Printed with the preceding.

6.  By T. Boson, in the Gwavas MS.  Unpublished.

7.  By W. Gwavas, in the Gwavas MS.  Unpublished.

The Words of Administration of Holy Communion.

These are stated to be the words used by William Jackman, Vicar of St. Feock.  They occur in Hals’s History.

King Charles I.’s Letter to the People of Cornwall.

* * * * *

The following grammatical and lexicographical pieces belong more or less to the living period of Cornish:—

1.  Lhuyd’s Cornish Grammar, printed in his Archæologia Britannica in 1707, and reprinted by Pryce in 1790.

2.  Lhuyd’s Cornish Vocabulary.  The unpublished MS. belongs to Sir John Williams, Bart., of Llanstephan, Carmarthenshire.  Most of the words in it are to be found in Borlase’s and Pryce’s Vocabularies (see below).  They were collected partly from the Dramas, partly from the Cottonian Vocabulary, and partly from living people.

3.  The Gwavas Vocabulary.  This is a short vocabulary of the latest Cornish (extending from A to O) in the Gwavas MS.  The words were incorporated into Borlase’s Vocabulary.

4.  The Hals Vocabulary.  This is a fragment (A to C) in the Gwavas MS.  It is fantastic and of little value.

6.  Pryce’s Vocabulary, or rather that of Gwavas, Tonkin, and Pryce.  Printed, with Pryce’s edition of Lhuyd’s Grammar, at Sherborne in 1790.  Some of this vocabulary was collected from the literary remains of Cornish, but a very large part was compiled from living tradition, not much by Pryce himself, but by Gwavas and Tonkin.

Though some of these have been used by Canon Williams in his Lexicon Cornu-Britannicum, by Dr. Whitley Stokes in his Supplementary Cornish Glossary (Transactions of the Philological Society, 1868-9), and still more in Dr. Jago’s English-Cornish Dictionary, they have not been thoroughly exhausted yet, and a good many more words may be collected from them, as also from the attempted interpretations of place-names in Pryce’s book and in the Gwavas MS.

The Cornish language divides very naturally into three periods, (1) Ancient, (2) Middle, (3) Modern.

1.  The Ancient period is only represented by the Cottonian Vocabulary, which, though a MS. of the twelfth century, is probably a copy of a much earlier one, by perhaps a few glosses, and by the names in the Bodmin Gospels.  It has no extant literature.

2.  The Middle period is that of the Add. Charter fragment, the Ordinalia, the Poem of the Passion (fifteenth century), the Life of St. Meriasek (1504), and to some extent of the play of The Creation (1611), though the last is partly transitional.  Judging from the few words preserved in John of Cornwall’s twelfth-century translation of a prophecy of Merlin, the lost original of that was perhaps in an early form of Middle Cornish.

3.  The Modern period begins with the few sentences in Andrew Borde’s book (1542), and continues to the end.

2.  u, with (approximately) the French sound of that letter, becomes ee (î), or else ew, as in the English word dew.

3.  eu, ue, with the French sound of eu, or the German o, becomes ê (=ay in may).

4.  y of Middle Cornish, perhaps pronounced as ĭ, but sometimes obscurely, like the primary sound of the Welsh y, often became short e.

5.  An open long y, which may have been sounded ee (î) in Middle Cornish, often later became ei (or as i in mine), though there are inconsistencies in this respect, showing that the change was not universal.

6.  In a considerable number of cases short o became the “obscure vowel,” o of London or u of until.

It does not follow that these were very distinct changes between Middle and Modern Cornish.  Possibly the change in sound was a good deal less than on paper, and consisted in intensifying earlier changes.  The Middle Cornish system of spelling looks very like an inheritance from an earlier time still.

§ 1.  On the Pronunciation in general.

§ 2.  The Vowels.

Simple: a, â, e, ê, i, î, o, ô, ŏ, u, û, ŭ, y, ŷ.

Compound: aw, ei, ey, ew, oi, oy, ou, ow.

a.  Simple vowels.

1.  a, short, as a in man.  Before l and r it is generally sounded as o in not.

6.  Ou has the same sound as û, and as the second sound of ow.  It is the regular symbol for that sound in Breton, and very commonly in the Cornish dramas, where, as in Breton, u commonly represented, approximately, the French u, which later became î or ew.

General Remarks on the Vowels.

In the Middle Cornish manuscripts the vowels are represented in various ways, and there is a special uncertainty about unaccented and obscure vowels.

Vowels were sometimes lengthened by doubling, or by adding a y, and rarely, until Jordan’s Creation, by adding a mute e after the closing consonant; but often quantity was not indicated at all.

Long î (ee in see) was more often than not represented by y, but, as in Welsh, y not infrequently represented the obscure vowel (u in until), and often a sound which later became a short e, but in unaccented syllables was, as is not unusually the case in English, more of the nature of the obscure vowel, or perhaps something between that and a short i.  Indeed all unaccented vowels tend to become obscure, very much as they do in English, and hence are variously expressed.

In the unscientific spelling of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that is to say, in the system of every one except Lhuyd, and occasionally of Gwavas and Tonkin when they followed Lhuyd, the English values of the period were often given to the letters; but the following were vowel symbols in general use:—

§ 3.  The Consonants.

Simple: b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, y, z.

Compound: bm, ch, dh, dn, gw, gh, ng, qw, sh, th, wh, zh, gwl, gwr, qwr, wl, wr.

a.  Simple consonants.

1.  b has the same sound as in English.

2.  c is always hard, being used only before a, o, u.  The same sound before e, i, y is represented by k.

3.  d before a, o, u is usually hard, as in English, but, as in Gaelic, before e, i, y it has a sound approaching to j, or like di in soldier.  In the MSS. a soft g was often written for d in such cases.  It is a common change in many languages.  Cf. the Italian oggi, to-day, for the Latin hodie.

4.  f has the same sound as in English.  In the MSS. it is often confused with v.  As a final it is very lightly sounded.

5.  g is always hard, as in get, go.  The soft g, as in gin, is here represented by j, but in the MSS. g was often used for it.

7.  j is sounded as in English.  It generally represents what was once written s.  Lhuyd writes dzh for this sound, and the MSS. often represent it by g.

8.  k is generally only used before e, i, y, or as a final.  It has the same sound as in English.  It often happens in grammatical inflections that a broad root vowel is changed to a thin one.  In such cases if the preceding letter is a c it must be changed to k.

9.  l has the ordinary English sound.  Sometimes a double l of earlier Cornish was written lh (telhar, place, for teller).  This may perhaps represent the aspirated ll of Welsh, or (as in Portuguese) the l mouillé (as li in valiant).

10.  m has usually the same sound as in English.  When it follows a short vowel in an accented syllable or a monosyllable, it has a peculiar sound as though a b were prefixed to it, or as though the speaker had a slight cold in the head.  This b was frequently written in the later MSS., and in the mouths of less educated persons the b supplanted the m altogether.  Thus lemmyn, now, became successively lebman and lebban.  The vanishing of the m altogether did not occur in monosyllables, and it is undesirable to imitate it in other words.  In the system of spelling adopted in this book, the b will be written in cases where it was habitually written in later Cornish, but even when it is not written it is always to be sounded in the case of short vowels in accented syllables or monosyllables.

1.  As an initial; before c, k, f, l, m, n, p, q, r, t, w; or when doubled, as s in so.

2.  As a final, except when the next word, grammatically connected, begins with a vowel; or before b, d, g, j, v, as z or s in rose.

3.  Between two vowels in the same word; after another consonant and followed by a vowel; or as a final followed by a grammatically connected word, such as an epithet, beginning with a vowel, as j.

17.  v is sounded as in English, but is often nearly inaudible at the end of a word, unless the next word begins with a vowel.  Thus ev, he, is often written e in later MSS.

18.  w, except in compound vowels, is always a consonant, and has the same sound as in English.  For its sound before l and r see Compound consonants.

19.  y consonant is sounded as y consonant in English, or as j in German.  It is always consonant when it precedes a vowel, unless it is written ŷ, when it is a vowel, as in such words as crŷes, tŷak, etc.

20.  z is only used as an initial, but it is seldom used at all.  The sound is that of an English z.

b.  Compound consonants.

1.  bm, dn represent respectively the sound of m and n after a short vowel in an accented syllable or monosyllable (see m, n).  There is no vowel sound between the two letters.

2.  ch is always sounded as in church.  It usually represents a former t, or else occurs in borrowed English words.

These directions for pronunciation must needs be only approximate.  The exact phonetics are not attainable.  The pronunciation of Cornish place-names forms something of a guide to the old sounds, only one must be careful not to be misled by the modern tendency to pronounce words as they are spelt according to the English values of letters, and one must also remember that there is no settled system of place-name orthography.

In all the Celtic languages there are certain partly grammatical and partly phonetic changes of the first letters of words, which are called by various names, the most convenient of which is initial mutations.  These changes take place in Cornish when words beginning with the letters P, C or K, T or Ch, B, G, D or J, and M are preceded by certain adjectives, prepositions, pronouns, particles, etc., which stand in some governing or qualifying relation to them.  Words beginning with other letters, except occasionally F and S, do not change their initials.  Very similar changes are often made in the case of the second halves of compound words.

The mutable letters, P, C or K, T or Ch; B, G, D or J form two classes, with mutual relations to one another.  A third class, related to the other two, is formed of F or V, H, Dh, and Th.  Of these last F and H are the only ones that can occur as primary or unchanged initials.  Of these

P, C or K, and T or Ch are called tenues or thin (or hard) letters.

B, G, and D or J are called mediæ or middle (or soft).

F or V, H, Dh, and Th are called aspirates.

One set of tenuis, media, and aspirate is called labial (or lip letters), a second is called guttural (or throat letters), a third is called dental (or teeth letters), from the parts of the mouth most used in forming them.

Tenuis, P; Media, B; Aspirate, F or V.

The gutturals are:—

Tenuis, C or K; Media, G; Aspirate, H.

The dentals are:—

Tenuis, T or Ch; Media, D or J; Aspirate, Th or Dh.

There is no difficulty in perceiving that the letters forming each of these classes are closely related to one another; in most languages they are interchangeable under certain conditions, and the changes in the Celtic languages called initial mutations are based upon these relations, though the method, rules, and arrangement of these changes differ in the six languages, as do also the names by which they are known.

In Cornish (as in Breton) the general principle is that (1) the tenuis changes under some circumstances into the media, and under others into a form of the aspirate; and that (2) the media changes to a form of the aspirate under some circumstances, and into the tenuis under others; but that (3) the conditions which change the tenuis into the media change the media into the aspirate: while those which change (4) the tenuis into the aspirate leave the media unchanged; and those which change (5) the media to the tenuis leave the tenuis unchanged.

In this book we shall call the original or radical condition of a word its first state.

Thus Pen, a head, Car, a friend, Tâs, a father, Blew, hair, Gras, grace, Dên, a man, Mab, a son, are in their first state.

The change of the tenuis to the media, or a radical media to an aspirate, we call the second state.

Thus, the same words in their second state are Ben, Gar, Dâs, Vlew, ’ras, Dhên, Vab.

Thus, for the first three words the third state is Fen, Har, Thâs.

The other four, beginning with mediæ or m, have no third state.

The change from the media to the tenuis we call the fourth state.  It is commonly called provection.

Thus, the fourth state of Blew, Gras, and Dên (the words beginning with tenues or m having no fourth state) is Plew, Cras, Tên.

[It is to be noted, however, that none of these three words, being nouns, would be likely to be subjected to this last change in any real construction, for the fourth state is used almost exclusively with ow, the particle of the present participle of verbs, with the conjunctions a and mar, if, and maga, as, sometimes with the verbal particle y or e, and sometimes with the adverbial particle en, so that it is generally applied to verbs and adjectives.]

The following is a table of changes:—

P has two changes, to B (second state), and F (third state).

In the following tables cases of the use of mutations are shown.  It is to be noted that e, his, is one of the words which govern the second state, and ow, my, the third state, and agan, our, the first state, while the particle ow of the present participle governs the fourth state.

Examples of the use of the first, second, and third states:—

Examples of the use of the fourth state:—