A wrîgough why besca gwelas?  Did you ever see?

A wreugh why agan gwelas?  Do you see us?

Fatla wreugh why crŷa hedna?  How do you call that?

Fraga wreugh why gwîl hebma?  Why do you do this?

A vednough why môs genev vî?  Will you go with me?

The particle a is often omitted colloquially, but its effect is perceptible in the change of the initial of the verb.  If the verb begins with a vowel, a is always omitted.

With interrogative sentences should come the answers to them.  It must be understood that by nature no Celt can ever say a plain “yes” or “no.”  There are “dictionary words” for “yes” and “no” in Welsh and Cornish, and they are used a very little in translations from other languages; but they do not “belong” to be used in speaking or writing Welsh or Cornish.  In Gaelic there are not even “dictionary words” for them.  In Breton ia and nan are used freely for “yes” and “no,” as in French, but that is probably quite modern French influence.  The Celtic practice is to repeat the inflected verb of the question, affirmatively or negatively, in the necessary person.  Thus:—

’Ellough why cowsa Kernûak?  Can you speak Cornish?

Gellam or mî ellam.  I can (yes).  Ni ellam, or (less correctly) nag ellam, I cannot (no).

Mednav.  I will (yes).  Ni vednav.  I will not (no).

A wrîg ev môs dhô Benzans?  Did he go to Penzance?

Gwrîg.  He did.  Ni wrîg.  He did not.

’Esta ajŷ?  Art thou at home?

Thoma.  I am.  Nynsov, or nynsoma, or (less correctly), nag ov.  I am not.

In the case of a negative interrogative sentence the verb is immediately preceded by na=nî + a, whether it begins the sentence or is itself preceded by an interrogative conjunction.  Thus:—

Na wrîsta gwelas?  Didst thou not see?

Fraga na wrîsta crejy?  Why didst thou not believe?

§ 3.  Dependent Sentences or Subordinate Clauses.

These are of three kinds:—

1.  Those introduced by conjunctions, such as if, that, as, etc., or by a relative pronoun.

2.  Those analogous to the “accusative with the infinitive” of Latin.

3.  The absolute clause.

1.  The ordinary dependent clause introduced by a conjunction has its verb in the indicative, unless the so-called subjunctive is required to express uncertainty or contingency, without reference to any preceding conjunction.  The verb is always in the simple inflected or inflected auxiliary form.  The verb which follows the conjunction mar or mara, if, has its initial in the fourth state, and tre, tro, or dro, that, governs the second state.

“If that learned wise man [John Keigwin] should see this [i.e. this essay], he would find reason to correct it in orthography, etc.”

Boson’s Cornish, the spelling and division of words assimilated to that of the present grammar, is:—

Mar qwressa an dên deskes fîr-na gwelas hemma,
If should [do] that man learned wise see this,
ev a venja cavos fraga e ewna en scrîfa-composter.
he would find why it to amend in writing-correctness.

In this sentence qwressa is for gwressa (third person singular of the conditional or pluperfect of the auxiliary gwîl, to do), with the initial in its fourth state after mar.  Boson writes it markressa, all in one word.  Fraga e ewna is an example of a variant of the second form of dependent sentence.  The principal verb ev a venja cavos is in the impersonal auxiliary form, and of the two dependent clause verbs, one, qwressa an dên deskes fîr-na gwelas, is in the inflected auxiliary form, and the other, ewna, is infinitive.

In a relative sentence, if the relative pronoun is the subject, the verb appears to be in the impersonal form.  That is to say, it is always in the form of the third person singular, and does not show any agreement with its antecedent, whatever person or number that may be in.  The other peculiarities of relative sentences are given in Chapter VII. §4.

Ha cous ef dhe dhasserhy, and say that he is risen.

Marth a’m bues ty dhe leverel folneth, I have wonder that thou shouldst speak folly.

Nyns a y’m colon why dhe gewsel, it goes not into my heart (i.e. I do not believe) that you have spoken.

Del won dhe bos, as I know thee to be.

Here are some later instances:—

Me ny allaf convethas, y bosta ge ow hendas, I cannot understand that thou art my ancestor.

The first is analogous to the Welsh “infinitive construction,” as Rowland calls it, e.g. gwyr fy mod i yn dyfod, he knows that I am coming (lit. he knows my being in coming), only the Cornish form uses the pronominal suffix instead of the redundant personal pronoun.

3.  The Absolute Clause.  This construction, which answers more or less to the ablative absolute of Latin, and the genitive absolute of Greek, is common to all the Celtic languages.  It is translated into English by a sentence introduced by when, while, whilst, or though, with a verb generally in the continuous form of the present or past tense, or by a participle.  In the Celtic languages the absolute clause has two forms.

a.  The affirmative, generally consisting of the conjunction and, a subject, noun or pronoun, and generally a participle.  Rowland calls the conjunction, a, ac, of the Welsh form “the absolute particle,” and Professor Anwyl identifies it with a, ag, with, in an archaic form.  But in Cornish ha or hag is used, and in Gaelic agus, and, in exactly the same way.  The following are examples in Cornish, Welsh, and Gaelic:—

Gaelic.  Do chonnaic Seaghán an duine, agus é ag teacht a-bhaile, John saw the man, and he coming home, i.e. when he was coming home.

b.  The negative, in which not is expressed in Welsh and Cornish by heb, and in Gaelic by gan, both meaning without, followed by an infinitive:—

The infinitive of a verb is treated almost exactly like a noun.  If its object is a pronoun, this precedes the infinitive in the possessive form and governs its initial as it would that of a noun.  If the object is not a pronoun, it follows the infinitive without change of initial, after the manner of an appositional genitive.

Very often the infinitive is governed by dhô, to, as in English, and under much the same circumstances, except that it is not so governed when it comes as the subject of another verb, and of course dhô is not used after auxiliary verbs.  It is especially used after verbs implying motion.

Mî a vedn môs dhô ’gas gwelas, I will go to see you.

Mî eth dhô vetya an trên, I went to meet the train.

Lowen on ny dhô ’gas gwelas why, we are glad to see you.

When the sense of “to” is “in order to,” or the preceding verb implies an intention, the infinitive is generally preceded by rag or rag dhô, “for to,” or by a dhô, “of to.”

§ 5.  Some Idioms and Expressions.

1.  To have is expressed in three ways.

a.  By the verb bos, to be, with the thing possessed as subject and the possessor in the dative form, i.e. preceded by dhô, to; cf. est mihi in Latin.

Affirmative.  Ema levar dhem, there is a book to me.

Negative.  Nynsyu levar dhem, there is not a book to me.

Interrog.  ’Es levar dhem?  Is there a book to me?

This is the common form in late Cornish.

c.  By a peculiar idiom compounded of a form of the verb bos, to be, and the third form of the personal (or else the possessive) pronouns.  The explanation, as far as it goes, of this verb is to be found in Breton.  Even there it has been confused a good deal, though its use is plain enough.  Legonidec calls it “le verbe kaout [=Cornish cavos], avoir,” which he distinguishes from kavout or kaout, trouver; Maunoir, whose Breton, according to a picture in Quimper Cathedral, was received miraculously from an angel, wisely does not commit himself, but calls the verb, Latin fashion, after the first person singular of the present.  Prof. Loth rightly speaks of it as “le verbe dit avoir,” and M. Ernault calls it “Verbe beza [to be] au sens de ‘avoir,’” and he explains it to be the verb to be, combined with the “pronoms régimes,” which is just what it is.  In Breton it is not only used as the ordinary verb to have=to possess, but also as an auxiliary verb in the same manner as avoir, have, haben, are used in French, English, and German.  This verb came to be used in Breton with or without the nominative pronoun being expressed.  In Cornish the expressed nominative pronoun is less usual, except in the second person singular, where it is the rule.  That it should be used at all in either language is a sign that in practice the original formation of the verb has been forgotten.  Occasionally in Cornish this oblivion has resulted even in the application of pronominal inflections to the verb.

It will be well, by way of making this form clearer, to give not only the Cornish but also the corresponding Breton.

The tenses that are found are as follows:—

I.  The Present.

Singular.

Plural.

II.  The Future.

Singular.

Plural.

It will be seen here and in the other tenses that the pronouns in Breton do not produce exactly the same mutations as in Cornish.  The dh of Cornish is always written z in Breton, though that is pronounced dh in some dialects.  The whole of this tense is found in the MSS.

III.  The Preterite.

Singular.

Plural.

Only part of this tense is found in the MSS., but the rest is easily formed by analogy.

Singular.

Plural.

In this tense the Breton does not use the nominative personal pronoun, except when it is a form of the future, but prefixes r’ (ra).  In Cornish re is used to make the optative and perfect, and in this case the ’th of the second person singular is not omitted, for re’ th fo and re ’th fê are the forms found.

A rather doubtful second tense (secondary present or imperfect), equivalent to the Breton am boa, may be conjectured in am beua (St. Mer. 47, 1686), am bethe may be the equivalent of the Breton imperfect subjunctive, am bize, bije, befe, and the third person singular of this may be the an geffa of St. Mer. 20, 159.  Dr. Whitley Stokes gives both these forms as secondary presents.  There is also a possible pluperfect te ny vea, and nyn gyfye, found in the second and third persons singular.

One finds such forms as am buef, as bethough, may ’stefons, etc., as instances of pronominal inflections added to this verb, showing how completely its derivation was forgotten, and it is further confused by being perhaps mixed up with the verb pewa (Welsh piau, Breton piaoua), to possess, a verb which in all three languages requires rather more disentangling than it has as yet received.

2.  Besides to have, certain other verbs are expressed with bos and the preposition dhô.  Thus:—

Ma cov dhem [pron. ma códhem], I remember, lit. there is remembrance to me.

Ma whans dhem, I want, lit. there is want to me.

Ma whêr dhem, I am sorry, lit. there is grief to me.

Ma own dhem, I fear, lit. there is fear to me.

Ma dout dhem, I doubt, lit. there is doubt to me.

Ma reys dhem, or reys yw dhem, I must, lit. there is need to me.

Another expression for “to remember” is perthy cov, to bear memory.  The imperative was sometimes written perco in one word.  Perthy is used similarly with other nouns: na berth medh, be not ashamed, na berth own, be not afraid, na berth whêr, be not sorry, an vuscogyon orto a borthas avy, the fools hated him (Passion, 26, 3), na berth dout, do not doubt.  The literal meaning is to bear shame, fear, sorrow, envy, doubt, etc.

Similarly nouns and adjectives are used with gan, with, as in Welsh, to represent states of mind.  Thus:—

Da yu genev, I like, lit. it is good with me.

Drôg yu genev, I am sorry, lit. it is bad with me.

Gwell yu genev, I prefer, lit. it is better with me.

Marth yu genev, I am astonished, lit. wonder is with me.

Cas yu genev, I hate, lit. hate is with me.

The verbs dal and goth, signifying ought, it behoves, are used either impersonally or, though this is a late corruption, as ordinary verbs.

Ni dal dhen ny / Ni goth dhen ny } we ought not.

Or:—

Mî a dal / Mî a goth } I ought.

Gwyn ow bês, fair my world, happy I.

Gwyn dha vês, happy thou.

Gwyn e vês, happy he.

Gwyn bês an den na wrîg cerdhes en cŏsŏl an gamhin-segyon, blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly.

In Welsh, when the possessor of this “fair world” is expressed by a noun, there is a redundant possessive pronoun before byd (bês).  Thus Psalm i. begins Gwyn ei fyd y gwr, fair his world of the man.  But this is not the Cornish form, which uses the simple appositional genitive in such cases.  There is a contrary expression, drôg pês, found in the Ordinalia (Passio Christi, 3089), drok pys of, unhappy am I.  In this case drôg seems to put the initial of bês in its fourth state.

4.  The following phrases are in common use, and are generally run into one or two words in pronunciation.

Mêr ’ras dhô Dhew (pron. merásthadew).  Great thanks be to God.

Mêr ’ras dheugh why (pron. merásdhawhy).  Great thanks to you.

Dew re dala dheugh why (pron. Durdladhawhy).  God repay to you.

Dew re sona dheugh why (pron. Dursónadhawhy).  God sain you.

Bennath Dew genough why (pron. Bénatew génawhy).  The blessing of God be with you.

Dew genough why (pron. Dew génawhy).  God be with you.

Pandráma (i.e. pa’n dra wrama).  What shall I do?

Pándres (i.e. pa’n dra es).  What is there?

Pandryu (i.e. pa’n dra yu).  What is?

Pandresses (i.e. pa’n dra wresses).  What shouldst thou do?

Fatla genough why (pron. fatla génawhy).  How are you?

Trova (i.e. tre o-va), that he was.

§ 6.  Rules for Initial Mutations.

1.  The Second State.

a.  A feminine singular or masculine plural noun (or adjective used as a noun) preceded by the definite article an, the, or the numeral idn, one, has its initial in the second state.

b.  An adjective which follows and qualifies a feminine singular noun, has its initial in the second state.

c.  A noun preceded by an adjective qualifying it, of whatever gender or number, has its initial in the second state.

d.  If the adjective preceding and qualifying a feminine singular noun follows the article an, the, the initial of the adjective is also in the second state.

e.  A noun in the vocative preceded by the particle a, O (expressed or omitted for the sake of verse), has its initial in the second state.

f.  The possessive pronouns dha, thy, and e, his, are followed by words, whether nouns, adjectives, or verbal nouns (infinitives) in the second state.  The form ’th, thee or thy, generally puts the word which follows in the second state, but sometimes in the fourth, or changes b to f, not v.

g.  The verbal prefix ă (older y, yth), is generally followed by a verb in the second state.

i.  The prepositions a, der or dre, dhô, heb, re, and war, and compound prepositions ending in any of them, are followed by words in the second state.

k.  The conjunctions tre, tro, that, pan, when, erna, until, hedre, whilst, are followed by the second state.

l.  The adverbial particle en is followed generally by an adjective in the second state.

m.  The adverbs pŭr, very, ni, na, not, fraga, why, fatla, how, are followed by initials in the second state.

2.  The Third State.

a.  The possessive pronouns ow, my, î, her, and aga, their, are followed by words in the third state.

b.  Ma, may, that, are sometimes followed by verbs in the third state, and sometimes by a variant, g becoming h, and gw becoming wh.

3.  The Fourth State.

a.  The particle ow, which forms the present participle, is followed by a verbal noun (or infinitive) in the fourth state.

b.  The conjunctions a, mar, mara, if, are followed by verbs in the fourth state.

c.  The adverb maga, as (in “as well,” etc.) is followed by an adjective in the fourth state.

d.  Sometimes an adjective beginning with d, when preceded by the adverbial particle en, has its initial in the fourth state, and rarely a noun beginning with d, when it follows in the appositional genitive a word ending in th.

f.  The third form of the second personal pronoun singular ’th not infrequently changes the initial of a verb beginning with d to the fourth state, and that of one beginning with g or gw to wh.  It also sometimes changes b to f.

The exact usage of the mutations is not very clear, for even the older writers used them rather wildly, but the above rules are the general principles of them.  There are valuable notes on their phonetic principles in Dr. Whitley Stokes’s notes to St. Meriasek, and in a paper of additional notes which he published later.  In the latest Cornish there was a tendency to use the second state after nearly anything, especially prepositions, except the few words which govern the other two mutations.

The prosody of the Celtic languages is often very elaborate, but the more modern tendency has generally been in the direction of assimilating it to the prosody of English, or, in the case of Breton, to that of French.  In Welsh two systems exist at the present day, and the rules of them are known respectively as y Rheolau Caethion and y Rheolau Rhyddion, the bond or strict rules and the free rules.  The former are founded on elaborate rules of Cynghanedd or consonance, which term includes alliteration and rhyme, and every imaginable correspondence of consonant and vowel sounds, reduced to a system which Welsh-speaking Welshmen profess to be able to appreciate, and no doubt really can, though it is not easily understood by the rest of the world.  The rules of Cynghanedd are applied in various ways to the four-and-twenty metres of the Venedotian (Gwynedd or North Wales) school, and to the metres of the Dimetian (Dyfed or South-West Wales) and the Glamorgan schools.  Modern Welsh bards, however, though they often use the strict rules as tours-de-force for Eisteddfod purposes, as often compose poetry according to the free rules, which are mostly the ordinary go-as-you-please metres of the Saxon.  The Bretons follow the ordinary French rules as to the strict number of syllables, the cæsura, and the rhyming, taking very little account of the stress accent either of words or sentences.

Specimens of Cornish Verse.

I.  Five- (or four) syllabled lines, with occasional six-syllabled, rhyming A A B C C B.  From the fragment on the back of Additional Charter 19,491 in the British Museum, late fourteenth century.

II.  One of the commonest metres of the Dramas, and indeed of much mediæval verse in other languages, consists of seven-syllabled lines rhyming A A B C C B, or A A B A A B.

From the Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, the second of the Ordinalia, fifteenth century.  (Our Lord’s speech to the Pueri Hebræorum.)

This is the metre of the well-known Whitsunday Sequence, Veni Sancte Spiritus (Come, thou Holy Spirit, come).

Note that gwrys (gwres in Modern Cornish) is a monosyllable, and that the ue of dhue is a single vowel=eu.  This metre is varied by being made into eight-lined stanzas, rhyming A A A B C C C B.

From the Ordinale de Origine Mundi, fifteenth century.  (Eve’s speech to Adam after gathering the apple.)

Note the apparent “feminine” rhymes, torren-sorren, which are really rimes riches in the French style.

The whole Poem of the Passion is in this metre, but is written in lines of fourteen syllables.

IV.  Four-syllabled lines, often written as eight-syllabled, rhyming alternately.  Thus (Passio D. N. J. C. in the Ordinalia, 1. 35):—

V.  Four-syllabled lines in six-lined stanzas, rhyming A A B A A B (Passio D. N. J. C., 169).

VI.  Sometimes a mixture of the last two forms of stanza is found extended to ten lines.  Thus (Origo Mundi, 1271):—

VII.  Mixed seven and four syllabled lines.  Sometimes these are only the metre of II., with the third and sixth lines four-syllabled instead of seven-syllabled.

VIII.  Sometimes alternations of stanzas of four and seven-syllabled lines are found.  A very remarkable and effective set opens the Drama of The Passion.  It is in stanzas of thirteen lines, eight lines of four syllables (written as four of eight syllables), rhyming A B A B A B A B, one line of seven syllables with rhyme C, three lines of seven syllables with rhyme D, and a seven-syllabled line with rhyme C.

X.  The metres of Jordan’s Drama of The Creation (1611) do not differ materially in intention from those of the Ordinalia, on which they are evidently modelled.  But in this play one begins to find signs of a tendency to a less accurate ear for exact syllabic rhythm.  About eighty lines out of the 2548 of which the play consists have eight syllables, about twenty have only six, and in each case these ought to be seven-syllabled.  Also there are two cases of three and six of five syllables in what ought to be four-syllabled lines, and there are several cases of nine syllables in a line, and one case of ten.  No doubt some of these discrepancies may be accounted for by elisions and contractions not expressed in writing (as is often the case in Latin), and some of the short lines contain diphthongs which may be meant to count as two syllables, but by no means all are explainable by anything but the influence of English, or, as is less probable, a reversion to some such archaic idea of rhythm as that of the Add. Charter fragment.

bewa ythesaf pub eare (Creation, 1667), living I am always.

banna ny allaf gwelas (Creation, 1622), a drop I cannot see.

defalebys os ha cabm (Creation, 1603), deformed thou art, and crooked.

yn bushes ow crowetha (Creation, 1606), in bushes lying.

gans dean pen vo convethys (Creation, 1618), by man when it is discovered.

worthaf ve sertan ny dale (Creation, 1619), with me, certainly, ought not.

determys ove dha un dra (Creation, 236), determined I am of one thing.

mos then menythe me a vyn (Creation, 1082), go to the mountain I will.

These are all taken from Jordan’s Creation, and mostly at random from the same page.  Still, the less one inverts the normal order of words the better.

1.  Adjectives, signifying size, colour, position, etc., e.g. mêr, mear, vcar, great; bîan, bean, vean, little; glas, blue; dew, black; gwin, gwidu, widn, white; gwartha, wartha, gwarra, upper; gollas, gullas, wollas, lower, etc., in agreement with the noun.

2.  Other nouns in the appositional genitive.

3.  Proper names.

4.  Adjectives or nouns preceded by the article an, the, or by a preposition such as war, on.

The following points should be considered:—

1.  The gender of the noun.  Of the nouns mentioned above, tre, ros, car, lan, whêl, hal, goon, carrack, crows, fenton, kelly, trigva, mellan, bron, tor, are feminine, so that the initial of the adjective epithet is changed to the second state.  This may often, more or less, determine whether the epithet is an adjective or a noun in the genitive.  Thus, in the name Tremaine, we may be sure that the second syllable is not an adjective or it would be Trevaine, so the meaning is not, as one would think, “the stone house,” not a very distinguishing epithet in Cornwall, but probably the “house of the stones,” i.e. of some stone circle or other prehistoric remains.  Sometimes, however, the initial of an appositional genitive, and sometimes that of an epithet of a masculine noun is irregularly changed in composition.

3.  The position and general features of the place.  Thus when we find that a rather important town is situated at the innermost point of a bay called in Cornish (cf. Boson’s Pilchard Song) Zans Garrak Loos en Kûz, we may doubt whether its name signifies “the holy head or headland,” and not “the head of the bay.”  In this case there is a slight complication, because there is actually something of a headland about the Battery Rocks, and the town arms are St. John Baptist’s head in a charger; but when we find that Tremaine is some ten miles, as the crow flies, from the nearest point of the coast, we may be quite justified in doubting whether Pryce is right in calling it “the town on shore or sea coast.”

The following specimens of names about whose meaning there can be no doubt, will serve as examples of the construction of Cornish place-names:—

a.  Masculine.  Porthmear (in Zennor), the great porth or creek.  (Murray’s Handbook says that it means the “sea-port,” but Murray’s interpretations are intricately and ingeniously wrong-headed).

b.  Feminine.  Trevean, the little town.  Tre signifies town in the modern Cornish and old English sense, a farmhouse with its out-buildings.  It is the commonest of these generic prefixes.  In Brittany, though it is occasionally found, its place is usually taken by Ker (Cornish Car, Welsh Caer), probably the Latin castrum, a fortified town or camp, a difference which has its historical significance.

2.  Epithet preceding noun.

Hendrea, the old town (in Sancreed).  Note that this is Héndrea, not Hendréa.  Note also the change of initial in tre.

3.  Intervening particles.

a.  The definite article.  Crows-an-wra, the witch’s cross.  (Murray says that it means “the wayside cross,” but gwragh, gwrah, gwra, Breton gwrac’h, certainly means a hag or witch, and the change of initial after the article shows that the noun is feminine.)  Chy-an-dowr, the house of the water.