The Cornish dialect (also known as Cornish English, Anglo-Cornish or Cornu-English; Cornish: Sowsnek Kernowek) is a dialect of English spoken in Cornwall by Cornish people. Dialectal English spoken in Cornwall is to some extent influenced by Cornishgrammar, and often includes words derived from the Cornish language. The Cornish language is a Celtic language of the Brythonic branch, as are the Welsh and Breton languages. In addition to the distinctive words and grammar, there are a variety of accents found within Cornwall from the north coast to that of the south coast and from east to west Cornwall. Typically, the accent is more divergent from Standard British English the further west through Cornwall one travels. The speech of the various parishes being to some extent different from the others was described by John T. Tregellas and Thomas Quiller Couch towards the end of the 19th century. Tregellas wrote of the differences as he understood them and Couch suggested the parliamentary constituency boundary between the East and West constituencies, from Crantock to Veryan, as roughly the border between eastern and western dialects. To this day, the towns of Bodmin and Lostwithiel as well as Bodmin Moor are considered the boundary.[1][2][3]
For the history of Cornwall in general, beyond linguistic issues, see History of Cornwall.
There was a shift away from the use of the Cornish language between 1300 and 1750, with the Cornish people gradually adopting English as their common language.
The first speakers of English resident in Cornwall were Anglo-Saxon settlers, primarily in the north east of Cornwall between the Ottery and Tamar rivers, and in the lower Tamar valley, from around the 10th century onwards. There are a number of relatively early place names of English origin, especially in those areas.[4]
The further spread of the English language in Cornwall was slowed by the change to Norman French as the main language of administration after the Norman Conquest. In addition, continued communication with Brittany, where the closely related Breton language was spoken, tended to favour the continued use of the Cornish language.
But from around the 13th to 14th centuries the use of English for administration was revived, and a vernacular Middle English literary tradition developed. These were probable reasons for the increased use of the English language in Cornwall.[5] In the Tudor period, various circumstances, including the imposition of an English language prayer book in 1549, and the lack of a Cornish translation of any part of the Bible, led to a language shift from Cornish to English.
The language shift to English occurred much later in Cornwall than in other areas: in most of Devon and beyond, the Celtic language had probably died out before the Norman Conquest.[6] However the Celtic language survived much later in the westernmost areas of Cornwall, where there were still speakers as late as the 18th century.[7] For this reason, there are important differences between the Anglo-Cornish dialect and other West Country dialects.
Cornish was the most widely spoken language west of the River Tamar until around the mid-14th century, when Middle English began to be adopted as a common language of the Cornish people.[8] As late as 1542 Andrew Boorde, an English traveller, physician and writer, wrote that in Cornwall were two languages, "Cornysshe" and "Englysshe", but that "there may be many men and women" in Cornwall who could not understand English".[9] Since the Norman language was the mother tongue of most of the English aristocracy, Cornish was used as a lingua franca, particularly in the far west of Cornwall.[10] Many Cornish landed gentry chose mottos in the Cornish language for their coats of arms, highlighting its high social status.[11] The Carminow family used the motto "Cala rag whethlow", for example.[12] However, in 1549 and following the English Reformation, King Edward VI of England commanded that the Book of Common Prayer, an Anglican liturgical text in the English language, should be introduced to all churches in his kingdom, meaning that Latin and Celtic customs and services should be discontinued.[8] The Prayer Book Rebellion was a militant revolt in Cornwall and parts of neighbouring Devon against the Act of Uniformity 1549, which outlawed all languages from church services apart from English,[13] and is cited as a testament to the affection and loyalty the Cornish people held for the Cornish language.[11] In the rebellion, separate risings occurred simultaneously at Bodmin in Cornwall, and Sampford Courtenay in Devon—which would converge at Exeter, laying siege to the region's largest Protestant city.[14] However, the rebellion was suppressed, due largely to the aid of foreign mercenaries, in a series of battles in which "hundreds were killed",[15] effectively ending Cornish as the common language of the Cornish people.[9] The Anglicanism of the Reformation served as a vehicle for Anglicisation in Cornwall; Protestantism had a lasting cultural effect upon the Cornish by way of linking Cornwall more closely with England, while lessening political and linguistic ties with the Bretons of Brittany.[16]
The English Civil War, a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists, polarised the populations of England and Wales. However, Cornwall in the English Civil War was a staunchly Royalist enclave, an "important focus of support for the Royalist cause".[17] Cornish soldiers were used as scouts and spies during the war, for their language was not understood by English Parliamentarians.[17] Following the war there was a further shift to the English language by the Cornish people, which encouraged an influx of English people to Cornwall. By the mid-17th century the use of Cornish had retreated far enough west to prompt concern and investigation by antiquarians, such as William Scawen who had been an officer during the Civil War.[16][17] As the Cornish language diminished, the people of Cornwall underwent a process of English enculturation and assimilation,[18] becoming "absorbed into the mainstream of English life".[19]
International use
"D'reckly" on souvenir clocks in Cornwall (meaning at some point in the future; soon, but not immediately; like "mañana", but less urgent)
Large-scale 19th and 20th century emigrations of Cornish people meant that substantial populations of Anglo-Cornish speakers were established in parts of North America, Australia, and South Africa. This Cornish diaspora has continued to use Anglo-Cornish, and certain phrases and terms have moved into common parlance in some of those countries.
There has been discussion over whether certain words found in North America have an origin in the Cornish language, mediated through Anglo-Cornish dialect.[20]Legends of the Fall, a novella by American author Jim Harrison, detailing the lives of a Cornish American family in the early 20th century, contains several Cornish language terms. These were also included in the Academy Award-winning film of the same name starring Anthony Hopkins as Col. William Ludlow and Brad Pitt as Tristan Ludlow. Some words in American Cornu-English are almost identical to those in Anglo-Cornish:[21]
South Australian Aborigines, particularly the Nunga, are said to speak English with a Cornish accent because they were taught the English language by Cornish miners.[22][23] Most large towns in South Australia had newspapers at least partially in Cornish dialect: for instance, the Northern Star published in Kapunda in the 1860s carried material in dialect.[24][25][26] At least 23 Cornish words have made their way into Australian English; these include the mining terms fossick and nugget.[27]
Geography
There is a difference between the form of Anglo-Cornish spoken in west Cornwall and that found in areas further east. In the eastern areas, the form of English that the formerly Cornish-speaking population learnt was the general south-western dialect, picked up primarily through relatively local trade and other communications over a long period of time.[citation needed] In contrast, in western areas, the language was learned from English as used by the clergy and landed classes, some of whom had been educated at the English universities of Oxford and Cambridge.[28] English was learned relatively late across the western half of Cornwall (see the map in the "History" section) and this was a more Modern English style of language, since the standard form itself was undergoing changes.[29] Particularly in the west, the Cornish language substrate left characteristic markers in the Anglo-Cornish dialect.
Phonologically, the lenition of f, s, th occurs in East Cornwall, as in the core West Country dialect area, but not in west Cornwall. The second person pronoun, you (and many other occurrences of the same vowel) is pronounced as in standard English in the west of Cornwall; but east of the Bodmin district, a 'sharpening'[further explanation needed] of the vowel occurs, which is a feature also found in Devon dialect. Plural nouns such as ha'pennies, pennies and ponies are pronounced in west Cornwall ending not in -eez but in -uz. The pronunciation of the number five varies from foive in the west to vive in the east, approaching the Devon pronunciation.[30] This challenges the commonly held misconception that the dialect is uniform across the county.
Variations in vocabulary also occur: for example the dialect word for ant in East Cornwall is emmet which is of Old English etymology, whereas in West Cornwall the word muryan is used. This is a word from the Cornish language spelt in the revived language (in Kernewek Kemmyn dictionaries) as muryon. There is also this pair, meaning the weakest pig of a litter: nestle-bird (sometimes nestle-drish) in East Cornwall, and (piggy-)whidden in West Cornwall. Whidden may derive from Cornish byghan (small), or gwynn (white, Late Cornish gwydn). Further, there is pajerpaw vs a four-legged emmet in West and mid-Cornwall respectively. It may be noted that the Cornish word for the number four is peswar (Late Cornish pajar). For both of these Cornish language etymologies, sound changes within the Cornish language itself between the Middle Cornish and Late Cornish periods are in evidence.
When calling a horse to stop "wo" is used in most of east Cornwall and in the far west; however "ho" is used between a line from Crantock to St Austell and a line from Hayle to the Helford River; and "way" is used in the northeast.[31]
There are also grammatical variations within Cornwall, such as the use of us for the standard English we and her for she in East Cornwall, a feature shared with western Devon dialect.[32]I be and its negative I bain't are more common close to the Devon border.[30]
The variety of English in the Isles of Scilly is unlike that on the mainland as Bernard Walke observed in the 1930s. He found that Scillonians spoke English similar to "Elizabethan English without a suspicion of Cornish dialect".[33]
Lexicon and grammar
There are a range of dialect words including words also found in other West Country dialects, as well as many specific to Anglo-Cornish.[34][35][36]
There are also distinctive grammatical features:[30]
reversals (e.g. Her aunt brought she up)
archaisms (e.g. give 'un to me – 'un is a descendant of Old English hine)
the retention of thou and ye (thee and ye ('ee)) – Why doesn't thee have a fringe?
irregular use of the definite article – He died right in the Christmas
use of the definite article with proper names – Did 'ee knaw th'old Canon Harris?
the omission of prepositions – went chapel
the extra -y suffix on the infinitive of verbs – I an't one to gardeny, but I do generally teal (till) the garden every spring
they as a demonstrative adjective – they books
use of auxiliary verb – pasties mother do make
inanimate objects described as he
frequent use of the word up as an adverb – answering up
the use of some as an adverb of degree – She's some good maid to work
Many of these are influenced by the substrate of the Cornish language. One example is the usage for months, May month, rather than just May for the fifth month of the year.[citation needed]
Sociolinguistics
From the late 19th to the early 21st century, the Anglo-Cornish dialect declined somewhat due to the spread of long-distance travel, mass education and the mass media, and increased migration into Cornwall of people from, principally, the south-east of England. Universal elementary education had begun in England and Wales in the 1870s. Thirty years later Mark Guy Pearse wrote: "The characteristics of Cornwall and the Cornish are rapidly passing away. More than a hundred years ago its language died. Now its dialect is dying. It is useless to deplore it, for it is inevitable."[37] Although the erosion of dialect is popularly blamed on the mass media, many academics assert the primacy of face-to-face linguistic contact in dialect levelling.[38] It is further asserted by some that peer groups are the primary mechanism.[39] It is unclear whether in the erosion of the Anglo-Cornish dialect, high levels of migration into Cornwall from outside in the 20th century, or deliberate efforts to suppress dialect forms (in an educational context) are the primary causative factor. Anglo-Cornish dialect speakers are more likely than Received Pronunciation speakers in Cornwall to experience social and economic disadvantages and poverty, including spiralling housing costs, in many, particularly coastal areas of Cornwall,[40] and have at times been actively discouraged from using the dialect, particularly in the schools.[41][42] In the 1910s the headmaster of a school in a Cornish fishing port received this answer when he suggested to the son of the local coastguard (a boy with rough and ready Cornish speech) that it was time he learned to speak properly: "An what d'yer think me mates down to the quay 'ud think o' me if I did?"[43]
A. L. Rowse wrote in his autobiographical A Cornish Childhood about his experiences of a Received Pronunciation prestige variety of English (here referred to as the "King's English") being associated with well-educated people, and therefore Anglo-Cornish by implication with a lack of education:
'It does arise directly from the consideration of the struggle to get away from speaking Cornish dialect and to speak correct English, a struggle which I began thus early and pursued constantly with no regret, for was it not the key which unlocked the door to all that lay beyond—Oxford, the world of letters, the community of all who speak the King's English, from which I should otherwise have been infallibly barred? But the struggle made me very sensitive about language; I hated to be corrected; nothing is more humiliating: and it left me with a complex about Cornish dialect. The inhibition which I had imposed on myself left me, by the time I got to Oxford, incapable of speaking it; and for years, with the censor operating subconsciously ... '[44]
Preservation
Once it was noticed that many aspects of Cornish dialect were gradually passing out of use, various individuals and organisations (including the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies)[45] began to make efforts to preserve the dialect. This included collecting lists of dialect words, although grammatical features were not always well recorded. Nevertheless, Ken Phillipps's 1993 Glossary of the Cornish Dialect[30] is an accessible reference work which does include details of grammar and phonology. A more popular guide to Cornish dialect has been written by Les Merton, titled Oall Rite Me Ansum![46]
Another project to record examples of Cornish dialect[47] is being undertaken by Azook Community Interest Company. As of 2011[update] it has received coverage in the local news[48] and more information on the project should, one hopes, be uploaded dreckly.
Literature
The Cornish Fishermen's Watch-night, and Other Stories; Religious Tract Society, 1879
There have been a number of literary works published in Anglo-Cornish dialect from the 19th century onwards.
John Tabois Tregellas (1792–1863) was a merchant at Truro, purser of Cornish mines, and author of many stories written in the local dialect of the county. (Walter Hawken Tregellas was his eldest son.)[49][50][51][52] Tregellas was well known in Cornwall for his dialect knowledge; he could relate a conversation between a Redruth man and a St Agnes man keeping their dialects perfectly distinct.[53]
William Robert Hicks (known as the "Yorick of the West") was an accomplished raconteur. Many of his narratives were in the Cornish dialect, but he was equally good in that of Devon, as well as in the peculiar talk of the miners. Among his best-known stories were the "Coach Wheel", the "Rheumatic Old Woman", "William Rabley", the "Two Deacons", the "Bed of Saltram", the "Blind Man, his Wife, and his dog Lion", the "Gallant Volunteer", and the "Dead March in Saul". His most famous story, the "Jury", referred to the trial at Launceston in 1817 of Robert Sawle Donnall for poisoning his mother-in-law, when the prisoner was acquitted. Each of the jurors gave a different and ludicrous reason for his verdict.[54]
There is a range of dialect literature dating back to the 19th century referenced in Bernard Deacon's PhD thesis.[55]
'The Cledry Plays; drolls of old Cornwall for village acting and home reading' (Robert Morton Nance (Mordon), 1956).[56] In his own words from the preface: these plays were "aimed at carrying on the West-Penwith tradition of turning local folk tales into plays for Christmas acting. What they took over from these guise-dance drolls, as they were called, was their love of the local speech and their readiness to break here and there into rhyme or song". And of the music he says "the simple airs do not ask for accompaniment or for trained voices to do them justice. They are only a slight extension of the music that West-Penwith voices will put into the dialogue."
Cornish Dialect Stories: About Boy Willie (H. Lean, 1953)[57]
Pasties and Cream: a Proper Cornish Mixture (Molly Bartlett (Scryfer Ranyeth), 1970): a collection of Anglo-Cornish dialect stories that had won competitions organised by the Cornish Gorsedh.[58][59]
Cornish Faist: a selection of prize winning dialect prose and verse from the Gorsedd of Cornwall Competitions.[60]
The Brittoniclanguages form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family; the other is Goidelic. It comprises the extant languages Breton, Cornish, and Welsh. The name Brythonic was derived by Welsh Celticist John Rhys from the Welsh word Brython, meaning Ancient Britons as opposed to an Anglo-Saxon or Gael.
Cornwall is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised by Cornish and Celtic political groups as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, Devon to the east, and the English Channel to the south. The largest settlement is Falmouth, and the county town is the city of Truro.
Cornish is a Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family. It is a revived language, having become extinct as a living community language in Cornwall at the end of the 18th century. However, knowledge of Cornish, including speaking ability to a certain extent, continued to be passed on within families and by individuals, and a revival began in the early 20th century. The language has a growing number of second-language speakers, and a very small number of families now raise children to speak revived Cornish as a first language. Cornish is currently recognised under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, and the language is often described as an important part of Cornish identity, culture and heritage.
The toponymy of England derives from a variety of linguistic origins. Many English toponyms have been corrupted and broken down over the years, due to language changes which have caused the original meanings to be lost. In some cases, words used in these place-names are derived from languages that are extinct, and of which there are no known definitions. Place-names may also be compounds composed of elements derived from two or more languages from different periods. The majority of the toponyms predate the radical changes in the English language triggered by the Norman Conquest, and some Celtic names even predate the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in the first millennium AD.
Dumnonia is the Latinised name for a Brythonic kingdom that existed in Sub-Roman Britain between the late 4th and late 8th centuries CE in the more westerly parts of present-day South West England. It was centred in the area of modern Devon, but also included modern Cornwall and part of Somerset, with its eastern boundary changing over time as the gradual westward expansion of the neighbouring Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex encroached on its territory. The spelling Damnonia is sometimes encountered, but that spelling is also used for the land of the Damnonii, later part of the Kingdom of Strathclyde, in present-day southern Scotland. The form Domnonia also occurs and shares a linguistic relationship with the Breton region of Domnonée.
The Prayer Book Rebellion or Western Rising was a popular revolt in Cornwall and Devon in 1549. In that year, the first Book of Common Prayer, presenting the theology of the English Reformation, was introduced. The change was widely unpopular, particularly in areas where firm Catholic religious loyalty still existed, such as Lancashire. Along with poor economic conditions, the enforcement of the English language led to an explosion of anger in Cornwall and Devon, initiating an uprising. In response, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset sent John Russell to suppress the revolt, with the rebels being defeated and its leaders executed two months after the beginning of hostilities.
West Country English is a group of English language varieties and accents used by much of the native population of the West Country, an area found in the southwest of England.
The history of Cornwall goes back to the Paleolithic, but in this period Cornwall only had sporadic visits by groups of humans. Continuous occupation started around 10,000 years ago after the end of the last ice age. When recorded history started in the first century BCE, the spoken language was Common Brittonic, and that would develop into Southwestern Brittonic and then the Cornish language. Cornwall was part of the territory of the tribe of the Dumnonii that included modern-day Devon and parts of Somerset. After a period of Roman rule, Cornwall reverted to rule by independent Romano-British leaders and continued to have a close relationship with Brittany and Wales as well as southern Ireland, which neighboured across the Celtic Sea. After the collapse of Dumnonia, the remaining territory of Cornwall came into conflict with neighbouring Wessex.
The constitutional status of Cornwall has been a matter of debate and dispute. Cornwall is an administrative county of England.
The Britons, also known as Celtic Britons or Ancient Britons, were an indigenous Celtic people who inhabited Great Britain from at least the British Iron Age until the High Middle Ages, at which point they diverged into the Welsh, Cornish, and Bretons. They spoke Common Brittonic, the ancestor of the modern Brittonic languages.
The Cornish people or Cornish are an ethnic group native to, or associated with Cornwall and a recognised national minority in the United Kingdom, which can trace its roots to the Brittonic Celtic ancient Britons who inhabited Great Britain before the Roman conquest. Many in Cornwall today continue to assert a distinct identity separate from or in addition to English or British identities. Cornish identity has been adopted by migrants into Cornwall, as well as by emigrant and descendant communities from Cornwall, the latter sometimes referred to as the Cornish diaspora. Although not included as a tick-box option in the UK census, the numbers of those writing in a Cornish ethnic and national identity are officially recognised and recorded.
Oliver James Padel is an English medievalist and toponymist specializing in Welsh and Cornish studies. He is currently Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic, in the University of Cambridge. and visiting professor of Celtic at the University of the West of England
The English language spoken and written in England encompasses a diverse range of accents and dialects. The language forms part of the broader British English, along with other varieties in the United Kingdom. Terms used to refer to the English language spoken and written in England include English English and Anglo-English.
British Latin or British Vulgar Latin was the Vulgar Latin spoken in Great Britain in the Roman and sub-Roman periods. While Britain formed part of the Roman Empire, Latin became the principal language of the elite and in the urban areas of the more romanised south and east of the island. In the less romanised north and west it never substantially replaced the Brittonic language of the indigenous Britons. In recent years, scholars have debated the extent to which British Latin was distinguishable from its continental counterparts, which developed into the Romance languages.
Alan M. Kent was a Cornish poet, dramatist, novelist, editor, academic and teacher. He was the author of a number of works on Cornish and Anglo-Cornish literature.
The Battle of Hehil was a battle won by a force of Britons, probably against the Anglo-Saxons of Wessex around the year 720. The location is unknown, except that it was apud Cornuenses.
Common Brittonic, also known as British, Common Brythonic, or Proto-Brittonic, was a Celtic language spoken in Britain and Brittany.
Presented below is an alphabetical index of articles related to Cornwall:
Prior to the 5th century AD, most people in Great Britain spoke the Brythonic languages, but these numbers declined sharply throughout the Anglo-Saxon period, when Brythonic languages were displaced by the West Germanic dialects that are now known collectively as Old English.
↑ Couch, Thomas Q. "East Cornwall Words". Federation of Old Cornwall Societies (Cornwall, United Kingdom). Archived from the original on 7 August 2011. Retrieved 23 June 2011.
↑ Tanner, Marcus (2006), The Last of the Celts, Yale University Press, ISBN978-0-300-11535-2; p. 225
1 2 Tanner, Marcus (2006), The Last of the Celts, Yale University Press, ISBN978-0-300-11535-2; p. 226
↑ Pascoe, W. H. (1979) A Cornish Armory. Padstow: Lodenek Press; p. 27
↑ Pittock, Murray (1999), Celtic Identity and the British Image, Manchester University Press, ISBN978-0-7190-5826-4; p. 122
↑ Zagorín, Pérez (1982), Rebels and Rulers, 1500–1660: provincial rebellion; revolutionary civil wars, 1560–1660, Cambridge University Press, ISBN978-0-521-28712-8; p. 26
↑ Magnaghi, Russell M. (2008), Cornish in Michigan, East Lansing: MSU Press, ISBN978-0-87013-787-7; pp. 2–3
1 2 Tanner, Marcus (2006), The Last of the Celts, Yale University Press, ISBN978-0-300-11535-2; p. 230
1 2 3 Price, Glanville (2000), Languages in Britain and Ireland, Wiley-Blackwell, ISBN978-0-631-21581-3; p. 113
↑ Hechter, Michael (1999), Internal Colonialism: the Celtic fringe in British national development (2nd ed.), Transaction, ISBN978-0-7658-0475-4; p. 64
↑ Kent, Alan (26–27 July 2007). ""Mozeying on down...": the Cornish language in North America". The Celtic Languages in Contact: Papers from the Workshop within the Framework of the XIII International Congress of Celtic Studies.
↑ Payton, Philip (2005). The Cornish Overseas: a history of Cornwall's 'great emigration'. Dundurn Press Ltd. p.185. ISBN1-904880-04-5.
↑ "Northern Star (Kapunda, S. Aust.)". State Library of South Australia, State Library of Victoria: National Library of Australia. Retrieved 16 June 2011.
↑ Stephen Adolphe Wurm; Peter Mühlhäusler & Darrell T. Tryon. Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia and the Americas. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1996
↑ Bruce Moore Speaking our Language: the story of Australian English, Oxford University Press, 2009
↑ These were the only universities in England (and not open to Nonconformists) until the 1820s, when University College London was established.
↑ Paul Kerswill and Peter Trudgill. "The birth of new dialects"(PDF). Macrosociolinguistic Motivations of Convergence and Divergence. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 17 June 2011.
↑ Nance, Robert Morton (Mordon) (1956). The Cledry Plays; drolls of old Cornwall for village acting and home reading. Federation of Old Cornwall Societies (printed by Worden, Marazion).
M. A. Courtney; T. Q. Couch: Glossary of Words in Use in Cornwall. West Cornwall, by M. A. Courtney; East Cornwall, by T. Q. Couch. London: published for the English Dialect Society, by Trübner & Co., 1880
Pol Hodge: The Cornish Dialect and the Cornish Language. 19 p. Gwinear: Kesva an Taves Kernewek, 1997. ISBN0-907064-58-2.
David J. North & Adam Sharpe: A Word-geography of Cornwall. Redruth: Institute of Cornish Studies, 1980. (Includes word-maps of Cornish words.)
Martyn F. Wakelin: Language and History in Cornwall. Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1975. ISBN0-7185-1124-7. (Based on the author's thesis, University of Leeds, 1969.)
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