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Cornish is a Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family. Along with Welsh and Breton, Cornish is descended from the Common Brittonic language spoken throughout much of Great Britain before the English language came to dominate. For centuries, until it was pushed westwards by English, it was the main language of Cornwall, maintaining close links with its sister language Breton, with which it was mutually intelligible, perhaps even as long as Cornish continued to be spoken as a vernacular. Cornish continued to function as a common community language in parts of Cornwall until the mid 18th century, and there is some evidence for traditional speakers of the language persisting into the 19th century.
Whitley Stokes, CSI, CIE, FBA was an Irish lawyer and Celtic scholar.
Saint Meriasek was a 6th-century Cornish and Breton saint. The legends of his life are known through Beunans Meriasek, a Cornish language play known from a single surviving manuscript copy dated 1504, and a few other sources. He is the patron saint of Camborne, and according to his legendary will his feast day is the first Friday in June.
Cornish literature refers to written works in the Cornish language. The earliest surviving texts are in verse and date from the 14th century. There are virtually none from the 18th and 19th centuries but writing in revived forms of Cornish began in the early 20th century.
Cornish bagpipes are the forms of bagpipes once common in Cornwall in the 19th century. Bagpipes and pipes are mentioned in Cornish documentary sources from c.1150 to 1830 and bagpipes are present in Cornish iconography from the 15th and 16th centuries.
Dindsenchas or Dindshenchas, meaning "lore of places", is a class of onomastic text in early Irish literature, recounting the origins of place-names and traditions concerning events and characters associated with the places in question. Since many of the legends being related also concern the acts of mythic and legendary figures, the dindsenchas has been an important source for the study of Irish mythology.
Acallam na Senórach, is an important prosimetric Middle Irish narrative dating to c. 1200. It is the most important text of the Finn Cycle and at about 8,000 lines is the longest-surviving work of medieval Irish literature. It contains many Finn Cycle narratives framed by a story in which the fianna warriors and Caílte mac Rónáin have survived long enough to relate the tales to Saint Patrick. The work has been seen as a defence of the Irish literary establishment when it came under the scrutiny of Church reformers during the 12th to 13th centuries.
Cornish mythology is the folk tradition and mythology of the Cornish people. It consists partly of folk traditions developed in Cornwall and partly of traditions developed by Britons elsewhere before the end of the first millennium, often shared with those of the Breton and Welsh peoples. Some of this contains remnants of the mythology of pre-Christian Britain.
William Scawen (1600–1689) was one of the pioneers in the revival of the Cornish language. He was a politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1640 and fought for the Royalist cause in the English Civil War.
Rooz is the third album by Cornish folk band Dalla. It was released in 2007, also as a download.
John Boson (1655–1730) was a writer in the Cornish language. The son of Nicholas Boson, he was born in Paul, Cornwall. He taught Cornish to William Gwavas. His works in Cornish include an epitaph for the language scholar John Keigwin, and the "Pilchard Curing Rhyme". He also wrote an epitaph for James Jenkins who died in 1710 and also wrote Cornish verse; and translated parts of the Bible, the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed. The only known surviving lapidary inscription in the Cornish language, is also his work, and can be found in Paul Church where John Boson, his father, and their relative Thomas Boson are also buried.
The Ordinalia are three medieval mystery plays dating to the late fourteenth century, written primarily in Middle Cornish, with stage directions in Latin. The three plays are Origo Mundi, Passio Christi and Resurrexio Domini. The metres of these plays are various arrangements of seven- and four-syllabled lines. Ordinalia means "prompt" or "service book".
Specimens of Middle Cornish texts are given here in Cornish and English. Both texts have been dated within the period 1370–1410 and the Charter Fragment is given in two Cornish orthographies.
Prophecy of Merlin, sometimes called The Prophecy of Ambrosius Merlin concerning the Seven Kings, is a 12th-century poem written in Latin hexameters by John of Cornwall, which he claimed was based or revived from a lost manuscript in the Cornish language. The original manuscript is unique and currently held in a codex at the Vatican Library.
William Hals (1655–1737) was a Cornish historian who compiled a History of Cornwall, the first work of any magnitude that was printed in Cornwall. He was born at Tresawsan, in the parish of Merther in Cornwall. Much of his work was never published but was used by other Cornish historians, including Davies Gilbert, Thomas Tonkin, and John Whitaker. Some of his original work is now held by the British Library.
John Keigwin (1641–1716) was a Cornish antiquary, born at Mousehole, Cornwall. He was a leading member of a group of antiquaries in west Penwith: this group also included John and Thomas Boson, William Gwavas, Thomas Tonkin, William Borlase, Oliver Pender, and James Jenkins of Alverton. His teacher was John Boson. In addition to Cornish and English, Keigwin had a command of the French, Latin, Greek and Hebrew languages.
William Gwavas (1676–1741) was an English barrister and writer in the Cornish language.
The anonymous poem Pascon agan Arluth is the oldest complete literary work in the Cornish language, dating from the 14th century. The modern title means "The Passion of Our Lord", but the poem has also been published as Mount Calvary.
James Jenkins was a Cornish scholar who left some verses giving moral advice on child raising and marriage in the Cornish language. In his day he was considered a learned scholar of the Cornish language. Little of his work has survived.
De raris fabulis is a collection of 23 or 24 short Latin dialogues from 9th- or 10th-century Celtic Britain. The dialogues belong to the genre known as the colloquy. These were pedagogical texts for teaching Latin in monastic schools.
References
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Archbold, William Arthur Jobson (1892). "Jordan, William". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography . Vol. 30. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 204, 205. This entry cites: - Stokes, Whitley (translator), ed. (1864). Gwreans an Bys: the Creation of the World. London: Williams and Norgate.
{{cite book}}:|editor-first=has generic name (help) - Norris, Edwin (1859). Ancient Cornish Drama. Oxford University Press.
- Boase, George Clement; Courtney, William Prideaux (1874–1882). Bibliotheca Cornubiensis. Vol. 3 vols. London.
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- Stokes, Whitley (translator), ed. (1864). Gwreans an Bys: the Creation of the World. London: Williams and Norgate.
