Re: Breton, Cornish & French

"Chess One" <OneChess@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:krSdnY2h0sHWrDfanZ2dnUVZ_gidnZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> "Bob Jones" <bobj@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
> news:RFogj.434$421.325@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>>
>> From "The Story of the Cornish Language" by Peter Berresford Ellis (Tor

>> Mark Press, Redruth):
>
> Ere! That's where I was born, ansome, in Reys Druith.
>
>> "Of John Davey of Zennor who died in 1891, it was claimed that was the 
>> last speaker of the language. ... Davey it was re****ted could hold 
>> conversations on many topics in Cornish. He also sang various
traditional 
>> Cornish songs.
>
> Es. They do all say it was Dolly, but...
>
>> It would seem, then that there were at least a small number of Cornish 
>> who had learned the language, or phrases of it, from their parents.
From 
>> this evidence it can safely be said that the last native speakers did
not 
>> die out until the end of the nineteenth century."
>
> Es again. A slightly earlier re****t by one Edward Lhuyd, an Oxford 
> scholar, who undertook an extensive survey of the Celtic languages, 
> visited Cornwall in 1700. He found Cornish still spoken in some 25 
> parishes from Land's End to the Lizard. he also recorded an an
intriguing 
> rhyme given to him by the parish clerk of St Just-in-Penwith:
>
>    An lavar koth yw lavar gwir
>        The old saying is a true saying
>    Na boz nevra doz vaz an tavez re hir;
>        A tongue too long never did good;
>    Bez den heb davaz a gollaz i dir.
>        But the man with no tongue lost his hand.
>
> Dolly died in 1777. William Bodinar is said to have survived her and
spoke 
> Cornish, he died 1789 - and your John Davey of Boswednack near Zennor, 
> died 1891 - though how much Cornish he knew is a bit disputed.
>
>> In a sense Cornish never died out because the Cornish revivalist couple

>> Henry Jenner and Kitty Lee were already active reviving the language
from 
>> 1873. Henry's mother-in-law learned to say the Lord's Prayer and Creed
in 
>> Cornish at her school in Penzance - she died in 1879 aged 57.
>
> Not to mention Jenner's //Handbook of the Cornish Langauge// publ 1904. 
> Jenner had scottish and English parentage but lived in Cornwall.
>
>> My own grandmother remembers Cornish country folk coming to the family 
>> shop in Truro speaking the language.
>
> Trura? Used to live and work out Pencalenick way, and trapse down the 
> river to Tressilian .
>
>> Two of our local Bards of the Cornish Gorsedd tell me that the 2
variants 
>> you talk of are:
>>
>> 1. Kernewek Kemmyn (Common Cornish) used by 80% of speakers and taught
in 
>> the school system - it has become by far the dominant form of the 
>> language.
>>
>> 2. Unified used by the Bards of the Gorsedd in ceremonies - it is has 
>> become the "Liturgical" form of the language.
>
> Do you happen to know where D. M. Thomas is from, my 'ansome? And how 
> bouts Jack Clemo? Proper poet 'e was - and what about that there maid 
> Brenda Wooton - and I forgot her paramour singer friends name.
>
> Phil Innes
The people you mention would have spoken Cornoak rather than medieval 
Kernewek. The difference is that Kernewek, once a form of spoken Cornish, 
was preserved as literary Cornish while spoken Cornish moved on to become 
Cornoak.