Cornish language
Cornish (Standard Written Form: Kernewek or Kernowek;[8] [kəɾˈnuːək]) 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.[9][10] 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.[11]
For the Cornish dialect and accent of English, see Cornish dialect.Cornish
- [kəɾˈnuːək] (Kernewek)
- [kəɾˈnɛʊək] (Kernewek)
- [kəɹˈnuːək] (Kernewek)
- [kəɹˈnɛʊək] (Kernewek)
- [kəɾˈnɔʊək] (Kernowek)
- [kəɹˈnɔʊək] (Kernowek)
cnx Middle Cornish
oco Old Cornish
50-ABB-a
Cornish became extinct as a living community language in Cornwall by the end of the 18th century, although knowledge of Cornish, including speaking ability to a certain extent, persisted within some families and individuals.[12] A revival started in the early 20th century, and in 2010 UNESCO reclassified the language as critically endangered, stating that its former classification of the language as extinct was no longer accurate.[13] The language has a growing number of second-language speakers,[14] and a very small number of families now raise children to speak revived Cornish as a first language.[15][16]
Cornish is currently recognised under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages,[17] and the language is often described as an important part of Cornish identity, culture and heritage.[18][19] Since the revival of the language, some Cornish textbooks and works of literature have been published, and an increasing number of people are studying the language.[14] Recent developments include Cornish music,[20] independent films,[21] and children's books. A small number of people in Cornwall have been brought up to be bilingual native speakers,[22][23] and the language is taught in schools and appears on street nameplates.[24][25][26] The first Cornish-language day care opened in 2010.[27]
Classification[edit]
Cornish is a Southwestern Brittonic language,[28] a branch of the Insular Celtic section of the Celtic language family, which is a sub-family of the Indo-European language family.[29] Brittonic also includes Welsh, Breton, Cumbric and possibly Pictish, the last two of which are extinct. Scottish Gaelic, Irish and Manx are part of the separate Goidelic branch of Insular Celtic.
Joseph Loth viewed Cornish and Breton as being two dialects of the same language, claiming that "Middle Cornish is without doubt closer to Breton as a whole than the modern Breton dialect of Quiberon [Kiberen] is to that of Saint-Pol-de-Léon [Kastell-Paol]."[30] Also, Kenneth Jackson argued that it is almost certain that Cornish and Breton would have been mutually intelligible as long as Cornish was a living language, and that Cornish and Breton are especially closely related to each other and less closely related to Welsh.[31]
Vocabulary[edit]
Cornish is a Celtic language, and the majority of its vocabulary, when usage frequency is taken into account, at every documented stage of its history is inherited direct from Proto-Celtic,[136] either through the ancestral Proto-Indo-European language, or through vocabulary borrowed from unknown substrate language(s) at some point in the development of the Celtic proto-language from PIE.[137] Examples of the PIE > PCelt. development are various terms related to kinship and people, including mam 'mother', modereb 'aunt, mother's sister', huir 'sister', mab 'son', gur 'man', den 'person, human', and tus 'people', and words for parts of the body, including lof 'hand' and dans 'tooth'.[138] Inherited adjectives with an Indo-European etymology include newyth 'new', ledan 'broad, wide', rud 'red', hen 'old', iouenc 'young', and byw 'alive, living'.[139]
Several Celtic or Brittonic words cannot be reconstructed to Proto-Indo-European, and are suggested to have been borrowed from unknown substrate language(s) at an early stage, such as Proto-Celtic or Proto-Brittonic. Proposed examples in Cornish include coruf 'beer' and broch 'badger'.[140]
Other words in Cornish inherited direct from Proto-Celtic include a number of toponyms, for example bre 'hill', din 'fort', and bro 'land',[141] and a variety of animal names such as logoden 'mouse', mols 'wether', mogh 'pigs', and tarow 'bull'.[142]
During the Roman occupation of Britain a large number (around 800) of Latin loan words entered the vocabulary of Common Brittonic, which subsequently developed in a similar way to the inherited lexicon.[141] These include brech 'arm' (from British Latin bracc(h)ium), ruid 'net' (from retia), and cos 'cheese' (from caseus).[143]
A substantial number of loan words from English and to a lesser extent French entered the Cornish language throughout its history. Whereas only 5% of the vocabulary of the Old Cornish Vocabularium Cornicum is thought to be borrowed from English, and only 10% of the lexicon of the early modern Cornish writer William Rowe, around 42% of the vocabulary of the whole Cornish corpus is estimated to be English loan words, without taking frequency into account. (However, when frequency is taken into account, this figure for the entire corpus drops to 8%.)[136] The many English loanwords, some of which were sufficiently well assimilated to acquire native Cornish verbal or plural suffixes or be affected by the mutation system, include redya 'to read', onderstondya 'to understand', ford 'way', hos 'boot' and creft 'art'.[144][136]
Many Cornish words, such as mining and fishing terms, are specific to the culture of Cornwall. Examples include atal 'mine waste' and beetia 'to mend fishing nets'. Foogan and hogan are different types of pastries. Troyl is a 'traditional Cornish dance get-together' and Furry is a specific kind of ceremonial dance that takes place in Cornwall.[145] Certain Cornish words may have several translation equivalents in English, so for instance lyver may be translated into English as either 'book' or 'volume' and dorn can mean either 'hand' or 'fist'.
As in other Celtic languages, Cornish lacks a number of verbs commonly found in other languages, including modals and psych-verbs;[44] examples are 'have', 'like', 'hate', 'prefer', 'must/have to' and 'make/compel to'. These functions are instead fulfilled by periphrastic constructions involving a verb and various prepositional phrases.