Beach Ices at Praa Sands
Ice meeting the sand at the base of the low cliff behind Praa Sands Beach, West Cornwall. 6th January 2009....
Icicles at Trewellard Bottoms
Water seeping through a wall is turned to icicles, ate Trewellard Bottoms, where Geevor Mine meets the sea....
Winter Sunset at Levant
A late afternoon scene, at Levant Mine, West Cornwall. 7th January 2009....
Winter at Levant
The old electricity generator building, at Levant Mine, West Cornwall, during the recent cold snap. 7th Jnauary 2009....
No, I have never claimed to be. However there is a widespread misunderstanding of the term 'Cornish placenames'. Except insofar as Cornish versions of names (historical or not) are used by speakers of Revived Cornish, all the place names in Cornwall are English (language) names. Most have been derived fromCornish language names formerly used by Cornish speakers. Once a Cornish language name is taken into English and used by people who have no Cornish, it loses most of its meaning and is subject to much distortion and confusion. E.g. penn and porth get changed to poll and an gets stuck in front of praz where it often doesn't belong, and so on, without even thinking of all the ways the sounds were mangled! This is exactly why untangling the origins or placenames is a specialist field, and why for many names there is no clear answer. However the meaning of a placename is rarely in dispute. The meaning of the English name "Polperro" for example, is the settlement around three miles west of Looe. Present day Cornish speakers when speaking Cornish call this same place "Porthpyra" which may resemble its historical name at one particular point in its history or it may not. In any case if the place is named after St. Pyran it must have been called something else before he surfed in on his millstone.
How can I get this over. Using a place name, even many placenames, derived from another language doesn't mean you're speaking that language, not even if you understand (more or less) the sense of some of the elements. If you've ever been to Scotland, or even read novels set in Scotland, you'll almost certainly know that a "Ben" is a mountain, and a "glen" is a valley, and a "loch" is a lake etc. These words are all derived from Scottish Gaelic, but knowing them, even using them every day of the week, doesn't make you a Gaelic speaker. They've all passed into Scottish English and become English words. They don't even sound like present day Gaelic Beinn, Gleann, Loch, or have plurals Beanntan, Glinn, Lochan, never mind their different case forms which every Gaelic speakers knows and uses. Knowing that "Polperro" might once have meant "St. Pyran's Cove/harbour" doesn't connect me to my "Cornish past" any more than knowing that "York" may derive from a word meaning "place of hogweed" connects me to my "Ancient British past". Lingusitically the meaning of a place name, is simply the place that it names. The rest is history, and of course politics
morvran, you no more own the Cornish language, than any other Cornishman, asuming you are Cornish.
You can protest, and try to claim anything you like, but the language belongs to us all, fact.
"Old Penwith speech", how old?
You keep saying this, but the truth is, there is a difference between not using something and throwing it away. Our ancestors stopped using the language for a host of possible reasons, but that is it, they stopped using it, they did not "throw it away", just as I have not thrown away the screwdriver I adapted, it might just come in handy again some time.
I agree that a lot more needs to be done for the language, but claiming ownership of it for a few, rather than the whole, is a retrograde step, and, as I have said before, smacks of elitism.
Kernow Kensa!
Our day will come!
"Everyone has their own particular part to play. No part is too great or too small, no one is too old or too young to do something."
My word! This just has to be one of the best threads on this site! Keep it up Morsaf and Morvan, and well done Egloshal for starting it in the first place.
The question seems to be: how do we best move the language forward? Is the Gorsedd getting in the way? And WHY did it make Bishop Bill Ind a bard for christsake???
Probably for the same reason they made General Sir Richard Trant (recently deceased) a bard and we know he was an enthusiastic advocate of the organisation known as 'English Heritage'.
'Condemnation without investigation is ignorance' - Albert Einstein
No, look, a language isn't an object that exists all by itself like a car or screwdriver. It's something people do and know how to do. If it exists anywhere it exists in people's heads. And when those people die it dies with them, unless it's already been passed on to younger people, usually their own children. Fortunately kids come pre-programmed to pick up whatever language is spoken around them in their first few years. This is so natural, so everyday, so plain normal, that we don't usually give it a second thought. So we think of a language as something that's somewhere 'out there' that has it's own separate existance. But it ain't so. You can neglect a screwdriver, maybe even an old car, for years, and then with a bit of effort and oil get it going again, but if you neglect a language it just isn't there anymore. You can leave a car in a shed for 20 years and maybe still get it going. It wouldn't work for a horse though. A horse has to be fed whether you use it or not (which is mainly why farmers changed over to tractors).
Yes, we have, fortunately, the written record. That's like having not a car, but maybe a few old photos of the car, perhaps even the handbook. Imagine trying to recreate your beloved Moggie from no more than that.
That's why it's such a long and painful process to get a language going again. Cornish won't truely exist until it's firmly in place in many people's heads, and is being passed on without any fuss to the next generation, who are learning it not as some special trick, but just because it's there.
IF and when that happy day dawns, then you'll have got your language back. Until then you haven't. And no amount of dressing up and playing silly-buggers by the Gorsedh is going to change that.
As I said it has to go in stages, and each stage takes maybe a generation, and the danger is that after that time any particular stage can seem become an end in itself. So we're forever in danger of stagnation.
The Gorsedh belongs to a bygone stage when Cornish was taught as a 'dead language' like Latin, and used like Latin for mottos, and ceremonies etc. It should have reinvented itself and moved on to the next stage, but mostly it didn't so now it's just a monument to the early days.
The Language Board and Kowethas etc. with it's apperatus of evening classes, exam grades, schoolteachers and dydhyow lowender was a great leap forward 30-something years ago. Cornish presented as a 'Modern Language' and a 'leasure activity'. That is well established now, good, a job well done and an necessary foundation for what needs to follow.
But we mustn't get stuck there either. I've made some fairly random suggestions for things that the next great leap could include. Lets set a target -- re-establish intergenerational transmission by the end of this century. That's several steps away but it should concentrate minds. How to get from here to there? Who has a bit of vision, who can look forward, not back?
Not unless you redesign that dressing-gown thing s/he wears.
No leave them alone, we need something new maybe. They should be classified as an ancient monument and put in the care of English Heritage, there a sort of poetic (no bardic?) justice there.
Rise in county's road death toll
The number of people who have died on Cornwall's roads rises in the last year to 35, police say.
Film con man ordered to pay £100K
The man who swindled almost £2m in a film studio scam is ordered to forfeit £100,000 by a judge.
Triplets survive against the odds
A woman from Cornwall who gave birth to triplets 14 weeks early describes their survival as a "miracle".
Call for inquiry into fire centre
Fire chiefs demand a public inquiry into the delayed opening of the regional fire control centre.
Prison sentence for benefit cheat
A man who admitted swindling more than £51,000 in benefits over a six-year period is jailed for 18 months.
Divers face trial over shipwreck
Three Cornish divers accused of plundering a shipwreck off the coast of Spain are to be tried in a Spanish court.
‘NO’ TO NUCLEAR WASTE IN CORNWALL - MPs
Proposals to bring nuclear waste to Cornwall have been described as ‘absurd and irresponsible’ by Cornish MPs.
Route Partnership Plan for Penzance unnecessary
Their plan having been rejected by the public in the final exhibition in Septmber with 90% against the Route Partnership have decided to try again in mid January after a mailout and poster campaign.The Chamber of Commerce has been at the forefront of this campaign.
