Lesson 37
Daniel has English homework this evening. At school he has learned lots of traditional similes. His class teacher, who is not a Cornish speaker, has asked members of the Cornish stream to compile ten traditional similes which are popular in Cornish, but not much used in English these days; and he's asked them to be ready next day to explain each simile to the whole class.
Elen:
It will soon be bed-time, Danyel. How many similes have you compiled so far?
Danyel:
It’s tricky. I don’t want to put down a simile that’s feeble. As wet as an otter, for example. There’s not much imagination in that!
Elen:
Well, it’s a simile that’s popular in Cornish all the same. Are you trying to be too ambitious? I’m sure the teacher didn’t mean to make hard work for you. Can’t you finish soon? Without wasting time?
Danyel:
Well, I’ve already got eight similes. What do you think of these? As pleased as a cat with two tails. As puffed up as a toad upon the dew. As black as the devil’s lunch bag. As sticky as a dough pan. As smooth as new milk. As poor as Job on the dunghill. As smart as a miller taking tolls. As thirsty as a gull.
Elen:
They’re splendid. Proper job!
Danyel:
So there’re still two to find. As honest as the sun? As tough as ling?
Demelsa:
(interrupting them) Dany, why don’t you choose two that are connected with Cornwall’s mining culture? As blunt as a miner’s axe. And as deep as Dolcoath.
Danyel:
Great idea! That’s the homework done. But you can’t be serious! Surely it isn’t bedtime …
Elen:
Quarter of an hour more. It's your own fault for dragging it out. Demelsa shouldn’t have interfered with your homework, but this time she’s rescued you. Just fifteen minutes, mind!
Exercise 38
Demelsa has persuaded Professor Moyle, head of the Department of Physics at the University of Cornwall (Truro Campus), to give a talk to the Cornish Language Society about the work of creating technical terms for the sciences. Demelsa meets him before the talk to welcome him and to learn a little about what he is going to say.
Professor Moyle:
Well, I’ll be seeing your society in a few minutes’ time. Will the whole audience be members of the Sixth Form? And will they understand if I talk a bit about Physics?
Demelsa:
To be honest, no and no. Most of the audience will be Sixth Formers, but there’ll be members of other years there too. And not everyone is studying Physics.
Professor Moyle:
Well I won’t be talking about anything very technical. Not much maths! They’ll understand well enough, at the level of the ideas themselves. I’m confident of that! I’ll be mentioning gravity - the current theories about the nature of gravitation. There’s Einstein’s idea and his General Theory of Relativity. But I believe newer notions of quantum gravity will also be interesting for your pupils. It will demonstrate that Cornish can be employed today for concepts that are at the forefront of the sciences.
Demelsa:
Will you be explaining how terminology work is organized? We want to know who makes the decisions, and how consensus is achieved on each individual issue.
Professor Moyle:
Well it’s become very complicated. But I’ll give some of the history – how steps were taken in the early days. The first task was writing coursebooks for GCSE and A Level and International Baccalaureate and BTEC. So school pupils, like yourselves, were a starting-point for the whole thing.
Demelsa:
I’m afraid there aren’t enough teachers yet to use these books. Because there isn’t enough money to fund separate Cornish and English streams in secondary schools. I only studied for two GCSEs through the medium of Cornish. Religious Studies. And Cornish itself. Even though our school is in Truro. Geography can be studied here in Cornish, but it wasn’t one of my options. Do you now speak Cornish in your everyday research?
Professor Moyle:
Well, you know, every conference, every paper that’s published is in English; or it’s in some other language that’s widely spoken. And almost every science lecture, today at least, in our university here in Cornwall is given in English, just the same. Maybe that will change one day, but it’s hardly going to happen soon. Nevertheless, though there’s a lot of mathematics in modern Physics, it’s always important to translate the maths into terms that are more familiar to ordinary people. In our faculty, when I’m sitting with colleagues who are Cornish speakers, sharing a pot of good coffee, we're mostly happy to talk about our work in Cornish.
Demelsa:
And we’re more than happy to welcome you to our school.