CARA KERNOWEK 4 PART FOUR - lovinglivingcornish

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Revived Cornish on the principle of tota Cornicitas

Taking account of all the evidence for historical Cornish

Common European Framework of Reference for Languages

Level B2 (Vantage, Higher Intermediate)

Lesson Dêwdhek

Lesson Twelve

Vocabulary

Here are a couple more new items of vocabulary.

gordhyans m worship, pàr lavarow in words

Cornish poetry – the historical record

Passyon agan Arlùth, known in English as ‘The Passion of Our Lord’ or just ‘the Passion Poem’, is a long dramatic poem dating from the second half of the fourteenth century. It deals with the arrest, interrogation, trial and execution of Jesus Christ, based on a combination of the biblical accounts and developed Christian tradition. This is the earliest surviving work of Cornish literature. The poem was titled ‘Mount Calvary’ by Davies Gilbert in his edition of 1826, and occasionally this name is still employed.

Here is the opening stanza.

ABABACAC

Tas ha Mab ha’n Sperys Sans,

– wy a bÿs a leun-golon –

re wrauntyo dhewgh grâss ha whans

dhe wolsowes y Bassyon,

ha dhymmo grâss ha skians

dhe dherevas pàr lavarow,

may fo dhe Dhuw dhe wordhyans

ha sylwans dhe’n enevow.

We have added the rhyme scheme of the stanza, as we did earlier for the extract from Tristan hag Isolt. In fact, as you will see in further extracts, the most frequent scheme in a stanza is the same AB alternation for all four couplets. But alliterating consonants and assonating syllables are more important than the rhymes; this is a defining feature of Passyon agan Arlùth. One must therefore pay careful attention to the spelling of each word as recorded in the surviving manuscripts. It is sometimes necessary to derogate from Standard Cornish spellings, to ensure the sound effects are not obscured or lost. If you wish to appreciate the poem truly as a work of art, you should on no account rely on any edition that respells everything as if it were modern prose.

In the first stanza we find unaspirated wy (Standard Cornish why). We also meet dhewgh, dherevas, sylwans (Standard Cornish dhywgh, dherivas, selwans). Such variants are typical for the poem overall. The poet is able to make significant play on alternation between e and i/y sounds characteristic of the language of his own time. This is an aspect of the historical Cornish shift towards e sounds from the older i/y sounds that we still encounter in corresponding Welsh words today.

It is worth noting that when reading the Passion Poem, which was written before the English ‘Great Vowel Shift’ that also affected Cornish pronunciation for many speakers, the long a vowel should be given its unchanged sound. That is, grâss rhymes with modern southern English grass, not with modern English grace.

Practys Whêtek ha Dêwgans

Exercise Fifty Six

Examine each individual verse in the first stanza of the Passion Poem and also the stanza as a whole. Identify the alliterations and assonances; and consider any contrast or ‘defeated expectation’ where alliteration or assonance is lacking. Look too at the position of words within a verse. The rhyming final word of a verse is usually significant. But look too at the fourth syllable (the ‘pivot’) in each verse – does anything stand out in this position?

Archaic grammar

Most of the grammar that we find in the Passion Poem may be used in modern Cornish, though the result will sometimes be a specifically high register, unsuited to everyday use. There are however a few points of grammar which are nowadays considered archaic.

We mentioned the pluperfect tense in Book Three; the Passion Poem is the only historical work where it is found with its original meaning of anterior past as opposed to a purely conditional sense.

There is a unique occurrence of an old form of the preterite tense in the third stanza, where we find pàn gemmert kig an Werhes ‘when He assumed the Virgin’s flesh’, with gemmert instead of gemeras.

We also find a few impersonal forms of the verb that mostly fell out of use afterwards: for example, Y helwys, ‘there was a calling’ (preterite tense) at the beginning of Stanza 30. These forms were rare because the impersonal ending for the imperfect and preterite tenses came to be easily confused with forms of the third person singular, so that the specifically impersonal meaning was obscured.

We can mention here too an old third person singular imperative ending in es. This does not occur in the Passion Poem, but we find it in the dramatic cycle known as the Ordinalia. This takes the place of the imperative ending in ens (as in bedhens) when only one person is being exhorted, so in the second part of the Ordinalia called Passio Christi, for instance, we read gweskes lemmyn neb coweth ‘let some comrade now strike’.

Vocabulary

Here are a few more new words.

crows f cross, kenter f nail, lathya v fix with a lath / strut, tackya v attach

Latha is a lath or strut, distinguished form lath ‘yard’ (measure of length); but the two words have the same origin.

We have already met tackya in the figurative expression tackya dêwla.

Practys Seytek ha Dêwgans

Exercise Fifty Seven

Christ’s execution was by crucifixion, which involved confining the culprit, arms outstretched, to a scaffold in the form of a large wooden cross, driving nails through hands and feet. For a reader today the details are merely gruesome, and may seem to have scant literary appeal. In the fourteenth century Christians in Cornwall (that is, officially, almost everybody) were encouraged to contemplate the minutiae of the crucifixion process as an important part of their devotion, and the image of Christ hanging on the cross (the ‘Cruxifix’) as a sign of redemption was ubiquitous in the iconography of the Church. The author of the Passion Poem brings considerable art to his description accordingly.

Here is the ‘carpentry’ of the execution, as told in Stanza 179. It is certainly relevant to the poet’s intention that, according to the biblical accounts, Jesus was originally a carpenter by profession.

ABABABAB

Gansa Crist a veu têwlys

wàr an grows dhe wrowedha.

Ha’y eyl leuv a veu tackys

ord an grows fast mayth esa.

Ha’y eyl troos a veu gorrys

poran wàr benn y gela;

worth an grows y fôns lathys

gans kenter gwyskys dredha.

Comment on the poetics of this stanza, assessing the choice and position of the words, considering the arrangement of sounds, and judging the effect for the stanza as a whole.

Ord for orth is an archaic alternative. Fôns is an alternative to fowns which is still available in Cornish today – any third person plul form of a verb ending in owns may be replaced with one ending in ôns if you prefer. Gwyskys is gweskys (from gweskel) in Standard Cornish.

Vocabulary

Here are a few more new words.

mêstrynjys m mastery, traitour m traitor, Yêdhow m Jew

In Book Three we encountered rowtor in the specific sense of a football manager. The word more generally means anyone in charge of something.

Practys Êtek ha Dêwgans

Exercise Fifty Eight

Jesus had been condemned to death according to Roman justice. Jewish elders were his accusers; the ‘trial’ took the form of interrogation by Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judaea. Here is the opening of the trial as imagined by the Passion Poem, Stanzas 98 to 102.

How does the poet achieve his dramatic effect? At the end of the extract you will find some notes clarifying particular words.

ABABABAB

Y êth ha Jesus gansa

bys in Pylat o Jùstys,

anodho breus may rolla,

dre y vreus may fe ledhys.

Lavarsons y heb pyta

“Agan traitour yw kefys.

Res yw dheso y dhamnya

dhe’n mernans adhesympys.”

ABABABAB

Yn medh Pylat “Pana dra

a inyowgh wy warnodho?”

“Na ve bos fâls an den-ma,

ny’n drossen ny bys deso.”

Y leverys “Dre laha

ha why dampnowgh e ytho.”

Yn medhans “Yêdhow ny wra

dampnya den, lader kyn fo.”

ABABABAB

Henna Pylat pàn welas,

kymmys côwsys er y bynn,

rowtors ha tus rych i’n wlas,

rêsons mar fol ha mar dynn,

Pylat orto govynnas

i’n keth vaner-ma govyn

“Osa Mab Duw, leun a ras?

Lemmyn gwir te lavar dhyn.”

ABABABAB

Yn medh Crist, an cuv colon,

“Pòr wir te re leverys.

Te, a wodhyes dha honen?

Pe dre gen re veus gwarnys?”

Pylat a gêwsys yn scon

“Te a veu dhymm danvenys.

Lavar dhymmo dha honen,

pÿth yw an drog re wrussys?”

ABABABAB

Yn medh Jesus “Nynj ujy

ow mêstrynjys i’n bÿs-ma.

Hag a pe, ow thus dhe wy

ny’m delyrfsens indelma.”

“Ytho mygtern ota se?”

yn medh Pylat i’n eur-na.

“Gwir re gwesys iredy,”

yn medh Crist. “Mygtern oma.”

Notes

The alternation of e and i/y here results in a number of forms that step outside Standard Cornish spelling: adhesympys for adhesempys, deso / dheso for dyso / dhyso, kymmys for kemmys, pe in Stanza 101 for py ‘or’, se for sy – here breaking perfect rhyme.

Other differences from Standard Cornish are dhamnya for dhampnya (while dampnowgh shows that for the poet the p-sound was optional), gwesys for gêwsys (metathesis); and mygtern for mytern – this g (more usually encountered in this word as gh) being apparently still pronounced.

Osa and ota for osta show the tendency to simplify medial st that we have already seen in ô’tya and jù’tycyow of Jowan Chy an Hor’. Compare also woteweth alongside wosteweth. Osa (also oja) and ota are nowadays considered colloquial. But their presence in a work of literature from the fourteenth century well illustrates how it is quite wrong to suppose such forms did not exist until the later stages of historical Cornish.

Inyowgh must have two syllables in order to fit the metrical scheme. Standard Cornish would write iniowgh (three syllables), but some words that we usually render with syllabic i can alternatively have non-syllabic y. Another example of this phenomenon is teythyek as an alternative to teythiak. And we have previously noted how suffix ieth is pronounced by some speakers as if it were yeth.

In delyrfsens we have an instance of the pluperfect tense still being used to express anterior time in the past. But in drossen we have conditional sense.

Nynj ujy and mêstrynjys are evidence for a West Cornwall influence on the composition, or at least the textual transmission, of Stanza 102.

Vocabulary

Here are some more new words.

anfeus (also anfeuth) m misfortune, confort m comfort, dagren f (tear)drop, ely m remedy, keudh m sorrow, trewesy heavy (of a blow)

There is doubt about the meaning of trewesy. Some Cornish speakers spell it truesy, believing it means ‘sad’ (from tru ‘alas’). If the word does indeed mean ‘heavy’ (of blows), we must accept that its use is sometimes figurative.

Practys Nawnjek ha Dêwgans

Exercise Fifty Nine

An essential part of Christian worship in mediaeval Cornwall was veneration of an Werhes Ker Maria, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus. It would not have gone unnoticed, especially in a largely illiterate population, that gweres ‘help’ and gwerhes ‘virgin’ are nearly identical in sound.

In the Passion Poem Mary’s grief at the execution of Jesus is described as an arrow that goes through her heart (dre ’y holon yth êth seth), so that blood wells up within her (wàr hy holon may crunys dre nerth an bomm fenten goos). This leads into Stanza 225 where Mary literally weeps blood. This is immediately followed in Stanza 226 by a description of Mary’s joy in Heaven.

How does the poet point the difference between these two moods? At the end of the extract you will find some notes clarifying particular words.

ABABABAB

A'n goos-na dagrennow try

dre’y dewlagas yth êth.

Nynj o confort na yly

a wrello ’y holon heudh,

ha’y vainys mar drewesy

a’s kemmer ha kymmys keudh;

in oll an bÿs ny ylly

den cafos kymmys anfeuth.

ABABABAB

’Y fainys o brâs ha crev

in joy dhedhy trailys yw,

rag mygternes yw in nev;

dhe vos gordhys hy yw gyw.

Eleth dheragthy a sev,

lies mil ’y bodh a syw,

ha’y mab a’s gordh dell vynn ev.

Tecka ès howl yw ’y lyw.

Notes

We saw in Jowan Chy an Hor’ (’y follat, ’y thermas) how the possessive pronoun hy is often pronounced without aspiration when the following word makes the meaning clear, either because it is mutated to Third State or because it is not mutated to Second State. The apostrophe is merely a spelling convention – historically y and hy were parallel forms of this possessive pronoun: etymologically it is not a case of h being lost.

Dagrennow try ‘three teardrops’ is a poetical usage; note how it dispenses with the usual rule that numerals are employed with a singular noun. But we can remark that Nicholas Williams retained singular nouns in his a pe mowes seyth gans scubyl seyth in An Mordarow ha’n Carpenter (Lesson Three).

In the phrase dell vynn ev the sense is still ‘wish’. The Passion Poem predates the development of the inflected present tense of mydnas into an auxiliary forming future tenses for other verbs.

Vainys and fainys show alternation between f and v that is a feature of our early Cornish texts.

Other differences from Standard Cornish not previously noted are dheragthy for dhyragthy, gyw for gwyw, mygternes for myternes, syw for sew, yly for ely.

Practys Try Ugans

Exercise Sixty

Write an email in suitable Cornish to the presenter of a recent on-line talk in Cornish, saying you found it very informative, and enquiring if a recording of the talk is available so you can listen back to it.

Recordyans is a recording.

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Stagell – Appendix

Ordyr Geryow

Word Order

1. When the definite article is employed, it comes before the noun and any attributive adjectives. But oll has its own rules (Book Three Lesson 14).

2. Inflected comparative and superlative adjectives generally precede their noun. Ordinal numerals from kensa to nawnjegves generally precede their noun. There is a closed class of attributive adjectives that always precede their noun; and a closed sub-class of these are then treated as a prefix (hyphenated). Other attributive adjectives generally follow their noun, but some of them may alternatively precede their noun, sometimes with a different nuance of meaning, and in many but not all of these cases they are then treated as a prefix (hyphenated). Adverbs and prepositional phrases functioning as attributive adjectives always follow their noun.

3. Reinforcing personal pronouns directly follow their inflected verb or inflected preposition; a personal pronoun reinforcing the subject may also precede an imperative.

4. An inflected verb or a verb-noun may only be separated from its direct object by an inflected preposition, an adverb, or a short prepositional phrase. The pronoun object of an inflected imperative directly follows it.

5. In an adverbial phrase formed with particle yn, the particle comes first, then any modifying adverb (fest, moy, pòr, etc).

6. In a prepositional phrase the preposition comes first; for splitting compound prepositions, see Book Two Lesson 13.

7. A verbal particle directly precedes an inflected verb; the only exception is when an infixed pronoun intervenes.

8. A coordinating conjunction is placed between the elements to which it relates in a phrase; in the case of more than two elements but a single coordinating conjunction, this is placed between the penultimate and the last element. Particle ow (owth) must be repeated. The repetition of a preposition is optional.

Arranging phrases within a clause

9. Disregarding for this purpose any fronted adverbial, a verb (with accompanying particle, subject reinforcement, pronoun object whether direct or indirect) comes first in a main clause unless the subject, the object or the complement is fronted. For this purpose the part of a verb phrase formed by combining ow or owth (or orth + possessive pronoun) with a verb-noun is treated as an adverbial; if this is fronted, any object of the verb-noun is transposed with it.

If a plural noun subject is fronted without employing the verbal particle a (if the verbal particle is, for example, y(th) for greater emphasis or namna(g) for modified meaning), then the verb must be changed from third person singular to third person plural, whether or not a resumptive subject pronoun y is employed.

10. A coordinating conjunction is placed between the two clauses to which it relates in a sentence. A subordinating conjunction or particle must be repeated.

11. A subordinating conjunction or a conjunction introducing a protasis (in a conditional sentence) generally comes first in its clause, though a fronted adverb may precede it, and the subject of the clause is sometimes placed in front of both; however, a subject may not precede a ‘if’ and na ‘if not’.

12. A subordinating conjunction or a conjunction introducing a protasis (in a conditional sentence) directly precedes an inflected verb; the only exception is when an infixed pronoun intervenes, with any ‘prop’ particle that is required.

13. An indirect object usually follows any direct object not expressed by an infixed pronoun, but this order is often reversed if the indirect object is expressed by an inflected preposition.

14. In unforced word order, an adverbial of place usually precedes an adverbial of manner, purpose or cause; and an adverbial of manner, purpose or cause usually precedes an adverbial of time; but the reverse sequence applies for any such adverbials that are fronted.

15. A verb-noun and any ordinary noun that is its direct object historically comprised a genitive construction. But sight of this has been lost to the extent that an indirect object or short adverbial may now intervene.

16. Fronted prepositional phrases generally precede a fronted subject or object.

17. Forcing (applying a different word order) may be justified by considerations of emphasis as well as sentence cadence or rhythm.

18. A vocative expression may be added to a main clause initially, medially, or finally.

Arranging clauses within a sentence

19. Adjectival clauses follow their antecedent; but an adjectival clause beginning with particle a (functioning as a relative pronoun with implicit antecedent seul) may be fronted as a subject.

20. A nominal clause expressed with a verb-noun may be fronted when it functions as the subject or object of a sentence; and it is then frequently expressed as a topic, in which case a demonstrative pronoun usually takes its place as the argument of the main verb. Subordinate clauses of indirect statement or indirect question, however, generally follow the main clause.

21. Subordinate clauses of time, cause, purpose, result, concession (‘although’) may precede or follow a main clause. A parenthetical clause, typically formed with dell, may be embedded between phrases within another clause according to sense.

22. The protasis of a conditional sentence may precede or follow the apodosis; but a protasis introduced by a ‘if’ usually precedes.

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For Lessons One to Six, Lessons Seven to Nine, Lessons Ten and Eleven, the consolidated Vocabulary, and accompanying spellings in the International Phonetic Alphabet, see separate entries on the Courses page of this website