Anyone else doing the Cornish course?

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#242

Usi dha gi ow tyski Kernewek ynwedh (is your dog learning Cornish too)? :grin: :wink:

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#243

Shhhh! He doesn’t know yet, he’s snoring under the bed. In Welsh😜

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#244

Ki konnyk (clever dog) :dog: :smile:

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#245

All the road name signs round where I live have the name also given in Cornish. I’m not sure if this is true for the whole of Cornwall; I’ve only lived here for six months. Anyway I rode my horse past New Lane today and it was spelt nowydh. I realised it was a th sound, as I’ve passed Red Lane (Rudh) and I’d seen road as Fordh.

Currently I’m only concentrating on speaking Cornish, but there are lessons fairly close for when the novel corona virus dies down.

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#246

I’ve just realised the replies don’t nest here. That was a reply to the post that mentioned the two ways of spelling new.

#247

Not everywhere, but it’s spreading — as far as I’ve heard, Cornwall Council’s policy is that when an old road sign needs replacing, it’s replaced with a bilingual one. They only do that with signs that are due for replacing anyway, so as not to get accused of “wasting money”!

It does say at the top of the post who it’s a reply to, and if you click on that name, it shows the post being replied to. What I wrote there is actually a bit out of date — the Standard Written Form went through a revision a few years ago (5 years after it was introduced) and several changes were made, so “nowydh” and “flogh” are now the official spellings in both SWF and Kernewek Kemmyn. However, while SWF is now becoming more and more accepted (I’ve switched to it in the past couple of years), there are still several other spelling systems also in use by those who prefer them, so it still gets a bit bewildering at times
 :dizzy_face:

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#248

I stayed a couple of times in a B&B in St. A. It was called The Arches. You can guess where it was located.

#249

Not all bad though, it’s where they make Mena Dhu and Korev.

#250

And there’s an excellent Yeth an Werin (informal Cornish conversation group) that meets at the Rann Wartha every Monday, at least under normal circumstances! :wink:

#251

I have just finished Lesson 10 of SSIC, and it took me about a month. I thought that these plague-times would be a good chance to learn. I am just revising, so the lessons stick in my mind.

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#252

Differences in spelling are not as much as a problem as is often made out. Read it out aloud and they all become the same language with one or two minor differences, certainly not as far apart as Welsh from North and South Wales. People who have learnt through different spelling systems meet for online Yeth an Werin Warlinen sessions and have no problem communicating. Go with the one you find easiest and read as much as possible in the others. Novels are available in virtually of the all main spelling systems by now.
SWF (M) and Kemmyn are very similar, whilst SWF(L), Kernowak Standard and UCR are also very similar. Unified and Nowedga are slightly further away.

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#254

Can anyone help Tony @tony-corden with this Cornish pronunciation question? @davyth-fear ?

A bit confused about a pronunciation.
"Nyns EUS res dhymm

Eus 
in the recording sometimes sounds like “U” and sometimes like “ews”. 
to me.
Meur ras .!

Tony Corden

#255

I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Most words will have a range of pronunciations by Cornish speakers. Myself, I pronounce it like ‘ugh’ in English with an ‘s’ on the end, just a bit longer than a schwa. Have a listen to Gwenno, ‘Eus keus’ to see how she pronounces it!
Davyth

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#256

â€čeusâ€ș can be pronounced [Ɠːz] - the vowel is like French “fleur”, or alternatively with a long-E sound, the same as [eːz]. The former is based on the older Middle Cornish pronunciation up until ca. mid 16th century, and the latter is from then on to the late 18th century. Most modern speakers use the vowel of English “girl”, but without the R-sound (i.e. non-rhotic). The vowel is long, so give ita nice drawn out sound and ‘buzz’ the S at the end, as in “ease” or “peas”


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#257

I’ve only just started doing the Cornish course myself - up to Lesson 9 - and it’s probably just that my ears aren’t tuned in yet, but I’m trying to focus on the sound and not really look at the spelling, so I don’t actually hear the ‘s’ on the end at all - I’ve written that phrase for myself (in a combination of English and Welsh spelling :smile:) as ninz yw rhes ddim

#258

Actually, that’s correct except for a few details of the spelling — nyns yw res dhymm in SWF Cornish. But “yw” is a short form version of the verb “to be”, whereas “eus” is long form — they’re used in different circumstances. It’s a while since I went over the SSi Cornish course, but I remember there are a few occasions where the presenters say “nyns eus res dhymm”. That’s actually incorrect. It’s meant to be “nyns yw res dhymm”, which is what they do usually say. (Hence why you can’t hear the “s” on the end — there isn’t one.)

I can’t remember off the top of my head where “eus” is used in this particular course, but it is definitely used with “hwans” and “edhom”. “Nyns eus hwans dhymm” (“I don’t want” — literally “there is not a want to me”) and “nyns eus edhom dhymm” (“I don’t need” / “there is not a need to me”).

But “res” (also meaning “need”), for some obscure grammatical reason, takes “yw”. “Res yw dhymm” / “nyns yw res dhymm.” I gather there was some debate over this in earlier years of the Cornish language revival, which is probably why the presenters slipped and used “eus” with “res” a few times in the recordings, but “res yw” / “nyns yw res” is definitely the agreed-on form now.

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#259

Very useful to know!

One question I have though about “hwath” (yet). It gets introduced as just “hwath”, but later I hear it as what sounds like “na hwath” with no explanation. Do you know why?

And once I’ve learnt how to say “thank you” in Kernewek, I’ll be able to thank you properly :slight_smile:

#260

That’s another odd anomaly in the SSi course. A couple of times they make it “na hwath” when it’s a negative sentence — i.e. “not yet” — but they don’t do it consistently and it’s never explained. I’m not sure myself whether or not “hwath” requires a “na” when it’s used in a negative sentence.

Just coining one on the spot (because I can’t remember which sentences it occurs in during the SSi course!) — I don’t know whether “I can’t see the house yet” is more properly translated as “Ny allav vy gweles an chi hwath” or “Ny allav vy gweles an chi na hwath.” The latter would be “I can’t see the house not yet”, but double negatives are allowable (and sometimes compulsory) in Cornish where they’re not in English!

In practice — going by the KDL correspondence course, which I’m partway through, and the several textbooks I have — I don’t remember seeing “na hwath” used anywhere, and I certainly haven’t run across a rule that says “na hwath” must be used when the sentence is negative. It may be that either version is acceptable. I will see if I can find out!

There’s one of (dare I say) the slightly silly things about SSi Cornish, that it gets you constructing sentences really fast but doesn’t give you any of the most basic conversational elements like greetings and farewells and exchanging pleasantries
 :grin: “Thank you” is “meur ras” (as with “eus”, the “eu” is like “fleur” in French — in practice it sounds like “mer raz”).

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#261

Meur ras!!! This is such a great help, and I’m keen to get hold of some kind of basic Cornish textbook. Is there one that you recommend?

#262

Well, my favourite textbook is Bora Brav by Polin Prys (she’s a teacher of Cornish based in London). It’s recently been reissued with new illustrations. The fun part of it is that the reading exercises in each chapter are all based on the same group of characters who all live in the same imaginary Cornish village, where they attend Cornish language classes together and use the language among themselves in their daily lives. So there’s an ongoing story running through it, which turns into a bit of a soap opera by the end — in a quite amusing way, but I won’t give away any spoilers
 :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Another good one is Holyewgh an Lergh by Graham Sandercock, which has recently been reissued in Standard Written Form spelling. There’s another major issue with revived Cornish
 the business of the multiple spelling systems, or as it’s sometimes termed, the spelling wars. :roll_eyes: Basically, because there was never an official spelling system when Cornish was still a living community language, all the old texts have variable spellings (sometimes even within the same document!) and the Cornish revival movement has had to devise its own systems. Unfortunately this led to a lot of division and debate over whose version was the best / most accurate / most authentic etc
 all of which created several factions in the language revival movement.

However (long story short), as far as I’ve seen, things are a lot better now and there is now an official Standard Written Form / Furv Skrifys Savonek (abbreviated as SWF / FSS), which was introduced in 2008. There was still a bit of resistance to it among Cornish speakers when I first got involved with the language community nearly 10 years ago, but it’s now definitely the most widely accepted spelling system and the one that most modern publications and language classes are now using, so that’s the one I recommend going with.

(You’ll probably also still encounter a lot of publications that use Kernewek Kemmyn (Common Cornish), which was the most popular spelling system before SWF was introduced. But SWF was largely based on Kemmyn and there are only a few noticeable differences between the two, so if you can read one, you can read the other. And as anyone who’s been learning Cornish for decades has already been through several changes of spelling systems, most people don’t get too hung up on it. As one of my teachers put it when we were preparing for the first grade exam a few years ago: “If you make a mistake and write in Kemmyn instead of SWF
 we won’t notice, because we can’t spell either.”)

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