Of course, respect for natives speakers, an d respect for the new ones. I agree.
however, do not believe that all native speakers are perfect. There are good native speakers and others who are less fluent in the language, as in any language. In Brittany many native speakers (but not all) use french to count for example. Should we abandon the numbers in Breton? (while their grandparents mastered the math perfectly well in their language.). Some of them (not all) speak less well than their grand parents. Who is right ? Which one will be un example for learners ?
Everyone mistakes in his mother tongue too. Why would it not be the case for Breton, Cornish, Welsh or Irish?
Hello Erwan, and thanks for reminding me certain rules
As I said in my profile, I donāt speak fluent breton anymore, living out of Brrittany for a while, and having very few contacts now with this tongue that I spoke much more than wrote.so I I sometimes,use forms I heard when I was young, even if I know that they are not the correct theorical forms (as it would in french or any tongue : see french verb āadorerā so strong, normally used for God, but in reality used for anything)
Fortunately, my ambition here was not to give breton lessons but just to give an opnion about the future of the tongue, according not to its number of locutors, but to their way of speakingā¦ And I still think that a tongue which looses its own way of building sentences, its stress (on words, but also on this or that part of the sentence) is a dying tongue (or this ābizarreā breton tongue that we call āroazhonegā - a joke a bit long and too ābretonā to be explained here)
Of course old breton native spekers make mistakes : they wonāt always use the very right word, but for my part I donāt care at all if they will say ākaroutā in place of āplijoutā : what I āloveā (?!) is their such alive āaccentā, stres on words; Not the same depends of the regions of Brittany, but a real stress. What a pleasure to hear them talking or singing !..
Well : maybe there is one thing we share with the reputation of french people : not goot at speaking foreign languages . And breton language is a foreing languages for those who learn it.
Unfortunately, the number of locutors does not make neither the quality of a tongue nor its staying alive : there are surely millions of people practicing latin or ancien greekā¦
And Iām not sure that rock and roll is not deadā¦ Or will we start a topic about āwhich rock and rollā ?..
Ooooops, MC youāre wirting too long again !!! STOP
Thereās something about languages on the rise (historically) - be it English in the British Isles or French in the area we now know as France - that have this overweening desire to crush all other languages. But itās still going on. More recently, after WWI, when Italy gained part of German-speaking Austria, Mussolini banned the use of German. This may sound naĆÆve and simplistic, but why canāt people let others live their own lives as they see fit?
Just as English has evolved over the centuries, maybe itās healthy to let languages such as Irish evolve. I know the kids of today have their own teen-speak, which infuriates parents, but is that necessarily a bad thing?
Not sure itās the language that has the desire to crush all other languagesā¦ Seriously, as far as I can see, it usually happens with a ruling class or a colonial power ā if those who are in power can establish their language as the dominant one and preferably the only one, it gives them that much more power. Allowing only the one language also helps to establish a more homogenous sense of national identity and have fewer pockets of potential resistance from rebels and separatists. I would also guess itās simply that much easier to govern a monolingual country than a multilingual one!
I donāt know how far reasons like that have been consciously in the minds of governments past and present that have worked to stamp out minority languages; Iām sure itās often been framed benevolently as āunifyingā the country or as making life easier for everyone when we all speak the one language. But those are some of the political power advantages I would guess are behind it.
Itās been so quiet around here lately for Kernewegoryon / Cornish speakers (ha Kernewegoresowā¦ Cornish speakers, feminine ) that Iāve been nosing about a bit in the Welsh forum and have even tried the first few minutes of SSiW, both North and South, just to see what itās like and where the dialect differences come in.
Iām beginning to think I may be right in assuming that Cornish is a little closer to Southern Welsh than Northern, which would make sense geographically. Someone earlier in this thread mentioned āDw iān moynā (āI wantā, Southern), which sounds quite close to Cornish āMy a vynnā. I appreciate the dictionary link that suggests āmoynā has a different root from āmynnafā / āmynnesā (to want), but thereās still a similarity there, even if itās by chance. More to the point, I picked up on another Welsh thread that milk is āllaethā in South Wales and āllafrithā in North Wales (with a few variations here and there). In Cornish, itās definitely ālethā.
So Iām thinking SSiW Southern would be slightly easier for me to learn as a Cornish speaker, when I get to it. The dilemma is that I may in the future be getting some work in the Greater Manchester area (this is still speculative), which would put me close to North Wales. Which means Iād love to nick over the border regularly if I can, but does anyone know if I would get into big trouble with Northern speakers if I try to converse with them in Southern dialect??
(Iām being half serious, half silly here, but would genuinely like to know how great the North/South divide is when it comes to linguistics. I donāt want to put my foot in it, so to speak.)
No. Absolutely not. You might get into a few good-natured āwe donāt say that hereā type conversations (and a conversationās a conversation, so itās all good), but itās far from unusual for southerners to pitch up in the north (and particularly vice versa) these days.
Oh good ā thanks, @robbruce . Itās just that ā no offence meant, but I remember once hearing second hand that āthe North and South Welsh hate each other even more than they hate the English and have done for hundreds of years.ā Mind you, the person who said that (a colleague of my dadās back in Australia) was English himself and I donāt know where he actually got his info about Wales and the Welshā¦ Iāve been hoping all along that thatās a wild exaggeration, if not an outright falsehood, so Iām glad to read your post.
Well the more I read about Welsh dialects the more it seems that there is no strict North/South divide so it canāt be that all Welsh people hate someone just the other side of a mountain or river that might have affected a dialect difference. Hopefully, being an outsider to Wales, the people of whatever area you move into will think that your unfortunate mistake in choosing the other dialect will be erased with time and exposure to their own good Welsh
I did a fair bit of North Welsh in the early 2000ās and a bit more with SSIW. Recently I have gone through Level 1 (and a bit of Level 2) in the SSIW Southern course (because I found a Southern Welsh speaker nearby). There are not that different āon paperā but there is something very different to me in the tone somehow. I donāt know if it helps having a word that is similar to Cornish or not - I have so little Cornish yet. It is a temptation to āgo Welshā just because we donāt live where there are Cornish speakers and there is so much available in Welsh (S4C etc) but, on my visit to Cornwall, I was so impressed with how significant each person who tries to learn a bit of Cornish is, that I really feel I have to make more of an effort. For example if you had not been here to pass Steve Harrisā email on to me I might not have made the effort to get to the Star last week and meet Dee and Steve, who are such an inspiring couple.
Oh, glad you did get to meet Steve and Dee! Theyāre lovely and very helpful, arenāt they?
Well, thatās true ā there are so few of us and there are no established communities (yet?) where the majority of people speak Cornish and you can actually live your day to day life in Cornish, as one still can with Welsh in parts of Wales. Thatās basically why I said, any Yeth an Werin (informal Cornish speaking group) will welcome anyone with an interest in the language, regardless of ability ā we need all the help we can get!!!
Mind you, that is also what makes me feel a connection to Welsh speakers and why I enjoy talking to them, even just to compare basic words in both languages. Anyone who speaks Welsh fluently is also deliberately and consciously taking a stand for a minority native language as part of their identity and culture. They know the importance of it and also the danger of losing it, so theyāre almost always interested in the Cornish language as well ā especially as their sister language ā and in the efforts to make it more widely known and spoken. Iām sure the same goes for Breton speakers, though I havenāt got to know any in person. Itās good to spread the word like that, so to speak.
Yes and I think it is probably important for someone learning Cornish to be inspired by a sister-language that managed to hang on with such strength. This may be a highly controversial statement but I also think that having a bit of Welsh or Breton might help counterbalance any unconscious English influence we English speakers inevitably carry with us. Also, being honest, there has been a great deal of looking to Welsh and Breton in the revival of Cornish and learning a bit of those languages might give some understanding of that process.
I donāt think thatās too controversial ā one of the perennial concerns in the Cornish revival is the tendency to unconsciously use wordings that are awkward calques on English phrases rather than something that would sound natural in Cornish. And with no traditional native speakers to correct us, we canāt always tell! So it helps a lot to have Welsh and Breton to compare and sometimes to give us a model for terms and phrases that we may not be sure about. Often thereās no absolute right or wrong answer for the most ācorrectā way to say something, of course, but I think the consensus is that itās better to use the sister languages as models rather than English, as far as possible. So I would say it is very helpful to have a knowledge of them and thatās partly why Iād like to.
Is it true, or an urban myth, that Breton onion sellers used to come over to South Wales at certain times of the year and that that was partly - mainly? - due to the mutual comprehensibility of Welsh and Breton? I remember seeing lots of homes with Welsh-looking names when I holidayed in La Baule-Escoublac in the mid-2000s.
Itās true that it happened - Sioni Winwns - but the mutual comprehensibility tends to be significantly overplayed - once you get past the shared core vocabulary (gwin, bara, ffa, glaw, and so on) the structural differences are a very firm block to understanding. So you can point and name a fair amount of stuff (although not actually onions, as it happens!), but beyond thatā¦
Interesting. What about Welsh and Cornish? Being physically nearer to Wales, Iām guessing that Cornish is nearer linguistically as well. My understanding is that it disappeared from Cornwall in the 1700s. If thatās correct, has it been reconstructed from old texts?
One of the saddest things the effect that dominant languages have had on others is when there is literally a last speaker.
Iām not a Welsh or Breton speaker (yet!), but my understanding is that Breton is a bit closer linguistically to Cornish than Welsh is. At least, thatās what Iāve heard said, though I donāt know either of our sister languages well enough to do any direct comparisons. I would guess that Cornish is sort of between the two and there are more differences between Breton and Welsh than Breton and Cornish or Welsh and Cornish. I think roughly speaking overall, thereās up to 80% mutual comprehensibility between the three languages ā as far as similar if not identical words go, at least. As Aran says, the mechanics of how those words are put together can be quite different.
Late 1700s ā the last known community of a few fluent speakers was in Mousehole, near Penzance, in the 1770s ā with some scanty knowledge of it (old sayings, poems, simple phrases, counting to 20 etc.) persisting among a few throughout the 1800s. The last known person with any significant traditional knowledge of Cornish, John Davey of Zennor, died in 1891 ā we donāt know exactly how much of the language he knew, but itās said he could hold a simple conversation in Cornish. (And that he kept his knowledge alive by speaking it to his cat. Weāre not told how the cat responded. )
Prior to that, though, including during the mid to late 1700s when there were still fluent native speakers alive, a number of scholars were collecting what information they could about the language and there were also some significant texts preserved from the languageās heyday (late 1300s - 1600s), particularly plays on Biblical themes (the creation of the world, the Passion of Christ etc.) and lives of the saints. By the late 19th century there was increasing interest in reviving the language ā along with a general revival of Celtic culture in the UK ā and we generally date the real beginning of the revival from 1904 when Henry Jenner published the first textbook, A Handbook of the Cornish Language. I donāt know all the details of how the language was reconstructed ā I gather itās partly from the old texts, partly from comparisons with Welsh and Breton cognates, and sometimes just coining new words or new uses for old words when thereās a need.
Anyway, in the past century and more itās gradually grown from a merely academic interest into a fully fledged modern language that one could easily live oneās day-to-day life in if only there were enough committed speakers living close together in one community. There arenāt yet, but you never knowā¦ Estimated numbers of Cornish speakers vary, but I think the general consensus is about 500-600 fluent speakers and several thousand more who have at least a little knowledge of the language. Which is a start. (Iām still a learner myself ā I can hold a basic conversation and can make out the gist of a written text if it isnāt too complicated.)
Donāt know much about Cornish - picked up a bit of it passively when we were trying to get the first 10 sessions build for SSiCornish - it all seemed faintly familiar, but not enough to follow a conversation - some structures seemed reminiscent of Breton (which is what people tend to say).
Seriously, as far as I can see, it usually happens with a ruling class or a colonial power ā if those who are in power can establish their language as the dominant one and preferably the only one, it gives them that much more power. Allowing only the one language also helps to establish a more homogenous sense of national identity and have fewer pockets of potential resistance from rebels and separatists. I would also guess itās simply that much easier to govern a monolingual country than a multilingual one!
Iāve been hoping all along that thatās a wild exaggeration, if not an outright falsehood, so Iām glad to read your post.
)
Estimated numbers of Cornish speakers vary, but I think the general consensus is about 500-600 fluent speakers and several thousand more who have at least a little knowledge of the language. Which is a start.