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As I've probably said here before, my mother was Anglo-Welsh. She spoke barely a few words of Welsh, which wasn't a cultural thing in Swansea in the first few decades of last century -- hence Dylan Thomas didn't speak it either. What was very noticeable in her speech, all her life, was what I used to suppose was a sort of mixed-language dialect, but which might well have been an Anglo-Welsh syntax. She would say things like 'over by here' (pronounced 'yere') and 'never you mind'; and instead of saying'I don't believe believe you' it'd be 'Don't tell your lies', which made it sound as though lying was habitual. The strange thing is, though, that despite living my whole life in England I still find myself using these expressions. joanna ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lawrence Upton" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Saturday, March 11, 2006 11:43 PM Subject: Re: help--translation query I'd say not, Knut. Or they're keeping it quiet, like everyone hiding behind the curtains and NOT jumping out yelling surprise! The awareness of Cornwall being truly different to "the rest of England" is limited, can be contentious - first thing you see as one crosses from Plymouth is a union flag painted on a house and it's a mile or 2 before I see a Cornish flag; and in part at least that must be due to the degree to which the language has been widely lost. Someone pointed out that it survives in the syntax so you'll hear people say "Going Truro, are you?" which I am *told is Cornish syntax I wouldnt know. Ive kept meaning to learn more, but it's difficult because I have been yo-yoing between the SE and the SW for more than ten years and so don't fit any classes. There are too few speakers to just pick it up And so few people have that syntax within them because the Cornish are a diaspora. It started out much as with Wales, I think. Exeter in S Devon was a "Cornish city" (the Roman regional capital) till the 9th century - and the Duchy of Cornwall too spreads further than the county indicating partly the degree to which the English have pushed the Cornish language back. But there doesn't seem to have been an equivalent lit tradition - if there was a substantial Cornish lit tradition, then it is lost. Nothing like the Welsh ap Gwilym for instance. There wasn't really enough written Cornish to work with when it was consciously revived There are some miracle plays, largely centred on a Glasney monastery near Falmouth and performed in the _playing places_ (2 left) around this area till the use of the vernacular was seen as revolutionary - all in the West. Place names in the east and central Cornwall are frozen in early forms of the language indicating that English took over early The bible was never translated into Cornish and that has been offered as an explanation for lack of a literature. To be monoglot Cornish was to be poor and few made a living here. How long did Humphrey Davy stay in Penzance? Not long There are people writing poetry in Cornwall. Possibly all those not making pasties; but there is some noteworthy poetry being made. Peter Redgrove, for instance, now dead, who lived in Falmouth for many years & the poet Penelope Shuttle, who was married to Redgrove - I saw her read here a few months ago Charles Causley, from Launceston, was, I think, a very fine poet... But I don't think it's Anglo-Cornish... Nicki Jackowska lived here many years This is pathetic - there are so many more, but I can't think There are poets writing in Cornish... I rely on translations and haven't been knocked over by any but would happily plead previous ignorance if I saw something I really liked. It would be exciting I spent a couple of weeks in and around Tenby in S Wales a few years back and was struck by the degree to which Welsh was being spoken as a matter of course - as compared to the situation the last time I had been there in the late 60s. And it seemed to me there was a pride with it - whereas before I had been aware of a suspicion of the Englishman before, now it was upfront and they switched to English courteously and then back. Maybe it was just that before I was a surly teenager... Anyway the sense of being a small country with its own traditions and language really has gone from here or been turned into trinkets. I find it useful, increasingly so; to work with that worked at awareness but it's a way of psyching myself and it's not a widespread enthusiasm. And the reality is I'm pacing the lanes with a south london whine in my voice... I might know ... er... penvounder really means end of the lane for all it rolls off the tongue or that chy an venton means something like house with its own spring, but if all the Cornish started speaking Cornish only I couldnt even get a cup of tea. My Cornish comes from place name history The association with artists comes largely from the Newlyn and St Ives Schools + a general sense that being in a beautiful place - and it's still an acquired taste for many, especially when you just want a loaf and the shop's two miles away - is somehow more aesthetic. A friend of mine who moved back to London after 15 years prophesied I wouldnt stand it when I largely abandoned London and is amazed that I am really content. (Alaric Sumner wrote to someone that one would always miss the city but after three years you can't leave - mind you he was planning to move to New York!) I've quoted somewhere being on a bus and hearing a teenager go ah! look! a pony and her mates laugh yelling That's a foal you daft f-ing cow! And then a long conversation in which the child of the farm disavowed all knowledge of nature. An urban mentality - I have been asked - and Alaric Sumner records being asked - How do you know the way home? when the distance is less than 10 miles, there is only one road fully one carriage wide and to go off it anyway takes you into hills or the sea. I don't think there is any great wide awareness of the landscape we are in rather than on. On the major dates of the Cornish calendar - Golowan at Midsummer, Crying the Neck at Harvest, there's always a scramble to find someone to say the Cornish bits So... there isnt a tradition and it's possibly dying out anyway!! Wish it weren't so -----Original Message----- From: Knut Mork Skagen <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> Date: Saturday, March 11, 2006 10:10 PM Subject: Re: help--translation query In the hopes you'll excuse a furriner's ignorance -- is there a strong Anglo-Cornish literary tradition today, or is it visibly being assimilated into the native English, and any more (or less) threatened than, say, the Anglo-Welsh? Poetry Wales has, at least, often impressed me with its awareness of blurred cultural lines, and of other subcultures and mixed language groups scattered around both Europe and elsewhere. --Knut