Richard Gendall's Dictionary for Modern Cornish 3

And finally for today:

A BRIEF CONSIDERATION OF THE ORIGINS AND HISTORY OF CORNISH

Britain, Britons and British

The name of the island we inhabit is known in English as Britain, but this is a word derived from the British language itself, and which in Cornish is Bretten, in Welsh Prydain. This name was first applied to the island during the Iron Age, that is to say the last few centuries of the pre-Christian era. The inhabitants of this island are referred to in English as Britons (now misapplied for political reasons to all and sundry of whatever origin) and is also derived from the British language, and which in Cornish is Brethon or Brittez, in Welsh Brythoniaid. The language of the Britons we call British which again is a word taken from the British, the Cornish word being Brethonek, in Welsh Brythoneg.

What about Celtic?

During the Iron Age there were languages related to British across Europe, and one of these was Celtic, first mentioned by the Greeks. Because Celtic was well documented, and little was known at first about British, it was assumed that British was derived from Celtic. In fact, the Celtic tribe that we know from the Greek reference to its people as keltoi occupied the land to the north of Marseilles and westwards into Spain, and had nothing directly to do with the British. While the British and the Celts and their languages were undoubtedly related, the one did not come from the other.

Until the Roman invasion of 43 CE, the social unit among the British was the tribe or small kingdom, and the tribes occupied their own areas the names of which have often survived to this day as counties. This state of organisation was a threat to the Roman plan, and the tribal system was suppressed in all of what is referred to as Lowland Britain, the land to the east of Exeter and Wales, and to the south of York, those parts shown largely as green on a physical map. Among the largest of these tribal areas was the kingdom of Dumnonia, as referred to by the Romans, which covered what is to-day Cornwall, Devon and Somerset. The Cornish word for this is Deunanz, in Welsh Dyfnaint, which has survived as modern Devon. The Romans afforded to the Dumnonii, Devonians, a special status in which they were allowed within certain limits to get on with their own lives. The capital of this kingdom was Exeter, in Latin Isca Dumonium, Isca of the Dumnonians to differentiate it from Isca Silurum, Isca of the Silures in South Wales, the Dumnonians and the Silurians being closely related. The Cornish for Exeter is Carêsk, City of the Esk (known in English as the Exe).

To the west of the River Tamer, itself a British word if not older, there was in effect a state within a state, the capital of which was recorded by the Romans in the second century CE as Durno Cornovio, City of the Cornovii, which is to say City of the Cornish People. It has been identified as Tintagel. The only Cornish word recorded for Cornish people is Curnowean used by Nicholas Boson c. 1660, startlingly similar to the Latin version after some fifteen hundred years. It can be rewritten as Kernouian in Modern Cornish. We do not know whether the Cornovii were an indigenous people or the result of migration from Armorica, but they were a vigorous, commercial, seafaring people whose defended citadels were commonly on promontories, perhaps the explanation of their name. They were our earliest known direct ancestors who gave us the name of our country, Kernaw (in Modern Cornish, but archaicly Kernow), our people, an Kernouian, and our language, Kernûak.

Between 410 and 425, the Romans experienced so many domestic problems that they withdrew from Britain, leaving the lowland areas in a poorly organised condition, for these had been deliberately reduced to dependence on Rome, and the result was that German tribes known as Angles, Saxons and Jutes, generally referred to as the Anglo-Saxons, or eventually the English (the Cornish word Zouzon means Saxons or Englishmen) had comparatively little difficulty in occupying them, and by 600 CE had cut off the Cornish-British from the Welsh-British at the mouth of the Severn, and the Welsh-British from the Northern British at the mouth of the Dee.

A hundred years later, c.700 CE, the Cornish and the English clashed head-on, and there followed two centuries of warfare the end result of which was that in 926, or it may have been 936, the Cornish were eventually forced to abandon lands as far east as the River Parret in Somerset, and their capital of Exeter, and fall back west of the Tamer which has been our eastern frontier ever since.

The last recorded King of Cornwall, Doniert (actually to be read as Donierth) died in 876. His monument is to be seen by the side of the road just above Redgate, near St Cleer. The Cornish allied with the Danes against the English on more than one occasion, which is perhaps why the English King Athelstan eventually overran Cornwall, and committed atrocities on our people for which he later repented. In Bodmin, once the capital of Cornwall, there has been erected insensitively a statue to the glory of Athelstan. This is in fact an insult to Cornish people, and is parallel to what would have been the case if a statue of Adolf Hitler had been erected in Westminster. Perhaps one day it will be removed, and replaced more appropriately by a statue of King Donierth.

It is not generally appreciated that Cornwall was never officially made a part of England, but has gradually slipped into that condition. Early in the Middle Ages, the English referred to us as Walense, Welsh, and Cornwall was West Wales. A document of Reginald Earl of Cornwall c.1154, confirming the rights of the town and church of Launceston, begins: Reginald, son of Henry I, Earl of Cornwall, to all his people, Franks, Angles and Walense, Greetings…In official documents up to as late as Tudor times Cornwall and England were referred to separately as Cornubia et Anglia. The Cornish were well known for their unrest, in English eyes rebelliousness, and were the first and last since the Norman invasion to lay siege to London. We had never forgotten our past, and had a reputation for not liking the English. Richard Carew noted in 1602 that an English-Speaking person on approaching a Cornishmen for information would be answered by Me na vidna couza Sowsnack! I do no wish to speak English!

In Britain the only people who can legitimately call themselves British are the Cornish and the Welsh, and perhaps the Lowland Scots, who occupy the land they have always occupied, and whose languages are indigenous to that land. The Bretons are also Britons, having migrated from Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries, and are the only people to have retained the appropriate name, for Breton means Briton. It was James IV who purloined the name Britain and British to be applied to all his subjects as a ploy to forestall any internal disagreement.

It was indeed the memory of our past that was instrumental in making Cornish people so tenacious of their language, as well as being so ″rebellious″, and you may find old people even to-day who fiercely assert that they are Cornish, not English. They might equally well say that along with the Welsh and Bretons they are the only True Britons. The next generation has taken this up, and the public display of so many black and white St Perran Banners is witness to this. In the 1950’s when the use of this flag was first promoted it was regarded by the authorities with suspicion and was banned. To-day it is in general use, even as an ensign on fishing boats and lifeboats, sometimes as a courtesy flag on merchant vessels, an even, one might say even, at County Hall and outside Council Offices. Correctly, however, this flag should only relate to St Perran, patron saint of tinners, the proper historical patron saint of Cornwall being Mîhal, Michael, whose flag by coincidence resembles that of St George, an embarrassment to amateur nationalists.

Cornish and English

The whole patriotic movement in Cornwall has been driven by the existence of the Cornish Language, for there is no surer way to advertise your national identity than by the possession of a national language. At this point we must remember that Cornish is our language, the Language of the Cornish People, the language that our forefathers made. Not a few English people, and even some from further afield, have become interested in Cornish. We may take this as a compliment, but tolerance is withheld when attempts are made to meddle with what for us is our birthright. The integrity of Cornish must be maintained.

In the course of its development Cornish has become naturally modified and modernised, as has been the case with all European languages, but the modification and modernisation must be taken as they are found, and as already accepted and implemented by Cornish writers of the 16th and 17th centuries, and no invented would-be ″improvements″ can legitimately be made. Cornish that has been manipulated to suit the 20th century fads and fancies of individuals is not genuine Cornish. How native Cornish writers themselves effected the first attempt to save the language when it was still a spoken though ailing vernacular, and modernise it, will be explained next.