Cornish Studies

Cornish Miners and the Witwatersrand Gold Mines in South Africa, c. 1890-1904

by John Nauright

Published in CORNISH HISTORY an online journal in 2005. Online link seems to be missing now. This article forms part of the work of my Masters Thesis at the University of South Carolina completed in 1988.

A duchy officer and a gentleman: The career and connections of Avery Cornburgh (d.1487)

by Robert E. Stansfield

P. J. Payton (ed.), Cornish Studies: Nineteen (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2011), pp. 9-34.
ISBN 978-0-85989-866-9.

Standardising Cornish: The politics of a new minority language

by Dave Sayers

Forthcoming in Language Problems & Language Planning 36(2):99‐119. http://benjamins.com/#catalog/journals/lplp.36.2/toc. Pagination in this document will not match the published article. Contact the publisher John Benjamins for permission to re‐use or reprint this material in any form.

The last recorded native speaker of the Cornish language died in 1777. Since the nineteenth century, amateur scholars... more The last recorded native speaker of the Cornish language died in 1777. Since the nineteenth century, amateur scholars have made separate attempts to reconstruct its written remains, each creating a different orthography. Later, following recognition under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 2002, Cornish gained new status. However, with government support came the governmental framework of “New Public Management”, which emphasises quantifiable outcomes to measure performance. This built implicit pressure towards finding a single standard orthography, for greatest efficiency. There followed a six- year debate among supporters of the different orthographies, usually quite heated, about which should prevail. This debate exemplified the importance of standardisation for minority languages, but its ultimate conclusion saw all sides giving way, and expediency, not ideology, prevailing. It also showed that standardisation was not imposed explicitly within language policy, but emerged during the language planning process.

“The Trials of Frederick Statton, M.A.”

by Jason Semmens

Old Cornwall 14, No. 5 (2011) pp. 51–62.

Cornish Studies and Cornish Culture (s): Evaluations and Directions

by Amy Hale

The 'expert' amateur, professionalism and public engagement: the changing face of archaeology education in Cornwall from 1986 to 2011

by Hilary Orange

co-authored with Caradoc Peters, published in Cornish Archaeology (2011) Vol 50, 127-132

The last quarter century has seen challenges to the notion of who can practice and who can access archaeology. This... more The last quarter century has seen challenges to the notion of who can practice and who can access archaeology. This notion depends on how archaeology itself is defined: whether it is a profession, an academic subject or a type of edutainment. This short paper reflects on a number of political and social trends, including the changing role of archaeology and its impact on education providers in Cornwall, including the Cornwall Archaeological Society (CAS), through the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. A period which started with the decline of the 'expert' amateur, has largely been characterised by increasing professionalisation and has ended with a return towards community-centred provision but with diverse interests and approaches.

'The end of a moving staircase': Industrial archaeology of the past, present and future

by Hilary Orange

Cornish Archaeology (2011) Vol 50, 137-139

Fifty years ago, the idea that the remains of Cornwall's tin and copper mining industries would one day be considered... more Fifty years ago, the idea that the remains of Cornwall's tin and copper mining industries would one day be considered as significant as the Taj Mahal or the Pyramids would likely have led to a mixture of confusion, derision and laughter. Nevertheless, as Nick Johnson has pointed out, archaeologists are positioned at the 'end of a moving staircase' (2006) and hence in time 'have to accept concrete buildings just as much as we accept brick buildings'. Indeed, the intervening years have led, not just to the World Heritage Site (WHS), but also to the iconisation of the Cornish engine house as a symbol of Cornish identity. This short paper considers changing perceptions of Cornish mining remains over the last 50 years and ends, by looking forward to the next 50 years, and with a forecast for the (industrial) archaeology of the future.

A Reassessment of the Date and Provenance of the Cornish Ordinalia

by Gloria Betcher

Suggestions for a Morphosyntactic Tagset for Cornish, based on the EAGLES Obligatory and Recommended Attributes

by Jon Mills

Mind Your P’s and Q’s: Revisiting the Insular Celtic hypothesis through working towards an original phonetic reconstruction of Insular Celtic

by Rachel Carpenter

Senior Thesis in Linguistics at Swarthmore College.
This is the revised version of the thesis, following defenses and honors defenses.

Mac, mac, mac, mab, mab, mab- all mean ‘son’, inis, innis, hinjey, enez, ynys, enys - all mean ‘island.’ Anyone can... more Mac, mac, mac, mab, mab, mab- all mean ‘son’, inis, innis, hinjey, enez, ynys, enys - all mean ‘island.’ Anyone can see the similarities within these two cognate sets from orthographic similarity alone. This is because Irish, Scottish, Manx, Breton, Welsh, and Cornish are related. As the six remaining Celtic languages, they unsurprisingly share similarities in their phonetics, phonology, semantics, morphology, and syntax. However, the exact relationship between these languages and their predecessors has long been disputed in Celtic linguistics. Even today, the battle continues between two firmly-entrenched camps of scholars- those who favor the traditional P-Celtic and Q-Celtic divisions of the Celtic family tree, and those who support the unification of the Brythonic and Goidelic branches of the tree under Insular Celtic, with this latter idea being the Insular Celtic hypothesis. While much reconstructive work has been done, and much evidence has been brought forth, both for and against the existence of Insular Celtic, no one scholar has attempted a phonetic reconstruction of this hypothesized proto-language from its six modern descendents. In the pages that follow, I will introduce you to the Celtic languages; explore the controversy surrounding the structure of the Celtic family tree; and present a partial phonetic reconstruction of Insular Celtic through the application of the comparative method as outlined by Lyle Campbell (2006) to self-collected data from the summers of 2009 and 2010 in my efforts to offer you a novel perspective on an on-going debate in the field of historical Celtic linguistics.

Exploring sense of place: an ethnography of the Cornish mining world heritage site

by Hilary Orange

In, J. Schofield and R. Szymanski (eds) Local Heritage, Global Context: Cultural Perspectives on Sense of Place (2010) Ashgate, 99-118

The Cornish Mining World Heritage Sites provides an interesting case study through which to examine local residents... more The Cornish Mining World Heritage Sites provides an interesting case study through which to examine local residents understanding of the term 'a sense of place'. The de-industrialisation of Cornwall's tin and copper mining industry and the subsequent transition to an economy largely dependent on tourism has inevitably brought many changes - from noise to quiet, from an emphasis on the subterranean world to the surface one, and from physical exertion to a visual consideration of industrial ruins within a 'natural' setting. These changing senses of place have occurred within recent history, and therefore, in part within living memory.

During ethnographic research in Cornwall in 2008 and 2009 local residents within the WHS were asked what, if anything, the term 'a sense of place' meant to them. The aims were to gain a better understanding of public definitions of the term, to test the relationship between definition and demographic variables and to consider the appropriateness of the term as applied within archaeology and heritage management.

Disgruntled Tourist in King Arthur's Court: Archaeology and Identity at Tintagel, Cornwall

by Hilary Orange

co-authored with Patrick Laviolette, in Public Archaeology (2010) Vol 9 (2), 85-107

'Welcome to Tintagel, the birthplace of King Arthur' is a phrase often repeated at this small village on the north... more 'Welcome to Tintagel, the birthplace of King Arthur' is a phrase often repeated at this small village on the north coast of Cornwall where legend, childhood stories and merchandise all serve to attract thousands of visitors per year. As 'a place to go', the area provides stunning coastal scenery, a romantic ruined castle and a highly commercialised village. Tintagel Island, owned by the Duchy of Cornwall but managed by English Heritage, plays centre stage as the 'birthplace' in question. On-site, the character of Arthur is largely debunked as a literary phenomenon and, furthermore, a survey of day-trippers revealed that visitors were left in an interpretive limbo — arriving with ideas of Arthur and leaving knowing little about Tintagel.

Whilst the aesthetics of the castle and scenery go some way towards mitigating against disappointment, on site encounters with kitsch representations of the past combine with more amorphous senses of pseudo-spiritual atmospheres as well as experiences of walking, eating and drinking to ultimately provide a 'grand day out'. The marketing ephemera and heritage presentation all serve to create, reinforce and suppress different identities of place which are revealed as being a fairly cohesive package of Celtic-Arthuriana. This paper questions the ways in which visitors' expectation and imagination are mediated through experience of place.

'Xians-via-Yish? Language Attitudes and Cultural Identities on Britain’s Celtic Periphery'

by Stuart Dunmore

in P. Payton (ed.) Cornish Studies Nineteen (Exeter: Exeter University Press), pp. 60-83.

In Reversing Language Shift, Joshua Fishman (1991) distinguishes between the threatened minority language (termed... more In Reversing Language Shift, Joshua Fishman (1991) distinguishes between the threatened minority language (termed ‘Xish’) and the dominant language (‘Yish’). He advises that the ideological distinction between ‘Xians’ and ‘Yians’, and between Xish and Yish culture must be clarified early on in any attempt at language revitalisation, and warns that all efforts to reverse language shift “will be conflicted and contested from within” unless these clarifications are made at the onset of such initiatives. This paper is based on a study conducted in 2007 and examines the varying degrees to which the Welsh, Scottish Gaelic (henceforward ‘Gaelic’) and Cornish languages are regarded as symbols of minority identity in twenty-first century Britain. In order to quantify this tripartite comparison, questionnaires were used to measure the identities, language abilities and language attitudes of young people in full-time education at schools in Ceredigion, the western Highlands and west Cornwall. The first section of the article introduces the theoretical context and provides an analysis of existing literature on attitudes to Welsh, Gaelic and Cornish, and on the role of these ‘Xish’ minority languages in the expression of ‘Xian’ cultural identities in each context. The second section outlines the methodology employed and assesses the roles assigned to Welsh, Gaelic and Cornish in the construction of identities by students in each of the three locations.

Studies in the Consonantal System of Cornish

by Talat Chaudhri

PhD thesis, Aberystwyth University (formerly University of Wales, Aberystwyth), 2007

This thesis seeks to address a small number of highly significant, unresolved issues in the consonantal system of the... more This thesis seeks to address a small number of highly significant, unresolved issues in the consonantal system of the Cornish language, providing an analysis of the relevant sound changes during the crucial formative periods of their development. These studies draw upon the extant records of Old, Middle and Late Cornish and employ the methods of comparative historical phonology to reconstruct the most likely sequence of sound changes based upon the variant orthography of the various documents and other remnants of the language. The comparative element of the work relies upon the reconstruction of the phonological system of the language with reference to the attested languages most closely related to it. In this study, this necessarily focuses most closely upon the other extant Brythonic languages (Welsh and Breton), with occasional reference to the Goidelic languages. This process also includes non-Celtic languages where relevant: notably Latin, English and French, from which a great number of words were borrowed into Cornish. Specifically, the thesis comprises the following principal areas of study: (1) pre-occlusion in Middle and Late Cornish, the phenomenon by which n, nn became dn and by which m, mm became bm in certain phonetic environments; (2) the confusion of initial b and m in certain words in Middle and Late Cornish; (3) rare confusions of s and th in medial and final positions, principally in late Middle Cornish; and (4) an analysis of the progression of sound changes by which Old Cornish d, t became represented as Middle Cornish s, g and other spellings.

A Description of the Middle Cornish Tregear Manuscript

by Talat Chaudhri

MA dissertation, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, 2001

A description of the Middle Cornish manuscript found amongst the Puleston Papers by John Mackechnie in 1949, now Add.... more A description of the Middle Cornish manuscript found amongst the Puleston Papers by John Mackechnie in 1949, now Add. MS. 46397 in the British Library. The manuscript is a sixteenth-century translation into Cornish of thirteen homilies published by Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London in 1555 forming the latter part of his A profitable and necessary doctrine, with certayne homelyes adioyned therevnto. (Only one of these originals was his own, the majority by John Harpesfeld, Archdeacon of London and two by Oliver Pendilton.) An analysis is made of the historical context in which the translation was made, the likely provenance and dating of the manuscript and the extent of collaboration by co-translators with the principal translator John Tregear. The replacement of the expected thirteenth homily by a translation of an unknown English original on the same subject is also discussed. The quality of the translation and the effects of this upon the syntax and vocabulary of the Cornish homilies is described, including a discussion of the extent to which the macaronic character of the text is deliberate. The manuscript is examined as evidence for linguistic change in Middle Cornish, addressing two major areas: the morphology of personal pronouns, verb forms and conjugated prepositions; the major phonological features of the Cornish in the manuscript, principally the loss of vowel quality in unstressed syllables and the incidence of the sound-change s/j as an effect of palatalisation.

“Further Tales of Cornish Witches.”

by Jason Semmens

Published in Old Cornwall 14, No. 4 (2011) pp. 53–66.

“Bucca Redivivus: History, Folklore and the Construction of Ethnic Identity within Modern Pagan Witchcraft in Cornwall.”

by Jason Semmens

Published in Cornish Studies 18 (2010) pp. 141–161.

“On the Origin of ‘Peller.’”

by Jason Semmens

Published in Old Cornwall 14, No. 1 (2009) pp. 43-50.

‘“Whyler Pystry”: A Breviate of the Life and Folklore-Collecting Practices of William Henry Paynter (1901–1976) of Callington, Cornwall.”

by Jason Semmens

Published in Folklore 116, No. 1 (2005) pp. 75–94.

Vocabularium Cornicum: Plain Text Electronic Version

by Carl Anderson

This is an in-progress, plain-text representation of the contents of the Vocabularium Cornicum, a 12th-century glossary that contains the bulk of the corpus of Old (or perhaps Early Middle Cornish). It is essentially a transcription of the 1853 Zeuss edition, with some corrections based on Graves's 1962 thesis. I have long intended this to form the basis for an freely available, online, annotated version of the Vocabularium Cornicum, but other commitments mean that goal is still a long way off.

This file contains a comma-delimited edition of the text of the Vocabularium Cornicum. It has been hand-transcribed... more This file contains a comma-delimited edition of the text of the Vocabularium Cornicum. It has been hand-transcribed from the edition of MS British Library Cotton Vespasian A.xvi ff. 7a-10a included in Johann Kaspar Zeuss, Grammatica Celtica (Leipzig: Weidmann, 1853), with some corrections based on the 1962 thesis about Vocabularium Cornicum by E.V. Graves..

All entries in this file are found in their original order from the manuscript, and the original manuscript foliation is marked. The entries' comma-delimited format is intended to make it easy for you to move the data into a database.

In both Latin and Cornish, the abbreviations l. (standing in the manuscript for the common cross-barred l form) and ul. stand for Latin vel ("or"). Common scribal spelling abbreviations have been silently expanded, mostly because of the difficulties of representing them in plain ASCII text.

Note that the entries in this file have not yet been extensively proofread and may contain copying errors!