Talk:Cornish language

Alison Treganning

Alison Treganning is thought, by some, to be the last fluent speaker of the Cornish Language. It is said that she died in 1906, forming controversy over the previous assumption that the Cornish language had been dead since the time of Dolly Pentreath (d. 1777). // It was long believed in England that the Cornish language had died in the 18th century with Dolly Pentreath, but by 1906 the language's revival had already been going for a few years. (compiled 2005-2009) // References

• "Grace under Pressure". http://www.threemonkeysonline.com/als/_kernowek_survival_cornish_culture.html. Retrieved 2009-05-25.  (a rhetorical reference to some unreliable information)

This was an article for most of 2009 but is inadequate without better references. This refers to the subject [1] : if this was promoted as an anniversary articles must have been published in newspapers within Cornwall which may reveal the evidence if any. See also Talk:Alison Treganning--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 20:00, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Please see Talk:Alison Treganning. I looked hard for evidence of her. As you'll see, I found no reliable sources.Moonraker (talk) 20:16, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I've left a comment at that talk page, arguing that she could very well be a hoax, despite an ostensible piece of evidence to the contrary mentioned there. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:25, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

OK, I just saw that the article linked above is dated August 2005 and actually mentions Alison Treganning in passing, together with Dolly Pentreath; but puzzingly, the writer simply seems to assume that the reader be already familiar with the name, since he does not explain her significance explicitly, nor mention her presumed year of death. This is all very strange. If she really lived so recently, and was a speaker of Cornish, how come there are no other mentions of her anywhere else? At least Henry Jenner should have known of her and mentioned her somewhere in his writings, but Google Books doesn't turn up any results. And the Cornish revivalists active on Wikipedia should have heard of her, too. For all we know, the John Doyle who wrote the article in 2005 might be the same person who introduced the mention of Alison Treganning into Wikipedia, so I'm still wondering if the whole story is not entirely bogus. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:46, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Cornic language

Cornic language should to come in the classification "Cymric language", and never in this stupid class of this aberrant, deviant & ridiculous wrong "celtic" tongue. It's like if, all the people had the brain full of opium's smoke, stuffed by jesuitic & holly joe drugs; with their memory totally lost.

Really crazy to read always the same lies & fallacies from mystifiers & hoaxers from Sects, Queens of propagandas.

I have re-discovered (Because my French tongue is very closed to the Old Cornish) that between CORNISH and LOEGRIAN (New-Loegrie = England or Angeland; Old-Loegrie = North of France; the right word now will be LOIR, LOIRE; previously LIGER, LOER = also the name of the "MOON". But, here, that will be too long to explain why.), so between KERNOW (CERNOU) or LOEGR (LLOEGR) there is absolutely NO, NOT, ZERO difference or dissimilarity of language; but just a geographic distinction by the terms. The Cornish lived in heights, montains, headlands, promontories, and the others LOEGRIANS lived on the side of water (coast of sea, rivers, pools, lakes); they speak exactly the same CYMRIC language. Of course following the place where you live, you take an accent and you create your own expressions. So, do you imagine century after century how much the words change. It's enough to see your tongue of the year 2011, totally different from the one of your grandparents (oh! "Grand Parents" it's 100% French from Galli-A, Great-Gall; country of Galli = Welsh; one Gall [gall, vall, gelsh, guelsh, welsh, velche).

For info : GU = W = VV, VU, UV, IV, YV, &c; also G = H or HI; and the finale double letter LL = SH, CHE (always in CYMRIC languages, like PortuGALL, GALLia, IBÊR = SPEAR-MAN = GALLIC, GALLISH, GALLICAN (not "Gaulish" at all, but all Welsh = Galli = Same CYMRIC = FIRST, language), &c; more 60 languages in World; which Arab, African dialects, some Chinese too & so much others).

To make simple & easy to understand (schematic): LOEGRIAN or CORNISH (= ONE CYMRIC, GALLIC COUNTRY, with several regions or kingdoms, it's the same thing), it's like today, you say "the Montagnards", the "Countrymen" and the "Urbans" (Oh! Three races, Three languages, now? NO of course there not); but there are always some differences in the languages, to describe or express the things, no? You don't think that is true & right? One thing is sure, the word "celtic" is an invention between 17th and 19th by very bad & idiots hoaxers (Celtomaniac, Churchy, Sect idolatrous of dead gobbledegook tongues).

It might that explains to you, what is the real meaning of the french word "LATIN", but it's enough to look at in a good dictionary of old Welsh (7th century) and you will sea alone its signification; LATIN, composed by "LAT', LAD, LADD" + suffix "IN" (from RINE) = (it's long for me to say in English, Find by yourself, Thanks!).

In the 10th and 11th century AD, there are only 2 MILLIONS people who lived in PRYDEIN = ENGLAND, U.K = NEW-LOEGRIE, when VVILLELM 1 (Williams = Guillaume) who spoke Welsh, and lived in CERNOU (French Kernow; named ORMANS, ORMANZIE, ORMANDY, "country of the ELMS" or "at North of MANS"), comes to fight HAROLD (not really a saxon) to solve a problem of succession, inheritance. I'm sure that the Welsh was happy that WILLELM (WILL of ELM; strong or quality of Elm) arrive in England to free this country form their Saxons. You should to to reexamine, to reassess seriously your History totally forged, falsified by the SECTS and HOAXERS (religious or not).

Ok, i hope that my english is not too bad with not too much spell mistakes. & stop all the Myths = False, Lies, of our History! 90% of the books are Wrong, only 10% are right. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.11.10.164 (talk) 12:31, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. This is a very impressive piece of linguistic lunacy.178.93.119.89 (talk) 14:46, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

History of the language

There is very little about the history of the language itself such as the actual content of the differences between Old, Middle and Late Cornish. It may be observed that the History of the section is primarily focused on the politics and sociolinguistics rather than the actual features of the language itself. Govynn (talk) 07:18, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Questionable Authenticity of "Revived" Cornish

The whole article from revival onwards strikes me as suspect and reading more as a propaganda piece by and for Cornish revivalists. As I understand matters only 2000 words of genuine Cornish survive, which is an inadequate basis from which to reconstruct a language and that the many gaps have been filled by borrowing from Welsh and Breton dialects. This is certainly recognised in textbooks of Indo-European languages, ie in my copy of Fortson's "Indo-European language and culture" it states "A dedicated effort has been made recently to revive the language; the result cannot be called authentic, since the paucity of our documentation and the inconsistencies in spelling leave many facts about the pronunciations, grammar and vocabulary unknown."

I think the entire article from section 4 onwards needs to be rewritten in NPOV with regards to scholarly linguistic opinion. What do other people think?Cthulhu Rising (talk) 21:02, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I think you're getting hung up about linguistic purity. If the community is happy calling whatever they salvaged and extended Revived Cornish, then that's what it is. That aside, I see sufficient conunuity between what is known of native Cornish and the revived forms. You might as well argue that modern Hebrew isn't Hebrew because it pilfered Yiddish for words. Akerbeltz (talk) 21:40, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Well as this is supposed to be an encyclopaedia entry, linguistic purity and scholarly dispassion are important. The speakers of "Revived" Cornish may think that it is a continuation of Cornish, but that doesn't make it so if the facts are otherwise. Which they are in both morphology and vocabulary. At the moment this isn't mentioned in the article and I feel it needs to be. But at the moment I'm just trying to gather opinions before I consider a rewrite, but it frustrates me that in so many areas of linguistics political dogma takes precedence over linguistic fact ("Croatian language" vs "Serbian language" anyone?). Language articles should be above such matters.Cthulhu Rising (talk) 19:36, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Now that I think of it, wouldn't it be better to have two pages - one for Cornish and one for Revived Cornish (linked to each other obviously)?Cthulhu Rising (talk) 19:40, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Cornish isn't "my patch" so any accusations of being partisan will hardly stick. I've looked at the whole page again and I fail to see where it substantially differs from Hebrew language. Or indeed any other language that has suffered significant change such as Rapa Nui.

I doubt there's a place for it in the article, but I still find it amusing that there is a regional option for Cornish in iOS which displays days of the week and month names in Cornish. 85.210.73.85 (talk) 10:39, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

By all means, expanding a section on gaps that were creatively or otherwise filled would add to the article, no questions, but to split the article on the basis that some (mainly you just now) think it's not authentic enough flies in the face of reality. Akerbeltz (talk) 20:31, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

I've no idea where you got the idea that only 2,000 words of traditional Cornish are attested - that's utterly wrong. You say the article should be made more NPOV, but you do so from a position of POV - that revived Cornish is inauthentic. I would like to know what sources you have read that brought you to this conclusion. --Moon (talk) 21:30, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Fred W. P. Jago in his 1887 English-Cornish Dictionary says that "Excluding the names of persons and places, and numbering from all other remaining sources, it may be stated that about fifteen thousand words of the Celtic language of Cornwall have been saved to us." This was of course before various works of Cornish literature had been discovered, such as Beunans Ke, discovered in 2000, or John Tregear's Homilies in 1949, both contributing significantly to the traditional corpus. Bodrugan (talk) 20:32, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Jenner quote

I added "sic" to the Jenner quote (There has never been a time when there has been no person in Cornwall without [sic] a knowledge of the Cornish language) and made some additional changes. See this comment by Geoffrey K. Pullum. Thanks for pointing that out. If anyone can establish whether the error was introduced by Jenner or the cited source, that would be even better.--Boson (talk) 14:39, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Bodinar's Letter Transcriptions

Looking at the image of the letter, it seems to me that the top two boxes in the table of transcriptions are the wrong way round, the version with random Capitals being Bodinar's original spelling. Does anyone concur? 83.104.239.47 (talk) 13:52, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Cornish films

It is good to see that the article mentions that there have been films in Cornish. However, rather than simply saying that this has been a "recent development", couldn't it state that when the first Cornish language films were made? I think that Cornish films were made as long ago as 2002, which is nine years ago now, so arguably no longer recent. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 20:46, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

There was a television series broadcast on ITV in the 1980s in Cornish with English subtitles. Bodrugan (talk) 20:42, 6 November 2011 (UTC)