Posts by P. Bowden

Cornish lingo gets standard written form

History - don't ignore it

Graham T knows what he's talking about. Let's not ignore history. English, after all, is a "foreign" language - the language of the Germanic invaders. We all spoke Welsh/Cornish, once. Or "British" as it was. And most of us on these islands are descended from speakers of this language - the genetic evidence is overwhelming. Did you know that the word "Welsh" comes from the old English "Wealas", meaning "foreigners"? A bit much, considering that the English were the foreign invaders!

Trace your ancestors and open your minds - I used to think I was merely English - but now I know I'm mostly something much more interesting - a Celt!

Myttin da

Myttin da, oll. Fatla genowgh?

Actually, Dolly Pentreath wasn't the last speaker of Cornish - there were a handful of others; in fact, some say the language didn't really die out at all.

A waste of money and/or time? It depends whether you think that language death is a good thing. I don't. I see language death in the same way as I see species extinction - a really sad thing, that is humanity's loss. Think of all the grammatical/linguistic features that we never knew about because some language somewhere died before we could examine it and record it. So sad.

Oll an gwella,

Pol

P.S. Kernow bys vykken!

Preterite peter-out: How the end beginned

But whose irregular is it anyway?

Note to Americans: it's "Honey, I SHRANK the kids"! Shrank! SHRANK!!! Aaaarrrggghhhhh!!!!!!