Learn Late Cornish Bit by Bit 17 - conjunctions 1

Conjunctions 1

Long sentences inevitably contain a little word or two helping to string more than one idea together and making a bit of deconstruction necessary, but don’t worry!

Words to look out for:

ha                                         and (before a consonant)

hag                                       and (before a vowel)

bes                                       but

saw                                       but, except that

po                                         or

onen hag oll                        one and all (Cornwall motto)

bara ha manyn                    bread and butter

te ha tesednow                   tea and cakes

Hei a dheuth rag te ha tesednow bes[1] nag era tesednow.

                                  She came for tea and cakes but there weren’t any cakes.

saw nag era              but there was not  (as an alternative to <bes nag era>)

Ma va owth eva te po leth.

                                  He drinks (is drinking) tea or milk.

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[1] In Middle Cornish this is <mes> (it appears superficially to be related to French “mais”), but Gendall spells it <buz> or <byz>, indicating the vowel is schwa.