Learn Late Cornish Bit by Bit 23 (Quantities and counting 3)

Quantities and counting 3

We have seen the use of words such as tabm, moy, leun, etc. when dealing with imprecise quantities, including mutation of some nouns after a of, e.g.

tabm tesen                                                          a slice of cake                      

bara moy                                                             more bread

leun a leth                                                           full of milk

gwedren a win                                                    a glass of wine

tesen aral                                                            another cake

However, aral meaning another implies a different one rather than an extra one, e.g. In John of Chyanhor, John thinks he hears another man in his wife’s bed:

Me a venja clowes den aral[1] en gwely

What about the bread before it is divided up? We can use

torth (f)                                                                 a loaf

torthel (f)                                                              a bun

torth a vara                                                          a loaf of bread

We have seen the use of üdn for a single item, including the mutation of some feminine nouns, e.g.

üdn aval                                                           one apple      

üdn wedhen                                                     one tree

üdn dorth a vara                                              one loaf of bread

üdn dorthel                                                      one bun

üdn vildir                                                          one mile

We have seen that numbers above one[2] take a singular noun, e.g.

deg den                                                             ten man         

seyth sagh[3]                                                    seven bag, seven sack

pemp torth a vara                                             five loaf of bread

dew besk[4]                                                       two fish

This is true however high the number, e.g.

cans kei                                                     a hundred dog

hanter cans benyn                                    fifty (literally half a hundred) woman

pemp mil dhen[5]                                      five thousand man

mil vildir                                                    a thousand mile

lies benyn                                                  many woman

What about combining some of these quantities? e.g.

trei sagh leun                                            three bags full           

trei thabm[6] tesen                                    three pieces of cake

dewdhek canstel a vrowyan                     twelve baskets of crumbs

When we have numbers higher than twenty, we have to be careful where we put the noun. It goes after the first component of the number, e.g.

peder[7] mola dhü warn ügens                  four and twenty blackbirds  

cans kei Dalmacyan hag onan                   a hundred and one Dalmations

trei ügens bledhen ha deg                          seventy years[8]

We can build up sentences, e.g.

Ma peder mola dhü warn ügens en hogen.  

                                                               There are 24 blackbirds in a pie.

Ev a gerras/gerdhas[9] pemp mildir.             

                                                              He walked five miles.           

Ma lies benyn pecar ha’n gwenen.[10]          

                                                             There are many women like the bees.     

Ma lies gwreg lacka ’vel seg.                         

                                                           There are many wives worse than draff 

                                                                                                     (i.e. useless)

                                               

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[1] alternative RLC spelling <orol> , plural <erel>.

[2] See Table D for numbers from 1 to 40

[3]  old RLC spelling <zah> gives you the best pronunciation

[4] pesk fish is masculine, so needs dew for two; but dew causes soft mutation of  pesk to besk.

[5] mil  itself is feminine and causes soft mutation of  some following consonants.

[6] trei causes a spirant mutation  (c/k>h, p>f, t>th), so <thabm> rather than <tabm>

[7] Numbers two, three and four have separate versions for masculine and feminine nouns.  Mola is feminine, so takes peder instead of pajar.

[8] literally three score years and ten

[9] Two possible spellings, only one RLC pronunciation – don’t say the <dh>

[10] Part of the Cornish Rhymes of James Jenkins of Alverton near Penzance, published in the “Old Cornwall” Journal..