Telling the Time
This is one of the major uses of
numbers. We have to use borrowed words for small units of time. There was
nothing reliable between a heartbeat and an hour. Time pieces with minute hands
were in short supply while Cornish was spoken as a first language! A bell in
the local church may have rung out the hour and if the sun was bright enough to
produce a shadow a sundial might have been of use.
tecken a tick, a
moment
second a second
mynysen a
minute
rag tecken momentarily, for a moment
dres polj temporarily
Gortow’ rag tecken! Wait
for a moment!
We have two words for hour, depending on whether we mean time
by the clock (or by the bell) eur or duration our:
clogh a bell
clock a clock
er glogh o’clock
pub eur always
This gives us several ways of
asking what the time is:
P’eur ew?
Peth ew an eur?
Pandr’ew an eur?
hanter our a half-hour
More important in the past was
the time for doing things, e.g.:
Pana bres ew? What’s the time?
Pres boos ew. It’s meal-time. It’s time for
food.
Pres gwely ew. It’s bed-time.
An pres ew teyr eur. It’s three o’clock. The time
is three o’clock.
Teyr eur ew an pres.[6] Three o’clock is the time.
An pres ew hanter dedh. It’s midday. It’s noon. The time is midday.
Hanter dedh ew an pres. Noon is
the time.
You can of course just say:
Teyr eur ew. It’s three o’clock.
Hanter dedh ew. It’s midday.
pres kidnyow dinner time, lunch time (main meal)
pres li breakfast (substantial)time/lunch
time
Here are some other meals and
activities you might want to put a time to:
con supper, dinner (evening meal)
cona to have
supper
hansel breakfast
(light)
debry to eat
gonis to work
You might want to discuss a
habitual time for doing something. We can use a very Cornish idiom (belong to do something):
Pana bres ero’whei o longya
dhe dhifüna?
What
time do you usually wake up?
What
time do you belong to wake up?
Thero’vy o longya dhe
varhasna deg eur.
I
usually go shopping at ten o’clock.
I
belong to go shopping at ten o’clock.
Ma va o longya dhe dhebry li seyth er glogh.
He
usually eats breakfast at seven o’clock.
He
belongs to eat breakfast at seven o’clock.
Pres also appears in other idioms which do not always have time in
the translation:
e’n gwella pres fortunately
e’n gwettha pres unfortunately
neb pres at any time,
sometime
pub pres every time,
always
[1] Middle
Cornish pols
[2] RLC ear pronounced
somewhere between <eer> and <air>
[3] Py eur yw? or P’eur
yw? in Middle Cornish
[4] does not
rhyme with English “hour” but with “mower”
[5] Late Cornish Anowr!
[6] Word order depends on what you want to
stress; important thing first.
[8] RLC
pronunciation <de-vinna>. Gendall’s spelling devina
[9] RLC
pronunciation <zaval>
[10] can also be
LC pernassa,
MC prenassa, though this is a “made up” word
based on perna/prena to buy
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