Why learn Cornish with the children?
Learning trivial things such as nursery rhymes in Cornish may seem rather pointless if there are no children of the right age around you to sing them with. You are not going to belt them out down the pub. But they are easy to learn and, believe me, you are learning rules of grammar in spite of yourself. Look at “Twinkle, twinkle, little star” and “Baa, baa, black sheep” below.
Spladn! - from verb spladna to shine (SWFMm splann < splanna)
Bryv! - from verb bryvya to bleat
These are imperatives (singular, familiar) formed by knocking off the verbal ending.
To make the command plural, you would just add – owgh (silent wgh!) > spladnowgh and bryvowgh
Otta chy! has a similar function, though otta is not a complete verb. There you are! Look at you! Behold you!
steren vian little star
davas dû black sheep
These are noun - steren / davas - described by adjective - vian / dû - which comes after it.
Nouns are either masculine or feminine (nothing to do with gender) - steren and davas both happen to be feminine. A dog kei is masculine (even if the animal is female) .
Feminine nouns can “mutate” their adjectives – change the initial letter/sound, e.g. b > v, or d > dh
A little dog is kei bian, but a little star is steren vian.
A black dog is kei dû, but a black star is steren dhû.
So, why don’t we have davas dhû or cath dhû?
Just try saying them! If a noun ends in –s or –th adjectives starting with d- resist mutation.
Another example is drog bad, so kei drog bad dog but also cath drog bad cat and davas drog bad sheep.
sagh leun a full bag or a bagful
meppik wheg a dear little boy
Adjectives leun full and wheg sweet, dear, nice, etc., never mutate.
We used (RLC pre-SWF) to spell bag “zah” which gives you a better idea of the pronunciation. It shouldn’t sound like English sack.
A black bag or black sack is sagh dû
The English three bags full is plural, but trei sagh leun three bag full in Cornish.
If you use a number, or lies many, you know it is plural, so can just use the singular noun, e.g.
trei kei three dog(s) (SWFMm tri ki)
trei meppik three little boy(s)
trei cloud three cloud(s) (SWFMm tri kloud)
Without a number, cloudys clouds is plural. (SWFMm kloudys)
Meppik little boy is a good example of a noun with diminutive ending – ik. It is added to mab boy (with a bit of internal adjustment!) Other examples include:
edhen bird > edhnik/ydhnik chick
ors bear > orsik bear cub, teddy bear
cath cat > cathik kitten (SWFMm kath > kathik)
Enough for now! There’s more to come.
Just learn them parrot fashion and you will be absorbing the grammar.
Twinkle, twinkle little star
Spladn chy, steren vian spladn,
War an mor ha'n tir en dadn. (on the sea and land underneath)
Dres an cloudys, otta chy, (beyond the clouds, there you are)
Pecar’a jowal 'terlentry. (like a jewel sparkling)
Spladn chy, steren vian spladn,
War an mor ha'n tir en dadn.
Baa, baa, black sheep
Bryv, bryv, davas dû. Eus dhis gwlân?
(B.b. sheep black. Is there to you wool?)
Ea sara, ea sara, trei sagh leun.
(Yes sir, yes sir, 3 bag full.)
Onan rag an mester, onan dh’y wreg,
(One for the master, one to his wife,)
Hag onan dhe vos degys hons, dhe’n meppik wheg.
(And one to be carried yonder, to the little boy dear.)
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