How do Cornish and Welsh mutations differ?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 มิ.ย. 2024
- An general explanation of how mutations (a unique feature in Celtic languages) in the Cornish and Welsh Langauges are similar and also how they are different.
The books mentioned:
Gramadeg y Gymrag - Peter Wyn Thomas
Oxford Pocket Welsh Dictionary - Gareth King
Y Treigladau a'u Cystrawen - T.J. Morgan
A Handbook of the Cornish Language - Henry Jennar
Remember that Welsh ts (English and Cornish Ch) becomes j, as it does in Cornish.
So tsips > jips
Tsiaen > jaen
Most people don't mutate these, but some do.
You are free too. I refrain from using J in Welsh to point of creating new words to prevent myself from using it.
8:33 Maybe it varies by dialect, But I was taught that Welsh does have mixed mutations, where the consonant takes an aspirate mutation if possible otherwise it takes a soft mutation, for example "I didn't get..." would be "Ches i ddim...", whereas "I didn't come" is "Ddes i ddim" (Compared to the positive forms "Ces i..." and "Des i"), Note how the first one took an aspirate mutation for negation while the second took a soft one. From what I can tell the Cornish mixed mutation seems to work somewhat differently, combining the Hard and Aspirate mutations, although I'm quite unsure about that (I basically just glossed over a few Wikipedia articles, and I'm not even certain I read them right), so it'd probably be best to double check.
You are correct there are different mutations. But 'Ddes i' and 'Ches i' are different words. This is not a mixed and follow the ruels of soft and aspirate mutation, respectively.
@@BenLlywelyn Is it not the case that whenever negating a word in the past-tense (As done in my examples), the aspirate mutation is applied if possible (I.E. with the word 'Ces'), and if the word can't take an aspirate mutation, a soft mutation is applied instead? That's how it was taught to me, and I was informed that that situation (Aspirate mutation if possible, otherwise soft mutation) is called a mixed mutation.
Thanks for the info! There's more to Cornish than I initially realised
Unimportant side note: Cêg and gên have the ê in them and it's pronounced like the English word air without the R, sorry if you already knew
Legit made me consider learning Cornish. I would if it were a bit more popular
Very welcome.
Excellent point about South Walian CH being softer than North Walian. C'H in Breton is also very soft, like Cornish. There's even a dialect in Breton where C'H is F (Welsh FF). Cofia mai llafariad eitha hir sydd yn CEG, er nad oes to bach arno. Mae 'na lefydd yn Gymraeg sy'n gwrthsefyll treiglo fel NOS DA. Yn y Gernyweg hefyd, fel NOS DA (er bod rhai'n honni mai NOS DHA sy'n gywir), ond mae mwy o "eithriadau" (rheolau) yngly^n â'r rhain yn y Gernyweg na sydd yn y Gymraeg. Mae Wella Brown yn dweud mai NOS DA sy'n gywir.
S'mae? Fascinating about Breton.
@@BenLlywelyn C'H at the beginning. FEC'H for C'HWEC'H, FI for C'HWI...
Agreed, and the spelling gods of Cornish's Standard Written Form have decreed that 'nos' be just written 'nos' not '*noos' in contrast to, say, long-vowelled 'poos' (weight) or 'coos' (forest), or 'boos' (food) vs short-vowelled 'bos' (to be) so, yep, that's a short /o/ with none of your to bach www.cornishdictionary.org.uk/#night .
Despite being said to be feminine in grammatical gender in Cornish (although in the texts i can't seem to find an elided post-posited adjective example to demonstrate that), neither '*nos da' nor '*nos dha' seem to be found in the texts per se. In later travel-guide-book/laugh-at-the-natives style phrases, R Carew in 1602 wrote 'Ternestatha' (good night to you) and A Borde in 1547 wrote 'Dew re bera nos da dewhy' (God give you good night), neither of which, if they can be trusted, show lenition of 'da'. If '*nos dha' has never caught on, maybe that could also be explained by trailing '-s' sometimes perhaps provecting and preventing lenition, e.g. 'merasta why' (thank you - one of many ways of saying that) in W Borlase's 18C glossary.
Mutation's a vexed question at the bleeding edge - please see this post at time of writing, suggesting that, perhaps due to implied gender and definite article, the lexeme 'Gembrek' (Welsh language) (not '*Kembrek') in Cornish may perhaps have been permanently lenited/initial-softened: nebesgeryow.blogspot.com/2021/01/kembrek-gembrek-gen-nicholas-williams-ks.html Meur ras dhe (ta?) whi!
@@peterjenkin2201 Wella Brown a gewsa "nos da" herwydh nebes tus. Re gales yw leverel 'nos dha'!
@@ENGLISHTAINMENT Splann - henn yw 1 acheson moy :-)
Very interesting... my grandmother called Rhoda, was from a cornish family , but as far as I am aware was brought up in north Wales, Anglesey... she has always been pure welsh , but has always had a Cornish decent... I wander whether or not her birth name “Rhoda” was generated down south before living her life up here... either way... the connection between Cornish and welsh is staple and the foundation of at least one side of my family, and I find this history great... 😁 thank you for this informative video, it’s a genuinely informative and surprising video! Cheers!
From what I gather my grandmothers father was called Sidney John’s....I’ve been trying to research the past but it’s quite difficult
I'm glad to help you with your bridges between Cornwall and Cymru.
Interesting vids Ben, but you could do with better sound
Thank you. Sound equipment is definitely on the long list of equipment I am whittling away at getting.
Thank you so much for making this video to answer my question Ben, I should have told you that I am a fluent Welsh speaker and it is the language of our home. I also have an A Level in Welsh and am very familiar with the grammar, which is why I was interested in learning some basic Cornish so that I can compare it with Welsh. I would like to know how to pronounce the words correctly and I am also interested to know something about Cornish grammar.
Thank you Ben, you've done a proper job here, many details are well explained. I think that most dialects of Breton too (also SouthWest British) perhaps didn't have so much of a nasal mutation either, so i'm not sure language death was involved as suggested at 10:30. Regarding that mixed/'5th' state mutation 10:15, that is hella complicated so please don't feel too bad about learning (i can never remember them)! For the example at 8:08, generally if anyone is speaking fitty in Cornish they'll pronounce 3SG.MASC posessive pronoun ('his') as /i/ like 'ee' in English 'flee' (written usually 'y' if writing in the middle Cornish style or 'e' if writing as per the later style). For bonus pronunciation points Ben & Tedi, that 'e' /ɛ/ in 'pen'/'penn' (i.e. 'ben') is short in length, compared with the long 'n'/'nn'. In fact, so short is that 'e', that to make sure everyone knows, the following 'n' can be preceded/pre-occluded/cock-blocked by a sort of sucked-up-the-nose 'd' sound: pedn. For example, the hilltop site of a mine engine's chimney stack looming over the town of Redruth is known as 'Pednandrea' (top/head of the town). And don't be afraid to make many of your 's' sound like 'z' - a long time ago many of those 's', like at the end of 'dôs' 8:20 (or 'dos' in some spellings) were originally a 'd' like in your language, but became like 'dz' (or even 'dj') and just got written down as 's' by default. Thanks for your interest Tedi: because a lot of time was spent by would-be tutors, there are loads of great books & courses around: a bit out of date now but i learnt mostly through Skeul an Yeth (the language's ladder), pick'n'mixing with other books & courses. Don't worry about spelling system - they are all much-of-a-muchness once you get the hang. Perhaps you might like to look up 'Yeth an Werin Warlinen' where some people will probably be glad to help. You can also find the whole historic corpus of Cornish here: wiki.kernowlingo.com/w/index.php?title=Texts
I am glad people like yourself are taking up Cornish passionately and doing what is needed to see it succeeds again.
Welsh vowels can have a h added in front of them after personnel pronouns; using negatives in Welsh is like a mix mutation as C, P, T change to Ch, Ph and Th, yet the other 6 have soft mutation; we do have a hard mutation but not at beginning letter at the end letter in terms of adjectives, I know grammatical it isn't called hard mutation, if you add ed on teg, it becomes teced
Gwir / True