Page:Cornwall (Salmon).djvu/66

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CORNWALL headland, the same as the Gaelic ben, though the earlier Goidelic form was ken. Other frequent constituents in place names are bo, bod or bo^, meaning dwelling; lis, court, palace or chieftain's enclosure, as distinct from Ian, the sacred enclosure ; men, stone or rock ; hel or hc^lc, river ; sans, holy ; nans, valley ; huel or "wheal," mine; col, a hillock; cby, a house; dun and dlnas, castle. The Cornish numerals, up to ten, are as follow: IJn (or onan), deu, try, peszvar, prmp, ivhe, se^th, eith, naze, dek ; kans is a hundred, mil a thousand. There were varia- tions between earlier and later Cornish which tend to perplex a study already sufficiently difficult. As a specimen of the language, the following is the Paternoster: — Agan T;is, neb lis yn ncf, bydhcns uchellys dhe hanow, dens dhe wlascor, dhe vodh re bo gwreys yn nor cepar hag yn nef Ro dhynny hydhew agan pub dydh bara. Ha gaf dhynny agan cammow, kepar del gevyn ny neb us ow camme cr agan pyn ny. Ha na dog ny yn antel, mcs gwyth ny dheworth droc. Yn delna re bo. As late as the time of Edward L Cornish was spoken in Devonshire (in the South Hams), and later than this it lingered around the Tamar. In the sixteenth century it was fast dying, even in West Cornwall. Norden, writing about 1580, says : "Of late the Cornishe men have much conformed themselves to the use of the Englishe tongue, and their Englishe is equal to the beste, especially in the eastern partes. . . , 48